Lime's Photograph

by Leif Davidsen

  “You’ve got children?”

  “A boy of 17. A girl of 14. The boy is at boarding school in England. The girl goes to an English private school here in Moscow. They are the new Russia. They will forget the bloody legacy. I believe we are on the right track, but it will be up to the next generations to lift Russia out of the darkness.”

  “What do the children think of their father’s work?”

  He looked at me with his cold, blue eyes.

  “The children are not acquainted with the nature of my work. I am a businessman. I have worked 18 hours a day all my life. For most of my life the State and the Party gave me pocket money and scrupulously handed out privileges in response to my contribution. Today I earn it all myself. I have a comfortable home, my wife is able to shop in the new supermarkets. She can buy whatever clothes she wants. We go on holiday to Florida. My life is almost as it has always been. I no longer receive medals, but money as a result of my own endeavours. I have given up considering the moral implications of my life. It revolves around the welfare of my family and the satisfaction of my client. I can’t imagine anyone would condemn that principle, would they?”

  “It would never even cross my mind,” I answered.

  We drove in silence and the traffic thinned out as the road meandered further into the birch forest. I hadn’t seen so much snow for a long time. The road was clear, but snow lay thick on the trees and the little wooden houses we passed. There were carved wooden bears dotted along the roadside, sometimes together with a deer. It looked very odd – little toys covered in powdery snow in a landscape you could imagine extending thousands of kilometres eastward. We drove through a smallish town and passed a café and a vegetable market. There were big Western cars parked in front of the café and expensively dressed men and women wandered around looking at the market stalls. I thought I recognised it from the photograph and Sjuganov looked at me and nodded.

  “We’re nearly there,” he said.

  We turned right and drove up a road full of pot holes, with more little wooden houses on both sides, then big, red-brick villas surrounded by high fences, and drove deeper into the forest. Out here the road was white and compact, with a solid surface of ice, and despite its studded winter tyres, I could feel the Mercedes skid now and then. We pulled into a clearing in the forest and the driver turned off the engine. Igor and Sjuganov got out of the car. They each took a pair of white overalls, like a boiler suit but with a hood, from the boot. They put them on. Sjuganov spoke quietly in Russian into a walkie-talkie and received a brief, crackling reply.

  “The target hasn’t left the villa yet. You’d be better off in the car, so you don’t get frozen. I’m sending Igor to a location along the route; he’ll be between you and the villa, I’ll lead you, OK?”

  I wasn’t freezing at all, although it was biting cold. I was too tense. It was completely silent in the forest, which seemed untended and natural, despite the little footpaths running off a broader path that disappeared into the woods. The tracks of cross-country skiers ran back and forth between the trees.

  Igor put on a pair of short skis and set off smoothly and effortlessly into the forest. In his white outfit, he soon vanished and became one with the yellowish-white bark of the birch trunks. I got back into the car. The driver switched on the heater and Sjuganov gave me another cup of coffee. It was like being at work. You got there, you had done all the preparation, you were ready. Now there was nothing else to do except wait.

  But compared to other occasions, when I’d lain on my stomach or stood in a doorway waiting for a victim for hours, this time my patience wasn’t tested for long. After half an hour, Sjuganov’s walkie-talkie crackled to life and he answered briefly. I got out of the car. There was snow in the air. The clouds were heavy and grey and a plane could be heard not very high up in the cloud cover, as if we were under a flight path. Perhaps I had flown in over these very trees, streams and lakes.

  “The target is on his way,” said Sjuganov. “The woman is with him and the big Irishman is acting as bodyguard. As usual he’s walking 20 metres or so behind them. Even though they speak German to each other, they obviously want him kept a little out of earshot.”

  “OK,” I said, putting on the gloves and woollen hat. I wasn’t used to the cold, but fortunately Sjuganov had provided me with practical, warm clothes.

  “Do you ski, Mr Lime?” he said.

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “I had not anticipated that you would. I shall lead you to a position ahead of the target. Then I will go back a little way and step in between the bodyguard and the target and leave it up to you. How much time do you need in order to conclude your business?”

  “Five minutes. I just want to ask him about one thing.”

  Sjuganov looked at me as if he didn’t believe me, gave brief instructions on his walkie-talkie and off we went. We followed Igor’s ski tracks and soon were deep in the forest. We were only a few hundred metres from the road, but I quickly lost my bearings. Everything looked the same. Snow and birch trees and low bushes. There was no sun to navigate by, and we turned first to the right and then to the left in order to get round fallen trees. At one point we took a parallel path and then another one; I could no longer tell where the road was. If Sjuganov had abandoned me, I would easily have become lost. I was used to hunting in cities. I wasn’t a child of nature who could cope out in the wilds.

  Sjuganov walked with steady, gliding strides. In his white camouflage he would disappear easily. The only sound was the faint squeaking of his army boots in the snow. He placed his feet effortlessly and surely, while I stumbled constantly over holes and fallen branches. I was reasonably fit, but I wasn’t used to walking in snow. After ten minutes or so, we came upon a broader path which was hard-packed with ski tracks. The path curved downwards for a few metres and then gently swung up again. We were standing on a sort of little hill looking down the trail.

  “I’ll wait here,” said Sjuganov. “You go a bit further along the path and conceal yourself behind a tree. The target and the woman will walk past me and I’ll detain the bodyguard.”

  “Won’t they be able to see you?” I asked stupidly, and he didn’t bother to answer, but pulled out a long-barrelled gun from inside his coat and with a toss of his head told me to get going. I walked up the track. Just where it curved there was a large, bare tree with a thick trunk and I stood behind it. I looked down the path for Sjuganov, but all I could see was snow and birch and bush. It was as if he had sunk into the ground.

  I heard Lola and Oscar before I saw them. They were arguing. Lola spoke rapid and fluent German. It sounded as if they were arguing about money. I squatted down and looked out from behind the trunk. Oscar was wearing his long leather coat and had his big fur hat pulled down over his ears. I had noticed that Russians didn’t pull down the ear flaps. Maybe that was why the hat looked so ridiculous on Oscar’s huge head. Lola was wearing her fur coat and now had a matching muff for her hands. She looked very elegant. Oscar slashed snow drifts and branches with his golf club as he argued with Lola. It looked completely insane to be running around a Russian forest carrying a golf club. I wondered whether he had gone mad.

  They walked past the spot where I thought Sjuganov was concealed and came towards me. When they were about five metres from me, the big Irishman appeared and Sjuganov seemed to spring out of the snow behind him and I saw the Irishman stiffen as he felt the barrel of the gun in his back and heard Sjuganov’s muttered warning.

  “This country is just unbearable,” Oscar shouted. “I’ll rip Gloria’s head off. What the hell am I supposed to do? She’s bleeding me dry. I can’t operate, and if you won’t lend me anything more than peanuts, then …”

  “Be patient, Karl Heinrich. Reach a settlement,” said Lola. “May I suggest …”

  “I’m tired of your fucking suggestions,” Oscar shouted, and pounded the golf club into a pile of snow, making the white powder fly all around him, Lola stepped aside and raised her we
ll-plucked eyebrows in mild irritation at his childishness.

  I stepped out in front of them and said in English.

  “There aren’t many golf courses in Russia, Oscar.”

  He stood stock still as if the cold had turned him to a block of ice in an instant. I had dreamt about this confrontation, and now I felt nothing but contempt. Oscar looked in a bad way. His face was sallow and lined under his ugly fur hat, and his eyes were watery and bloodshot, like they were when he drank heavily and took amphetamines or another kind of speed. I knew that then he didn’t sleep and got cantankerous and aggressive. He had once beaten up Gloria when he had been in that state and she had left, for good I had thought, but she had gone back to him after he promised not to take drugs again.

  Oscar pulled himself together quickly and looked over his shoulder, but there was no one there. He looked back at me and then over his shoulder again.

  “Your friend is otherwise engaged,” I said.

  “Fuck you, Lime,” Oscar hissed like a snake.

  “Peter Lime. How nice,” said Lola in Danish. “My goodness, it’s been so many years.”

  “Shut it, Lola,” I said.

  “Same bad manners,” she said in her affected voice and I looked at her, which was a mistake. Oscar swung the golf club into my unprotected knee and the piercing pain made me howl and double up and try to protect myself as he pounded the club into my side. The thick jacket spared my ribs, but the pain went right down through my spine. He had aimed for the back of my head, but Lola had pushed him and in doing so she had saved my life. It hurt so much that I could taste stomach acid in my throat. I tried to straighten up as Lola tried to get her hands out of her muff to stop him. Oscar turned to her, livid with rage, and smashed the club straight into her face, which shattered with a scrunching sound and a shower of blood.

  “Sjuganov!” I bellowed, as I clambered to my feet with burning barbs of pain in my knee and hobbled off into the forest. Oscar looked at Lola, lying half on her side turning the snow red, and then at me. His eyes were mad and vacant.

  “Sjuganov,” I shouted again, but it was the big Irishman who came running. One side of his face was smeared with blood and he looked exactly like the murderer he was. Oscar turned round and raised the golf club, but when be saw it was the Irishman, he turned back to me.

  The Irishman had a gun in his hand. It had all gone horribly wrong. I ran as best I could into the forest and heard a shot and then another one and a zipping sound passing me a couple of metres away.

  “Stay here, Lime!” I heard Oscar shout, in Spanish now. “Stay here you arsehole. I’m not finished with you, you ball-less son of a bitch. It’s your fault I’m in this mess. You’ve wrecked my life, you fucking bastard. Come back!” And then in English. “Jack, get him. But don’t kill the motherfucker!”

  I limped faster into the forest, my fear overcoming the pain. I could hear the Irishman lumbering like a clumsy animal behind me. My face was getting wet, both from tears of pain and because it had started to snow with small fierce pellets carried along on the rising wind. I ran through the trees, but after a couple of minutes my mind began to clear. Where the hell were Sjuganov and Igor? I heard a shot and then another, but in the forest it was impossible to hear how far away they were. I came out onto a narrow track where the snow was more compact. It might have been an animal track during the summer. It meandered in an s-shape. Once I had got round the first bend, I pulled off my gloves and leant against a tree. The big Irishman came running round the corner. His cheek was covered with blood, but I couldn’t see any wound. Maybe it wasn’t his blood? He was running with difficulty, holding the gun in his right hand against his thigh. I stepped forward, spun round on myself and tried to hit him in the face. Pain shot through my knee and I was thrown slightly off balance, but he was used to fighting and managed to move his head in time. My fist struck him on the shoulder and the gun flew out of his hand and vanished in the snow. He quickly regained his balance and positioned himself, ready for combat, his arms moving agilely in front of him and his knees slightly bent. He was panting.

  “So you want to fight, Lime. All right by me. Come on then, motherfucker, come on, come on,” he said.

  I could hear Oscar crashing through the forest, roaring like a furious beast. I feinted with my left and the Irishman laughed at my all too obvious manoeuvre and effortlessly shifted his weight. I kicked out, a stabbing pain went right up to my neck, and I struck the tree next to him, shaking the snow-laden branches and sending a cascade of powdery snow over us. I was prepared, he wasn’t and he was dazzled by the whiteness and lost his balance. I hammered my foot into his crotch and, with the edge of my rigid right hand, as Suzuki had taught me and warned me never to do, I struck him as forcefully and precisely as I could and heard the sickening dry crunch of his neck breaking.

  Oscar appeared, wielding his iron. I ducked away from his wild swings (that were so powerful he lost his balance and just carried on running out of control. I stuck out my leg and my knee protested as I tripped him up and his huge body fell into the snow. But he was like a madman, with a madman’s insensitivity to pain and the strength of the deranged. He got up and attacked me again, still roaring, trying to crush me in his arms and squeeze the breath out of me. I punched him twice in the face with my left hand and tried to hit his larynx. His eyebrow split open and blood spurted from his nose, but he carried on charging at me and forcing me backwards, while he tried to get his arms round my back. I slipped away and rammed my elbow into his kidneys and he roared again like a wounded animal. He should have collapsed, but he staggered clumsily, looking for his golf club, and I belted him again with my right hand, so hard that the skin on my knuckles split. Oscar flew backwards into the tree and his eyes glazed over.

  “Damn it, Oscar. I just want to talk with you,” I said. “I just want an explanation.”

  I was having difficulty speaking.

  “Why Amelia? Why Maria Luisa?” I said, trying to get my breathing under control. It was snowing heavily now and the lashing snowflakes landed on Oscar’s battered face and mingled with the blood streaming from his nose, lips and eyebrow.

  Oscar spat out a tooth and attempted to attack me again, but his demented rage had made him completely uncoordinated and I was able to step aside and let him charge past me. He stopped, glowered at me like a wounded fighting bull that had been tricked by the cape, but now knew there was a man behind the flapping cloth. He didn’t attack again, but ran off into the forest. It surprised me for a moment, but then I ran after him. There was nothing else to say, but like a dog can forget its training and instinctively go for a cyclist, a moving target, I set off in pursuit of Oscar without thinking.

  I could hear him ahead of me, and now and then his black leather coat appeared in the swirling snow between the birch trunks. I don’t know how long we ran for. I lost both sense of direction and time. My lungs were screaming and my knee was hurting, but I didn’t care. The snow made it even harder for me to get my bearings in the white, uniform landscape. By now it was falling so heavily that footprints were as good as obliterated the moment they were made.

  Suddenly I was out of the forest. It stopped abruptly at a steep slope and I rolled forwards and lay flat out in the snow. I got to my feet. Oscar had fallen over too, but he had rolled further out on the brilliant white tract of ice. He got to his feet, but fell over again, stood up again and hung on when the ice covering the river we had run onto broke up under him. Over on the far side of the frozen expanse, I could just make out the slope of the opposite bank and trees barely visible in the swirling snow.

  Oscar managed to pull one of his legs up onto the ice, but then it vanished again and I heard another cracking sound. Both legs were stuck and he sank in up to his waist. He looked back at me and I began to walk cautiously out towards him. The ice was creaking. I could see fear and desperation in Oscar’s face. He tried to pull himself up with his arms, but merely succeeded in breaking off a piece of the ice, which I could se
e was rather thin. The snow was lashing into the black water and the hole in the ice was getting bigger. There was a creaking sound under my feet, but I took a step forward anyway. Oscar tried to pull himself up again and the ice split in a long crack that ran towards me and between my legs, but held. I stayed where I was, a few metres from him.

  “Why did they have to die, Oscar?” I shouted above the wind whipping snow into my face.

  “Help me, Peter,” he said in Spanish. “Help me. I’ll freeze to death.”

  “Why, Oscar?”

  “It was a mistake. Jack and Joe were just meant to get that fucking photograph and some other negatives. They were meant to burn the fucking negatives. It was meant to look like an ordinary break-in, but Amelia put up a fight instead of keeping quiet. And the fucking Irishmen went too far. I thought everything was burnt and gone and then that fucking photograph turns up. I thought it had been shredded. Everything. I thought I’d got rid of the past. Why the hell couldn’t you just let it rest? You couldn’t bring them back anyway. Done is done, you stupid fool. You were my friend. I meant it. I mean it.”

  He continued in English.

  “A fucking mistake, Peter. Help me, please. A fucking mistake.”

  There was no remorse. It was just a mistake. An unfortunate mistake. Like when a deal doesn’t come off. It’s unfortunate, but you have to carry on. He was more callous and immoral than I had imagined. I had no right to pass judgement on other people, but Oscar, my friend, was incapable of feeling for anyone other than himself. My anger evaporated. I even felt a bit sorry for him, but it was too late. I walked slowly backwards in to the bank, the split in the ice widening in front of me. Oscar watched me go.

  “A fucking mistake, Lime,” he said, and vanished into the hole, down under the ice, and the current took him and I didn’t see him surface again.

  I reached the bank and tried to get my bearings. The cold was biting my face and hands. The forest behind me looked dark and impenetrable. I thought that if I followed the river bank then at some point I would come to a house or a road. I had no idea whether I should go to the right or the left, but I decided on the left and began to walk through the snowstorm in the same direction that Oscar’s body was floating under the snow and ice. I was frozen on the outside and within. My mind was a complete blank and I had no sense of time or place, and Igor said later that I had seemed to be very far away, even surprised when he found me. As if I was sleepwalking. I had reached that stage when you are just about ready to lie down in the forest and go to sleep under its quilt of snow.