Anyway, the anecdote goes like this:
Winnetou gathers his tribe and says: “I’ve got one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. Which would you like to hear first?”
“The bad news, oh Winnetou.”
“The bad news is that we’ve used up all our food, so we have to start eating bison shit.”
The tribe grows despondent and starts to wail, then one of them asks what the good news is.
“The good news is that I know a place where we can get hold of bison shit.”
Believe it or not, people found that joke pretty funny back in those days.
You may not believe it, but the news came as a complete surprise to Särg. After all, he’d never had any reason to worry about Anton. He always got good marks at school. He’d finally started doing sport. He hadn’t tried smoking, he didn’t drink. He even declined champagne at New Year. It was true that he didn’t particularly like talking about what he was up to, but he would always come home at the agreed time, and then just sit and read in his room.
“Really? Are you sure it might not be some mistake?”
Vinkel nodded.
“And what exactly is it related to?”
“It’s that same case we’ve been dealing with.” Vinkel tried to avoid sounding condescending, but the expression on Särg’s face was so foolish. “Your Anton is consorting with our young insurrectionists.”
“I find that very hard to believe!”
“So you think I’m lying then, do you? Eh?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. It could just be a mistake, human error; maybe it’s just someone with the same name?”
“We’ve got photographs,” said Vinkel with a shrug. “I’m amazed that someone could be so blind to the truth.”
As we know, Särg was actually pretty sharp-witted.
“I reckon I can guess the good news myself,” he said.
“Right,” said Vinkel with a smile.
“It goes without saying that I will do everything within my powers, Comrade Major,” Särg assured him. First he just needed some time to think.
Alex met Tapani the following day. Tapani had called in the evening, as soon as Alex had arrived at the hotel from the port, when he had still been pretty worked up. What do I actually know about this man? Who exactly is he? On top of that a colleague had treated him to a toffee in the bar on the boat, which had caused a filling to come out of one of his upper teeth with a sudden crunch. That evening everything had been fine, but at night when he was asleep the tooth had suddenly started hurting so badly that it became unbearable. He had some tablets with him, which he always took with him because he knew that when toothache strikes you have to nip it in the bud. It wasn’t like a headache, when you could just wait, hoping it might go away on its own. Fortunately he’d taken the tablets out of his bag and put them on his bedside table the previous evening. He got out of bed and took two tablets, but in his sleepy state it took him a while to find the bathroom door, and by then he was fully awake. He got back into bed, but he couldn’t get back to sleep. The sounds of night-time Helsinki coming through the window certainly didn’t help. What was going to happen? What if someone found out? I’m only twenty-six, damn it.
The following day Alex was free until two, and his toothache gave him a good excuse not to go trawling the shops at the Itäkeskus with the rest of the delegation. Tapani had invited him to a pizza place at one o’clock, and he had to eat something since all he’d managed to force down for breakfast was coffee and frankfurters; the scrambled eggs weren’t nearly as nice at this hotel as the previous one, in fact they were downright disgusting.
His Finnish friend was already waiting for him at the restaurant, leafing through the menu with a jug of water and two glasses on the table in front of him.
“The Capricciosas are pretty good here,” he said once Alex had sat down. “I ordered one for each of us, I hope that’s OK.”
Alex didn’t care about that. He took the package containing the film from his pocket and pushed it across the table towards Tapani.
“Thanks,” said Tapani, hurriedly shoving it into his pocket. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”
Alex took a long look at him. Last night he’d spent some time working out how best to phrase the question which he now planned to ask. Such as, “Listen, are you messing me around?” Or, “Sorry, but I would appreciate knowing.” Or, “We’ve known each other for a while now, perhaps you could explain who on earth you are.”
But none of them turned out to be necessary.
“I can see that you’re in need of a bit of clarity,” Tapani said affably. “It’s written on your face.”
He took off his glasses and wiped them with a serviette.
“Look, I could of course tell you. But that would put you in a pretty tricky position. Because then you would need to choose. You could tell your superiors the whole story, but they would be surprised that you didn’t come and tell them right away, even if you didn’t tell them all the details. Or we could continue our friendship, although it would be a little bit different now. In that eventuality I would ask you to do what you have done for me just a couple more times.”
As Alex tried to absorb the full meaning of those words, the pizzas arrived, placed on the table in front of them by a young man wearing an earring.
But so what?
“I would like to know what is on those films,” Alex said.
“I should probably start a bit closer to the beginning,” Tapani said, passing Alex a knife and fork. “We are both of the view that there are positive changes taking place in your homeland at the moment, is that not so? But we also know that many people don’t like what’s happening for obvious reasons. What we are doing is intended to help those who want to change your country for the better, make it more humane, more open, a place where people don’t have to live in constant fear.”
“We don’t live in constant fear,” Alex interrupted him.
“Very well, very well,” said Tapani, taking a swig of water. “Let’s put it this way: we’re trying to help those people who want to live their lives free from lies.”
“But what is on those films then?” Alex asked again.
“They are photographs of documents, taken by certain very brave people.” So things were pretty serious then, Alex thought to himself. “They are photos of the front pages of KGB agent files. I’m sure you will appreciate that it is extremely important for us to know who’s who.”
But Alex had actually been expecting something much worse. Now it turned out that they were only talking about some common snitches. He couldn’t stand them, who could? But it was well known that the best defence was to make sure that you had nothing to hide. He knew that from experience.
“For example, it would be wise for you to bear in mind that a certain Mister Kalugin, Konstantin Zakharovich from your department is working for the secret services.” Tapani pronounced the name with great difficulty. “So be careful what you say in his presence.”
Really?
He certainly wouldn’t have expected anything like that of that drunken lecher. Of course it was natural that there would be interest in their department; they were involved in joint ventures with foreign companies after all, but if he’d been taken on to work there, wouldn’t he have been vetted already?
“How do you know that?” Alex asked.
“I just know.”
Alex didn’t have any reason to doubt him.
But taken altogether this could only mean one thing. That he was sitting and eating lunch with someone who was somehow linked to Western intelligence agencies. To those very organisations whose raison d’être was to force the Soviet Union to its knees and destroy it, as he’d been told for as long as he could remember. Up until now he had no reason to try to imagine what their agents might look like, so he was only capable of visualising them as those dogged assassins in long raincoats who chased Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor (which he’d been to see twice). So what if Robert Redford was working for the CIA as well.