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Mikhail Pavlovich Malenkov stepped confidently
down from the Angliyskaya Embankment and onto the planks of the makeshift
boardwalk. With each step he listened to the brittle crunching of ice that
rested under the fresh sawdust. Some of the lamps had already been lit and
they guided him across the river to a destination still in darkness. The
wind had eased and the snow had settled itself into a slumber so heavy across
the city. As a consequence the early evening felt as still as the grave to
him and the air was as sharp as a knife’s blade. He stopped suddenly
and grimaced then exhaled a deep sigh that seemed to crystallise and fall to
his feet. Misha watched as the men lit the remaining lamps then he resumed
his journey. He looked equally at the wooden boards before him and at the
carnival tent that slowly came into form. Soon the tent stood tall and wide
before him. Last
year it’d seemed an impossible idea, but there it was – a mighty
presence against the thick, icy surface of the Great Neva River weeks before Maslenitsa. It’d been
Lavrov’s idea. He’d been able to secure special permission for it
and the press had heralded it as a feat of negotiation, yet Misha suspected
much more than that. If he knew his employer well enough he knew such
dealings were more a recipe in deception – a sprinkle or two of
blackmail perhaps and then many handfuls of roubles to the right people. No
doubt there was a fair dollop of arse-licking too. Misha
spat loudly onto the ice at the thought of it and then nodded shyly at the
men who stood about with their lamps. Yes, he was in a bad mood and he could
not deny it. For days he’d been this way. For days and days and now
Alena was not speaking to him and his Mamasha had placed her warm hands on
his as he took his tea. Her eyes had locked onto his and they were like Bibles
of sorrow. He
had read them and seen his own shortcomings inside every tear: Where would
the money come to pay for the rent? And the baby’s nurse? How could
they scrape together enough to secure better premises before the end of the
season? How was he to repay the debts that so easily flowered over town
because of his bad judgments? He sighed and moved through the labyrinth of
the tent. And
when Misha arrived at his small makeshift room he lit a lamp with special
care and then settled down to read his paper. He sifted through the many
scandals but each hardly raised a curved eyebrow on his forehead. When he was
done he looked about the room and then at the reflection in the mirror. He
poked a face at it and the reflection looked back at him. He
had what people would best describe as a milkman’s stare. It was a look
of a man that knows what he likes and has enough confidence to try and reach
for it and that reaching generally set out in the direction of women. Tall
women. Large women. Wallflowers. Great beauties. Misha didn’t have any
preference as such or if he did no one could discern it. His
interest was generally sparked by the eyes and on the basis of what was
contained within them. Each set were like deep pockets he could rummage
around in. Windows to the soul and all that and because of it more often than
not Misha could tell who he was dealing with. Deep frailties were unburied
and read like the journals stacked high in this makeshift room. Yes, it had
something to do with the eyes. It’d always been so. And
the women that wandered in and out of his life were rather taken by a man who
seemed to know them so completely. That could finish their sentences before
they’d even articulated what they had wanted to say to him. Someone who
seemed so eager to comfort them, that was so expert in the ways of womanhood. They
also rather liked a man who knew how to use his hands, who knew a
woman’s body so completely. A master mind reader and a master lover,
Misha seemed a lethal combination. More for Misha than anyone else because
when he fell he fell so hard and it was always an effort to get back up
again. And when an affair was over it was well and truly over. Absolutely
over. No questions asked. Until he’d remember her so fondly a year or
two later. At
such moments he forgot a woman’s faults, forgot how she picked at her
teeth or how she was rude to him. He forgot all the inconceivable memories.
Instead he retraced her body and read it like a cartographer. Instead he
remembered her lips and the pleasures they gave him. After a while he’d
sit down at a rickety chair and write a love letter so beguiling that no
woman could ever refuse him. Not even the ones that still spoke under their
breath when his name was mentioned. In fact they were the ones most on his
mind, the ones that did receive letters. Because of this Misha was kept a
busy man. And
there were so many women in St Petersburg and most of them had a pair of eyes
Misha just had to look into and read. He couldn’t help it, it was his
passion. It was his only steady course through life despite every twist and
turn and as such he’d been able to discover a myriad of things since he
was a small boy. Early on he knew that blue eyes were the very best because
they were readable at any hour. There was no need to stand with a candelabrum
and inspect them like a darker shade. Even so, he always liked a challenge
and brown eyes were his second favourite, and then green. He swam in all of
them from time to time just for fun and kept notebooks for each colour, which
were categorised by shade and circumstance. It’d never been a
clandestine operation, but he insisted that the key to the cabinet he kept
his notes in would never be found. His observations would die with him. ‘It
must be so,’ he used to say in jest until his wife could no longer look
him in the eye. But
desire and secrets were things Misha read from the eyes of men only. It was
odd how that happened. His gift was
never a rational beast. Misha never asked for it and never asked for the
knowledge that came with it. Well, perhaps this was not entirely true as it
seemed to be the only way in the world he’d ever understand a woman.
But a man’s eyes were another country and lately he’d become so
drained by the many war torn countries he’d seen or those lands of
deceit and ambition. Things so lacked originality that he no longer looked
too closely when he spoke to a man. Yet Henry was different. Very different.
Misha couldn’t help but take great pains to look deeply into him. And
he liked what he saw in Henry’s eyes. He
reached for a journal from the reading pile and flipped through its many
stories. He liked romances the most, but he’d never care to admit that
to a single soul. He was still deciding what to read when Konstantin Ivanovich
walked into the room. Misha hardly raised his head, but he nodded all the
same and Kostya returned it with a casual bob of the head before he fell
heavily into a chair in the corner. He arched his head and rested it against
the flimsy wall. Before long the boy was asleep and his little snores circled
around him like a buzzing fly. Misha
shook his head with mild displeasure then slowly raised himself out of the
chair to lightly kick Kostya at the boot. ‘Hey,’ he murmured.
‘Enough of that.’ The
boy groaned and turned his body away. ‘Why
don’t you go and wait for our visitors, hmmm?’ ‘Leave
me alone.’ Misha
shrugged his shoulders sheepishly and then returned to his seat as Ivan
Ivanovich Belofsky entered the room. ‘Dear
Vanya,’ he said and reached for the old man’s hands and held them
tenderly as Ivan Ivanovich bent down to kiss the soft face before him. Soon
the two men began undertaking preparations for the night ahead. Vanya tuned
his fiddle strings and then played softly for a while to loosen his fingers while
Misha stretched his muscles. Kostya watched them with quiet bemusement. ‘And
are you not practising this evening, Konstantin Ivanovich?’ Vanya asked
sternly. ‘Yes,
Papasha.’ Kostya jumped from his chair and began his vocal exercises. ‘Good. Good,’ his
father purred with each scale the young man completed.
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