The Corporal's Wife (2013) (47 page)

Their lights were full on and there were lonely farm buildings. Soon the kids would be in, the goats would be led to the sheds and the chickens rounded up. There might not be wolves here to massacre the chickens if they were left out overnight but jackals were everywhere. He started to shiver.

He was on the carpet, and she was on the bench seat beside him; the guys were in the front. Ralph drove, Wally had the Heckler in both hands, and Mikey had the map wedged on his lap. The cold ripped in through the side windows, with the rain.

When Mikey wanted her help he asked for it, and she would lean forward to point. A small torch would light the map, then she would ease back. Zach was ignored. When they wanted her, they called for her. They were two groups, distinct and apart.

The guys talked about money. Zach didn’t doubt that they were trying to stay alert: that silence would have dimmed their concentration on the road, the map and the threat that swam around them. Ralph needed the money because the roof of his home leaked. Wally wanted the money because his ex-wife’s new partner had lost his job and, although none of his former family had any time for Wally, it was his duty to provide for them. And Mikey? He wanted out of Aldershot: he talked of hills, a dog, a village pub, and maybe a converted truck that could be parked in lay-bys to do bacon baps, teas and breakfasts for lorry drivers.

Zach couldn’t control the shiver. To fix a roof, buy kids’ shoes and a catering truck needed survival. Zach doubted the guys had forgotten that. What did she want? He didn’t know. And himself, what did he want?

The wind through the window cut into him. In places the rain turned to sleet, and sometimes snow flakes. He took off his anorak, then his sweater, shirt, T-shirt and vest. She stood up, crouched over the seat, lifted it and rummaged. She took out blankets, dropping one onto the carpet. The vehicle shook, but Ralph didn’t slow down. Zach was scrabbling at the laces of his trainers but his fingers were too clumsy to grip. He must have cried out in frustration.

She pushed him back gently, reached down, and he felt her fingers working at his ankles. She took off both shoes, then peeled away his socks. Could eyes laugh? They might have done.

Mikey had the torch on. Its beam identified a junction where there were two valleys and the lights had lit a sign. She leaned forward to read it. The light was on her face – no veil – and he thought her eyes were laughing.

He had started so he would finish. He wriggled. His jeans clung to his legs. He had the waist undone and the belt. Then her hands grasped them at the thighs and pulled them off. She let him do the job on his pants. He used the towel hung below the basin under the work surface, then cocooned himself in a blanket.

She asked, ‘There’s no going back?’

‘No.’

She stood up, rocking with the movement of the wagon. He laid his hand on her hip to steady her. She dragged the
chador
over her head, exposing a blouse, sweater and jeans, then tore off her headscarf, and shook her hair free. She leaned forward and threw the garment out of the open window, with the scarf. Zach understood the enormity. It was gesture of rejection. Many would curse her for it and few would applaud her.

Mikey took the cue: ‘There was never a chance of turning back.’

He took a slug of whisky: defiance. He drank it from the bottle, then tipped the rest down the sink and sluiced it away. He didn’t hide the bottle: he left it on the draining-board above the dishwasher that was loaded with dirty plates from the meal his wife had given the boy after school. Next to the dishwasher, the washing-machine held the shirts, underwear and towels she had done that morning, and beyond it was the drier that still contained the sheets and pillowcases that would have been ironed the next morning by the woman who came in, a widow who was almost part of the family. Beyond the drier was the fridge-freezer. It would be looted.

It was dark outside. From the living room, with no light on, he could see into the cul-de-sac to the parked car, with the glow of cigarettes. His kitchen lights were bright, and the radio was on.

Brigadier Reza Joyberi would never come back to the house. Neither would his wife, Noor, nor his son. He had already shredded his personal papers, those dealing with his holdings in the world of import and export. It was said that the East German regime, toppling under the weight of protest and abandoned by the USSR, had used its last hours to shred thousands of files detailing agents, and millions of pages of surveillance reports. The shredders had overheated and caught fire. Still, to this day, some three dozen Germans laboured to reassemble the shredded pages; they hadn’t even dented the mountain of sacks holding the paper. It wouldn’t happen in Iran: what he had shredded was destroyed and beyond their reach.

He had been a good servant of the revolution.

Until his driver had visited a brothel in Dubai, people had spoken well of him. A climb to authority such as his inevitably provoked enmity. No one now would speak of the merits of Brigadier Reza Joyberi. It was over. Those who lived around him, an élite of the regime, would denounce him for fear of contagion by association. A week before he had had no known enemies. Now he was without a friend. His wife’s aircraft should have taken off.

There was a small garden at the back, with a fence that was not covered by lights. There was a side road beyond it. He knew where he would go: he had chaired a meeting eight months before to discuss the flow of refugees from justice through this particular needle’s eye. It was also where the more expensive smugglers took their clients. He might see her there one last time. God would decide. Lights blazed in much of the house and the radio was loud. He would lock the back door behind him.

Sidney drove, with Mehrak beside him. He talked about castles and was glad to have found a fellow enthusiast. Nobby and Auntie were in the seats behind, but Father William had refused to come. Sidney didn’t do as much walking now as he’d have liked – a hip problem – but he would enjoy this expedition with another man who loved historic fortifications.

He talked. ‘What you have to understand, my friend, is that the Danube was a highway into Europe more than a thousand years ago. You had the Silk Road in Iran, and Europe had the river. Goods of all sorts came up and down it. If you were a gangster, and had the right connections, this was the place to be and the pickings were fantastic.’

He thought Mehrak was quiet, but his eyes roved from the windscreen to the side windows. Nobby and Auntie were on about the TV satellite news, Afghanistan, the stock market, floods in China. Mehrak might have been distracted but nodded firmly.

‘There was the Kuenringer family. They thieved off the merchant classes using the Danube but would have provided funding for the aristocracy, who were the real godfathers. It went from the twelfth century right through to the seventeenth. Even then the Kuenringers were trying to hold the line against Turkish invasions and the Swedes. The river had to be fortified wherever there was a vantage-point. Strategic positions were made into strong points.’

Another nod. He’d hoped that, for this expedition, Mehrak would be a soul-mate. His Iranian castles and fortresses and what he knew of Lebanon and Syria should be the bonding agent between them. They drove through the middle of Spitz, passing tractors delivering the last grapes, and saw more pumpkins in doorways for the festival at the weekend. The man deserved a break after the concentrated scalping of information from him.

‘The people who held the river, Mehrak, were those with the power. No expense had been spared in the building of their castles. And this was a fault line here, as far as the Turks reached. Don’t think it’s all ancient history, Mehrak. See that tower – the one on the left – and the monument just short of it? Napoleon was defeated at this point two hundred years ago, pretty much to the day.’

Again a nod, but no comment – and a yawn from behind, which Sidney thought rude. The river was on their right and a long line of barges was brought downstream by a tug boat, headed for Vienna, then Bratislava and Budapest. Amazing and fascinating. He was warming to it. There would be word before the evening ended that the wife was across the frontier. She might be with them by the next evening. Sidney had seen the picture of her, lovely woman. Mr Hector would have said, ‘Get that woman to him, drop her knickers, strip her off and give them thirty minutes to hammer at it. Then get him out and answering until he drops.’ It would be a hell of a show for the Service, like Mr Hector’s time, and Sidney would be proud for the rest of his days to have been a part of it.

‘Here we go, Mehrak. This is Dürnstein. Above the house with the cross on the wall – it was the hangman’s house – that’s the castle. The English king, Richard the Lionheart, was on his way back from a Crusade in what’s now Lebanon and Israel, or occupied Palestine, travelling incognito – know what I mean? He was recognised and arrested by men of a local noble, a margrave, then handed to the Kuenringer family for safe-keeping while the ransom was raised and brought here. It’s like the Kuenringers had the franchise then, or al-Quaeda in Iraq today. It was going to be payday. They wanted a hundred and fifty thousand marks in silver. That’s a fortune. Actually, the story has it that a troubadour, a guy who goes round singing, who was devoted to Richard, worked his way round all the castles in the Babenberg country and sang under the walls. Richard sang back from his cell. That was how the English knew where he was. I don’t know if that story’s true, but it’s a nice one.’

There was a car park, almost empty now. The day for visitors was nearly over.

Mehrak laughed. ‘In Iran, Sidney, we say “A falsehood mixed with good intentions is preferable to a truth that excites strife.” It is permitted to lie if it gives happiness. I want you to escort me and tell me everything you know of the Dürnstein castle.’

If would be Sidney’s pleasure. It was three years since he had last been up the lane and into the woods, where the lane became a track, steeper and cut out of the hillside.

He led, Mehrak at his shoulder. He heard Auntie’s curse, and Nobby’s wheezing. They climbed in the interest of progressing the debrief, and to show trust.

They were leaving one of the co-operative stores in the main street of Dogubeyazit, and were close to the biggest of the backpackers’ hostels. When Dunc and Mandy had gone inside – staples to feed the team when they arrived – there had been chanting down the street from Kurdish youngsters, and the military had been in stand-off. There were light armoured vehicles and the troops had riot shields, clubs and rifles. She’d been about to pay when the dusk outside was lit by petrol bombs. Then the gas came.

They’d paid and scampered. The gas mixed with the smoke rising off the broken bottles. He had one plastic bag, she had another, and they ran for the car.

More gas came and the canisters bounced near to them. A loudspeaker warned that the next response would be live rounds. The kids were chanting Kurdish freedom slogans. The schedule would go to hell if they were trapped between the two forces.

She had the key in the ignition and was stamping on the pedals when the lights arrowed through the gas and the smoke and they saw Major Emre Terim standing in his jeep with a loudhailer.

Dunc said, as she pulled away, ‘Molotov cocktails were not a Russian invention – not many know that. They were down to the Finns in their war against the Soviets in 1939. Molotov was one of Stalin’s henchmen and the cocktails were an insult to him. Used properly, they could take out a battle tank. A Finnish drink manufacturer switched from booze to the cocktails for mass production. Interesting, yes? Actually, neat petrol needs thickening, which is why this lot aren’t too effective. They should pop into the mini-mart and requisition baking-soda as a mixer and raw eggs. Shall I tell them?’

‘Don’t be a total idiot.’

More Molotovs was thrown and more gas fired. It was inside the car . . . It would be a crush in the car but only as far as the airport, and there was a flight out at sparrow-fart in the morning. Then they would go back, him and her, to the house and sanitise it. There might be time for— The gas was in his eyes.

He said, ‘CS gas – don’t ask me the full name – was invented by Americans but the serious tests were done in Britain. We used to make the bloody stuff. Same old story: most of what’s chucked around in Tehran, Damascus, Cairo, Berlin and Rome is made in China. Hold on a minute.’

Water from a bottle on to his handkerchief and he leaned across. She kept the car moving as he wiped her eyes gently. They were going slowly and had turned right into a side-street when a woman pushed a cart in front of them. Mandy braked. Someone rapped on the window, insistent.

It was Khebat. The gas swam in the car. The old Kurd grinned. ‘I cannot do this but my friend pays big money and achieves it.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Mandy snapped at him. Riddles – when she’d been gassed and her eyes were burning – annoyed her.

‘My friend has a riot, but it’s expensive.’

‘Why would your “friend” pay for a riot?’

‘To keep the fat pig in the town.’

‘Because?’

‘Because he brings over clients tonight and doesn’t want interference. For me it is not so necessary. For him, interference with people is a big problem. The pig is here and occupied. But to make a riot is expensive, and you may have the cost of a funeral also. What time do your people come?’