Sebastian leaned back, agreeably surprised. From a height he dropped the paperclip into a wastebasket, and said, ‘Looks like I was wrong. The way folk tick matters.’
‘You were right, though,’ replied Anselm, with reciprocal charm. ‘Kaminsky did use Brack — in relation to the procurement of information; but Brack also used Kaminsky — to suppress evidence of gutter killings, State murder beyond the law. It’s all there on the last page of Roza’s statement: he placed Kaminsky’s name and his faith right at the heart of his scheme to silence Roza, and I don’t think Kaminsky would swallow that… not even for the sake of a better tomorrow He didn’t sign up in forty-eight to finish his days as Brack’s spattered shield. I’m hoping it’s the one price he won’t pay.’
Chapter Thirty-One
When a journey ends one looks back. Certain features that were obscure en route stand out with ruthless clarity And the one that most troubled Anselm, now that he’d arrived at the guilt of SABINA, was his treatment of Irina Orlosky He’d trampled over a weak, already defeated woman. He’d stomped around in the mud of her failings, showing off that Old Bailey footwork. It had been ugly, unnecessary and almost certainly harmful. Again he found that the Hilton’s showers weren’t up to the task. And this time the situation was worse than before: the inner dirt that wouldn’t shift was of his own making and he couldn’t blame Frenzel.
The recognition sent Anselm first to a florist and then to a rundown corner of Praga, a central district on the east bank of the river. This was where Stalin’s army had watched the Nazis crush the Uprising of 1944. It was where the Tsar’s troops had massacred 20,000 civilians following the Uprising of 1794. It was where Brack’s personal assistant now lived, a survivor without her name.
Anselm walked into a narrow courtyard of tall cramped buildings. Paint blistered off the crooked window frames. Red and black graffiti marked the cracked walls as if they were stitching to hold the place together. Higher up, the stucco had fallen away, the remnant oval sections like flaking scabs on the facade of orange brick. It was early evening and the light was slipping away with something like relief. Having stepped gingerly through an open, communal door.’ Anselm mounted a creaking staircase and halted on a second floor landing. Rapid gunfire sounded from behind Flat 8. It ceased abruptly on Anselm’s firm knock. A long, sliver of light appeared like a drawn blade.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Anselm to the dark, spectacled face. ‘I was rude, superior and insulting. You were right. I have no idea what it was like. Can I have some tea? My name is Anselm.’
The door chain slid from its groove.
‘Yes, of course, come in… I’m… I’m Irina.’
Taking the flowers, she smiled uneasily, one hand nervously brushing back her grey hair. Set against the dull wallpaper, the bunched yellows and greens turned bright. She held them out like an Olympic torch, beckoning Anselm to follow, but he paused by an open door just inside the entrance. Stretched out on the faded carpet lay the podgy son dressed in a Man United top and camouflage trousers.’ his legs splayed, his hands gripping a plastic Kalashnikov. Secure behind a cushion for a sandbag, he was shooting Afghan insurgents on a large computer screen, his kill rate mounting against the clock.
‘Please, this way,’ she called from the kitchen at the end of the short corridor, her voice embarrassed, already pleading for more understanding, already fearing another kind of condemnation.
The room was small and clean, the white enamel on the cooker chipped but shining. A small, polished window looked on to the courtyard and a fragment of sky Anselm drew back a chair by a small Formica table and said.’
‘Irina, it’s important you know something: Frenzel doesn’t have your name. Certain things always remain in our possession.’
Her back was against him. She was arranging the flowers in a vase, jiggling the stems to get the arrangement right. Without turning around, she said, ‘He didn’t take it, Father. No one did.’
Still not facing Anselm, and without prompting, she began to speak of August 1989 as if she’d forgotten to mention it first time round and was now making up for the lapse. She’d been called into work early Mr Frenzel had rung to say there was housework to be done. The place needed cleaning from top to bottom. For the next three months all the staff had worked like mad to tidy up the files.
‘It was non-stop shredding.” she said, turning on the electric kettle. ‘In every room on every floor the machines were whining and whirring. There were rows and rows of garden sacks filled with all the sliced up paper. After a week others were brought in, more people, more machines, more sacks. Department and Section Heads sat at their desks, picking the files to be destroyed. It was one long office party
… with laughter and joking and larking around. Some of the senior officers were maudlin, leafing through old folders. “Do you remember that one?” “I wonder what became of him.” Others were frantic, knowing they couldn’t pull all the weeds out of the garden.’
Irina broke her recollection to pour the boiled water into two cups. She sliced lemon and placed cubes of sugar on the saucers. Three harsh shots came from down the corridor, followed by the crump of grenades and the cries of the Afghan dying. The son had ambition. He was going to succeed where the Russians had failed.
‘That’s when Mr Frenzel selected which documents to keep,’ sighed Irina, wiping some spillage with a cloth. ‘He took them home every evening in his car. Told me to keep my mouth shut if I ever wanted to work again. If my son was ever to get a job.’
At last she turned round and travelled the great divide between them — just two short steps — her eyes lowered, not wanting to meet Anselm’s gaze. She was wearing a McDonald’s T-shirt and neat green trousers. Her expression was hard behind the frail wire glasses.
‘The only person missing was Colonel Brack,’ she said, sitting down. ‘He made his appearance on the last day, after everyone else had gone. He came late at night… I only found him because I’d left my keys behind.’
Anselm stirred his tea, flipping over the slice of lemon. ‘He’d kept away from the party?’
‘Yes.’
‘Didn’t he have any files for the shredder?’
‘No. He wasn’t like the others… he was a believer. He was proud of his work… proud of the ministry; he wanted whoever came next to see what he’d done. His junior officers saw things differently — they cleaned his cupboards to protect themselves.’ She dropped a cube of sugar into her tea and began to break it down with the teaspoon. ‘For him, there was nothing to celebrate. Quite the opposite.
He wanted a funeral. When I opened the door to his office, he was there, sitting bolt upright holding a gun to his mouth:
Irina had approached him stealthily, like a cat, speaking assurances in a low whisper. She’d edged round the desk and put her hand round his, slowly drawing the barrel from between his teeth. It had been the first time she’d ever touched his skin and he’d been cold; simply cold and still, no clammy surface or shaking limbs; no fear or tension. He’d watched her from afar, letting her unpick his fingers from the handgrip. Irina, trembling violently, had stepped back and dropped the gun into her coat pocket.
‘I’ve still got it,’ she laughed, bitterly ‘I didn’t dare leave the thing behind so I brought it home and shoved it in a safe place.’ Her head made a tilt to some shelf out of her son’s reach. ‘To this day I don’t know why I did that… why I stopped him from killing himself. He meant nothing to me. He never once so much as asked if I was all right, or if my son was doing well. He just worked, fighting “the enemy”. Years later, when I realised that most doors in the free world were shut to me, I thought of him and everything he represented; I saw him at his desk, reading files by a lamp, biting his lip. And if I could have gone back into that room, I’d have taken the gun from him and pulled the trigger myself.’ Irina coloured at the admission. ‘I hate him… and as the years go by I hate him even more. Isn’t that an awful thing to say?’