‘Many brave warriors of the Vlast have fallen in the struggle. I know them all, I have felt the anguish of each one, and I’ve cried your tears — you who are listening to me now and thinking of your own sons and daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, comrades and friends. Let’s remember the fallen today. We owe them an unpayable debt. Don’t be ashamed to weep for them sometimes. I do. But praise them also.
‘I know you all. I am your friend as you are mine. The angels know you too. Friends, I am here to tell you that the time of Victory is close! The Archipelago is sending an ambassador to Mirgorod to sue for peace with us. The enemy weakens and tires. The light of truth dawns in their eyes. Yes, my friends. Victory draws near. One last push! One last supreme effort! The great day is soon.
‘I want you to hear this from my own lips. Pay close attention now and remember. On this very day of Truth and Light I want you to hear it and be sure. Your love is with me. Our victory will be absolute and total. With the Truth of the Angel clear in our minds it cannot be otherwise. Goodnight.’
The image of the Novozhd at his desk faded out, replaced by a full close-up of his face. He was outside now. The sunshine was in his face, making him crinkle the corners of his eyes in laughter lines. A breeze teased his hair. As the opening bars of the ‘Friendship Song’ began to play, the words started scrolling slowly up the screen and twenty thousand voices sang.
‘Fuck,’ said Vishnik as they filed out slowly into the rain. ‘We need a drink.’
23
It was almost midnight. After the Dreksler-Kino, Vishnik had dragged Lom to a bar where they drank thin currant wine. He would have stayed there all night if Lom hadn’t insisted on going back and getting some food. And now Lom was sitting on the couch in Vishnik’s room with his legs stretched out along the seat. His chest was sore and bruised where the mudjhik had hit him, but the stove had heated the room to a warm fug and the bottle of plum brandy was nearly empty. The apartment smelled of lamb goulash and burning paraffin, and also of something else — the sweet tang of hydroquinone. Lom recognised it from the photographic laboratory at Podchornok.
‘That smell. Is that developer?’
‘What?’ said Vishnik. ‘Oh. Yes. I was printing.’ His face was flushed. He had been drinking steadily all evening. ‘Photographs. Have you ever made photographs, my friend? Marvellous. Very fucking so. You’re completely absorbed, you see. In the moment. Immersed in your surroundings. Watching your subject. Observing. How does the light fall? What is the shutter speed? Aperture? Depth of field? It is an intimate thing. Very fucking intimate. It drives out all other thoughts. Your heart rate slows. Your blood pressure falls. You are in a waking dream. Time is nowhere. Nowhere.’ Vishnik lurched unsteadily to his feet. ‘Wait. Wait. I’ll show you. Wait.’
He was going towards the kitchen when there was a loud rapping at the outer door. Vishnik froze and stared at Lom. The fear was in his face again. His eyes went to the bag waiting packed by the door.
‘I’ll get it,’ said Lom. ‘I’ll deal with it. You wait here.’
Lom opened the door, half expecting uniforms. But there was only a woman, her wide dark eyes staring into his.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I was looking for Raku Vishnik. I thought this was his place. I’m sorry. Would you know, I mean, which—?’
Vishnik had come up behind him.
‘Maroussia?’ he said. ‘I thought it was your voice. This is a good surprise. Don’t stand in the doorway. Come in. Please. Come in.’
She hesitated, glancing at Lom.
‘I’m sorry, Raku. I wanted to ask you something. But it can wait. You’re not alone. Now’s not the time. I’ll come back.’
‘Ridiculous,’ said Vishnik. ‘Fucking so. You can speak in front of Vissarion, for sure. He is my oldest friend, and he is a good man. If there is trouble, perhaps he can help. At least come in now you’re here. Warm yourself. Eat something. Have brandy with us. ‘
‘No,’ she said. ‘There’s no trouble. It doesn’t matter.’
Lom had been watching her carefully. The yellow light from Vishnik’s room splashed across her troubled, intelligent face. She looked worn out and alone. Like she needed friends. She would be worth helping, Lom found himself thinking. He wanted her to stay.
‘Don’t mind me,’ he said. ‘Please. You look tired.’
She hesitated.
‘OK then,’ she said. ‘Just for a moment.’
Lom stood back to let her in. As she passed he caught her faint perfume: not perfume, but an open, outdoor scent. Rain on cool earth.
‘Well,’ said Vishnik. ‘How can I help?’ He was pacing the room, eager and animated. ‘What is it that I can do for you? There must be something, for you to come so late. Tell me, please. I am eager for gallantry. For me, the chances are few. Ask me, and it is yours.’ His eyes were alive with pleasure. He was more than a little drunk.
Maroussia looked at Lom again.
‘I don’t know that I should…’ she said.
‘Oh for the sake of fuck, Maroussia,’ said Vishnik. ‘Tell us what you need.’
She took a breath. ‘OK. I want you to tell me about the Pollandore, Raku. I want you to tell me anything you know about it. Anything and everything.’
Vishnik stopped pacing and stared at her.
‘The Pollandore?’
‘Yes.’ Maroussia was looking at him earnestly. Determined. ‘The Pollandore. Please. It’s important.’
‘But… fuck, this I was not expecting… of all things, this.’ Vishnik fetched another bottle from the shelf and settled himself in a sprawl on the rug on floor. ‘Why are you asking me this?’
‘You know about it? You can tell me?’
‘I’ve come across the story. It’s an old Lezarye thing. Suppressed by the Vlast long ago. Nobody knows about the Pollandore any more.’
‘I do,’ said Maroussia. ‘My mother used to talk about it. A lot. She still does.’
‘Really?’ said Vishnik. ‘I thought… those stories are forgotten now.’ He turned to Lom. ‘Did you ever hear of the Pollandore, Vissarion?’
Lom shrugged. ‘No. What is it?’
‘Maroussia?’ said Vishnik. ‘Will you tell him?’
‘No,’ said Maroussia. ‘I want to hear it from someone else.’
‘OK,’ said Vishnik. ‘So then.’ He poured himself another glass. ‘Do you ever think about what the world was like before the Vlast, Vissarion?’
‘No,’ said Lom. ‘Not much.’
‘Four hundred years,’ said Vishnik. ‘But it might as well have been four thousand, no? Our civilisation, if we might even call it that, has lived for so long in the shadow of the angels’ war, our history is so steeped in it, we live with its consequences in our very patterns of thought. Who can even fucking measure the damage it has done?’ Vishnik paused. ‘That’s what the Pollandore is about. The time before the war of the angels.’
‘The Lezarye walking the long homeland,’ said Maroussia quietly. ‘The single moon in the sky, not broken yet.’
‘The world had gods of its own, then,’ Vishnik was saying. ‘That’s how the story goes. Small gods. Gentle, subtle, local gods. But those gods are gone now. They withdrew when the angels began. They foresaw destruction and a terrible, unbearable future. They couldn’t co-exist with that. Their time had to end.’