Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [71]
Were he and Batchuk frenemies? He shrugged mentally. What did it matter? Why was there always a human desire to put a name to everything, to neatly sort, catalogue, pigeonhole even things like relationships that by their very nature were so complex they defied classification? They liked one other, admired one other, even trusted one another, but there would always be friction between them, always a bitterness and, on Dyadya Gourdjiev’s part, a profound disappointment whose origin could not be erased or forgiven. And yet here they were like two old friends who confided secrets to one another they’d never reveal to anyone else. It was their shared secrets, their shame, envy, and dispassion, that bound them tighter than father and son, than brothers. There was bad blood between them, but there was also love—curious, mystifying, impossible in any creature other than a human being.
“There you can’t be faulted,” Batchuk said with a tone that implied that there were other matters for which he still held Dyadya Gourdjiev liable.
Finishing off his coffee, Dyadya Gourdjiev smiled as if with secret knowledge, an expression that infuriated Batchuk and also put him in his place. “Now you must tell me why you’ve come here. I need some facts to offset the armada of innuendo you’ve been launching.”
Setting aside his cup, Batchuk rose and walked to stand in the entryway. He stood for a moment, hands in his pockets, frowning as he stared down at the smear of blood Arsov had left behind.
“Kaolin Arsov is no one to count as an enemy,” he said, as if speaking to the polished tips of his expensive English shoes. “To have the Izmaylovskaya grupperovka aligned against you is to court disaster.”
“This is Trinadtsat-speak.” Dyadya Gourdjiev shook his woolly head. “To think it comes to this. Warnings of this nature would never have been necessary even two years ago.”
“This is a new world, it’s being remade every day,” Batchuk said. “If you don’t have a spade in your hand then get out of the way.”
Dyadya Gourdjiev turned to confront the younger man. “Trinadtsat is your doing, I warned you that it would be your undoing. Crawling into bed with the grupperovka was a grave mistake—”
“It couldn’t be helped,” Batchuk interjected.
“—and now, as you yourself have discovered, it can’t be undone. You’d have to exterminate the Izmaylovskaya, and even Yukin doesn’t have the stomach for that.”
“Circumstances had come to a head, they demanded to be dealt with by the harshest possible measures.”
“And now you have your wish.”
Batchuk sighed and looked back at Dyadya Gourdjiev as he covered the smear of blood with the heel of one shoe. “The truth is I face reality every minute of every day. The truth is the grupperovka—most notably the Izmaylovskaya—have both the power and the access to avenues crucial to the success of Trinadtsat.” He lifted a finger. “And make no mistake, Yukin needs Trinadtsat to succeed. His entire vision for Russia’s future rides on it.”
Dyadya Gourdjiev scrutinized him now because he knew they were coming to the crux of the visit. Oriel Jovovich Batchuk was a long way from the Kremlin; he hadn’t come all this way to simply vent his frustrations, or to seek advice. Not this time, anyway.
Batchuk took a step forward and put his hand on the doorknob. Looking back over his broad shoulder he said, “It’s your daughter.”
“Yes, of course, it always comes back to Annika, doesn’t it? And do you know why? People want to see what’s best for them, not what actually exists. You do nothing but pretend, to yourself as well as to me. You try to reshape events in the past to suit yourself when we both know very well that what happened—the terrible events that must never be mentioned—is immutable, it can’t be changed and, therefore, expunged, no matter how hard or in which ways you try.”
Batchuk’s eyes glittered; no one else on earth would dare speak to him that way. When he was certain Dyadya Gourdjiev was finished, he continued his own thought to prove to the old man how little