Pravda (48 page)

"Hi. Can I leave a message for someone?"

"You can try."

She was caught out a moment. "Oh. Can I—"

"There's seventy people in and out of here every day, and half of them don't speak a word of English, and none of them give their right and proper names. But go on—your fellow just might be the one exception. Who's it for?"

"Arkady Artamenkov."

"You'll have to spell that."

Isabella did so.

A weary breath and then: "Go on then, now. Your message."

"Just that—just that I will be at Kentish Town tube at seven-thirty tonight as planned."

"Your name?"

"Isabella Glover." She hesitated. "Will you be able to give it to him? I'm pretty sure that's his name."

"No—no, we won't, I'm afraid. We'll put it on the notice board. That's where we put all the messages. You'll have to hope he can read."

"Thanks."

There was nothing else she could do. She pulled up the hood of her borrowed anorak and stepped into the sleet.

After he left La Cantina, there was nowhere else to go, so he started for home—or rather the new place. He got off a stop early to go to the supermarket in Camden; he needed to eat, something wholesome.

The weather was worsening when he came out—the wind was rising, and the pavements were no longer misty but ravaged and gnashed. He decided to walk back—up Camden High Street. Rain was coming.

It was not yet eleven. But the legion of drunks swerved and swayed and sloshed around the Camden Town station entrance, cans still cocked despite the wind, rictus grins, top of the morning to you, but even they knew that the veil was too far torn and hell was leering boldly through. The dealers and the pushers talked among themselves. The junkies lined the high street to beg his approach and plead at his heels as he passed by. He crossed the old canal, shaking his head and muttering "No, thanks" over and over. Somehow, somewhere, all that would-be counterglamour of punk, hippie, goth, and skin had drained away, vanished with last night's disappearing tides of money and youth, and those people who remained—running the PVC and piercing stores, rolling tobacco on the street corners—now seemed far too old for their bolted brows, their blue-green hair, their black facepaint, and their careful beads. Gabriel saw through the respect-expected manner of their bearing, saw instead the undefended lines of past decades scored deep in the battlefields of their faces, the thin glaze of self-confidence like joke-shop contact lenses disguising the color of their frightened eyes.

He hurried on as the first rain came, past the petrol pumps, past the brothel, past the school. He turned onto Prince of Wales Road. Another drunk pawed at him as he came to the Maitland Park monument. This time he paused, capitulated, gave what he had, and waved away the abject thanks. There is nothing sadder than a drunk in the rain wishing you well. He reached the new and unfamiliar house, climbed the street stairs, and let himself in after struggling with the sticky lock. The others, his new flatmates, were out. Regular people. Regular jobs. Regular lives. He stowed the milk in the choking fridge and put the rest of his provisions in their places, then made straight for his bedroom at the very top.

It was a mess.

It took him a moment to understand.

He had been burgled. His laptop was gone. His portable stereo. His printer. His scanner. The floor was covered with his clothes, his compact disks, books, papers, everything.

He turned on his heel and went across the tiny attic landing to check Sean's room. It was the same. Some part of him felt an odd comfort. They weren't just after him.

Probably he should go down. Probably he should find out where the burglars came in. Probably he should call the police.

He looked out of his attic window for a while: defunct chimneypots and hooligan seagulls. Then, slowly, grimly, he turned. He bent under the bed. He dislodged the baseboard. He wriggled his fingers into the gap. Thank Christ. He pulled out the little box. He opened it up. The ring that his grandfather had given him was still there. Like everyone else, the burglar wasn't very good at his chosen occupation. The mess, as ever, was just a way of diverting people from this fact.

He locked his door. He took off his coat. He prized off his shoes. He selected "Señor" on his MP3 player and threw himself down on his bed with the ring. There was no place a man could go, no matter how high or how low, that Dylan had not been before. You lay down your head in the strangest of rooms and the guestbook by the bed always said that he had passed through this way at least once before—sometimes last week, sometimes a lifetime ago.

He half woke. The weather was raging. Sleet scratching at the windowpane. A million invisible claws.

He half slept. He wanted a woman so badly that he felt he could barely breathe. Yes, this room, this mess, all of this would not matter
if only there were some woman with whom he could now lie down and open up the constricted passageways of his heart. He turned away from what light was left in the day. From the age of fifteen, he had never gone more than a fortnight without someone to share his thoughts, to touch, to listen to, to laugh with—some he had admired, some he had simply desired, and those very few whom he had loved. And, oh Christ, they were haunting him now, slipping away just beyond the edges of his vision, their laughter vanishing just as his ear seemed to catch the happy chime. He drew the blanket over him. A woman's kiss. The whole sorry, shitty, solitary slog of a man's life could still be redeemed by a woman's single kiss.

He was going to have to go back. He thought he was strong, but he was not. He was going to have to call her. Get up, man, get up. Rest awhile first.

He slept and dreamed that he awoke. Spiritual asthma—the whole world is suffering from spiritual asthma. In his dream he could not fall asleep.

Seemingly there was no end. He felt as though he were falling, falling, falling into ever colder and darker space, the wind rushing faster and faster, snatching at his face. He felt expelled, as though he had been thrown summarily out of heaven and the shock of it was continually ripping through him as he plunged away. He felt abandoned and lonely beyond all loneliness he had ever known or thought or imagined: abandoned even by his own better self, as if he were a lost cause to his own intelligence; and lonely to his core, terrifyingly certain that no other person would or could ever know where he was or what he was feeling—not only that no companionship was available, but that no companionship with him was
possible.
And there were no voices as he fell, none of the old voices of hope, argument, or reflection remained—all silent, gone, deserted—only the flat whisper sounding somewhere behind the deafening scream of the panic as it tore merciless through his flailing body.
I told you so, I told you so.

He opened his eyes for just a moment. The light was strange—not quite dark, not yet; the sleet running like shivers in the jaundiced glow of the streetlamps.

***

And it's like you always said: in the heart of power sits fear enthroned; and it's as obvious as banknotes.

Mama, mi vse soshli s uma.
We are all sick, Mama. We are all sick. In friends, I find evasion; in children, tautology; and love itself, an election more of blindness than of hope. I am sick. I cannot stop my mind. I cannot rest. Cut my chest, look inside, you'll see it's all burning.

The night came on. There were sounds in the house, a rude banging at his door. Others were home. He turned deeper into the bed.

The price of courage is loneliness. Is this the price you paid, Ma? An awful feeling—something hollow but tight that lurks in no definite place deep inside, something impossible to banish, like days and days of accumulated cold that has crawled into the secret fissures of the bones and won't be chased out. A wretched feeling, a feeling to really drive and determine a person's life—actions, decisions, plans — more so than love or hate or any of the other supposedly powerful emotions, hey, Ma? Loneliness, and the fear of loneliness—it could make a person do, say, think almost anything. Yes, Ma, I am beginning to understand why people settle for the most appalling circumstances, the most appalling
people.
The inexplicability of wives, husbands, partners, lives—I see it now, Ma. It's all becoming a little more comprehensible. And I realize what that indefinable thickening is that I notice in the faces of the bride and the groom: it's
relief
— relief from the loneliness. Yes, that halo of happiness comprises three parts relief to one part love. Look Mother, look Father, look friends, I have someone; someone I can settle for has settled for me! I'm settled. We're settled. It's settled.

But what if it's not settled after all? Or what if (as we suspect) settled is merely death's best-decorated antechamber? What if we
refuse
to settle, Ma? What if we refuse to settle for this life as we find it, these rites and rituals, this government, these gods, this ever-growing herd of golden calves? What if we will not settle for the derisory covenants of this disreputable age?

I'm with you, Ma. I refuse.

I have no great plan, I cannot even summon a coherent point of view, but I will not back down. I will stand here and I will say, I see through you, I see through you, and what you believe in is a lie, and what you have become is a falsehood.

Yes, it's true, Ma: your great indignity is now mine. That last time we spoke, you were passing it on to me, weren't you, Ma? One more time, just for good measure. As if it weren't already thrice inscribed in the double helix of my every single cell.

I refuse.

Give us the counterpoint and you can keep the tune. Isn't that right, Ma? Give us the contrapposto and you can keep the straight and narrow. Give us the counterintelligence and you can keep your presentations and your pulpiteers. Give us the counterlife. Every time.

But where does my refusal lead me, Ma? And where did it leave you?

I see it now: your courage and your loneliness and your despair. And I feel it: they do not ebb and flow, but they remain constant, like radiation, gravity, and death.

You were lonely and powerless in that old house, stranded in a foreign country with so faithless and selfish a man while your pride and your dreams were year by year mocked and belittled.

I refuse.

Count me for the living, not the dead.

For Arkady Alexandrovitch, the moment had arrived. He did not care to question or to understand. The truths within lies, the lies within truths, thoughts within feelings, feelings within thoughts—they were all so many beguiling matryoshka dolls to him. And now that it came right down to it, he was revealed at the last to be his mother's son. This discovery he did not recognize or consciously acknowledge. Rather he felt it, he experienced its expression, and its expression was stamina. His entire being was certain that whatever fate had in store, he could endure. His mother's most eloquent and effective gift was passed on silently, secretly, inarticulately, and without her agency. Yes, now that it came right down to it, life turned out to be mostly about not flinching. Keeping going. And he knew that it
had
come right down to it. He could feel it, tingling in his fingers and hanging out there in the cowardly weather that would neither rain nor snow but hovered between the two.

He had not been idle. He had printed a map that showed everything, however generally, on one page. He had talked to everyone he could—fellow Russians, fellow East Europeans, fellow men and women. It started at the hostel. One contact led to another and to another. He had borrowed a cheap anorak (against the endless rain) from one of the Moldavians, and with them he had visited building sites in Harlesden. From there to Hammersmith to meet an electrician. From there back up to King's Cross to a go-cart track, looking for a mechanic. From there, three cafés in Fitzrovia; they'd need a short-order chef before too long, they always did. And thus he had spent the week walking, his boots forever devouring the pavement.
He moved by general direction, learning his way as he went. He stayed clear of drugs, but everything else he investigated. Nightclubs, escort agencies, hotels, minicabs, restaurants, pubs, shoe booths, florists, hairdressers, Finsbury Park, Neasden, Golders Green, Stock-well, Vauxhall, Ealing, and Bow. District by district, he must have covered more than fifteen miles a day. He listened and he learned. He was on a dozen job waiting lists. Turn up here at six-thirty, whatever day you want, they said, and there will be labor. He stopped worrying about the police altogether, his identity, or his papers. He drank water from the tap. He stole fruit from the outside racks whenever he passed a fruit shop. He had one hot meal—a baked potato with tuna and sweet corn—every night in the café that the junkies used farther up on the Harrow Road. Besides that, he spent no money at all.

Even so, thanks to the cost of his bed alone, he was now down to his last one hundred and twenty dollars. And he owed four more nights—the maximum debt they would allow, even with his passport. So already there was a shortfall. Time to be moving on.

He placed the borrowed anorak on one of the Moldavians' backpacks with a half-full carton of cigarettes he had stolen. He picked up his own pack and went quietly into the narrow corridor. Carrying his boots, he walked down the stairs as far as the second floor. Luck was with him: the woman on the desk downstairs was having a cigarette and her back was turned as he crossed the landing behind her. He squeezed into the tiny, filthy shower room, which stank of mildew. The sleet was thrashing and the wind was blowing as he loosened the catch. He dropped his pack out the window into the alley below. He threw his coat out after it, stuffed inside two plastic bags.

He put on his boots. But came out of the shower room quietly, only beginning to make a noise as he stepped down the flight of stairs to the desk. He took the cigarette from behind his ear, stuck it in his mouth, and asked the witch for a light in his friendliest English.