But he’d been told a great many other things too, and then told that everything was in fact the opposite to what he’d been told.
How can a person remain true to himself in such a situation? Tapani didn’t seem too bothered by that dilemma himself.
“Supposing,” began Alex slowly, “that I agree with you on this. I mean, that it’s useful to know who is going to make complaints about their colleagues, and so on. You must surely understand that there’s no way I would betray my country – that’s all there is to it.”
“You know what,” Tapani replied, “I reckon that the ones who are betraying your country are the ones who want to keep your people permanently in the dark. It might sound high-flown, but that’s how things are. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
“You’ll give me your word that there aren’t any pictures of any, I don’t know, airfields or port facilities on those films?”
“If my word actually means anything to you, then yes. You have my word.”
Some things just are what they are
Alex and his mother had just come back from the beach. His uncle had left them the keys to his holiday home while he was away at a conference, and it was one of the few buildings in Olgino which was close to the sea, although it wasn’t part of one of those state holiday factories. They’d walked along the wooden walkway leading inland with their towels slung over their shoulders, having decided not to get dressed on the beach as there were no changing booths nearby.
The black car was parked close to the front door, the men showed their official IDs, mother opened the door and let them in. Looking back on it now, Alex realised that the men had known that they weren’t going to find anything. It was just their way of making a point. They chucked the plates out of the kitchen cupboard on to the floor, smashing them to bits, and they pulled the clothes from the wardrobe, ripping as many of them as possible. (“Please, they’re my dresses!” – “Shut up, bitch”), but the books got the worst of it of course. There was nothing controversial amongst them, just Soviet editions of Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Blok. Uncle had bought them from the hard currency shops in Leningrad after his conferences, there was nowhere else one could get hold of them. They ripped the binding open, as if they suspected that the books contained messages other than those hidden between the lines of verse. Alex sat in his room, shaking. He was cold, still dressed only in his swimming trunks. One of the men looked in from the doorway, casting his gaze across the room with its empty walls, spartan bed, desk with no drawers, and the chair by the window, but he didn’t enter. Their gazes met like a sword striking a shield. Alex and his mother returned to Leningrad that same evening, and neither of them has gone back to Olgino since.
Alex thought things over. On the one hand he was sufficiently naive to trust an intelligence agent, on the other hand, even if he did not realise it himself, Tapani was not actually an intelligence agent at all, he just had a lot of good Estonian friends in Sweden.
“But what if I get caught?”
Tapani sighed in relief, but Alex didn’t notice.
“I can’t promise it will be completely risk-free.” He took his notebook from his pocket and looked for something inside it. “On the whole they don’t search people like you at customs too often. But if it were to happen,” he took a business card out from the notebook and handed it to Alex, “tell them that this person asked you to take the films to Finland to be developed because they don’t process that type of colour film in Estonia.”
Alex read the business card, which was in Russian. The name on it was Eduard Margusovich Põldmaa, of the Estonian Soviet Forest, Cellulose, Paper and Timber Ministry, department for foreign relations.
“He’s a KGB man,” Tapani continued. “He managed to harm quite a few people before they realised who he was. And it’s quite possible that he could have got hold of those photos too, if he was working for the other side. So if you slip up, point the finger at him: it’s only his word against yours, and they have more grounds to suspect him than you. If that happens then it will be the last time, I won’t bother you any further.”
It all sounded quite reasonable to Alex. If only his damned tooth hadn’t started to play up again.
Chapter 27
For a couple of weeks now Ervin had been living in a room which they’d found for him, in a building which resembled a dormitory and was about ten minutes’ walk from Bergshamra metro station. He wasn’t exactly overjoyed with the place. It was a pretty grim place – a bed, chair, table and cupboard, nothing else. On top of that he had to share the kitchen with darkies who often cooked their smelly food in the mornings. But he could put up with going to the kitchen once a day to heat up the oven-ready meals he bought from the supermarket, and otherwise he didn’t have much need for it, since he had a kettle in his room.
On the whole he was disappointed with Stockholm. For the first few days it had been fun to walk round the old town and look into the shops on Drottninggatan, but all their prices were extortionate. There was no point in going into any of the bars. At first the journalists had shown an interest in him, and he even managed to cobble together some pocket money from the interviews, but they soon disappeared; after all he didn’t have anything earth-shatteringly new to say any more. He could always drop by the Estonian House, and they would always be happy to see him, but there wasn’t really much point. He was surprised how quickly he got used to the sight of the blue, black and white flag of Estonian independence flying there freely. But it was still a handsome sight, to be sure. He picked up the exile jargon pretty quickly, and found it easy to get talking to people. Lots of books which were banned back home were freely available in the library, but he’d always been more of a man of action, as he told the old grannies. And there was sod all to do there.
On one occasion he foolishly took one of the bottles of vodka he’d brought from Estonia to a party, which caused everyone to liven up, and they poured it out into shot glasses, which made for a promising start to the evening. But unfortunately a start was all it was; once it was finished most of them had to make do with tea, while a few of them, including Ervin, drank that light Swedish beer which back in Estonia wouldn’t have been deemed fit for watering plants.
Another thing: there was little to talk to girls about other than politics. One time he went for a walk round town with one of them and a fancy limousine drove past full of shrieking, scantily clad girls. They were strewing bits of paper on to the street with the word TABOO and a picture of a wineglass and a telephone number on them. When he asked his companion what they were, she blushed and explained that it was a club – a sex club. Sweden was a free country, and freedom had its price of course. Ervin realised it wasn’t a good idea to pursue the subject any further. He wouldn’t have ventured into a club like that on his own, and it was likely to cost a fair bit.
As luck would have it the Bergshamra metro stop was just outside the central ticket zone. So there wasn’t much sense going into town if he didn’t have anything worthwhile to do there.
There wasn’t much on television either. Eventually Ervin gritted his teeth, bought himself some sports gear, and started going running in the park. Just for something to do.
That was where they got him.