Café Boris and the Health and Safety Notice

The Luhansk Ekspres was open on his usual table when Dmitri entered the café, with a bottle of vodka and a glass sitting beside the paper. ‘Boris clearly enjoyed today’s obituary’ Dmitri thought .

 

He picked up the Ekspres to remind himself what he’d written: ‘Vladimir Putin, age unknown (but old). Killed by Kitty, the Café Boris tiger, whilst illegally entering the café in an audacious attempt to seize the business for himself and his greedy cronies.’

 

Kitty smiled at Dmitri from her ‘cat basket’ at the rear of the café. All teeth.

 

For a café with a live, unchained tiger roaming loose in it, Café Boris was busy. A few tourists and businessmen had returned to Luhansk, bored with delaying their holidays or trade just because war seemed imminent.  

 

The tiger had, if anything, increased trade, with tourists flocking to eat in a café with a real live tiger in it. The story of how Boris had captured and tamed the tiger had ‘trended’ online, and was now a bigger story than the threat of war in the Crimea.

 

In Luhansk, Kitty was already a legend. Seemingly every child in the city had been photographed going for a tiger-ride on Kitty’s back. And every adult had a different tale about Kitty’s heroics: Stories of a UN diplomat taking refuse in the café when the Russian army tried to arrest him, only for the entire army to be chased away by Kitty.  Or of a Ukrainian priest about to be seized by Russian soldiers on some weak pretext, only to be rescued by the sudden arrival of Kitty. All the stories were, it has to be said, of a similar thread and theme, not a million miles away from the plot of a Lassie movie, except, in real life, Kitty was more of a threat than Lassie could ever be.

 

As Dmitri was reading the paper, and enjoying the complimentary vodka, Viktor  arrived, seeking recruits for his Tiger Party. Although Kitty had been captured and tamed by Boris, there were said to be other tigers released by enemy forces and the city was still technically under curfew. As head of police, Viktor organised a Citizens Tiger Force to catch the remaining tigers.  A few of the regulars had become members of the Force and had been waiting for Viktor to arrive.

 

“Are you not joining us Dmitri?” Viktor asked his friend. “Will you not help to free Luhansk’s streets from dangerous predators?”

 

“You know my views, Viktor. A Tiger Force! There were only a handful of tigers, if there ever were more than one, and they have already been caught. Why, the Ekspres had reported the capture of at least a hundred tigers.”

 

“So it must have been more than one then,” Viktor smiled, “if we have already caught a hundred. What a success.”

 

“So where are they all now, if you’ve caught them?”

 

“I don’t know, that is not my concern. What do governments do with spare tigers? Put them in zoos, sell them to private collectors, perhaps even set them free in Russian cities to get our revenge.”

 

“It is no Tiger Force,” Boris boomed, “you take men, you train them with guns, you are raising a militia, a private army for the Luhansk government.”

 

“Militia!” Viktor sounded hurt. “We are simply training the people of Luhansk to protect themselves against tigers. This is not a military exercise, I am a policeman, not a military leader.”

 

“Tiger Force,” Boris bellowed contemptuously as Viktor and his recruits departed, “Tigers are our allies, not our enemy.” From her cat basket, Kitty snarled in agreement with her master.

 

It was all go in the café. No sooner had Viktor and his posse left, than the Mayor arrived, also surrounded by a posse, his usual bodyguard of heavy-set men in ill-fitting suits.

 

“Mr Mayor,” Boris greeted him, “allow me to introduce you to Kitty. My old cat died, you know, it was most tragic.”

 

The mayor eyed the eleven foot long, sleek, Asian killing machine, with the sort of caution he usually reserved for political opponents. And political allies.

 

“You cannot keep a tiger in a café,” the Mayor said. “It is a health and safety concern. Look, you don’t even keep it on a chain. Imagine the damage that thing could do. I have a Memorandum from the Luhansk Council ordering that the tiger be taken into care, under Public Protection legislation.”

 

One of the besuited men dangled a chain, nervously, clearly aware that slipping the tiger into the chain would not be easy.

 

Without looking at the paper, Boris ripped it in half and then into quarters, then into eights and then into pieces too small to count.

 

“In these hard times, Mr Mayor, the cafés of Luhansk need tigers to guarantee the security of their customers. There are no health and safety issues, Kitty hurts no-one. Why are you really concerned, are Moscow leaning on you for the return of their tiger?”

 

“All I care about is the safety of the people of Luhansk. My constituents are in danger here. If you refuse to comply I will have to bring an Emergency Measure before the council and have this café closed.”

 

“You haven’t seen the news, have you Mr Mayor.”

 

“The news? I have seen nothing but news for the past six months. News is all there is now.”

 

Boris shook his head, as if correcting a foolish child.

 

“Not that news. Kitty’s famous. Olyana, bring the Korespondent.”

 

Olyana rushed out from the kitchens, greeting the Mayor with a kindly smile. “Fetch the paper, he says. As if I don’t have enough to do. It was bad enough feeding the busiest café in Luhansk, now I have to look after a tiger, a fully-grown Bengali tiger. Have you any idea how much they eat every day? And now he wants me to fetch the paper.”

 

Despite her complaints, she began searching through the pile of papers on the counter.

 

“You get the Korespondent this early?” the Mayor said, clearly impressed in spite of himself. “I have to wait ‘til the next day to have mine delivered. And for this I pay, thousands of Hryvnas my newspaper bill comes to.”

 

“I know people,” Boris said.

 

“Who? Are they cheap?”

 

“Well, they didn’t charge me anything. Go and speak to them, that couple over there. They read the article just as they were leaving Kiev and decided to make a detour, to see Kitty in the flesh.”

 

The couple, tourists from Gdansk, waved at the Mayor, who stared at Boris, aghast.

 

“They came all the way from Kiev to see your tiger?”  He snatched the paper from Olyana as she handed it to him.

Kitty had made the front page. ‘Tiger kills Putin’,” the headline said.  The article went on to explain the history of the made up obituaries Boris used as a means of advertising his café. “Although the obituary is (unfortunately) fictional,” the article said, “the tiger is real. Boris (surname unkown) captured the tiger when Russians released it into the town to terrify residents.  The tiger is now tame, on the side of an independent Ukraine, and a major tourist attraction.”

 

“Imagine how your Memorandum would look,” Boris said. “‘Luhansk mayor carries out Putin’s revenge’. If you lay so much as one finger on Kitty it would be seen as an act of utmost treachery, no doubt you would be arrested and tried for treason. Maybe I should just set Kitty on you, it would be kinder. Quicker.  Less bureaucratic.”

 

As Boris and the Mayor were talking, a man entered the café. A stranger, thick set, wearing a black leather jacket and short hair. Dmitri, who notices these things, spotted a tiny indication of Boris’ left hand from behind his back as the man entered. At the same time, his right hand picked up a spoon from the table.

 

Kitty, rising from his basked, as if summoned, strolled leisurely over to greet the new arrival.

 

The stranger beamed. “You must be Kitty,” he said, in English. “I read about you in the paper.” To Boris he added, “Can I stroke him? Is it really safe?”

 

With a friendly gesture, during which he replaced the spoon on the table, he greeted the man and beckoned him towards the tiger. Dmitri, noticed another tiny indication from Boris’ hand, at which the tiger sat and lowered its head into a stroke-me position.

 

Under Boris’ guidance the stranger patted Kitty on the head, before taking a seat at a nearby table.

 

“Speaking as a friend, I warn you not to eat the food,” Boris said to him, “all our best meat goes to the tiger. You’d be better eating elsewhere, or having just vegetables.”

 

The man laugh, assuming this was just humorous banter.

 

“You see,” Boris continued to the Mayor, “Kitty is world famous now. Even the English come here, to this grotty café, to meet the hero who killed Vladimir Putin. How can you, a mere Mayor, stop a tiger of such renown?”

 

“I can see this matter is not going to be resolved today.” With a gesture, not dissimilar to the one Boris used to control Kitty, the Mayor signalled to his men, and the five of them departed the café, sans tiger.