Excerpt from The Senility of Vladimir P. by Michael Honig, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Not any more, Vladimir Vladimirovich. Someone else is president now."

Vladimir's eyes narrowed. In the early years, hearing that might have driven him into a rage. But the rages were less frequent now, and when they did occur, didn't last long. Nothing that Vladimir was told stuck for more than a minute or two in his mind. If he was agitated, it was probably because he was thinking about something that had happened twenty or thirty years ago.

"Is someone coming?" asked Vladimir eventually. "Is that what you said?"

"Yes. The new president, Constantin Mikhailovich Lebedev."

Vladimir snorted. "Lebedev's the minister of finance!"

Sheremetev had no idea if Lebedev had ever been minister of finance, but he certainly wasn't now. "He's the new president, Vladimir Vladimirovich. He wants to get your blessing. That's good, isn't it? It shows how much he respects you."

"My blessing?" Vladimir frowned. "Am I a priest?"

"No."

"Then why does he want my blessing?"

"It's a figure of speech, Vladimir Vladimirovich. In this case, you're as good as a priest."

Vladimir watched Sheremetev suspiciously. "Where are we?"

"At the dacha."

"Which dacha?"

"Novo-Ogaryovo."

"Novo-Ogaryovo? Why am I meeting Lebedev here? Why not at my office?"

"Today you're meeting him here."

"I'm going to fire that bastard. Have we got cameras?"

"I think there'll be cameras there."

"Good. We'll see how he likes that!" Vladimir chuckled. He remembered getting rid of Admiral Alexei Gorky, the commander of the Northern Fleet, in front of the television cameras at Severomorsk. That had gone down a treat.

Suddenly Gorky was right there in front of him. The look on the admiral's face! The old peacock in his big peaked cap saw all the cameras pointing at him and thought Vladimir had come to pin another medal on his overdecorated chest, and now, before he knew it, he was getting the sack. "Didn't see that one coming, did you, Alexei Maximovich? Who's the boss, huh? Teach you to speak out about not having enough money for the fleet!" Vladimir laughed, banging the armrests with his fists.

Sheremetev had left him to go into Vladimir's dressing room. For the new president's visit, he was determined to make sure that his patient looked like a president as well. He took his time in front of the heavily stocked hanging rails and shelves, considering various options, until finally he settled on a dark blue suit, light blue shirt, a red tie with white dots, and a pair of black leather shoes. From Vladimir's impressive collection of watches, he chose what he considered to be a simple but elegant timepiece with a thin gold case, white face, gold hands, and a leather band.

He brought everything back to the bedroom and laid out the clothes on the bed. "Come on, Vladimir Vladimirovich. Time for your shower. We have to get you spruced up."

Vladimir gazed at him doubtfully. "Why?"

"Constantin Mikhailovich is coming to see you."

"Lebedev? Is that who you mean? He should go to a priest."

"Why?" said Sheremetev.

Vladimir frowned. He had a feeling that Lebedev need a priest, but he had no idea why. "His mother's dying," he proposed.





The cameras had been set up in a formal reception room on the ground floor of the dacha, which hadn't been opened for years but had been aired and cleaned that morning for the purpose. Two armchairs had been placed at forty-five degrees to each other on either side of an ornate fireplace, under a pair of studio lights. In the kitchen of the dacha, Viktor Stepanin, the chef, and his brigade had been working since dawn to produce a buffet of canapés and snacks that was now laid out on tables along one side of the room. Near the end of the tables stood a big man in a dark grey suit with an exuberant head of grey hair accompanied by two serious looking presidential aides. Other aides, television technicians, and security men milled around behind the cameras.

This selection is excerpted with permission from Michael Honig's The Senility of Vladimir P. Reprinted by arrangement with Pegasus Books. All rights reserved