Pravda Page 25

  "What time is it?"

  "Eight forty-five. I'd better get going. I'm going shopping with Frank at lunchtime for at least two hours. I'll keep an eye out for coats you might like."

  Or maybe there was no reason. Maybe there was no reason at all. Maybe he just did not like safe harbors. Maybe he was the sort of idiot who enjoyed throwing away the best things that he had found. Nothing would surprise him these days. They finished their breakfast and he put down money enough to cover their food.

  Their lines parted at King's Cross. She continued south. He had to go west. He kissed her and jumped off. He put on his headphones—Martha Argerich playing Bach's Toccata 911. The Hammersmith and City train was first to arrive. He stepped inside, eyed the other madmen a second or two, dropped into his favorite seat at the end of the carriage, and closed his eyes.

  Marriage, commitment, clever wife, pretty wife, dependable wife, capable wife, children, one, two, three, love and money coming in, love and money going out, security, the family breakfast table, homework help sessions, holidays, hobbies, barbecues with friends at the weekends, picnics in the summer, occasional reflections on politics, television, exhibitions, mortgage paid off, holiday home, grandparents, contentment ... How had Lina come to represent these things, and why did he alone in all the world think that this wasn't what life was all about? Why did he alone find it so nauseating and depressing and escapist a proposal? What disfigured gene of contrariety was he carrying? Why was he furious with her for noticing that pianist's scruffy shoes? Why was he miserable because she bought him a sweater that matched his socks? And what were these minor, minor things beside his own persistent deception and monumental cruelty, which had now been going on for ages? Oh, Ma. All he had to do ... all he had to do was get it together. And there it was ahead of him, the motorway through the mountains, the best of the Western human being's life—laid out, smooth as freshly smeared tarmac in all its satisfying, fulfilling, familial glory, and yet ... And yet here he sat, knuckles white, looking desperately this way and that for another route, determined to assert the other, eager and willing as a fool for love, chaos, pain, any kind of feeling that would lead him away, off this main road; here he sat, implacably ready to oppose whatever was asserted and to assert whatever was opposed, steadfastly determined to champion the antagonist, the great adversaries, the counterlifers, to ask the same questions again and again despite knowing that they were probably meaningless, despite knowing that such questions were the wrong questions to ask; here he sat, searching the rain-smothered crags, hoping for that moment when the sun might slice its brief light between the heavy clouds and show him some other way. Some steep and shining path.

  26 Club Voltage

  The old pipes must have cracked or backed up somewhere. The stink was foul. And the sound of their squelching made him want to retch. Someone appeared to have laid a makeshift pathway of plastic carrier bags across the rancid courtyard; but, torn and thin, they were of no use at all, and the slime simply engulfed them with every footfall. Henry cursed the hole in his sole. The freeze, when it came, would be welcome here. Hard ground. A filthy gull barked as it circled in the cold gruel of the sky.

  They passed into a stairwell opposite—a door banged high up above them, there were drunken shouts and then the sound of two or three coming down. Then they were out in the daylight again, into a second, smaller courtyard beyond. This one was muddy too, but not so bad underfoot, mostly broken cobbles, miniature steppingstones. The smell here, if anything, was worse. Fate seemed to have shackled them together, as if two prison friends escaped Sakhalin and slogged these three years three-legged all the way across Siberia in ever-deepening silence, all but abandoning any hope of severance.

  They entered the dimness of the building on the far side, crunched on broken glass, and turned down the dark and crumbling stairs below ground level. They walked along a scarred brick corridor, under a low beam, around a corner, past a bare bulb; stepped over bags of damp cement; went past a second light, around wires that stuck out sharp and bent and crazy from the wall, like the severed tendrils of some grotesque creature whose body was trapped on the other side—wherever that was. They went further into the gloom, a jink right, a correcting jink left, and three final steps as far as the third bulb, which illuminated a Lenin-red rusty iron door square across the passageway.

  Arkady pressed a half-hidden button to one side, then stood in the glare of the bulb. There was no sound from the buzzer itself and no sound from within. Henry leaned against the wall. Neither spoke.

  There had been nothing back from Paris. But London—London was good. London was hope. London was their chance. All Henry had to do was hand over the down payment and there would be no turning back. Arkady would be on his way.

  Henry prayed. And he didn't care that prayer was as big a joke as communism. He prayed with fervor and dutiful urgency, as if he were thirteen again and trying not to touch himself and come top of the class in Latin and not be punched in the arm by Mark Rolke on the bus. He prayed without a second's counterthought, prayed to God's only son, somehow both fully human and fully divine, somehow born of a virgin, died (definitely died), and somehow resurrected for our sins—he prayed that they would have enough money, that there would be no problem with Arkady's friend of a friend of a friend, that the passport and visa would be ordered and collected safely, that Arkady would go, would not delay or stall, that the Russian would make it unhindered to London, and that his family would treat him kindly.

  And so far it was damn well working: his prayers had been answered. Okay, so Paris was a nothing. Perhaps Arkady was right—what man wants to hear from his wife's long-forgotten love child? Perhaps the address was wrong. But Henry's assiduous Internet fishing for Gabriel and Isabella had finally produced results: too many Isabella Glovers, and no matches at all for Isabella plus Maria, but a single match for Gabriel and Maria Glover—an article from a local newspaper. A godsend. From this Henry had learned that son had "followed mother's footsteps into journalism." So, a search for journalists called Gabriel Glover. Disregarding the Americans and subtracting those listings attributable to the same person, three possibles. Next, some very expensive calls to receptionists at the companies most recently served by these Gabriels to "confirm the e-mail because I have to send something..."

  Then nothing for five days.

  So more calls.

  No, Gabriel Glover did not work here anymore, try the Camden Journal. Passed about like a pedantic reader. Until someone on the news desk said, Oh yes, that Gabriel Glover used to work here, on features—God, that must have been about five years ago now. Ask Jim. But Jim was off on holiday.

  One week later he had found his lead again: try the contract-publishing firm Roland Sheekey Ltd., Jim advised. Another call to another receptionist, another e-mail pretending to be from Arkady. This time, despite the cost, Henry waited at his desk in the cheap-Internet-and-foreign-calls café near Primoskaya, hoping. Three hours later, he had his man.

  Sure, by all means, get in touch when you arrive, look forward to talking very much.

  It was enough. It was hope. Arkady was going to London.

  The red door remained shut. Henry dared not suggest they press the buzzer again, and Arkady seemed content to wait. The bulb hissed periodically. Three minutes must have passed before, with a shock, Henry realized that Arkady was standing in the middle of the passageway because a camera was set up high in the lintel. He wondered who might be looking at them and what they were looking for. He noticed afresh that his friend was growing more ragged. That greatcoat, those tattered jeans, those boots, the frayed collar on that favorite shirt, fake Armani. When the time came, Henry knew, he would not have the courage to suggest that Arkady clean himself up: cut his hair, shave, find a new shirt at least. And yet it was his duty to do so. To improve Arkady's chances. Simply, there was nobody else to say these things. No other person who could see beyond the struggle of their own circumstances as to what goodness or salvation the wider
world might yet bestow if only they could keep on believing. He must say something. What did it matter if Arkady came to despise him, as long as he made the best possible impression when he found his family? The danger was that on the streets of London, Arkady would simply look insane or worse—frightening. Besides everything else, the Russian had his right index finger wrapped and bound in a fat bandage, which he had recently taken to wearing all the time, even though he had not been near the conservatory this week or last, as far as Henry knew. And the injury looked gruesome. Violent. Henry understood—up to a point—that Arkady had to live his lies religiously once asserted, had to actually believe in them himself, had to perform them. (There was something especially Russian in this, he thought.) But all the same, Henry hoped that the grimy bandage would come off as soon as they had the passport.

  Without warning, the door started to move. There was a whirring, as though the hinges were motorized. The corridor within was better illuminated; a series of doors—some shut, some half open—led off, right and left. They passed a filthy toilet, a bedroom of sorts with the floor covered in mattresses, a decrepit shower with its head dangling loose, and, last of all, on the left, a big kitchen—gas rings, saucepans. Ten more paces beneath weak multicolored light and they emerged into the wide cavernous low-lit room—the spider's den: Club Voltage.

  The place was almost empty and there was no music, but then, it was only eleven in the morning. They were in a vast cellar. Like the passageways, the walls were all bare brick; a glowing row of yellow, orange, and red light bulbs set in two plastic bulb racks was wedged up by a series of nails hammered irregularly into the mortar behind the makeshift bar, the cables looping down like ossified tapeworms. There were no drinks on display save sample cans or bottles of the range available—one Russian beer, one Polish beer, vodka, vodka, vodka, cheap, cheaper, cheapest—standing strangely spaced across the solitary shelf. Aside from a few other bulb racks and one or two random strip lights, the decoration was limited to a series of poster portraits that had been lacquered like fliers for forthcoming gigs to the bricks of the far wall—poster portraits of famous Soviet athletes in various attitudes of exertion, muscular repose, or medal-winning triumph. In English, across the face of each, someone had sprayed the words "Drugs are for winners" with scarlet paint. High up, behind the bar, there was a second series, these much smaller, pages cut from magazines rather than posters: presumably the bartender's true love, some model never quite dressed.

  Sitting just inside the door to the right on the threadbare sofa and chairs were four or five youngsters—couples, friends, strangers, it was hard to be sure—all as thin as coat hangers, their faces oddly blue beneath the fizzing of one of the strip lights. One girl sat forward, her banknotes ready, clutched thick and tight in her scrawny fist.

  Someone came through the door behind them, sped past at an incongruous jog, and circled back behind the bar. Arkady moved forward and spoke in Russian.

  "Hello, Genna."

  "Piano." Offering a raised fist (held sideways for Arkady to knock with his own), Gennady, the teenage tender, greeted Arkady from behind the makeshift bar with a grin.

  He could be no more than fourteen years old, Henry thought. Eyes like flattened lead shot, flared nostrils, skin like congealed lava.

  Arkady declined the fist, enveloping it in the mighty palm of his left hand instead.

  "How you doing, Genna? Still running. Next Olympics is your Olympics, I just know it."

  "If I can get the invisible drugs that the pussy-boy Americans use, then I'll be the fastest man on the planet." Gennady sucked in a sharp breath. "Whoa, shit, you bust your finger."

  "Yeah—stupid. Should have known. Never try to fuck two fat girls at the same time. Some shit is just too dangerous."

  Gennady's laugh caused him to screw up his face.

  Arkady raised an introductory thumb. "Henry."

  Gennady paused, self-consciously rehearsing the look that he had laboriously formulated from the hundred films that informed his every expression, then raised his fist again.

  Henry had no choice. Embarrassed, he raised his own bony knuckles, his long sleeves hanging lankly from his scrawny bones.

  "We will take two vodkas. And you can pour them," Arkady said.

  "Sure."

  All customers had to order a drink—one of the rules. This was a bar, after all. Some just paid the money and Gennady knew not to bother opening the bottle. Henry rubbed his hands together, agitated. He was suddenly anxious that Arkady was actually going to drink. He'd never seen the Russian have so much as a sip of beer. And yet he dared not speak. So he pretended to stare into space instead, careful not to glance up at Tatiana. He sensed that Gennady would die rather than allow anyone even to touch these posters. But he felt stupid and panicky watching the teenager pour the vodka, so he turned away to face the room, hoping to appear casual.

  The main wooden tables were all empty save for one over in the corner beneath a barred and blacked-out window, where two men sat: the one with a hollow face, a decorator by the look of his paint-streaked overalls, who seemed straight enough; the other a fat man with a black beard, dressed (without irony) in sports shoes and track-suit, who was slouching sideways on the bench, his head nodding back and forth. This was the cheapest shit you could buy in Petersburg; God knows what they mixed it with, but it was supposed to be safer than the street. They sold clean needles too. And people came back. The place was busy nights, Arkady had said, passing itself off as a normal club. Part of Henry, the sickest part, was actually grateful to Arkady for the inadvertent introduction. If he needed to, he could now return alone.

  Henry paid. And Arkady picked up the drinks.

  "So, Genna, when your uncle is free, tell him I am here to speak with him."

  Gennady made two guns with his fingers and thumbs. "I'll tell him."

  They sat down at the table nearest the bar, the Russian leaning back with his arms stretched out in front as if he were about to play, the Englishman with his shoulders folded, hunched in, sharp as vultures' wings.

  Gennady passed them again at speed.

  Arkady swilled his vodka around, looked at it a moment as if another—maybe better—life was therein contained, then sloshed it out onto the sawdust floor.

  Voice low, Henry asked, "Has this guy done a passport for you before?"

  "I have never left Russia."

  Henry felt himself recoil involuntarily. Idiot. Keeping his sallow face blank but suffering cringes within, he cast his glance away as if to reassess the room.

  The fat man suddenly came to life and began snapping his fingers, his upper body bobbing about to music only he could hear, chant-sing-talk-murmuring some kind of maddened song that sounded to Henry's ears as though it were memorized word for word without the speaker understanding the language, the subject, the meaning, anything. The man kept up for a minute or two, then collapsed forward; his friend, the decorator, helped himself once more to the other's drink with a scowl.

  "The guy's name is Kostya," Arkady said quietly. "He is Gennady's uncle. He is from Kyrgyzstan. He can get anything. He is the man who let us in. Speak only if he speaks to you. Then be nice. No fucking English."

  Silently grateful that Arkady appeared not to have taken any offense, Henry turned back and gingerly tipped his own vodka out onto the floor. Stop being such a fool. He watched his vodka soak away. Stop saying such stupid things. Of course of course of course Arkady had not left Russia: Arkady was fucking Russia.

  The smell of spirits mingled with chemicals was overpowering. You had to be an addict or an alcoholic simply to breathe in here. Henry widened his nostrils a moment and then began patting his leg involuntarily.

  Arkady stared with narrowing eyes at his finger.

  Henry spoke again. "Do I hand over the money in here—at the bar?"

  "No. And wait until we know the exact price. You have it in separate hundreds, yes? If we don't have enough, then fuck it. No promises you cannot keep. It does not m
atter."

  "Okay. But it does matter. You need to go to London."

  Arkady said nothing.

  A happy thought was occurring to Henry ... He had started to wonder again whether he might be able to buy a hit. Try it out. It looked to be working for the fat man. (And, dear Lord, he needed one—cutting down was hard.) He shut his eyes a moment. Even thinking about his boy gave him strength. He leaned his head forward onto his fingertips and felt the bones of his skull. Then he faced Arkady directly, whispering.

  "Is there anyone else who can do it, if—if Kostya says no?"

  Arkady grinned his hollow-cheeked grin. "Leary."

  "No."

  "Yes, Leary can do it easy."

  "Not now."

  "Yes, now."

  "Not—"

  "Yes, more now." Arkady shook his head and kept his voice low. "You do not see the plans all the way, Henry. You do not see anything."

  "Why ... why would Leary help us? So far he has sent Grisha to smash up the piano, stolen all my money, and left us with nothing but an arse-shaped hole in our wall."

  "Because he doesn't give a fuck about me." Arkady's face was scornful. "Because he wants you to owe him. For the sake of Jesus. How many times? He does not do these things because you are a few days late to pay him. He does not give a piss about a few days late. He does everything to bring you to nothing. And if he thinks you are spending whatever you have left on a passport, then he is happy to help. The sooner you are desperate, the sooner you work for him."

  Henry patted at his knee. "I'm not—"

  "Listen, Leary will buy you a brand-new suit if it helps. He'll rent you a big apartment on the Nevsky. He'll get you a fucking Russian passport. And if he is bored with waiting or you don't do as you're told, he can just tell the police about you. And then you are really in the big shit, my friend."