The Rocket Man

by Maggie Hamand

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘But why? Because he knew something?’

  ‘God knows why. These Russians are unfathomable, I can tell you.’

  ‘But then, Hans Müller…’

  ‘Yes, it looks like Lieselotte was right. I imagine they killed him also. Maybe he was going to spill the beans – either that or he thought better of what he’d done and killed himself.’

  Katie wondered why, if Dmitry knew about this, he hadn’t told her, confided in her. She would have understood. He wouldn’t have had to go into details. Now she felt hurt and confused; she didn’t understand why he hadn’t trusted her if he had nothing to be ashamed of. And Bob, why had Bob never told her anything either? Or hadn’t he known? She stared at him, unable to understand anything. Sympathy for him swept over her and she leaned forward and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘But Bob, if you resign… What will you do?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think it will be too hard to get a job. Besides, like you, I’ve had enough of Vienna. I’ve had enough of all this shit here, I’d like to start over. How do you feel?’

  She said simply, taking her hand away and stepping away from him, ‘I don’t know.’

  He put his head in his hands for a moment; then he sat up, running them through his hair to smooth it, and looked directly at her. He said, ‘Katie, in spite of everything, you believe I still love you, don’t you? And Anna… I don’t want a divorce. I’m prepared to forgive you… What do you think? Are you willing to try again?’

  Katie knew this was the right thing to do; but it was still hard, even after all this, to give Dmitry up. With an effort she said, ‘Yes, I think that’s best.’ And then, having said it, she realised that she did think it best, in fact, she felt she wanted nothing more at that moment than to get away from Vienna, to leave all this behind. Perhaps she and Bob could be happy again; perhaps they might even have another child.

  Bob, seeing the expression in her face change, came and put his arms around her. ‘So it’s all over, now, is it, with Gavrilov? Are you sure? I can’t stand the man, but I suppose he must have meant something to you, and I appreciate this must have been a great shock… I don’t want you to regret this.’

  Katie turned her face up to him, ‘I’m sure.’ She let him kiss her on the mouth; it was a gentle kiss, cold somehow, without desire. He slipped his tongue into her mouth and put his hand on her breast but as he did so Anna came and stood in the doorway, and, seeing her, he broke off, sat on the chair and held his arms out to her. Katie stepped back with relief. Then, without any warning, she felt despair strike her and she started to sob loudly, uncontrollably. Bob sat and stared at her, horrified, and Anna, unable to bear the noise that she was making, went and hid her face in his lap.

  Katie did not feel able to go and see Dmitry and confront him with her decision. She knew that seeing him would be painful and difficult for them both, and she was not sure how he would react; it seemed unfair to hurt him further while he was already suffering. She knew that she should see him, but she kept postponing it, and the longer she postponed it, the more difficult it seemed to go. She had told Nihal she would write to him, and she tried, but her letters seemed painfully inadequate; she tore them up and burned the pieces so that Bob wouldn’t find her half-formed expressions of love and regret. She was afraid too that her letter might not remain private, might be picked over by the police or the intelligence services. At a certain point she realised that she was not going to see him and she wasn’t going to write to him either. She wondered if he would telephone her but he didn’t; she thought that he must know by now that it was all over.

  Nihal telephoned her to ask how she was feeling. She said, ‘All right. Have you seen Mitya? How is he?’ He asked her straight out, in accusing tones, ‘Aren’t you going to see him?’ and she said, ‘No, I promised Bob. We agreed we would give our marriage another go. I was going to write to him… I don’t know. I can’t go and see him now, Nihal, and risk starting the whole thing up again.’

  She thought probably Nihal would tell him. Once or twice in the next few days she found herself by the phone, tempted to call the hospital and ask to speak to him, but every time she knew she couldn’t do it. It was better left this way; she was sure from his silence that he felt the same.

  Nihal finally went to the hospital at the end of the week. Dmitry was sitting in a chair by the window, wearing a dressing-gown over his pyjamas. A book was open on his knee but he wasn’t reading it. The hospital had said that Dmitry was much better and would welcome a visit, but Nihal, who hadn’t seen him since before the shooting, thought that he looked awful.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Nihal asked, awkwardly, with that vague embarrassment the healthy feel in the presence of an invalid. He crossed the room and had a look at the view outside the window.

  Dmitry said, ‘Better. It’s good of you to come and see me. Get a chair. Come and tell me what’s been happening. You usually know all the news.’

  ‘Well, the story’s out, to some extent, as you’ll see from the papers. There’ll be an emergency meeting of the board. That will be a waste of time of course – Collor’s already announced an internal inquiry at CNEN. The head of the Valadares plant, Oliveira, that guy you told me about, has committed suicide; he shot himself in the head. Eduardo Cruz has disappeared – left his house in the morning as usual and never turned up at work. Recently he was spending large sums of money his wife couldn’t account for. The other thing you might like to know is that Bob Haynes resigned. Nobody can quite understand why.’

  ‘Resigned? Or was dismissed?’

  ‘Resigned, I think. It’s all being hushed up a bit, I only heard through Katie… Has she been to see you?’

  ‘No, not since I was transferred here.’

  Nihal hesitated, feeling awkward again. ‘Has she written?’

  Dmitry didn’t reply. His hand was shaking; he saw Nihal had noticed this and said abruptly, ‘It’s because I can’t smoke. I shall have to give up for good; I don’t know how I’m going to manage it. So what have they said about Haynes?’

  ‘That he resigned for personal reasons. He’s leaving Vienna; quite soon, I think.’

  ‘And I suppose you are going to tell me she is going with him.’

  ‘Yes.’ Nihal was angry with Katie; he didn’t like the fact that it was he who had to break this news. He said, ‘I’m sorry, I thought you knew. She told me she was going to write you a letter.’

  He heard the bitterness in Dmitry’s voice. ‘Well if she does I certainly won’t waste my time reading it.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not as bad as that. She’s very upset, she’s very concerned about you.’

  ‘Oh, well, of course. But then, I hear so many expressions of concern from all sides. It’s rather touching, really.’ He shifted slightly in his chair and as he moved a sudden spasm of pain crossed his face; Nihal wanted to say something or offer to help, but found that he couldn’t. Dmitry, recovering, went on: ‘So, what I want to know is: will the IAEA come clean about the bribed inspectors? After all it won’t create much confidence.’

  ‘I imagine they will, if they can. It depends. If Kaisler thinks this will come out, he’l1 make something of it, try to turn it to his advantage, I suppose. You know, inspectors being vulnerable, the need to strengthen support, that kind of thing. Kaisler in any case is very keen on being open about these things. Of course, I could spill the beans… but I won’t. Well, what would be the point? I was going to do that book for them…’

  Nihal paused and went over to the window, gazing out at the tree. ‘I made some inquiries about Liliana Richter for you, Mitya, by the way. There isn’t anything very definite. It’s true her father has connections with the military. He had connections with everybody… he is known to be right-wing. Probably he knew this guy, Oliveira. This Brazilian journalist I know was going to see if he could find anything more.’ Nihal noticed that Dmitry seemed to have lost interest; he stopped talking at once. He asked, ‘Are you
tired? Do you want me to go?’

  ‘Well, maybe… But come again soon, won’t you? I rely on you to tell me what is going on.’

  Nihal’s feature was published in North-South without causing much stir at first. Then other people started picking up on it. Articles began to appear in the German press and there were other pieces in a London Sunday paper and the International Herald Tribune. One accused Richter of meeting with a representative of Pakistan secretly in Paris. Another paper claimed to have been leaked information that showed that RASAG was secretly pursuing missile deals with a number of Middle Eastern countries. Another accusation was that Richter had links with a Chilean company which was developing anti-tank missiles.

  The German Government was clearly embarrassed. It tried to distance itself from the project, in particular the terms of the contract with Paraguay. In a TV interview the German Foreign Minister said, ‘We did not know the full details, we were not asked about the details. This is a purely private affair between a German company and the development of the area.’ When the interviewer pointed out that a copy of the contract had been sitting in the Ministry’s files for over two years he refused to comment. When pressed further, he said that as far as he knew the RASAG project was for purely peaceful purposes. In any case, since no sensitive parts were made on German soil, it was not a German problem.

  Shortly afterwards the Bolivian Ambassador stood up in the United Nations General Assembly and accused Paraguay of pursuing military ambitions and potentially threatening to invade the Bolivian Chaco, which unlike the Paraguayan Chaco, was known to contain oil. He hinted that there was American backing for the project. ‘The RASAG project… is the barrel of a gun pointing at the heart of Latin America,’ he said. The terms of the contract were attacked as ‘Blatantly neo-colonialist… this is a violation pure and simple of the sovereignty of an independent state.’

  Nihal had not been able to pursue the RASAG story further. He hadn’t succeeded in getting money to go to Paraguay; and anyway, recent experiences had given him a healthy fear of poking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. He had also been busy with the IAEA end of the continuing Brazilian story. Eduardo Cruz was still missing; it turned out that he had been booked on a flight to Venezuela the day he disappeared but had never turned up. It was now feared that he was dead. Heads had rolled in the Brazilian navy. New accounts had been submitted by CNEN to the IAEA, but not all the highly enriched uranium produced at Valadares could be accounted for. A significant quantity was still missing; Brazil had been given thirty days to account for it by the UN Security Council.

  After a week in hospital and ten days at a convalescent clinic, Dmitry had discharged himself and was now at home under a police guard. He appeared to be acutely depressed and hardly saw anyone, although Hilde came in every day to bring his mail and to deliver his shopping. Nihal was worried about him and made a point of dropping in regularly on some pretext or other, for example to show him a copy of a recent article by Nihal’s friend Jaime dos Santos which had appeared in the Brazilian press, claiming that a hunt was on for the highly enriched uranium in secret military sites in Amazonia. One of the military from Valadares who had been arrested had been quoted as saying that he would not reveal what had happened to the missing material even under torture.

  Dmitry had been told by Kaisler that there had been no definite evidence to implicate Bob Haynes, and that since he had strenuously denied knowing anything, no action could be taken against him; besides, he’d resigned. Articles had appeared all over the world criticising the IAEA’s safeguards programme and it was clear that Kaisler didn’t want to give them any further ammunition.

  The day before they were due to leave Vienna Katie went to have lunch with Nihal at the International Centre. She had hardly seen him in recent weeks; she’d had the distinct impression that he’d been avoiding her, but when she met him he seemed as pleased to see her as ever. She deliberately didn’t ask about Dmitry till the end; he told her he was fine, he had started back at work that week, but she thought she detected a faint disapproval of her which she found very saddening. She left Nihal with a warm embrace, making him promise he would write to her; and, after leaving him, on a sudden impulse went up to Dmitry’s office on the twentieth floor.

  When she emerged from the lift she began to feel shaky. As she walked along the corridor she thought, this is not a good idea. She reached his door before thinking better of it and turned and walked away back to the lifts; she pressed the button, thought again and turned back, retracing her footsteps. The door to Hilde’s office was open; Hilde was sitting at her desk, typing, and frowned at her as she stepped in. She asked, ‘Have you got an appointment?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re not meant to see him without an appointment… I’ll go and tell him you’re here.’ She returned in a minute and said, ‘He says he’s very busy. You can go in if you like.’ Hilde was hostile, protective. It occurred to Katie that she might be in love with him herself.

  Dmitry was not sitting at his desk; he was standing facing the window, reading a document in a blue folder. He looked round briefly when she came in. She shut the door behind her and said, hesitantly, ‘I didn’t know you were back at work.’

  ‘I started yesterday.’

  ‘You seem well.’

  ‘Do I? So everybody tells me.’ His voice sounded tired, as if he did not have the energy to talk to her. Katie felt a dry sensation in her mouth, and suddenly weak as if all feeling had drained out of her. She thought, I was right to end this, it would never have come right between us. She wished she hadn’t come. He was still reading the file, intent, concentrated; Katie took a couple of steps towards him, putting out her hand to touch his arm without being aware that she was doing so, and as she did he suddenly turned round, evading her, and said abruptly, ‘Please don’t touch me.’

  She snatched her hand back as swiftly as if she had received an electric shock. He folded the file, put it down on his desk, sat down, picked up the phone and pressed one of the numbers, asked Hilde to get someone on the phone for him. Then he hung up. Still without looking at Katie, almost as if he dared not, he said, ‘Why did you come here?’

  ‘I just came to say goodbye. I’m leaving Vienna with Bob. I expect Nihal told you.’

  ‘Yes, he did tell me. I wish you well, then.’

  She almost hated him at that moment; she knew she had to leave, but she could not stop herself from looking at him for a moment longer. The fact that he did not look at her enabled her to do so; she would not have been able to look him in the eyes. She felt at least relieved that there were no obvious signs of his injury, but she also thought that something had changed in him. He looked thinner, paler, but it was not just that; some of that inner energy which had charged him was gone, and because he did not look at her or smile she had a strange sensation for a moment that he was not real, that this could not be happening, as if she was looking at a reflection in a mirror, or as if he had indeed risen from the dead.

  She said, slowly and painfully, ‘I did hope that I might keep in touch with you… that we might…’ She could not bring herself to say, be friends.

  ‘I see. Well, write and let me have your address.’

  Katie could not speak another word; she felt as if everything was crumbling around her. She watched him for a moment as he started to go through some document at great speed, crossing out words and phrases, jotting things in the margin, writing something on a sheet of paper which he pinned to the front; he tossed it into his out tray and picked up another sheaf of papers. She looked on as he wrote out a memo, his handwriting large and childlike as he wrote in English. It was impossible to believe now that the same hand with which he held the pen had once caressed her, touched her most intimate places, had aroused in her the most immense desire and pleasure.

  Katie turned to go. Hilde came in; she said, ‘Excuse me. The Director General just rang to say he will see you now. There are some letters for you to sign; I’ll leave them o
n your desk. They’ve confirmed you’re going to the Buenos Aires conference. And Personnel rang, they want your medical report.’

  ‘Yes, of course, it’s in here, perhaps you could drop it in on them.’ Then he turned to Katie and said, as if she were a casual acquaintance, ‘I’m sorry, I have to go. If you’ll excuse me…’ He opened the door for her to leave.

  Katie walked slowly down the corridor. The carpet and the grey walls absorbed all sound; she felt that if she screamed the place down nobody would hear her. She went to the lift. As she stood waiting, listening to the distant whirring of the cables in the long shaft, she wondered for an instant whether to go back and try to explain herself, give the reasons why she hadn’t been in touch with him, to say everything that was in her heart, but she pushed aside this desire at once; she would only make a fool of herself. Better to put it all behind her as he had done and accept that it was finished.

  The lift doors opened and she stepped in. She pressed the button for the ground floor and cast her mind back over everything that had happened, trying to find an image of him less painful than the recent ones to hold in her mind. As she did so she saw quite clearly Dmitry’s face in the garden at Schönbrunn, looking at her as she said, ‘It’s over,’ and his soft voice asking her: ‘But is it?’

  PART TWO

  SOUTH AMERICA, 1991

  I

  Katie stood on a street corner in Asunción, watching the wind from the Rio Paraguay stir the pale green branches of a tree. Below her stretched the city, the low, white colonial buildings, the dusty squares, and then the muddle of wooden shacks along the river. The warm, clean air caressed her face and for a moment she felt happy.

  She had come to Asunción two days ago to join Bob for three weeks; he had come out here to take a temporary job, as he had told Katie, with a German engineering company. Since leaving Vienna Katie had been staying outside London at her parents’ house with Anna, while Bob jetted from one place to another for interviews, looking up contacts and trying to get some work. When Bob had rung to tell her that he would be away in South America for three months she had broken down on the phone and asked if she could come and join him; Anna would be fine with her parents for a short while. Bob had, somewhat reluctantly, agreed.