The Senility of Vladimir P by Michael Honig Page A

the cameras. As soon as he walked in the room, you could see him stand taller.’
    Kalin glanced at Andreevsky and chuckled. ‘Vanity. It’s like I always tell my students: the deepest part of a person’s character is the one that goes last.’
    They went down the stairs. The security guard in the entrance hall stepped forward from his post and opened the door for the two professors. Outside, their car was waiting.
    â€˜Do you still take him on his walk each day?’ Kalin asked Sheremetev.
    â€˜Yes. Every morning. If not, in the afternoon. No matter how bad the weather, we try to go. Occasionally he resists, but not usually. He enjoys it.’
    â€˜How long does he walk for?’
    Sheremetev shrugged. ‘Half an hour. Longer if he wants. If he’s had a disturbed night, if he’s tired, it might be less. I have to watch that. We have problems if he gets too tired.’
    â€˜And away from the dacha? Do you ever go out anywhere else?’
    â€˜Not for a long time.’
    â€˜Maybe you should take him out, Nikolai Ilyich.’
    â€˜Do you think I should?’
    â€˜Why not?’ said Kalin. ‘Have an outing. Somewhere different.’
    Andreevsky nodded. ‘It’ll be good for him.’
    The two professors headed for the door. ‘Shame his heart’s so strong,’ Sheremetev heard Andreevsky saying. ‘He could go on for years.’
    The visit of the doctors left Sheremetev feeling dejected. Andre­evsky was right – it was a shame that Vladimir’s heart was so strong. Better to keel over with a heart attack and be gone than to linger in this twilight for so long, neglected, abandoned by family and friends, cared for only by strangers who were paid to do the job.
    Over the years, Sheremetev had seen the visitors to the dacha slow from a flood to a stream to a trickle that by now had dried up almost entirely. The horde of parasites which had hummed around Vladimir when Sheremetev first arrived had flown off the moment they realised the ex-president no longer exercised any influence with his successor. At the start they had been everywhere – a year later not even their echoes were heard. Official visits from Russian politicians and foreign dignitaries who felt obliged to pay their respects lasted longer, but came to an end when Vladimir’s condition had become so obvious that the visits were an embarrassment to the government and word was discreetly put out that the former president had retired from all public duties to enjoy his richly deserved retirement. As for his private visitors, the old cronies who might have felt some loyalty to Vladimir, if not affection, were mostly themselves either ill or dead, and those who weren’t too frail to visit found little pleasure in coming to see a man who no longer recognised them. After a while, even a lingering sense of duty wasn’t sufficient to bring them out to the dacha. That left only Vladimir’s family. His first wife was dead, but the second one, the one Vladimir had married in secret, was very much alive, thirty years his junior and constantly linked with one billionaire or another. She had left him in reality, if not officially, even before he stepped down from the presidency. In earlier years, his children and grandchildren had come from abroad to visit at Christmas or Easter, but nowadays an excuse invariably arrived in their place. Thankfully, thought Sheremetev, Vladimir had no awareness of the feast days and didn’t know the extent to which he was neglected.
    As for Sheremetev himself, he didn’t think that he was a stranger for Vladimir. He wasn’t a friend, he wasn’t family, but he felt sure that he was something more to the ex-president than a faceless nurse. He was certain that Vladimir knew him and was at ease with him, even if he couldn’t remember his name. He was the only one who could calm him before his agitation became too great. And when