The Importance of being Boris

The apartment kitchen was refrigerated. It was the middle of winter. In the absence of any sensible heating, naturally, it got a bit chilly, which explained the icicles inside the window. The country was in the strangling grip of a sub zero winter and I longed to be back in the milder misery of a rainy-grey London instead of this time-locked ‘city’ in the groin of Eastern Europe. I was miserable and sickly, living on the fourth floor of a crumbling concrete carbuncle that passed for an apartment. The heating was knackered, the water a mere trickle and it was depressing. I couldn’t stop thinking about Irina, the Barbie smile and her scent of freshly scrubbed melons, wait, that doesn’t sound right. Anyway, she hadn’t called over for almost a week, the last garbled message being something about Boris. I wasn’t sure if she was referring to my cat or whether there was another alpha male on the scene, not that I’d blame her. I was getting worried about her though, she promised to help me after all.
My ice-kitchen smelled of watery coffee, cat and laundry-basket scented sausage. My thoughts switched to food, I was starving. The gnarled chopping board in front of me probably had more nutrients wedged into the cracks than the sausage I was slicing on it, and the knife was cutting like a dog; I think the handle was sharper. Naturally one needed to eat and booter-brod, being the staple of the working classes around here, along with cigarettes and vodka, was all I could afford. What more could one want in life anyway, except for perhaps a better sausage?
Boris the cat eyed me suspiciously from the corner of the table and, in between an almost fixed-stare, surreptitiously licked his lips at the ceremonial sausage slicing. Do cats have lips? I’m never sure. I ask a lot of useless questions sometimes.
‘The days of fresh fish are over my friend’, I explained to Boris as I threw him a meaty slice. ‘Eat it slowly; there may not be any tomorrow.’ He understands every word, the scoundrel. All cats do. They don’t always acknowledge you of course due to their superiority complex. It’s like a genetic attitude instilled in all cats. They were once worshipped as gods by the Ancient Egyptians and they’ve never forgotten this, worse still, Bastet was the cat goddess and, as we men know, cats and women are nothing but trouble. Still, God or not, he was going to have to eat sausage like the rest of us poor mortals.

I was briefly contemplating a cat stew, complete with herby dumplings and soured cream when my thoughts were sharply interrupted by the door buzzer. ‘Who on earth can this be at six in the bloody morning?’ I growled, placing the knife carefully on the kitchen table and brushing the cat onto the floor. Sneaking, Boris-like, towards the front door I peered into the spy hole. You can never guess who might turn up at your door, especially when you owed people money. I breathed out with relief and excitement, it was Irina. What was she doing calling at this time in the morning? After quickly straightening my hair and checking how presentable I was, or not, in the hall mirror I clicked open the safe-like door and marvelled at how glamorous Irina looked in the feint yellow light of the hallway. Last time I saw her she looked like a cross between a frumpy school mistress and a cheap hooker, hard to imagine I know. This morning she looked like the Snow Queen from Narnia, only more agreeable. Irina beamed at me and the frost suddenly melted. She leapt on me like a white fluffy limpet mine, in an explosion of white fur and fluff. The seals were not so much harmed during the manufacture of her long fur coat, hat and matching hand warmer, as brutally murdered, but they scrubbed up beautifully.
‘William; my solnushka!’ she shrieked. This is the Russian equivalent of ‘sunshine’, ‘sweet cheeks’, ‘snuggle-bum’s or something equally as hideous. I responded, calling her ‘Galabushka’, which means ‘Little Pigeon’, well, she started it.
‘Irinka, how lovely to see you,’ I said with genuine affection. I did miss her. She works a lot, unlike me since my business collapsed, and she’s the one person that has helped me through it all. I still can’t help wondering where she’s been this last week. Irina squeezes me like a big white bear, though I know that underneath all the fluffy white mass of fur is a mere size eight. She pinches my cheeks.
‘I miss you, now maybe tea, yes?’ She said, kissing me on the forehead, carefully avoiding my snotty and flu-sweated face. In the kitchen she immediately threw open the fridge door and tutted, several times. ‘Why you don’t eat garlic?’ she demanded, stamping her foot.
‘Because it makes my breath smell, and I have few friends as it is.’ I replied, trying to be witty. She understood about seventy per cent of this. I knew this of course, and would often use the other thirty per cent on other occasions to throw her completely, if I thought it necessary. She looked pained.
‘But it good for you; make healthy, strong.’ It was sentences like this that warmed me to her and kept me amused for hours. I loved her really, in a funny sort of way. She was rummaging around in her fake Gucci bag, a little known design entitled ‘Crocodile with Eczema’; God knows how old it was, older than she perhaps.
Then I spotted it. Oh God, not raspberry syrup again! She’d also spotted that I’d spotted it and gave me one of her smugly nurse-teacher-type smiles. That’s the thing with teachers, they are never off duty, always ready to educate or lecture you whether you want it or not. She whipped the bottle out and banged it on the table for effect.
‘Ah, my mama sends for cold.’ She made a sniffing sound to ensure I understood. ‘You drink in tea and eat all, it good for you.’ I had a bad case of man-type flu (type A1, I believe, the very worse case) ‘mama’, however, had raspberry syrup. Why will women never understand the pain and suffering us men go through with flu? It often intrigued me as to how far the ‘mamas’ of this culture would go before offering or even considering real medicine whilst one is withering away. In some of these parts old babushka cures and herbal remedies are relied on as heavily as the well water in which to mix them up with.
‘How is this going to cure my cold exactly?’ I asked examining what was clearly a former smallish vodka bottle, curious as to whether there was any logic that came with it. Imagining what Irina understood of this question went something like this; ‘How this going, something cold, something?’ I could see her thinking about it. It wasn’t her fault of course, typically, as a British person; one naturally expects all foreigners to understand English. Here, however, it’s about one half of a percent of the population, and even less in this village. Her eyes expanded and flickered as she pointed a finger in the air. It was a ‘light bulb’ moment.
‘Ah, it healthy, make you strong.’ She explained, shaking her fist in the air. I was a little disappointed at what appeared to be the stock answer to anything that was obviously beyond her comprehension or which was merely information passed down through endless inbred generations. It was a strange city. Still, I was stuck with it, for now. Irina, on the other hand, looked like she was going to explode with happiness.
‘I am good news have’ she bubbled, jumping up and down. She was single-handedly destroying my beloved language and there was nothing I could do about it. Still, good news was indeed welcome, if it was indeed any good.
‘What is it? Have we shifted continents overnight? Or is this all a bad dream and you have come to wake me from it?’ I enquired, speaking as though to a mere child with a big grin on my face. This probably sounded acerbic but as she understood little of it, it was quite acceptable in my book. It was like talking and venting at the same time without any emotional damage to the recipient.
She pinched my cheeks again like they were giant zits. Ouch!
‘Silly, no dream, it real, I have money, many money!’ She leapt on me again and squeezed my neck like a boa constrictor. What on earth is this about? I wonder.
One tends to get rather suspicious after living so long in these parts. Money is often only obtained by foul means or charity, which on occasion is also gained by foul means. I raised an eyebrow. ‘Exactly how and where did you get the money from?’
She released her grip and fished out a catalogue from her bag, showing me the page; it was bilingual, which was useful. She pointed to a rather cute, rectangular gold brooch with a jewelled cat on it, ‘Boris’, she explained. The description read:
‘A brooch in the ‘Old Russian’ taste by Carl Fabergé of rectangular form, yellow gold repousséd and chased with a stylised cat figure and floral motifs in the 'Old Russian' taste, centred by an oval cabochon blue sapphire, Moscow, 1896-1908, inventory number 327178, fifty six zolotniks’ (that’s about fourteen carats to you and me). It didn’t sound a lot of carats and it wasn’t very big but I knew before she told me what it should be worth and I wasn’t disappointed.
It had just fetched $15, 000 at auction. Trust me, that’s a lot of many money around these parts. Even more importantly, it would be plenty enough to help get me home if I could persuade her to part with some of it, or at least enough for the air fare. In mutilated English I discover that the brooch was given to her by her grandmother… she didn’t understand its true value until she went on the internet one day. She’d been looking for ways to raise money for herself as well as to help me. What an angel.
‘Irina, it’s fantastic!’ I was genuinely pleased for her, teachers are not that well paid around here, but I couldn’t help but think about my own plight. ‘What will you do with the money? How will you spend it?’ I am hoping she understands most of this without the ulterior motive.
‘It for us, you, me, husband, wife, family,’ she gushed. Ah, now this I understood. I wanted to go home, she wanted to marry. I didn’t see that one coming.

We spent the rest of the morning trying to discuss the best course of action and each others wants or needs. I needed to go home. She wanted me to stay. I needed work. She wanted a husband. I had no money. She did. Checkmate. There were tears in her eyes as I begged her to let me have the flight money, with the promise that I would return in better circumstances. I couldn’t help feeling the need to be cruel; after all, I had nothing to offer her. I offered her Boris, like a deposit, with the promise that I would come back for both of them. She seemed ok with this. I didn’t check with Boris tough but I sensed it would be ok. He would be living in relative luxury at Irina’s apartment, well fed and loved. It was as if cat worship had saved us both and, if there was a cat god or goddess they were surely worthy of a prayer.

Two days later a taxi was waiting outside the apartment block ready to take me to the airport. Boris had ignored me all morning. I guess he knew something was going on. Irina helped me to pack and now we were embracing in the doorway before I left. It was like being wounded in the heart with a rusty knife. She cried. I held back.
‘Telephone, yes?’
‘Of course I will, every day.’ I wasn’t sure if I could manage it but I would at least try. She deserved this much at least, in fact she deserved much more than I could give her.
On the way to the airport I pondered the position. What was I going back for? What was at home that wasn’t here? How much does someone have to love me before I give in? Why is Boris the one that’s going to be cosy, well fed and loved and not me? Why can’t I be Boris for a while? What the hell was I doing?
Twenty minutes later I made my way along the staircase and banged on the large safe-like door. The door flew open and Irina leapt on me.
‘I can’t do it, I can’t leave you’. There was a real tear in my eye as I tried to explain. It doesn’t happen often but some things require no translation at all…