The Senility of Vladimir P

Michael Honig

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781782398097
• eBook ISBN:
  9781782398080
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

As a former president of Russia loses his marbles, those around him get down to losing their morals. Former Russian president, Vladimir P, is going senile, marooned in a world of memories from his years in power. To get him out of the way, he has been exiled to his luxury dacha, where he is served by a coterie of bickering house staff. Only Sheremetev, the guileless nurse charged with Vladimir's round-the-clock care, is unaware that everyone else is busily using every means at their disposal to skim money from their employer's inexhaustible riches. But when the nurse suddenly needs to find cash for a bribe or see his nephew rot in jail, the dacha's chef lets him in on the secret world of 'commissions' going on all around him. Yet surely Sheremetev wouldn't think to steal from his ailing patient? And surely, in the upstanding modern Russia that Vladimir P created, no one would actually let him...

1

He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there. Could have been two hours. Could have been two years.

Suddenly, a connection in his brain sparked to life and set off a chain of ignitions, like a momentary flickering of stars lighting up across a darkening, dying galaxy.

‘Why am I here?’ he yelled angrily. ‘What am I doing?’

‘Waiting,’ said Sheremetev, plumping up one of the pillows on his bed.

‘What for?’

‘For the meeting.’

Vladimir’s eyes narrowed. ‘Have I been briefed?’

‘Of course,’ replied Sheremetev calmly.

‘Good.’ Vladimir nodded. His expression changed, losing its anger. Already, he was forgetting what he had been upset about. The connection, wherever it was in his brain, had been snuffed out, perhaps never to spark again, and the self-awareness that had erupted momentarily into his consciousness was gone. He sat quietly and watched Sheremetev work. Vladimir couldn’t have said exactly who the other man was, but nonetheless he was at ease with him. Somehow, he knew that it was right for him to be making up the bed, and he had a feeling that it might even have happened before.

Sheremetev was a small man, dressed in a simple white shirt and a pair of dark trousers. He had never worn uniform when looking after Vladimir, but the deftness and economy of his movements as he tidied the bed betrayed a long career as a nurse. It was almost six years since Professor V N Kalin, the renowned neurologist, had asked him to become Vladimir’s personal carer. That was shortly after Vladimir announced that he would be stepping down from the presidency. In those days, although the president’s condition was evident to those who worked with him closely, he was still well enough to hold his own in tightly scripted public appearances for which he was carefully prepared. His successor, Gennadiy Sverkov, had even continued to have him wheeled out on occasion to try to draw some of the old wizard’s magic onto his own increasingly lacklustre administration. Back then, Vladimir still had a valet to dress him and a pair of aides to keep him abreast of events, and ­Sheremetev’s role had been limited, but as Vladimir’s memory deterior­ated, so Sheremetev’s responsibilities multiplied. Within a couple of years, Vladimir’s public appearances had become so erratic that even Sverkov’s people grew wary of parading him, and rumours of his condition – never confirmed – began to circulate. The appearances ceased. First the two aides were dispensed with, then the valet, and Sheremetev was left alone with him.

The nurse had never concerned himself with politics and had never kept track of who was doing what to whom in the Kremlin. To him, the whole business was a murky soup out of which names rose and sank without apparent rhyme or reason, and what was happening under the surface – and surely things must be happening, as everyone said – wasn’t something he tried to understand. He hadn’t been aware of the rumour that Vladimir had been forced out as his ageing cronies scrambled to hold on to their positions in the dying days of his power. All he knew was that the president announced that he was retiring – and a few weeks later Professor Kalin summoned him to his office.

‘Do you know my mother?’ asked Vladimir, as Sheremetev plumped the last of the pillows and set it down on the bed.

‘No, Vladimir Vladimirovich. I never had the honour of meeting her.’

‘I’ll introduce you. She’ll be here later. I’ve sent a car for her.’

Sheremetev turned around. ‘It’s time for your shower, Vladimir Vladimirovich. You’ll have to get dressed in something special today. The new president is coming to see you.’

Vladimir looked at him in confusion. ‘The new president? Aren’t I the president?’

‘Not any more, Vladimir Vladimirovich. Someone else is president now.’

Vladimir’s eyes narrowed. In the early years, hearing that might have driven him into a rage. But the rages were less frequent now, and when they did occur, didn’t last long. Nothing that Vladimir was told stuck for more than a minute or two in his mind. If he was agitated, it was probably because he was thinking about something that had happened twenty or thirty years ago.

‘Is someone coming?’ asked Vladimir eventually. ‘Is that what you said?’

‘Yes. The new president, Constantin Mikhailovich Lebedev.’

Vladimir snorted. ‘Lebedev’s the minister of finance!’

Sheremetev had no idea if Lebedev had ever been minister of finance, but he certainly wasn’t now. ‘He’s the new president, Vladimir Vladimirovich. He wants to get your blessing. That’s good, isn’t it? It shows how much he respects you.’

‘My blessing?’ Vladimir frowned. ‘Am I priest?’

‘No.’

‘Then why does he want my blessing?’

‘It’s a figure of speech, Vladimir Vladimirovich. In this case, you’re as good as a priest.’

Vladimir watched Sheremetev suspiciously. ‘Where are we?’

‘At the dacha.’

‘Which dacha?’

‘Novo-Ogaryovo.’

‘Novo-Ogaryovo? Why am I meeting Lebedev here? Why not at my office?’

‘Today you’re meeting him here.’

‘I’m going to fire that bastard. Have we got cameras?’

‘I think there’ll be cameras there.’

‘Good. We’ll see how he likes that!’ Vladimir chuckled. He remembered getting rid of Admiral Alexei Gorky, the commander of the Northern Fleet, in front of the television cameras at Severomorsk. That had gone down a treat.

Suddenly Gorky was right there in front of him. The look on the admiral’s face! The old peacock in his big peaked cap saw all the cameras pointing at him and thought Vladimir had come to pin another medal on his overdecorated chest, and now, before he knew it, he was getting the sack. ‘Didn’t see that one coming, did you, Alexei Maximovich? Who’s the boss, huh? Teach you to speak out about not having enough money for the fleet!’ Vladimir laughed, banging the armrests with his fists.

Sheremetev had left him to go into Vladimir’s dressing room. For the new president...

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• Note on the Author
• Also by Michael Honig
• First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.