‘An actual one.’
‘In that case the public toilets are over there.’
‘Shall you come with me, to assist me?’
‘The nature of my syndrome, as far as any intimacy at all with another man is concerned,’ he began, but I cut him off with the groans I made as I levered myself upright from the bench.
‘I appreciate,’ I said stiffly, ‘your courteous attempt to raise the subject of the state of emotional affairs between Dora Norman and myself.’ He blinked at me. ‘It is more than beefsteak,’ I added, ‘to my soul.’
‘Good,’ he said. Just that.
I walked slowly into the toilets, and stood at a bra-cup-shaped urinal, and relieved myself. Then I walked, slowly, back through the park. As I approached the bench I could see that another man had sat down upon it, next to Saltykov. But it was not until I had actually sat myself down that I saw that this new person was Frenkel.
‘Sit down, Konsty,’ he said, patting the wooden slats beside him. I would have preferred to remain standing, and would have liked to have been able to say, ‘I prefer to stand’; but it so happened that my clapped-out legs would in no way support my weight. I lowered myself onto the seat.
‘Jan,’ I said, recovering my breath. ‘It is surprising to see you again.’
‘Surprising?’
‘Saltykov?’ I said, speaking across Frenkel’s lap. ‘Allow me to introduce Jan Frenkel, formerly of the KGB.’
Saltykov was looking away to the left, disdainfully.
‘I have already introduced myself to Comrade Saltykov,’ said Frenkel. ‘I’m afraid he has taken a dislike to me. He is sulking.’
‘He suffers from a syndrome,’ I said.
‘But why,’ Frenkel went on, ‘do you refer to me as formerly of the KGB?’
‘I met a senior officer in hospital,’ I replied, ‘who gave me to believe…’
‘Oh, I’m under internal investigation,’ said Frenkel, airily. ‘They’ve taken away my gun. But that doesn’t stop me being a member of the KGB. The KGB is not a club that people enter and leave at will.’
‘I understand that you are now a colonel,’ I said. ‘Congratulations on your elevation.’
‘Thank you!’
Saltykov was glowering with supreme intensity at some sparrows away to the left, as if they were somehow responsible for the career-advancement of so wicked a man as Frenkel.
‘Did your promotion have anything to do with UFOs?’
‘Ah,’ said Frenkel.
‘UFOs are good,’ I said, ‘at imparting elevation to individuals, after all. Lifting them up. One way or another.’
‘UFOs,’ said Frenkel. ‘Do you know how many departments in the KGB are dedicated to UFOs?’
‘I am of course prepared to guess.’
‘Or I could just tell you,’ he said, crossly. ‘Seven research institutes and eleven departments. All of them are attached to a secret wing of the KGB created specifically for this purpose. So. Why do you think the KGB is prepared to expend such resources on UFOs?’
‘Is there a word for an acronym that has, specifically, three letters?’ I asked, because the thought had just then struck me, and because it made me curious. ‘Acronyms such as UFO and KGB. Tricronyms, perhaps?’ But that didn’t sound very convincing. ‘What do you think, Saltykov?’ But my friend was still sulking.
Frenkel glowered at me. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I preferred you before the lobotomy.’
‘I was more anxious then, I think,’ I said, thoughtfully. ‘And more, as they say in America, [stressed-out]. More sarcastic, for that reason. But on the other hand, I had a better sense of future possibilities. I tried playing chess,’ I added, ‘with the nursing staff in the hospital, after my accident; but I can’t plan my moves. I have lost the ability to play chess. And my memory is very erratic.’
‘I really could not be less interested in your condition,’ said Frenkel. ‘You have lost focus, my old friend.’ He shook his head. ‘You were always an ironist — but now? What are you now? A blatherer! I preferred the caustic old Skvorecky, I don’t mind telling you.’
‘I don’t mind hearing it,’ I said.
‘And how’s your memory?’
‘It has holes.’
‘Do you remember this? Stalin personally commissioned us to write a coherent and plausible story of alien invasion, and then — surely you’ll remember this — not long after, Stalin personally ordered us to quit the undertaking. Your memory isn’t so malfunctional as to forget that, is it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not to forget that.’
‘Kiev,’ he said looking around. ‘It always was a shithole. I was here in the war, you know? It was a shithole then, and it’s a shithole now.’
‘It was certainly full of holes, in the war,’ I said. ‘And, to be fair to it, it has far fewer holes now.’
‘Shitheap, then,’ he said. ‘Eh Saltykov?’
And the conversation stalled for a while.
‘After the war,’ said Frenkel, in an expansive tone of voice, as if beginning a lecture, ‘an official Soviet archeological expedition was digging in Kiev. There was a lot of rebuilding, so there was plenty of opportunity. This was a site on Reitarskaya Street — it’s been kept completely secret, of course. It was a tomb, a vault, twenty feet below the ground. Inside was a massive chest. Inside the chest were five hundred books. Books in Russian, but also in Greek, in Arabic, even in fucking Sanskrit. The MVD arrived in a matter of hours, bunged everything into three covered trucks, and carried it all away to Moscow.’
‘Intriguing,’ I said, ‘if not wholly plausible.’
‘It’s real,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen these artefacts. I have held the books in my hand.’
‘Really?’
‘Books filled with drawings, technical plans, instructions. Orbital stations. Docking equipment for spaceships.’
‘If the KGB owns the groundplans for spaceships and space-stations, then am I to assume that the Soviet Union has been secretly constructing advanced spacecraft?’
‘No. It was not about building our own spaceships. It was about preparing the machinery necessary to receive their spaceships.’
‘Like getting instructions from Hitler to build garages in Moscow so he can park his tanks?’
‘Not like that! Do you know what else was there? A handwritten manuscript. Slovo o polku Igoreve, Prince Igor’s adventures. The Prince Igor! Written by Pyotr Borislavovich — the famous Pyotr Borislavovich. They’ve been here for thousands of years.’
‘And yet they are still to arrive.’
‘That’s it!’ he sounded, excited. ‘That’s exactly right!’
‘Back in Moscow, when I sent you up to that safe apartment with Trofim. You were supposed to call her, Dora Norman, and get her to meet with me, remember?’
‘I remember the chute,’ I said, darkly. ‘And I remember you putting a pistol into my mouth.’
‘Oh that was just to, you know. What do the French say? Pour encourager les — les—,’
‘Aliens?’
‘Exactly. We’re old friends, you and I. I went to a good deal of effort to bring you onside. To help you believe. You could have done some good. You see, I was foolish enough to trust our friendship. We’d been friends before, hadn’t we? When we met Stalin? I didn’t see why we wouldn’t be friends still. You would have helped me because of our friendship. But you’re not very good at friendship. Too much the ironist.’
‘Irony is a jealous mistress,’ I said.