by Greg Wilson
“Niko? Little brother? Is this really you?”
He finished his turn and stared at Nikolai. At his face first, then briefly at the raised pistol, then – unconcerned, it seemed, by the weapon – back to his face again. Nikolai wondered what he had expected. In truth he wasn’t sure but it seemed there was little point in persevering with the gun. He lowered it to his side and Vari stepped closer, taking him by the shoulders.
“Niko…” There was a tone of hushed awe in his voice. “Let me look at you.” His eyes scanned Nikolai’s and faltered for just an instant, then his voice rose in delight. “I can’t believe it!” Shaking his head. “My little brother! Where have you been?”
Nikolai didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.
Vari stared at him, his eyes interpreting the silence, then there was a noise from the building. The door opening again. Someone else about to leave. Vari snatched a glance towards the entry then swung back, his eyes alert now. Calculating. He nodded towards the car and spoke with quiet insistence. “Get in. Quickly. We’ll go to my place.” Nikolai hesitated just a moment. “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe there. I promise.”
It was a tower block. In Prechistenka. Just a few streets removed from the Ivankov Gallery.
From his seat at the wheel Vari glanced at Nikolai as they passed the restored palazzo, its grounds still floodlit despite the hour. Nikolai caught the look but ignored it, staring straight ahead as they turned the corner. His eyes fell to the dash. The car was a Cadillac he noticed, from the elegant, cursive script. New, or near enough, by the rich smell of the soft black leather. Vari eased back on the accelerator and Nikolai looked up through the windshield as they turned again.
The building was tall and majestic, set in landscaped grounds behind a high wall and massive iron gates that folded open automatically somehow as Vari’s car approached. A different universe, Nikolai observed. The New Russia had been kind to Vari Vlasenko, it seemed.
Once inside the gates there was a second tier of security. A guard stepped forward from a turret-roofed booth, the heel of his hand resting on an automatic holstered at his belt. Recognizing the vehicle he touched his cap and stepped back again, waving them through. In the wing mirror Nikolai caught a glimpse of his reflection as he made a note on a clipboard before returning to his post.
He turned to the front again watching through the tinted glass as Vari guided the vehicle down a ramp into an underground parking lot, bringing it to a stop alongside a gleaming burgundy Range Rover, the number on its plates just one digit removed, he noticed, from that of the Cadillac.
They hadn’t spoken at all on the journey and didn’t yet.
The quiet, softly lit elevator delivered them to a silent stop on the twentieth floor and Vari led the way down the corridor to the door at its end. There was no keyhole. Just a handle and a touch pad. Vari’s squat fingers danced over the buttons and Nikolai stored the numbers to memory. Then they were inside and the door closed behind them and Nikolai found himself confronting a wall of glass suspended above the city.
To the right lay the dark-snaking ribbon of the Moskva, its edges defined by the glitter of the traffic that flowed along the Embankment. Below, in the foreground, loomed the massive floodlit dome of the Redeemer Cathedral. And, beyond that, the Kremlin, and the rest of the city unfolding in an endless, undulating carpet of lights.
He felt Vari’s hand settle on his shoulder and flinched. Felt it lift again and turned, studying his former partner’s face.
If he had expected guilt or even awkwardness at Vari’s altered circumstance he found neither: just a measured awareness of the moment. Then the hand was on his shoulder again steering him forward into the expansive living room, guiding him to one of the black leather sofas that faced each other across the low stainless steel table that separated them. Vari moved on to a sideboard while Nikolai sat, using the moment to study his surroundings, taking in the white marble and Persian rugs, the designer furnishings, the wide screen TV and the paintings that hung on the walls. Vivid abstracts. Sharp slashes of thick acrylic color. Originals. The sweep of his gaze returned to its starting point and he found Vari standing over him again, setting down a bottle and two glasses on the table. The older man moved aside and lowered himself onto the opposite sofa. Nikolai blinked at him. Glanced around again, quickly this time, and then he spoke.
“Things have changed for you, old friend.”
Vari’s eyes held his, unwavering. “Things have changed for everyone, Niko.” He leaned forward, unscrewed the top of the bottle and poured for both of them. “You adapt,” he glanced up, “or you die.”
Nikolai felt the hollow apprehension gathering in his chest.
“Natalia? Larisa?” He breathed their names.
Vari dropped his gaze. For a long moment he was silent then he leaned forward and pushed one of the glasses towards Nikolai and glanced up from beneath his heavy brow.
“Drink, Nikolai.”
Nikolai felt the swelling of impossible hollowness at his core. He tensed and took a breath. ‘Tell me.”
Vari’s thick fingers toyed with his glass, turning it one way first, then the other. Finally he lifted it, drained it and set it down. His eyes met Nikolai’s.
“Natalia’s gone, Niko.”
Nikolai felt the muscles of his chest draw tight, pulling him in on himself. He shook his head.
“What do you mean, gone?”
Vari looked away. Answered in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.
‘Dead.” He forced himself to look at Nikolai again. “Natalia is dead, Nikolai.”
In that instant Nikolai saw her before him as clearly as though she were there. Her perfect face and shining dark eyes. The strand of hair that fell forward across her brow, chased back by her slender fingers while her lips curved in her extraordinary smile. Then the image faded, replaced by a vision of Florinskiy lying gaunt and emaciated and pale and lifeless in his shabby pine coffin.
Dead.
The finality of the word rang in Nikolai’s brain and even though he remained perfectly still it felt as though he were moving. As though he had been propelled into some yawning dark tunnel through which he was now tumbling over and over and over, flung against sharp images that tore at his mind and soul and sliced them raw the way jagged edges of stone would have shredded his flesh. And as he fell a single thought came to his mind.
It had been their anniversary.
Their last day together had been their anniversary and he had forgotten, and now she was gone and he had lost her forever.
The groan of denial started somewhere deep within him and rushed upwards, bursting out in a broken cry of despair and he fell forward, burying his face in his hands, surrendering himself to the terrible pain.
How long he remained like that he had no idea but finally it stopped. Finally the sensation of falling ended and the dizziness began to subside and Nikolai imagined himself stumbling to his feet, broken and exhausted, at the bottom of the abyss. He lifted his head slowly and opened his eyes. Vari was watching him; hadn’t moved. He inhaled and breathed more than spoke his daughter’s name.
“And Larisa?” Even he could hear the defeat and resignation in his voice.
Vari broke his gaze and looked aside to the windows. Nikolai waited. Then the older man’s head began turning slowly, side to side and Nikolai felt the dread rising inside him again.
“It’s all so long ago, Niko,” Vari’s voice was so faint he could hardly discern the words. “So long ago.”
Natalia was hysterical.
She had heard the shot and seen the man’s head disintegrate and for a moment she had thought it was Nikolai, but when the figure crumpled and sprawled on the pavement she realized it wasn’t and she was filled with a terrible relief. Relief that it was someone else who had died, not him. Then before she could recover from the shock she saw the two men in overcoats dragging Nikolai away. Pulling him across the street towards the parked car and he was struggling against them and t
urning back and calling out to her through the night. Then the doors were slamming and the tires screaming as the car accelerated while stunned and confused neighbors began spilling out onto the pavement, turning to one another with questioning looks until they were all gradually drawn to the body that lay where it had fallen in a spreading pool of blood.
It was only then that Natalia realized that Larisa had seen it all as well. That her daughter was standing beside her at the window still staring wide-eyed and terrified down into the street.
She forced herself to turn away and threw the curtain closed. Tried to pull herself together and smeared the tears from her eyes and fell to her knees beside Larisa, taking her arms and turning her, steering her back gently until their faces were just inches apart.
“Don’t worry, my darling.” She forced a smile that almost broke her heart. “Everything’s fine, okay?” She searched the little girl’s frightened face. “Look…” She let go her grip and cast her hands apart. ‘… See. Mummy’s fine. You’re fine. Everything is okay.” She used her fingertips to press away her daughter’s tears, the back of her fingers to soothe her cheeks.” You mustn’t worry. It’s all just a game. Daddy will be back soon and then we’ll all go on our holiday, I promise. You’ll see.”
For a moment it seemed as if Larisa believed her, then the little girl’s lips quavered again and fresh tears filled her eyes. Natalia stumbled to her feet and drew her daughter close, stroking her hair and trying to still her sobbing. Trying to think.
There was no point calling the police. She could hear the howl of the sirens in the distance so they would soon be there anyway, and when they did arrive, with what she knew and what she had promised, what could she tell them? That it was her husband they had been trying to kill? And that when that hadn’t worked they had taken him? Dragged him away and thrown him into a car and driven off with him into the night?
What use were the police? What could they possibly do?
This was Russia and the police would be as helpless as she was because it went to the top, she understood that. Understood it all because Nikolai had told her everything. About Marat Ivankov and Patrushev and Stephasin and the deal he had made with the Americans to try and protect them. Everything except where they had hidden the tapes since it was the tapes, he’d insisted, that were their final shield and he had made her promise that if things went wrong she would deny that she knew anything about them. Hadn’t seen them; didn’t know where they were; hadn’t heard of them; didn’t know what they were talking about. That she would leave it for Niko to make the decisions and play the cards, or if he couldn’t – if anything should happen to him – then she was to go straight to Vari because Vari would know what to do.
Vari!
Her eyes fell to the telephone. She pressed Larisa close and shuffled towards it, edging her daughter with her across the room. Come with me, sweetheart. Mummy has to make a call. Come on, darling. It’s all okay. Truly, it’s all okay. Mummy just has to call uncle Vari. She juggled the receiver to her ear with one hand and dialed and held her breath through the three hollow rings until Vari picked up. And then she started, her words tumbling out in an uncontrolled rush until she realized the voice that had answered was still talking as well. That it wasn’t Vari, it was a machine. She stopped and moaned aloud, pleaded in her mind for the message to end until finally the long beep sounded and she started again, taking off this time as though she were running a race, words tumbling over words until, above her own voice, she heard the terrifying jumble of noise from outside and she pulled up short and stopped, holding her breath. The pounding of heavy feet on the landing. Voices raised, stumbling one across another in the hall. Then the sound of a fist striking wildly on the timber-paneled front door.
Her heart sank and her hand dropped to her side, letting the receiver slip from her fingers and back onto the cradle. Then with both her hands she pulled Larisa closer, burying the little girl’s face against her thighs so that she wouldn’t be able to see her mother’s fear.
Vari stared into his glass.
‘They were already there.” His right hand rose to his neck, his thumb stroking the gold crucifix that lay against his chest. “By the time I got to your apartment the MVD were already there, questioning her.” He looked up at Nikolai and tossed his head abruptly.” They didn’t hurt her. Just questions, that was all.”
There were four of them. Three men and a woman. Strangely enough it was the woman who seemed to be in charge.
She offered her papers and a fixed smile then waited patiently until Natalia stepped aside. Two of the men followed her across the threshold while the third waited outside, turning his back, lacing his fingers behind it.
The woman was her own age, Natalia judged, or close to it. Slim and erect with pale skin and short blonde hair. She smiled again and let her presence settle, then led Natalia gently aside. Larisa moved with them, folded beneath her mother’s protective arm, her tiny face peering up anxiously at the stranger. The woman reached out to stroke her head but Larisa pulled away and buried her face against her mother. The woman’s lips pressed together in understanding and her gaze moved back to Natalia.
Was there someone, she asked – someone in the building, perhaps, or close by – who could…? Her head tipped towards the little girl.
Natalia nodded distractedly. She started towards the phone but one of the men stepped sideways to intercept her and blocked her path until the woman cast him a nod that signaled him aside.
In less than two minutes Raisa appeared in the doorway, wrapped in a cotton robe and wearing unlaced sneakers on her otherwise bare feet, her face full of concern. Full of confusion at what was happening… at the fracas from outside that had woken her; at Natalia’s call and the pale terror that clouded her face; at the three dark-suited, serious-faced men and the woman she had never seen before who was smiling sweetly as if she were Natalia’s best friend who had just dropped by for a visit and as if it were perfectly normal for all of this to be happening at a little after four o’clock on a Sunday morning.
Natalia read her unspoken questions but ignored them. Found Boris and pressed him into Larisa’s hands then dropped to her knees again in front of her daughter and hooked the hair back from her dark, worried eyes and told her to go along with Raisa. That Mummy had to talk to these people but she wouldn’t be long, and then she would come for her and bring her back and by then Daddy was sure to be home.
Larisa left reluctantly, turning back to look across her shoulder as Raisa led her away, and Raisa turned back herself, her brow furrowed and anxious and full of awful doubt.
Natalia was on the sofa; the woman on the chair to her left. They sat together in silence until one of the two men appeared from the kitchen, carrying a tray of tea things. He set it down on the table between them with a forced smile. The woman waited until he had gone then reached forward and eased one of the mugs towards Natalia. When she spoke her voice was low and conspiratorial. Woman to woman. She hooked a glance across her shoulder towards the two men who stood silently in the hall.
‘They don’t like it much. Working for a woman, I mean.” She smiled and shrugged lightly. “But they’re learning. The world’s changing.”
Natalia didn’t answer. Her eyes drifted to the dining table where the contents of their bags lay stacked in neat piles. The woman’s voice drew her back.
“I am sorry to be a nuisance, truly, but I really do need to understand this. Tell me again, please. Why were you packed and where were you going?”
Vari shook his head.
‘She gave them nothing, Niko. Natalia did exactly as you told her. You would have been proud of her. She showed them the train tickets and told them that was the reason for the luggage. Told them that you were worn out and needed a break and that St Petersburg had been her suggestion. That you’d only made up your minds to go the day before.”
The woman smiled tolerantly.
“But these tickets are for an afternoon train and…” she sp
read her hands, “it is morning. Early morning.”
Natalia swung back, impatient. “I told you, my husband bought them yesterday. We were going to take the afternoon train but last night we decided to go early instead. We were going to change the tickets at the station.”
The woman pursed her lips and glanced down. “I see. And you say you were waiting for a taxi to take you to Leningrad Station when…” She made the same gesture of confusion with the hands. Her fingers were manicured, Natalia noticed, the burgundy polish a perfect match to the color of her blouse. She looked at the woman blankly.
“I told you before. We heard the car. Thought it was the taxi but we weren’t sure. Nikolai went down to check and then…” Her composure collapsed. She bit her lips and closed her eyes, fighting back the tears.
The woman paused. Spoke softly. “Of course.” She took a breath and rose from her seat, running a hand across her skirt. “Well, Mrs. Aven, I think that is all we need from you for now.” She picked up her purse and reached inside. Took out a card and handed it to Natalia. “If you think of anything else I would appreciate it if you would call me at this number.” She collected her jacket from the back of the chair and turned to go.
Natalia’s will failed her.
“My husband!” It was a cry of desperation and she loathed herself for the plaintive weakness she heard in her own voice.
The woman stopped for a moment then turned back again. There was pity in her look. Natalia wondered whether some of it may even have been genuine.
“I am sorry,” she drew a breath and sighed. ‘This is not something we can discuss at this time.”
Natalia’s eyes pleaded with her. “You said he has been arrested. Surely you can explain why. And where he is. Where have they taken him and when I can see him?”
