The Russian Passenger

by Gunter Ohnemus

  They spoke of the evasion of petrol tax and of a Russian bank that had changed a debt of four billion roubles into foreign currency and transferred it abroad. Sonia’s voice became more subdued when Luigi made some reference to corrupt Russian generals stationed in East Germany, and they changed the subject. He said that more and more Russian Mafia gangs in Germany were organizing themselves on ethnic lines to avoid being infiltrated by German under-cover agents.

  I wasn’t particularly interested in all this stuff. My thoughts were more of how we could get hold of some passports.

  * * *

  The next evening Sonia and I drove into La Pesta. On the pretence that we were looking for someone, we sauntered through various restaurants, scanning the customers and keeping our ears open for English speakers. Seated at table in the fourth restaurant were a husband and wife who looked American and bore a vague resemblance to us. They were speaking English with an American accent and had their children with them, two boys around eight and ten. We sat up at the bar, sipped a Campari, and waited for the table beside them to become free.

  The wife can’t be more than thirty, Sonia said in an undertone, but the husband is about your age. Incredible the way these old guys insist on siring children.

  It’s the fashion nowadays, I said. All over the world. Men marry women who could be their daughters and father kids who could be their grandchildren. I can’t understand it.

  Thank God I’m thirty-eight, said Sonia.

  I wouldn’t marry you anyway. I’d never get involved with a Russian woman.

  How about an American?

  I might.

  Sonia laughed.

  When the American family’s immediate neighbours got up and left we asked the waiter whether we could have their table. He cleared and relaid it, and we sat down, smiling at the Americans as we did so. The Americans smiled back. They were a very nice family.

  We enquired what they had been eating. They rhapsodized about their monkfish and the mushroom risotto, so we ordered the monkfish and the mushroom risotto. No, nothing to start with, we weren’t very hungry. They lived in Iowa but hailed from elsewhere: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Austin, Texas. We told them we came from Switzerland. Sonia said she was a tennis coach who had emigrated there from Czechoslovakia, a great explanation for her Russian-sounding English. This was the Americans’ third day in Italy, and they’d just shaken off their jet lag. They were delighted with the favourable rate of exchange. We joined in their delight, and I asked whether they paid mainly with credit cards or in cash. Traveller’s cheques? No traveller’s cheques. They were an ideal couple from our point of view. Bill told us about their farm in Iowa, and Jeannie opened her handbag and showed us some photos of the farm, her and Bill’s “folks”, and the whole family seated beneath the Christmas tree. Jeannie was a high school teacher, and I caught sight of the passport in her handbag. I saw that Sonia had seen it too. The boys asked how big our Christmas trees were, so I stood up, put the younger of the two, Dylan, on my shoulder, looked up at him, and said: This big. Then I looked at his brother, Keith, put Dylan down, swapped them over, and said: No, this big. No, said Sonia, that’s too big, so I put Dylan back on my shoulder. We did this a couple of times in succession and everyone laughed. Jeannie replaced the photos in her handbag with the passport and Bill ordered grappas all round.

  At one point Sonia went to the ladies’ room. Jeannie went with her, taking her handbag. When they returned Sonia lingered in the background for a moment. She gave me a warning look and a slight, almost imperceptible shake of the head. No, it said, these people are far too nice. Bill ordered another round of grappas, after which I ordered a round of espressos and some ices for the boys. Bill asked if we’d like to join him on a tour of the area the next day and do a bit of wine tasting. We could visit three or four vineyards and sample their wines. Jeannie wasn’t keen on wine and the children would find it too boring. We could meet them later at the beach and go out to dinner in the evening.

  I pronounced this an excellent idea, and Sonia smiled enthusiastically. We all had another espresso. Then the four of them returned to their hotel and we drove back to Luigi’s in the Tipo.

  Why did you make a date with them? Sonia asked when we were sitting in the car. We’re not going to touch their passports – they’re far too nice. I could easily have pinched hers in the ladies’ room, but I didn’t have the heart. We can’t do it, Harry, so why bother with them? Why this wine tasting?

  For one thing I’m interested in wine, I said. For another, Bill is very pleasant company, and so are Jeannie and the kids. Also they’re very friendly people. They’ll soon chum up with some other Americans. So will we. Tonight was just a practice run, but in a week or two we’ll have to do it for real. By then, thanks to Bill and Jeannie, we’ll probably have got to know plenty of Americans who’ll be here when we really need those passports. Could take a couple of weeks, could take a month. Some people will go home and others will take their place, but we’ll always be members of a loose-knit group. We’ll be passed from one American hand to another – we’ll belong, so to speak. We won’t have to keep combing the restaurants for people speaking English with an American accent. Who knows, maybe we’ll run into some American couple who are thoroughly unpleasant. Who deserve to have their passports stolen.

  Sonia stared at me in surprise. You really are thinking more and more like a criminal.

  I know, I said. I’m beginning to feel like a con artist.

  You are a con artist, my dear Harry.

  A few minutes later she said: How nice it would be. I mean, if it were all on the level. The wine tasting, the beach, dinner with Bill and Jeannie tomorrow night. I’d enjoy it so much. You made a wonderful Christmas tree back there. I felt like whistling Jingle Bells. Yes, you made a great Christmas tree.

  A bogus Christmas tree.

  Yes, that’s what you are, a bogus Christmas tree.

  * * *

  The next morning I got up early, made breakfast, and took it out on to the veranda. The other two were still asleep. Luigi had bought us a German newspaper. I read it at the breakfast table. President Putin had decreed national mourning for the crew of the Kursk, the nuclear submarine that had sunk some ten days earlier. There was nothing about us. Further on I came to a report about three young ethnic Germans from Russia who had brutally murdered a taxi driver one night on the outskirts of Fürth. They were between eighteen and twenty years old, and had planned the murder carefully. They needed money, but they not only intended to rob the driver, they had planned to murder him from the outset. The youth sitting behind him was to throttle him with the cord from some tracksuit trousers, and he did so with such violence that he partly severed the man’s neck muscles. The second assailant smashed him in the face and the third drove a knife into his lungs and heart. The taxi driver was fifty-two. My age exactly.

  I had a shower after breakfast, and Sonia was sitting at the table when I came out again. The newspaper was lying open beside her. She glared at me.

  Why did you leave this on the breakfast table? she demanded.

  It just happens to be there, I said.

  Typical Russian brutality, eh?

  They were ethnic Germans from Russia, Sonia, and I didn’t leave it there on purpose. Still, it could have been me. A taxi driver my age.

  Don’t hold me responsible for them! she snapped. Just because you want to court popularity, you reunified Germans, you import a bunch of pit bulls and leave them more or less to their own devices – and they turn rabid. Am I responsible for what they get up to?

  Monday

  It was a very enjoyable day even so. Jeannie took the children to the beach at Punta Ala while the rest of us toured three vineyards and sampled their wines. Sonia drove. Bill expressed surprise at our Italian licence plates, so I told him our car had broken down and the Fiat belonged to the Italian friends we were staying with.

  In the afternoon we drove to the beach, where we and the boys played beach tennis
with those hard wooden rackets. Then we had to play Christmas trees again. Bill with Dylan and I with Keith and the other way round, then Jeannie with Keith and Sonia with Dylan and Bill with Jeannie and I with Sonia and Bill with Sonia and I with Jeannie. We were a forest of ever-changing Christmas trees. In the evening we drove to their hotel. They let us shower in their bathroom so we didn’t have to return to Luigi’s before going out to dinner. It would have been all too easy to steal their passports. Bill and Jeannie showered first and waited for us downstairs in the foyer. We could have cleaned out the whole room.

  We had dinner with them again the next night. This time they were accompanied by an American couple from San Diego whom they had met at breakfast in their hotel. Sonia gave me an admiring look. We’re founding an American colony in Italy, she whispered to me when no one was listening. To the Americans we were Martina and Gerd. Jeannie introduced us to the couple from San Diego. All Czech tennis players are called Martina, Sonia told them with a wry smile. Once upon a time you couldn’t leave the country if your name was Martina. Actually, my name is Sonia.

  Russian humour.

  * * *

  I can see how things are shaping, Luigi told us a few days later. You’ll never get those passports if you go on this way. These Americans are just too nice. Some members of the Underground you are! I mean, you need those passports. Your lives are at stake. You’re in really great danger, but you don’t take their passports because you think they’re too nice. You simply aren’t scared enough yet – you think you’re on holiday here. Ellen would thoroughly approve. She’d think it very moral of you not to pinch their passports. I don’t. It’s very moral, sure, but it’s not good.

  Who’s Ellen? Sonia asked.

  Oh, said Luigi. He glanced at me in surprise. Then he looked at Sonia and back at me. Ellen is a friend of ours from the old days, he said offhand. A very good friend.

  You also had a friend called Jessie, didn’t you? said Sonia, looking Luigi casually in the eye. Luigi returned her gaze just as casually. Casually but unwaveringly. Jessie is another friend from way back, he said. We all belonged to the same political group.

  Oh, I see, said Sonia, and Luigi went on: But to revert to you two. He gave us an artful grin. I’ve got a suggestion for you. It could be months or years before two suitable Americans turn up here – Americans you dislike, I mean, and they’ll probably carry their passports around in a bum bag the whole time. They’ll probably sleep on them and take them to the toilet. They may even keep them on while fucking – his passport fucks hers and hers fucks his, and it’s oh, so good! So here’s my suggestion: When the time comes I’ll fly to the States with you. At your expense, of course. Anyway, I haven’t been there for ages.

  We must have looked bewildered, because he grinned even more artfully. This is what we’ll do, he went on. When the time comes, and it could be any day now, you’ll get hold of two American passports. I mean, you’ll rob some terribly nice American couple of their terribly nice, authentic US passports. Then we’ll fly to the States together. A cheap charter flight. It won’t be too expensive – you’re broke, after all. And the next day I’ll fly home and the terribly nice American couple will get their passports back. So you won’t have stolen their passports, only borrowed them.

  Luigi, you’re a genius, said Sonia. She kissed him on the nose.

  Yes, he said, and an experienced member of the Underground. But there’s another point. Two stolen passports fly to America without their legitimate owners. They’ll naturally be registered. If the passports have been stolen it means there are two people in Europe who haven’t used their own passports to return to America. The United States is a big country. It’s not very likely the Mafia will associate you with those particular people, but it’s possible. The way things stand now, it won’t be long before it occurs to them that you may be in America. It’s possible, of course, that the couple will have problems when they really return home, because they’ll appear to have done so already, but the US authorities will attribute that to a mix-up or assume that the first passports were forged and wait for them to turn up somewhere in the States – which they won’t because they don’t exist. So you’ll be pretty safe.

  Know something? said Sonia. I’m inviting you both to dinner. You’re two immensely intelligent men.

  In Harry’s case, said Luigi, I wouldn’t be too sure.

  Wednesday

  We became established members of the American tourist colony, which waxed and waned by turns. Some flew home to the States and others took their places. Only Sonia and I remained there like two fixed stars in an ever-changing firmament.

  One Wednesday afternoon, when we were visiting the monastery of San Antimo with a party of four Americans, Luigi called us on the mobile he’d lent us. Something really stupid has happened, he said. Could you be at the café in La Pesta at five?

  We were in two cars, so we told the Americans that one of our Italian friends had had a minor accident and needed collecting from the hospital.

  * * *

  It’s really stupid. A really dumb business, Luigi said when he’d told us the whole story. We’ll have to be very careful from now on.

  The dumb business was connected with our blue Peugeot. No, said Luigi, the car itself is flat as a pancake – gone. I took care of that personally. They won’t find it until after the next Ice Age. The problem is the licence plates.

  Unknown to Luigi, someone had removed these before the Peugeot went into the crusher. The scrap merchants collected old licence plates simply because they were hoarders, and because people sometimes needed them for illicit purposes. Licence plates were really supposed to be handed in, but some of them ended up elsewhere.

  That wouldn’t have been so bad, said Luigi. It happens several times a month. But the guy that took your Luxembourg plates was involved in an accident, and he told the police where he’d got them from. Anyway, the Carabinieri turned up at the scrapyard today. The people there disclaimed all knowledge of the plates – and, of course, of the car to which they might have belonged.

  Luigi was right, it was a bad business. There now existed a link between the Peugeot and him. And the house in the wood. And us.

  Things are hotting up, he said, but only a little. So far, no one has discovered the connection. We all stick together round here, but we stick together even better if there’s something in it for us. The first thing we have to do is slip the people at the scrapyard some money to make then stick to us even better.

  Would ten thousand dollars do the trick? asked Sonia. Is that enough?

  Far too much, said Luigi. Two thousand would be just right. Offer someone ten thousand dollars for a little silence and it may occur to them that, if ten thousand are so easy to come by, they ought to ask for a bit more. The two thousand must be in lire, of course. Then there’s something else we have to do. The Carabinieri will come back. So far they only know about the plates, but it won’t be long before they know what car they came from and who the registered owner is. And then things will really hot up. It probably won’t be long before someone else appears on the scene.

  Luigi proposed to spend the next few days working at the scrapyard. He wanted to make sure nothing happened. He knew the manager pretty well and had often worked there when he needed to earn a bit extra.

  The Carabinieri turned up the following afternoon. They were looking for a blue Peugeot. They toured the scrapyard and took paint samples from the crushed remains of two blue cars. Then they came to the little office. Luigi was waiting for them with the entry ledger or log book, or whatever it was called. He showed it to the Carabinieri. They found no Peugeot among the entries.

  Luigi stood beside them, looking bored. He told them he remembered a dark-coloured Mercedes with Berlin licence plates turning up some two weeks earlier. The driver had asked how much they charged for scrapping cars. A small blue saloon had followed the Mercedes into the yard, but he hadn’t paid it much attention. He’d chatted with the driver of the
Mercedes for quite a while. Was the blue car a Peugeot? He couldn’t say for sure, but now he came to think about it – yes, it might well have been. He remembered that the people in the blue car had spent some time messing around with their bumpers while he was talking to the Mercedes driver. No, he didn’t know what they were doing, but he remembered that the Mercedes and the small blue saloon had driven off together. So perhaps they’d been changing the plates.

  I said to them, Luigi told us that evening, that it was possible the people in the blue car had helped themselves to some licence plates from our collection and left their own plates behind. Anyway, the yard hadn’t scrapped any blue Peugeot.

  Luigi even slept at the scrapyard. There was a small hut there for the use of staff. Also for moonlighters and illegal immigrants from Africa who wanted to earn some cash on the side.

  Two days later a man turned up at the yard in a dark red Audi with Swiss plates. He got out slowly and stood beside the car, surveying the scene at his leisure. He was wearing a dark suit and a tie. Like someone in a thriller, said Luigi. I always thought mafiosi were better trained. I strolled over to him and said hello. He spoke Italian with a Slav accent but tried to give it a Swiss intonation. He held his ID under my nose. Interpol, Zurich, car thefts. What crap! The Mafia are getting worse and worse. There isn’t any Interpol – I mean, no policeman would ever say he came “from Interpol”. Interpol is just an information network, but they think Italians are dumb, and if we work at a scrapyard they think we’re even dumber.

  The man in the dark suit asked if the Carabinieri had taken any paint samples. Luigi proceeded to tell him the same story he’d told the Carabinieri. He added that the man in the Mercedes had told him scrapping cars was cheaper in Germany. There had been a total of four people in the two cars, and – if he remembered correctly – the small blue saloon that might have been a Peugeot was driven by a woman.

  I then gave him a pretty good description of you, Sonia.