‘I’ve already told you.’
He opened a drawer and took out a photo. It was the picture of the levitated dog. ‘Could you explain how a humble spinning-wheel salesman came to have this in his possession?’
‘I found it on the beach.’
‘That is not a good answer, Louie Eeyoreovitch. Mere possession of this item is a crime against our people punishable by a minimum of ten years’ penal servitude.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘So you say, and yet I see you have cow-horn buttons on your jacket. It reeks of guilt. Who but a malefactor has such things? Did no one tell you we have canteens in our camps? And chess sets too, so there is no need to hoard your bread and chew rooks and knights in the middle of the night. In fact, all camps have libraries with modest audio-visual facilities. We are not so backward as you imagine. You insult us with your cow-horn buttons. Tell me about the photo.’
‘I found it on the beach in Aberystwyth and put it in my pocket.’
‘And travelled on the Orient Express with this photo which you intended delivering to a contact in exchange for a large sum of money.’
‘No.’
‘Do you know how much this photo is worth on the black market? Twenty thousand US dollars.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Yes, because you found it on the beach. If you confess this, if you admit that you came to Hughesovka in order to sell this photo on the black market, I will help you.’
I said nothing.
‘I will personally ensure that you are merely deported; and, what is more, I will tell you what you really want to know: I will tell you how it was that Vanya’s daughter came to be possessed by the spirit of Gethsemane Walters.’ He noted the surprise on my face and smiled. ‘Oh yes, we know all about your errand. Jones the Denouncer has told us everything. We have been aware of the Gethsemane Walters case for many years now. The solution to the mystery can be found right here in Hughesovka. It could be yours, all you need to do is admit to something that we already know.’
He clicked his fingers to get the attention of the guard. ‘Leave us now, Pascha. It is time you went home. The hour is late. Do not come back tonight, no matter how terrible the cries of pain you hear.’
The guard clicked his heels in acknowledgement and left. My interrogator watched the door and then gave me a sad, wistful look, the one headmasters wear when they insist the punishment they are about to inflict will, through some miraculous mechanism unknown to biological science, hurt them more than you. He sniffed and dabbed a tear from his eye.
‘Louie Eeyoreovitch, you are a brave spy. Your country should be proud of you. As my parting words to you I will give you a piece of advice. In the camps you will hear many stories, most of them are not to be credited. Do not eat the wallpaper paste, it will make you ill. And as for selling the underlinen of dead comrades for a crust of bread . . . once many years ago it might have been possible but not now, you will merely be ridiculed, and quite possibly attract a further five years for desecration of the grave which belongs to the State.’
He paused and stared at me quizzically. I shrugged. He stood up and strode past me to the door. I twisted round in my chair to watch. He turned to me and put his index finger to his mouth, commanding silence. He seemed to be smiling like someone playing a practical joke. He opened the door with exaggerated care and peered outside, then withdrew his head and softly closed the door again. He returned with a broad smile upon his face. ‘Louie Eeyoreovitch!’ he shouted. ‘My dear, dear friend Louie Eeyoreovitch!’ He threw out his arms, grabbed me in a bear hug and dragged me to my feet. He unclasped me and then with renewed fervour threw his arms round me again and squeezed me. He kissed me on both cheeks. ‘Louie Eeyoreovitch!’ he exclaimed. ‘How can I ever thank you? My daughter, my lovely daughter, my dear heart’s blood, lost to me, alone in the world full of evil predatory men, and through the exquisite offices of our benevolent and ever-merciful Lord, she met you! My darling dear Natasha has come back and all because of you, the noble, thrice-blessed Louie Eeyoreovitch!’
Chapter 22
His name was Pyotr. He drove with one hand lazily caressing the wheel and the other making gestures in the air to amplify the effect of his words. We drove south through town, down the broad tree-lined avenue of Praspyekt John Hughes, into Petrovsky Pereulok and then Merthyr Tydfil Naberezhnaya. He said we were heading for Sadovaya Ulitsa.
‘You can imagine how I felt,’ he said. ‘I knew sooner or later the moment would come. For years I worried about it, how I would cope without her mother to guide her. At times like that, when a girl starts to become a woman, she needs the company of other women. I flatter myself I did all right, together we managed to get through the trials of those years. Yes, there were boyfriends, some of which I disapproved; others I tolerated. Then a few weeks ago she came home and said in the sort of voice a girl uses to say she wants to be an actress that she wanted to be a honey-trapper. Imagine it! I was thunderstruck. Of course, I didn’t want to stand in her way . . . She thought it was glamorous, being a spy, a Mata Hari, but I knew better, I knew how the world works, especially the grimy shabby shadow-world of secret agents. I told her, it’s not like in the James Bond movies: you don’t get many counts and countesses, handsome spies and debonair millionaires travelling on the Orient Express these days. It’s just a train, like the one to Dnipropetrovsk, full of bourgeois riff-raff. She wouldn’t listen, of course.’ He made an especially dramatic wave of his hand. ‘Who would be a father, eh? Louie Eeyoreovitch, who would be a father!’
We turned into a street of solid nineteenth-century civic buildings, and parked outside the Museum Of Our Forefathers’ Suffering. The chain was hanging loose, the jaw of the padlock open. The door was ajar. We climbed the steps and entered.
‘And then, after everything I told her, what does she do? She meets a handsome James Bond on the train, the wonderful chivalrous knight Louie Eeyoreovitch who shows her the error of her ways and sends her back to her father.’
We walked into a lobby of scuffed linoleum and faded paint. Pyotr pressed the button on an old wire-cage elevator. There was a rumble from the basement and far above our heads wheels and pulleys creaked into motion. The cage arrived and Pyotr pulled back the concertina door and bid me enter. We travelled up to the second floor.
‘We closed the museum about fifteen years ago.’
‘Why did you close it?’
‘Budget cuts, as usual. It was my initiative. I was in charge of the five-year plan for dream husbandry at the time.’
We emerged on to a landing. Next to the door leading to a gallery there was a table, chairs, vodka and Vimto. A girl sat at the table leafing through a dossier, pencil perched on her ear and an earnest expression on her face. It was Calamity. She looked up briefly from the dossier. ‘Oh, hi Louie, good you could make it.’ Her attempt at nonchalance was betrayed by the wide grin which flashed across her face. I rushed forward and, as she stood up, I hugged her. ‘How was the interrogation?’ she asked, struggling to breathe under the pressure of my arms.
‘A lot nicer than the ones you get in Aberystwyth, but I was worried about you the whole time.’
‘I was worried about you, too.’
Pyotr sat down and poured out the vodka and the Vimto. He drank to our health. Calamity pointed to the dossier on the table. ‘It’s Uncle Vanya’s file.’ On the cover there was a picture of a young man in Soviet labour-camp clothes staring blankly into the camera. Pyotr took the photo of the levitated dog out of an envelope and placed it on the table top.
‘Natasha has asked me to apologise to you for stealing the photo.’