‘What are you reading?’ she asked.
‘Poems by Mayakovsky.’
‘Would you read one out loud?’
Serotkin started to recite but from memory, the book unopened in his hand, his voice suddenly both dramatic and melodic as the words in his native Russian tumbled out in his deep bass voice.
‘Does the eye of the eagle fade?
Shall we stare back to the old?
Proletarian fingers
Grip tighter
the throat of the world:
Chests out! Shoulders straight!
Stick to the sky red flags adrift!
Who’s marching there with the right?
Left!
Left!
Left!’
‘I guess you prefer that to Kandinsky’s poem?’ said Francesca.
‘It was written around the same time,’ said Serotkin.
‘But Mayakovsky killed himself,’ said Francesca.
‘Yes. Like Svidrigailov. Whereas Kandinsky went to America, like Solzhenitsyn.’
‘I think I would have been happy, if I had been Mayakovsky, to know that sixty years later people were still reciting my poems.’
‘Even though his poems no longer give birth to emotions?’
‘There are emotions other than Bolshevik zeal.’
‘Of course.
How fearful, in and out of season
to pine away from passion’s thirst,
to burn – and then by force of reason
to stem the bloodstream’s wild outburst …’
As he recited Pushkin’s verse the daylight faded but neither Francesca nor Serotkin moved to switch on the electric light. Serotkin gazed at Francesca as if Eugene Onegin’s words to Tatiana were addressed to her, while Francesca kept her eyes fixed on the open neck of Serotkin’s pyjamas. The triangular patch of skin, pale-coloured in the gloom, seemed to make him vulnerable, like the patch of skin on Achilles’ heel. Just as he had glimpsed her nakedness in the Englischergarten, so she now felt that she was glimpsing his, and she felt an urge to lean forward and lay her hand on his chest with a protective caress.
He began to recite, again from memory, a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
‘My beloved will arrive at last,
and fold me in her arms.
She will notice the least change in me,
and understand all my apprehensions.
Out of the black rain, the infernal gloom,
having forgotten to shut the taxi door,
she’ll dash up the rickety steps,
all flushed with joy and longing.
Drenched, she’ll burst in without knocking,
and clasp my head in her hand;
and from a chair her blue fur coat
will slip blissfully to the floor …’
Both were now silent. Francesca could not tell in the dusk whether Andrei’s eyes were open or closed. She got silently to her feet, stepped closer to the bed and looked down. His eyes were open. He took her hand. She sat down on the bed and with the hand that was free obeyed the urge to touch his skin beneath his neck. With her finger and thumb she could feel the strong lines of his collarbone, and beneath it feel the pulse of his blood. She held her hand there for a moment, then she felt his hand come round her shoulder and draw her down.
‘Andrei …’ she whispered. She meant to say ‘you are ill, you are weak’ but it was she who felt weak while his arm felt strong. They kissed. Her hand moved further over the warm skin beneath his pyjamas. Is it true, she wondered, that with women intuition and conscience are one and the same thing? Then he held her more tightly and she wondered no more.
PART FOUR
1993
May–June
THIRTEEN
The principal objective of Nikolai Gerasimov when he arrived in Berlin was to spin out his assignment for the maximum length of time. His expenses were paid under an arrangement with Interpol by the city government of West Berlin: the per diem allowance in Deutschmarks, if he stayed long enough, should buy him a fax machine, a stereo system or even a second-hand Mercedes.
Pursuit of this strategy was made easier by Gerasimov’s instructions from General Savchenko to play the plodding officer from the militia, and on no account let it be known that he was an officer in the security service of the Russian Federation or that the Maslyukovs had been killed by a team from the KGB. Gerasimov’s mission was to find Orlov, not to help the Germans find Orlov; and when he did, either bring him back to Moscow or if necessary stub him out like Savchenko’s cigarette.
Gerasimov was met at Schönefeld airport by two men who introduced themselves as Inspector Kessler of the Berlin police and Herr Grohmann from the international police liaison department of the Federal German Ministry of the Interior. They drove him to a two-star hotel in a small street off the Hohenzollerndamm, and waited in the lobby while he took his suitcase to his room. They then drove him to the headquarters of the criminal police on Gothaerstrasse in Schöneberg. There, in his office, Inspector Kessler described the murder, showed Gerasimov photographs of the scene of the crime, and produced a thick file of papers – transcripts of interviews, analysis of forensic evidence, lists of exits and entries from Schönefeld and Tegel. Good, Gerasimov thought to himself. It will take me a while to wade through this lot.
Gerasimov’s own initial contribution was small. Following the plan worked out by Savchenko, and outlined to him by the general himself who had accompanied him to the airport, Gerasimov told Kessler that it was the view of the Russian militia that the Maslyukovs had almost certainly been killed by a rival group of smugglers and racketeers. ‘We have been on their trail for some time. Their chief is a man we call Ivan the Terrible. Ruthless …’
‘And cruel,’ said Kessler, pointing to the photograph of Vera Maslyukov.
‘What are those marks on her body?’ asked Gerasimov.
‘Cigarette burns. She was tortured.’
‘Typical, I am afraid, of this Ivan the Terrible.’
‘Do you have any idea who he is?’ asked Grohmann. As he spoke, a younger man came into the office who was introduced as Sergeant Dorn.
‘We are fairly sure he is an Armenian called Georgi Nazayan. But you must realize, gentlemen, that the Soviet Union … that is, the former Soviet Union … is no longer as well policed as it once was. We used to know everything that happened almost before it happened, but now, among other Western imports, we have a crime wave …’
‘Clearly,’ said the younger detective, ‘there was little crime in a country when half the people were in the police.’
‘I have one or two leads I should like to discuss with you,’ said Gerasimov, ignoring Dorn’s jibe. ‘And doubtless, you have things you would like to discuss with me.’
‘We have to confess,’ said Kessler, ‘that we have made almost no progress. We are fairly sure that the Maslyukovs’ icons were stolen, and we have reason to believe that one of the assailants smoked Bulgarian cigarettes.’
‘That would be enough for Hercule Poirot,’ said Gerasimov who had recently seen the video of Death on the Nile, ‘but I realize that real life is rarely as straightforward as it appears in the books of Agatha Christie.’
‘Perhaps you would like to look through the file,’ said Grohmann, ‘to see if anything there links up with your own investigation.’
‘Of course.’
‘Could you do that overnight?’
‘Ah … I am afraid I am slow at reading German. Perhaps you could give me twenty-four hours?’
‘As you like.’
‘It’s some time since the murders,’ said Dorn. ‘A day or two more won’t make much difference.’
‘And perhaps we could see your file?’ asked Kessler.
‘Can you read Russian?’ asked Gerasimov.
‘We have people who do,’ said Grohmann.
‘Then I shall send for it from Moscow.’
‘You brought no copy with you?’
‘I am afraid our copier wa
s kaputt. But it can be easily arranged.’
‘Good.’
‘It may take a day or two.’
‘Of course.’
‘Perhaps even a week.’
‘We understand.’
‘But in the meantime, there is this …’ Gerasimov patted the file that he had been given. ‘And, if you will allow me a certain freedom of action, there are one or two leads I might follow up on my own.’
Kessler looked at Grohmann. ‘Of course,’ said Grohmann. ‘The old Cold War suspicions are a thing of the past. You have your visa. Go where you like. And if you need help of any kind, just let us know.’
Gerasimov found German women the most attractive in the world. There was something about their long limbs and serious faces that drove him to a high pitch of erotic excitement. Their coldness, their matter-of-fact manner, their sensible approach to life, their disdain for the silliness of the English or the flirtatiousness of the French, made it all the more exhilarating when things got under way, their bodies rising and falling like pistons on some precision-made machine from Krupp. What a contrast to the lazy, dumpy, squat, inept sluts in Russia.
Back in his room at the hotel, Gerasimov dumped Kessler’s file on top of the television, took a shower, changed his clothes, went down to the hotel restaurant and, while he was eating, planned his strategy for the night.
The choice was between doing a tour of the bars and nightclubs in the hope of finding a Mädchen who would appreciate his rugged good looks, or squandering a chunk of the Deutschmarks had been handed over to him by Kessler on a tall, no nonsense German whore. It was some time since he had been West: he was not sure what he would have to pay. And since it was his aim to save his allowance, Gerasimov decided to try the bars and nightclubs first.
He walked up the Kurfürstendamm, then down to the area around the Zoo station. It was too seedy. Everyone seemed either an Arab or a Turk. Where would the German girls go who were out for a good time? He walked west on the Kantstrasse, then turned left into Savignyplatz. This was more like it: innumerable little restaurants and Stuben with young people spilling out onto the street.
He came to a bar, Der Riesige Liliputaner – the Giant Midget. Berlin humour. Gerasimov went down the steps into a cellar. It was dark – he had to stoop to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling – and almost empty. A couple sat in the corner, two men at the bar. Gerasimov turned and went out. Further down the same street, he went into a crowded café, sat down at a table and ordered a beer. He looked at the menu: alfalfa salads, nut cutlets, cottage cheese on sourdough rye. It was for vegans and vegetarians: no wonder the waitress had looked surprised when he ordered a beer.
Gerasimov studied the people. They all seemed young, and although they gabbled away in German, none of the girls had the blonde, blue-eyed, long-legged look he was after. Perhaps they no longer existed – the Prussian look smothered by the dark-haired, dark-eyed dwarfs from Saxony and Bavaria.
Gerasimov finished his beer, paid the waitress and went back into the street. Perhaps he should try the bars at the grander hotels – the Hilton or the Kempinski. But there any woman on her own would probably be a whore and would cost him a fortune. He still hoped he could get what he wanted for the price of a few drinks but, as he stalked the pavements, crossing the Kurfürstendamm and the Lietzenburgerstrasse, and turning right into Pariserstrasse, Gerasimov’s confidence began to wane. The brightly lit shop windows displayed elegant clothes at prices which terrified him. He could not help converting the price tags into roubles which showed that a whole year’s salary would hardly buy him a pair of shoes.
The cars, too, seemed larger and shinier than he remembered: Mercedes, Audis and BMWs were crammed up against the kerbs of every street, or clustered at every interchange, their drivers slim, suave women or well-groomed men. What have I got to offer them? he asked himself glumly. All the women are much richer than I am. They would have to be perverse to want to sleep with a penniless muzhik.
It was one of Gerasimov’s strengths that these moments of self-doubt did not last long. He not only had a confident personality, but he had been trained to work upon the assumption that every problem had a solution. His mind began to turn towards possible ways of making money beyond reselling an imported stereo system or video recorder. Clearly, Orlov was onto some scam. He had probably pocketed the Maslyukovs’ money and was setting up some racket of his own. He might like a partner: certainly, until he found him, Gerasimov should keep an open mind.
He was beginning to feel tired. He had been on the move since he left Moscow that morning where the time was two hours ahead. He took out his Falkplan of Berlin, and fumbled with its folded pages by the light of a shop window to find where he was and plan a route back to his hotel. It was not far. He put the map back into his pocket and walked north along Uhlandstrasse. Within a block of his hotel, his eye caught the sign of a bar called Whisky-a-go-go. A Scotch would help him sleep. He went into the bar – plush, carpeted and filled for once with adults, not the young.
Gerasimov sat down on a stool at the bar and ordered a J & B. Next to him sat a couple, a man of arond fifty with close-cropped hair, the woman with long henna-dyed hair, perhaps in her mid-thirties. It was hard to tell in the subdued light. They were talking in German but the man spoke it badly. Gerasimov thought he must be a Swede or a Finn. They were making some arrangement to meet the next day and, having made it, the man slapped DM100 onto the bar, shook hands with the woman and left.
She turned back to face the bar and called the barman to give her another drink. He seemed to know her: he gave her a long look that Gerasimov could not quite interpret.
Commiseration? For a moment, Gerasimov simply sat studying the bottles ranged against the wall. He fancied the woman but could not decide how to proceed. She seemed respectable. She was elegantly dressed. She was probably a businesswoman, in Berlin for a meeting with customers from abroad. Gerasimov had to be cautious. Better not admit to being a Russian. He would say he was Canadian. His English was good enough and, in his experience, no one had a preconception of what a Canadian was like.
Gerasimov turned to the woman and said, in deliberately faulty German: ‘Are you from Berlin?’
She gave him a long look of appraisal before she answered: ‘Yes.’
‘I just flew in today.’
She took out a cigarette and allowed Gerasimov to light it. She took a drag and, as she blew out the smoke, asked: ‘From where?’
‘Regina, Saskatchewan.’
She frowned. ‘Is that in America?’
‘Canada.’
‘You are Canadian?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I am afraid I speak little English.’ She said this in English.
‘My German isn’t too bad.’
She gave another appraising look from under her eyelashes. ‘Are you a businessman?’
‘Yes. Pharmaceuticals.’
She nodded and took another drag on her cigarette.
‘And you?’
‘Fashion.’
‘You’re a model?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I choose designs for foreign buyers.’
‘Was that one of your clients?’
She blew out the smoke. ‘More or less.’
‘Can I buy you a drink?’
She looked down at her glass which was still half filled with wine. ‘In a moment, perhaps.’
This was not going to be easy. ‘I haven’t been in Berlin for a number of years … It seems to have changed.’
‘Yes. The Wall came down, you know.’ She almost smiled.
‘I read about that.’
‘But even before, it was full of foreigners – Turks, blacks, and now the gypsies from Romania.’ She wrinkled her nose.
‘That can’t be easy to take for someone born in Berlin.’
‘To be cosmopolitan is one thing. To become a refugee camp is another.’
‘Sure.’
She finished her glass of wine. Gera
simov bought her another and started to tell her about the company he worked for in Regina. At an appropriate lull in the conversation he introduced himself. ‘You don’t even know my name. Nick Turner.’
She nodded and said: ‘Nick. My name is Inge.’
‘Inge. Well, I am glad to meet you.’ He shook her by the hand. Gerasimov was warming to his role as a Canadian businessman: the challenge dissipated his fatigue.
They talked further – about his business, about her business, about their private lives. She was unmarried. He was divorced with two difficult adolescent children. Eventually, Inge looked at her watch and said: ‘I suppose I should be going.’
‘OK. Me too.’ He called the barman and asked for the bill. Again, the barman glanced at Inge – a fleeting, familiar look, hard to interpret. Without presenting an account, he asked Gerasimov for DM100. Gerasimov swallowed but paid up: if he wanted the woman, he could not seem to be mean.
‘Can I drop you off at your hotel?’ Inge asked.
‘That would be kind.’
She led him to a shiny blue Audi 80. Gerasimov got in beside her. ‘The Trebizond. Do you know where that is?’
‘It’s only a block away.’
‘Is it? I’m sorry. I’m kind of lost. I guess I could have walked.’
Inge said nothing but turned to see if she could drive out into the stream of traffic. ‘The Trebizond is not very elegant,’ she said.
‘It’s pretty basic,’ said Gerasimov. ‘It was booked by the German company, and I guess they were feeling stingy.’
‘The Germans are stingy,’ said Inge, swinging her car out into the street.
When they reached the hotel, she drew up by the kerb fifty yards or so from the door.
‘Would you like a nightcap?’ asked Gerasimov.
She gave him another cool look. ‘Why not?’
Gerasimov could hardly believe his good fortune. They went into the lobby. She waited by the lift while he fetched his key from the desk.