Watson, Ian - Novel 11 (11 page)

 
          
“Gee,
I’m
sorry
about all this,’’ said Mikhail. “I can’t seem to throw this
Astrov guy. It’s as though I’m glued to the seat of a swing. Back I go in one
direction, and I bump into Anton Pavlovich and his
Tunguska
cronies. Off I go the other way, and
Commander Astrov grabs hold of me. I feel like a pendulum.’’

 
          
Impenetrable
fog still wrapped the Retreat. Nor had the phone service been restored. Sonya
Suslova stood up and stretched.

 
          
“I
feel like a walk—anybody coming?’’

 
          
Mikhail
also got to his feet.

 
          
“Don’t
go too far,’’ cautioned Felix. “You could get lost out there. Once round the
building,
or just a little way down the road—do you hear?’’

 
          
As
the two of them were on the point of leaving the room, Kirilenko spoke up.

 
          
“It’s
curious, you know? What Mike’s experiencing is like a ‘wave function’,
stretching between past and future. In 1890 there’s one amplitude peak. There’s
another one in Commander Astrov’s time. And here’s our observation point, in
the present. Neither the
Tunguska
past nor the Astrov
future are
solid realities—they
can hardly be that! But now I’m starting to feel as if
we're
in an uncertain state as well . . .’’

 
          
“You’re
telling me,’’ said Sergey.

 
          
Softly,
Mikhail closed the double doors.

 
          
Osip
sat in his den huddled over a sports magazine, with a half- eaten sausage and a
bottle of black beer before him. He looked up.

           
“How’s it going, then?
Doesn’t sound much like your ordinary sort of rehearsal to me!’’

 
          
“Been
listening?’’

 
          
“Course
I in’t. Just passing the door, once in a while.’’

 
          
“I
suppose that’s why the carpet’s worn threadbare.’’

 
          
Osip
shrugged and took a swig of beer.

 
          
“We’re
going out,’’ Sonya said impatiently. “We need our overcoats and galoshes.’’

 
          
“What
you going out for?’’

 
          
“For
a promenade,’’ said Mikhail. “
A saunter.
An ambulation.
A stroll.’’

 
          
“All those things, eh?
Shouldn’t, if I
were you.
Can’t see to spit.’’

 
          
“Tell
me, which acting academy
did
you
attend
?’’

 
          
Osip
scratched his head. “Wonderful what rubs off on a chap, with all you artists
around.’’

 
          
“Could
we please have our things?’’ repeated Sonya.

 
          
Visibility
was almost zero; an arm’s length in any direction there was only cotton wool.

 
          
“Wonder
what we’d find if we hypnotised
him?”
Mikhail jerked a gloved thumb.

 
          
“Who?’’

 
          
“Osip, of course.’’

 
          
“You
think’s he’s ...?” Sonya didn’t say what.

 
          
Mikhail
nodded. “He’s a watchdog . . . Wonder why he lays it on so thick: the dumb pleb
bit?”

 
          
“Maybe
it’s to give us all fair warning.”

 
          
“By parodying himself?
Could be.”

 
          
“Maybe
he likes his artists.’’

 
          
“Well,
I don’t wish to sound paranoid, my peachy psychiatrist, but if
that’s
what he is, and if I do happen to
be in tune with some secret research lab, I must say this could well be a field
day for our friend.
As soon as the phone starts working.’’

 
          
“Goodness,
you do have a serious side, after all!”

           
“That’s my left side, the one next
to you.”

 
          
Hugging
close to the wall, they began walking together along the snowy path surrounding
the Retreat. The white-out cocooned them.

 
          
Mikhail
swept a hand through the air. “I’m beginning to believe we’re all charmed . .
.’’

 
          
Sonya
also scooped at the air, and touched the tip of a gloved finger to her tongue
as though it might have picked up a curious taste.

 
          
“What
is
this: a cloud that got stuck to
the ground?’’

 
          
“It’s
a cloud of time-flakes, that’s what it is. It’s motes of time which haven’t
settled yet. Like in one of those kiddies’ snow- scenes, you know? Suppose,
every time you shook it, there was a new scene in the toy? Right now I’m on my
way to
Sakhalin .
.

 
          
He
jerked his wrist. “Wait for it to settle! Ah, now I’m on my way to Tunguska . .
. Try again: oh, now I’m on my way to the stars—back through history! We’re
fifty light years out, and Stalin’s still alive. A hundred light years
out,
and here’s the revolution.’’ He peered into his empty
hand. “Watch out: here come the wolves!’’

 
          
“What?”

           
He guffawed. She could have slapped
him.

 
          
“Idiot!’’

 
          
They
had reached the third side of the building now. From here the hard-top road had
to slope away invisibly downhill. It would descend gently for the first fifty
metres then much more steeply. Sonya recalled that that stretch of the road was
hedged with young pine trees; so there was no way of blundering off it, even
though thin snow hid the tarmac . . .

 
          
Together
they ventured away from the building, sliding their galoshes ahead step by step
as if they were pacing out onto a frozen lake.

 
          
After
what seemed a long while, Mikhail said, “Odd! We ought to be on the slope by
now, but it’s still flat, ain’t it?’’

 
          
Nothing
was visible except woolly snow and woolly fog.

           
Disoriented, Sonya almost lost her
balance, but Mikhail steadied her.

 
          
“We’ll
be able to follow our footprints back,” he reassured her. And they pressed on.
He chewed his lip. “We must have reached the steep bit,’’ he said presently.

 
          
“But
we haven’t.’’

 
          
“Look,
I
know
how far it is.’’

 
          
“Well,
so do I!’’

 
          
“I’m
going to try an experiment. Stay right here, Sonya. I’m going to walk off at
ninety degrees till I bump into one of the trees.’’

 
          
“Oh no you don’t.’’

 
          
“You’ll
be fine—just stand still. There ain’t any Abominable Snowmen in these parts.’’

 
          
“Promise
that you’ll count up
to.
. .no more than twenty. Then
come straight back.’’

 
          
“With a fir cone in my hand.’’
Setting one foot exactly in
front of the other, Mikhail vanished almost immediately. Sonya counted under
her breath.

 
          
They
oughtn’t to have split up! She was sure of this. She lost count. She called
out. Silence . . .

 
          
A
second time she called his name, and strained to hear.

 
          
A
hand touched her on the shoulder. Her heart lurched wildly—and then Mikhail was
holding her, while she shivered and gasped.

 
          
“You
bastard, that wasn’t funny!’’ But then she saw that Mikhail looked equally
surprised. “Mike, you did creep up on me, didn’t you?’’

 
          
“I
swear I didn’t! I counted to forty—okay, I’m
sorry
—and there you were just in front of me, with your back
turned. No trees.’’

 
          
“You
walked in a circle.’’

 
          
“I
tell you I went straight.’’

 
          
“You
must have heard me call your name.’’

 
          
“I
heard someone call out ‘Anton’, twice. That ain’t my name—I wasn’t answering to
that.
. . well, I got scared. Sonya, the voice was
coming from
ahead
of me. And I was
going to run back,
then
there you were.”

 
          
‘Did
I really call “Anton”?’ wondered Sonya. ‘Perhaps I did. . .’ She clutched hold
of his arm. “What’s happening to us, Mike? Where are we?”

 
          
“We’re
about seventy-five metres from the building.
Maybe a bit
more.”

 
          
“But
which way’s
thafl
” Where they stood
was quite trampled in several directions. Soon, by cautious scouting around
they confirmed three distinct routes: the one by which they had both come, the
one Mikhail had taken on his own when he left her, and the one by which he had
returned. These last two stretched in a straight line at ninety degrees to the
first, forming a T-junction.

 
          
“Right,”
said Sonya. “We’re going back.”

 
          
“No.”
Mikhail pulled her round. “Not yet. I want to know where the hill starts. It
has
to start! We’ll walk that way, where
the snow’s still smooth. Please, Sonya.”

 
          
She
hesitated. “Only thirty paces—and I’ll do the counting.”

 
          
“Sure.
If we aren’t heading downhill by then, well there just ain’t no hill any more .
. .”

 
          
They
linked arms. “One,” she began. “Two . . .”

 
          
By
the time she reached eight in her count she could no longer see the ground; the
fog was even denser, hiding her legs and his. When she reached twelve, she
couldn’t even make out Mikhail’s face.

 
          
“Mike?”

 
          
“None other.”
He squeezed her arm. “It’s easy enough to
walk. No trouble breathing.”

 
          
When
she reached twenty, though, she could see his features emerging once again.

 
          
“Peekaboo!”
he said; he didn’t sound too confident.

 
          
“Twenty-one
. . . Twenty-two . . .”

 
          
“Look,
footsteps!”

 
          
The
snow was indeed trampled—in a hauntingly familiar fashion. And by now the fog
was as it had been earlier. Only a couple of paces
more,
and they were back-tracking along a twin row of footsteps leading in their
direction.

 
          
“Those
can’t be ours! Come on.’’