‘Do you know Jews?’
‘No, sir. Before being employed by Mr Goldmann, I didn’t know any.’
‘Do you know what happened to the Jews of this country, in this city, here?’
‘We did a bit of it at school, sir. That’s all I know.’
‘There was a ghetto here for Jews, Johnny.’ Reuven Weissberg spoke quietly, almost with reverence, and Carrick thought it was humility. ‘Jews from all over Warsaw and the near towns were brought here. Nearly half a million Jews were in the ghetto behind walls. They were taken from here to the death camps, those who were not already dead from starvation and epidemics. In April 1943, the Germans decided to clear the ghetto and send the last survivors to the camps. Weapons had been smuggled in, enough to start a resistance, and more were captured … As you are not a Jew, Johnny, you may not be interested, and I will keep the story of this place short. It was called the “ghetto uprising” and it lasted a few days short of a month. Below this place was the last bunker of the resistance — it was known as ZOB, which, loosely, is Jewish Combat Organization — and the leaders committed suicide rather than be taken. The name of the Jewish commander was Mordechai Anieliewicz, but if you are not a Jew you would not have learned of him. Then the ghetto was finished and all the Jews who lived were murdered … but this is where the bunker was, where they fought.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Why do you thank me?’
‘For teaching me, sir, what I didn’t know.’
They walked back up the street. By the edge of a park where the old leaves of the long-gone autumn were still not swept up, there was a monument of big granite blocks. Set into it was a carved grey façade in stone of near-naked bodies, the women stripped to the waist, the men with bared chests, and some held weapons.
‘There are many monuments in this city, Johnny, but they do not bring back the dead.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Would you despise a man, Johnny, who looks to the past — to what was done?’
Carrick said, ‘If I was a Jew, sir, and if those things were done to my people, my blood, then I’d not think it right they were forgotten.’
For a moment, Reuven Weissberg let his hand rest on Carrick’s sleeve. They crossed the street.
Carrick looked back at the gaunt power of the monument. ‘Sir, did they have no help? Didn’t the Christian Poles help them?’
‘The Christians came. They stood behind the perimeter made by the German Army. They wore their Sunday best clothes and they watched the destruction of the ghetto. They lined the street when it was finished to see the Jews, their countrymen, marched away to the trains to go to their deaths. There was no help.’
Carrick couldn’t read him. There was no expression in his words, their passion withheld. On the skyline were the spires and domes of churches, and he thought it was there that the Old City would be.
‘Where are you going?’
Molenkov spoke: ‘We go, retired officers, to a military reunion to be held in Minsk.’
Two of the Customs officials were by the open window. One was bent low to hear Molenkov and the other examined their passports.
‘What arm of the military did you serve with?’
‘State Security, in the field of national defence. We were both privileged to serve in areas of exceptional importance.’ Molenkov had smiled, then tapped his medals, and the official chuckled.
‘And may I assume, esteemed Colonel and esteemed Major, that an unpleasant duty at a reunion such as you will attend might be the taking of drink?’
Molenkov turned to his friend Yashkin … Behind him, close to the back of the seat was the fucking great lump under the tarpaulin that was worth a life sentence in gaol, and a half-share of a million American dollars, and had in its pit the warmth of a four-kilo perfect sphere of plutonium, Pu-239. He made a face of the utmost gravity. ‘Major Yashkin, will there be occasion in Minsk when we are among colleagues for the consumption of alcohol?’
‘Never.’
‘Never.’ He beamed at the official, shed the gravity.
Yashkin chipped in: ‘We would never consume alcohol before breakfast, never. But, believe me, we take breakfast early.’
Laughter pealed around them. Their passports were handed back. Sweat ran on Molenkov’s body. He heard one official mutter to the other, as they were waved forward, ‘Old farts, they’ll be drunk as rats by each mid-morning. Sad bastards.’ Beside him, Yashkin started the Polonez.
A kilometre ahead was the Belarus Customs shed. Over it the flag hung limp in the rain. Beyond was the horizon, cloud and treetops. Molenkov couldn’t stop his hands shaking and the sweat was now on his forehead, forming silky drips from his nose. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, then his neck. He clutched it in his fist, screwed it up, then laid his other hand on the fist but the trembling continued. They were over a white line that was hard to see because many thousands of tyres each day went over it and the paint was nearly obliterated. They went up a slight hill and tucked into a lane as far from the centre of operations as possible.
‘What do you know of this fucking shit-heap, Yashkin?’
‘Not much. Two American balloonists in an international race were blown off-course into Belarus airspace. Their balloon was shot down by a gunship helicopter, and they were killed. Also, they had troops weld up the gates of the residences of the American and European Union ambassadors, which made life intolerable for them so they left. They assassinate their journalists, they imprison their opposition politicians. They are in a verbal and diplomatic war with Moscow and Washington. It’s a state the ghost of Josef Stalin still stalks. Today there’s a personality-cult dictatorship and total economic stagnation. Outside, nobody loves Belarus. Inside, nobody in Belarus cares.’
‘Are they right for more of the same?’
‘More of the old shit, heroic veterans meeting heroic comrades in Minsk.’
The light for them to go into the check bay should have been green but was still red. The barrier that should have been raised automatically to permit entry to the bay stayed down until an official heaved it up, then waved them forward.
‘You see it, Molenkov? A fucked-up place where nothing works. Do they have radioactive-material detectors? Do pigs fly? Do your stuff.’
An official came forward, greeted them, and Molenkov came awkwardly off his seat and out of the Polonez. His medals jangled as he stretched and straightened, and another official had started a slow walk round the car and was behind the tail, peering through the murk of the rear window. Molenkov handed over the passports. They were studied.
Before he had launched into the matter of the veterans’ reunion, alcohol and fraternal friendship between two fine peoples, a question was asked: Did they have anything to declare? Were they carrying any banned items?
Sweat pumped from Molenkov’s pores.
She had done the bit about the neat prettiness of the garden, and the taste displayed by the new wallpaper. Had done also the quiet remark on the aptness of Mrs Lavinia Lawson’s hairstyle. She was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, had been given tea and had remarked, without an over-fulsome gush, on the mug’s nice floral design. She had utilized the tactics laid down by the course instructors at the Service for skewering a way into a house and home.
She must have won something or she wouldn’t have been admitted past the front doorstep, but that victory was trifling.
The liaison officer, Alison, said, ‘I’m grateful to you for seeing me.’
Christopher Lawson’s wife washed up.
‘Very grateful. I have to say my visit to you is highly irregular.’
The head with the aptly styled hair was turned to her. The neat, pretty garden was behind her, seen through a picture window, quite a big garden for an Edwardian terrace in the south-west suburbs.