The Russian Passenger

by Gunter Ohnemus

  I’m not living, Luigi, I’m waiting, that’s all. I don’t know why I’m waiting, but I am.

  * * *

  By then he was already living in this house in Italy. At some stage in the eighties he’d abandoned the struggle and returned full-time to Italy, where he grew vines and stopped reading the newspapers. He withdrew to a gloomy little old house in a little wood. He made a living from selling his wine and writing skits for two Italian TV channels. He still lived in that little wood. The house was near a little factory. I didn’t know what they manufactured there, but everything in that little wood was little. Little and rather spooky.

  Yes, Luigi would put us up. If he was there.

  * * *

  He wasn’t. We spent the night in the car and the following day beside the sea. When we returned that evening the front door was open and Luigi was at home.

  Of course you can stay, he said, eyeing Sonia suspiciously. Sure I can get you a new car, he said later, when darkness had fallen and we were sitting over the remains of supper. Sure I can change a few thousand dollars into lire. I may even be able to get you some new passports, but they’ll have to be paid for in dollars. I can also dispose of that blue Peugeot. It’ll look like a condolence card for a Peugeot by the time they’re through with it – flat enough to go through the slit in a mailbox.

  Sonia had already gone to bed. It was completely dark outside, except for the stars. What about Ellen? Luigi asked. What’s she doing these days?

  Ellen’s safe.

  Good. What do you plan to do now?

  I don’t know yet. Maybe we should stay a while with you to begin with, if you’ve no objection and if we’re safe here. And if we aren’t endangering you. We must wait until the police, at least, have stopped looking for us.

  We were both smoking. I hadn’t smoked a cigarette for over ten years.

  They’ll find you sooner or later, Harry. The Mafia will, I mean, even here. They’re damned good at finding people and they’ve got infinite patience. So maybe you shouldn’t stay here too long.

  Isn’t it funny, Luigi, me hiding here with you the way you hid at our place?

  Yes, except that there isn’t a little girl around.

  Luigi put his hand on mine in the darkness, and once more the car tore down the slope, glanced off the tree, inflating the airbags, turned over several times, righted itself, and came to a stop.

  This woman, this Russian – Sonia, I mean – have you known her long?

  She was a passenger of mine. It’s all a crazy coincidence.

  Are you sleeping with her?

  I don’t sleep with my fares.

  Luigi laughed in the darkness. That’s no answer.

  No, I said, it isn’t.

  Well?

  None of your business. It’s nothing to do with sex. It’s something … existential.

  Oh, is that what it’s called? What about you and Ellen? That was something non-existential, I suppose?

  Sex is sex, Luigi. Usually, at least. Usually. A firework. A childish game. A great, long leap. A long laugh in the night. But it’s still sex, and sometimes, not very often, it’s more than that. The only word I can find for it is religion. Eternity, if you like. That’s how it was with me and Ellen. Often. Sometimes. Sometimes is pretty often.

  And with Sonia?

  Once a gigantic release of energy that had no connection with sex. And once a childish game. A cool stream and two naked children, two children in the water. It was the day we set the trap for Aliosha, when we didn’t know if we’d survive the night, Luigi. But for a few moments we were like children. Death was something that didn’t exist. That was only a few days ago.

  Religion, I’d said. The word had simply slipped out. Total dissolution, and I could hear Ellen’s ironical voice: Oh yes, total dissolution, like Alka-Seltzer in a glass of water. But it’s true. I’ve never understood why sex and violence are supposed to go together. For me it had always been sex and dissolution. You were there one minute and somewhere completely different the next. The boys and girls in our Sunday supplements are always talking about the dark, menacing aspects of sex – always blathering about instinctual ambivalence and the potential violence of sexuality. It’s the perpetual, toothless mumbling of people who aren’t old enough to have lost their teeth. They never say what they really mean – if they know, which they probably don’t. For me, sex had never been associated with violence. I was familiar with the converse, though. The moments before a fight, a fierce confrontation, an argument, had always been arousing. Sexually arousing. When I’d walked towards Dmitry in that clearing in France I had shouted and wept, filled with sorrow and compassion, but just before that my body had tensed with excitement. It was lust. Or lustful anticipation. But it had always been like that: violence can be sexually arousing, but for me sex and violence had never gone together. It was a one-way street only.

  Luigi and I went on sitting there for a long time, smoking and drinking red wine. Two pet enemies. Once, Luigi rested his hand on mine again. What happened with you and Ellen, Harry? You were so completely different from all the other couples I knew. Everyone noticed it. What the hell happened?

  That’s just between Ellen and me.

  And Jessie.

  Yes, and Jessie.

  Friday

  The next day Luigi drove off in our blue Peugeot. That evening I drove his Honda Civic into La Pesta, the local town, and picked him up. The day after that he came back with a black Fiat Tipo. Three years old, he said. I got it for ten million lire. The papers and everything are absolutely kosher.

  Luigi took our photographs, and four days later we had two Italian passports. Fifteen hundred dollars each, my friend. That’s cheap, but they aren’t that good. You shouldn’t use them in Italy, but they’re probably fine for anywhere else. I couldn’t buy you any better ones or the Mafia might have got to hear of it. There are driving licences to go with the passports, but they’re pretty useless. Steer clear of checkpoints with those things – the police would hear at once you aren’t Italian. Tell them you’re deaf and dumb.

  Most days, Sonia and I went swimming in the sea while Luigi worked at home. He also went into town and bought us some underclothes. Of course, he said, I bought them from two different shops. I know the ropes, being a former member of the Underground. Where I got yours, Sonia, I asked the proprietress to recommend something for my daughter. They’re all in feminist lilac. I hope you like them.

  On our way home in the evening we would stop off at a pavement café in La Pesta. There was a jukebox outside, and we always picked out a few numbers at 300 lire each. Santana, Hanson, Britney Spears…

  The café was right on the street, and we’d sit there watching the traffic go by. Usually we were the only customers. The place seemed absolutely deserted as it slumbered in the sunshine, almost like a café in a 1950s French existentialist film. Or a thriller. I noticed that Sonia stiffened, just as I did, whenever a BMW or Mercedes drove past. Most of them had German licence plates. There were plenty of Lancias in Italy, we discovered, but very few of them were black.

  One Thursday Sonia and I decided to drive to Gavorrano for dinner. The little wood was becoming a little too cramped for us. Luigi didn’t feel like coming, but he lent us his mobile. Just in case, he said. If you aren’t back by one in the morning, I’ll start to worry.

  Gavorrano is a small town perched on a hill. It’s not particularly beautiful and probably very poor, but I’d been there a couple of times in the old days, and I knew that it takes on a special charm when darkness falls and the townsfolk have already eaten. The lanes and alleyways are usually quite empty, and all at once that charm is there. The whole town becomes infused with a spirit of adventure. You’re a child again, a child in some poor little town, waiting for something quite fantastic to happen.

  Before dinner we paid a visit to the main square, which doubles as a car park. Looking over a low wall, we saw a bunch of youngsters playing football on a pitted expanse of asphalt. Ab
ove them, leaning against the wall beside us, a few fathers were watching their sons chasing the ball. They resembled generals observing and commenting on the progress of a battle. After we’d watched the boys for a while, Sonia said: You would have liked a son, wouldn’t you?

  Yes, I said. And a daughter.

  Do you have any children?

  No, I said, and she gave me one of her sidelong, mistrustful Russian smiles. A smile that meant: Nothing in this world is the way it looks.

  Then she said: You must tell me more about that sometime.

  After dinner we went for a stroll. It was pretty dark by now, but the air was very warm. As warm as our bodies. The narrow streets were deserted. We traversed an empty square, probably the town-hall square, then lost ourselves in the narrow streets again. On one occasion an old woman passed us, and some time later a black immigrant. A girl went into a house which blared out loud rock music when she opened the front door. They were probably dancing inside. Those were the only three people we saw. No one else was about. We were all alone in the town and the darkness.

  I took Sonia’s hand. This is a forbidden city, I whispered.

  In this city, she whispered back, nothing is forbidden. And suddenly it was like a wild explosion: shameless, uninhibited, tremulous. In my memory it’s as if we had sex all over the town, as if we’d run through the narrow streets pursued by lust, panting hard as we pressed up against the rough, sun-warmed walls, disappearing into doorways, always on the move, always on the run, yet fucking incessantly. Our bodies knew no bounds. They dissolved, and the town and time and the night dissolved just as we ourselves did.

  In the end we sat down on some stone steps. We were utterly exhausted. Dissolved. Completely dissolved. Almost completely dissolved. Happy. Permeated by the night and the air. We were the night and the air. There was no difference any longer, no separation. Sonia said: Tell me, who pays you for this?

  I might ask you the same question, I said. But then, you’re paid by the Mafia.

  She suddenly turned serious. All the people from the Mafia who might have paid me are dead. Either that, or they’re trying to kill me.

  * * *

  When we got back to the Tipo I sat down in the passenger seat, took Luigi’s mobile from the glove compartment, and called him. I said we wouldn’t be back before one. Sonia was sitting behind the wheel, but she didn’t start the car.

  Phew, she said. Gavorrano! What a place! What would life be like now if the two of us were … innocent. Young. If we still had our lives before us.

  We sat in the car for a long time without speaking. Both the doors were open. The air was still very warm, and we were a part of the air and the night. Then I said something after all. I can’t understand it, I said, looking out into the darkness. I was very interested in sixteen-year-old girls when I was sixteen and very interested in eighteen-year-old girls when I was eighteen, but I’ve never once been interested in younger women. It simply never happened. And you’re fourteen years younger than me. Why on earth should I be interested in you?

  She looked at me wide-eyed. Because we’re going to die together.

  I said nothing.

  But it’s quite likely, isn’t it? she said. It’s pretty certain we’ll die together. They’re going to kill us both.

  Saturday

  The next afternoon we were in a small town. It was a very hot day, and we went into a church. We lit two candles. One for the dead and one for the living, said Sonia. There was a fresco on one wall, an Annunciation. I’d seen it somewhere before. Mary kneels on a stool with the angel facing her, both in pink robes. A man, a monk or saint, is standing beside a column on the left-hand side. There’s nothing else to be seen, only the arched roof of a vault and, beyond Mary, the suggestion of a door. It’s a very luminous, airy scene.

  Sonia and I sat in a pew and looked at the fresco. We looked at it for a long time – so long that I forgot I was looking at it. The shadow cast by Mary’s figure suddenly became airborne. She had an innocent, open face like that of someone who knows that something new is happening because something always is. She was just a girl with slightly flushed cheeks. Just someone waiting – waiting in the knowledge that the future is about to commence. I gazed at her shadow on the wall, her vague but determinate shadow, which resembled an aperture on the point of closing or opening, as if someone had just disappeared through the wall or was about to emerge from it. I accompanied the shadow through the wall and disappeared.

  Later, I don’t know how much later, Sonia took my hand. We got up and made our way to the exit. Five or six Italian youths of eighteen or nineteen, perhaps, came strolling along the aisle licking ice-cream cones. I went up to them and told them in English to take their ices outside. One of them gave me a supercilious smile and said: This isn’t your country. And I said: No, but it’s my religion.

  Strange I should have said that, not being a Christian. It was like Tess calling herself a Buddhistic Catholic. I was a non-Christian Catholic. A Catholic heathen.

  Sonia glared at me when we got outside. You must never do that again! What would have happened if they’d beaten you up? If the police had come or identified you in the hospital? After all, they have our fingerprints. We must never get involved in anything like that again.

  Besides, she said with a smile, besides, driving people from the temple should be left to the experts.

  A young man in pastel chinos and a striped T-shirt was walking across the square, whistling Jingle Bells. In the middle of summer, in this heat, said Sonia. You see? Licking ices in church isn’t all they do.

  Sunday

  We’ve got four million dollars, Harry. We can’t spend them here in Italy. America’s the only place where we can really do anything with them.

  How are we going to get there without passports? We can’t leave Italy with the ones we’ve got – it’s too risky.

  * * *

  We discussed the problem with Luigi over supper. He also thought the States a good idea. But you mustn’t take a scheduled flight, he said. A charter flight full of tourists would be best. No one would suspect you of smuggling Mafia money out of the country on a charter flight. I’ll see what I can do.

  Then he looked at Sonia. Yes, I reckon the dollars would be safest in their place of origin. Does the cash in your bags come from the States? I mean, the bills weren’t printed here in Europe, were they?

  The money has been laundered, Sonia told him. Laundered twice over, in fact. I drew it out of a bank in Luxembourg, little by little.

  Good, said Luigi. Some Russian counterfeiters printed vast quantities of dollar bills in Germany. I don’t know what the quality was like, but the gang was busted in the end.

  I can imagine, I said.

  Sonia gave me an angry look. In Germany even the treasury’s official printers botch things up, she said. A few years ago a Munich firm produced a series of hundred-mark notes with no printing on the back. They even got into circulation. You Germans are so stinking rich, you didn’t even notice.

  Luigi laughed. I did too.

  Maybe we’d better take a close look at those dollars of yours, Luigi said.

  Still, he went on, turning serious, the passports are a problem. You shouldn’t have any trouble in the States with the ones you’ve got. Italy could be difficult, though. I’ll see what can be done.

  * * *

  Three days later I thought of a way of getting hold of some passports. We were having dinner in a restaurant and got into conversation with an American couple at the next table. They were very nice people with plenty to say for themselves. After dinner they invited us for a drink in the bar of their hotel. It was their last night. Next day they were flying back to the States via Florence and London. They’d had a wonderful time in Italy. When we said goodbye they gave us a book that had served them well – Under the Tuscan Sun by someone called Frances Mayes. We brought it with us, the husband said, but I doubt if we’ll ever come back to Italy. The same went for me and Sonia.

&nb
sp; On the way back to Luigi’s place I said to Sonia: I know how to get hold of some passports. American passports. We’ll steal some, that’s all.

  Steal them from those nice people, you mean?

  No, not from them, from some other nice people. Your criminal mentality is coming on nicely.

  It wasn’t such a dumb idea, stealing some American passports. When tourists came to Italy they had to show their passports at the border or airport and then at their hotel. After that they didn’t need them. They paid in cash or by credit card, so they didn’t need them while staying at a hotel for a week or two and probably wouldn’t notice their disappearance. Traveller’s cheques might be the only problem. Certain shops and restaurants insisted on proof of identity when customers paid with traveller’s cheques, but this was rare. We would have to risk it.

  If we stole the passports of two people who wouldn’t be leaving Italy for another few days, we could use them to travel to the States. As US citizens landing at some airport in America (no matter where) we wouldn’t be checked as carefully as a couple of foreigners. Once in the States we could spend the first night at a tourist hotel. Thereafter we could travel on our Italian passports. All we had to do was find two Americans who bore a reasonable resemblance to us.

  And how do you steal a passport? asked Sonia.

  We’ll have to practise, I said. In any case, it’s too soon to steal the passports we’ll be flying with.

  Let’s get practising, then, you identity thief.

  * * *

  Okay, get practising. Luigi laughed. You can start with me.

  He and Sonia sat up half the night, talking about the Mafia. I just sat there drinking wine and saying little. For someone who hadn’t read a newspaper in years, Luigi was remarkably well-informed about the Russian Mafia. In the early 1990s they’d once pulled off a coup with forged letters of credit which, if it hadn’t been detected in time, would almost have wrecked the Russian monetary system. This was news to me. I wouldn’t have thought Russia had a monetary system to wreck.