A Shiver in the Trees

      The steaming tea was placed at his elbow just as before, but this time Vlad had brought a small parcel tucked under his arm. The old man’s teeth chattered with anticipation as he pulled away the brown paper. Within, there lay a nest of honey-brown buns, fragrant with ginger and cloves. They shone in the cold glow of the strip-light.

      ‘Pryaniki!’ Anatoly Borisovich clapped his hands. ‘How I love pryaniki! So very kind of you, Vlad! May I?’ Without waiting he took a bun from the top of the pile and stuffed it into his mouth, lips stretching around the splitting shards of icing. His eyes closed in rapture.

      ‘My landlady makes them,’ said Vlad, unable to look away, revolted and fascinated by the bun-induced ecstasy as pastry crumbs writhed in the old man’s mouth. ‘She bakes every night, for no one. I don’t eat them.’ He patted a hand on his lean stomach and smiled, shrugging. ‘So they’re always going spare.’ Vlad was determined to be business-like this time. They would get to the salient points quickly: this was research, with a purpose; he was a professional, and he needed only facts.

      ‘She takes good care of you?’ the old man grunted, ‘this landlady?’

      Facts, facts, facts. Don’t get distracted, thought Vlad. ‘She washes and irons very well,’ he said. ‘And there is always good food. She’s lovely, really, but I don’t get much privacy. I can’t have my girlfriend round, for example. Anyway—’

      ‘And your family?’

      ‘Family?’

      Anatoly Borisovich’s eyes slid from the second bun, which he was now pushing into his mouth, to Vlad’s grey eyes. ‘Family,’ he repeated with difficulty.

      ‘Oh.’ Vlad shrugged. ‘In the country, forty kilometres or so from here. Mother, sister: I see them on holidays. We’re not close. They’re not like me.’

      ‘No?’

      Vlad perched on the visitor’s chair, heels bouncing against the worn lino of the floor, impatient to start. He ran an eye over his subject. He looked better today: there was less puffiness about his face, his eyes twinkled and the knobbled toes that poked from beneath the bedclothes were pink. It was a turn-around. Maybe having someone to talk to was doing him good? You could never tell with the elderly: that was one reason Vlad found them increasingly fascinating. He hadn’t imagined he would find gerontology interesting: his focus at the start of medical school had been purely the physical – the body, how it worked, how to make it stronger, how it collapsed. But the more he studied, and the more patients he met, the more absorbing he found their thoughts, their backgrounds, the sum of their lives. He hadn’t quite got the gist of how it all worked yet, but he was fascinated by the idea that he could influence those thoughts, to promote a change, and achieve a goal, through stimulation. Facts, facts, facts, thought Vlad, fiddling with his pen.

      ‘They’re farmers. They live on a collective, in the middle of nowhere. We’ve been apart a long time.’

      ‘How’s that?’

      He definitely had a good appetite: a third bun was now disappearing within his cheeks.

      ‘I went to residential school: sport and science. Up in Rostov. I haven’t lived at the farm for ten years or more. I’ve been lucky.’

      ‘Sent away to school? How fascinating! And now you’re going to be a doctor, because you must help your fellow citizens!’

      ‘Well, I suppose … I was going to go for physics, but the girls in the medicine queue were much prettier.’

      Anatoly Borisovich smiled as he chewed, and nodded. Surely the boy was joking?

      ‘But enough about me,’ said Vlad, ‘we’re here to talk about you.’

      The old man was eyeing a fourth iced bun when a loud, low howl resounded in his belly. A steady diet of soft brown boiled things had left his digestion ill-prepared for food that was rich or easily identifiable.

      ‘Drink your tea, Anatoly Borisovich,’ directed Vlad with a smile as the old man clutched at his side and winced. ‘It will help them go down. There is no need to hurry. The pryaniki have no legs, they will not run away.’

      ‘That is good advice, thank you. Are you sure you won’t have one?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘No sweet things for athletes, eh?’

      ‘I’m no longer an athlete.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Injury.’

      ‘Ah, a pity!’ Anatoly Borisovich tried a different tack. ‘If oral delights don’t interest you, what does?’

      A steady green stare captured Vlad’s eyes and all other details of the old man’s face, including the smear of crumbs and the lattice of scars, melted away.

      Vlad coughed. ‘Well, you know: sport, cars, girls. Money.’

      ‘That all sounds very … And how old are you, if you don’t mind so bold a question?’

      ‘Twenty-two.’

      ‘You’re not married?’

      ‘Married?’ Vlad’s curls shivered as he laughed through his nose. ‘No. Like I said, I have a girl, she’s really … I really … Her name is Polly. She’s beautiful. And she loves me. But marriage is not a priority.’

      ‘So what is, tell me?’

      ‘Well, you know: a car, an apartment, textbooks, travel. And I want to buy shares, get into investment, but I lack capital …’

      ‘How romantic. And the arts, Vlad?’

      ‘The arts?’

      ‘What makes your heart soar? What makes you shiver with delight? What fills you with angels’ breath? A painting, a piece of music, a modern ballet perhaps, you’re an athlete, after all—’

      Vlad thought for a moment. ‘BMW.’

      ‘BM-what?’

      He snorted with a smile. ‘It’s a make of car. Big engines, broad.’ His hands shaped the car in the air. ‘Leather seats; German engineering.’

      ‘German? I see.’ Anatoly Borisovich nodded and turned his gaze to the lone pine on the horizon. ‘Drawing is my particular love. I find it deeply calming. I can lose myself for days … I spent my life in illustration. They gave me a beautiful watch when I retired – a Poljot, the Soviet Union’s best. I believe it’s in here.’ He turned to open the drawer of the bedside cabinet but it jarred, the cabinet rocking on its feet as he tugged.

      ‘Don’t worry, Anatoly Borisovich, show me another time. We really should—’

      ‘I keep asking them for crayons and paper, Vlad. I know it would do me good. You know it would do me good. But they shrug and tell me maybe tomorrow … I need to get my thoughts straight. I am hoping to be discharged, you see, before the frosts set in. I might go south – the Caucasus, maybe, or further. Somewhere warm – Angola …’

      ‘Angola?’ Vlad stifled a laugh and glanced at his watch. ‘That’s as maybe. But Matron won’t refer you to the doctors for sign-out until she’s had “consistently good reports”, will she? Like at school, you remember? And at the moment