Standing near the stairs, he undoes his trousers, then he takes out his penis and stares at it, as if he wasn’t expecting to find it in his underpants and is wondering how it got there. A dark grayish mauve, it reminds me of certain vegetables — a beetroot when it is first lifted from the earth, or purple sprouting. He tries to masturbate but he’s too drunk to get an erection. Leaving his penis dangling outside his trousers, he reaches into his jacket pocket and brings out a bottle of vodka. He lifts the bottle to his mouth. The vodka lurches left then right as he takes two or three fierce gulps, then he lowers the bottle and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. His eyes veer towards my door again. I back away. This could go on for hours.
Later, lying in the dark, it’s hard to put the drunk man out of my mind. Noises keep coming from the corridor outside. The chink of glass on concrete, the shuffle of boots. Muttering, and more muttering. Shouting. Then a crash. He must have fallen over. I switch on Mrs. Kovalenka’s radio. The classical music station she used to listen to is playing a song cycle. I turn the volume down and leave it on all night.
In the morning I go and look through the Judas eye. The stairwell appears to be deserted. I crack the door open. Bohdan’s gone. The vodka bottle lies next to the wall, and there’s a pool of vomit on the floor. The poor man. He’s such a mess. What can I do, though?
/
The Moscow — Arkhangel’sk flight lands on time, and my father follows Lydia down the metal steps and across the tarmac. Outside the airport they climb into a waiting taxi. They have reserved a room at the Best Eastern Dvina, which is where I stayed. It’s not such a big coincidence; the city only has a handful of decent hotels. All the same, I wonder if my father can sense my presence as he walks towards reception. Is that what brings him to a halt halfway across the lobby?
“What are you doing, David?” Lydia says.
He pats his pocket, then appears to relax. “Sorry. I thought I left my passport in the taxi.” But he knows exactly where his passport is. He’s lying to her and he’s not sure why.
The next day, as they scour the city for evidence of me, they take a shortcut between some old wooden houses. Lydia stops by a window. Between the net curtains and the glass panes, arranged on the thin shelf of the sash, is a row of snow globes. Lydia suggests they go inside. Though my father is eager to keep moving he doesn’t want to seem inflexible or stuck in his ways — and it’s hard at this stage in their relationship to deny her anything. Reluctantly, he agrees. The two men are there, just as before, one folded into the armchair by the counter, the other curved against the shelves, oddly boneless. Despite himself, my father feels a stirring of curiosity. The atmosphere intrigues him. Something otherworldly, anachronistic. The tin-lined ceiling, the dark boards on the floor.
“How old is this place?” he asks the man who is leaning against the shelves.
The man surveys him, the glitter in his eyes reptilian and cold, then he turns and speaks to the other man, who might or might not be his brother. He fails to answer my father’s question. Probably he didn’t understand.
My father doesn’t pursue it. Looking round, he finds himself drawn to the left side of the room, and then to one snow globe in particular. Inside the plastic dome is a replica of the airport where he and Lydia landed the day before, every detail faithfully re-created. The long low terminal building. The blue-and-white light aircraft mounted on a pedestal outside and placed, bizarrely, in among some birch trees. The chunky pale-pink control tower. Tiny passengers thread their way across the tarmac towards an old-fashioned turboprop that is preparing for takeoff. My father is about to call out to Lydia when he sees something that almost stops his heart. At the top of the steps that lead up to the plane is the figure of a young woman with hip-length hair. Dressed in a dark-brown coat, she glances over her shoulder, taking one last look at the place she is about to leave behind. The air between my father’s eyes and the plastic dome seems to contract, congeal.
“David?” Lydia says. “What is it?”
He doesn’t reply. Instead, he snatches up the snow globe and carries it over to the man sitting by the counter. He points at the inside of the dome.
“This girl,” he says. “Have you seen her?”
The man looks past my father at the other man, and his lips draw back to reveal receding gums.
My father pushes the snow globe up against the man’s face, too close to focus on. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you. Where did she go?”
Lydia touches my father’s arm. “He doesn’t understand, David. He doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”
He shakes her off. The man does understand. Both the men understand. He’s convinced of it. They’re communicating, all three of them, at a level beyond language.
“Tell me where she is,” he says, “or I’ll call the police.” He searches for the word in Russian. “Militsaya.” He seizes the man by his lapels, hauls him to his feet and shouts into his face. “Militsaya!”
The man begins to shake, as if he has a fever — he’s shaking all over — then he opens his mouth, showing all his teeth, some of which are thin as matchsticks, and he’s shouting too, in a high-pitched voice, like a bird.
Lydia steps back into the shadows. She’s used to thinking of herself as practical, efficient, but the situation frightens her. She has no idea what to do.
The snow globe slips from my father’s hand and smashes on the floor.
Everything stops.
My father lets go of the man, who slumps back in his chair. The man’s chin rests on his chest, and he’s panting. His hair has fallen over his eyes. It occurs to my father that the man might be a cripple, or an epileptic. Or even mentally deficient. The other man leans down and straightens his brother’s clothes, then whispers in his ear. There’s a thin acrid smell, like blown lightbulbs or melted fuse wire. Lydia still hasn’t moved.
The man in the chair is saying something in Russian. The same words, over and over. This time it’s my father who doesn’t understand. The man reaches for a pencil and paper. With a trembling hand he begins to scribble.
It’s a number.
A price.
He says the words again, then aims a finger at the shattered globe. He seems to be pointing at the tiny figure in the cashmere coat. She is still poised at the top of the metal staircase, still glancing nostalgically over her shoulder, but the plane has lost a wing, and the airport is in pieces, and the granules of snow are scattered across the dark wood floor.
As my father stares at the broken globe, the man comes out with a simple quiet sentence. My father doesn’t know what the man is saying. I do, though. I know exactly what he’s saying.
If you don’t pay, your daughter will die.
/
A few nights later I rise up slowly through several layers of sleep. My feet are so cold they feel separate from the rest of me. The clock says twenty to three. A symphony is playing on the radio. Stealthy apprehensive music. Feelings that aren’t permitted. A cleansing wash of sound from the strings, but then anxiety and turbulence from the brass instruments. I turn the volume down and listen. There are no noises in the corridor, not tonight. Bohdan is in Pyramiden, perhaps. Once I have rubbed some warmth into my feet I leave the bed and walk to the window. I never tire of looking out at this unlikely place; I still marvel at the fact that I am here. The smooth white sports field, spotlights casting soft-edged circles on the snow. Buildings that seem unnaturally motionless, as if braced against the cold. One of the older houses sinks, lopsided, into the earth. To the left and lower down, not far from the old canteen, is the wooden church with its blunt black spire. The lights have been left on, and the two windows glow, sinister as the eyes in a Halloween pumpkin.