“Misty?”
“Yes?”
“Happy now?”
When I arrive that evening Cheadle is sitting at the back of the restaurant with a drink in front of him. He’s alone. I take a seat beside him, facing out into the room. The walls are the color of wet sand, and a vase filled with red gerberas stands on the bar. It’s not the restaurant Klaus took me to.
Cheadle glances at his phone. “They’re on their way.”
“What,” I say, “like last time?”
He grins, then swirls the whiskey in his glass. “Drink?”
I order sparkling water. I want to stay sharp.
My eyes swerve towards the door every time it opens. My left leg is jiggling under the table. To distract myself, I go to the Ladies. As I walk back across the restaurant, Cheadle looks past me.
“Here they are,” he says.
A man and a woman join us. We all shake hands. The woman looks about forty. She has short reddish hair, which may or may not be dyed, and very white, slightly greasy skin. Her full lips conceal small uneven teeth. Her name is Anna. The man — Oleg — is younger. He is wearing a designer black leather jacket with an open-necked white shirt, and his round head is covered with close-cropped hair of an indeterminate color, like bean sprouts or Tupperware. Anna chooses the seat opposite mine and studies the menu. Oleg brushes at the tablecloth with the backs of his fingers, even though it’s spotless, immaculate. No one speaks. It’s as if we’re about to play a game so esoteric that it doesn’t require any pieces.
For the first half hour talk revolves around business. Delivery dates are mentioned — the fifteenth, the twenty-fourth. Place-names too. Kiev, Piraeus. Minsk. There’s a lengthy debate about Pavlo, and mention of somebody called Raul. Anna’s English is fluent, though heavily accented, and she tends to be the one who answers Cheadle’s questions. Sometimes they switch to Russian, and Cheadle’s understanding of the language surprises me. Oleg seems distracted throughout. He tilts his beer in its glass, and his vague, violent eyes keep drifting round the room.
Eventually — and abruptly — the conversation stops, and a busy silence ensues, as if everybody at the table is thinking different but interconnected thoughts.
“It’s Misty’s first time in Berlin,” Cheadle says at last. “She arrived two weeks ago.”
I hear a faint click as Anna’s lips part on her teeth. It’s the stealthiest of smiles.
“How do you like the city?” she asks.
“I like it very much,” I say.
Oleg is watching me, but nothing shows in his face. Neither curiosity nor interest. He doesn’t even convey indifference.
“You like to travel?” Anna says.
“I like new places.”
I didn’t know it was possible for a conversation to be both mundane and tense, but that is how it feels. Though I requested the meeting, the Russians suddenly seem to have more invested in it than I do, and more to lose. Oleg is looking at my mouth rather than my eyes. He looks so intently that I imagine he can see my words emerging, one by one, like plastic ducks in a fairground rifle range. Cheadle gazes into his glass. He is smiling to himself. For some reason, I have the feeling he’s proud of me.
“And when you leave Berlin,” Anna says, “you will go back to Rome?”
“Oh no. No, I don’t think so.”
She looks at me steadily, her voice quiet but insistent. “Where will you go?”
“Somewhere else. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Somewhere you have never been?”
The question lacks rigor — the future I imagine is intensely foreign, and yet familiar as grass or water — but I try to answer truthfully. “I’m looking for a place where I’ll feel at home.”
“You’re not at home in Italy?”
“Not really.”
“And in Berlin?”
“No.”
The conversation has arrived at a crucial point more quickly than I envisaged. If you’re speaking a language that isn’t your own, perhaps you become less subtle, more direct. Or it might be a Russian characteristic. Anna glances at Oleg, then back at me. Is it my imagination or did one corner of Oleg’s mouth curl upwards just a fraction?
“You have money?” Anna asks.
“Enough for now.”
“And when it runs out?”
“I’ll earn some more.”
“What can you do,” Anna asks, “to earn money?”
“I’m not sure. Something will turn up.”
“Turn up?” For the first time Anna’s English lets her down.
“Something will happen,” I say.
Oleg mutters a few words in Russian.
“You’re very confident,” Anna says, “for someone who is so young — or perhaps it’s because you’re young.”
Cheadle lifts his head. “More drinks?”
“Vodka,” Oleg says.
“Also for me.” Anna smiles at Cheadle. Her front teeth are white, but the teeth farther back in her mouth are a dark rotten yellow.
Cheadle orders two large vodkas, a sparkling water for me, and another whiskey for himself. When the waiter has gone I ask Anna where she’s from.
“I live in Moscow,” she says, “but I was born in Cherepovets. It’s north of Moscow, about an hour by plane.”
“And your friend?”
‘He’s from farther north — from Arkhangel’sk. Or you would say Archangel.”
A sweet shaft of anticipation cuts through me, and I stare at the tablecloth in an attempt to disguise what I’m feeling. I can’t allow myself to think Cherepovets or Arkhangel’sk. I think glass instead. I think plate and spoon. Even so, I sense Anna’s interest growing, as if I’m a safe to which she now, quite unexpectedly, has the combination.
“I’d like to visit the north.” I turn to Cheadle. “Do you think your friends could help with that?”
“The north?” He makes a face. “What do you want to go there for?”
“I’d like to see it.”
“It can be dangerous,” Anna says.
“Also in Moscow,” Oleg says, addressing no one in particular, “it can be dangerous.”
“And it’s cold,” Anna says. “Extremely cold.”
“Yes,” I say in a low voice, almost a whisper. “Do you think it can be arranged?”
“Do you have a visa?” Anna asks.
“No.”
“It’s not so easy to get a visa,” she says. “You need a letter of invitation or support. You need to book hotels in advance. You need” — and she turns to Cheadle — “what do you call it, the list of destinations?”
Cheadle smothers a yawn. “Itinerary.”
“Yes,” she says. “You must tell the authorities where you are going, and when.”
I look down into my glass.
“Maybe we could help,” Anna says after a few moments.
“Really?”
Anna glances at Oleg again. “Yes. We have a contact. At the embassy.”
The drinks arrive, and I excuse myself.
Alone in the Ladies I look at myself in the mirror. Suddenly I’m so excited that my arms are in the air above my head and I’m dancing — crazy dancing, like I’m at a rave. It occurs to me — too late — that I might be caught on a security camera. I stop what I’m doing and begin to wash my hands.