Is this part of Gorky Park? asked Darcy.
Mandelshtam, the man said, a word that sounded like a compound sentence.
Darcy moved along the railing and stopped nearer the winter ducks, and he was followed like a courted bird.
Mandarins, said the man, motioning with his chin at the pair of ducks, their bluish-green feathers and a crest of orange. One kept wetting its head and then shaking it. They are being a long way from China.
They are being that, thought Darcy. Many of us are far from home, he said. The ducks manoeuvred among the reeds where the ice had melted. Where are you from? he asked the man.
Cuba.
Made sense, Cubans in Moscow, Vietnamese and Libyans, Nicaraguans, Angolans, the patronage statues on bridges. Darcy’s feet were getting numb with cold but a nervous pulsation ran through the depths of him, the man’s coat sleeve almost grazed his ski glove as they walked. Darcy contained his desire to brush against him. They looked at each other dead on. In Moscow, all is connected by politics, said the man.
Darcy had hoped for something more intimate. I’m not here for the politics, he said.
The man raised his eyebrows with a false inquisitiveness. So why you are here?
I’m a painter, said Darcy, but he immediately thought of the money belt, how he was afraid he’d been a smuggler too.
Ah, said the man knowingly, like your friend. He laughed.
Darcy’s breath seemed to stop in the air, stunned in front of his mouth. He gathered his thoughts as he picked up a stone and skimmed it out across the glassy ice, but the stone slid further than he’d planned, not far from the ducks. They winged up into the white winter air. How do you know about her?
I am to be keeping an eye on you, he said. So I know a little.
Darcy’s heart skidded like the stone. How much? he wondered. Maybe he knows what I need to find out. He tried to keep breathing normally, standing before a row of iron placards set up on frosted posts. He brushed the cold rusted letters with his glove. They appeared to be in braille; a nature walk for the blind.
For those who do not see, the man said philosophically, right beside him, but there were no blind children reaching to touch the leaves, even the ducks had flown, everything bare and frozen save for toxic water steaming from the pipe. Are you supposed to speak with me? asked Darcy, aware of his keeper’s lips. Part of him wanted to kiss them and part of him wanted to run.
No, he said, nonchalantly, but I like the look of you.
Are you having somewhere you want me to go? asked Darcy.
I go to a wedding soon, said the man, his eyebrows raised again, full as cats’ tails. It wasn’t an answer Darcy had expected. My friend Sofia marries the general. I work for him. I introduce them.
They were walking now, chatting like friends in odd conversation. What kind of work is that? asked Darcy.
I am sometimes druzhinnik, he said, head of patrollers for hooligans and blues—then I wear an armband. He pointed to his empty sleeve, his coat still draped over his shoulders.
Darcy asked him what blues were.
Homosexes here are called blues, he said, but they have no official existence.
They passed a statue clad with what looked like medieval armour and Darcy realised it was a cosmonaut. And what are you called? Darcy asked.
His friend’s ungloved hand appeared for the first time, his fingers dark and long, his nails polished-looking. I am Aurelio, he said. Darcy took off his ski glove and his hand was shaken firmly, the warm fingers inviting him, a complicity in his touch. My house is near, he said. His eyes now seemed to have an almost olive quality, where Darcy would have sworn they were hazel before. Come with me, he said. Why not? You are in Moscow!
Together, they drifted back through the avenue of empty elms. An old woman raked the path. It was the same babushka from yesterday, even though he had entered the park from a new direction. The baba tucked her woollen scarves into her coat and leaned on her rake for a moment as if she was trained to look out for the likes of the two of them. The Cuban smiled at her, unconcerned, as if he knew her or wasn’t fussed, but she didn’t smile back.
She works for me, he said. Darcy thought about yesterday, the man in the trees and the tremulous whippet, the polaroid.
On the street they wove elegantly among the bulky pedestrians who shuffled through the snow, leaden-faced, bodies bent forward with the weight of plastic bags. Darcy felt light by comparison, walking with Aurelio, excited about his prospects. Serve Fin right, he thought, off on her own frolic. He’d get to see a wedding on his second day in town. Darcy grew wary, though, as they turned down a narrow lane. He’d followed strangers into alleys before, but not in a country like this. Yet Aurelio seemed more preoccupied than dangerous, jingling his keys at a door under a tattered awning at the back of an old brick building. An adventure, he said, sensing Darcy’s apprehension. No?
Inside was not what Darcy expected. The walls were stacked high with rolls of cloth and cobwebs, a long sewing table, racks of garments and scarves on hangers, a troubadour’s outfit. Costumes for the Bolshoi, Aurelio said. He grabbed a pinstriped jacket from a hanger, long and grey like a funeral coat. Try this.
Darcy removed his coat, pulled on the pinstripe and checked himself in an ornate full-length mirror. In a Goth sort of way it worked with his cords and combat boots, his black and white Collingwood beanie. Do not be worried, said Aurelio, it’s a come as you are when the ship went down. Darcy assumed that was a Cuban expression.
As Aurelio brushed the dust from the back of the jacket, Darcy felt an energy against his shoulders, then Aurelio kissed his neck. Muted tobacco on his breath, tinged with something sweet, aniseed, fennel; perhaps he smoked cigars. His lips in the fine hair behind Darcy’s ear, as if he knew his favourite places. Darcy arched his neck back. What time is the wedding? he asked.
It is now, said Aurelio, drawing away to reach for his scarf and some black leather gloves that lay on a stool like the wings of a blackbird. He took off his hat to replace it with another and his hair was luxuriant. He undraped his coat from his shoulders to reveal a double-breasted navy suit. Over it, he pulled on a tailored Kensington floor-length overcoat.
Darcy said he felt underdressed in his oilskin so Aurelio tossed him the greatcoat he’d just been wearing. A leather-scented cologne imbued the lining as Darcy slid it on.
Aurelio escorted him past an old treadle machine to a front entrance, out into the frigid street where a rusty Lada waited with a corpulent driver sandwiched behind the wheel, waking from sleep as Aurelio knocked on the window. Darcy and Aurelio both got in the back, Aurelio speaking in a language that sounded neither Russian nor Spanish. Darcy asked him what it was. You have no languages? Aurelio asked him, surprised. You English, having it easy.
But Aurelio was the one with the car and a driver.
Is this yours? asked Darcy, looking about as they rattled along.
Aurelio shrugged as if he couldn’t help good fortune.
How did you end up in Moscow? Darcy asked.
Aurelio looked out the window and Darcy was afraid the question had been gauche. My mother is a friend of Castro, he said. He put his hand on Darcy’s leg reassuringly and Darcy felt the hairs rise on his neck.
They both looked out at the river, at big discoloured wedges of ice too deep to be sliced by any sharp-hulled barge. Darcy imagined the climates they’d both come from, worlds with heat and beaches. I’d love to go to Havana, he said.