Document Z (29 page)

‘Why would it just be an impression?'

‘Because,' she said.

‘Because you're not a spy?'

‘No,' she said. ‘Of course I'm not.'

‘Only you gave me that idea.'

Lydia shrugged.

‘Sit here,' he said after a time. ‘Sit on the couch.'

She did.

‘What if Security believe his story?' he put to her. ‘Perhaps Petrov will tell them what he thinks.'

‘But will they believe him? The drunk.'

Bialoguski smiled. ‘They might deport you.'

‘They can't. I'm resident.'

‘That won't stop them. At the least, I'd say you'd lose your job at the hospital. I think you need someone to vouch for you. A person whose opinion Security will trust. Perhaps someone who's been given reason to protect you.'

‘What are you doing here, Michael?'

He laughed. ‘I want to know what it was all about. If you're not a spy. I mean the day at the harbour and the photographs we took.'

‘You were there. You tell me.'

‘If Security asks, what should I tell them?'

‘Asks who?'

‘Myself.'

She had slippers on, he noticed. Peach-coloured.

‘Where is your boyfriend tonight?'

‘I work too much. We broke up.'

‘Your wish?'

‘I don't know. I suppose so.'

‘You know, I'm going to be famous soon.'

She met his eyes, her head slightly angled.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I will be in the news. You may hear some things about me that you did not suspect.'

‘Have you been charged?' she asked.

He looked at her.

‘Your abortions?' she whispered.

He half-grinned. ‘They are not my abortions. And no, not that.'

‘Why?'

He said nothing for a moment, then reached into the document satchel he'd brought. From inside, he drew a nine-by-six-inch photograph. It was a portrait of himself in a bakelite frame. He'd autographed it, under the glass, in thick pen. He gave it to Lydia. She took it with two hands and held it on her lap. He leaned across to kiss her. Instantly, she put a hand out and began to laugh. Her mirth shocked him and he recoiled.

‘What is this picture, Michael? A souvenir?'

The laughter made him angry. ‘You're not going to know me soon,' he spat. ‘You don't know me already. When you hear the news, this picture is what you will have.'

‘Are you aware that you are mad, Michael? Do you know that you aren't normal?'

He took the revolver slowly from the holster and held it flat in his open palm. He was looking at the gun and not her. He waited for her to say something though he knew she wasn't going to. After a time, he stood and collected his satchel from the floor.

The street outside was as he'd left it. Except Lydia had killed the light. He imagined she was watching him, her fingers on the fold of the curtain, using the darkness of the flat to keep from his sight.

A dog barked hesitantly. He put the car in gear and drove. At the first intersection, he touched his hand to the gun once more. The cold metal calmed him. The gun was a cooling secret—a secret that knew everything was changing. Petrov had defected, and the doctor had given his life—his left-wing life—to see it happen. He was supposed to have wanted this all along, coaxing the man across. Why then did he feel so strangely uncertain? And why so hopelessly unenthused?

21

A
t Mascot airport, the police could do nothing. They were too few, too unprepared. They stood on the apron, cudgels against their thighs, lost men, a row of doomed figures, sweat glimmering on their necks.

Behind them, the BOAC Constellation stood like an idol in the arc light. Before them, the crowd was hundreds strong, a piping sea of night breath, a slowly rising voice.

Two lone placards: WE WANT A FREE CZECHOSLOVAKIA and REDS = PIGS.

Press bulbs knifing at intervals through the darkness, casting white chrome impressions on the terminal's outer shell.

The crowd were becoming bold. A man in a woollen vest was giving a speech from on top of an oil drum, punctuating his oration with karate-chop actions at the plane.

The Russians emerged from the darkness at the edge of the terminal, a gang of five, Mrs Petrov at their centre, grey suit, red bag, white gloves. The men holding her arms looked straight from a piece of anti-Soviet propaganda: brutal, thugfaced killers in long coats, one thick-bodied and dumb-looking, the other a scheming Machiavellian rat.

The crowd thought the men were dragging her, pushing her, physically compelling her to move. They swept towards them, shouting, appealing, a clarity of purpose developing when the violence started to come.

In the Constellation's cockpit, the pilot's radio was saying, ‘
Speedbird . . . Speedbird . . .
', and he listened, watching the Russians and the knot of demonstrators around them advance. ‘
Speedbird . . . be advised of your Soviet passengers approaching
. . .
' The towerman's voice was nervous, shaky. The pilot watched two policemen jog towards the plane, shoes shining in the lights. The noise of the crowd intensified. There was a mob behind the Russians, either side and in front. They were coming close.

The steward came into the cabin to say that several people were under the plane, the wings and the fuselage. ‘
Speedbird,
do not start, do not start,
' said the towerman.

The stairs were rocking. The pilot saw them shift, roll, come back into place. The Russians were up or halfway up. In the crowd, there seemed to be a protest within the protest— a group of men, a rough element pushing and grabbing; the majority simply yelling, content to stand by.

The pace of the Russians' boarding seemed a surprise. A few seconds where he thought things might go either way. Then the crowd's noise drifted into a lull. They began backing off. They were walking slowly, but away, only the slightest signs of an intent to linger. Soon, they were where they'd started, by the terminal, and they looked primed by a certain satisfaction, an almost glow, the energy released when an electron falls one level to the next.

‘
Clear
,' said the pilot's radio, and he was glad to hear it as he began again his pre-flight check.

Shrinking constellations. As Sydney's lights contracted below them the forces in the plane felt world-shaking.

Kislitsyn was telling her, ‘Stop crying.'

She took his handkerchief and kept sobbing. He glared at her, but she had her reasons. Returning to the USSR as a victim. Being punished, horribly, for doing nothing wrong.

It occurred to her that for the last fifteen days she really hadn't been thinking straight. She still wasn't thinking straight. The evidence was she had one shoe, and on the tarmac just now she'd almost been broken into pieces.

The plane was levelling out. She stood and walked down the aisle. The ladies lounge was a small room with an actual lounge chair. It had a mirror and an adjacent room with a toilet. Evdokia looked at herself, the dishevelment, and a voice asked, ‘Are you alright?'

It was the hostess. Black-haired with thin features, she wore a uniform with a hat. She was looking at the passenger, concerned.

‘I don't know,' Evdokia said.

‘Would you like water? Would you like my shoes?'

She examined the woman's feet. They looked big. She tried the shoes on. They were far too large.

The hostess said, ‘Keep them. You'll need something when we land in Darwin.'

Darwin?

The woman saw her confusion. ‘To refuel.'

She returned to her seat. Incredibly, the couriers were both sleeping. Kislitsyn gave her a beer and four cigarettes. He was looking out the window; just blackness out there. He lit her cigarette and told her it would be alright in Moscow. She would live in her old apartment with her mother and she would go back to her old job, the way things were before. She knew the idea was ridiculous. ‘You are always the professional,' she said, and he protested, but she was on her feet again, heading for the ladies lounge.

The hostess was there with the steward. The steward asked her: ‘Do you want to stay in Australia?' She wasn't expecting the question. She looked into his face. It wasn't a query born simply of kindness. His tone said, I have the power to get this done.

‘I want to see my husband,' she said.

‘But do you want to stay?'

She took a small glass of water. ‘I am scared,' she said. ‘The men who are with me—two of them are armed.'

‘They are armed now? On the plane?'

‘Yes.'

The steward looked down the aisle.

‘They have revolvers,' she said. ‘They are dangerous men. They are here to protect me by force.'

‘Do you want to stay?' the steward asked again.

‘Can you help me?'

‘Yes.'

She looked at him and then at the hostess. She began to nod, not totally sure what the nodding would mean.

She returned to her seat. Kislitsyn was now sleeping. Eight hours to Darwin. Longer into a headwind. She made an attempt to sleep. They offered her one of the Constellation's beds but she refused. She wanted something to focus on. She put her mind on Tamara, regretting immediately that she hadn't bought either her sister or their mother new coats. She shook Kislitsyn's arm and asked him if there was time for shopping in Darwin, or did the vendors take Australian pounds in Singapore? He looked at her as if she were a crazy person. Maybe she was a crazy person. If she was, it was because of what they had done to her.

What he had done to her.

The hostess came with a blanket. Evdokia pulled the blanket around herself and shut her eyes. The headrests on the seats were uncomfortable. She ended somehow with her skull bumping against the Constellation's shell.

Later, she woke to find a man in front of her with a camera. The lights in the cabin were low for sleeping, and he had his sleeves rolled up and was taking pictures of her. She was watching and he knew this but he did not stop. He rested his arm on an adjacent chair to steady the shots. Then he disappeared. Was he just a man with a camera or was he a proper journalist, she wondered. If he was a journalist, then people had known she would be on this flight and had been able to get tickets. Meaning that Australian Security men might be on this plane. She turned her head and looked up the aisle. There might be a face. There might be a face that you know.

The plane, dark and rattling. She recognised no one in this other-world of capsular sleep. Again, she drifted. She was occupying a space that was semiconscious. Breathless bad dreams; shadowy figures with shadowy motivations and ideals. She opened her eyes to see Kislitsyn, closed and reopened her eyes to see Zharkov. It was fear and anxiety and this rumbling, high-altitude hell.

Eventually, the sun came: a low-breaking blue light on the plane's side, dimly perceptible at first.

The descent lasted a long time. Kislitsyn sat watching the earth below, waiting. It was over now, whatever the event had been. Still, he wouldn't feel relief until they were airbound for Jakarta.

The Constellation raced its wheels to the runway and lurched. He looked out as the Darwin terminal came into view. There were soldiers. Ten men in uniform, waiting. He said Karpinsky's name and pointed. The man unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned across to look.

‘The army?'

‘The army or the police.'

They both looked at Evdokia. ‘We're not getting off the plane,' Kislitsyn told her. ‘We wait here until it takes off again.'

She nodded, looking terrible.

The Constellation slowly came to rest. Stairs were wheeled to its doors. People stood and made their way into the morning sun. The Soviets remained seated.

Soon after the plane had emptied, the hostess asked whether they needed help.

‘No, thank you,' said Kislitsyn.

They waited. The steward arrived and requested that they alight. The plane needed to refuel, he said, and it was against regulations for any passengers to remain aboard.

Kislitsyn asked for an exception.

‘Why?' asked the steward. ‘Is one of your party ill?'

‘No,' said Karpinsky.

‘Then I must insist that you disembark. The fuel truck won't refill us if you refuse.'

Grumbling, the Russians stood. They started down the aisle, the three men and then Evdokia. Kislitsyn went first. When he reached the forward cabin door, he saw that the soldiers were assembled at the bottom of the stairs. Well, he thought, I hope no one accidentally shoots me.

He started down. He could hear Karpinsky breathing heavily behind him. All eyes were on them. When Kislitsyn reached the tarmac, he purposely moved left, trying to put some distance between himself and the courier.

A uniformed man said, ‘Excuse me. Are you carrying a firearm?'

Kislitsyn said nothing.

The man had sand-coloured hair and was enormously framed, wearing loose-fitting green pants with a belt ten centimetres wide. He announced that he was a policeman and that he was going to search Kislitsyn's body. The MVD man didn't resist. He stood while the policeman patted him down, craning his neck towards Karpinsky, who, faced with the same situation, was trying to push his assailant aside. The Australian wasn't having it. Kislitsyn watched as the policeman gripped Karpinsky's arm. The courier reacted fiercely. He swung his cabin bag at the man's body, lunged and played his bag into the man's chest.

‘He's going for his gun!' a voice cried out. ‘Hold him! Hold him!'

A second and a third man jumped, one moving for Karpin-sky's left arm and the other for the right. Karpinsky tossed the first aside easily, launching him hard towards the ground. But the third man was on his wrist and had begun to bend it. Now the courier started reaching, and Kislitsyn knew without question that someone was about to end up dead.

Except the wrestling wasn't over. A fourth man leaped in, reaching for Karpinsky's shoulder, yanking at his jacket. The jacket came down below the shoulders. The man was trying to use it as a restraint, yanking it as low as possible over the arms. Kislitsyn knew the tactic was doomed, but he hadn't anticipated the remainder of the act—the grabbing of Karpinsky's neck. While jerking at the jacket, the man had manoeuvred himself into a position behind Karpinsky that allowed for the application of a rudimentary headlock. Karpinsky offered one twist, but that was all. The man's strength was too much. The man tightened his grip using his other arm and the courier froze.