Nine Layers of Sky

by Liz Williams

  “Are you all right?” Elena asked.

  “Yes, yes, I’m okay,” he told her, dismissively. “Do you have it?”

  “Yes. Are they here?” Apart from Ilya, herself, and a bored girl emptying the ashtrays, the foyer was empty.

  “They’re upstairs in one of the rooms. Eighth floor, number 820. I phoned the main guy again this morning. He didn’t want to meet down here.”

  “I’m not going up there,” Elena said firmly.

  Ilya looked at her, opened his mouth as if to argue, and then seemed to think better of it.

  “You can understand why?” Elena asked.

  Rather to her surprise, he nodded. “Yes, I understand. And maybe you are wise.”

  “I’m a woman,” Elena said. “I have to think of these things.”

  Ilya gave a sudden wry grin. “So you do. I’ll look after you, you know. But there’s no reason why you should trust me. It makes the situation more difficult.”

  “Just call the person doing the deal. Tell him to get down here if he wants the thing. How long is this likely to take?”

  “Do you have a mobile phone?”

  Elena did, but the phone card cost money and she was reluctant to use it up. “Ask the desk to call upstairs.”

  Ilya went across to the bell and summoned a receptionist, a young woman with an elaborate bouffant hairstyle. She looked vaguely familiar. She regarded Ilya with undisguised disdain.

  “Room 820,” Elena said. “Can you call them for me? Tell them there are some people waiting for them downstairs.”

  The receptionist’s face relaxed a little as she studied Elena.

  “Isn’t it Elena Irinovna? I went to school with your sister. I’m Natalya Yulieva.”

  “Yes,” Elena said, and smiled. “I remember you. You used to live on Pushkin Street.”

  “We still do. How’s your sister? I haven’t seen her in ages.”

  Ilya nudged Elena’s elbow. “She’s fine,” Elena said hastily. “Could you make that call for me? Thanks.”

  “Of course,” Natalya said. Ilya melted back into the shadows.

  “She thinks I’m a drug dealer,” he murmured.

  “Are you?”

  Ilya shook his head. His face was drawn and pale and his hands were jammed into the pockets of his overcoat. She could not see whether they were trembling. If he was an addict, it would explain his shabby appearance, which didn’t make her feel any more secure. Perhaps he’d been in the military: a lot of people had picked up the habit in Chechnya, or perhaps Afghanistan. It was hard to judge his age—late forties?—and she had once heard that heroin made people look older. The thought sealed her decision not to go anywhere alone with him.

  The receptionist was frowning at the phone.

  “There’s no answer.”

  “No? Maybe they went out.”

  “I’m sure they didn’t. I’d have seen them. Ivan Mikhailovich!” Natalya called. A man at a desk in the corner glanced up. “The three men in 820. Have any of them gone out?”

  The man shrugged. “Not to my knowledge.” He turned back to his papers. Elena turned away, deliberately ignoring him, and she saw that Ilya was doing the same. “Keeping an eye on the Americans,” Ilya whispered. Elena nodded. The presence of the FSB man made her feel a little safer. She leaned over the reception desk. “Can you try again?”

  “Sorry, there’s no reply. It’s just ringing and ringing.”

  “Look, it’s past eleven,” Ilya said tightly. His head was on one side, Elena noticed, almost as though he was listening to something. He added abruptly, “Wait there,” and vanished in the direction of the lifts. Elena turned away, but from the corner of her eye she saw that once Ilya had gone, the FSB man rose from his place at the desk and unobtrusively followed. Watching American, or dealers, or everybody? Elena paused indecisively. If she lost Ilya, she’d lose all chance of selling the object.

  “If my friend comes back, tell him I’ve gone to the ladies’ room,” Elena said to Natalya. She slipped around the side of the foyer, to the second set of elevators. The elevator cranked upward, as if it was being winched by hand. There were more buttons indicated on the door panel than there were floors. Elena wondered what would happen if she pressed number 20. Go right out through the roof, probably.

  Moments later, she was on the eighth floor. She followed the signs. Rooms 810–820 were around a corner. There was a peculiar musty smell in the corridor, as though it hadn’t been cleaned for years. Perhaps they no longer bothered; it occurred to her to ask Natalya on the way back down, see if they wanted another cleaner. She could hear nothing. Cautiously, she peered around the corner. The door to room 820 stood wide open. There was no sign of Ilya or the FSB man. Caution warred with curiosity. She would just look through the crack of the door; she would not go in… .

  The smell grew stronger as she crept along the corridor, but it was no longer musty. It reminded her of something, like the atmosphere in the launch chambers at the cosmodrome: electric and anticipatory. She put her eye to the crack in the door. She could see a man’s hand, lying limp on a red carpet. The fingers were curled and unmoving. Elena stepped back from the door.

  “Ilya?” She had not meant to speak, and her voice sounded very loud in the overwhelming silence. Then he was standing in front of her. His face had been pale before, but now it was grey.

  “What happened?” Elena asked. She tried to step around him to see through the open door, but he blocked her path.

  “They’re dead. Don’t look. We have to go.” He grasped her hand and pulled her down the corridor. For a visibly sick man, he was disconcertingly strong.

  Elena, too startled to protest, said, “Where’s the man from the FSB? I saw him follow you.”

  “I don’t know. He’s not in the room. Although it’s hard to tell.”

  “What do you mean? Let go of me,” Elena said and tugged her hand free. “Did you kill them?”

  “No. Why would I have done such a thing?”

  “I have no idea, Ilya! I know nothing about you.”

  “You know I saved your life. I think Ivan-from-the-FSB went to fetch his friends. I think he suspects something’s happened. He’s right. We have to get out of the hotel.”

  They took the lift as far as the second floor, and then the stairs to the basement. The kitchens were like a dungeon, cavernous and damp. A chef was putting something into an oven; Ilya and Elena waited until his back was turned, and made a dash for the door. They fell out into a yard, surrounded by dustbins.

  The hotel towered above them. The mountains lay ahead, mist curling across the distant rows of pines. Elena’s mind was racing. Both the receptionist and Ivan-from-the-FSB had seen her in Ilya’s company. And they would suspect Ilya of the murder. That lean and hungry look was not one to inspire thoughts of innocence. The receptionist knew who she was, knew where she lived, and even if Natalya was disposed to keep her old friend’s sister out of trouble, Ivan must have heard them talking. The foyer had been as quiet as the grave. The FSB was never overly concerned whether one was guilty or not. They liked order, and neat solutions, and a murder pinned on the nearest possible suspects was usually neat enough.

  Her earlier words to Ilya floated back into her mind, the mockery of an echo. I’m not going anywhere with someone I don’t know. Now it seemed that she had no choice.

  “Come on.” Ilya was already making his way between the dustbins.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Away from here, for a start.”

  Elena, deeply regretting her choice of shoes, followed him across a cracked concrete forecourt and into an ornamental garden. In summer this was a pleasant enough place, with umbrellas and fountains, but now the water had congealed to icy mud, broken by twisted willows. They crashed through a line of bushes and out onto a potholed track. And now Elena knew where they could go.

  “The cable car!”

  Ilya spun around. “What?”

  “It leads up to Koktubye Hill. There a
re villages on the other side.”

  Ilya nodded. “Quickly, then.”

  As they panted up to the kiosk, the car was rattling into the terminus. Ilya thrust change into the attendant’s hand and there was a brief teeth-gritting wait before the car set off again. Elena felt Ilya’s cold fingers close briefly over her own. The bandage across his palm was grimy. Gently, she pulled her hand away.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be long gone by the time they get their act together.”

  The ground was already far below: a maze of old houses and bare-branched cherry orchards. The mountains were suddenly very close, as though the cable car was climbing up the rim of the world.

  Had Ilya killed those people, back there in the room? Memory was only now beginning to sharpen and clarify. The carpet had not been red, after all, but a dull institutional green, covered with blood. It had been, he had said, hard to tell who was in the room. She looked down at her hands and saw that they were shaking.

  “Elena,” Ilya said. Tentatively, he patted her sleeve. “Don’t worry. I told you—I’ll look after you.” He looked suddenly younger beneath the junkie pallor, and she thought, oddly, that he would have been an attractive man, given half a chance. Perhaps he still was.

  “When we get to the top, we’ll make our way down the other side, to one of the villages.” She was thinking aloud.

  “That’s a reasonable plan. Then find a car. Hire someone to take us somewhere. Over the border would be best, into Kyrgyzstan. It’s the closest city, isn’t it? And if it’s anything like the rest of the former Soviet Union, bureaucracy will be so bad between the different countries, it’ll take time for the police to catch up.”

  “Ilya, wait,” Elena said blankly. She couldn’t leave town just like that. There was her mother and sister to think of; there was Moscow and Canada. “I was thinking more of finding somewhere to hide, not leaving the country. I haven’t got much in the way of papers—no passport, no travel documents, just my identity cards and my Party card. I haven’t got much money, either. And I’m wearing stupid shoes.”

  Ilya smiled, a real smile this time, not the wolfish grin. “Here,” he said. He reached into his overcoat pocket and took out a sticky package. “Take it. If you have money, you probably won’t need papers.” He thrust the money into her hand and she took it gingerly. The edges of the notes were wet and red. She estimated, dazed, that it was approximately five thousand dollars.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked, but she already knew.

  “From a dead man’s jacket. He won’t need it. I’ll keep the other half.”

  “Your contact had ten thousand dollars in his pockets?” She owed her current circumstances to the pockets of a dead man, back there on the Tashkent road. She nearly asked Ilya if he’d thought to steal the man’s teeth.

  “It would probably have been yours anyway. I think it was payment for the object.” He gave her a sharp glance. “Which is safe, yes?”

  “I think so.” She scrabbled in her handbag. “Here. You might as well see it for yourself.”

  Ilya took the ball in his undamaged hand, weighing it. As he did so, the ball split.

  “It’s broken!” Elena said, dismayed.

  “It’s unraveling… .”

  They stared at the ball. Filaments were spinning out over Ilya’s fingers. It resembled a spider’s web: a matted tangle of glossy dark hairs, so fine that they drifted up into the still air. Within the center of the threads lay a smaller object, like a nested doll. It was roughly in the shape of a small coiled fossil, but made of bronze. A thin groove ran down one polished side. Ilya dusted the filaments from his palm. They floated down onto the floor, where they formed a brief black pattern before melting into ash.

  “What is it?”

  “Elena, I don’t know.” He seemed as baffled as she. “Can you hang on to it? My pockets have holes in them.”

  “What if it’s dangerous?”

  “I’ll carry your bag if you like.”

  But the fur coat had only a shallow pocket, and she did not want to relinquish her bag and the money. “No, that’s all right. I’ll carry it,” she said.

  They were almost at the summit of the hill. Elena lapsed into calculation. A thousand dollars would be more than enough to get her over the border, stay somewhere cheap for a few nights, then get a train ticket to Moscow or St. Petersburg. She could lose herself there, in the big cities where no one cared who you were or what you had done. She had been standing in the foyer when Ilya went upstairs. They would surely not want her for murder, would they? She was an accomplice in the eyes of the police, she told herself firmly, nothing more. And the rest of the money could be mailed back to Anna and her mother. Four thousand dollars would buy visas and tickets; it would get them to Canada.

  But what about the FSB? Her original reasoning had been correct; they wouldn’t care whether she was guilty or not. If she was arrested, lawyers would have to be hired, costs met, bribes delivered. All the Canada money would be gone, eaten away into a bottomless sink of red tape and corruption. She would rather become a fugitive than see that happen, but it was beginning to sink in that she might have blown any chance of working on a space program again. Long-term gains, long-term losses. She found herself veering between excitement and despair.

  “What about you, Ilya? Do you have any travel documents?”

  “Sort of.”

  That meant any papers he had would be forged, bought on the black market. It was none of her business.

  The summit of Koktubye Hill was lost in cloud. She could see the radio mast lifting out of the mist like a spear. Closer lay the dumpy domes of the cafe yurts. If only they could stop for a moment, get a glass of tea … But all of her possibilities had narrowed down to flight. She fumbled in her bag for the mobile and dialed her mother’s number. She could, at least, tell them not to worry, even if it was a lie. The thought of the police suddenly appearing on the doorstep, her mother, unsuspecting, shuffling to the door in her slippers— no, it was not to be borne. The phone rang and rang until the answering machine clicked in.

  “Mama? It’s me. I’ve had to leave town for a day or so, I’ve got caught up in something a bit tricky”—understatement—“and I need to sort things out. Please don’t worry. I’ll call you later.”

  Ilya was watching her, his face unreadable.

  “I had to call them,” she said defensively.

  “I didn’t say you did not.” He turned his head and stared up the hill to the destination of the lurching cable car. Elena tried not to think about her unsuitable shoes. She knew what lay on the other side of Koktubye: the long slope, heavy with scree and scrub, falling hundreds of feet down into the valley below. And these high hills were only the foothills of the mountains. Beyond lay the great wall of the Tien Shan.

  Stop it. So what if you ruin your shoes and your feet hurt? At least it isn’t snowing. All you have to do is make it down the slope and then Ilya will find someone with a car. If she started fretting now—if she started thinking—she would sit tight in the cable car and wait to be arrested.

  Machinery whined and groaned. The cable car had only recently been renovated; Elena tried not to think of all the years it had spent rusting in heavy snowfall. The car swung ominously upon the rail and ground to a halt. Ilya rose shakily to his feet and helped Elena from the car.

  “How are your shoes?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “I’ll help you.” He gave her feet, in their smart high-heeled pumps, a quick, measuring glance. “If it becomes a real problem, you can have my boots, but they will be too big.”

  “My God,” Elena said in wonder. “You are a gentleman, aren’t you?”

  “You might say I was raised in an old-fashioned way.”

  They slipped behind the yurts of the cafe; no one was around. They passed a dog on a rope, which rose to its feet, growling, and a large, mild cow. Elena took the muddy path through the trees, which ended in a barbed-wire fence.

  “We
’ll have to go over.”

  “Or under,” Elena said, ducking grimly. She felt her fur coat catch on the wire, saw Ilya reach down a hand. After a moment, he pulled her coat free, but his hands were trembling. If he went into serious withdrawal, what was she to do? She knew little about cold turkey. Was it like a bad case of the flu? Or worse? Or was Ilya not an addict at all, but simply ill? The subject would have to be raised at some point, but for now, Elena compromised by asking, “By the way, are you sure you’re all right?”

  He nodded briefly. “Yes.”

  If he was a typical man, Elena thought with a mixture of irritation and pity, the last thing he’d want would be a fuss.

  “Good,” she said, and set off down the slope. It was not too bad if she went sideways and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, but this was the gentler part of the hill. Elena found herself regretting the erosion of the snow. A fall now would result in bruises or worse, in broken bones. She looked up once at the mountains and felt dizziness snatch at her: that old sensation of looking down into the sky. The Tien Shan were so huge that they distorted perspective. From farther down the slope, there was a sudden rattle of movement. Elena frowned, trying to see.

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know.” Ilya’s face was set and abstracted, as though he was listening to the wind. He muttered, “I can’t hear—” then broke off.

  “They keep goats around here,” Elena said, but the sound came again and when she looked down the slope she could see something little and dark, leaping among the stones. A cat, perhaps—but then it stood up on its hind legs. “It’s a monkey,” she said, startled, and Ilya replied, “No, it is not.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Some kind of ghoul. I saw it in the marketplace yesterday.”

  “A ghoul? I went through the market. I didn’t see anything like that until—until that girl went for me.” It occurred to Elena that Ilya might have followed her.

  “We should hurry,” Ilya said. He pointed to the wall of the mountains. “Look.”

  There was a front coming in over the Tien Shan; a band of clouds trailing streamers: a spring storm coming over the Chinese border, that would be as much sleet as rain. Elena gritted her teeth and slithered down the slope.