‘And your men will be the same ones you used in Makhachkala?’
‘Yes, they are already in the city and will contact you.’
‘I will tell the Dutchman to be ready.’
‘Remember, it is important we have clean hands’, the Muscovite threatened.
‘Do not worry’, Grigori confided. ‘This man was trained by the Norwegian Forsvarets Spesialkommando.’
Then, after raising a private toast to the mission’s success, he called Alyosha, pressing him for a show of strength on the street as a diversion. ‘We need everyone out on Nevsky. Massed flags, music, and weapons. Leave no one behind. Every man, woman and child, understand?’ Alyosha agreed. ‘Make sure Martsinkevich’s FAMAT 18 hard men are there, this will be war.’
‘Understood!’
Ekaterina lived in a nineteenth-century apartment off the Ulitsa Yakubbovicha. They went up four flights of spiral steps with twisting banisters. Drafty French windows opened out onto a narrow balcony with a split plinth overlooking an inner courtyard. Throwing open the shutters, her graphite pupils caught the starlight. ‘You will be safe here’, she said confidently. ‘There are no monsters.’
‘Monsters?’
‘What Glukhovsky calls the Dark Ones, Homo novus—the next stage in evolution.’
‘You like Metro 2033, too?’
‘Of course, it is an allegory for our times. We are like the hero Artyom battling another species. Take a look around you; they are rising. We fooled ourselves into thinking we had rid ourselves of the people who genocided millions upon millions of real Russians after their so-called Worker’s Revolution. But we were wrong; they have returned even stronger, with new allies from the south and east. And soon, just like Wells’ Morlocks, they will be hunting us in the streets.’
‘You are certainly one of the Eloi’, he flattered her.
They sat and talked. She was descended from an old Leningrad family, her great grandmother having attended the Smolny Institute for young noblewomen.
‘Have you been active in the movement long?’
‘It depends what you mean by active.’
‘Meetings, marches, that kind of thing.’
‘Since my early teens, I guess. Just as soon as I read Kollar’s epic poem Slavy dcera, Slava’s daughter.’
‘And your friends?’
‘Most, yes, but my grandfather is the most influential on me.’
‘Parents?’
She went quiet and changed the subject.
The flat comprised three rooms. A cramped lounge, with an antique clock, an Afghan rug, and bookshelves filled to bursting; a dining room-cum-kitchen with a small stove and Formica table littered with pots, pans, herbs, oils, and vinaigrette; and sleeping quarters barely large enough for a double bed.
He paid particular attention to some of her own art hung over the fireplace whilst Ekaterina put on Halgrath’s dark ambient composition, Out of Time.
‘Do you like Aveparthe’s Landscapes over the Sea?’
‘Yes, and Outer Tehom by that Ukrainian drone guy, Oleg Puzan’, she enthused, pouring some German beers and stepping out onto the balcony. ‘Be careful, it’s not very safe’, she said as his facial expression changed with the creak of metal wires. The storm had passed, and now silence reigned in the courtyard below.
‘Thank you’, he said.
‘For what?’
‘Helping me.’
‘You are a guest in my country, it was my duty.’
‘Duty?’
‘Pleasure’, she corrected herself.
For a while he stood at the bookshelves, glass in hand, head to one side, reading esoteric titles by Mircea Eliade, Titus Burckhardt, and Aleksander Zinovyev. He felt a pang of jealousy that she owned a signed copy of Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s Death of the Gods, and Against Liberalism, a collection of essays assembled by Dugin in consultation with Alain de Benoist. His fingers settled on a large, familiar volume. ‘I see you like Tolkien?’ he said.
‘There was a time when owning The Lord of the Rings was a revolutionary act’, reminisced Ekaterina. Like Heidegger, Tolkien was concerned with the rise of the machine, the massification of everything. Are you familiar with Dugin’s book Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning?’
‘That was published by the Radix people, right?’
‘Yes, a beautiful edition. I have an English-language version in my bedroom.’ Tom followed her, accepting the copy as she took it from the bedside table.
She explained that her participation in the Right was inspired by Mikhail Antonov and Sergei Kurginyan’s economic vision for a new Russia. ‘I also have ecological concerns’, she explained. ‘For me, the preservation of Russia’s natural habitat is a primary objective. I hate the fact that the forests have been logged, lakes poisoned, and the Aral is now a dust bowl. I love traditional buildings. I want to fight the malyi narod agenda, like crime, alcoholism, dissolution of family values, and the lack of idealism amongst young people.’
‘Noble intentions.’
‘I am an idealist in a land of pessimists!’
‘And a mystic’, he added, pointing to a book on Sufism.
‘I have many interests and many appetites!’ She wandered into the kitchen, pulling open the fridge. ‘You want another drink?’ He answered in the affirmative and she fired the cork from a bottle of sparkling wine, the contents frothing madly, spurting everywhere. After a glass or so, Ekaterina dipped her fingers into a bowl of honey and reached out provocatively for his mouth. ‘You have sweet tooth?’ He gripped her wrist and licked her thumb. She bent into him, tonguing his ear, golden fingers wrenching his shirt while he opened her blouse, clutching at the brassiere’s metal catch, unzipping trousers, sending them sliding to reveal crimson knickers.
They fell into bed and made love to the rhythm of rain tip-tapping on windowpanes. He could feel Ekaterina’s hips suck him deep inside and hear hot words of encouragement to push harder. She was lying beneath him when she came to orgasm, eyes closed, hands gripping his shoulders. His mouth was on her throat, panties coiled around a leather belt, black shoes pointing north and west.
Afterwards they lay together, listening to water pipes gurgle.
‘Tell me more about England’, she said.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Do you all live in cottages with thatched rooves?’
‘Of course!’
‘And roses, are there always roses in your gardens?’
‘Naturally. And we stop everything for tea with jam and scones at three o’clock.’
‘Really?’
‘You look surprised. I thought you had studied English culture.’
‘You must not mock me’, Ekaterina smiled. ‘We were told you were a very polite people. That you would wait in line for a red bus and let ladies sit first.’
‘Only in the suburbs’, he replied. ‘In the city it is dog eat dog.’
‘What is suburbs?’
‘I’ll explain later’, he promised. They disentangled their bodies, wrapping themselves in crumpled sheets, padding barefoot into the lounge to take coffee. Ekaterina watched him over the rim of a big cup. Tom leaned forward and touched her flushed cheek.
‘You were wonderful’, he said.
‘Are you sure?’ His hand was still resting against her blushing face. She did not withdraw, but did not melt with emotion either. There was a challenge in her tone now. ‘You mean it?’
‘Yes, I mean it’, he confessed, as much to himself as to her. Outside, the rain had stopped, and stars shone like embossed rhinestones on black suede. ‘A lovely night’, he said. She put down her steaming drink and embraced him. Her warm tongue probed deep. Then with a wicked smile, she slipped his right hand between her legs and nodded towards the bedroom, ‘Again’, she said, ‘I like strong man in lovemaking.’