‘So?’
‘So they think you must have a lot of money.’
Sheremetev stared at him, then burst out laughing. Even with the gravity of the situation, he couldn’t help himself.
Oleg shrugged. ‘Kolya, what can I tell you?’
‘Do they know what I do?’ asked Sheremetev incredulously.
‘I told them.’
‘And?’
Oleg shrugged again.
‘Olik, I look after him. He’s demented! I’m a nurse!’
‘I told them! But in their heads, they don’t imagine you can’t have money. Everyone near him has money. Everyone knows it. You touch him and your fingers come away covered in gold.’
‘Not mine.’
‘Is that true?’
Sheremetev stared at him.
‘Kolya?’
‘Yes! It’s true. How would I get money?’
‘He’s worth billions.’
‘Where are they, these billions? Do you see them here?’
‘It’s a big dacha.’
‘He doesn’t have a ruble in his pocket! He’s demented, Oleg! The bills are paid… I don’t know how. The housekeeper does it. Me, I get my salary in the bank from some firm of lawyers in Petersburg. That’s it. That’s all I know. There’s nothing else. If you wanted to steal from him, you wouldn’t find a kopeck.’
‘So you’re saying no one here manages to take advantage of the situation?’
Sheremetev hesitated. After what Stepanin had said to him, it was obvious that something fishy was going on with Eleyekov and the cars, but that was the only thing he knew about.
‘Look, Kolya,’ said Oleg. ‘When Karinka was sick, I gave you everything I had. To tell you the truth, Ninochka told me to stop.’
‘You never told me that.’
‘She said I was giving away our future, our retirement, and whatever we had wasn’t going to be enough and they’d still ask for more.’
Sheremetev stared. ‘Oleg, you should have told me! I would have…’
‘What?’
Sheremetev didn’t know. Would he really have refused to take more from Oleg, when there was nowhere else he could turn? It was lucky, he thought guiltily, that Oleg hadn’t told him.
‘It doesn’t matter. I didn’t listen to her, Kolya. And anyway I…’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. We managed, that’s what matters.’
Sheremetev frowned. ‘Olik, I’ll give you whatever I have. I’ve saved whatever I can since I came here. I have a couple of hundred thousand rubles in the bank. By now, it might be a bit more.’
‘A couple of hundred thousand rubles? That’s two thousand dollars. They want three hundred thousand dollars, Kolya. Three hundred thousand.’
Sheremetev stared at him.
‘Kolya, tell me the truth. Do you have it? You’ve looked after him for years. Do you have it or not?’
‘I don’t have it. I don’t have anything.’
‘Do you know what’s going to happen to Pasha if he ends up in prison? Right now, they’re treating him well because they think there’s a big payday coming from you. He won’t survive, Kolya! They’ll tear him limb from limb.’
‘I have nothing. Just what I’ve got in the bank.’
‘How can you not?’ cried Oleg. ‘You look after him. He’s the richest man in Russia. In the world, probably. He’s senile. How can you have nothing?’
Sheremetev had no answer.
Oleg threw back his head, eyes closed, teeth clenched in frustration. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. You have principles. You always have.’ He laughed for a second, shaking his head. ‘Pasha would approve.’
‘I wish I had the money.’
‘Well, you don’t. That’s clear, isn’t it? You know, Nina says… Did you notice Pasha wrote about Karinka?’ Oleg picked up the blog and read out the part where Pavel had mentioned the woman who died of kidney failure while richer people got treatment. He needn’t have – Sheremetev had registered it. ‘It affected him when she died, Kolya. It affected him deeply.’
‘I know,’ said Sheremetev.
‘That’s why he stole.’
‘What was it? Nothing! A few hospital supplies. I’ve seen nurses walk out with whole suitcases full. And it was six years ago. He was a kid. Are they really going to prosecute him over that?’
Oleg shook his head helplessly. ‘You know, he was only fourteen, but he knew what was going on. He knew why she wasn’t getting treatment. It’s funny. I don’t know how he found out. I never told him. Maybe someone else did. He was never the same after she died, Kolya. Suddenly he was serious, concerned. If he heard about an injustice, someone taking bribes, he’d brood on it for days.’ Oleg sighed. ‘I’m not saying it’s bad. I love that about him. I respect him for it. He’s a good young man. Karinka’s death changed him, that’s all I’m saying. If you ask me, it’s better to be like that than to be like…’
Oleg stopped himself. Sheremetev knew who he had been going to mention next.
‘I can’t speak for Vasya,’ murmured Sheremetev.
‘No,’ said Oleg. ‘But he managed, didn’t he? Karinka’s death didn’t do anything to him.’
‘It took its toll,’ said Sheremetev quietly.
‘Really?’
It was funny, as Oleg had said. Pavel, Karinka’s nephew, had responded to the circumstances of her death by developing a social conscience. Vasily, on the other hand, Karinka’s son, had responded in the opposite way. He was nineteen when Karinka died, away on his army service. He didn’t come back to live with his father after that. With Karinka gone, Vasily floated away into whatever world of business – or worse, Sheremetev feared – had swallowed him up. Sheremetev didn’t know exactly where he lived – he always seemed to be changing addresses. When Sheremetev had still had the apartment in Moscow, Vasily would occasionally come around. His fortunes seemed to go up and down. Sometimes he’d arrive driving a good car and bringing expensive foreign foodstuffs such as Sheremetev had never bought in his life – at other times he’d turn up on the metro with a bottle of Georgian wine. He would put whatever he had brought on the table, stay for an hour, and then he was gone.
Sheremetev didn’t know what to say. The two brothers sat in the small room, the Pinto twins, two peas from the same pod even forty years after they had been given that nickname.
‘How bad is he, anyway?’ asked Oleg after a while.
‘Who?’ said Sheremetev.
Oleg raised his eyes towards the ceiling, as if Vladimir was in the room above their heads.
‘He lives in his own world,’ said Sheremetev. ‘He has no idea what’s going on. He still thinks he’s president.’
‘What does he do all day?’
‘Sits and talks to his old friends. They’re not here of course, but he imagines them.’
‘What does he talk about what?’
‘Who knows? I only hear half the conversation.’
‘Do you listen?’
‘Why would I listen? It’s his conversation. He’s entitled to his privacy.’
Oleg looked at his brother doubtfully. But Sheremetev was serious. To have listened to the conversations Vladimir had with his imaginary visitors, he felt, would have been no different to eavesdropping on a conversation Vladimir was having with a real person. As far as Vladimir was concerned, he was having that conversation, and for him, therefore, that conversation was real. It was a matter of his patient’s dignity that Sheremetev should respect Vladimir’s right to have those conversations in private, even if Sheremetev often couldn’t avoid being in the room at the time.
‘Aren’t you interested to know what he’s talking about?’ asked Oleg.
‘It’s not my place,’ replied Sheremetev. ‘Besides, if I do happen to hear something, it’s gobbledygook to me. Olik, what are they going to do to Pasha if you can’t find the money?’