In The Shadows

By Ijen Kim

In the Shadows is a collection of topical stories offering different perspectives that transport the reader.

The Impersonator tells the story of an ordinary Russian man who gets a breakthrough posing as Putin. Trans-Atlantic follows a young Russian-American couple after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, The Ice Cream Woman relates the slow awakening of a loyal citizen whose son is arrested in the protests of summer 2019 in Moscow, and Bicycle Summer is set during the exodus of Syrian refugees seeking shelter in Europe. In The Cockroach, a Chinese entomologist and his wife see their attempt to be patriots go horribly wrong. Flight takes a tenser turn, when a North Korean diplomat on his way home to Pyongyang gets stuck in transit and contemplates escape. Illumination examines the unfolding relationship between a French expat manager’s wife and a local man in Armenia. The title story, In the Shadows describes a divided future world, in which a woman and a teenage boy start looking for an exit. Farewell to Ada, written in 2022, brings together wars past and present.

A rich palette of protagonists with all their human frailties explore freedom, personal and political, in this collection of stories offering insight into lives overshadowed by the starker shades of media headlines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Feb 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781805147824

Ijen Kim

Ijen Kim grew up in Wellington, New Zealand, left for Paris to continue her studies, and then moved to Russia, working in Moscow as a journalist and translator. She is now based in Vienna. She is also an artist and poet. Her first novel was published in Russian, and she has two novels published in English – The Snuff Bottle Boy and The Sunset Emperor. She knows several languages, European and Asian, and is a keen political observer, with particular interest in the workings of authoritarian systems. Ijen Kim lives in Austria and In the Shadows is her first collection of short stories.

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Copyright © 2024 Ijen Kim

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Troubador Publishing Ltd

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ISBN 9781805147824

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

For a place: For Moscow

Contents

The Impersonator

Illumination

Flight

Bicycle Summer

Insect Life

The Ice-Cream Woman

Transatlantic

In the Shadows

Farewell to Ada

The Impersonator

Autumn was the new theme. Workers dismantled the back to school decorations, gaudy kiosks selling school supplies, and whimsical settings that looked like a movie set for Alice in Wonderland. Up went new constructions in a rustic style supposed to evoke bumper harvests and autumn plenitude. Painted pumpkins and hay bales. The workers battled squalls of rain, and their faces had nothing of the pumpkins’ jolly roundness.

Vlad’s face was even glummer. He watched the workers in silent envy. They had a job at least, while he was unemployed. Jobs were in short supply – not like the old days, when work had been like apples, there for the picking. The only thing that grew now was the amount of decoration the Moscow city authorities put up in the streets.

They demolished the humbler shops and kiosks, leaving yawning spaces where small-time trade had once gone on, but elsewhere, on the central thoroughfares, they created this endless chain of transformations that shifted with the holidays and seasons.

Vlad had been working as a security guard. There’d not been much to guard at the modest company premises on the city outskirts. The firm was foreign-owned and manufactured specialised packaging. Vlad’s American boss said Russian names were complicated. He never said Vladimir -Vlad’s full name – and Volodya, the more common short form, was just as long. Vlad had been simpler. Just one syllable. Vlad had no objection. He’d liked his boss, a decent fellow and laid-back. But the economy was in crisis, companies were cutting costs and buying cheaper packaging, and the Americans had decided to close up shop and go home.

He didn’t look like much of a security guard. He was a short man, a bit on the stocky side and no longer young. The Americans had valued him not so much for his deterrent presence as for the handyman ability that had made him a useful general maintenance assistant. The problem was that most Russian men of his generation could tinker knowingly with a variety of tools and show proof of technical ingenuity. As for being a security guard, it was one of the most common occupations around. Half the male workforce seemed to be security guards. A lot of them were even more unlikely looking candidates than he was – old and fat, wheezing away, or skinny, frail creatures. He didn’t rate his job chances highly. Competition was fiercer now, and the money the Americans had given him was coming to an end.

He left the autumn-harvest world behind, went through the archway onto Red Square and stood there a while, watching tourists take photos of each other. A man dressed in mediaeval Russian costume and carrying an enormous axe paced about on the cobblestones, trying to get people into the history museum.

On the nearby pedestrian street, Lenin and Stalin sat on a bench together. Impersonators. Stalin was a burly, moustached fellow – from the Caucasus at least, like the real Stalin, to judge from his looks. He was dressed in the military-style clothing the dictator had affected and had an army greatcoat thrown over his shoulders to shield himself from the wind. Lenin was the hardier sort, lightly dressed in an old-fashioned suit. He fingered his small beard and screwed up his eyes at the passers-by in shrewd, scanning look. Every so often, people approached to take photos with the dictators and slipped them some money for the privilege.

Vlad watched them. The clock on the Kremlin tower began to chime the hour, and he shifted his attention that way. The chimes recalled his first visit to Moscow when he was a boy. Brezhnev had been in power then, an old man with bushy brows and a chest full of medals. Vlad had clutched his grandfather’s hand and felt his cheeks turn numb with cold as they’d shuffled along in the snaking queue to file through the Lenin Mausoleum and gaze for a moment at the embalmed body within. He’d been a provincial kid in awe of the capital’s splendours, not guessing that he would grow to almost hate this indifferent monster of a city, the Lenin Mausoleum would be queueless and closed, and the GUM department store behind him would overflow with fancy foreign brands that outshone even the most-sought-after Czech- and Polish-made treasures from those Soviet days.

He let slip a nostalgic sigh. These days, the TV was full of shows set in the Soviet era, but the TV Soviet Union was a polished version with the rough edges smoothed away. It was more like that autumn-harvest world the workers were putting up – stage decoration or theme park décor, not the real thing.

He wasn’t nostalgic in the rosy-coloured-glasses sense. He heard the Kremlin chimes, recalled a boyhood journey of novelty and discovery, felt muffled sorrow over how fast it had all passed. His grandfather was long since buried, the years had rushed on by, and he himself was now fifty, with time ahead fading and the sense of promise swept away.

Standing still like that, the cold crept in, and the plastic cup of tea he’d drunk earlier at a cheap fast-food joint did its work and triggered his bladder into sending full signals. The department store had toilets. His feet recalled their location more than his actual memory did. He hadn’t used them for a good while, never came to this lavish palace of consumption now, but he remembered them being just on the left and down the stairs – and free of charge.

The sign was still there, only it now read Historical Toilet. He smiled to himself. Any toilet would do, historical or not. He admired the spotlessly clean carpet covering the stairs and the old-style wooden panelling on the walls. He didn’t remember it looking so posh and polished. A uniformed man at a counter collected the fee – fifty roubles. He did a double take. No, not even for the most history-steeped toilet in the world would he pay that much money. He went meekly back up the stairs and followed a series of humbler toilet signs up and up to the top floor, where he found the kind of free facilities he remembered.

It was one of life’s small but vital pleasures – that sense of relief after emptying a bursting bladder. He exited the toilet and stood for a moment in drifting contemplation at the railing, looking down over the rows and galleries below. The building’s glass ceiling created an airy lightness that added to the ornate and lavish feel. He watched the shoppers and let the warmth seep through him.

Someone coughed behind him and pulled him back to his immediate surroundings. Three faces stared at him with mingled hesitation and awe. A man of around sixty, a younger woman and a boy of about ten. The boy’s face beamed with the sort of thrill Vlad guessed he’d have felt as a kid if he’d suddenly come across one of his favourite ice hockey or football stars.

The woman seemed the most confident of the three. Excuse me… Vla… Vladimir Vladimirovich? she asked in a respectful, slightly apologetic voice.

Yes. Vlad spoke without thinking, wondering who the woman could be and where he might have met her before.

Oooh… Mr President… She breathed out slowly, looking like she wanted to curtsy before him.

Mr President? He stared at the captivated faces.

The woman spoke again. They were from the provinces and had brought the boy to Moscow to take him to a cardiologist at one of the city’s best hospitals. The boy had a complicated problem that the doctors in his hometown couldn’t fix. They’d seen him standing there and had argued among themselves for a moment. The woman’s father said the president wouldn’t go about so inconspicuous and humble. Her son, who was a fan of Putin and watched him on the news, said that of course he’d sneak off alone and inconspicuous, to check out for himself what was going on.

Please forgive us for disturbing you, the woman finished in a faltering voice. We’d treasure it if you’d let us take a photo of you with our boy.

Vlad was about to refuse and explain that, although he and his father both bore the common name Vladimir, like the president, he was an ordinary guy, and from the provinces too – nothing more than an unemployed former security guard. The boy’s glowing face stopped him. He hadn’t the heart to snatch the holiday thrill from the child’s eyes. Of course, he said softly, darting quick glances around.

He asked the boy a few questions: his name, his age, whether he liked school and what he wanted to do when he grew up. The boy was rapt. He would have liked to be a fighter pilot, but his poor health wouldn’t allow him, and now he wanted to become a heart surgeon like the doctors here, who would hopefully operate on him soon.

Mr President, it was me who saw you first, the boy said. Mum and Grandad said it couldn’t be you because you were dressed so ordinary, but I knew it was you. I told them the president goes out on his own, in secret, to make sure all those officials are telling the truth about everything.

That’s right. Vlad nodded gravely. But we’ll keep it our secret, won’t we?

Of course! I promise, Mr President.

The kid looked earnest and solemn, like Vlad remembered himself the day he joined the Young Pioneers organisation all those decades earlier, receiving his red scarf and little badge and raising his hand in an eager childish salute.

He posed for a couple of photos, wished them well and hurried off. He didn’t want them to see the colour rising to his cheeks. He blinked away a rim of moisture from his eyes. The boy was touching. If he really were the president, he’d be able to do something for the child, perhaps get him quickly into the best hospital and have the heart doctors treat him. All he could do, though, was lead the boy along in his illusion, to keep the happy flame burning in his eyes.

He paused before a shop window that sent him his own reflection. People had always said he looked like Putin. His American bosses at the packaging firm had noticed the likeness immediately, and it had made them laugh. His wife used to jibe him for it, saying how much she wished he really were like Putin instead of being such a loser.

He sighed at the thought of his wife. She was a dispatcher at the local district maintenance office back home and spent her days sending out plumbers and electricians to unblock residents’ toilets, get their lights back on and so on. He’d waited until their daughter was married, employed and able to look after herself, and then he’d left for Moscow, alone, thinking to change his fortunes for the better in the capital’s gold-paved streets. He seldom missed his wife with her vinegar tongue, but his throat tightened when he thought of how humble his fortunes remained. He was still renting the same room just outside the city limits and still counting every kopeck, but now he hadn’t even his modest but stable wage to count on any more.

He went back out the revolving door into the chilly street. Lenin sat on his bench and Stalin stomped about nearby, beckoning the passing faces. A couple of girls stopped to have a photo taken with him. Lenin watched them, ignored. Another bearded fellow appeared just then and took a seat beside Lenin. Tsar Nicholas II. The two started chatting amicably.

And Vlad had been doing the same just before – posing with the bright-eyed boy against the luxury background. That was it, a way of making money! He’d be Putin and join the collection of leaders offering themselves as photo opportunities.

Purposeful now, he hardly noticed the long metro ride back to the city outskirts, where uniform concrete blocks squatted amid straggly patches of forest and industrial plants belching steam plumes across the faded sky. He hardly noticed Marivanna’s pickled face thrust his way when he entered the apartment. She was called Maria Ivanovna, but when said fast, it came out as Marivanna. She used to work at a market, selling fancy lingerie brought back from trips to Turkey. Now, she was too old for that business. In any case, they’d shut down the market where she’d had her stall as a relic of uncivilised trade. Her husband was dead and her daughter was far away, and she lived on her pension and the money she made renting out rooms to people like Vlad.

She had the common female habit of speaking in diminutive forms. Everything she mentioned was a little this and a wee that. Now, she wanted a wee bit of money from Vlad, because she was certain it was him who’d blocked up the sink and caused her to have to pay the plumber.

He ignored her. He went to his room and started working on his transformation. It was one thing to have a general resemblance to Putin. Putin was a common type, and you could glean a resemblance to him in any number of shortish, fair-complexioned Russian males. It was quite another thing to not just look like Putin but also to move like him, talk like him, and reproduce his personal gestures and expressions.

Vlad had a lot of discipline when he wanted to. He’d been a good soldier during his stint in the army – steadfast and uncomplaining. He’d served in Turkmenistan’s scorching, waterless hinterlands, which wasn’t the best place to spend a couple of years, but better than Afghanistan, from where young men had returned in zinc coffins. He summoned up that army spirit now and spent several days shut away, emerging only to grab some food and use the bathroom. Marivanna even came to enquire, with a measure of trepidation, if he’d fallen ill.

He wasn’t ill. He watched interviews with Putin over and over, and news reports, picking the president apart in every possible way. He spent hours before the mirror – sitting, walking and talking – and made Marivanna suspect that his illness might be of the mental kind.

Finally, he was ready. He had one good suit, the one he owned for job interviews and special occasions. He put it on now, combed his hair and lingered before the mirror one last time. Marivanna was in the kitchen with Lena, the girl who rented the other room. She was nineteen and had come to Moscow, like him, in search of opportunity. She worked in the produce department of a central city supermarket that catered to the wealthier segment. At first, she’d had trouble identifying fruits and vegetables she’d never seen before, but she’d learned fast and now knew her rocket from her mescal, and was unfazed by guavas, endives, artichokes and other exotic goods.

The two women looked up with startled faces when Vlad entered.

Marivanna, it’s Putin! Lena exclaimed.

Vlad? Marivanna said, half in wonder and half in doubt.

Yes, it’s me, your lodger, Vlad used Putin’s tone, the intonations he’d been practising for the last few days.

Lena’s boyfriend came in then. Marivanna wasn’t a prude and tolerated their nights together. Lena’s boyfriend was from the provinces too and worked at the same supermarket. He’d only ever seen Vlad a couple of times in passing, and they’d scarcely exchanged a word. His eyes widened now when he entered the kitchen. His lips twitched, but no sound came out, and he sank down onto a chair.

Is this for real? he said finally, giving his head a shake, as if to chase away hallucinations.

Perfectly real, Vlad confirmed.

Have some soup. Marivanna started bustling at the stove.

Lena too grabbed provisions from the fridge and put them before him. His own supplies had dwindled to macaroni, potatoes and the remains of bread gone stale, so he was only too happy to accept these sudden offerings. Marivanna was stingy usually, and Lena only seemed to stock up on food if she knew her boyfriend was coming.

He kept up the act, ate, glanced at his watch, smiling to himself at their transformed attitude towards him.

Vlad…uh, Vladimir Vladimirovich… Marivanna corrected herself. What are you going to do now?

Vlad didn’t want to tell them that he was going to join Lenin, Stalin and whichever tsars turned up on the edge of Red Square to pose with tourists. I can’t tell you. It’s confidential.

I heard that Putin has a double, Lena’s boyfriend ventured. The double stands in for him when he goes off to get his Botox done, wants to go skiing, sees his lover, gets sick or just doesn’t want to see a particular person. We think we’re seeing Putin on TV, but we’re actually seeing his double.

Vlad gave a knowing smile, but made no reply. He remembered reading in some newspaper once that Stalin had employed doubles, and so had Saddam Hussein. He hoped they might think he’d been engaged to stand in for the president at the duller meetings and events. It was better than dressing up to hang around in the street, trying to drum up business.

*

He hadn’t eaten such a hearty breakfast in a long while, and he was in an optimistic mood as he headed for the bus stop. Most people hurried by as usual, caught up in their own routine rush, but some noticed him, stopped and stared. A whiff of cigarette smoke tickled his nostrils, and he entered a small shop, thinking to buy a pack of cigarettes. He’d never smoked much, but he did enjoy a cigarette from time to time, especially with a bottle of beer or glass of vodka. The woman at the counter threw a surly look his way, but then she repeated Marivanna’s startled glance in the kitchen, erased all traces of her bad mood and sent him a welcoming grin.

He was about to open his mouth, but he remembered then that Putin didn’t smoke, seldom drank and generally promoted a healthy lifestyle. He made a show of examining the prices of items on display, chose a pack of chewy mints and went to the counter to pay. The woman gaped at him the whole time and took his money in a daze. She didn’t say anything, just stared at him fixedly as he left the shop.

He was happy with the reaction. It suggested his look was convincing.

The bus was slow in coming, and he climbed aboard a minivan running the route to the metro station, squeezing himself in between a rotund woman, who was transporting her chihuahua, and a man setting off on a journey and surrounded by luggage. Everyone fell silent when he entered, even the voluble youths at the back. The driver switched the radio station playing prison ballads to another station playing a tune from an old Soviet movie. They rode polite and quiet all the way to the metro station. Vlad noticed the youths at the back snapping photos of him surreptitiously on their phones, and the woman at his side seemed terrified at the thought that her chihuahua would start yapping.

Putin liked dogs, preferably the bigger kind, but he was reputed to be an animal lover in general. Vlad gave the chihuahua a friendly look and put out a hand to give the creature a pat. The chihuahua rolled its big, round eyes at him and tried to lick his fingers.

There’s a good boy, there’s a good boy, the woman intoned to herself as if in prayer.

When they arrived at the metro, he joined the flow of people and tried to make himself just Vlad again, dissolving into the crowd. People had their heads down, engrossed in their phones. His phone had been stolen in the metro a few weeks earlier, and he had only his old one now, a dumbphone, which gave him nothing to look at. He studied his shoes and those of the people around him. The metro train rumbled along, and everything seemed the same as usual, like in the days when he’d ridden the train to the packaging firm on the other side of the city.

He only vaguely noticed the elderly man opposite him. The man got off at the same station. Vlad paid no attention until he was on the escalator and a hesitant voice behind him said, Mr President?

He turned and saw the elderly man looking up at him. Before he could say anything, the man launched into a rapid rundown of his grievances. He was a World