It felt like he’d only just closed his eyes when someone knocked on his door. ‘Your friends have arrived,’ Boris half-shouted.
Two apparent soldiers were drinking in the bar, one a CIC Major whom Russell recognised from a meeting in Salzburg a year or so earlier, the other Maksym Palychko, who was dressed as a GI corporal. He was shorter than Russell had imagined from the picture, with an unexpectedly appealing smile. The long white scar on the neck seemed the only predictable thing about him.
They all shook hands like civilised people, and the Major-whose name, Russell remembered, was Hanningham-poured Russell a generous measure of Scotch.
‘Any problems?’ Russell asked, for want of anything better.
‘None,’ the Major said cheerfully. ‘I think everyone manning that border is on our payroll.’
Palychko was looking around the empty bar.
Russell introduced himself in Russian. ‘Or would you rather use German?’ he added in that language.
‘Deutsch,’ the Ukrainian said shortly. He drained his glass. ‘It’s been a long day,’ he added.
Either Hanningham had no qualms about sharing the bed ‘big enough for three’ with Palychko, or he was too tired to care, and soon Russell was lying in his own. They met again at breakfast in the wood-panelled dining room with its distant view of the mountains, and after half an hour of Hanningham’s overweening arrogance, Russell was beginning to wonder which man was the more objectionable of the two. The mass murderer Palychko just sat admiring the view, offering the occasional friendly smile. Only when the American’s jeep had finally shrunk to a dot on the road heading north, did he offer more than a single syllable. ‘Where did you spend the war?’
Russell had no desire to tell this man his life story. ‘In the States, and then with the US Army in France and Germany, as a war correspondent.’ All of which was true enough, if hardly the complete picture. ‘How about you?’
‘In Poland and Ukraine.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Fighting communists. And losing.’
‘Any regrets?’ Russell couldn’t help asking.
‘You know who I really am, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
He offered up that smile again. ‘That’s more than I do.’
Oh shit, Russell thought, a psychopath with an identity crisis.
It must have shown on his face. ‘My father was a priest,’ Palychko said, as if by way of explanation. He looked at Russell. ‘Were you old enough to fight in the First War?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you know what men can do to each other.’
‘I still don’t why,’ Russell said, getting drawn in despite himself.
‘Neither do I. That’s what I meant-evil is a mystery, even to those who do it. Especially those.’
‘That’s why we have courts.’
Palychko shook his head. ‘Do you really believe after everything you’ve seen and heard that men are capable of judging their brothers?’
‘What’s the alternative-universal absolution?’
‘Perhaps. I don’t know.’
Moving to the lounge when two women arrived to clean the dining room, Russell found an English newspaper from several days earlier. A report from the paper’s correspondent in Palestine claimed, with what appeared good authority, that Jewish fighters had massacred nearly all the Arab inhabitants of a village named Deir Yassin. And so it went on, he thought, remembering Shchepkin’s list of villages that his current companion had laid to waste. Now even Jews were doing it.
‘Do you play chess?’ Palychko asked him. He had found the set reserved for the use of guests.
‘Badly,’ Russell said discouragingly, just as Boris appeared in the doorway.
‘I’ve just had a telephone call,’ the hotel proprietor told Russell. ‘I’m to tell you that there’s been a hold-up, and that your friend won’t be here until tomorrow morning. I assume that means you need the rooms for another night?’
Russell sighed. ‘I suppose we do.’ He explained the delay to Palychko, who seemed neither surprised nor upset.
‘So how about a game?’ he asked.
‘Why not?’
It took the Ukrainian about ten minutes to checkmate him, and the subsequent re-match was shorter still. ‘You really do play badly,’ Palychko agreed belatedly.
After finishing lunch an hour or so later, Russell was wondering what to do with the afternoon when the Ukrainian suggested a walk. ‘I’d like to find a church,’ he said, and Russell was still swallowing an unspoken gibe about the other man’s need to confess when Palychko admitted that this was indeed his intention. ‘I don’t think I’ll be running into any enemies by accident,’ he added, when Russell hesitated.
They found a church on the road heading into the centre, and the first priest they found was willing to take Palychko’s confession. Russell briefly wondered how they were going to understand each other, settled for being grateful that he wasn’t the listener, and sat in a convenient pew for twenty minutes, wondering whether confessing one’s sins really was good for the soul, or was just another way for the church to keep its flock under some sort of control.
When Palychko eventually reappeared, they decided on walking on into town. ‘I’d like to try a real Italian coffee,’ the Ukrainian told Russell, as they both surveyed the cafes spread around the central piazza. One chosen, they took a table outside, ordered espressos, and stared at the lovely old buildings around them. ‘I shall hate America,’ Palychko said, almost wistfully.
‘Then why are you going?’ Russell asked unnecessarily.
Palychko took the question seriously. ‘There are too many Europeans who want me dead. Your bosses in Washington actually want me alive, at least until I’ve told them all that I know. But I shall still hate it.’
Two young boys stopped by their table, hands outstretched, and Russell was still reaching for his pocket when Palychko handed them a small wad of lira. They gave him disbelieving looks, and ran off across the piazza exchanging joyous shrieks.
‘How much did you give them?’ Russell asked.
Palychko shrugged. ‘No idea. After we crossed the border your Major Hanningham said I needed “pocket money”, and handed it over. But what do I need it for? You people won’t let me starve.’
Back at the hotel, they took to their rooms for naps, then met again for dinner like ordinary travelling acquaintances. Russell kept waiting for the war criminal to emerge from behind the mask, but Palychko seemed set on being friendly, to Russell, the waiters, the world. Only once did he hint at something else, scanning the room and remarking with a hint of surprise: ‘Italians look like Jews, don’t they?’ I suppose that’s why they protected them from the Germans.’ Seeing Russell’s face, he smiled again. ‘I shall have to do better in America, won’t I?
They said their goodnights around ten, but Russell needed more than an hour’s reading before he dropped off, and his sleep was both fitful and dream-laden. At least the sun was shining when he woke up, and with any luck enough Italian trains were running on Sundays to see him back in Trieste that day.
The first sign that things had gone awry was the lack of response when he knocked on Palychko’s door. The second was the door not being locked, the third the sight that greeted him when he stepped inside.
The Ukrainian was laid out naked on his bed, a mass of congealed blood where his genitals had been. These were stuffed in his blood-ringed mouth, where the tongue used to be. This was lying on his stomach.
Which helped explain why Russell hadn’t heard anything.
Four Cyrillic letters had been incised in Palychko’s forehead-after death, if the lack of smudging was any guide. The language was Ukrainian, but the characters which ended the word were the same in Russian, D and A in English. He would have to look the others up, but JUDA-the Russian for Judas-seemed a pretty good bet. The Jews and the communists hadn’t caught up with Palychko, but his old buddies had.