Yellow Blue Tibia

by Adam Roberts

  I paused. ‘What happened next was that Coyne flew up in the air.’

  This didn’t seem to faze Officer Liski. ‘Straight up, was it?’

  ‘Actually, yes. He flew upwards, and tipped upside down. I knew he was upside down because he grabbed hold of my shoulder.’

  ‘He was in mid-air, and he grabbed your shoulder?’

  ‘Exactly; and his face was about on a level with mine. Except that his face was upside down.’

  ‘Unusual.’

  ‘Very. Might I have another cigarette?’

  Carefully, with the reverence of a true believer, Liski retrieved two more white cylinders from the packet and lit them both. He passed one to me. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘It sounds incredible, I know, but somebody must have snagged Mr Coyne with a rope. A rope around his ankle, I think, and they were trying to haul him upwards. He grabbed my shoulder, and that interrupted his upward progress for a moment, but then they yanked harder and he disappeared up into the light.’

  ‘You saw him?’

  ‘I suppose my eyes,’ I said, ‘were becoming accustomed to the brightness. I looked up and saw him, weightless as it were.’

  ‘As it were? Or actually?’

  ‘He was actually dangling from a rope. But I could not see the rope from my perspective. He hung there for a moment, and then he fell back down. I assume it was the fall that killed him.’

  ‘So whoever was holding him up let go of the rope?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Do you think he let go by accident? Or was this a deliberate attempt to kill him?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, comrade. But he came down, and the rope came down with him.’

  At this, Liski sat forward. ‘You saw this rope? You examined it?’

  ‘My primary concern,’ I said, ‘was attending to Mr Coyne, to see if he was hurt. But I suppose I did notice the rope, yes.’

  ‘Can you describe it?’

  ‘It was rope,’ I said. ‘It was a pale colour. It may, actually,’ I added, trying to pull the memory out of my brain, ‘have been a steel cable. It may have had a silver colour. Colour was hard to judge. It was warm and smooth to the touch.’

  ‘You touched it?’

  ‘Yes. It was warm and soft, but it didn’t feel like rope. Perhaps a synthetic cable? I’m surprised you’re so interested in the rope.’

  ‘No rope was found at the scene,’ he told me.

  I thought about this. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Indeed. There’s no indication on the ankles of the deceased that he had been suspended from a rope in mid-air. No rope burn or marks on his legs. And no rope was found.’

  ‘I would assume, therefore,’ I said, ‘that the rope must have been retrieved.’

  ‘You said it fell down on top of Coyne?’

  I thought about it. ‘I think it did,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Did you see somebody come out onto the street and retrieve the rope?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Militia officers were at the scene very quickly. They found no rope.’

  ‘I can’t explain why you didn’t find the rope.’

  Liski looked at me. ‘You checked Coyne’s body yourself?’

  ‘He was still alive,’ I said. ‘It was all so startling, so unexpected, that I half thought it was all an elaborate practical joke. He was still breathing, although I noticed very quickly that blood was seeping out from under his body.’

  ‘His neck was broken in the fall,’ said Liski. ‘He landed on his left arm. His wristwatch was metal, and it cut through the flesh into his ribs. But it was the breaking of his neck that killed him.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘He did. He—This is the strangest thing. He told me to respond.’

  ‘To respond? To respond to what?’

  ‘I didn’t know. I assumed, in the moment, that he wanted a response to the acrobatic display he’d just put on. Applause, for instance. He told me I’d better respond, or else.’

  ‘Or else what?’

  ‘Just or else.’

  ‘Was he,’ Liski asked, ‘speaking Russian, or was he speaking English?’

  I cast my mind back, but on this subject it was a perfect blank. ‘I don’t remember. I’m sorry comrade, I honestly don’t. The two of us had been speaking Russian, and then switching to English, and back to Russian. His last words might have been either.’

  ‘Humph,’ said Liski, dropping his cigarette to the floor and toeing it dead.

  ‘It’s a strange thing,’ I said, ‘but I just can’t remember. I mean, I suppose, given the shock, that he’d be speaking English. Wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t the surprise and the shock jolt him into his mother tongue? But then again, he was very fluent in Russian. And we’d mostly been speaking Russian as we walked. Do you think it’s important?’

  ‘Is that all he said?’

  I thought. ‘He said four,’ I added.

  ‘Four what?’

  ‘Just four.’

  ‘The number four?’

  ‘The number four.’

  Liski stared unblinking at me. ‘Four o’clock?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Four roubles? Four assailants? Four what?’

  ‘Do you know what?’ I said, abruptly. ‘If he was speaking Russian then it would be four. If he was speaking English, however, it might be for. It could, in other words, have been a connective, as if he was going on to say something else, except that death intervened.’

  ‘In sum,’ said Liski, sitting back in his seat, ‘the victim’s last words were Respond - or else! For . . . and then he died.’

  ‘It does sound odd,’ I conceded.

  ‘Perhaps he was saying: Respond! Or else four . . . as it might be, Respond, or else four men will attack.’

  ‘Respond or else,’ I repeated hesitantly.

  ‘Respond - or else four space-aliens will visit you? Respond - or else four nations will be attacked with alien space-bombs?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘It would be helpful,’ said Liski, ‘if you could remember whether he was speaking Russian or English.’

  ‘It would.’

  ‘Come along,’ he said, turning off the cassette machine and getting to his feet. ‘Back to the cells with you. Enough for tonight. We’ll talk some more tomorrow. Maybe your memory will work better in daylight.’

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ I said, getting to my feet with a rickety series of popping noises in my joints, ‘that a lot of daylight penetrates down here.’

  CHAPTER 9

  I was taken back down to the same cell as before, but now it was no longer empty. Sitting on the bench, staring forlornly at the wall, was Ivan Saltykov, former nuclear physicist and now Muscovite taxi driver. ‘You!’ he called when I came in. ‘You’ve been arrested?’

  ‘Perhaps you think,’ I said, nodding at the Militia officer who was escorting me, ‘that I am here as a translator? To translate your gibberish into Russian?.’

  ‘No jokes! None of what you think are jokes! I’m not in the mood.’ Exactly on the word mood the cell door slammed heavily shut. ‘I am very unhappy,’ Saltykov said, in his peevish, old woman voice. ‘How could I be happy when I have been handled?’

  ‘Handled ?’

  ‘Touched,’ he said. ‘Touched! I explained to the arresting officers that I did not like to be touched by,’ he almost hissed the word, ‘men, and furthermore that such touching was unnecessary, since I was content to come along with them and be no trouble. But they handled me anyway.’

  ‘I can only commiserate,’ I said.

  ‘It is important to me to - now, now, please don’t interrogate me on the whys, Skvorecky . . .’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said, puzzled.

  ‘It is important to me to lock, and unlock, and relock, and unlock and relock my car every time I leave it.’

  I looked at him. ‘Really?’

  �
��I must lock it three times.’

  ‘What self-respecting taxi-driver could do more?’

  ‘I am under no obligation to explain myself to you,’ he said. ‘It is simply a matter of settling my mind. I lock, unlock, relock, unlock and relock my car and then I can walk away from it. My syndrome is such that . . .’

  ‘Ah yes’ I said. ‘Your syndrome.’

  ‘Anyhow. Anyway. I explained this to the arresting officers, but they would not permit it. Can you imagine such a thing? I could lock my car, they said, but any further nonsense, they said . . . can you imagine, they described it in those terms? . . . Any further nonsense they would confiscate the keys.’

  ‘Such language,’ I said, deadpan, ‘amounts almost to assault.’

  ‘It’s the American, isn’t it?’ Saltykov said. ‘They won’t tell me what he’s done. They’ve rounded me up simply because he is a friend of mine. I am a nuclear physicist! I was educated at the Institute of Novgodnokorsk! I received one of the best educations in nuclear physics in the world!’

  ‘The American,’ I said, ‘was a friend of yours?’

  But it was not easy to divert Saltykov when he was in spate. ‘My syndrome is often associated with high intellectual capacity and a rigorous and logical mind. Such things are assets for intellectual pursuits!’ To the extent that his dry, old-maid manner permitted it, he was working himself into a considerable lather. ‘I do good work for the Soviet Union! Then the KGB say they want a word. I answer all their questions in a logical and intellectually rigorous manner! And the result is a year’s internment!’

  ‘You were interned? Where?’

  ‘Where? Here in Moscow. But a year! I had done nothing wrong! And now, simply by virtue of my friendship with James Coyne, I am in prison again. And - handled!’

  ‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this,’ I said, ‘but James Coyne is dead.’

  ‘I end up having to drive a taxicab around Moscow for a living. And my education in nuclear physics is world class! Dead, did you say?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘That makes me sad,’ said Saltykov, in a voice that sounded, on the contrary, rather self-satisfied. ‘It is a shame.’ He looked at me. It struck me then that his was a face with a very limited range of expressions in its portfolio. A default blankness of feature gave him an oddly prissy, and indeed complacent appearance. He processed this news. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘There is some mystery associated with that,’ I said. ‘Which is to say, he died because he fell from a height, and broke his neck. But as to the how, and who, I am in the dark.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Saltykov, in a distracted voice. ‘A great shame. You must not think,’ he added, distractedly, ‘that I am unconcerned about this news. My syndrome does not predispose me to many friendships, but the American was a dear friend for all that.’

  ‘The way you refer to him by his nationality alone, rather than his name, suggests as much,’ I said.

  His brow puckered. ‘You are suggesting - wait. I do not know what you are suggesting. Is that a joke? I am not good with jokes.’ His brow cleared. ‘I think I understand. You mean to imply that, were I a close friend, I would refer to him as Coyne, or perhaps James Coyne.’

  ‘Or just James, perhaps.’

  ‘My syndrome is such that I rarely understand jokes,’ said Saltykov. ‘Nor, I must say, do I see that a man’s death is an occasion for joking.’

  ‘We all deal with bereavement in our different ways, I suppose.’ ‘I can see that. So, poor James died under suspicious circumstances? It would not surprise me if it transpired he had been murdered. He had powerful enemies.’

  ‘It does all feel very,’ I said, rubbing my raspy hair with the palm of my hand, ‘peculiar. Not just that there is a conspiracy at work, but - I don’t know. An idiot conspiracy. An insane conspiracy. A conspiracy by cretins. Perhaps I am becoming paranoid.’

  ‘Things are not as they seem, eh?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  Then, from bickering like a child, Saltykov switched modes, in a manner I began to see was characteristic of him, into philosophy. ‘Our first apperception is that things are not the way they seem. That is simply what it means to be human, it is our first experience of life, as children. Later we may finesse this into a grounding belief that we are being lied to. This in turn may develop into an entire metaphysics, which we call paranoia. Do you know what Theodor Adorno says?’

  ‘I don’t even know who he is.’

  ‘Oh, he was a philosopher. A great Marxist philosopher, although not one in favour with the current administration. He says, “The whole is untrue.” That’s a lesson too difficult for most to learn. Nothing is so comforting as paranoia! Nothing is so heartening as depression. Imagine what it would be like if things were the way they seem! Intolerable!’

  ‘It is something to ponder,’ I said.

  He was about to speak further when the door opened, singing the song of its hinges. Two guards came in and hauled Saltykov to his feet. I got to observe at first hand his reaction to being touched. His face instantly became radish coloured, and seemed even to swell a little; his eyes closed up and his voice came whistling through the slit of his mouth. ‘Leave me alone! Don’t touch! No touch! Do not touch me!’

  ‘He’s perfectly pliable,’ I said, trying to intervene. ‘He simply has a phobia about being handled by men. If you leave him alone, he’ll come along very placidly.’

  But the two policemen ignored me. Saltykov’s reaction had pressed the button of their training, and they responded with a display of how to control an uncooperative prisoner. The red-faced spluttering fellow found his arms tucked behind him, like a skater on the ice, as handcuffs were fastened on his wrists. ‘No!’ he squeaked, ‘No! Touch! Not! Men! No!’

  The two men then hooked him under his armpits and lifted him from the floor, leaving his legs to wriggle in air. They swept him smoothly through the door and away. The door slammed.

  I lay myself down and tried to sleep. Half an hour passed, but sleep kept slipping from my mind like soap evading slippery fingers in the bath. Then the door sang, and a trembling Saltykov returned. The reason for his trembling was rage, not fear. ‘Handling me as if I were meat!’ he said. ‘Their fingers were right on my flesh.’

  ‘Surely your clothing interposed?’ I suggested.

  He looked at me as if I were some sort of monster.

  ‘I apologise,’ I said.

  ‘I must wash! I need to wash myself! Oh, but there are no facilities here. I need to wash!’

  ‘What did they want to know?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what they didn’t want to know, however many times I told them. They didn’t want to know that I suffer from a syndrome recognised internationally by medical science. They didn’t want to know, having handled me, that I need to wash myself in a shower all over my body with my left hand once, my right hand once, and my left hand again. That’s what they didn’t want to know. I ask you! If one of their prisoners suffered from diabetes, would they deny him insulin?’

  ‘But what did they want to know about the American?’

  Saltykov was not to be distracted, however, until his fribbling fury had worked its way through his system. He railed against his captors, and walked around and around the cell, always in a clockwise direction. Eventually his fury abated, and although he did not stop fidgeting awkwardly, he at least sat down.

  ‘They wanted,’ he said, a quarter-hour or so after I had asked the question - for this was also characteristic of him: you thought he had simply ignored what you had said, when in fact he stored it in a queue inside his brain and addressed it when he had worked through more pressing psychopathological matters, ‘to know about my relationship with the American. They asked many questions about last night in the Pushkin. Was Coyne there, were you there, and so on.’

  ‘And what did you tell them?’

  ‘I told them the truth,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Of course.
Comrade Saltykov, let me explain my position. I was walking with Coyne when he was killed. I met him for the first time in my life yesterday; I never met him before in my life. You knew him.’

  Saltykov turned to look at me. ‘But wait for a moment,’ he said. ‘Why should I trust you?’

  ‘Trust me?’ I repeated. ‘But what do you mean?’

  ‘You might be a plant. The authorities sometimes work that way. They put one of their own, in disguise, in the cell with the accused, and hope thereby to continue the interrogation by surreptitious means.’

  ‘I am no plant!’

  ‘But can you prove it?’

  ‘For all I know,’ I countered, ‘you might be the police agent working in disguise.’

  He opened his eyes wide at this, as if the notion had not only never occurred to him but could not occur to any sane man. ‘Do not be ridiculous,’ he said. ‘That is ridiculous. How ridiculous a notion!’

  ‘No more ridiculous than accusing me.’

  ‘On the contrary! I am a trained nuclear physicist!’

  ‘You are a taxi driver,’ I retorted. I confess I was growing angry.

  ‘It is respectable work,’ he countered.

  ‘For most men, yes. But you are the taxi driver of doom.’

  ‘Such abuse is merely unbecoming.’

  ‘I boarded your taxi-car in the understanding you would take me home. Had you taken me home, I would presently be asleep in my own bed, with no other worries in the world. Instead you took me, against my will, to the Pushkin Chess Club, where I became entangled in the death of this American. I hold you responsible for the fact that my life has taken this dire turn!’

  ‘Pff!’ he said. He turned his face away.

  ‘I shall probably go to prison for the rest of my life,’ I said. ‘And it will be your fault.’

  After this little outburst we sat in silence for a long time. We were brought breakfast on a tray (black bread, thin-sliced cheese, milk in enamel mugs) by a young Militia officer, with little plugs of shaving cream tucked into his ears like hearing-aids and nicks on his red-raw chin and cheeks. He blinked at us, yawned oxishly, and went out again.

  Saltykov began eating at once. The food seemed to thaw his ill-humour. ‘Eat, comrade,’ he said.