Oksa Pollock: The Last Hope

by Anne Plichota

  “Going from NASA to physical sciences is a bit spaced out…” added Oksa.

  Gus began laughing.

  “NASA… spaced out… Congrats, very funny! I see your brain is working overtime.”

  They continued to analyse the ten sheets of paper photocopied by Oksa for quite a while. The young spy was a little disappointed because the documents were mainly administrative in nature and not very interesting. Only one was a little more personal: McGraw’s application letter, written in a beautiful flowing hand, which outlined his reasons for wanting the job.

  “Listen to this: he applied to St Proximus ‘for personal reasons’. Personal reasons, Gus! And he said that he was particularly keen to rediscover ‘the exhilaration of teaching younger generations’! Honestly, give me a break,” said Oksa angrily.

  “It is a bit much,” agreed Gus, frowning.

  “A bit suspicious, you mean!” added Oksa excitedly. Gus took the letter and read it carefully. He had to agree—it did confirm Oksa’s suspicions. He put it down and lay back on her bed, stretching out his arms and legs, then looked at his friend sitting cross-legged, scrutinizing each of the sheets that she’d photocopied at such risk to herself. She was incredible, so strong and determined. And yet he knew how hard she was finding things at the moment. He felt a surge of admiration and concern. As long as she didn’t flip out…

  Oksa felt exultant. She might not have learnt as much as she would have liked but the fact that she’d pulled off such a daring exploit gave her a feeling of intense satisfaction. Sneaking into Bontempi’s office and going through McGraw’s file! Looking inside his wallet without him being any the wiser! The work of a true pro, even though it had given her palpitations and brought her out in a cold sweat more than once, particularly when she’d made her amazing, death-defying descent from the first floor.

  “And were you able to see what there was in his wallet? Anything interesting?” asked Gus, still stretched out on the bed, never taking his eyes off his friend.

  “No,” continued Oksa, without looking up, “not really. Everything you usually find in a wallet: credit card, driving licence, receipts, scribbled phone numbers, nothing really exciting. There was also a card with an odd phrase written on it: “If you think you’re stronger than me, you’ll have to prove it.”

  “Strange…”

  The two friends fell silent for a moment. Gus nodded, engrossed in what Oksa had just told him. Oksa, on the other hand, was finding it hard to relax from the tension that had been tying her stomach in knots all day. She would never have thought she was capable of doing anything like that. It was easy to imagine it or daydream about doing it! She loved pushing the boundaries like this, but at the same time she was alarmed by what she’d done. She thought about the unknown risks she’d taken for what was after all a pretty mediocre result and about what would have happened if McGraw or Bontempi had noticed anything. No, better not to think about that, unless she really wanted to scare herself silly. As usual, she was more afraid afterwards than she had been during. Which was something that could become a problem…

  “Anyway, it was a masterstroke!” said Gus breaking the silence.

  “All the same I was a little scared,” admitted Oksa, ignoring Gus’s compliment.

  “Oh, Oksa! It’s true that sneaking into the Headmaster’s office and photocopying teachers’ files isn’t strictly legit, I won’t disagree with you. But the circumstances are exceptional. McGraw isn’t on the level and we can now prove it. You didn’t do anything really wrong, you just photocopied a file and looked inside someone’s wallet, it’s no big deal. You didn’t steal anything!”

  “Well—” breathed Oksa, miserably studying her badly bitten nails.

  “Wait… don’t tell me you took something from his wallet?” cried Gus suddenly, sitting bolt upright on the bed.

  “This,” admitted Oksa, taking from her pocket a piece of paper folded in eight, the corners dog-eared with use.

  “Oh no,” groaned Gus, rubbing his forehead wearily. “You’re insane! What’s on that piece of paper then?” he continued, his curiosity getting the better of his concern.

  Oksa carefully unfolded it, smoothing it out with the palm of her hand, and they both studied it intently to find out what it contained:

  G.L. 19/04/54 Kagoshima (Jap.) 10/67+08/68

  G.F. 09/06/60 London (Engl.) 09/73+05/74+01/75

  J.K. 12/12/64 Plzeň (Czech.) 04/77+02/78

  H.K. 01/12/67 Mänttä (Finl.) 11/79+10/80

  A.P. 07/05/79 Mýrdalsjökull (Icel.) 01/91+06/92

  C.W. 16/03/88 Houston (USA) 12/99+05/01+10/01

  Z.E. 29/04/96 Amsterdam (Neth.) 07/08

  O.P. 29/09/96 Paris (Fr.) 05/09

  The two friends looked at each other in confusion, then again tried to decipher the mysterious document so they could understand the meaning of the letters and numbers.

  “It’s like a list,” said Gus. “With initials and dates.”

  He carried on carefully reading the sheet of paper. Suddenly he exclaimed:

  “Hey, that’s odd! There’s my mother’s date of birth! And beside it, the town where she was born!”

  Oksa narrowed her eyes in amazement and found the line Gus was pointing to.

  “There—look! ‘J.K. 12/12/64 Plzeň (Czech.) 04/77+02/78’.”

  “Do you know your mother’s maiden name?” asked Oksa, increasingly intrigued.

  “Kallo,” breathed Gus, suddenly looking very drawn. “With a K. Before marrying my father, she was called Jeanne Kallo and she was born on 12th December 1964 in Plzeň in Czechoslovakia. How come my mother’s name is on a list drawn up by McGraw?”

  “And above all why?” added Oksa, breathlessly.

  Silently they exchanged a look of concern and amazement.

  “Look!” he said pointing to the last line. ‘O.P. 29/09/96 Paris (Fr.) 05/09’. That’s you…”

  He groaned as he watched the blood drain from Oksa’s face.

  “You’re bang on,” she whispered, looking stunned.

  “If the numbers afterwards represent dates, as far as you’re concerned, that would correspond to May 2009…”

  “Which would mean that McGraw already knew about me then. He came to St Proximus because of me, I was right!”

  “It looks like it, I’m afraid,” muttered Gus.

  Oksa shivered. She felt a certain satisfaction at coming up with what had today proved a watertight theory. But facing the facts sent shivers up her spine. Breathing heavily, her head swimming with fear, she fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  26

  FAMILY TROUBLES

  OKSA HADN’T SEEN HER MUM OR HER GRAN FOR TWO weeks. Marie Pollock was still holed up with her sister and Dragomira was convalescing with Abakum in the countryside. This left Oksa and her father alone in the house on Bigtoe Square, which suddenly felt far too large for the two of them. The situation had forced Pavel to reorganize his schedule and he was spending less time in the restaurant: he had to put his family before his career. Anxious to do the right thing, Pavel was getting up before Oksa and making hearty breakfasts, and he was always there to lavish attention on her when she got in from school. They spent all their evenings together. Although it was still only late summer, Pavel would build a roaring fire in the hearth and they’d enjoy each other’s company until bedtime. Taking a keen interest in her homework, he rediscovered the pleasure of sharing in his daughter’s daily life. Oksa had decided to buckle down to her studies, which was her way of showing her parents that they could be proud of her, despite the mistakes she’d made. And her hard work was beginning to pay off: her first marks had been excellent and Oksa was receiving well-deserved praise.

  “A mind sharp as a sword blade and the speed of a vigorous body—the perfect ninja!” Gus had exclaimed, punching her on the shoulder.

  “A sharp mind, I’m not so sure about that,” Oksa had retorted. “Look at the tight spots I keep getting into!”

  She was obviously t
hinking about her new powers. As her father had predicted, they could easily get her noticed, which wasn’t all that clever, as she’d quickly realized. She hadn’t been able to refrain from reoffending a few times, though, particularly with the girl who, in her opinion, was getting too close to Gus. “Much too pretty for her own good,” she grumbled to herself. When she’d again caught her friend deep in conversation with that schemer, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from making a button pop off her blouse, from a safe distance. The poor girl dashed off to escape prying eyes, which had earned Oksa a horrified grimace from Gus.

  “Why did you do that? You’re horrible!”

  “That girl gets on my nerves. Always hanging around…”

  “Hanging around? Oksa, don’t tell me that’s why you did it? That’s really pathetic! Anyway, what if I like her hanging around?”

  Those words, added to the events of the last few days, had given Oksa serious food for thought. That evening, curled on the sofa in front of the crackling flames, she’d talked to her father in a way she’d never been able to do before and their closeness made her feel so much better. She did however keep a few secrets to herself, particularly the unsettling “McGraw File”, as she now called it. She had tried to talk to him one day about her pseudo-teacher and how keen he was to torment his students, but without even knowing the details her father had smiled, saying that he didn’t know anyone who hadn’t encountered an odd or questionable teacher at least once at school. Telling her not to overdramatize, he’d encouraged her to hang in there and put on a brave face about this awkward situation.

  “Awkward?! I’d like to see you handle it,” she’d grumbled, while deep down she was still sure that McGraw wasn’t who he claimed to be.

  Her father had also insisted that she tell him about her magic experiments and she’d even been able to give him several dazzling demonstrations. Impressed and anxious, he had admired them gravely and had repeated his warnings, with just cause. And even if she didn’t always enjoy hearing them, she knew he was right.

  “You’re very gifted, Oksa. But please be careful. You know, I personally always avoided using those gifts. I’m not saying I never wanted to, but I was too afraid someone might ask questions.”

  “You restrain yourself, is that what you mean?”

  “Not really. But I absolutely don’t want anyone to find out about it, it’s more to do with an instinct for self-preservation. It’s not quite the same for you, it’s better and, at the same time, it’s worse, because you’re a Gracious.”

  Pavel looked at his daughter sadly with a small, weary smile, which made his face appear even more lined.

  “Dad? You discovered your powers when you were in Russia, didn’t you? That’s where you were born, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was called the Soviet Union back then. Strictly speaking, I was born in Siberia. When your gran, Leomido and Abakum were ejected from Edefia, they found themselves in a place which had nothing in common with what they’d always known. Siberia was a terrifying place for Insiders. Coming straight from a temperate, luxuriant and fertile land to cold, hostile Siberia was an appalling contrast, I can tell you. Your gran was terrified. Just imagine: until then, she’d been living happily with her parents in a land of harmony and plenty. And in the space of a few hours, she’d faced chaos, flight, abandonment and then Siberia. You must have heard of Siberia, darling, haven’t you?”

  “The country where they had the gulags? The place where there were so many prison camps?”

  Pavel looked at her in surprise and amusement.

  “That’s not the first thing I would have remembered about it, but I see things differently from you—Siberia is where I was born. You’re not wrong though and it’s not a complete coincidence that they put the gulags there. You can go hundreds of miles without spotting a living soul, apart from animals and the spirits of nature. Nature reigns supreme there—a magnificent though very cruel ruler with the power of life and death. Abakum, young Dragomira and Leomido wandered for several days, frozen to the marrow. On Edefia, the temperature never fell below twenty degrees and it never snowed, so you can imagine what a shock it was for them. Abakum kept them fed with roots, berries and fish he caught in the rivers. And Leomido kept them warm by using his Fireballistico—the power of fire, which was vital for survival in those lands. A few days later, they met a very powerful shaman who lived in a small isolated village on the edge of a forest. Winter was fast approaching and Metchkov, the shaman, gave them shelter and protected them during the bitter icy months until the thaw, when he could show them the way to a large city. Abakum and he were very similar and quickly became as close as brothers. Both were capable of hearing, understanding and communicating with the natural world. In their company, Dragomira became an exceptionally gifted student. When spring came, only Leomido decided to leave. He travelled across Europe as far as Britain, where he became the great conductor you know. Twelve years later, I was born in the same small Siberian village.

  “So… your father was the shaman Metchkov?”

  Pavel laughed gently.

  “No, not Metchkov, he was over 100 years old! My father was his grandson. Life was hard but we were very happy together until I was eight. Then everything fell apart. My father was killed by the KGB and political conditions had become so difficult that we were forced to flee our small village and leave Siberia. Abakum came with us—he’d given Malorane his word to protect Dragomira and even though she was now a wife and mother, he always kept his promise. We had many problems leaving the Soviet Union. It was during the Cold War and the country had become a vast prison for its inhabitants. You risked your life trying to leave. Your grandmother and Abakum made frequent use of their powers at that time, which was a great help to us. But, without Leomido, I don’t think we’d ever have succeeded. He was on a world tour with his orchestra and it was during his visit to St Petersburg—which was called Leningrad then—that we managed to leave the country illegally.”

  “How?” asked Oksa, thrilled by her father’s story.

  “Well, would you believe he passed us off as members of his orchestra. It was extremely dangerous for him and he was brave to do it, because he could have lost everything: not only his freedom but his life too. The real problem was deciding what to do with me, because how do you justify the presence of an eight-year-old child in an orchestra? Well, the answer was simply to sacrifice a cello and shut me inside one of the cases! The KGB carefully examined the double-bass cases, which were large enough to hide a man, but, luckily, not the cello cases, which were smaller. We had a narrow escape, though—thanks to Leomido. He’d become such a well-integrated Runaway.”

  “So had you!” remarked Oksa.

  “Yes, we had too but, still, we were living in a rather peculiar environment. For the first eight years of my life, I was surrounded by people like your gran and Abakum who’d never made a secret of their powers, as well as a father, grandfather and great-grandfather who were all remarkable shamans. On top of that, we lived a relatively isolated life in a small Siberian village, so you can imagine the way I viewed the world. My native village was my whole universe—those were the days! I would have liked them to last for ever—because I wasn’t all that impressed by what I found out about mankind after that. My integration into society wasn’t easy, I can tell you. It was even worse for your gran and Abakum: they’d been living in a remote area for twenty-one years! All the same, they did amazingly well and I’m full of admiration for them; they fitted into that new world with incredible ease, blending in by a process of imitation, like chameleons. They did a lot of people-watching and copied what they saw. But I could see from the inside how hard it was for them. I think Leomido had realized very early on that he had to leave our small circle if he wanted to live successfully as an Outsider. He quickly abandoned all hope of returning to Edefia, unlike your gran and Abakum, who in some ways continued to live as before—just taken down a notch or two. The three of us were experiencing things the other
way round: magic, extraordinary powers and strange creatures had always been part of our daily lives, the villagers accepted and respected us just as we were. It was all normal! I’d been convinced that the whole world was like us. But as soon as we left, we had to be careful and it was crucial to camouflage ourselves. I had no idea how ordinary Outsiders lived.”

  “You’d never seen normal people?” asked Oksa, interrupting him. “Er, sorry Dad, I don’t mean that you aren’t normal…”

  “No, I know what you mean, don’t worry. By ‘ordinary Outsiders’, I mean those who couldn’t accept how different we were. From now on our gifts had to become a secret which could never be revealed. Anyway, I quickly learnt this to my cost.”

  “How?” broke in Oksa.

  “Leomido had arranged for us to live in Switzerland in a small, peaceful town in the mountains. Dragomira lost no time at all in enrolling me in school.”

  “Was this was the first time you’d gone to school?”

  “No, we’d had a school in our Siberian village. And my parents had taught me a great many things.”

  “And how did you manage with the language? You spoke Russian, didn’t you?”

  “Ah, you’re so practical, sweetheart! Yes, I spoke Russian since it was my mother tongue. But also French, English, German, Chinese, Spanish, Swedish…”

  “WHAT? You’re making fun of me, Dad!” exclaimed Oksa.

  “Not at all,” protested her father. “We Insiders have the power of Poluslingua.”

  “Which is what?”

  “The ability to become fluent in the language of whatever country we’re in in just a few hours. It’s sort of an ultra-fast immersion in a language, if you like. In Edefia, no one knew about that gift, but those of us who left discovered it and immediately put it to good use, as you can imagine. And there’s no doubt that this skill has done wonders for our integration. You might have noticed that Mercedica and Leomido have no accent when they’ve never lived in France—and even less learnt the language. And yet, after a few hours with us, they can speak French like you and me. Or Russian like your gran and Abakum. Or Finnish with Tugdual. That’s Poluslingua!”