18 – Counting Heartbeats
At the Athena mall, Elena simply couldn't get enough of the complimentary shoe polisher. Her Doc Martins were nearly polished out of existence by the time I was snarling, “Alexi, late! What are the odds?”
“Not so odd. Alexi is up to tricks.” Elena fixated on the polisher, an industrial bench grinder minus its safety guards. Catch a cuff or shoelace in it. Crikey, I hate to imagine!
“Let's go. Besides, I think I smell your boots smouldering.”
The intrepid sea captain intercepted us on our way out. Typically contrite, blethering away about very important meetings.
“Can you get me a passport or not?” Elena cut to the chase.
“We have not yet dined.” He blustered. “How rude! I have very important people waiting to see me. My time is valuable—”
“Alexi, perristan—stop it!” Elena said. “We know you are a con-artist.” Stunned silence. She went on, “For you this may be a game, an opportunity to steal some money from silly tourists. But we are not tourists. For us, this is serious.”
“I am not a criminal!”
“We think you are, and a criminal might be what we need right now.” I interjected.
That got his interest. Maybe, he thought we still had money. The reality is, we were so far down queer street, eating beans straight from the tin was our idea of fine dining.
Elena did most of the talking. Alexi squirmed and sputtered under her onslaught. Finally, “I need a passport to get out of Ukraine with Meg. Can you get me one?”
“Meg?” He said, his mouth full of Tater Tots.
“Yeah, Meg.” Elena pointed. “This is Meg and I am Elena. We have been using fake names with you.”
“Why me? I am not a criminal! How do you dare—”
“Anyone who can come up with a passport that isn't their own and sell it, certainly sounds like a criminal to me.” I was compelled to opine.
Elena told him her own Russian passport or a legal replacement would get her into Türkiye for a few months.
“A Russian passport? It will not get you far. I would think a British or American passport would be just the right thing for a lady such as yourself. You could dispense with Türkiye altogether. Travel in style.” Alexi oozed right back into arse-licker mode.
“How much?” Elena demanded. “And, can you get it in three weeks?”
“Of course. Maybe it will cost a little more. A mere trifle for ladies who can live at the Londonskaya, I am sure.” He smirked.
“How much!?” That time it was me.
“I can not say precisely, but I am thinking, I could arrange an American passport for twenty-thousand dollars.”
I snorted coffee out my nose. “Bloody brilliant! The street price for any passport is twenty-thousand bucks? Russian, American, British, take your pick. On sale now for the crazy, low price of twenty-thousand dollars!”
Elena put her hand on mine. “Meg, spakoynay. People are looking.” Then to Alexi, “Twenty-thousand is too much.”
“It was your mother who took your passport. Perhaps, you need to hire someone to, eh hem, collect it from her?”
“Let's look at something a little less Russian mafia,” I broke in. “You are a very important and highly respected businessman, right?”
“Of course!”
“Aye, right. So, as a respected businessman, you know people. Perhaps, you know someone at the Russian consulate who can replace Elena's actual, legal passport for a modest, reasonable fee. Or barring that, an official who can extend our legal stay in Ukraine?”
Silence. Blank stare. It was like he blue-screened.
Elena pushed. “Well, what can you do for us?”
He held up one finger. With chest puffed, he raised the finger one last centimetre. Then sighed. The skyward pointing finger wilted. Chest deflated. Shoulders sagged. “Alas, I have no business contacts with the Russian consulate, or the Ukrainian government.”
Watching him crumble, chilled the cockles of my heart. Not that I felt that sorry for the bloke, but watching his house of cards come fluttering down had me thinking, I was building a bloody tower of my own. Elena turned away, grabbed her tea and left the table. Alexi kept his face buried in the Tater Tots. I slowly gathered my things, wondering, what now? I felt like I should say something, but what? Sure too bad you aren't really a criminal!
Ascending from the food floor, I looked back at Alexi, sitting alone at the table. He was talking on his mobile. No doubt, his mouth was full.
~
My mobile rang at three in the morning. “Where in the hell are you?”
I struggled to get my bearings. “Who is this?”
“Bernadette, the woman looking after your half-built house. Not to mention the life, you abandoned back home.”
“Bernie! Whoa, hi! It's been a long time. What's up with you?” I saw the call display—my own, home telephone number. A weird blast-from-the-past. Everything pre-Kyiv felt like someone else's life.
“A man at your bank has been trying to reach you. Looks like there's been numerous large withdrawals from ATMs in Eastern Europe. They're afraid it isn't you. That, maybe, you got killed for your credit cards or something like that.”
I swallowed hard. “Aye, it's me slapping the plastic.”
“What!?”
“Using the cards like there's no tomorrow. Spending, big-time.”
“That's what I told him. You still need to ring him. Tell him yourself before they freeze your accounts.”
“Whatever. I'll ring during banking hours.” I yawned. Getting a middle-of-the-night phone call that was not about somebody dead, dying, or burning down the house was such a relief.
“And you need to get your financial affairs in order! He didn't give me the specifics, but your overdraft, your personal line of credit, and your credit cards are maxed out!”
“Bloody hell. I've been afraid to look. Believe me, there's been more important stuff to deal with.” I was counting life in heartbeats, instead of dollars, by then.
“I have to tell you, I am shocked by this. You, of all people! It's embarrassing.” She stopped to let that sink in. “You need to finish this house. You said you'd be back by now, and I'm living in a house full of holes!” That was it. She hung up. I wondered if the phone survived.
So, I was wide awake. In two minutes flat, Bernadette hath murdered sleep. Of course, I knew there would be fallout: ramifications, pipers to be paid. Just not so soon. Never underestimate my ninja powers of denial. I killed the light. When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I looked at Elena. Moonlight through enormous windows silhouetted the slope of her shoulder under the blanket. Tufts of her mangled, chemically damaged hair stuck out crazily. She sighed like a bairn, completely content. I so envied the way she could shut down like that. My brain was a mariachi band on speed, rehearsing the inevitable conversation with my banker. My investments, my savings, were condemned. Stocks in companies I had meticulously researched, mutual funds I lovingly followed, were on their way to the chopping block. And I would sign their death warrants with three of the most horrible words an investor can utter, “Sell at market.”
~
We had the grand ballroom to ourselves. It was like blundering onto the set of a costume drama while looking for the snack bar. The half dozen staff, in black and whites, had no one to serve but us. They knew we didn't belong, but they played their parts and we ad-libbed ours. “No starter this evening. And for my main course, hmm, let's see. Ah, yes, the tap-water looks lovely this evening.”
I believe, had I asked, they would have ripped the tap from the sink and brought it out on a silver platter for me to sniff.
“Meg, do mignons live in rivers or the sea?” Elena really did ask me things like that. “I am thinking I would like fish for dinner, and there are fillets of mignon.”
“You wouldn't like it. It's a fillet of cow.” The price gave me collywobbles. I suggested, the steamed rice or the pasta looked tasty. Was her menu devoid of prices, or was she just blind to them?
“What about es-car-gots?”
“Those are snails.” That was an easy financial bullet to dodge. Seeing no way out, short of a run for the border, or going into hiding for the rest of our lives, I thought we ought to spend our last days together in grand style. Or in our case, at least, the grand ballroom.
We ordered, and Elena leaped from the table. “I must make to someone a telephone call. If the food is here before I return, please start without me.”
The definition of awkward has to be: sitting completely alone in a grand dining room, with a half dozen serving staff in white gloves hovering about nervously. Elena eventually returned to the table. She was shaking, and her cheeks were moist. “I spoke to my friend from work. Tanya, she will speak with mother. She will try to get, from Mama, my passport.”
The news bloody knocked me for six. I had a million questions. Mostly, I wanted to know why, if Elena thought there was a snowball's chance in hell that Tanya could pry the passport from Mama's iron grip, she hadn't tried earlier. On the other hand, Elena didn't want to talk about it, or anything to do with it, not until she heard back from Tanya.