“I–”
Bradley shook his head again. “Central does not do that,” he said calmly. “Central does not facilitate in any way, shape, or form, the creation of any type of quasi-national entity. How can they? We must remain impartial, and we can’t do that if we help people set up their own nations.”
Rudi opened his mouth to say something. Closed it again.
“Best of luck to your father,” said Bradley, “and if he’s successful then we’ll be happy to do business with him or anyone in his new nation. But until then, we have to stay out of it. And I advise you to stay out of it, too.”
“He’s going to get himself killed,” Rudi said.
“That will be sad, obviously.” Bradley stood. “I’m not going to apologise for Central’s position on this, because it’s not a position which needs apologising for. But we will not help your father, and you shouldn’t have asked. And the next time you use that crash code, everyone would appreciate it if it was a genuine emergency.”
“Fuck you, Bradley,” said Rudi.
Bradley came over to Rudi’s side of the table and leaned down close so he could speak in Rudi’s ear. “And I meant it about your not becoming involved,” he said quietly. “I can’t force you, but I strongly recommend that you have nothing at all to do with your father’s nationbuilding activities. If someone were to discover that a Coureur was involved, it would call into question the activities of all Coureurs. No one would trust us any more. You think about what that would mean.”
Rudi turned his head to look at Bradley. “Have a nice trip,” he said.
Bradley straightened up. “You’re good at what you do,” he said. “You don’t think so, that’s obvious from our conversations. But you are good. You could help a lot of people who really need your help. You can’t do that if people don’t trust you.” He put a hand on Rudi’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “Don’t get involved in this business.” And then he was gone.
Rudi poured another vodka and drank it. Eventually Sergei himself came out of the kitchen with a plate full of pelmeni and brought it to Rudi’s table.
“Did your friend not turn up?” he asked, putting the plate down in front of Rudi.
“Something came up,” Rudi said. “He couldn’t stay.”
“That’s a shame.”
Rudi smiled. “Yes.” He picked up his knife and fork and regarded the plate of dumplings, boiled in meat broth as usual, a nod to Sergei’s Siberian heritage. “Let’s see if you’ve got any better at making these, shall we?”
NOT ENTIRELY SOBER, but not nearly as drunk as he would have liked, Rudi made it to the last tram for Palmse. In the summer they ran until almost midnight, but out of season the last tram left at eight and he had to move smartly to get to the stop in time. The whole tram was empty. He clambered into the last car, waved his phone at the reader to pay for his ticket, curled up on one of the seats, and fell asleep.
He was woken, sometime later, by someone gently shaking his shoulder and saying, “Hey, mate.”
For a moment, Rudi didn’t want to open his eyes, afraid that if he did he’d find himself back on the tram in Berlin on the night that everything had started to go wrong. On the other hand, he thought, while the hand kept shaking him and the voice kept saying, “Hey, mate,” more and more insistently, when had things ever gone right? He’d had some small successes, moved some Packages in not-too-strenuous circumstances. But it was the disasters that stayed with him. Potsdam. Berlin. The Zone. The Line. He had to wonder about an organisation that retained an employee with a record like that. Were Central just being pragmatic in not wanting to lose even the most inept Coureur, or did the greater proportion of Situations actually end in catastrophe?
He opened his eyes and saw the tram driver standing beside him. “Hello,” he said.
The driver straightened up. “End of the line, son,” he said irritably. “If you want to go back to Tallinn tonight you’ll have to walk.”
Rudi looked out of the window and saw the Manor and all the other buildings of Palmse lit up. He sighed. “No, I’m home, thanks,” he said.
WHILE THE TOURIST industry had always been important, for decades Palmse had earned a good living as a conference centre. Computer nerds and captains of industry and science fiction fans and lingerie executives had come to stay in the hotel and have their conventions. Office workers from up and down the Baltic coast had come for team-building weekends and paintballing sessions. When he was growing up, Rudi liked to watch these groups. One weekend, a conference of international chefs had come to the Manor, and fifteen-year-old Rudi had sneaked into every discussion and panel and demonstration he could. He’d attached himself, in the irritating way of certain adolescents, to a Russian chef named Sergei, whose permanently incandescent temper only made him more interesting. Every time Rudi saw Sergei he fell into step beside him or sat down beside him at mealtimes, and bombarded the Russian with questions. Fortunately, Sergei spoke good Estonian.
Finally, driven beyond endurance, he said, “Listen, kid. You want answers? Huh? You come to Tallinn, to my restaurant, you get all the answers you can handle, maybe more. Here.” He handed Rudi a card with the name of the restaurant embossed on it. “Now will you just fuck off and leave me in peace, actually? Okay?”
The following weekend, it was a conference of machine-tool manufacturers from the North of England. Rudi had chores, but instead he caught the bus into Rakevere, and from there made his way to Tallinn, and by asking for directions from almost everyone he encountered he made his way to the address on the card, on Raekojaplats in the Old Town, and he pushed open the door of Troika for the first time.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Sergei said when he emerged from the kitchen, summoned by the rather bemused waitress to whom Rudi had shown the business card.
Rudi raised his chin. “You said there’d be answers here,” he said.
Sergei – he had a magnificent head of hair, back then, swept back and leonine – looked him up and down. “You’re out of your fucking mind, kid,” he said, and turned to go.
“You said there’d be answers here,” Rudi said loudly enough for most of the restaurant to hear. “Was that a lie just to get rid of me?”
Sergei stopped and his shoulders set in a way Rudi would become familiar with over the next few years.
“Because if there aren’t any answers here,” Rudi went on, “maybe I’ll go to another restaurant and try and find them there.”
Sergei turned back to look at him. “How old are you, kid?” he asked quietly.
Rudi mistook the quiet tone of the chef’s voice for calm. It was the only time he made that mistake. “Eighteen.”
Sergei tipped his head to one side.
“Sixteen,” said Rudi.
Sergei pursed his lips.
“In November,” said Rudi.
Sergei nodded. He snapped his fingers at the waitress Rudi had shown the card to. “You. Get his name and phone number.” He looked at Rudi. “You. I’ll call your parents, see if they’ll let you come spend some time here, okay?”
Rudi’s heart filled with joy. “Okay,” he said.
“Okay. Now fuck off.” And Sergei turned and went back to the kitchen.
Rudi never found out how the conversation between Toomas and Sergei went, although in later years he found himself wishing someone had made a recording. In his mind, he reconstructed it thus: Toomas was furious that Rudi had missed his weekend chores and was becoming annoyed that his son spent more time dicking about in the kitchen than doing proper men’s work out in the park. Sergei was annoyed that this Estonian teenager had attached himself to him like a limpet. Both men, for their own reasons, wanted the situation to end. So Sergei had agreed to break Rudi and Toomas had agreed to let him.