Elena wiped away her tears, feeling a wave of anger for the first time.
– You can’t be sure of that. You don’t know what happened.
– I am sure. I’ve planned operations like this myself. What’s worse, they knew that only a person who wasn’t aware of the plot could have persuaded Jesse Austin to attend the concert. They needed someone in love. They needed someone full of love and optimism. Otherwise, Jesse Austin would have sensed a trick. He would have sensed if you were lying to him, or if you didn’t really believe the things you were saying. He would never have attended that concert if you hadn’t asked him to.
Elena stood up.
– I know it’s my fault! I know!
Leo shook his head, lowering his voice.
– No, I blame myself. I taught you nothing. I let you into this world naked and naive and this is what happened. Raisa and I wanted to shelter you from those things – lies, deceit, trickery – but they are the truths of our existence. I failed you. I failed Raisa. I had only one thing to offer her, protection, and I couldn’t even provide that.
Leo addressed Frol Panin.
– Where is Ivanov now?
– I know that right now he is on a train. I don’t know where that train is heading.
Leo paused, sensing this was the truth but suspicious of it all the same.
– Who killed my wife?
– To the world, the answer is Anna Austin.
– That is a lie.
– We don’t know what happened.
Leo became angry.
– We know that the official version of the events is a lie! We know that much.
Frol Panin nodded.
– Yes, that version seems unlikely. However, to avoid a diplomatic crisis we have agreed not to contradict the American version of events.
– Who killed Jesse Austin? Was it us? Was it the Americans? It was us, wasn’t it?
– As far as I know, the plan was merely to have Jesse Austin turn up outside the United Nations. The hope was that he would be arrested, dragged off by the police, and if one of the students could become embroiled in the ruckus that would be useful from a propaganda point of view. It was a plot conjured up by a department that is desperate to make some inroads into the anti-Communist senti a de that prevails in the United States. They wanted to repair Jesse Austin’s career. They wanted him to be famous again.
Leo began pacing the room again.
– I knew all along it would be impossible for you not to try something. You couldn’t merely stage a concert. You had to go further. You had to do more.
– It was an ill-conceived plan that has gone badly wrong.
– Let me go to New York. Let me investigate.
– Leo, my friend, listen to me: what you ask is impossible.
– I must find out who murdered my wife. I must find them and kill them.
– Leo, you will never be allowed to go. It will not happen. There is nothing you can do.
Leo shook his head.
– There’s nothing else! This is all that’s left for me to do! I promise, I will find her killer. I will find the person responsible. I will find them.
Same Day
Leo had no clear sense of how long he’d been sitting on the roof of the apartment block – several hours at least. After Panin had left, he and the girls had put the room back as it should be, resembling a home, the two beds side by side. Leo had begun to make dinner but abruptly abandoned his efforts, leaving the food uncooked. The only place he could think to go was the roof.
Teenagers sometimes came here to kiss and fool around if they couldn’t find anywhere else. Tonight, in the pouring rain, it was empty. Leo did not feel cold, even with his clothes soaked through. He could see out across the city, the night lights of Moscow smudged by rainfall. He stood up, walking to the edge of the building and looked down at the drop. He remained there for many minutes, trying to reason why he should step back. He remembered his promise. Stepping away from the edge, he turned his back on the city, heading downstairs to an apartment he’d once thought of as home.
EIGHT YEARS LATER
Soviet-Finnish Border Soviet Checkpoint 760 Kilometres North-West of Moscow 240 Kilometres North-East of Helsinki
New Year’s Day 1973
The rucksack belonged to a man shot trying to cross the border into Finland. Despite it being a savage winter with the snow in the forests lying waist deep, the man had attempted the perilous crossing perhaps hoping that the weather and near-permanent darkness would make it easier to pass undetected. To trespass into this heavily controlled area by accident or design was considered an attempt to defect to the West, an act of treason. The soldiers patrolling, many on skis through the forest, were instructed to shoot to kill. There would be wide-reaching repercussions if a traitor managed to slip through and seek asylum abroad, revealing classified information about the Soviet Union to its enemies. On a personal level, Eli Romm, in charge of this zone, would be called be witribunal and would almost certainly lose his job and possibly his freedom, accused of neglect or, worse, of wilfully allowing an act of sabotage.
Eli examined the contents of the rucksack. It contained basic provisions: water, bread and cured meats. There was a change of clothes, dark in colour, a thick wool blanket, several boxes of matches, medical supplies, a sharp hunting knife and a steel cup – standard outdoor fare and of little interest. Eli tipped the rucksack upside down. Nothing else fell out. He felt the lining, running his finger along the stitches, convinced it held further evidence. He was right. There was a lump in the material, a secret pocket. Cutting through the material, ripping off the patch, he discovered the pocket contained several thin gold coins, bound in plastic, proof that this was a serious attempt at defection. Extensive preparations had been made – gold was nearly impossible to obtain for an ordinary citizen, the inference was that a foreign country was involved and the man was a professional spy.
The secret compartment contained more than gold. Romm found two photographs. Expecting them to be classified he was surprised that they appeared to be worthless from an intelligence point of view, photographs of two women in their late twenties, taken on their wedding day. There were also a series of papers. He opened them, his puzzlement growing as he discovered that they were a mass of carefully pressed, faded Soviet newspaper clippings detailing the shooting of a man called Jesse Austin, a once popular Communist singer, murdered in New York by his lover, a woman called Raisa Demidova. The murder had taken place some years ago, the articles dated back to 1965. There were extensive handwritten notes on the articles, in small neat writing, thoughts on the case, with a list of names, people the man wanted to speak to. Evidently from these notes the ambition was to reach New York, the United States – the main adversary. The apparent motivation was so peculiar that Eli wondered if the papers were in some sort of code. He would have to report the matter directly to Moscow, to the highest authorities.
The prisoner was in a cell downstairs – shot but not killed by a soldier on guard patrol. After firing from long range with a sniper rifle, the guard had pursued but failed to find the wounded man. Somehow the man had struggled on through the snow. The guard had returned to base, bringing out reinforcements to search the area. Eventually, surrounded by dogs, the man was lucky to be apprehended alive. His injury, a single bullet wound, was not life-threatening and he had received rudimentary treatment at the barracks. The man’s tenacity, the fashion in which he’d evaded capture for several hours against overwhelming odds, and the organized, disciplined contents of his bag suggested a military background. He’d refused to speak to the guards or to give his name.
Eli entered the cell, regarding the man seated on the chair. His back was bandaged: the bullet had entered his right shoulder. There was an untouched plate of food in front of him. His face was pale from loss of blood. A blanket had been placed over his shoulders. Eli did not condone torture. His only concern was preserving the integrity of the border and in so doing, his ow
n career. With the newspaper cuttings and the photographs he sat down in front of the man, holding the papers under the man’s line of vision. They brought him to life. Eli asked:
– What is your name?
The man did not respond. Eli pointed out:
– You face execution. It is in your interest to talk to us.
– What is the importance of this?
The prisoner reached out and grabbed hold of the papers – his fingers clamped tight around the scraps. Eli sensed that if he didn’t let go the man would rip them from his hands. Curious, he released his grip and watched the man gather the papers together in front of him, treating them with as much reverence as a treasure map.
SEVEN YEARS LATER
Greater Province of Kabul Lake Qargha 9 Kilometres West of Kabul
22 March 1980
With his back to Kabul, Leo stepped into the lake fully clothed, plunging up to his knees and continuing to walk, his khaki trousers bleeding Saturn-rings of red dust onto the water. In front of him the snow-capped teeth of the Koh-e-Qrough mountain range bit into a pale blue sky. The spring sun was bright but not yet strong enough to temper the freezing river waters flush with mountain snowmelt. He knew the lake should feel cold as he raked his fingers through the emerald-green surface yet as the water level rose and flowed over the hip of his trousers he felt wonderfully warm. Were he to trust his body he would’ve sworn that these were tropical waters as pleasant as the sun on his cracked, tanned skin. He didn’t raise his arms, allowing them to sink into the lake, dragging behind him as he walked. Soon the water was up to his shoulders – he was on the cusp of the shallows, his feet arriving at the ledge where the depth increased sharply. Another step and he’d sink beneath the surface, the stones in his pockets weighing him down, easing him to the bottom where he’d come to rest, seated on the silt bed. At the borderline he waited, the water lapping at his top lip, close to his nose, the surface trembling with each slow breath.
The opium was thick in his blood. Until it thinned the drug would cocoon him against the cold, and everything else – the disappointment of the life he was living and the regrets of the life he’d left behind. Right now, in this moment, he was devoid of troubles, connected to the world by nothing more than a thread. He felt no emotion, just contentment, not in the form of happiness but contentment as the absence of pain, the absence of dissatisfaction – an exquisite emptiness of feeling. Opium had made him hollow, scooping out the bitterness and reproach. That he’d vowed revenge, promised justice and achieved nothing did not upset him. His failures had been banished by the drug, a temporary exile, held at bay, ready to return when the opium’s effects wore off.
The water lapping at his lips urged him to continue. One step further.
Why settle for a simulation of emptiness dependent on narcotics when the real thing was so close? Another step and he would be at the bottom of the lake, a trail of bubbles from his lips to the emerald surface the only trace of his existence. The stones in his pockets joined the chorus of whispers, urging him to take the final step.
Leo did not heed their call, remaining motionless. No matter how many times he stood here, no matter how sure he was that today was the day he would cross over, he could not bring himself to cut the thread that joined him to the world. He could not take the final step.
The opium began to thin. His senses reconnected with reality, coming together like planets realigning. The water was cold. He was cold. He shivered, reaching into his pockets and taking out the smooth stones, allowing them to drop beside him, feeling the vibrations as they struck the bed of the lake. He turned away from the mountains, churning the water, and slowly returned to shore, wading back towards the city of Kabul.
Greater Province of Kabul City of Kabul Karta-i-Seh District Darulaman Boulevard
Same Day
By the time Leo arrived at his apartment the sun had set and his clothes had dried, dripping a trail in the dust behind him as he’d cycled back from the lake. With the opium’s concentration in decline, running down like the sands of an hourglass, the feelings of failure and melancholy began to circulate in his system, a virus of the mind that had only temporarily been suppressed. He was isolated from his daughters, alone in the city; his only companion was the memories of his wife, thoughts that did not exist without the knowledge that her murderer had gone unpunished. The muscles across his back tightened at the recollection of his humiliating attempt to reach New York, the bullet scar in his shoulder stung as though the wound was raw, his brow furrowed as the details of the case surfaced in his mind. Why had Jesse Austin been shot and how was it connected to his wife? What was the truth behind that night? A dangerous restlessness began to bubble within him – he could not let the matter stand and yet he was further from the truth than ever before. Opium had become not an answer but merely a way of pushing these thoughts back for twelve or so hours.
Not bothering to change his clothes, he collapsed onto his bed, a thin mattress in the middle of the room. This apartment was unwelcoming and functional. He’d refused accommodation in government residences where officials lived safe behind guarded gates and barbed-wire fences, in newly built residential blocks where every apartment was fitted with air conditioning with back-up diesel generators should the electricity fail, which it often did. He never ate with the officers in canteens that served imported, vacuum-packed Russian food, nor did he socialize in the bars established for homesick Soviet soldiers. He existed like a distant moon, in orbit of the occupation but rarely seen, occasionally passing close enough to remind everyone of his existence before spinning into the depths of space on a lonely, elliptical trajectory.
Ignoring protocol, he’d found this apartment himself, agreeing the rent directly with the landlord rather than using the official Soviet channels. He had one criterion – it should be impossible to be mistaken for, or resemble in any way, the home he once shared with his wife and daughters. For this reason he liked the fact that he was near speakers erected outside a tea room that broadcast the muezzin’s call to prayer, a sound that filled his apartment, a sound that he’d never shared with his family. His intention was to crowd his life with things that didn’t remind him of Raisa – to make his existence so foreign there was nothing that flashbacked to the life he’d lost. The large windows opened to views of the city ntialthe surrounding mountains, a view that could not have been more different from Moscow. Even the layout of the apartment was peculiar: a single room large enough to serve as a bedroom, living area and kitchen. It was imperative there not be separate rooms. Closed doors played havoc with his imagination. His first apartment in Bala Hissar, the centre of old Kabul, had been designed for a traditional Islamic family with a back room intended for a wife and daughters. While living there Leo often heard the muffled sound of Raisa’s voice. He’d run to the door and throw it open only to reveal an empty room. Another night he’d heard the sound of Elena’s voice, then Zoya, both voices bringing him running. No matter how far-fetched the notion that his family might be together again and living with him, the imagined sound of their voices would bring him checking on empty rooms, sometimes three or four times a night. Insanity was not far away. His temporary solution had been to unscrew the doors, set up mirrors in the hallways so that he could see the empty space at all times. He’d begun looking for a more suitable apartment.
Leo retrieved his pipe: a thin wood tube with a small steel pot roughly two-thirds of the way down from the mouthpiece. There were crude carvings around the rim, a blackened interior where the opium burned. Though it had never been mentioned directly, his addiction was no secret to his superiors. A system of tacit consent allowed soldiers and officials any pleasures accessible to them, a form of compensation to supplement wages that could never be high enough to offset the dangers of Afghanistan. For Leo, opium had nothing to do with pleasure, it was a continuation of the logic he applied to his apartment, making his body foreign and quite unlike the body that had slept beside Raisa nearly every night of his
life for fifteen years – an addiction, certainly, but also a strategy to cope with his grief.
He hastened to his stash, breaking off a pea-sized amount, his fingers fumbling, the opium falling to the dusty floor. On his knees, he picked it up, regarding the dust-covered lump. He blew it. The dust remained: the opium was sticky. It didn’t matter. He placed it in the cup of the steel holder and lit a candle, impatiently waiting for the flame to take. Opium did not burn easily like tobacco and required a constant source of heat. Lying on the bed, on his stomach, he positioned the steel pot over the candle, eyes on the opium, hungry for it to melt in the flame and the smoke to travel up the pipe. The opium began to burn, the shape of the lump changing. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs, the smoke slowly dissipating the sense of restlessness, re-dissolving the frustrations and failings.
Sedating his emotions in the way that a surgeon’s team anaesthetizes a patient before operating, Leo was able to return to the memories of Raisa, examining them with opium-induced distance as if they belonged to another man from a far-away world. In Moscow he’d been surrounded by the life he’d created with her, from their apartment to the city itself, the parks, the river; even the sound of the tramcars rattling past caused him to stop mid-sentence, his chest gripped by a physical pain. The bitter winters, the hot summers – there was nothing that her memory wasn’t stamped upon. In the months immediately after her murder the desire to investigate blazed in his mind as bright as the surface of sun, consuming all other concerns. He had no other thoughts from the moment he woke to collapsing on his bed, catching only a few hours of fretful, disturbed sleep. He petitioned officials, wrote letters, begged for the chance to go to New York only to be told time and time again that what he asked was impossible.
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