The Wolves of Eternity, page 76
‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘There’s something I need to sort out first.’
‘We’re not in any hurry. We’ll wait for you.’
‘It’s kind of you, really. But I’m afraid I can’t.’
‘We’re going to different ends of the city,’ said Ellen, touching her husband’s hand.
‘Well, it was nice meeting you, anyway,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we can swap photos at some point, if you give me your number?’
I threw out my hands.
‘My phone’s dead. I can’t get a connection. But have a good holiday and we’ll bump into each other again somewhere, I’m sure!’
With that, I gripped the handle of my cabin case, gave them a smile and walked off in the opposite direction. I didn’t like giving them the cold shoulder, but they really hadn’t given me much choice. I was sure they didn’t believe what I’d said about my phone, which only made me feel worse, dishing up what was only a half-truth like that, but what else could I have done?
I followed the signs to some toilets, emptied my bladder and washed my hands before heading in the direction of the shops and eating places. The terminal looked like any other in Europe, apart from the strange lettering that was everywhere. It was hardly the standard of Gardermoen or Kastrup, but nowhere near as shabby as I’d been expecting.
I sat down on a bench and switched my phone on again.
Still no connection.
I wasn’t bothered for my own sake, it was Lisa I was thinking about. And knowing she’d be worried was going to stress me out.
Wait a minute.
There’d be internet here at the airport. I could send her an email.
Or even better, I could FaceTime her. That worked over the internet, didn’t it?
I opened my laptop and clicked Settings and then Wi-Fi. It turned out that all I had to do was connect up, there was nothing to fill in first, just immediate connection.
I sat up straight, found her number in my contacts and clicked the FaceTime icon. When it started to ring and the picture of me appeared on the screen, I shifted my position a bit so that she’d see the planes outside the windows.
She was sitting in a bikini top and shorts on the bed in the bedroom. She smiled.
‘So you do FaceTime now, do you?’ she said.
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I can’t get my phone to work. And I wanted to let you know I’ve landed safely and that everything’s all right. So far, at least!’
‘That was nice of you.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘You can see what I’m doing. Trying to stay cool in the bedroom. It’s boiling hot outside, I can’t stand it. Thank God for air conditioning!’
‘Remind me who it was who said we didn’t need it.’
‘Yes, I know. I can’t be right all the time.’
Neither of us spoke, and she smiled at me again.
‘Lovely to see you,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to.’
‘I love your tits,’ I said.
‘I’m sure you do, you old lech,’ she said. She moved the camera phone to her breasts so they were all I could see.
‘I loved them when I was a young lech, too,’ I said.
She laughed and her face reappeared into view.
‘You’re not sorry you married me, then?’
‘I didn’t marry you, you married me. You married down, I married up.’
She got to her feet and went over to the big patio door.
‘That’s your version.’
‘It was how it felt.’
‘It wasn’t how I felt.’
‘A person has to get lucky sometime,’ I said. ‘Show me the view.’
She turned her phone again. There was the rock, sloping towards the sea, deep blue, the sky light blue above it.
‘Aren’t you having anyone over?’ I said when she appeared again.
She shook her head.
‘What are you having for dinner?’
‘I think I’ll skip it. It’s no fun eating on my own.’
‘You could go down and have a dip tonight.’
‘I might.’
‘I’ll just eat at the hotel, I think. Not much fun either.’
I smiled, and she smiled back.
‘Give me a ring tonight, then,’ she said. ‘If you FaceTime again, I might not have anything on.’
‘It’s hot enough here as it is,’ I said. ‘Moscow would burn down.’
‘Ha ha. See you later.’
‘Yes, see you,’ I said, and ended the call.
I left it a while before going towards the exit, wandering around for a bit instead, then buying myself a burger with fries and a cola at a fast-food outlet and sitting down to eat. The ketchup sachet was hard to open, my fingers couldn’t get any purchase, and when I squeezed it hard to see if it was going to give, the contents spurted onto my shirt. I wiped the ketchup off with the napkin, but the stain remained.
Typical, but because of the hot weather I’d packed several shirts, more than I’d normally have taken with me on such a short trip, so it wasn’t that big a problem.
After I’d finished eating, I headed past the baggage carousels, all of them in use, though fortunately the Oslo flight looked to have been completed. I passed through customs into a small arrivals hall where a crowd of drivers held up signs with people’s names on them, and went towards the exit, where a man, big and burly, with a pale, fleshy face, stood loitering and looked at me as I came towards him.
‘Moscow city centre, sir?’ he said in English.
Behind him, two more appeared, shorter in stature, one wearing glasses, dark-haired, his cheeks thick with stubble, while the other had a moustache and had pushed a pair of sunglasses up onto the top of his bald head.
‘Moscow city centre, sir? Good price! Very good price!’
I smiled and shook my head as I went past them through the door.
The heat hit me.
The two men came after me. I didn’t trust them and looked around for something more legitimate, but couldn’t see anything even resembling a proper taxi.
‘How much?’ I asked them.
‘Good price!’ one of them said.
‘How much is that?’
‘Good price.’
I saw the first man still standing calmly in the shade of the entrance and went over to him.
‘How much to the city centre?’ I asked.
‘Five thousand,’ he said. ‘Cash only.’
I had no idea how much that was. But he didn’t know that, he’d have given me a price on the assumption that I’d be reasonably clued up, so on that basis it probably wasn’t too extortionate.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘But I’ve only got a card.’
‘Cash machine inside.’
‘Will you wait?’
‘Of course. I take the luggage, you go.’
‘No, no, it’s only a small suitcase,’ I said, and wheeled it after me into the arrivals hall again, hanging my bag on the handle when I found the cashpoint so I could wipe the sweat away that had started to run down my forehead and cheeks.
I withdrew ten thousand to be on the safe side. He was standing there as before when I came out again. Pale and solemn, in a white shirt, slacks worn high around his waist. Not a drop of sweat on him.
‘Follow me,’ he said, leading me over to a row of cars close by. He stopped at a white Mercedes, took my suitcase and put it in the boot. Then, with a glance at my shirt, he stepped towards me, and, with a gesture as intimate as it was unexpected, began to rub the ketchup stain with his thumb.
‘It’s not going away,’ I said. ‘But thanks all the same.’
He nodded and stopped, smiled faintly and got in behind the wheel, and soon we were heading away from the airport.
The road was wide and new, the asphalt quite black, and alongside it buildings were under construction. Then, in what looked like the middle of nowhere, a big shopping centre came into view with a giant TV screen, on which, as we sped past, a female face loomed in close-up.
Shortly afterwards, the driver left the motorway and we turned onto a much narrower road that led us several kilometres through a built-up area. I wondered if he was taking me on a detour, but having agreed a fixed price I couldn’t see how he’d gain anything by it.
With that small reassurance, I leaned back in the seat and looked out. Everything was different from back home, but not quite in the way I’d imagined. It all seemed so normal, despite the contrast. Fields with long, flattened grass, parched yellow here and there, in places almost white. Signage with Russian lettering. Old, unpainted shacks. A man in camouflage trousers watering a vegetable patch. The detached cabin of a lorry left on the ground next to a house. A small blue car with what looked like firewood piled on the roof, squeezed in between a rusting lorry bed and a sagging wooden shed. An old woman in a white headscarf leaning on a fence, watching the traffic.
‘Nice and cold, yes?’ the driver said, glancing at me in the mirror.
‘Yes, very nice,’ I said.
Dad would have come along these roads, too. If not here exactly, then somewhere close by. To see the woman he was having an affair with. While Joar and I were at home.
Did he like it here? Or did he come just for her sake? And what sort of procedures did he have to go through to be allowed entry back then in the seventies?
I’d have to ask Alevtina about it. What it was like here at that time. How the authorities viewed visitors from the West. Wouldn’t they have been under surveillance by the KGB?
How did that work when he was staying with her? Did their agents sit in a car outside?
Did he think about us then? Or was he too wrapped up in her while he was here?
I wonder what Syvert’s doing now. Did he ever think such a thought, on his way into Moscow?
My own children were grown up now. But Joar and I had still been little kids at the time.
A large compound came into view up ahead on the left, surrounded by high fencing. Several towers loomed up from inside the perimeter with what looked like CCTV cameras mounted on them. I peered out of the window as we passed, and decided it was a prison. Then trees appeared on either side of the road, and everything plunged into shadow. As we emerged into glaring sunlight again a few moments later, the driver slowed down and turned off into a petrol station.
‘I need gasoline,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘As long as I don’t have to pay for it!’
He glanced at me in the mirror, expressionless.
‘Only joking,’ I said.
He pulled up at the pumps and got out. I got out, too. Traffic rushed by on the road. The sun was perhaps even more scorching here on the plain. Flecks of dust danced in the still air. The sky was a relentless blue. I was parched, and went into the little shop while he filled up. The place was dark and stuffy. The items on sale had been put out haphazardly, everything was all over the place, like a jumble sale, nothing like the streamlined displays of service stations back home. But they had cola! I took a can from the battered old fridge, then another in case the driver wanted one. I noticed toy army helmets for kids, stacked up in a corner, and toy guns too, frisbees and those plastic cones we’d had when we were kids, where you press the trigger on the handle and try to catch the little ball that pops out.
The girl behind the counter sat idly chewing gum, watching my every movement. She was all puppy fat, probably not a day over fifteen.
I put the two cans down in front of her and pulled out a thousand-rouble note. Two small racks of chewing gum were stood on the counter. Gum for boys in one, gum for girls in the other.
‘And a packet of gum for boys!’ I said, taking a packet from the rack and putting it down next to my cans.
Maybe some biscuits, too?
‘Just a moment,’ I said, and went back to take a packet from the shelf next to the fridge. She deleted what she’d already entered into the till and started again without batting an eyelid.
Patient people, these Russians. Weren’t they supposed to be temperamental?
The driver came in as I was going out. He held the door for me. I thanked him and opened one of the cans on my way over to the car, stopping to drain the contents almost in one go before tossing the empty can in the bin next to the pumps and getting back in.
‘Do you want one?’ I asked the driver when he came back.
He shook his head and held up a bottle of water.
‘This is more healthy!’ he said. ‘But less good!’
He even smiled before turning the key in the ignition. I got my phone out to give it another go and see if I could find a network. This time I was more methodical, trying them all instead of just the first. And lo and behold, all of a sudden there was a connection and messages pinged in. From Pål: Have a good trip, simple and to the point. From Tor, a bit more effort: Hi Dad, hope everything works out over there in Moscow. Enjoy yourself. All fine here. Åsne says hello! Two from Lisa: Have you landed? and Call me when you read this. And one from Jarle at work: Five more so far today. It’s the heat. Have we got enough staff?
I started typing a reply to him, but realised it wouldn’t do: it wasn’t a staff shortage that was the problem, it was his lack of confidence in himself. I called him instead.
‘Just got your message, Jarle,’ I said. ‘Listen, all you need to do is stay calm. One thing at a time, all right? The care homes aren’t a problem, they can hold on to their departed overnight, you know that.’
‘But we’ve got three funerals on tomorrow. And the way things are going, there’ll be more coming in. Not to mention the bereavement consultations.’
‘Make a list of priorities and tick things off as you go along. The important thing is to keep a cool head. And remember, the bereaved are always your first concern.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘But I still think we’re short-handed.’
‘Have you heard from Sander and Vidar? Are you quite sure they can’t come in?’
Ahead of us on the right, a clearing opened out in the trees. My eyes were drawn to it as we went past, it was like a small park with a big wall of granite in the middle, in front of which a flame burned, almost transparent in the sunlight.
‘Sander’s definitely not coming. I don’t know about Vidar yet.’
‘See if you can get hold of him,’ I said. ‘Tell him you’re in a bind. He can’t be that ill.’
‘I think it’s a stomach bug.’
‘If that’s all it is, tell him to go to the chemist’s and take something for it. He should be able to drag himself in tomorrow.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘And lean on some of the names on the standby list. Say it’s critical, or they won’t want to come in in this weather.’
‘Will do,’ he said. ‘Are you in Moscow now, then?’
‘On my way in from the airport.’
‘Is it just as hot there?’
‘Hotter. But listen, call me if you need me. I’m available any time.’
‘OK, thanks.’
I ended the call and leaned forward.
‘What was that on the right just now?’ I said. ‘The monument back there.’
‘The Great Patriotic War,’ the driver said without taking his eyes off the road.
‘What was that, the Revolution?’
‘No, no, no!’ he said. ‘No. The big war. Stalin.’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘World War Two.’
‘You call it that, yes.’
I leaned back and opened the biscuits as quietly as I could, unsure of whether he’d care for crumbs in his Mercedes. I wondered if I should text the kids again. The best thing would be to send them some photos now and then. I could phone them when I got back.
Industrial estates began to appear, with storage facilities and light industry, and the road widened seamlessly into a dual carriageway. Tower blocks rose up on both sides, and soon we were cruising along a five-lane ring road, surrounded by traffic as we smoothed through the outlying suburbs, passing railway stations, shopping centres and dense housing developments.
We turned off and approached the centre of the city. Crossing a bridge, I saw an enormous skyscraper reaching up in the distance. Moments later, we were driving along wide avenues lined with trees, winding through narrower side streets, until without warning we pulled in and stopped.
‘Your hotel, sir,’ the driver said.
As I counted out the money, a man in uniform opened my door.
‘Welcome, sir,’ he said.
‘Thank you very much,’ I said, handing the driver seven thousand.
‘This is too much.’
‘There’s a tip included.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, raising an index finger to his forehead in salute.
Being called sir all the time made me uncomfortable, but I supposed it was all just part of the package. I smiled at the driver and got out, though a moment too late to prevent the porter picking up my case and carrying it inside. Did that mean I’d have to give him a tip now? Not that the money mattered, it was more the act itself, slipping a note into his hand as if I was superior in some way.
And how much would he expect?
I followed him into the foyer, a grand, imposing space with a marble floor, all glass and gleaming surfaces.
The only Russian word I knew, apart from da and nyet, was spasiba. But I wasn’t sure if it meant thanks or please. Or maybe even hello. There were some words and phrases in the guidebook I’d brought with me, and as I put my passport down on the counter I made a mental note to have a look before I went out again. An elegantly dressed receptionist who looked more like she worked in a perfume department, with long eyelashes and green eyeshadow, came towards me with a big smile, her eyes fixed on mine.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’ve booked a room here.’
