Penguin Lost

It took Viktor three days to recover from the four spent crossing Drake Passage. In which time, the scientists who had sailed with him from Ushaia in the
Horizon
were already acclimatized and working fast to complete measurements and analyses before the onset of polar night. Viktor kept to his quarters in the main block, emerging only to eat or to take a peek outside. He went unquestioned, and even made friends with a biophysicist researching the limits of human endurance, such as the crossing of Drake Passage would have provided ample material for, had he not spent the whole of it seasick in his bunk.

Vernadsky Base was soon got the hang of, and Viktor ventured forth, wearing the obligatory bright red with luminous yellow stripes, and entering name and time of exit on a board to the left of the door. Failure to return within the hour would, he’d been told, bring the whole base out on search. The base had known tragedy, and it was not hard to see why, after losing 16 men and two supply aircraft, the British had presented it to Ukraine, quite apart from the Devil’s Island appearance of it, viewed from the shore. The one and only place to relax was the bar, but there being neither barman nor drink, you either brought your own or did without.

Viktor saw his first penguins when walking with biophysicist Stanislav down by the dinghy slipway, and compared with his Misha, now languishing in Kiev, they looked toy-sized. “These are Adélie penguins,” Stanislav explained. “We’re not Antarctica proper, just
an island.” Their walk took them, via the noisy generator hut, to the set-apart magnetic research lab. “We’ve another Stanislav here,” Stanislav confided, looking around uneasily. “In the sick bay. He’s from Moscow. I mentioned you. He’d like to see you.”

*

The ailing Muscovite, a big man of about 40, lay on his back, legs bent, the bed being too short. His massive face was of a pallor suggestive of the worst.

Biophysicist Stanislav slipped away.

“What are
you
here for?” the sick man demanded.

“Just to look round.”

“Cut the crap! I’m Stanislav Bronikovsky, banker. Put on the spot and lying low. And you are?”

“Lying low, too.”

“Good.”

“Why so?”

“Makes us comrades in adversity. You might have come to do me in.”

A long silence followed. Viktor rose to leave.

“Come when you can,” said Stanislav abruptly. “We’ll play chess … I could be of use to you.”

From then on, Viktor became a regular visitor. He was not short of time, and it was cold outside, although less so than he had expected, a mere –15°. The living quarters were well heated, but the sanatorium was even better. They played chess, and as they did so, chatted about everything under the sun. It did not escape Viktor that occasionally Bronikovsky was sounding him out, but there was nothing strange about that. Bronikovsky plainly suffered from a persecution mania, and a highly developed one at that. Viktor
would never have believed it possible that anyone might send a killer to the Antarctic in search of him. Who, after all, was he that anyone should be sent that far? But Bronikovsky was important and powerful, a Queen to Viktor’s pawn. Bronikovsky’s fears might be well founded. Added to which, his strange, undiagnosed illness was growing steadily worse, in spite of the expedition medic’s antibiotic injections. The medic had thoughts of consulting the Americans at Palmer Base, but was put off by the 300 km separating the two bases. So, racked with stomach pains and eating nothing, Bronikovsky lived off his massive frame much as the camel lives off its hump. As his pallor became bluish, he whispered that he knew who was poisoning him, but left it at that, and played bravely on, losing in stony silence. Reaching under his bed, he produced a half full bottle of the Argentine vodka Viktor remembered trying and not liking.

“Look,” he said, pouring two cups, “I’ve a proposition. It involves asking a favour.” Viktor looked attentive. “Tomorrow a Pole called Wojciech puts in on his yacht to take me off, give me a new identity. But seeing me like this, he won’t … So you go in my place, if you like, taking my wife a letter and a credit card which is yours to use on the way.”

“Except that I’m not you.”

“For Wojciech, the work of a minute.”

Viktor thought for a moment, then nodded his agreement. Bronikovsky’s pallid face registered a feeble smile.

A month or so later, Polish passport in one pocket, blue Ukrainian
in the other, Viktor stepped from a train in Kiev, shoulder bag lightly packed with casino chips, notebook, and a packet of Polish pastries.

Emerging from the station, instead of proceeding in the normal way on autopilot to the bus stop and thence home to his flat, he stopped. His autopilot wasn’t working, and his first few steps in the station yard were those of a novice moon-walker, while everyone else went rushing by, guidance systems in full working order.

Still, he had to go somewhere. In his pocket were the Ukrainian hryvnas which had sojourned with him in south polar regions, and provided there had been no geographical creep Russia-wards in his absence, he was able to afford the small pleasures of life. A bus journey, for instance. But where to?

Looking around and spotting a newspaper kiosk, he made towards it, the asphalt suddenly firmer beneath his feet. Of the many papers displayed he opted for Kiev’s
Capital News
, and for some 30 minutes stood absorbed in its contents.

Life hadn’t changed: foreign visitors delivering charitable aid to orphanages; two Ukrainian People’s Deputies imprisoned in Germany for fraudulent banking; businessman’s family shot dead in Kherson; opening of super garden-centre at Obolon; and on the last page but one, a couple of wretchedly written obituaries, all the more distressing for having been signed with Viktor’s own pseudonym. The Editor-in-Chief, it appeared, was no longer his quondam patron Igor Lvovich, but one P.D. Weizmann.

For just one brief blissful moment he was back standing with Penguin Misha at the grave of some departed bigwig, sun streaming down, while some nearest and dearest delivered words having no effect on him or Misha, who were outside it all, Misha part of the ritual, he part of Misha. And there they’d stand, unfeelingly waiting for it to be done with – as if
they
were immortal.