Archangel (22 page)

'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 50 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.'

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 birch 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 b
een a bad one, you're right. All you said was rig
ht. So don't think I don't know it! But here is a chance to do some good. You wouldn't let me tel
l
you yesterday, so listen now. Remember that place I used t
o have, when Mama was alive? It’s still the
re!
And there's a toolbox with a
present fo
r you that’s
worth a lot.

Are you listening, Zinaida?

Nothing will happen to me, but i
f 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
y
esterday?'

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.'

He ignored her aggression. She was entitled to it. 'What was he like, the last time you saw him?'

'Like?'

'His mood.'

A bastard. Same as always.' She frowned at the oncoming traffic. 'He must have been waiting for me all night, outside my place. I got back about six. I'd been at the club, you know, been working. The moment he saw me he started shouting. Saw my clothes. Called me a whore.' She shook her head at the memory.

'Then what happened?'

'He followed me in. Into my place. I said to him, I said:

"You hit me, I'll take your fucking eye out, I'm not your little girl any more." That calmed him down.'

'What did he want?'

'To talk, he said. It was a shock after all that time. I didn't think he knew where I lived. I didn't even know he was still alive. Thought I'd got away from him for good. Oh, but he'd known, he said - known where I was for a long time. Said he used to come and watch me sometimes. He said, "You don't get away from the past that easily." Why did he come to see me?' She looked at Kelso for the first time since they'd left the airport. 'Can you tell me that?'

'What did he want to talk about?'

'I don't know. I wouldn't listen. I didn't want him in my place, looking at my things. I didn't want to hear his stories. He started going on about his time in the camps. I gave him some cigarettes to get rid of him and told him to go. I was tired and I'd got to go to work.'

'Work?'

'I work at GUM in the daytime. I learn law at college in the evenings. Some nights, I screw. Why? Is it a problem?'

'You lead a full life.'

'I have to.

He tried to picture her behind the counter at GUM. 'What do you sell?'

'What?'

At the store. What do you sell?'

'Nothing.' She checked the mirror again. 'I work the switchboard.'

Closer to the city, the road was clogged. They slowed to a crawl. There had been an accident up ahead. A rickety Skoda had run into the back of a big old Zhiguli. Broken glass and bits of metal were scattered across two lanes. The militia were
on the scene. It looked as though one of the drivers had punched the other: he had splashes of blood on the front of his shirt. As they passed the policemen, Kelso turned his head away. The road cleared. They picked up speed.

He tried to fit all this together: Papu Rapava's last two days on earth. Tuesday 27 October: he goes to see his daughter for the first time in a decade, because, he says, he wants to talk. She throws him out, buys him off with a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches labelled 'Robotnik'. In the afternoon, he turns up, of all places, at the Institute of Marxism- Leninism and listens to Fluke Kelso deliver a paper on Josef Stalin. Then he follows Kelso back to the Ukraina and sits up all night drinking. And talking. He certainly talked. Perhaps he told me what h
e would have told his daughter i
f she'd only listened
.

And then it's dawn and he leaves the Ukraina. This is now Wednesday 28 October. And what does he do after he's slipped away into the morning? Does he go to the deserted house on Vspolnyi Street and dig up the secret of his life? He must have done. And then he hides it, and he leaves a note for his daughter, telling her where to find it ('remember that place I used to have when Mama was alive?') and then, late in the afternoon, his killers come for him. And either he had told them everything, or he hadn't, and if he hadn't, then it must have been partly out of love, surely? To make certain that the only thing he had in the world that might be worth anything should go not to them but to his daughter.

God, thought Kelso, what an ending. What a way to leave a life - and how in keeping with the rest of it.

'He must have cared for you,' said Kelso. He wondered if she knew how the old man had died. If she didn't, he couldn't bring himself to tell her. 'He must have cared for you, to have come to find you.'

'I don't think so. He used to hit me. And my mother. And my brother.' She glared at the oncoming traffic. 'He used to hit me when I was little. What does a child know?' She shook her head. 'I don't think so.'

Kelso tried to imagine the four of them in the one-bedroom apartment. Where would her parents have slept? On a mattress in the sitting-room? And Rapava, after a decade and a half in Kolyma - violent, unstable, confined. It didn't bear contemplating.

'When did your mother die?'

'Do you ever stop asking questions, mister?'