Chapter 3: Serialisation of the novel by Osman Khareef
Prologue — Chapter 1 — Chapter 2
Chapter 3
In Moscow. In Izmayolovo Park. In the winter snow. Everything is for sale.
Often, there is a strolling band of tubas threading a jaunty way through the crowded pathways between the makeshift market stalls and the battered cardboard suitcases lids laid open revealing their pitiful tawdry contents; a pack of dog-eared playing cards, a left footed shoe, a tarnished toothbrush, three used Trabant sparkplugs.
Here, to the accompaniment of the cheerful oompah oompah, Muscovites sell their few remaining possessions, their family heirlooms, their aged grandparents, their hungry wide-eyed children, their own bodies and threadbare souls for a fistful of worthless kopecks or hyper-inflated roubles.
Here, King Dollar rules.
Here, if you are Dollar-rich you could buy; a grand-piano played by Stalin, Gorbachev’s bedroom slippers, a full-dress uniform of the Red Guard, a priceless picture robbed from the Kolomshoi Museum, FSB special issue condoms, or a set of colourful Afghanistan or Chechen Campaign medals plucked from the chest of a ‘zinky boy’.
In Izmayolovo Park, what is sacred becomes profane, becomes profitable.
The Park steams in the dim Russian semi-arctic sunlight, from the morose crowds in their heavy damp winter clothing, vodka cigarette halitosis and the greasy smoke of countless small kerosene cooking fires with their vendors selling potato soup and assorted indeterminate smoke-flavoured morsels of charred flesh of canine, feline, equine or rodent origin.
Coming to and leaving from Izmayolovo Park, there is a constant traffic of Moscow City trams, buses and rickety vans and lorries put putting along with their inefficient Russian-built engines and unrefined gasoline belching black exhaust fumes into the cold air. As each Trabant, Skoda, Lada, Mosgreitch van or lorry approaches the entrance to the Park, a crowd surges towards it, people clinging to the doors, shouting urgent questions at the driver. “What is it? What have you got? How much?”
By every stark leafless tree, by every stone bench, by those statues of the Heroes of the Soviet Union that still remain intact, groups of men argue and deal.
In the ruins of the Soviet Dream, times are bad. The dialectic of Dollar is on everybody’s lips.
“Why have we come here, JeanLuc?” asked Igor as they spilled out of the crowded trolley-bus onto the pavement at the entrance to Izmayolovo Park.
“We are to meet someone here.” JeanLuc waved his hand towards the Park. “Then we can go and get a drink — and some girls?”
“Sure. But first I have to arrange transport and make contact with our guide. They said he would be here — amongst the wooden roubles.”
“I could’ve arranged all that for you. Why didn’t you say?” Igor asked somewhat petulantly. He had agreed to act as JeanLuc’s minder during the last leg of the trip to Moscow. They had pulled off the road on the outskirts of the City and after half an hour’s tinkering under the massive hood, a thousand more US dollars had gone into Igor’s private stash in the exhaust manifold. Delivery of the tractor tyres was made on schedule, the truck locked up in Karasamov’s warehouse in the Lyublino District, away from prying eyes and thieving hands. The return load was being brought in and loaded in the course of the next week. Igor had no idea what it would be.
Igor hated to leave the truck, even for a second, but in Moscow there was no choice. He had to risk that the stash might be found; that the truck would not be stolen; that Karasamov had been properly fixed by the Germans. He couldn’t carry much money on him — that would be suicidal. There were some precautions he had taken, of course; the truck’s engine was immobilised — he carried the vital components of the electronic ignition in his pocket. The vehicle was also fitted with a powerful movement-tripped transmitter in case it was towed or transported away. He carried a signal direction-finder similar to that used by the Chicago police to find stolen cars. If any fat Russian traitorous swine got into the cab, infrared and air-movement detectors would send signals to the miniature bleeper sown into the collar of his coat and the truck itself would squeal with electronic mega-decibelled hysteria. Oh, yes! It would be a bitch of job to steal his truck. But that’s the way it was. All owners of vehicles from the West take elaborate and expensive precautions against theft. Most drivers carry handguns, mace canisters and other assorted special weaponry depending on which macho Rambo movie was in vogue with drivers at the time. Pissing against the Firestone of one of these big babes made you liable to get your dick fried. Igor held onto that comforting thought as they entered the Park.
From out of the crush of people, a couple of burly Muscovites, faces hidden in their greatcoats, pressed hard against JeanLuc, grabbing his arms, pinioning his elbows from behind. Quick as a cat, Igor spun around; a knife glittered into his hand as if by magic. “Bugger off, you two!” he growled. “Let go of my friend or you get this.” The men released JeanLuc and backed away hastily, gloved hands raised in protest. “No offence comrade, no offence!” They melted back into the crowd.
An old crone in black beside them looked sadly up at Igor and JeanLuc from under her shawl with rheumy red marble-veined eyes.
“This is a dangerous place, Madame Comrade!” muttered Igor.
The crone nodded in agreement. “But only if you have a young hard prick and money!” she cackled suddenly.
The two men pushed away from her in disgust. Christ! The people here are ugly, thought JeanLuc. Fellini would have had no problem casting Satyricon here.
After about half an hour of searching, they found the section of the Park where paintings and icons were being sold. Propped up or nailed to timber backing boards, rows and rows of cheap, crudely executed devotional pictures had been painted on plundered wood panels from the altars and confessionals of churches, abbeys, monasteries and cathedrals throughout Russia.
In spite of the crowds, there was not much business going on. The foreign tourist parties had been and gone in the morning and were now back in the relative safety of the Hyatts, Hiltons and Holiday Inns that now surrounded Red Square like the oyster shell around a pearl.
“How will you recognise the contact?” asked Igor in dismay, as he surveyed the numerous vendors and crowded aisles ahead of them.
“He will have a reproduction picture on show like this. Look.” JeanLuc fished a colour postcard out of his coat pocket and Igor peered at it gloomily. The postcard depicted Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco of the Last Supper.
“God. There must be thousands of these!” cried Igor.
“Not necessarily,” JeanLuc said, “let’s take a look. Here, you take the card.” Together they wandered up the aisles, scanning the displays.
A band of tubas came marching down the aisle towards them, pushing them to one side. As they steamed past, all big swarthy men, cheeks puffing and blowing with exertion, eyes bulging rhythmically in tune with the funereal marching tune in bass E flat, JeanLuc’s roving eye was suddenly caught and held … by a face.
He waited until the last of the band had oompahed past. Yes! There she was again. JeanLuc felt a jolt of electric excitement run up and down his spine. Those were features that he knew! As if some long-buried memory circuit had suddenly switched in, he knew with magnetic certainty that this woman was to be his lover. He had never felt the pure blue flame of desire like this; totally unexpected and of mystical intensity.
Igor was plucking at his arm. “What the hell are you staring at, JeanLuc? Come on, I want to get out of this dump.”
JeanLuc ignored him and walked across to the stand. The young woman who was the focus of JeanLuc’s ardent attention got up from a folding chair and stood beside the rows of icons. She awaited JeanLuc’s approach. A possible sale here, she thought. Those of her features that could be seen were Slavonic; high wide cheekbones and huge dark eyes set wide apart in a clear-skinned alabaster face above a flattish nose. A thin hand-rolled cigarette sat jauntily between full red lips like the stick in a lollipop.
Oh, shit. He’s got a fucking Madonna complex! Just what I fucking needed, Igor thought. He couldn’t personally see anything worth chasing after. There were a thousand tarts like her in bars and restaurants all over the city. He knew what his tastes were and they certainly didn’t include her sort. Too skinny and dark. He preferred big comfortable flaxen-haired women with plenty of stamina and juice, with whom he could wrestle drunkenly all night. Give me a Wagnerian Brunhilde trumpet-lady every time. Boom, Boom! Now that was his kind of woman — not these intense dark bitches with eyes like drowning pools and breasts like hard little apples.
JeanLuc and the woman had started an animated conversation. Igor turned away disgustedly and commenced scanning the many pictures in front of him. A framed print jumped into his consciousness like a jigsaw piece snapping into place. Yes! This looked like it! He compared it with the postcard he held in his hand. This was definitely a match. Well, well! It must belong to the girl. She must be the contact! Igor chuckled inwardly.
“Hey, lover boy!” he shouted New York style. “I’ve found it!” Igor beckoned JeanLuc who came reluctantly, followed by the woman. “Look! This is the one.” Igor cried holding up the postcard against the print.
“I know, I know,” JeanLuc said impatiently. “For Christ’s sake put that thing away — you’re attracting attention.”
“How do you know? I just found it.”
“Fate, probably,” JeanLuc said cryptically and scowled. He turned back to the woman.
“Who is this?” she asked nodding towards Igor.
“Sophia. Meet Igor Golemov, my friend and protector.” Igor nodded his head in acknowledgement and stared at her with the calculating eyes of a cattle-market auctioneer. She stared back unperturbed. “Igor, this is our contact, Sophia Yemeljan. Come, we must leave at once; there is a great deal to be done.”
“Hey! Wait a minute” cried Sophia, “I cannot just drop everything you know. I have money to earn to feed my family. In any case, these pictures must be packed away carefully.” Sophia looked anxiously about.
“Don’t worry, I have money. I will buy all your pictures now,” JeanLuc said impatiently. “Just leave them here and we’ll go.”
“How much?” she asked, standing her ground. “I want to know how much you will pay for all these?” she gestured towards the rows of pictures.
“One thousand dollars,” JeanLuc said carefully. “For that price, you must also accompany me and become part of the team,” he added.
For a long moment when time seemed to stand still, Sophia looked at him as if considering. A flash of understanding suddenly seemed to pass between them. She collected her bag and said brightly: “Okay, boys. Let’s go!”
And they went without a backward glance.
Prologue — Chapter 1 — Chapter 2
Icon Rapture by Osman Khareef can be purchased HERE
