Amber

by Stephan Collishaw

  She pulled a photograph from the wall by the head of her bed and showed it to me. It was a black-and-white picture of her standing before St Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square, the domes rising behind her. Her hair was longer. It hung silkily across her shoulders. She was wearing a school uniform, a blue dress that rode quite high up her thigh. Against the plain cloth of her dress, the Komsomol badge she wore was clearly visible on her breast. She had a broad grin on her face.

  ‘When I was in Moscow,’ she explained.

  ‘You look very happy.’

  ‘I was. I want another life. I want the freedom there is in Moscow. I can’t stand it here, where to be a woman is to be nothing, to be less than an animal.’

  She leant closer to me, and I placed the coffee cup back on the table. She sank down on to the edge of the bed beside me. Her skin was warm. When I touched her a gentle electrical pulse throbbed from the downy hairs, and flesh goose-pimpled beneath my fingertips. I lowered my head into her shirt, pressing my forehead against the warm firmness of her chest, tasted the sweetness, the saltiness of her skin on my tongue. Her fingers massaged the back of my head. My lips brushed each eyelid, and I traced the tip of my tongue down her scar, sucked the flesh at her throat. My hands traced the curves of her figure, pushing back the stiff cotton of her green shirt, resting on the gathered cloth of her trousers. My lips skimmed her belly, tickled by the roughness of her excited skin.

  The sounds of the street faded, along with the mountains and valleys, the dust and dirt, the violent sun and the bone-shaking night. For one moment it slipped from me and I was alone with her beneath the cotton sheets. Time snagged; the minute caught its breath. The bed sighed and enfolded us in its warm oblivion. We lay side by side, gazing empty-eyed at the ceiling and felt the damp sheets dry beneath us.

  When I pulled on my clothes, she stood brushing her hair, gazing into a fragment of mirror perched on top of a cabinet. I slipped a small metal cross from around my neck. It was on a thin chain. Liuba had given Kolya and me the crosses the evening before we left. Her cool, full lips had brushed our cheeks, and I had noticed the blush spread across Kolya’s face.

  ‘I would like to give you this,’ I said to Zena. She turned from the mirror and took the chain from the palm of my hand. She gazed at it for a few moments before she looked up.

  ‘A cross?’

  ‘Just for luck.’

  She held it out for me to take from her. I glanced at her questioningly, and a small sharp pain stung my heart. She noticed the hurt flicker across my eyes and smiled.

  ‘I would like you to put it on me,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  I took the thin chain, and with fumbling fingers looped it around her. The back of her neck was furred with fine dark hairs that led down to her spine.

  ‘Shit,’ she said, glancing at the clock, ‘I’m going to be late.’

  Chapter 21

  It was some time before Kolya reappeared from the back room of the apartment. Exhausted by the activities of the long day, I was dozing when he staggered into the kitchen, knocking over a basket of laundry. Waking from a dream of Laura, I sat up sharply. The dream had been bright and pleasant and it was painful to wake from it to see Kolya’s emaciated figure stumbling around the kitchen and the girl’s underwear spread across the floor, the cold grime of the apartment.

  Kolya cracked a bottle down on to the table, pushing aside the dirty cups and plates. Sitting on the bench by the window; he opened it and took a crushed packet of cigarettes from his pocket. It took him a while to extract a broken cigarette without losing all the tobacco. He offered me the packet, but I indicated I had my own. He filled two glasses to their rim, pushed one over to me and took up the other. Despite his clumsiness, his hand shook less now.

  ‘Nu, tovarich,’ he said, raising his glass.

  He drank quickly, smacking his lips.

  ‘It’s been a long time, Antanas.’

  His eyes wandered around the kitchen, avoiding my own. Suddenly he seemed to notice the dirt, the underwear, the plates and glasses, the overflowing ashtrays, the detritus of his addiction; he scowled and rubbed his head vigorously.

  ‘Do you remember,’ he said, ‘in Afghanistan, how we talked about what we would do when we got back home?’ He chuckled darkly.

  I drew deeply on my cigarette, watching him, the tobacco scorching my throat.

  ‘I had this idea I would live by the sea, in a little cottage,’ Kolya continued. ‘I can picture it now, still, the idea I had. Tucked away behind the dunes, the pine forest stretching away into the distance. A log fire. A little boat to go out fishing. What I couldn’t eat, I would trade in the village for bread and coffee.’

  He stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray, twisting it around absently, grinding it into the ash. He leant a little closer to me.

  ‘What happened to us, Antoshka? What happened?’

  I shook my head.

  He laughed. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I even had this crazy idea Liuba would come and live with me. A fisherman’s wife. It was something we daydreamt about, idly, when we were kids.’

  He paused to pour himself another drink. The sardonic smile slipped from his face as he knocked it back, wincing.

  ‘When I got back from Afghanistan, I was so fucked up…’ His voice trailed away. I gazed across the table at him, at the wreck of his body, already an old man’s, crumbling away from the sagging structure of his bones.

  ‘I went to see her, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Liuba?’

  ‘It was a stupid thing to do. I wasn’t fit to see anybody. I had to have a few drinks to get up the courage. She was married. Some university prick that never had to do his national service. They called the police. Can you believe that? Liuba called the fucking police.’ I could see the hurt still in his eyes.

  ‘That was just before I went to Kaliningrad.’

  Not knowing what to say, I allowed a few moments’ silence before I said, ‘Vassily died.’

  Kolya looked up. A range of emotions seemed to flicker across his face. Sitting back, he poured himself another drink.

  ‘Well, here’s to Vassily,’ he said bitterly.

  He emptied the glass and slammed it back down on the table. For a few moments he gazed at it, his face dark with rancour.

  ‘You know, don’t you, that Vassily, Kirov and I smuggled jewellery, among other things, out of Afghanistan,’ he went on. ‘We stuffed the goods into the coffins, flew them back on the black tulips. When the stuff got to Moscow it was sold and the money was shared between us. It didn’t come to that much.’ He flicked his arm ruefully. ‘Most of the money I made went in here.’ His shirtsleeves were buttoned down at his wrists.

  ‘Vassily mentioned one piece to me,’ I said. ‘A bracelet.’

  ‘The bracelet?’ Kolya paused and gazed at me malevolently. ‘It must have been worth a small fortune. We got it in Ghazis, but the whole thing went disastrously wrong. Kirov and I ended up in prison, “complicity in the sale of Soviet supplies to the enemy”. When I got back to Vilnius I went to see Vassily but he would not talk about the bracelet. I was angry; I needed the money. Like I said, I was in a state at that time and perhaps I said some stuff I shouldn’t have. Vassily was furious. In the end he gave me some money and warned me to stay away. He threatened to kill me if I went anywhere near you.’

  ‘Vassily threatened to kill you?’ I said incredulously.

  Kolya nodded aggressively, as if challenging me to disbelieve him. ‘I suppose Zinotis had already sold the bracelet for him,’ he added.

  ‘Zinotis?’ I said, sitting up. ‘What does Zinotis have to do with it?’

  ‘Zinotis was our contact here. He sold the stuff once we got it out of Afghanistan. He knew the market, he had the contacts. It meant a four-way split, and that meant less money for each of us, but Zinotis was always going to get a better price and so it was worthwhile having him in on it.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ I said, stunned, ‘tha
t Zinotis knew about the bracelet?’

  Kolya nodded. He rubbed his face and poured himself a fourth large vodka. ‘I have no doubt about it,’ he said. ‘How else would Vassily sell the bracelet? Zinotis sold all of the stuff we smuggled. To sell things like that you have to know private collectors. You can’t just take it down to the local market.’

  My mind reeled. I thought about the way Zinotis had behaved, how he had been interested in seeing the bracelet. How he had kept turning up, digging for information.

  ‘I talked to Zinotis about the bracelet,’ I said to Kolya. ‘Yesterday. Today. He denied all knowledge of it. He didn’t seem to remember you.’

  Kolya laughed. ‘He’s a bastard. You should be careful, he will double-cross you at the first opportunity.’

  ‘I told Zinotis I was coming to see you,’ I said, Kolya’s revelation reverberating around my head, rearranging the events of the previous couple of days.

  Kolya looked at me, his eyes dark and sunken, his forehead creased. For one moment he reminded me of the serious boy I had met in the garden of the children’s home just over twenty years before.

  ‘Why were you talking to Zinotis?’ he asked.

  ‘Vassily wanted me to find you. I thought Zinotis might know where you were.’

  Kolya chuckled darkly. ‘Not if I can help it. He is too close to Kirov. It was Kirov who introduced us to him in the first place; they had been involved in some business together in the early eighties. Drugs from Afghanistan. Zinotis plays up his respectable image as a university professor, but he’s more crooked than a politician. When Kirov is finally released from prison, Zinotis will be the first person he contacts.’

  ‘But he has been,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kirov came to see me a couple of days ago,’ I told him.

  Kolya’s face wrinkled, perplexed. He glanced across at me, his watery eyes examining me.

  ‘I was in my workshop when he burst in,’ I said.

  Kolya got up. He paced across to the sink, spat in it, then turned back to look at me.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  His breathing was laboured, I noticed, and fine beads of perspiration had broken out across the top of his lip, glistening among the bristles.

  ‘He’s looking for you. For the bracelet. He came to the workshop and threatened me.’

  Kolya slumped back into his chair. ‘Well, tovarich, you really are the bearer of good tidings today.’ He ran a hand across his face, and when he looked at me his eyes were alight with weary fury.

  ‘I had no desire to get mixed up in this,’ I said, angrily.

  ‘When Kirov and I were put away,’ Kolya said, ‘in the Pol-e-Tcharkhi, Kirov tried to kill me. He blamed me for him getting caught. There were fights in there continually, murders happened all the time.’ Kolya pulled up his shirt, revealing an ugly scar that ripped up from his belly to his chest. ‘He failed, though. He was transferred to a maximum-security prison in Russia and had five more years added to his sentence.’

  ‘I told Vassily I wasn’t interested in the bracelet,’ I said. ‘He insisted on sending me after you. “Find Kolya,” he told me, “he will tell you about what happened.” I shouldn’t have listened to him. Tanya pressed me.’

  ‘Vassily wanted me to tell you what happened?’

  I pulled the letter Vassily had given me from my pocket, unfolded it and pushed it across the table to him. Picking it up, he gazed at it for some moments before letting it fall back on to the table. He looked at me over the top of his glass.

  ‘How do you come to have this?’ he asked.

  ‘Vassily gave it to me before he went into hospital. Before he died he made me promise to find you. He told me there was a story about the bracelet you must tell me. I have had enough of thinking about those years, but it seemed important to Vassily that I know.’ I turned over the letter and indicated Vassily’s scrawled instructions in pencil across the back of it. ‘He wrote here how you can find the bracelet. He decided after all that you should have it, if you told me the story of how he came to get it.’

  Kolya picked up the letter again and examined the writing.

  ‘You mean to say,’ he said, ‘it’s written here where the bracelet is?’

  I nodded. ‘Vassily never sold it. He buried it. He wanted to forget about it – the whole thing, the bracelet, what had happened. But he couldn’t. It haunted him right up to his death.’

  He looked up from the letter, and regarded me, his sunken gaze receding to some place I could not see.

  ‘Kirov was responsible for what happened,’ he said, slowly. ‘For Zena. For that whole fucking mess.’

  ‘For Zena?’ I said, my throat tightening, the blood seeping from my face, leaving my skin cold and clammy. I stood up and paced over to the window.

  ‘You remember, of course.’

  ‘Of course I fucking remember,’ I said, my voice brittle. I gripped the window ledge. ‘Do you think I could forget?’

  Kolya shook his head. He did not seem to notice the anger in my tone. He stood up and came over to me, put a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘You don’t know Antanas, you never knew.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Zena, Kolya,’ I said. The perspiration stood out on my forehead . My heart was thudding. My hand trembled when I put it up to push him away. ‘That’s not what I came here for. Vassily told me you had to tell me something about the bracelet. That’s the only story I want to hear. You understand?’

  ‘But Zena…’ he began.

  I lashed out at him. He stumbled backwards, a look of surprise crossing his emaciated features .

  ‘I said I don’t want to talk about Zena,’ I yelled. I punched the window frame hard. The pain that shot up my wrist was blissfully sharp. My knuckles were bloodied. Biting my lip, I punched the wood again, thrilling to the fierce burst of fresh pain. The lump in my throat loosened, the bubble of fear shrinking in the darkness, in the corner of my mind.

  ‘Hey!’ Kolya said, pulling me back, his voice shaking. ‘Tovarich, stop!’

  I allowed him to pull me away. To push me down into the seat by the table.

  ‘Here,’ he said, almost overturning the glass in his hurry. ‘Here, a drink.’

  I licked clean the torn flesh. Tasted the sweet tang of blood on my tongue. Concentrating on the soreness of my knuckles, I allowed the panic to recede. Kolya slumped into the chair opposite me. He closed his eyes and sank his head into his hands.

  ‘So Kirov is out of prison and Zinotis is after the bracelet,’ Kolya mused after a while. ‘It’s time I left Vilnius, I think. Do you think you were followed?’

  I recalled the times over the past few days when I had been convinced I had seen a flicker in the shadows when I looked behind me, sure somebody had been watching me but seeing no one. Remembered too how Zinotis had turned up at Tanya’s apartment, then my own. A shiver ran down my spine.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  Kolya shifted in his chair. He turned the empty glass in his hands, not refilling it. I waited for him to say something. He picked up the letter and stared again at the instructions Vassily had scribbled on it.

  ‘Antanas, tovarich, I think we are going to have to move fast,’ he said, quietly. ‘Help me to find the bracelet and I will tell you about it. It is a story you should hear, whether you want to or not.’

  I nodded, aware of the danger I had placed Kolya in.

  ‘We’ll have to go back over to Warsaw Street,’ Kolya said. ‘I need to get some things.’

  Chapter 22

  I saw Zena as much as I could, volunteering to escort the supply convoy into Jalalabad as regularly as it went. Vassily laughed at my enthusiasm to take a job largely left to new recruits. The trip to Jalalabad was slow and dangerous – after dark the rebels often mined the potholed roads and would launch regular, lightning attacks along the route.

  On the weekend leaves we were occasionally given I would stay with Zena, her Tajik room-mate, Nadi
a, sleeping in one of the other rooms. Often I would wake in the early hours of the morning and sit up and watch her as she lay sleeping, the pre-dawn air cool on our skins; the sweetest hour of the night, when I wished the day would never come.

  ‘Hold me,’ she would say, drowsily. ‘Hold me tight.’

  And I would hold her, feel her smooth, lean limbs curl around me, the warmth of her breath on my chest.

  ‘I don’t want to move from here,’ I would say. ‘The night is best. When it’s dark the world disappears and it is just the two of us and this bed.’

  ‘This bed is my world.’

  ‘Your body is my world.’

  ‘I like that. I like it when you look at my body. Look at me. Why should I be hidden? Why do they want me to be hidden?’

  And so it should have stayed. But joy in Afghanistan was as insubstantial as breath on a pane of glass.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ Zena said, her voice tight with emotion, one day a few weeks later.

  I stood in her doorway. She had been dressing, getting ready for a night shift. A brush hung in her hand; she pointed it at me accusingly. Her face was pale, and dark shadows rimmed the underside of her eyes.

  ‘You know what happened at the kishlak?’ she demanded.

  I nodded. ‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘I was there.’

  ‘You disgust me. You are no better than they are.’

  The kishlak, the Afghan village, nestled in a hollow by the river. There was an orchard of orange trees by the side of the village. Some months earlier, not long after we had arrived, the orchards around Jalalabad had been in full blossom, the tiny fragrant flowers shivering in the breeze, like the frills and folds of a thousand young girls’ dresses. Their branches were heavy with fruit now. The mudbrick walls of the village were dark and strong, the doorways to the small family compounds brightly painted. At the edge of the orchard was a well. The first time I drove past the village, I noticed an old man seated by the side of it. I had been smoking hashish. We had been in the mountains for two nights and the hashish was a relief from the cold and fear and boredom by the small fire, well shrouded so the mujahidin would not see it.