Yes and no, she said, as they entered a faint light that sprayed from the canopied doorway. Technically no. And Darcy staved off tears of exhaustion, his fingers shaky as flames.
Ulli de Breffny slipped the rain scarf from her head. In from the cold, she said, aware of her joke, but Darcy couldn’t see it as funny. He glanced through the glistening snow behind him, the night that had let him go; these people who’d given him passage, the old man like an angel out of nowhere, Svetlana. And now he was inside, in a small austere reception room. A place that no longer seemed possible. An Australian flag on the wall, metal desk and office chairs, a plain teak table with a silver tea service. A holding pen perhaps, for quarantine, debriefing. The gun shoved deep in his coat as this woman double-bolted the iron-clad door and they both looked down at Darcy’s wet Blundstone boots on the dry taupe carpet.
He stared up at her beseechingly. Can I speak to the ambassador? he asked.
She draped her scarf on the back of a chair and motioned him to sit. I’m his envoy tonight, she said, pouring tea into a gold-lipped cup, her English impeccable but not Australian. She passed Darcy the cup on a saucer, a plate of homemade lemon squares and lamingtons. She smiled reassuringly. She hadn’t patted him down.
But who are you really? he asked.
I am originally Finnish, she said, pouring her own tea. The dull pink of her lipstick, a woman who still traded on her looks. She leaned back on the desk. I liaise with the Soviets, she added with a quiet authority, as if that might suffice. Also, she said, I’m the wife of the Australian cultural attaché. And Darcy knew she was a spook.
Darcy watched as she leaned against the desk, assessing his scraped-up face, his shake, as if trying to judge what he’d been through. As he drank tea, the cup quivered at his lips, and the liquid burned down inside him. He noticed the Southern Cross on the flag, listened for activity, but the building too seemed oddly silent; he’d still not seen an actual Australian. He cleared his throat. You know Fin? he asked.
Ulli de Breffny made a slight face as if she might not run in quite the same circles. I met her only once. My husband was responsible for her grant to come here and paint. He was very taken with her portfolio.
They were mine, he said.
She nodded. We know that now, she said. Then we got a message from her. About you.
Darcy looked down at the tea leaves in his cup. What did she say?
Ulli de Breffny sipped her own tea but still didn’t sit. That you were in over your head; that you were an innocent.
Darcy felt the shape of the pistol against his ribs. Can you find out if she’s alive? he asked.
We can try, she said. We know there’s been an incident.
Darcy felt a rush of anger. An incident? He clasped his hands around the tea cup to retain his composure. He needed to be practical. He remembered his map inside his denim jacket, his body layered with damp pockets. He unfolded the map and held it up, pointed to where he’d seen her last, down the river past the Danilov Monastery and the Church of the Ascension, but he suddenly wasn’t sure of directions. He couldn’t find the Southern River Terminal, only the weight of what he’d witnessed, what he’d just done, unravelling within him. You don’t know what I’ve seen, he said, but she told him they were doing what they could, that it was difficult here. Darcy looked up at Ulli de Breffny sensing his bewilderment, and he wasn’t sure if anyone would ever understand.
You know what she was doing here, said Ulli de Breffny, don’t you?
Darcy nodded. I learned, he said, I learned in Lubyanka. He thought it might make an impression but she merely inclined her head.
Essentially, she said, she’s a fugitive. She spoke as if Darcy might need reminding.
She’s my sister, he said, and Ulli de Breffny stared down at the map, at Darcy’s clenched hands. Then she acknowledged a green folder on the desk behind her. A string around it, a row of numbers printed.
We never told them that, she said. We thought it might protect you.
What? he asked. Told them what?
That she’s your sister.
They knew, he said. Again he felt the gun, wished he’d thrown it out into the snow.
I know who you are, she said. I saw a copy of the photo they took of you in Prague. I don’t judge you, she added, touched her fine-edged hair, and as Darcy closed his eyes, he felt it seeding inside him, the fact that one of the hands in his lap had gouged a knife into a Soviet general’s eyes.
Ulli de Breffny placed her tea on the desk. Foreign Affairs got calls from your mother, she said.
The mention of his mother, the thought of her trying, had Darcy battling a new wave of tears.
Apparently, she was very upset, saying how you telephoned and told her you might disappear. She kept saying your name and then the name Sarfin.
Darcy looked up with a kind of glazed wonder. Do you know who Sarfin is? he asked.
An associate of Gorbachev, she said. He works inside the KGB, and outside. She knew all about him. She broke off the corner of a biscuit and held it out in the air.
Darcy closed his eyes tightly. His son, Aurelio, became my friend here, he said. He has disappeared. I think he might be dead. The general cut his face up, he said, as punishment.
Darcy could tell by the way she shifted against the desk that this was a thing she hadn’t known. We’re doing all we can, she said sincerely, but Darcy watched her, trying to gauge the scope of her authority—there was nothing she could do, not about Aurelio, not about Fin, and now the phone beside her was ringing. Ulli de Breffny glanced at her watch before she answered. She listened, not speaking, then she responded in measured Russian. The only word Darcy recognised was Sarfin. She replaced the receiver and went to a small window, looked down at the Lada. A man called Tugrul has been shot, she said. The Turkish Consul-General.
As she turned, Darcy peeled his collar to reveal the blood on his neck. I knew him, he said. I was there. He could feel himself rocking, wanting to confess before others arrived, but Ulli de Breffny didn’t pick up her tea. She was thinking.
Did you really not know you smuggled a stolen document? she asked. You travelled with a time bomb.
Darcy’s breath hung quietly in his lungs. No, he said. I didn’t. Not then.
Do you know where the document might be now?
Darcy was silent and the woman’s face softened. What do you want, Darcy Bright?
I want to go home, he said.
Then you should tell me, she said. And I will see what we can do.
Darcy found himself seeing, in a way he’d forgotten, a chasm of hope placed in the air like a next breath. He removed the damp plastic envelope from his pocket, watched Ulli de Breffny examine the telegram. She allowed an odd pursed smile. One more thing, she said. Why is it you have the car? She waited, almost smiling, as if inviting him.
Darcy stared into his emptied cup. You said you could only help if I got myself here, he said, careful with each of the words. General Sarfin didn’t kill me. He wanted me. He tried in Lubyanka. To rape me. He would have been raping me now.
Ulli de Breffny shifted along the desk, flattening her skirt. But you were in the house of the General Secretary’s daughter.
He wanted me clean, said Darcy. That’s what he said. He told me he’d split me in two. Darcy nodded, afraid he was telling too much. He’s on the floor of Anyetta Chernenko’s bathroom. I put a knife in his eye. Darcy didn’t produce the gun but he pulled the stained knife from the velvety coat and placed it on the low table beside him. It’s his car, he said.
Ulli de Breffny was clearly unsettled. She stood and, taking the folder and the evidence bag, left the room. Darcy could hear her on another phone, but the words were just murmurs and he had a sudden desire to wash himself now, see if he could stop the shivering, the noises in his head. He took off the coat, cautiously, as if the general still lurked in its folds, and removed the gun, the shining silver, unsure who lived or who died. He laid the coat hurriedly over the gun in his hand as Ulli de Breffny returned. We will need to get you out of Moscow, she said.