Zara's Game

by Jo Black

  That was how they got you, and they always got you.

  They exploited that weakness, the selfish desires, the emotions. They knew unlike The Party loyalists, the zealots who believed the system was absolute and incorruptible, who accepted every decision, even if it led to the death of their loved ones at their comrades hands, the weak and those that didn’t believe could not bear the loss by being comforted in the idea that the greater good benefited. Mikhail cared nothing of Russia’s past, present, or future — only of the life around him. He wasn’t a patriot, and would be persecuted as such using the things he feared to lose the most to betray the very loose allegiances that bound those that joined such plots by self-interest, not ideology and idealism. His stall was merely to solicit a better bargain, not out of any sense of care or loyalty to those whose names he would denounce. He removed the tip from the pen and wrote slowly the names onto the list, replaced the lid then placed the pen down neatly next to the pad and sank back into his chair before savouring his cognac sip by sip as Alex filled the room with music.

  When Alex finished playing, he simply placed his leather gloves back on and lowered the cover over the keys, knowing the piano would never be played again by anyone in the house for the memories it would evoke of this day.

  Alex walked over and picked up the notepad and pen and placed it back in his pocket. ‘Let’s take a walk,’ Alex said as he walked over to the ornate french doors leading onto the rear garden terrace. He stopped briefly at them as he stared out. ‘Maybe you can show me the roses.’ Alex pushed open the door letting a chill blast of winter air in, the flames flickered in the fire and pushed back as a flurry of snow blew through the room and was sucked by the chimney’s vacuum towards it. Mikhail felt the first cold blast on his cheek. He finished his cognac, placed the empty glass down on the table and got up slowly then walked towards the door and exited. He squinted briefly as his eyes adjusted from the subdued softer warmer lights of the living room’s table lamps to the harsh white glare cast from the snow. His face suddenly chapped by the sub-zero temperature and even colder wind chill. Alex stood waiting for him on the terrace. He walked Mikhail over to the steps leading to the rear lawn. At the bottom, either side, a line of soldiers with rifles waited at attention. Alex reached the top of the steps and stopped. In a last demonstration of his power over him, Alex put his cane out across Mikhail’s path in front of his chest to stop him. Forcing him to linger in the freezing cold until his stoic determination to remain dignified was reduced to a shivering, teeth-chattering, quiver.

  Satisfied Mikhail had reached a sufficient level of humiliation, Alex released the cane from his path and returned it to his side. ‘Now you can go.’

  Mikhail didn’t even have the ability to utter words in response as the hypothermia quickly set in; it was all he could do to make his way down the steps. As he reached the bottom he stumbled and fell in the snow before crawling back up from his knees to walk forwards. As he passed them, the waiting soldiers folded into line neatly behind him. Mikhail continued forwards, stumbling blindly through the snow until he reached thirty yards. He stared out at the garden, thankful at least his whole body was now so numb it would be incapable of feeling the impact of pain it was about to be subjected to. He drew a deep breath. Praying seemed pointless to a committed atheist, he knew his life was spent and an eternity of nothingness was all that lay beyond. He turned round on his heels to confront his executioners. Without orders the men raised their rifles in a neat line.

  The sharp crack of the rifles pierced the chill morning air, flushing a coterie of starlings and crows from their nesting places in the trees in a cacophony of cautionary bird calls.

  In the window on the first floor, Ludmila shut her eyes tight closed as the shots echoed out, singular tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Mikhail slumped in an undignified heap onto his back in the snow, the pristine white gently flooding out into a pinkish then deeper crimson red as he continued to gasp his last breaths, eyes fluttering slightly to focus on the trees as final memories recorded the moments frame by frame. The cold having slowed his heart rate sufficiently to reduce his blood pressure, kept him alive far longer than it should have.

  Alex walked softly down the steps, removing a Makarov automatic pistol from his side holster; he walked through the existing footsteps in the snow to ease the passage until he reached Mikhail’s position. Mikhail, paralysed, lain down sideways prone, couldn’t lift his head; he merely used what little control he had to roll his eyes to the side to see the blurred black outline silhouetted on the sky above him. Alex raised his pistol to aim at Mikhail’s head.

  ‘Goodbye Mikhail.’ Alex fired two shots into the side of Mikhail’s temple. Alex lowered the pistol and stared briefly at the lifeless corpse, eyes pinned wide open. He understood the vacant and meaningless stare into the abyss. The final captured image of a man who believed in nothing of value, and expected nothing of his end. No fear frozen on his face of the coming hell, or quiet resolution and peace to finally be on a journey to paradise. Nothingness – just an empty portrait of a faceless man.

  Alex turned around and traced his steps back towards the house, as he holstered his pistol he became self-aware of eyes watching him. He glanced up from under the peak of his hat without lifting his head to present his face to be snowed upon, and saw Ludmila stood staring back. Emotionless, empty and as devoid of any response as her father. Alex stared briefly at her as she stared back. Whatever she expected to get in response from Alex was not forthcoming. He returned his attention to the steps as he concentrated on making dignified progress up the ice-covered marble before entering the rear of the house through the back hall. He made his way down the hallway and stopped as he reached the large swept stairs wrapping around beneath the cupola glass dome at the mid-point of the house. Alex looked to his side and up to see Oksana, Mikhail’s wife, stood on the stairs. She stared at Alex, the same cold empty emotionless stare as her daughter, and her husband. Alex stared back. He imagined what Zara would do in such a position, no doubt a screaming hellish vision of a thing fuming to exact her retribution. But no, nothing.

  Alex wondered if such people loved anything beyond their own needs. Merely co-existed out of benefit, he didn’t imagine they understood love, so didn’t imagine they could even care enough to feel the unrelenting pain from loss of a beloved person. Their grief was entirely self-motivated by what they would lose — status, power, money. They were, somewhat ironically, the very product of the system Mikhail had sought to champion, and the very opposite of the one Alex wished to achieve where everything was stripped bare of material things and comfort was brought about by friendship and love. For all the hate and resentment burning in their eyes, and their belief that Alex represented a monstrous uncaring authoritarian regime, it seemed to Alex that such people were the very thing they imagined him to be.

  Alex turned away, continued his walk out of the house and made his way down the steps. His adjutant opened the rear door to Alex’s Audi S8 and Alex slid into the back. The car drove away escorted by its guards as the F.S.B completed the packaging and removal of the products of Mikhail’s labour. Assimilated back into the state’s possession, he would soon be merely another forgotten businessman who imagined his material wealth was symbolic of some power, and was reminded how powerless he truly had been.

  82

  As Zara made her way along the courtyard garden path behind the Kremlin Palace, she approached an old man sat on a bench, feeding the birds from a bag of breadcrumbs. He looked up at her and flashed a brief, but warm, smile. ‘Hello Zara.’

  Zara frowned then smiled back politely, but with curiosity. ‘Hello. Do I know you?’

  ‘No.’ The old man sighed. ‘You should. But you don’t. That is how things are here.’ He shrugged with a dismissive smile. ‘I’m glad you finally came. I often wondered if you would. It seems history is repeating itself. You are as torn between two worlds as his father once was. I wonder how this time things will end?�
�� He looked at her with a saddened face. ‘Without tragedy. I hope.’

  Zara’s curiosity was now fully piqued. She walked over and gestured at the bench next to the old man. ‘May I?’

  ‘Yes, please sit. But I don’t advise to sit for long, the cold catches you unawares then you find you can never stand again. More than one person has frozen to death because they stayed in one place too long. Maybe that has some meaning, for you.’ He flashed a smile and returned his attention to the birds. ‘He used to like to feed the birds, the ducks mainly. I have often wondered at the English love of feeding ducks, yet ignoring other birds. I like to feed all the birds. I don’t discriminate in favour of a specific breed.’

  ‘I suppose they look cute. The way they waddle along and quack.’

  ‘Yes. The superficial love of cuteness. It is a western trait to love only that which is beautiful, like the swan. People have no time for these nondescript masses of little birds. They are unremarkable in so many ways, yet when you watch them fly in unison they are a magnificent display of the wonders of nature. Instead you say, pity the ugly duckling until it turns into a beautiful swan.’ He shrugged. ‘Swans can be beautiful, but dangerous. These little fellows, they threaten nobody. They merely want to exist.’

  ‘Is that symbolic of the plight of the Russian people?’

  ‘It is symbolic of the plight of all the peoples. I don’t know why people assume peasantry is the exclusive preserve of the Slavs. America has her poor, as does England. They are made to feel superficially rich because they have a slate roof and not tin, brick walls and not wood, perhaps their dinner comes wrapped in plastic and doesn’t run around a mud yard. But they are peasants none the less, they just don’t realise it because they have a flushing toilet, colour T.V, and feel wealthy from it. Material things are not wealth. They are impoverished in other ways. So where is Aleksandr? Busy with The New Boss I imagine. I know this role too well. I was a loyal servant of Stalin, and I survived beyond everyone else, but now, here I am. Loyal comrade only to the birds.’

  ‘I’m sure they appreciate it.’

  ‘Food is hard to find in the winter. I help them survive until spring. This reminds us of the past, when our people’s only hope was to survive to the spring. Now we have burgers, and pizzas, and German cars.’

  ‘The world changes.’

  ‘They say for the better. But what is better? Who is to say what is better for me, or for you? It is not better, just different.’ He finished feeding the birds. ‘So, tell me Zara, why did you really come here?’

  Zara shrugged. ‘Curiosity. I wanted to understand the place that made my husband who he is.’

  ‘This place did not make Aleksandr who he is. The boy The Kremlin sired is long gone, I think he is more a product of your country’s brutality than ours.’

  ‘Brutality?’

  ‘He ran away from here because he felt we were too strict, but he didn’t understand our discipline, the walls he considered imprisoned him were all to protect him. He sought sanctuary in the place that meant to do him the most harm. I could not stop him.’ Zara frowned. ‘I’m Alex’s grandfather Zara. I raised him. If you have come looking for answers about him, I can answer what I know, but I fear he is as much a stranger to me now as you are, so whatever I can tell you is simply from the past. But to understand the present we should know where everything begins. Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Alex’s grandfather smiled. ‘I have photos of Alex, as a boy. At our dacha. You would like to see them, if you have time?’

  ‘Of course, but leaving...’

  ‘Don’t worry. They don’t care that much any more. They are more worried you are here to smuggle sex tapes of them with their mistresses to their wives than state secrets to your friends in The River House.’

  ‘Seems we’re not so different these days after all.’

  ‘Globalisation. Men are now the same everywhere. Help an old man up. I’m sure someone will drive us. It is not far.’

  83

  The dacha was as original as when it had been built. A simple wooden construction under a corrugated steel roof, patched up over the years. The garden was mostly laid with vegetable patches and greenhouses. An old wood-burning stove provided the heat. Zara sat at the table as Alex’s grandfather made tea before serving it with black bread and a variety of other sweet and savoury snacks, the obligatory vodka on standby. Zara flicked through the old album of family photos from the past. As a boy dressed in a junior sailor’s outfit at the beach in Crimea, or in a cadet uniform standing smartly to attention. The photos were more formal than a typical English family scrapbook, as with most Russians nobody ever seemed to smile in photos, lending them a Victorian formality. The photos also provided a glimpse behind the iron curtain. The old man poured tea into ornate glasses and brought a plate of sliced lemon with them. Zara sipped her tea gently to provide warmth from the chill outside. He sat down at the table.

  ‘You can call me Grandpa, or Nikita, or Niki. As you wish. So, you want to know who your husband is?’ Zara nodded. Nikita poured two glasses of vodka. ‘You might need this when we’re done.’ He downed the shot then refilled the glass. ‘Alex’s parents, it is a good place to start. My daughter, Alex’s mother. Izolda. She was the lead dancer for the Bolshoi ballet. She had grace, elegance, and poise the likes of which you have never seen. I don’t know where she got it from, my wife was quite fat. If she dance it is like elephant in bath not swan in lake. She was a gift. She was also a K.G.B agent. A very good one. It should not surprise you; they were a touring company and could go to places that were very difficult at the time. This is where she met Alex’s father. He was a M.I.6 officer. Handsome, in that British public schoolboy kind of way. Wealthy, of good family, an aristocrat compared to the proletariat Slav’s left after Stalin’s purge. I didn’t take to him, but Izolda loved him.’

  ‘Did he know she was a spy?’

  ‘I imagine so. Because of my disapproval she rarely spoke of him or their relationship. I can only account for the happening not the reasoning. Those I believe she took to her grave. She was in London, they were due to have dinner but she had left something in their house in Belgravia. It is a Russian superstition to never go home for things you forgot; I guess she had become too English to remember the reason why. She returned home while Alex’s father took the boy on to their dinner. The police account was that she surprised a burglar who struck her during the escape. The K.G.B account was that an ambitious young M.I.5 agent had made a bungled attempt to plant evidence that Alex’s father was a double agent, and murdered Izolda to cover his tracks.’

  ‘What happened?’ Zara asked slightly shocked by the revelation.

  ‘When she didn’t arrive, Alex’s father returned home. It was Alex who discovered his mother. I’m sure his father knew what happened, but never spoke of it. He took them straight to the Russian Embassy. Of course the station chief knew what it meant, they put them on a diplomatic flight to Moscow. His father was devastated. He drank and became depressed. He took his own life by hanging in a hotel room some months later. It was suspicious.’

  ‘That’s awful. Alex has never mentioned it.’

  ‘I brought him up in the Kremlin. It was difficult. Alex adored his mother the way boys do, but there was more than that. To Alex she was like an angel or princess. Not a surprise to a young boy who watched his mother dance as if on air, impossibly beautiful and glamorous. With her death it was as if all the light and wonder of the world was extinguished, and only darkness remained. He was forever changed after that.’

  ‘With good reason. Do you know who did it?’

  ‘No. They wouldn’t tell me. I’m certain they would never tell Alex, if his capabilities are as the rumours I hear say they are, then they would be wise not to. I’m sure the K.G.B knew.’ Zara downed her vodka. Nikita refilled it. ‘There is one more thing you should know.’ Nikita’s voice dropped to a hushed tone. ‘I didn’t see much of my daughter; with her touring commitments she was
rarely in Moscow. But on the early morning of January the Seventh, Orthodox Christmas Day, she came to my house in a panic. She had returned home from the party after the Christmas performance of Swan Lake, she was The Black Swan. Always the Black Swan. Two baby boys had been left wrapped in blankets inside baskets on her doorstep. It should not be a surprise; she was a very high profile star. There were a lot of problems in Russia, many orphans. Someone maybe thought they would have a better life with her or someone within the privileged circle she knew who could not have children.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘Alex was one of those babies.’ It took a moment for the revelation to sink in for Zara. ‘I advised her to turn them over to the family department, but she wouldn’t hear of it. There were plenty of orphanages at the time full of children lost to the world, she had seen such places and knew the fate of children who were sent there so she took them in. She had Alex’s father register the births in England as to not arouse any questions within The Party that she had not given birth, covering it up that it happened while on tour.’

  ‘Does he know?’

  ‘No. I didn’t have the heart to tell him. While they were alive, there was no point. After her death to see his heart break so much...a heartbreak I felt as deeply, I could not tell this helpless young boy he was nothing to me. Just a street urchin abandoned by someone on my daughter’s doorstep. But he was not of my family.’ Nikita shrugged. ‘Perhaps that is why I never felt any affection for him, nor he me.’

  ‘I had no idea...’

  ‘I find Alex to be incapable of loving any living thing. They say he is the Angel of Death. It is something I can well believe. This child that comes from no parents. The only person who ever loved him: his mother — taken from him. His father, who felt nothing for the boy but jealousy for the attention and dotage his wife gave to him, at the expense of his own needs, and a grandfather who sees him for what he is.’