Free Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov Page B

sees.”
    That settled, Viktor wrote the note. Sonya read it syllable by syllable, and gave it back with a nod of approval.
    Down below a car hooted. Viktor looked out, and in the late afternoon gloom, was just able to make out the familiar
Zaporozhets
.
    First he carried down the tree, trussed in washing-line, together with a shopping bag of toys and presents, and a carrier bag of food from the freezer; then he and Sonya went down, he with Misha in his arms.
    “I’ve brought a couple more blankets,” said Sergey in the car. “Until the place heats up, it’ll be cold.”
    Misha and Sonya sat at the back, Viktor in front. Misha edged closer to Sonya when the engine started, as if scared by the noise. Seeing them in the mirror snuggled up together, Viktor nudged Sergey and pointed. Adjusting the mirror to this amusing rear-seat idyll, Sergey gave a weary smile and accelerated away.

34
    At the entrance to the dacha plots was a hut from which two men in camouflaged combat gear emerged, walked around the
Zaporozhets
, and took a good look inside. Sergey wound down the window.
    “Dacha 7.”
    “Carry on,” said one of the guards.
    They stopped outside a little brick-built house with a steeply angled roof. Sergey got out. Looking into the back before following, Viktor saw that Sonya was asleep.
    “Just a mo while I unset the trap,” said Sergey.
    “What trap?”
    “Anti-burglar.”
    Stooping, and with a creaking of boards, he shifted something in front of the door.
    “All’s well,” he beckoned. “We can enter.”
    Opening the door to a glassed-in veranda, Sergey switched on the light, throwing a yellow pool onto the snow in front ofthe house and the car. Sonya woke, rubbed her eyes, and turned to Misha, around whom she had had her arm for the whole of the journey. Sensing she was awake, he turned towards her and they looked hard at one another.
    In no time they were all sitting in a cold room before a dead hearth, with a single bulb dispensing light and an illusion of warmth from the ceiling.
    Sergey brought wood, built it into a wigwam in the hearth, and inserted a lighted newspaper.
    The flames took hold, and slowly began to radiate heat.
    Misha, who had tucked himself away in a far corner, suddenly livened up and came and stood in front of the fire.
    “Uncle Vik,” yawned Sonya, “when are we going to see to the tree?”
    “Tomorrow morning,” said Viktor.
    The small room contained a settee and an armchair facing the fire, and against the left-hand wall, a bed.
    They put Sonya on the settee close to the fire with the two blankets over her, and she soon fell asleep, leaving Viktor, Sergey and Misha to keep vigil by the blazing hearth. Sergey added more wood. Apart from the occasional hiss of moisture issuing from the logs, there wasn’t a sound.
    Viktor perched on the edge of the settee, Sergey sat in the armchair, and Misha, not taught by nature how to sit, stood.
    “I’m off to work tomorrow,” said Sergey. “I’ll get champagne and some meat afterwards and come back.”
    Viktor nodded.
    “It’s so quiet here,” he said dreamily. “A silence to sit and write in.”
    “No one’s stopping you,” Sergey said amiably.
    “Life is,” said Viktor, after a silence.
    “It is you who’s made it complicated … Let’s have a smoke on the veranda.”
    Viktor went, though he didn’t smoke. After the slightly warmed air of the living room, the veranda was like a refrigerator, but invigorating.
    Sergey exhaled a stream of smoke towards the low ceiling. “Look,” he said, “if you’re in that sort of a mess, why drag a small girl around with you?”
    “Her father seems to be in the same boat. I’ve no idea where he is. So what can I do?”
    Sergey shrugged. “Ah, we’re not alone,” he said a minute later, looking out of the window.
    Two windows were shining bright in the darkness.
    “Like some cherry brandy?” Sergey asked suddenly.
    “Rather!”
    “They went through to the tiny ice-cold