Constant Nobody

by Michelle Butler Hallett

  Shaking, Nurasyl gritted his teeth against a wave of pain. —The Stalin Works. I polish headlights for automobiles.

  — The other officers say you wrecked something.

  — No.

  — Did you drop a headlight?

  — No!

  — An accident. Glass is slippery.

  Nurasyl grimaced. —I hate the noise of glass. Even when I got tired, I never dropped a light. If I break a light, I don’t get paid, and if I don’t get paid, I can’t eat. And I’m hungry. I came all this way to work and become a good citizen. Why am I still hungry?

  — If you can’t manage your money, that’s your own problem.

  — I line up for hours for bread that’s not there.

  — Abdulin…

  — I sleep on the bare ground. Where can I cook? I was better off starving at home.

  — Abdulin.

  — And you, officer, you speak the language, yet you understand nothing.

  The chair scraped on the floor as Kostya stood up; Nurasyl cried out, clenched his eyes shut, and covered his face with his arms.

  — Abdulin, take your arms down from your head.

  Sobbing, Nurasyl obeyed.

  Kostya returned to his chair. —Now, tell me what you wrecked at the Stalin Works.

  Nurasyl detailed an impossible list of acts of sabotage. Had even a fraction of it been true, the works would have shut down. Kostya knew this. Nurasyl knew this. Yet Nurasyl confessed it, and Kostya wrote it down.

  — Can you read, Abdulin?

  — Of course I can read. I am not your savage of the steppes.

  — Write?

  — No.

  Kostya turned his written notes around, and Nurasyl turned his head to peer at the page with his less-swollen eye, studied the pages. The Russian officer’s written Kazakh, in the Latin alphabet, looked angular, shattered.

  Nurasyl frowned. —I can’t read it.

  — Why not?

  — The letters — no!

  Kostya needed a moment to recognize why pleasure shot to his penis and why the prisoner screamed. His patience had frayed, and he’d aimed his Nagant at Nursayl’s forehead, still held it there. He had no memory of drawing the gun, or of deciding to draw the gun. —I did say I’m out of practice.

  Nurasyl stared at the muzzle, the chamber, the hand, the officer. Then he bowed his head.

  Feeling sweat break out on the back of his neck, Kostya holstered the Nagant. His behaviour would provoke little comment, certainly no rebuke, from his colleagues, yet Kostya felt like a failure, a fool. So easily insulted by a comment on his handwriting? Drawing his weapon without thought?

  He rolled his pen across the desk to Nurasyl. —Make your mark.

  — How did you do it?

  — The speed of the gun? Just target practice.

  Nurasyl looked up, the green of his eyes almost hidden now as the swelling worsened. He trembled. Many prisoners at this point of an interrogation sounded craven, miserable. Nursayl sounded mystified. —No, I mean…the other men could have beaten me to death, spoken any language they liked, and I’d have died knowing I’m innocent. You made me believe I’m guilty. I believe it. I know I’m not, yet I believe it.

  — Mark on the bottom line, please.

  — You turned me against myself. I betrayed myself. How can this happen?

  — Your mark.

  — I hate you.

  Kostya lit a cigarette; his hands shook. —Just make your damned mark.

  Vadym, eyes shut, spoke on the telephone at his desk.

  — I’ve told you everything I know. He was assigned abroad. It’s a great honour to be allowed to serve abroad, and with all his languages, and you’re proud, yes? I’m proud. What? Yes, I love him. He’s my nephew. Of course, I love him.

  In the corridor, Kostya stepped to the side of the door, out of Vadym’s line of sight. He’d come to thank Vadym for the mushrooms, hoping Vadym would then invite him somewhere, even out for a quick walk, just away.

  Away from Lubyanka.

  Arkady’s parties.

  Everything.

  Vadym covered his eyes with his hand. —Petya, please. I am doing everything I can…His work is secret. I am sure he will write to you as soon as he’s able, and who knows how long mail might take, wherever he is, or if he’s even allowed to write. Yes, the map is big. I know. I know. Petya. Petya, I’m your brother. I would not hide any word of Misha from you. My fault? I didn’t force him to join NKVD. Do you really think…Kostya? Yes, he’s…Petya, if Kostya Nikto knew where to find the slightest trace of Misha, if he’d even dreamed of him, he’d have told me right away. What? No! Petya, sometimes, in a war…Listen to me…do not call me at work like this anymore. Petya, please. Stop. I have no answers. Just stop.

  The receiver clicked against the cradle.

  Kostya stepped into the doorway, ready to distract Vadym from his misery, ready to break the spell.

  Hands hiding his face, Vadym leaned on his elbows. His whispers of his nephew’s name sounded like a prayer.

  This noise of private grief, this naked despair: Kostya blushed.

  Still unnoticed, he eased Vadym’s door almost shut and returned to his own office.

  [ ]

  FEME SOLE 2

  Wednesday 9 June

  Sitting in the front room beneath the open window, hoping to catch a breeze, annoyed by the bright white walls, and very tired, Temerity rubbed her temples. Shards of memory glinted from the evening she left Hotel Lux, and she reached for them. The music on the unattended radio, the empty street, the two men. The smell of the interior of the car. The threats. You love your papa, don’t you?

  Love Edward West? Yes, she did. She’d also hated him, feared him, mocked him, admired him, and modelled herself after him. As a child, she’d seen him as a disappointing link to her dead mother, a man unwilling even to talk of Viktoria. Later Temerity understood he’d been not unwilling but incapable. She’d eavesdropped one evening when she was twelve, during one of her Aunt Min’s visits home from India. Min asked her brother if he thought he might ever remarry, and Edward dismissed the idea with a snort. —No one would have me.

  — Really, Edward. Why on earth not? You’re rich, not too hideous to look at—

  — Oh, thank you very much indeed.

  — And you’re kind. A woman could do much worse.

  The soda siphon hissed. —Let me rephrase it, Min. I should not inflict myself on another woman. I’m not the same man who married Vika.

  — We all change over time.

  — It’s not change. It’s damage. I’m eaten out. I’m incomplete. A gorilla at the London Zoo is more of a human being than I am. A riot in the street I could understand. A war. A cancer. God’s sake, even a runaway horse. But flu, Min? Wife and son to bloody flu?

  Temerity heard a terrible noise then. Her father, all duty, love, and strength, stern voice and high expectations, cried.

  Min’s skirts rustled; perhaps she sat next to him. —Edward, listen to me. You lost Vika and Felix. You didn’t kill them.

  His voice shook. —But why did I live? Why am I still here? I got sick first, and she brought me tea, and I was so feverish that I thought she was a ghost, and I shoved her away, made her spill tea all over her dress. Even as my arm reached out, I knew it was Vika and not a ghost, yet she was both at once. When tea burned her, I laughed.

  — You were ill. There’s no fault here. No one is responsible.

  Edward took a deep breath. —That’s it. No one’s responsible. The story makes no sense. And I can’t love, Min, not again. Not like that.

  Away at school that autumn, her first year at Roedean, Temerity saw that the failure to create a palpable memory of her mother was not Edward’s but her own. She could gaze at photographs and listen to stories, but she could not make her mother live. She had no memory of Viktoria, and Edward had too much. Still, she often treated him and others with resentment, and her second year at Roedean played out as a disaster. Appalled by
Temerity’s marks and behaviour, insistent she could do much better, Edward pleaded with the headmistress to keep Temerity just one more term. The headmistress cited several examples of Temerity being disruptive, even violent, assaulting other girls with surprising strength. —We can’t even have a Girl Guides meeting without her causing a fuss. And her such a slight little thing.

  Edward reached an agreement with the headmistress and removed Temerity so that everyone might avoid the word expulsion. He was working in the city, Kurseong House closed until summer, and he now had to bring Temerity to his London flat. On the train ride, he planned a long letter to Min, electing instead to send a telegram. T good as sent down. Advice? Min replied with three words: Languages. Prepare her.

  So began Temerity’s intensive study of modern languages. She’d had tutors at home before, but this time she felt challenged and thereby respected. Dormant abilities woke, and the discipline she’d so resented at Roedean now felt natural and right. Edward told Temerity later that once she made up her mind to excel, once it felt like her own idea, her intellect seemed to ignite.

  When Temerity asked to learn Russian, Edward balked. They argued for days, Edward evasive, Temerity infuriated and confused. Edward knew he must lose this dispute. His recurring dreams of Temerity lost in a huge country while looking for her mother: not the girl’s burden, and certainly not her fault. Sometimes Edward wondered if the 1918 flu had damaged his brain, weakened it, leaving him prone to that Temerity-lost dream whenever he got so much as a sniffle. The dream’s logic was simple and clear. Forbid Temerity from learning Russian, and she would never go to Russia. Of course, Edward could so no such thing — well, he could forbid it all he liked, but she would not listen — and he did not even try to explain his fears. Temerity would consider his dream utter nonsense and dismiss it with a laugh like Min’s, that memsahib’s laugh of certainty touched with derision, and she’d be right to do so. Besides, he’d already boasted of his daughter’s abilities to his superiors in the Service, and they’d indicated much interest. A daughter of an existing polyglot agent, groomed for the work? What a gift — if she passed the interviews, being female and subject to a woman’s weaker mind, after all. How many languages did you say?

  So many arguments. Father and daughter loved each other with not just a shared understanding of how much they resembled each other but with a ferocity that startled them both. The arguments lessened as Temerity got older, but both Edward and Temerity remained primed, ready for dispute. Temerity worried that her father must be so disappointed in her and all her inadequacies; Edward worried that his daughter might be her own worst enemy.

  They’d argued during their last conversation, back in early March. They’d just boarded a train at St. Pancras headed to Prideaux-on-Fen and Kurseong House. Temerity, already regretting her agreement to help get Kurseong House aired out for the summer, cursed the weather. —Bloody miserable rain.

  Edward sat quite still as the train gathered speed. Rattling his newspaper, wheezing, he exposed an upside-down story on the worsening situation in Spain. —Temmy, have you seen this note on a lecture at the British Museum, on the death drive?

  — Death what?

  — The death drive, or so it says here. ‘A lecture on the subject of the Freudian death drive as the primal force behind mankind’s lust for war.’

  Temerity sat across from Edward, deciphering the story on Spain. The half-column of text mentioned hunger and air raids.

  Edward followed her gaze and stabbed a trembling finger at the story on Spain. After a coughing fit, he got the words out. —Damned Bosche.

  — Don’t excite yourself.

  Coughing some more, Edward peered over the edge of the newspaper. With his blue eyes and white hair he looked nothing like Temerity, yet anyone seeing them together, observing body language and hearing voices shot through with expectation of command, knew them for father and daughter. —Herr Hitler’s Luftwaffe at target practice, that’s what this is, training Franco’s boys. Marshal Stalin’s no better, whatever side he pretends to take. God’s sake, proxy wars. And I’ll thank you, Temmy, not to patronize me like that again. Don’t excite myself, indeed.

  Apology ready, Temerity sighed, then said nothing.

  Edward seemed not to notice. —We should strike the blighters now, while we still can, unless we want to lose the entire empire and perhaps even England itself, though India’s just a matter of time.

  Temerity thought of their family’s wealth, how much they’d benefited from the commerce of the empire.

  — Temmy, my dear, did I ever tell you why your uncle and grandfather stopped talking to me? I was twelve. All I said was that we British might have shown some restraint in our reprisals after the ’57 mutiny. My history master beat me. The headmaster beat me. Then he wrote to my father, and when next I returned home between terms, my father beat me.

  Temerity suppressed another sigh, this story so familiar, often told. —Dreadful.

  — And then, when I refused to apologize or go back on my word, for that’s what it was, the old man expecting me to go back on my word, my pledge to justice, you see, I…where was I?

  — You refused to apologize.

  — Yes, so the old man gave me the silent treatment. Communicated by note, if you please. And your uncle, the rotter, he did the same, and when he inherited, he told me in a letter left atop my packed bags that I was not welcome in Kurseong House. Used the old man’s stationery. From the Desk of Lord Fenleigh. Your Aunt Min pleaded with him, got nowhere, so then she refused to speak to him.

  Temerity watched raindrops stream across the train window.

  Edward rattled the newspaper. —Best thing for me. I had to make my own way in the world, me and my languages. I met your mother. And then your damned fool uncle died. It’s all such bloody nonsense, Temmy, Kurseong House, the titles. Your grandfather only got elevated when Lloyd George had to recreate the House of Lords. Then he built Kurseong House on the dampest piece of ground he could find. Fen-leigh, indeed. All we sheltered were leeches and mosquitoes.

  — It wasn’t that bad.

  — You never got stuck in the fen, did you? And the house is damp. You must concede that. I don’t even know why we’re bothering to open it. Freeman tells me you’ve transferred over from Five?

  Abrupt changes of subject: one of her father’s favourite tricks.

  Temerity nodded. —I should like to put my languages to work.

  — Good way to save face after that bother with the fascists and Brownbury-Rees.

  Bother? Temerity’s cheeks flushed. Every time, every bloody time, her father found some way to belittle either what she’d accomplished or what she’d endured. She felt at once cocky and inadequate, as if she’d exaggerated and bragged when in truth she’d understated. If she now corrected her understatement to the truth, she’d sound conceited, and her father would make short work of it. —I should never have told you about that.

  — I’d have seen Brownbury-Rees go to prison. Nothing in the courts, mind, leastaways nothing to involve you. Stitch him up for theft, perhaps, find someone over in Five who owes me a favour. Easy enough to do. But his father’s not well. Dying of shame, I shouldn’t wonder.

  Temerity snatched the newspaper from Edward, ink from the story of Spain smudging her fingers.

  — What on earth is the matter with you, girl?

  — Tell me, when France, bloody France, has taken tens of thousands of refugees from Spain, why is it that the greatest empire in human history can’t be bothered to accept a mere fraction of the burden, indeed, can’t even be shamed into it? All I can think of here, Father, is Queen Victoria: tell me not what is expedient; tell me what is right.

  Expecting a lecture on the complexities of British foreign policy with a reminder of atrocities committed on both sides of the Spanish Civil War, ready to kick herself for even inviting such condescension, Temerity took a sharp breath.

  Edward gently removed the newspaper from Temerity’s fingers, re
sumed his study of an article, and then, after a long moment, turned a page. —I may install a shower bath at Kurseong House. All the comforts of a city flat back at the estate. What do you think?

  — Did you not hear a word I just said?

  — Mm-hmm.

  — Father, I’ll be leaving next week.

  Edward finally looked up, his eyes glinting with the recognition of an argument already lost. Still, he’d fight. —I beg your pardon?

  — I can’t tell you where.

  — I can bloody well guess it’s Spain. Out of the question.

  — I don’t need your permission.

  — I’ll not have you gallivanting over half of Europe and in the papers every other day like Jessica and Unity Mitford!

  — Unity? How dare you compare me to that gormless fascist heifer? And what would the papers know about it?

  — Temmy, for God’s sake, I’ve given you an excellent education, and you’ve got the bloody vote. What more do you want?

  Tears pricked. —The freedom to take up my duty! If I were Felix—

  — Don’t you dare throw your brother at me, girl. Don’t you dare.

  — Aunt Min—

  Edward dashed his newspaper to the seat beside him. —I only let her take you to India to test your mettle, see how you travelled, and she talked me into letting you attend those damned suffragette-su classes —

  — Jiu-jutsu, Father.

  — Withered old maids wielding Indian clubs—

  — The correct term is Persian meels.

  — You want to take up your duty? Languages, girl, your languages and that phenomenal brain beneath your thick skull. Decrypt. I’ve been telling you that for years.

  Temerity sniffed, blinked at the few tears, folded her hands in her lap and studied her fingers. —Father, listen to me.

  — That fool, Freeman, he’s put you up to this.

  — I can decide for myself.

  — Decide to run off to a war zone, with bloody bombs falling from the sky? Women in the field, God’s sake. Have your forgotten you’re someone’s daughter? Have you forgotten what that would mean to invading soldiers?