‘Have you committed some crime? Hurt somebody or taken something from someone? Confession cleanses. Is there something you wish to tell me?’
He felt his chin slacken, and his lips were dry. His tongue whipped over them, and an owl called from the trees beyond the door. He did not answer.
‘I made enquiries before setting out to come here, and I requested the same of Magda. People in the village, Tadeuz, think you’re strange. They believe you to be different, but none has told me or Magda that you’d do anything deceitful or violent, yet the gun is readied and you’re frightened. I ask myself: why does an old man who lives in the house where he was born need to arm himself and be protected by a dog? Tadeuz, I’m young, only seven years out of the seminary at Krakow, and I know little of men’s minds. What I do know is that confession purges guilt. You show the signs of guilt.’
Tadeuz felt tears well in his eyes and put his hand across his face.
The priest said quietly, ‘I ask, why does an individual who is not a criminal fear guilt? I believe, Tadeuz, that you were born in this house — the house where you now cower with a dog and a lethal weapon for company — in 1937. I think of you as a man who has done no criminal wrong, but you were a child and you were here. As a child your home was among these trees, in this forest, close to that place. In my last year as a student at the seminary, a rabbi came to visit us from Germany. It was a very special visit and we listened to him with close attention. He spoke of the Holocaust, and the next day he was to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, an hour by train from Krakow. He said, and I have never forgotten it, that survivors had told him, “For Jews, the Germans were evil but the Christian Poles were worse.” Was it when you were a child? You don’t have to answer me — but the only palliative for guilt is confession. All I can say, Tadeuz, is that if ever the chance is given you — it is unlikely — to right a wrong, then seize it. Please, and soon, bring me more wood. They were difficult days.’
The priest, Father Jerzy, left.
The two of them, Tadeuz Komiski and his dog, ate the meat pie, shared it in equal parts. It rang in his ears, to right a wrong. He took the last crumbs of the pie and picked off the table what had fallen, then let the dog lick the tinfoil plate clean.
He was jolted, alert and aware. Carrick gaped but Reuven Weissberg had not seen them.
They walked on the wall’s platform and below them, to their right, was the moat that had, in history, surrounded the Stare Miasto. To their left, below the platform, was a street of impatient pedestrians, surging to be gone now that their shops, cafés and workplaces had closed for the evening. The couple were like a stone on a beach and the incoming tide flowed round them. It was as if they were lovers. His arms round her shoulders, and hers round his waist. He couldn’t see the face of the young man, buried in her hair, but she looked up as if in exaltation of the moment, and saw Carrick, as he saw her, Katie.
And he was gone, moving on, the moment lost.
It was like a wound, his girl from the bed in the narrowboat in the arms of another man. He trailed after Reuven Weissberg, and felt the sting of imagined betrayal.
‘To Control. Have an eyeball. On the wall, going west. C One, out.’
Katie Jennings broke clear of Luke Davies, but he took her hand as they started to walk. She realized that was the right thing to do, because she didn’t know how closely they were observed. She’d done it before, hugged a man, held him, and felt nothing for him. It was a part of a surveillance routine, and she knew it from the days when she had been the token girl in SCD10. He held her hand tightly and she allowed him to entwine his fingers in hers.
A cigarette was lit, a hand masked a face.
‘To C One. That was good, thank you for doing guiding. Suggest you return to Control and leave D One and me for the rest. Well done. A One, out.’
Smoke filtered in the evening air from a cigarette.
It defeated Yashkin. He could see no reason why his friend should sweat.
He did not have the heater on in the Polonez, but he reached across Molenkov and wound down the passenger window.
It was not just sweat, there was pain in his face, and apprehension.
The one-time security officer would have been the first to admit that the one-time political officer had turned in a bravura performance at the Customs point. Yes, there had been sweat then on Molenkov’s face and hands, but insufficient to be noticed — not like the wetness that dripped from him now. It had been an exercise in command, authority and controclass="underline" out of the car, ignoring the question of whether there were items for declaration, steering the official to the front bumper and away from the tail door behind which it was hidden under the tarpaulin. Molenkov had assumed the role of interrogator. Did the officer believe the tyres of the Polonez, front near side and front open side, would get them to Minsk? They would, but new tyres were needed. Did the officer have the knowledge to check the oil in the engine? The bonnet had been lifted, it had been done, and Yashkin had marvelled at the skill shown, and the oil amount was satisfactory.
The questions had kept coming: take the M20 or the M1 for Minsk, or take the Bobrujsk route? Did the officer have relatives who had served in the armed forces? Was the forecast for rain and …?
Yashkin had sat in the car and heard the rattle of the medals on Molenkov’s chest, the murmur of their voices, and had seen the passports returned, the shaking of hands, heard the expression of thanks for courtesy and the wishes for a safe journey. Molenkov and the officer had parted as bosom friends, and then they had driven away. They had stopped at the first café kiosk beyond, and out of sight, of the Customs point, and used the toilets that were spotlessly clean, and would not have been so in Sarov, to change back into their civilian clothes. The medals had gone into the bags, and they had bought a fresh loaf of bread, cheese, a small jar of pickle and they had eaten. He had thought it the reaction to the tension of the Customs point that had caused Molenkov to gobble his food and stuff hunks of the cheese, anointed with pickle, into his mouth.
His friend’s hands came up and seemed to grasp his chest. The sweating was more acute. Molenkov groaned. Yashkin drove on.
The groan was a sigh, almost a sob, and the mouth contorted. The fingers held tighter to his shirt. A croak. ‘Yashkin …’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m ill, seriously.’
‘Are you?’
‘I have a heart attack.’
‘Have you?’
‘Should you stop?’
‘Why?’
‘No, go on to Gomel. It’s agony … There’ll be a hospital in Gomel.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps not.’
‘Yashkin, my chest. The pain … will kill me.’
He drove on, neither faster nor slower, and was looking for the turning to Dobrus where he would leave the M13.
‘For fuck’s sake, Yashkin … it’s a heart attack. In a few minutes I’ll be dead — do something, please, my friend, anything, something …’
Yashkin pulled on to the hard shoulder. He said briskly, ‘Get out.’
Molenkov staggered out of the car. Yashkin didn’t follow him. Molenkov was doubled up and tottering.
Yashkin leaned across the passenger seat, spoke through the open door. ‘First, Molenkov, unfasten your belt. Go on, do it … That’s better, good. Now undo the top buttons of your trousers. That’s right. No one who drives past will care if they see you with your trousers at your knees. You should use both hands to massage your stomach hard — get on with it. Now fart. Get the gas out. Breathe deep. Take it down. Do you still have a heart-attack, Molenkov?’