The Corporal's Wife (2013) (27 page)

The guys talked among themselves. He and she were ignored. The van kept to a steady speed and wouldn’t attract attention, but they’d need fuel, maybe near Zanjan or Mianeh. They wouldn’t get to Tabriz without filling up, and he felt resentful that they hadn’t offered him coffee. They needed food. He assumed he would be called on to use his language when they found a petrol station with an all-night counter for fast food. Or she might hitch her veil, take a wad of notes from Mikey and do the business.

He was, people told him, the least likely person to boast about his intellect, but he had. He could have brushed aside his knowledge of Persian literature, but instead had told her that he had studied it. He knew Ferdowsi, and the Book, but hadn’t needed to show it. He was annoyed with himself.

The van purred along the road. Oncoming headlights lit Ralph and Mikey, and Wally wore wraparound shades to protect his eyes.

Zach was there because of his language skill.

His father: ‘Why do you want to do that course? What’s the point of Persian?’

His mother: ‘How are you going to get a job with that? And they hate us there.’

The deputy head (careers) at school: ‘I really would counsel you against that one, Zach. Go for something more malleable, something employers look for.

A nice girl at the university’s fresher fair: ‘What did you say? Persian? Isn’t that a total cul-de-sac for language geeks? Weird.’

The lecturer on the school’s fourth floor: ‘It’s not for me to ask why you chose this course. You’re here, for better or worse. You’ll contribute to a better understanding of a culture rooted in history, which makes you more valuable citizens of society. As for jobs afterwards, well, the best I can say is that they’re difficult to come by but not non-existent.’

Why? It was the way he was – difficult, awkward, wouldn’t conform. He was stubborn too. It was a trait in Zach that his mother despaired of, his father found tedious, his teachers attempted to circumvent, and girlfriends usually found unfathomable and not worth the effort. If he was told that somewhere was in the wrong direction, he headed for it. Lectured on an error of choice, he committed himself to it. He had walked out. ‘You’ve cut off your nose to spite your face,’ his mother had said.

Letters had come to his home after he’d quit, with the School’s crest on them, and they had gone straight into the kitchen shredder. Shouldn’t he reconsider? his mother had asked. He had refused. He had deployed the same stubbornness and obstinacy on the building sites: he’d never asked his father for a favour, never sought to advance himself at the expense of the team. One day, he might grow up – might, one day.

He was lulled. She barely moved. They didn’t touch, and her body was a few inches from his.

She had found a rug in the van and wrapped it around herself. When headlights lit the cab, speared through the gap, over Wally’s shoulders and past him, the brightness caught her eyes, which sparkled. If they were caught, they were condemned. Zach knew it. And she lived with a sentence of death.

Big stuff to have on your plate. He didn’t know when the guys would get to play their game, ‘Where I would rather be.’

Zach had his own answer. He would rather be nowhere else. Was he sure? Yes.

The guys talked, and he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The rain had stopped, and the van ate the miles towards Zanjan. The moon was low in the evening sky, and all seemed well.

She called from the glass door onto the patio. She told him that supper was almost ready, five more minutes.

The moon was climbing, and the ground under his feet had frozen hard enough for him to walk on the mud without it sticking to his shoes. Dunc Whitcombe had no torch. The light from the house didn’t reach as far as the fence behind which the horses were kept.

Neither a romantic nor a dreamer, he had only the light from above as evening slipped to night. He could hear only the movement of the horses’ hoofs, their snorts. He wondered how often, at home, she cooked supper.

He recalled the nights when he had taken a late train from Waterloo, a half-an-hour journey, and then walked the ten minutes to his home along deserted streets. When he arrived his meal had been either in the oven, dried up, or waiting in the microwave.

The boy – the deaf-mute – had spent an hour with the horses, then left. Dunc Whitcombe knew nothing about animals, had never owned a dog or a cat. He found the horses wonderful – he liked their curiosity and the smell of them, tangy and warm.

Dunc Whitcombe had spent all of his working life at Vauxhall Cross and Century House further down the river. He had believed in the work he had done, and in the value of his own efforts. His marriage was a casualty of his devotion to the cause, and yet . . . He thought it preposterous that men and women like himself and Mandy Ross believed they could change matters, alter the stacking of the bricks. Petroc Kenning would be in the ranks of the true believers, not a doubt in his mind, with Tadeuz Fenton, and the heads of branches. It was predictable that the director – God and his deputy – took it as gospel that the country was safer on their watch.

There was a moon above him and a litany of stars, and Mandy’s voice had dissipated into the emptiness. He heard the hoofs crunching on the frosted ground and might have been transported back a century or a millennium. His mind raced. A hundred years before, or a thousand, a man could have stood on this spot, talked to horses and thought he had the talent and the power to change the world around him. He was part of Tadeuz Fenton’s army, an expeditionary force, confident in justice and that God marched with them.

On the other side, above the peaks, another army would have mobilised.

He went back to the patio and pushed open the door.

Bloody hell.

A candle was lit on the table. A bottle of beer had been opened and stood beside his place.

Messages crossed frontiers. Business was discussed by telephone, text and email. If the words were spoken, the men talked in code known only to the principals. If the messages were on screens, they used scrambled electronics. The deals rarely aroused disagreement. They were professionals, and relied on old routes of trading. There had been a Silk Road, an Amber Road, many roads. They were still used but not for fine materials, spices or precious stones. Today the merchants bought and sold heroin. It originated in the poppy fields of Afghanistan, and would end up in the bloodstream of addicts in European cities. At each stage of the journey it would rise in value.

There was anxiety among the entrepreneurs of the European cities. It was believed that heroin users were ageing, that young men and women preferred to experiment with synthetics or cocaine and its derivatives. No matter. It was also believed, and printed in the newspapers of the countries where the traders operated, that the global profit from heroin had reached eighty billion American dollars – enough to keep the trafficking vibrant. More than eighty tonnes of the packaged resin came out, each year, from Iranian territory and was fed onto the routes that used Turkey as a bridge. Then it would cross the Dardanelles strait and enter Europe. Cargo moved every day. Fleets of lorries with hidden compartments would arrive across Europe to the great cities where the addicts huddled at railway stations, in squats and office doorways, or loitered in dark alleys to mug and keep alive their habit.

Preliminary agreements were made. It was accepted by the traders that the area of greatest risk to the cargo was at the choke-point border dividing Turkish territory from Iran. There were always ‘problems’ in that region but the dangers of arrest, trial, and execution did not face the men who that evening – as every other – negotiated.

Calls, messages and confirmations went from Iran to Turkey. They crossed that country from Diyarbakir, Van and
Dogubeyazit
and were received in Istanbul. More calls linked Sofia in Bulgaria to Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the Balkans route. Men in Munich, Rotterdam and Rome learned what price had been fixed, and closed agreements. Smaller men ran the trade in Hamburg, London and Manchester, and they made their bids.

It was an industry, and it prospered.

The place was suffocating.

Which of them should he take? Petroc Kenning had to make the decision: he was gasping for air. The babysitters had their rota but he could have broken it. He might have taken Auntie, Father William or Nobby – even Sidney. He needed someone to drink with, and chose Sidney.

‘Often used to have one with your uncle and see him home.’

He didn’t bridle at the familiarity – might even have welcomed it. He had ‘cabin fever’. It could have been said that Petroc had less to complain about than any of the babysitters: he had been to Vienna while the others had been walked up the hill to the centuries-old gate. The symptoms of cabin fever were clear cut – Hector had told him: irritability; paranoia, a feeling that doom had settled on the enterprise; distrust, of the defector, the babysitters, the bosses, the mission. He experience urges to break the china ornaments in the rented property. He could have argued with anyone, even Anneliese. He needed to get out for a drink.

He walked down the hill towards the village. He set the pace and Sidney panted to keep up. ‘I’m telling you, Sidney, Austria was a good call. In France, we’d have had the
mairie
and half of the local gendarmes round by now. In Italy, they’d have sent a company of
carabinieri
. In Germany, it would have been tax inspectors to give us the once-over. It was a good idea to come here. I’m not pissing about, Sidney. Finding this property was a triumph.’

‘Thank you, Mr Kenning – or Petroc, if I may.’

‘
He
’s no bag of laughs, about as dull as you can find.’

‘But he’s talking – isn’t he?’

They were past the lower vineyards, and there were warehouses now, for the different labels, windows in which the bottles were displayed and pumpkins in doorways. The lane became a road and would soon turn into a street. The church was well lit and he saw men and women going inside. It was the season of harvest festival, the vegetables lifted, the grapes cut, snow imminent. It seemed so peaceful, warm, comfortable and well ordered.

He said, ‘You plan a site for a mine, dig a shaft, hit a seam – with me, Sidney? – and hack at it. The seam may last for a decade, a year, a month or a week. Maybe it’s the fever, but I’m uncertain as to how long it’ll be before the seam is exhausted. You never can tell. An opinion?’

‘Don’t have one.’

‘Can’t be sure how much more there is to dig from that seam. It was vague today, no sharp detail. Just have to hope we’re not into the scalping, wrong end of the good stuff. And I don’t think we’ve won him over.’

‘I suppose you just have to keep chipping away.’

They were at the door of the church, and an orchestra was warming up, testing the instruments. Above the altar there was a finely worked frieze, and a display of fruits and vegetables, celebrating the festival.

‘Do you think they know here about our little war?’ Petroc asked.

‘Look across the square – the memorial. Take a moment.’

Petroc followed him. Beyond the church, a white wall was surmounted by a classic carving of two soldiers, one fallen and the other helping his wounded comrade. Always a purpose. He doubted Sidney did anything without knowing the outcome. There was a street-light and Petroc could read the names of the dead in relief on black-painted metal: there were four Fertls, four Kausls, five named Fuchs and five from the Schultz family. He realised the devastation done to this community.

‘They’ve had their wars, caught a packet and opted out. That’s why we’re here. They look the other way and can justify it, but we don’t seem able to.’

‘Thank you, Sidney. Where are we drinking?’

‘Down by the waterside, I thought. Can we move on? My great love, Petroc, is medieval castles. Plenty of them here. In Spitz, downstream, there’s the Ruine Hinterhaus, amazing preservation. Further down you come to the Burg Aggstein, planted on top of a granite rock. Back towards Vienna – I should have pointed it out – is Schloss Durnstein. Richard the Lion Heart was there. I love them.’

‘Which bar? Maybe we can use a guided tour as a bribe, if need be. Personally I’m more in favour of the language that vile regime understands best – electrodes and such. A man could die of thirst – I came for a drink, not culture.’

‘A little family place, Petroc. The beer is Gosser or Murauer.’

‘Let’s hit it.’ He slapped Sidney’s back, almost with affection. The lights were ahead of them and he could see reflections off the water and a tug pulled a tail of barges. It was all so damned civilised. It was down to him.
Foxtrot on the run
. His baby. Most nights in Dubai he watched Iranian state TV’s news bulletins: a medley of executions, in-camera trials where spies and saboteurs were condemned, military exercises and mullahs mouthing contempt for enemies or threats of retribution. A freshness came off the water. The village lights were behind them, and the cobbled streets still had flowers in pots. Litter and graffiti didn’t exist. If the price of civilisation in this old Hapsburg corner was to turn a collective back on what happened when Foxtrot ran, with the boy from the School and the three contract men,
if
, he would have to cross to the other side of the street. But he needed the beer. ‘I’m not fussy.’