‘Including Robotnik?’
‘Including Robotnik.’
‘Bastard.’
Now Olga was taking a picture of Moldenhauer and Saunders. They stood shyly, side by side, and it struck Kelso for the first time that they were gay. Why hadn’t he realised it before? This trip was nothing but surprises –
‘Come on, professor. Don’t get all shocked on me. And don’t get shocked about Adelman, either. This is a story. This is a hell of a story. And it just keeps on getting better. Not only d’you find this poor bastard hanging in the elevator shaft with his pecker in his mouth, you also tell the militia that the guy who did it is none other than Vladimir Mamantov. And not only that – the whole investigation’s now been canned on the orders of the Kremlin. Or so I hear. What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing.’ Kelso couldn’t help smiling, thinking of the blond-headed spy. (‘What we don’t want is the Moscow press corps trampling over everything …’) ‘Well, I’ll say this for you, Mr O’Brian: you have good contacts.’
O’Brian made a dismissive gesture. ‘There’s not a secret in this town that can’t be bought for a bottle of Scotch and fifty bucks. And man, I tell you, they’re in a rage down there, you know? They’re leaking like a nuclear reactor. They don’t like being told what to do.’
The driver of the bus sounded his horn. Saunders was on board now. Moldenhauer had taken out his handkerchief to wave goodbye. Kelso could see the faces of the other historians through the glass, like pale fish in an aquarium.
He said, ‘You really had better give me my case now. I’ve got to go.’
‘You can’t just run out, professor.’ But there was a defeated tone to his appeal and this time he let Kelso take the handle. ‘Come on, Fluke, just one little interview? One brief comment?’ He followed at Kelso’s heels, an importunate beggar. ‘I need an interview, to stand this thing up.’
‘It would be irresponsible.’
‘Irresponsible? Balls! You won’t talk because you want to keep it all for yourself! Well, you’re crazy. The cover-up isn’t working. This story’s going to blow – if not today, tomorrow.’
‘And you want it today, naturally, ahead of everyone else?’
‘That’s my job. Oh, come on, professor. Stop being so goddamn snooty. We’re not so very different –’
Kelso was at the door of the bus. It opened with a pneumatic sigh. From the interior came a ragged, ironic cheer.
‘Goodbye, Mr O’Brian.’
Still O’Brian wouldn’t give up. He climbed up on to the first step. ‘Take a look at what’s happening here.’ He jammed his roll of newspapers into Kelso’s coat pocket. ‘Take a look. That’s Russia. Nothing here keeps until tomorrow. This place might not be here tomorrow. You’re – oh, shit –’
He had to jump to avoid the closing door. He gave a last, despairing thump on the bodywork from outside.
‘Dr Kelso,’ said Olga, stonily.
‘Olga,’ said Kelso.
He pushed his way down the aisle. When he came level with Adelman he stopped, and Adelman, who must have watched his whole encounter with O’Brian, glanced away. Beyond the muddy glass the reporter was trudging towards the hotel, his hands in his pockets. Moldenhauer’s white handkerchief fluttered in farewell.
The bus lurched. Kelso turned, half-walking, half-tumbling, towards his usual place, alone and at the back.
*
FOR five minutes he did nothing except stare out of the window. He knew he ought to write this down, prepare another record while it was still clear in his mind. But he couldn’t, not yet. For now, all roads of thought seemed to lead back to the same image of the figure in the elevator-shaft.
Like a side of beef in a butcher’s shop –
He patted his pockets to find his cigarettes and pulled out O’Brian’s newspapers. He threw them on the seat beside him and tried to ignore them. But after a couple of minutes he found himself reading the headlines upside down, then reluctantly he picked them up.
They were nothing special, just a couple of English-language freesheets, given away in every hotel lobby.
The Moscow Times. Domestic news: the President was ill again, or drunk again, or both. A serial cannibal in the Kemerovo region was believed to have killed and eaten eighty people. Interfax reported that 60,000 children were sleeping on the streets each night in Moscow. Gorbachev was recording another television commercial for Pizza Hut. A bomb had been planted at the Nagornaya metro station by a group opposed to plans to remove Lenin’s mummified body from public display in Red Square.
Foreign news: The IMF was threatening to withold $700 million in aid unless Moscow cut its budget deficit.
Business news: interest rates had tripled, stock market prices halved.
Religious news: A nineteen-year-old nun with ten thousand followers was predicting the end of the world on Hallowe’en. A statue of the Virgin Mother was trundling around the Black Earth region, weeping real blood. There was a holy man from Tarko-Sele who spoke in tongues. There were fakirs and Pentecostalists, faith healers, shamans, workers of miracles, anchorites and marabouts and followers of the skoptsy, who believed themselves the Lords Incarnate … It was like Rasputin’s time. The whole country was a tumult of bloody auguries and false prophets.
He picked up the other paper, The eXile, this one written for young westerners like O’Brian working in Moscow. No religion here, but a lot of crime:
In the village of Kamenka, in the Smolenskaya Oblast, where the local collective farm is bankrupt and state employees haven’t been paid all year, the big summer activity for kids is hanging around the Moscow–Minsk highway and sniffing gasoline, bought in half-litre jugs for a rouble. In August, two of the biggest gasoline addicts, Pavel Mikheenkov, 11, and Anton Malyarenko, 13, graduated from their favourite pastime – torturing cats – to tying a five year-old boy named Sasha Petrochenkov to a tree and burning him alive. Malyarenk was deported to his native Tashkent, but Mikheenkov has had to stay in Kamenka, unpunished: sending him to reform school would cost 15,000 roubles and the town doesn’t have the money. The victim’s mother, Svetlana Petrochenkova, has been told she can have her son’s killer sent away if she digs up the money herself, but failing that must live with him in the village. According to police, Mikheenkov had been drinking vodka regularly with his parents since the age of four.
He turned the page quickly and found a guide to Moscow night life. Gay bars – Dyke, The Three Monkeys, Queer Nation; strip clubs – Navada, Rasputin, The Intim Peep Show; nightclubs – the Buchenwald (where the staff wore Nazi uniforms), Bulgakov, Utopiya. He looked up Robotnik: ‘No place could better exemplify the excesses of the New Russia than Robotnik: bitchin interior, ear-splitting techno, Babe-O-Litas and their flathead keepers, Die Hard security, black-eyed patrons sucking down Evians. Get laid and see someone get shot.’
That sounded about right, he thought.
THE departure terminal at Sheremetevo-2 was crammed with people trying to get out of Russia. Queues formed like cells under a microscope – grew from nothing, wormed back on themselves, broke, re-formed, and merged into other queues: queues for customs, for tickets, for security, for passport controls. You finished one and joined the next. The hall was dark and cavernous, sour with the reek of aviation spirit and the thin acid of anxiety. Adelman, Duberstein, Byrd, Saunders and Kelso, plus a couple of Americans who had been staying at the Mir – Pete Maddox of Princeton and Vobster of Chicago – stood in a group at the end of the nearest line while Olga went off to see if she could speed things up.
After a couple of minutes, they still hadn’t moved. Kelso ignored Adelman who sat on his suitcase reading a biography of Chekhov with extravagant intensity. Saunders sighed and flapped his arms with frustration. Maddox wandered away and came back to report that customs seemed to be opening every bag.
‘Shit, and I bought an icon,’ complained Duberstein. ‘I knew I shouldn’t’ve bought an icon. I’ll never get it through.’
‘Where’d you
get it?’
‘That big bookstore on the Noviy Arbat.’
‘Give it to Olga. She’ll get it out. How much d’you pay?’
‘Five hundred bucks.’
‘Five hundred?’
Kelso remembered he hadn’t any money. There was a news-stand at the end of the terminal. He needed more cigarettes. If he asked for a seat in smoking he could keep clear of the others.
‘Phil,’ he said to Duberstein, ‘you couldn’t lend me ten dollars, could you?’
Duberstein started laughing. ‘What’re you going to do, Fluke? Buy Stalin’s notebook?’
Saunders sniggered. Velma Byrd raised her hand to her mouth and looked away.
‘You told them as well?’ Kelso stared at Adelman in disbelief.
‘And why not?’ Adelman licked a finger and turned over a page without looking up. ‘Is it a secret?’
‘Tell you what,’ said Duberstein, pulling out his wallet. ‘Here’s twenty. Buy one for me as well.’
They all laughed at that, and openly this time, watching Kelso to see what he would do. He took the money.
‘All right, Phil,’ he said, quietly. ‘I’ll tell you what. Let’s make a deal. If Stalin’s notebook turns up by the end of the year, I’ll just keep this and then we’re quits. But if it doesn’t, I’ll pay you back a thousand dollars.’
Maddox gave a low whistle.
‘Fifty to one,’ said Duberstein, swallowing. ‘You’re offering me fifty to one?’
‘We’ve got a deal?’
‘Well, you bet.’ Duberstein laughed again, but nervously this time. He glanced around at the others. ‘You hear that everyone?’
They’d heard. They were staring at Kelso. And for him, at that moment, it was worth a thousand dollars – worth it just for the way they looked: open-mouthed, stricken, panicked. Even Adelman had temporarily forgotten his book.
‘Easiest twenty dollars I ever made,’ said Kelso. He stuffed the bill into his pocket and picked up his suitcase. ‘Save my place for me, will you?’
He moved off across the crowded terminal, quickly, quitting while he was still ahead, easing his way through the people and the piles of luggage. He felt a childish pleasure. A few fleeting victories here and there – what more could a man hope for in this life?
Over the loudspeaker, a woman with a harsh voice made a deafening announcement about the departure of an Aeroflot flight to Delhi.
At the news-stand he made a quick check to see if they had the paperback of his book. They did not. Naturally. He turned his attention to a rack of magazines. Last week’s Time and Newsweek, and the current Der Spiegel. So. He would take Der Spiegel. It would do him good. It would certainly last him an eleven-hour plane ride. He fished in his pocket for Duberstein’s $20 and turned towards the till. Through the plate glass window he could see the wet sweep of concrete, a jammed line of cars and taxis and buses, grey buildings, abandoned trolleys, a girl with cropped dark hair, a white face watching him. He looked away casually. Frowned. Checked himself.
He stuffed the magazine back into the rack and returned to the window. It was her, all right, standing alone, in jeans and a fleece-lined leather jacket. His breath misted on the cold glass. Wait, he mouthed at her. She stared at him blankly. He pointed at her feet. Stay there.
To get to her he had to walk away from her, following the line of the glass wall, trying to find an exit. The first set of doors was chained shut. The second opened. He came out into the cold and wet. She was standing about fifty yards away. He looked back at the crowded terminal – he couldn’t see the others – and then at her, and now she was moving away from him, heading across a pedestrian crossing, heedless of the cars. He hesitated: what to do? A bus momentarily wiped her from view and that made his mind up for him. He hoisted his luggage and set off after her, breaking into a trot. She drew him on, always maintaining the same distance, until they were into the big outdoor car park, and then he lost her.
Grey light, snow and frozen slush. The stink of fuel much sharper here. Row upon row of boxy cars, some muffled white, others thinly wrapped in a film of mud and grit. He walked on. The air shook. A big old Tupolev jet swept directly over his head, so low he could see the lines of rust where the plates of the fuselage were welded together. Instinctively, he ducked, just as a sandy-coloured Lada emerged slowly from the end of the line and stopped, its engine running.
SHE didn’t make it easy for him, even then. She didn’t drive over to where he was; he had to walk to her. She didn’t open the door; he had to do it. She didn’t speak; it was left to him to break the silence. She didn’t even tell him her name – not then, at least, although he discovered it later. She was called Zinaida. Zinaida Rapava.
She knew what had happened, that was obvious by the strain on her face, and he felt guiltily relieved at that, because at least he wouldn’t have to break the news. He had always been a coward when it came to breaking bad news – that was one reason he’d been married three times. He sat in the front passenger seat, his suitcase wedged across his knees. The heater was running. The windscreen wiper flicked intermittently across the dirty glass. He knew he would have to say something soon. Delta to New York was the one event of the symposium he had no intention of missing.
‘Tell me what I can do to help.’
‘Who killed him?’
‘A man named Vladimir Mamantov. Ex-KGB. He knew of your father from the old time.’
‘The old time,’ she said, bitterly.
Silence – long enough for the wiper to scrape back and forth, back and forth.
‘How did you know where to find me?’
‘Always, all my life: the old time.’
Another Tupolev rumbled low overhead.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to go in a minute. I’ve got to catch a plane to New York. When I get there, I’m going to write everything down – are you listening? I’ll send you a copy. Tell me where to send it. You need anything, I’ll help.’
It was hard to move with his case on his lap. He unbuttoned his coat and reached awkwardly into his inside pocket for his pen. She wasn’t listening to him. She was staring straight ahead, talking almost to herself.
‘It’d been years since I saw him. Why would I want to? I hadn’t been near that dump in eight years till you asked me to take you.’ She turned to him for the first time. She had washed off her makeup. She looked younger, more pretty. Her leather jacket was old, brown, zipped tight to the neck. ‘After I left you, I went home. Then I went back to his place again. I had to find out – you know – what was going on. Never saw so many cops in my life. You’d been taken away by then. I didn’t say who I was. Not to the cops. I had to think things through. I –’ She stopped. She seemed baffled, lost.
‘What’s your name?’ he said. ‘Where can I reach you?’
‘Then, this morning, I went to the Ukraina. I rang you. Went up to your room. When they said you’d checked out I came here and waited.’
‘Can’t you just tell me your name?’ He looked at his watch, hopelessly. ‘Only I’ve got to catch this plane, you see.’
‘I don’t ask favours,’ she said fiercely. ‘I never ask favours.’
‘Listen, don’t worry. I want to help. I feel responsible.’
‘Then help me. He said you’d help me’
‘He?’
‘The thing is, mister, he’s left me something.’ Her leather jacket creaked as she unzipped it. She felt around inside and brought out a scrap of paper. ‘Something worth a lot? In a toolbox? He says that you can tell me what it is.’
Chapter Thirteen
THEY DROVE OUT of the airport perimeter onto the St Petersburg highway and turned south towards the city. A big truck overtook them, its wheels as high as their roof, rocking them in its wake, soaking them in a filthy spray.
Kelso had promised himself he wouldn’t look back, but of course he did – looked back and saw the terminal building, like a great grey ocean liner, sink out of sight behind a line of bir
ch trees until only a few watery lights were visible, and then they disappeared.
He winced and nearly asked the girl to take him back. He gave her a sideways glance. In her scuffed flying jacket she looked intrepid: an aviatrix at the controls of her battered plane.
He said, ‘Who’s Sergo?’
‘My brother.’ She glanced in the rear-view mirror. ‘He’s dead.’
He turned the note over and read it again. Rough paper. Pencil scrawl. Written quickly. Stuffed under the door of her apartment, or so she said: she had found it when she got back after dropping Kelso outside her father’s block.
My little one, Greetings!
I have been a bad one, you’re right. All you said was right. So don’t think I don’t know it! But here is a chance to do some good. You wouldn’t let me tell you yesterday, so listen now. Remember that place I used to have, when Mama was alive? It’s still there! And there’s a toolbox with a present for you that’s worth a lot.
Are you listening, Zinaida?
Nothing will happen to me, but if it does – take the box and hide it safe. But it could be dangerous, so mind yourself. You’ll see what I mean.
Destroy this note.
I kiss my little one,
Papa.
– There’s a Britisher called Kelso, get him through the Ukraina, he knows the story. Remember your papa!
I kiss you again, Zinaida.
Remember Sergo!!
‘So he came to see you – when was it? The day before yesterday?’
She nodded, without looking round at him, concentrating on the road. ‘It was the first time I’d seen him in nearly ten years.’
‘You didn’t get on, then?’
‘Oh, you’re a smart one.’ Her laugh was brief, sarcastic: a short expulsion of breath. ‘No, we didn’t get on.’
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