The Day of the Lie (36 page)

‘I didn’t use you,
Celina.’ His voice was muffled into his palms. ‘I loved you. I was completely
devastated
by who you were. Your crazy shoes and rings and torn trousers. Your hair
always in a mess. Your beads and bangles. But I couldn’t see straight. I didn’t
know if I wanted you for who you were, or because you were everything my mother
should have been, a rebel, someone who’d fought back. I didn’t know if I loved
you because you cleaned up the weird guilt shovelled on to me by my father, by
not talking, by not explaining —’ his breath ran out in a sigh of fatigue and
surrender — ‘God, in those days I thought too much. It was all so much simpler
than I realised.’ He came to an exhausted halt and dropped his hands. In an act
of total surrender he took off his glasses. Anselm had never seen him without
them — not since he’d agreed with John (post op) that he had a faraway look …
no, not Martian, just far off. The glasses had become a heat shield easing his
entry into a new, dark world. And he’d taken it down. Tiny scars ran over his
lids, above and below. The eyes were the palest brown, with tiny clouds and
frail red streamers flying over the whites, the pupils awfully still, not reacting
to the firelight. ‘I thought too much. I did love you, simply and innocently I
knew that after you’d gone.

Notwithstanding John’s
immolation before Celina, Anselm’s mind — naturally withdrawing from any
display of strong emotion — lay with Róża’s unmoving face: the haunted
lilac shadows and the coming of night. She barely moved and she didn’t take her
eyes off John. It had turned into a conversation between two broken friends,
with Róża watching and waiting. She was like a silent guide, always one
step ahead, always observant, always waiting. A deep comprehension flickered
and died in Anselm’s mind. He’d barely noticed its outline before it was gone.

Stirring, suddenly he
remembered a little trick from his days at the Bar. Not so much a trick as a
technique that reflected the depths of the human person; the workings of the
conscience. Put the question to the person who has already framed the enquiry:
ask them what they asked of someone else. The answer was often surprising. He
coughed, lightly.

‘Celina, of all the
film-makers in all the studios in Warsaw, why did Brack pick you?’

Chapter Forty-Two

Celina asked for some water. Anselm went to
get some, wondering if they’d ever get on to the wine. He thought of Belloc;
All,
all must face their Passion at the last.
The fetching didn’t break the
tension. There was no escape, now It just grew tighter. Anselm roused the fire
in a vast hearth with wood that was hard and dry. There was little smoke, the
perfume faint but deep. Róża still said nothing. She watched. Her eyes
wouldn’t shift from John.

‘I’m not what you think,
John,’ said Celina, looking into the glass as if it were a goldfish bowl. ‘I
never was. Though it’s what I wanted … wanted with every ounce of longing
that dragged me down. You can’t weigh longing, of course. It’s a just a wisp of
air. Smoke from a fire. The scales don’t change. You remain what you are.

It was true; Celina had
been kicked out of four schools. But there were no aunts and uncles chalked up
dead by the Tsar’s secret police. Her mother had dumped her father, but not
because of any high-minded principles. She hadn’t got any; and he’d been no
dissident. There’d been no contributions to the Club of the Crooked Circle; he’d
been no Vagabond, at least, not of the noble kind. The nearest he’d got to a
secret society was the SB.

‘He didn’t tell me
outright, but you find out, eventually’ Celina sniffed quietly finding a tissue
from inside a sleeve. It was inconspicuous, petite, wholly unfit for purpose. ‘It’s
their way of talking, the habitual evasions, the sense that they’re important
and nobody knows it, that no one appreciates them, that they understand things
that no one would ever …’ Her delicate voice trailed off. She wiped her eyes.
Folding it neatly, square upon tiny square, she made the tissue into a pellet,
something insignificant to hang on to. ‘My mother walked out when I was nine.’

She’d been a go-alonger,
the sort of woman who didn’t mind what she ate, where she went or what they
did. To this day Celina ground her teeth if someone said, ‘I don’t mind’. Her
mother had sat in the corner doing puzzles, her shiny dyed hair in curlers. All
she’d wanted to know was six down or whatever. And no matter what you said, it
clashed with four across. Celina had no other memory of her. She wondered now
if doing crosswords had been inevitable: she’d avoided every big question,
leaving all the big answers to her husband. What more could she do? She’d gone
off with another SB officer. Someone with a higher rank — someone who knew more
answers to more questions. And what of the daughter she’d left behind? Well,
perhaps she didn’t mind.

‘Despite her failings,
she mattered. A mother always matters. I hit back at school until they kicked
me out.’

Anselm frowned as if he’d
just heard gunfire echoing down a corridor in Praga. Irina’s son was sorting
out the Afghans. In the kitchen, Irina was explaining …

‘My father showed no
emotion,’ said Celina, as if cutting Anselm short. ‘He just focused on me. I
was all that counted. But, you see, these people whose importance isn’t widely
known, all they’ve got is what they think of themselves. Nothing else matters.
So he tried to make me into another version of him.’

When Celina began to
mock one or two teachers, he’d stood over the desk in her bedroom, legs apart,
hands behind his back. He’d dished out all the official lines he’d ever
learned. He’d ranted in the kitchen about duty and responsibility and choices
and sacrifice and ashes. After her third expulsion he’d said she was becoming
an embarrassment — the understatement had shocked her; he wasn’t a man for
delicate wordplay Following the fourth, what was left of their relationship
broke down. She didn’t wait to be thrown out, she just walked on to the street.
Homeless, she’d eventually found herself among like minds, people who gave her
a floor, people who thought like she did, whose flats were sometimes turned
over by the boys in jeans and leather jackets. She went to a kind of university
with lectures in boiler rooms and attics, staffed by professors who worked in
factories or washed the windows.

‘I next saw him after I’d
been arrested in sixty—eight,’ said Celina. She sipped water, her lips needing
moisture. ‘He got me out. There were no charges brought and I was furious and
sick with shame. Other people’s kids were finished off, but not his. I told him
to keep far, far away from my life. But he stayed there, I understand that now
Why else did they leave me alone? How else did I get a job in film? How else
did I get my work past the censors?’

Celina laid one hand
upon the other. Carelessly showing the depth of her distress, she played with
her ring, the big daisy. Her voice came again like the tearing of flimsy paper.
‘I wanted those relatives, John. More than anything, I wanted parents in prison
and ancestors scattered round Siberia. But that’s not what I got. I got a
mother who didn’t have a clue and a father who was Otto Brack.’

At least Anselm had seen
it coming, so he had an excuse for not reacting. John made a start as if the
Dentist had forgotten to use anaesthetic. But Róża simply stared ahead,
mute, remote, frightening Anselm with her silence. She seemed all-knowing,
expectant, resigned. Her thumb strayed to the finger with two wedding rings.
Celina played with the daisy John put on his glasses as if to avoid a coming explosion
of light. The fire collapsed. Shadows fled across the vaulted roof A sort of
fuse spontaneously ignited in Anselm’s mind.

‘I thought I’d never see
him again,’ said Celina. ‘He completely vanished from my life. I made something
of myself. Good things happened to me. We met in May do you remember, John? I
moved in towards the end of the August. It was a sunny time, wasn’t it? We were
free and easy and the army was out there bothering other people. But then, in
the October, I came home and found my father in the sitting room, legs crossed.
In his hands was a journal. He didn’t say a thing, he just sat there, turning
the pages.’

Celina’s evocation of
that encounter was so vivid — not by her words but the expression on her face,
the shock lived again — that Anselm found himself in that Warsaw flat, a
frightened intruder watching a mystery unfold, a mystery half understood
because that journal was Brack’s creation. Anselm couldn’t move. The fuse was sputtering.
He looked out of his own darkness at the father and his terrified daughter …

‘He’s been very stupid,’ he said closing
the journal. ‘And that annoys me.

‘What the hell are you
doing here? What are—’

‘Keep your voice down. I’m
here to help. Again. Tidying up after you. Sweeping up your endless mistakes.’

He hadn’t shouted, but
he sounded loud and piercing. Celina stayed with her back to the front door,
the keys jingling in one hand. He was dressed in one of those shapeless suits
without apparent colour, the cloth blending into any and all surroundings. His
drab overcoat was slung over the back of a chair.

‘I’ve been trying to
help him,’ he said, tossing the book on to a coffee table. ‘But he’s broken the
rules and now he’s in trouble. Serious trouble. Like you, he should have
listened. Like you, he thinks he knows best.’

‘What do you mean, help
him?’

Her father pointed
towards a chair. Out of some remembered fear, Celina obeyed. His eyes tracked
her with the old, hungry disapproval. He’d greyed but the hardness was still
there around the mouth. She’d always thought his face looked scarred, only
there were no old cuts on the beaten skin. ‘I’ve been giving his career a push.
Looking after him like I’ve looked after you.

Nausea turned Celina’s
insides. He was at it again. He wouldn’t let go of her; and now his
contamination had reached John. All she could manage was, ‘He’s in trouble?’

‘Of course he is.’ Her
father nodded towards the journal. ‘He’s written down where he got it all from
— I’m not worried, I’m a careful man. We’ve never met. He doesn’t know my face
or name — but what he’s written down is proof, proof of serious crimes.’

‘Take it … burn it.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s been seen by eyes
other than mine. I’ve sent them away for now, but I’ll have to act on it.
Eventually’

‘I’ll tell them what you’ve
said and what you’ve done for me, over the years.

He looked at her with a
father’s contempt. ‘No one but me would believe you.’

‘Crimes?’ She was
lurching with anxiety and guilt: this was her fault. He was her father, and now
he’d compromised John, as he’d always compromised her. ‘What crimes?’

‘The sort that land you
in prison for ten years. Espionage doesn’t attract a short sentence, not when
it upsets Moscow Which is why he’s upset me. I was only giving his career a
shove in the right direction.’

Why won’t you leave
me alone?
The question rose from Celina’s depths but she couldn’t give it
voice. She couldn’t bear to have any exchange with this … there wasn’t a
single word to describe him, or what he meant to her. The remembered fear was
eating at her guts. Why had he sent off his subordinates? Why was he still
here?

‘He’s named you and
someone else,’ he said, as if in reply ‘You’re all in danger now He really
should have stuck to the rules. Write nothing down was number one.’

‘You’ll help him?’

‘Are you asking?’ Again
the father’s contempt.

‘Yes.’

‘All right. But there
isn’t much time. He mentions a woman called Róża Mojeska. I’ll need to see
her, which isn’t prudent for a man in my position. But it’s the only way I can
organise a passport. I’ll have to get one for you, too. I can get you all out
before it’s too late. I’ll make it so that your boyfriend’s asked quietly to
leave —among journalists, that’s a kind of medal for bravery. Shows he got
close to the nerves of power. Best career boost in the bag. Is that good enough
for you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think that’s the
first time I’ve ever seen gratitude put light on your face.’

‘I’m not grateful,’
snapped Celina. ‘It’s your meddling around with my life that’s caused all this
… all you’ve ever done is bring me— ‘Privileges,’ supplied her father. ‘Well,
take this one with both hands. It won’t be happening again.’ He stood up to go.
‘Obviously you can’t tell your boyfriend what I’m doing or that we’ve met.’

‘Why not?’

‘He can’t be trusted. He
breaks rules.’ An ironic smile warped his face. ‘And I’m not sure he’d want to
marry into the family you know what I mean? Your connection to me might put him
off. Christmas with the in-law? I don’t think so. That’s why I’m going to keep
well out of the picture. Frankly it’s better for him and for you if he leaves
Warsaw thinking he’s some kind of hero.’ Shaking his head in dismay he looked
down at the journal. ‘Put that thing back with his socks, will you? He really
should have listened.’

Celina wondered what
would happen next. She was fearful and loath to be dependent on him. ‘Will you
find her … this woman?’

‘Me?’ He walked to the
chair and shrugged on his overcoat. ‘No, you will.’

‘What?’

‘Who else?’

‘But what can I do?’
Celina was crouched on her chair, looking up.

‘Save him from himself,
like I saved you. Do what you don’t want to do, for his good. Forget yourself.
Co-operate with me.’

‘But I can’t follow him.’

‘No. And you can’t ask
him either.’

‘What then?’

Celina’s father made an
impatient sigh, as if to say he’d done enough already ‘Why not see if your
boyfriend writes something interesting in his journal? For once the damned thing
might serve some good purpose … it’ll keep all three of you out of prison.
Find some other way if you like. It’s up to you. I’ll help, but this time you’ve
got to pull your weight. You can reach me on five-five-eight-seven-six.’