by T. M. Parris
It wasn’t the response Rose had been expecting. Denial, anger, bitterness, those were the kinds of things she was ready to deal with. Personal confidences? Later maybe, when they’d had a chance to build some trust. But here was the difficulty: how to reach out enough that Kamila would reach back, but without giving anything away? Build a bridge without making yourself vulnerable? Kamila, in her soft, emotional way, was challenging her already.
The sad brown eyes were expecting a response.
“We all have our weaknesses, don’t we? Our failings,” said Rose.
“So being human is a weakness? It’s not a strength?”
“That’s a big subject. We could discuss it next time we meet. I’d like that. We’ll speak again soon, Kamila. That’s okay, isn’t it? I think we have a lot to talk about.” She pulled the laptop towards her. Kamila’s eyes followed it into Rose’s bag.
“What will you do with that?”
“Nothing. Just keep it somewhere safe. It will always be safe as long as we stay friends.”
“So we’re friends now?” Kamila still had a half-smile on her face and seemed lost, not at all interested in shopping any more. Maybe she lacked concentration, lived in some dream world. Who could blame her?
“Yes,” said Rose. “We’re friends now.”
11
The car crawled along. Roman didn’t like being locked in. Moscow was snarled up now: too many limousines, not enough roads. Vadim edged them forward as the distant traffic lights changed to green then red again. Outside the street was dull, grey pavement and gaudy advertising for western fast food and mobile phones.
Roman rubbed his legs. He’d been in this car too long. The lights changed again. Vadim released the brake, but nothing ahead shifted. Roman couldn’t sit any more. He got out and stood on the pavement, stretching his back until it arched. He lit a cigarette. The earthy taste of tobacco filled his mouth. The street had more colour than through the tinted car window. The ground was rough with ice and salt. He paced up and down while Vadim crept along in the BMW. It was a foreign brand, but assembled in Russia. No Bentley for him: none of this snobbish modern preference for imported goods. Of course he couldn’t have a Lada now; he still had a reputation.
At the crossroads was a news stand under a small blue awning. He walked up to it, passing Vadim in the car. A good range: newspapers and magazines, chocolate, small gifts for children, umbrellas, kitchen gadgets. The stallholder was young, dressed in bulky clothes. He returned Roman’s nod with a grin. Roman picked up a newspaper, looking over the goods and doing a quick calculation of the likely daily take, multiplied upward to weekly, monthly. The street seemed busy enough, passing trade from the Metro. Moscow prices were high, too high. As he handed over the coins he said something about business and the weather. The stallholder smiled and shook his head. Then he saw it. The shape of the nose, the slightly browner skin he had put down to the outdoor work. Uzbek maybe, or Kazakh. That was okay with Roman. But at home they had standards. If you wanted to do business in Russia, take people’s money, you spoke Russian. At home it would be made clear. People would get in line. They would know to respect the culture.
He folded the paper and walked on. Round the corner he stood and watched the smoke from his cigarette drift skywards above brown trees and the criss-crossed wires of the trolley bus. Finally the BMW was released from the junction and slid in front of him. He got in and they set off, needing to exchange no words.
They drove out of the city into the suburbs. Following the satnav, Vadim turned off and they pulled up between tower blocks by a children’s play area, deserted in the snow.
“This is the one?” Roman looked up at the grey concrete.
Vadim nodded and read out the flat number.
“You tried calling him again?”
“This morning, and again an hour ago.”
They walked over and got no answer at the buzzer. A woman with shopping bags passed them and stared, but didn’t try to stop them following her in. They went up in the lift, ninth floor. No answer at the door of the flat. Roman leaned on it to think about shoving, but it opened. The lock was broken.
Inside was dark, cramped. It didn’t take long to find him. A flat like this was too small for Piotr. He took up most of the floor in the living room. Roman pulled his shoulder to roll him onto his back. Gunshots, but he didn’t die quickly. Too much blood. He glanced up. Vadim observed with his priest’s eyes. Roman stood and said a silent goodbye. It had been a long time since they last stood like this and mourned a friend. Those days were long ago, so Roman had thought.
He looked round the flat but there was nothing to see. It was clear what they had to do now.
“We go to Alexei,” he said.
“Alexei won’t see you,” said Vadim softly.
Roman folded his arms, looked down at Piotr’s body. “Alexei will see me,” he said, “whether he likes it or not.”
12
Three hours should be long enough to think. Yesterday, it was three hours’ walk to the monastery from the town where the bus stopped, and where he’d found a room for the night. And it was three hours back again after Dimitri had torn his world apart. Fairchild lay awake all night and tried to picture another life for himself. Maybe he could do it, now he had the answer and the mystery was solved. He knew now what happened to his parents. He could give this up, as Zack and so many others had told him to do. Instead of being driven, he could think for himself about what he wanted, what he could contribute, even. Be normal. Could he be normal? Stay in one place, build a life? But where? Wherever Rose was, that would be good enough for him. Could he persuade Rose to be a part of it? What would she think? It seemed so impossible. But people did it, didn’t they? Most people did it, most of the time. He wasn’t so unusual. He was flesh and blood, same as everyone else.
He needed more time to think. He needed to talk to Dimitri again. So the next morning he walked the same route, and thought for another three hours, and his head was full of different things, ideas he’d never considered before, colours entering a monochrome world.
When he got there, Sasha was sweeping the steps again. He was more energetic today, thrusting the broom into the stonework as if digging for something. He didn’t seem to hear Fairchild’s greeting. Fairchild stopped halfway towards him. Something was different. Yesterday, it had been quiet but there were, he realised, background sounds, the clang of a prayer wheel, distant voices. And the laughing, running young men. But today the silence weighed heavily. Even the prayer flags weren’t rustling. The only sound was the scrape of the broom’s bristles on the rough stone steps as Sasha gripped the handle and bent low over his task.
Fairchild came close and said his name. Sasha turned and recoiled with a sharp breath.
“I’m looking for Dimitri again.”
Sasha shook his head violently. Both his hands gripped the broom and pressed it into the ground. His eyes didn’t meet Fairchild’s.
“I need to find Dimitri,” Fairchild said. Sasha’s mouth twisted in a spasm. His breathing was harsh.
Fairchild looked around the courtyard. “Where is everybody?”
Sasha whimpered and spasmed again. Fairchild stepped away. Sasha returned to his sweeping with even more intensity.
Fairchild walked slowly through the complex of wooden buildings. The large doors at the top of the steps were closed as they had been yesterday. Everything else seemed the same, except for the silence. No, not quite the same. The red door of a small building with a pointed roof was closed. It had been open yesterday. He moved towards it. The sweeping noise stopped. He turned round. Sasha was staring at him, but his eyes flicked over to the red door.
“Over there?” Fairchild asked.
Sasha’s mouth opened but he said nothing. Fairchild went over to the door. He struggled with the large iron handle. The door was heavy as he pushed. He stepped inside. It was a tiny chapel with a shrine of yellow and gold. His eyes got used to the darkness, and then he saw what was on
the ground before the shrine. And as he saw, dread like a deluge of icy water drenched him, pulling some sound out of his mouth. He dropped to his knees and stared, head hammering, chest wrenching, stomach turning at the abomination in front of him. When finally he could move again, he staggered out and leaned against the door frame, looking at the ground, breathing fast.
His head cleared. The silence seemed thicker than before. Sasha was sweeping now but awkwardly, knocking the broom end against the steps over and over again.
The door creaked behind him, moving by itself. The broom came to a halt and Sasha looked up. Fairchild strode over.
“Who did this? Who did this to Dimitri? Who was here?” He grabbed the man’s arm. The broom clattered down the steps. Sasha’s mouth was twisting again. “Tell me!”
“I can’t tell you! I can’t tell you!”
Fairchild grabbed him tighter. “Why not?”
“The Rinpoche says, don’t say anything! The Rinpoche says, carry on your normal business! Until we come back with the authorities! Just carry on!”
He started crying. Fairchild let go of him. Think straight, man.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Can you tell me who did this? Who was here?”
Sasha wept, looking down at his feet.
“How did they get here? Did they walk? Were they in a car?”
“Jeep.” It was little more than a whisper.
“A jeep? They came in a jeep?”
“Black jeep.”
“How many of them?”
The man was mouthing something to himself.
“Two, three, four?”
“Three. Three of them.”
“What did they look like?”
Sasha whimpered.
“Okay, okay. Did they ask for Dimitri by name?”
“Dimitri. Where is Dimitri?”
“Did they ask for anyone else? Did they hurt anyone else?”
“Dimitri! Dimitri! Bring Dimitri!” He was shouting to himself now.
“And then they took him in there? How long were they…?”
“No! No! No!” He collapsed onto the step, his hands over both of his ears, sobbing like a child.
Fairchild walked off into the middle of the courtyard. He was exhausted. It was the end of everything. Even the white sky seemed empty. On the steps Sasha was rocking back and forth. Fairchild couldn’t help him. He needed to leave. He’d done enough damage here already.
“Don’t tell anyone you saw me here,” he said.
A loud clattering made him look back as he was going. Sasha had gone over to the chapel and was pulling the red door shut. Then he stumbled back over to the steps, picked up the broom and, head down, started sweeping them all over again.
13
Rose slipped out of her aisle seat. Their row was near the back of the auditorium, so she could creep out while Act One continued. A long soprano aria was in progress, all about how the female character was going to pine away and die now that her loved one was dead. Rose did not have a great deal of patience with opera. She didn’t regret having to whisper an apology to her companion, an amiable chap from the Embassy, who had been briefed to expect just that in any case.
Russia involved far too much dressing up. Her long evening gown fell off the shoulders and she was fighting with her shoes again. But for the evening’s purposes she felt the need to make an effort. She walked round to the set of ladies’ toilets nearest the private boxes. Kamila was already in there, standing in front of the mirror. Rose pushed her palm against each of the doors behind them. All the stalls were empty.
Kamila looked more natural in these surroundings. She was modelling satin and pearls again, a different outfit from St Petersburg, naturally. Rose took the mirror next to her and got her make-up bag out of her clasp. Kamila drew a small object out of her own purse and dropped it into Rose’s. Then she took a brush and applied some pink gloss lipstick to her already perfect lips.
“We can’t be gone for long,” Rose said. “He might get suspicious.” The music from the opera rose a level in volume. She picked up an eyeliner pencil.
“I spend a long time in the ladies’ room,” said Kamila. “He’s used to it now. I don’t think he cares anyway.”
“Has his behaviour towards you changed at all?”
“Don’t worry about Alexei. He is a stupid man who drinks too much.”
Rose’s eyeliner paused mid-air. Kamila’s lip brush continued.
“It’s all on the drive,” she said. “What you asked for. How Morozov helps the government. Tanks, weapons, supplies. There are lists. Bad for Ukraine. Good for Russia. Good for Alexei.” She started touching up her mascara.
“Any problems getting it?” Rose asked.
“No, it was easy. I know how to use his computer.”
“And you could find it straight away?”
Rose and Kamila had met since their Gucci encounter, to establish terms and discuss practicalities. Kamila greeted every interaction with a serenity that could be taken for a kind of vagueness. Maybe she deliberately detached herself from the present to insulate herself from it. They hadn’t made much of a connection, Rose felt. And producing this zip drive in such an effortless way was unexpected.
Kamila’s eyes widened as she touched her lashes with the mascara wand. “I searched for it. Like I told you I would. You think I don’t know how to use a computer? Why? Because I’m a prostitute or because I’m Chechen?”
Rose gave up on the eyeliner. “No, it’s just that Morozov is a large and complex business, and not all of it is entirely legal, so I wouldn’t have thought they’d make it all that obvious how to find the more sensitive stuff.”
Kamila shrugged. “If the files are the wrong thing, tell me. I can learn.” She scrutinised her lashes.
Rose scrabbled about for a stick of lipstick she’d had for about ten years. “Do you know who Alexei is talking to at the FSB?”
“Some older guy,” said Kamila, opening a powder compact. “Others too. But he’s the important one.”
Rose paused the lipstick. “You’ve met him?”
“One time.”
“What’s his name?”
Kamila shook her head. “It was in a restaurant, he came in, he and Alexei went back to talk business. The men, you know, have to do such things.” She dabbed her nose and chin.
“Would you recognise a photograph of him?”
Kamila looked patronised. “Of course. But a photograph wouldn’t show him to you.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
Kamila paused. “He is a dangerous man. He never doubts himself and makes others believe him too.”
“Really? You could tell all that from a few seconds in a restaurant?”
“You don’t need long, if you trust your instincts. Don’t you trust yours? And I know my husband. Alexei runs after him like a dog.” She stowed the powder compact and inspected the result. “But what do I know? I’m just the pretty wife. Look at the two of us, in here, making ourselves beautiful while discussing all the men.”
That calmness again. Was it really coldness, resentment perhaps? Or sheer indifference? Her face gave nothing away. The music was still growing in volume as Act One came to a close.
“You should get back,” said Rose. But Kamila had already packed up her make-up. When she opened the door, a blast of passionate soprano burst in. She let it close behind her without turning back.
14
Fairchild wasn’t ready for them when they finally approached. He’d known they were there, of course. They stuck out a mile at the small local station. The waiting room was full of thick-legged stoical women wrapped in scarfs pulling substantial packages on trolleys, and men in dusty work gear with tired faces drawing on cheap cigarettes. Everyone wore hats, everyone carried bags of food for the journey, except the two men in leather jackets who tried to stay out of his sightlines but there was nowhere to go. The station building, the single platform and the road outside were their
only options.
He hated this bitter cold. He knocked back two strong espressos from the machine, then sat staring at his hands while people dozed on either side. The clock’s hands barely moved; they showed Moscow time, morning there, mid-afternoon here. He didn’t want to think about Moscow, didn’t want to think about anything. When he was on the move it was tolerable, but whenever he stopped the noises invaded his head: shouts, screams, sobbing, Dimitri, get me Dimitri! Into his mind came the contorted body, the congealed blood, the unseeing eyes horrifically wide in the dim light of the chapel. Hours of waiting for the bus, and now the same for the train. Poor Dimitri. The old man had remembered Fairchild all this time, had saved him as a boy and could have saved him again as a man. It was because of him that Dimitri was dead. That one rang in his head like the mad clanging of a bell.
On the train it was better. He stared at the passing landscape. Snow started falling, blurring the monotonous birch forests. The soothing rhythm of the train was constant. At the occasional station stops, other passengers got out and stood, stretching and smoking. He remained seated, willing the motion to begin again. At night he lay down and dozed, thinking that the close proximity of others would protect him. But he’d forgotten about the history of this place, and that it wasn’t just history. It was still much, much easier for an ordinary Russian to say nothing, stay out of it. And who could blame them? After all, they were government people, those men; they had that look about them.
He opened his eyes to find them standing over him. In the bunk opposite and above were sleeping bodies. He could have shouted, protested, but it wasn’t their problem. No eyes opened as an iron hand pulled him to his feet and prodded him along the narrow compartment and through the door at the end. One was in front, the other behind The man behind pressed into him, making sure Fairchild felt the gun in his pocket and knew they meant business.
