by John Lawton
“You’re romanticizing it, mate. He went up pissed, flew into a tree and came down dead. It’s as simple as that.”
“All the same,” said Wilderness, “they do have antiaircraft guns.”
“MiGs are ten times more dangerous. Antiaircraft … odds favour the plane. A MiG? They’re like my uncle Monty’s dog. Once they get their teeth into you …”
“And Niilo tells me you won’t be making any more border runs.”
The two Aussies exchanged glances. For once in agreement.
“Yeah … well …”
He’d learnt next to nothing. It had been a pleasant day out. Nothing more than that.
“We’re still making a living,” said Bruce. “There’s enough freight business to keep us going. And while Niilo’s extra cash was pretty handy … well … no offence mate, but we none of us really liked spook stuff …”
“That’s OK. I understand,” Pastorius said.
“The border’s quiet as a grave. It doesn’t need us.”
“Yeah, quiet as Gavin’s grave,” said Momo.
“We’re happy as just a couple of dodgy bastards.”
“Amen to that.”
And Wilderness was happy to let Momo have the last word.
§35
They set up the mobile cinema in a prefabricated hut that seated about a hundred people.
Wilderness chose Darling, an Oscar winner written by Frederick Raphael, directed by John Schlesinger, starring the rapidly rising Julie Christie.
The two Aussies came, all but welded to their bottles of beer, but so was everyone else. The film went down like a lead balloon. When it was over, Wilderness swept up a couple of hundred metal bottle caps and listened to Momo put in his requests for future screenings, uncertain whether to file or ignore.
“Ya know what I like. A good, smutty comedy. Women with big tits. The odd knob joke. How about a Carry On? Saw a cracker the last time I was in London. Carry on Cabby. Sid James. Do they come any better than Sid James? Bring us that one next time, mate. Forget the arty farty stuff.”
Perhaps Farr was right. Perhaps the Foreign Office was right. Perhaps the game was pearls and swine. If so, there was no other game—nothing was happening on the Soviet border. He could summarise his first week in Finland on the back of a matchbox.
§36
Back at chancery, Wilderness reacquainted himself with the cypher clerk. One Charles Chaplin, a man with the phrase “no relation” permanently on his lips, who wrote like a schoolboy in an exam—left arm crooked around the paper to prevent cheating.
Long ago, somewhere between the Berlin Airlift and whatever folly followed as night to day, Wilderness had worked out a nonstandard code to use with Burne-Jones when one or other of them felt privacy (secrecy might be more accurate) to be paramount. The only flaw in this was that Burne-Jones wasn’t very good at it and on occasion would reply with “Gorgonzola? What are you on about?” or “What’s got only three legs?” neither of which bore any relation to the message Wilderness had sent.
He placed his new message in front of Chaplin.
“What’s this? I’m supposed to do the encoding. It’s what cypher clerks do.”
“Just send it as is.”
“Mrs. Burton likes to see everything that comes in or out.”
“It’s personal. A quick note to my father-in-law … we have …”
Wilderness improvised.
“We have a family wedding coming up.”
“She won’t like it.”
“Then don’t tell her. It’s nothing worth bothering Mrs. Burton with.”
“OK. On your own head and all that.”
Holderness to Burne-Jones:
—Why did you send me here?
The replies:
—Why do you ask?
—It’s beginning to feel like a punishment posting.
—Well, it’s not. You’re there to keep a watch on the border.
—Nothing ever happens on the fucking border. I went there this week and came back empty-handed. It’s moribund.
—No, it’s dormant. Not the same thing. Think of it as Mt Etna.
—Think of it as a punishment posting.
—Honestly, it’s not. I had to get you out of the limelight. So it made sense to send you somewhere where there was none.
—Eh?
—There’s no point in removing you from the scrutiny of the shiny-trousered buggers in parliament because of one scandal, crisis—call it what you like—if you are then in a position to create another. The beauty of Finland, O son-in-law mine, is precisely that nothing is happening—ergo, you can’t fuck it up. Joe, just play it safe and keep your nose clean. Do NOT go poking around. If there’s bugger all to report then report bugger all. Fig biscuits. Over and bloody well out.
Well, Wilderness thought, I’ve been told. For a second or so he wondered what “Fig biscuits” might have been before Burne-Jones mangled his encoding, but it didn’t matter. He’d been told. He’d been sentenced … to boredom.
§37
It was more than a week before he loaded up the Mog again.
A consignment of Carry On films from London had elicited a gleeful “marvellous” from Farr, and when Wilderness joked that they’d missed out Carry On Khrushchev, Farr said he hadn’t heard of that one but it would go on next week’s list. Abracadabra.
Meanwhile, Sir Mackenzie Herron, emeritus professor of classics, Wadham, Oxford, was in town to deliver his party piece—a series of talks (illustrated with what Farr called “magic lantern” slides) on the Etruscan tombs of Volterra and Tarquinia.
Wilderness was driver and “magic lantern” projectionist. Possibly the only “magic lantern” projectionist with his own Smith & Wesson .44. It almost hurt Wilderness to admit to himself that the talks were actually interesting. He found that driving the old man from one small town to the next … Turku … Tampere … was far from boring. Once the professor was off his own subject, his views on the England from which Wilderness was exiled were quite unpredictable.
“Voted for Wilson. After all, his moment had come and the Tories were in total disarray, but he’s a ruthless bastard. You won’t recognise England when he’s finished with it. Brown’s a nicer man, but a piss-artist. It was tempting to vote Liberal, but I stuck to my guns. Been Labour since the general strike in ’26. No point in backtracking now.”
Wilderness listened intently to this radical in sheep’s clothing and the only sticky moment came when the old man asked how Wilderness had come to be in the Foreign Office—by which he clearly meant Intelligence.
“After all, you’re not the sort of chap they usually recruit, are you? In my day … and I was at Caius just before the first war … you got a tap on the shoulder from the college chaplain, an invitation to take tea, and if you didn’t get your backside groped the next thing you knew you were in MI5.”
“And if you did get your backside groped?”
“Then he’d singled you out for his own purpose, not the state’s. If he groped you, you’d never get recruited. He felt he was queer enough for the secret services. He wasn’t recruiting anymore.”
“And?”
“I punched the old pederast on the jaw and did my bit for Britain in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders instead. Gassed at Loos. Being buggered by the chaplain was probably preferable to being gassed. But you … how did they find you?”
“You’re assuming I’m a spy?”
“Of course you’re a bloody spy. Or did you think I’d lived my life in an ivory tower?”
Wilderness was not certain what to say next. Was “spy” really written on his forehead?
“Mind you,” Sir Mackenzie went on, “you don’t have to tell me. We could go back to talking about tombs.”
V
Vodka
§38
He arrived in Persereiikkä around three o’clock the following Thursday. He’d done two film shows along the way and approached Persereiikkä from the east.
Th
e screening would not be until seven thirty. He called on Pastorius at the tourist office.
“Let’s grab a bite to eat beforehand.”
Then he checked into the White Nights Hotel.
It was crowded, it always was, but that was predictable if only he had given a moment’s thought to the matter of the midnight sun. It wasn’t just the title of a Lionel Hampton record from his teenage years, it was one of nature’s wonders, and drew crowds by the thousand. Wilderness had wondered about the formalities … so many men in suits … but was more concerned by the blackout curtains, without which sleep might be impossible for some, but which for Wilderness were far too reminiscent of a childhood in the London Blitz. He’d leave them open. Sun or no sun. Blitz or no Blitz.
§39
“I have to go up to Joeerämaa in the morning. The Australians. Care to come?”
“Might as well. I got Momo the piece of tosh he wanted.”
“Tosh?”
“The film he asked for.”
“Oh. Alright. I was just thinking perhaps we should talk to them again.”
“Niilo, what would be the point? They haven’t flown the border in months and they won’t fly it again. The fact is … my cover has become the reality … ‘you are what you pretend to be’ … that’s a quotation. I forget from whom. All the same, it’s all getting rather transparent. The Aussies saw right through me, and much to my surprise so did the old English professor I took on the road this week. People look through cultural attaché and see spy … and they’re all wrong. The illusion is the reality.”
“Very philosophical. I’d no idea you could be such a miserable bastard, Joe. Now what delightful piece of propaganda do you have for Persereiikkä this evening?”
“Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. It’s about a bloke who works in a bike factory.”
Pastorius pulled a face. “Bike factory? Really?”
“It’s a comedy. It’s actually very funny.”
§40
The Finns laughed but once—when Albert Finney, as the antihero, Arthur Seaton, pinged a fat old gossip on the backside with his air rifle. The rest … the satire … the all-but-relentless digs at England in the sixties … fell flat. Humour was not, whatever Wilderness might have thought, a universal language.
§41
As they approached the lakeside a dot in the sky took form. Then took wings. By the time they’d parked the Mog, the Beaver was throttling back to touch down on the water. Bruce was at the end of the jetty—in less than a minute Momo had turned the plane around and thrown a mooring line out to him.
The back door opened.
Momo greeted all three of them with “Bloody good timing.”
“For what?” said Wilderness.
“Take a seat.”
“On what?”
Momo passed out a box, then another and another. Then he sat in the doorway of the plane, clutching a clear bottle and three small shot glasses and a plastic cup.
“I’m not the fuckin’ queen, mate. You can all sit down.”
Then he splashed something as transparent as Wilderness’s cover into the glasses and handed them out. Pastorius got the plastic cup.
“Bottoms up.”
Bruce spoke first. “This is good stuff. Not sure we’ve ever landed better.”
“Vodka?” said Wilderness.
“That’d be one name for it, but it’s got dozens. Kilju … pontikku … ponantza … tuliliemi …”
“Moonshine?”
“Yep.”
Wilderness realised he was sitting on a case of the stuff. He peered past Momo into the cabin, half-expecting to see a piano and Fred Astaire poised to fly down to Rio, but it was packed with boxes. More than he could count.
“You seem to have cornered the market.”
“Neatly put, mate. Niilo?”
Bruce had knocked his drink back and was on a second glass. Niilo was sipping slowly at his, as though finding it or the plastic distasteful. He stared into it, swirled it pointlessly.
“Yes. Of course. How quickly we get to the point. Yes, I think we may have cornered the market.”
“Well, you did say they had other fish to fry. Not sure where the ‘we’ comes in, though. Are you part of this … racket, Niilo?”
“Racket?” Momo said. “You cheeky fucker!”
Pastorius held up his hand—a cop stopping traffic.
“Of course it’s a racket. You wonder at my role? I’m the protection. The guarantee. Nobody bothers Momo or Bruce while I’m around. As far as Supo are concerned, they’re still patrolling the border for us. Their flights across the restricted zone are sanctioned. They can reach places you’d have difficulty getting to by road. Hence, we have been able to attain a virtual monopoly. But I can only do so much. My cover might be as obvious as yours, but so far most believe it. I pull too many strings, lean on too many policemen, and it won’t be. Do you follow?”
“I think so. I’m waiting for one of you to tell me why you’re telling me.”
“I’ve local cops looking the other way. Out on what passes for the highway … not possible … other airfields … airfields down south … they’re looking out for us … or people like us. But, of course, the market is down south. Nobody buys moonshine in Lapland, because they’re all making their own. With stuff this good, and it isn’t always quite this good, there’s a ready market in Helsinki. It’s just that we can’t reach it.”
“A … black market?”
Such a familiar phrase, he found he was all but savouring it.
“A black market … yes. One we cannot reach. But you can.”
A voice in Wilderness’s head said, “slowly.”
He tacked away.
“What is it, grain?”
“Barley mostly,” said Momo. “Touch of spud. There’s some real rubbish about … just sugar and yeast … you might drink it if you were desperate. Drink too much and you might end up blind. But the blokes who make this are a class act.”
Wilderness allowed Momo to top him up. Sipped slowly. It burnt, but not too much, and it had some flavour, hints of herb, to play around with on the tongue. Perhaps the distillers were a class act. All the same, it was nothing he’d ever drink out of choice, it was a notch or two above rotgut—but this wasn’t choice. It was diplomacy.
“OK. What is it you three think I can do for you?”
The Aussies looked at Niilo.
Niilo said, “Our police will not stop a car with diplomatic plates. To search it would be … an … incident.”
That word again.
“You have plenty of room in the Mog. We fill it up with vodka. You drive back to Helsinki. Don’t go directly to the embassy. Leave the Mog in a public car park. Keys on top of the front wheel, driver side. Find a bar. Have a drink. Come back an hour later. The van will be empty, the keys back on the wheel … and an envelope full of markka. You need never meet the men at the other end.”
“That simple?”
“Probably not … you know … plans … mice … men. But by and large it should work.”
“And the split?”
“Equal shares. A four-way split.”
Wilderness held out his glass once more, bought himself a moment of time.
“What’s the markup on this? A hundred percent? Two hundred?”
Pastorius smiled, Bruce and Momo guffawed.
“Fuckin’ hell mate. We weren’t born yesterday. Nah. Make that a thousand.”
Wilderness broached the matter that was bothering him the most.
“What makes you lot think I’m bent?”
And then they all fell about laughing.
§42
That night Wilderness screened Carry on Cabby. It brought the house down. Momo was merely one of dozens busting their sides at humour about as sophisticated as a whoopee cushion. He chalked one up to Farr—the battle for hearts and minds wasn’t going to be won with kitchen sink drama, but with the updated version of music hall and panto. On the other hand, if that wa
s true then most Soviet cinema didn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance. It was all as deadly serious as a tract by Karl Marx. He’d go back to Farr and put in a request for Les Vacances de M. Hulot and pass the buck for resisting communism to the French.
He slept in one of Joeerämaa’s small hotels, something like a spruce shack, a spruce shack with attached sauna—he’d never stayed in a youth hostel but he imagined they must be much like this. Basic. Barely comfortable. Forgettable.
In the morning, he drove down to Persereiikkä. The back of the Mog crammed with moonshine, Pastorius dozing fitfully in the passenger seat. A deep pothole shook him awake.
Pastorius yawned and muttered the word “boredom.”
“Eh?”
“I was thinking of that line from Hamlet.”
“Which one? Every line in Hamlet is a line from Hamlet.”
“‘Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.’ It’s boredom makes villains of us all. If I really had something interesting, something worthwhile to do … I’d probably be an honest man.”
“German has an excellent word for it. Schieber. We were always Schiebers back in the days of the Berlin blockade and the airlift. A versatile word … smuggler, black marketeer, gangster, drug dealer … covered a multitude of sins.”
“And you wear it as a badge of honour?”
“No,” Wilderness replied. “I wouldn’t go quite that far.”
§43
It went exactly as planned.
Two days and two cinematic fiascos later Wilderness parked the Mog in Helsinki. Called the number Pastorius had given him. Gave the password “Greta Garbo.” Hung up. Killed an hour in a bar.
When he collected the truck, the keys and a fat envelope of Finnish currency were on the near-side front tyre.