Amber

by Stephan Collishaw

  I came to her and she did not move away. Her breath was warm against my skin. Her eyes closed as she sank against me. Her lips and tongue tasted of the spices of the chanahi. Sharp. Rich.

  We hurried through the snow, slipping down a steep bank on to the street, tumbling and falling in the thick snow, not letting go of each other. My icy fingers fumbled with the lock on the back door of the workshop. Inside, I pulled a rolled-up mattress from the cupboard and took a couple of blankets and laid them on top of the large tiled stove. Daiva laughed, opening the door of the stove to check it was not burning too high.

  She gasped when my fingers worked through her clothes to find her skin, rough with goose bumps.

  ‘You’re freezing!’

  She slipped her hand beneath my jumper, her icy fingers dancing across my stomach, making me shiver, so that I shouted too, bellowed into the air, shaking the dust-laden cobwebs on the ceiling above us. She looked fragile in the wan light reflected off the snow outside the window, inverting the shadows on her body.

  The heat rose from the stove beneath us, warming us, relaxing muscles tautened by the cold. I felt her hands, the tickle of her lips gliding across my chest, the soft brush of her hair against my throat.

  ‘At first – when you came to Vilnius – you didn’t like me,’ she said later.

  She hitched herself up, cradling her chin in the palm of her hand, and traced lines across my face with the tip of a finger. I closed my eyes and pictured her as I had first seen her, in Tanya’s apartment, the evening Vassily and I had arrived in the city.

  ‘You were pretty sharp with me,’ I said. ‘I think I was scared of you.’

  ‘Was I sharp with you?’

  She leant down and brushed my skin with her lips. I pulled her close, letting her weight press me down into the thin, warm mattress.

  ‘I was nervous,’ she said. ‘I thought you would laugh at me. I felt like a young girl with you, as if I knew nothing.’

  ‘I like that,’ I told her, ‘that you ask nothing. I feel I can forget with you.’

  The draught from beneath the door began to chill me and I got up from beside the telephone.

  Once I had dressed, I searched through the cupboards to find some breakfast. Daiva had bought food, presumably for me to survive on, as her departure seemed to have been planned further ahead than I realised. Opening the wardrobe in the bedroom, earlier I had found that she had taken a suitcase and many of her clothes. I sliced some smoked sausage and cut a thick slice of bread, boiled the kettle and made a strong coffee. On the window sill was an old radio and I turned it on, tuning it to the Polish station.

  Before leaving the apartment, I stopped by the telephone. I picked up the receiver, and was about to dial Daiva’s mother’s number, but hesitated. Though it seemed the most likely place for Daiva to have gone, there was still a possibility she hadn’t, and then I would be forced to explain myself to her mother. And anyway, I thought, what was I going to say? What was there left to say that had not already been said? I replaced the receiver, pulled on my jacket and left the apartment.

  The workshop was on the edge of the Old Town. Mainly we sold the jewellery we produced in the cramped room behind the shopfront. Several other craftsmen sold their goods through us too. The door was locked when I got there and already, after an absence of only a few days, the place looked dusty and neglected. I shut the door behind me, keeping the ‘closed’ sign in place in the window. The shop felt cold and damp. I switched on the light and lit a small paraffin heater in the back to take the chill from the air.

  The workshop was strewn with work. Pulling my chair close to the heater, holding out my hands to the blue flames to warm them, I recalled the promise Vassily had made, soon after he had taken me from the hospital to Tanya’s village.

  ‘I will teach you how to work amber,’ he said. ‘We will be jewellers, the two of us, craftsmen of the highest order, the best on the Baltic coast. I will teach you all you need to know. We will make jewels and forget about the past.’

  A neighbour in the village, a stooped elderly man with wild silver hair, had machinery for working amber. The workshop was in the basement of his house. Its tiled floor and cabinets were white with dust from the worked amber. Even the cobwebs were heavily sugared with it. The walls were lined with templates and everywhere there were tubs full of amber chips, some buttery yellow, others chalk white, whilst others were rich shades of orange or red. A pot of small black amber beads was like a tub of caviar. Held up to the sun, they were blood red. Heated, the small oxygen bubbles at their heart exploded, giving the pieces a crazed look.

  In a crudely built outhouse were the machines for polishing and firing the amber. A barrel filled with cubes of oak turned for two days, smoothing and polishing the surface of the ancient resin.

  As I was remembering, the telephone on the shelf above the heater sprang abruptly into life, rattling harshly, causing my heart to flutter in panic. For a couple of seconds I sat and watched as it rang on the shelf, then I snatched it up and held the receiver to my ear. My heart was beating rapidly, and crazily, for a moment, it was Vassily’s voice I was expecting to hear, longing to hear.

  ‘Da?’ I said into the echoing silence. ‘Who is there?’

  The telephone hissed and crackled but nobody answered.

  ‘Who is it?’ I called.

  Faintly, I thought, I could hear the sound of breathing, but it might have been only the wind, or the sound of cavernous space that occasionally opens up between one telephone and another.

  I waited a moment longer then replaced the receiver. Sitting down again, I lit a cigarette. When I had stubbed it out in the overflowing saucer, I got up and went back over to the telephone. I dialled the number for Vassily’s apartment and listened as it rang and rang.

  When it became clear than Tanya was not home, I turned on my desk lamp and pushed aside the piles of invoices and orders strewn across it. Beneath the sheets were some pieces of amber I had been working a few days before. I picked up one of the small tear-shaped pieces and held it up to the lamp, examining the way the light entered it and hung suspended in its heart.

  ‘You know where amber comes from?’ Vassily said, one evening, in the village. We were beside the pond, close to Tanya’s grandparents’ cottage. Vassily had given Tanya a necklace he had fashioned. Each piece of amber had been shaped and smoothly polished and strung on to a silk thread. In the centre of the string of beads was a larger piece, a translucent, golden tear.

  ‘Many years ago, when the forest grew thick here, when this land was under the care of other gods, when the spirits lived in the trees and Perkunas, the God of Thunder, ruled in heaven, the most beautiful of the goddesses was a young mermaid called Jurate.’

  Vassily’s face reflected the glow of the sun, which was setting across the village. On the opposite side of the pond a heron rooted among the reeds.

  ‘Jurate was the most beautiful mermaid,’ he continued. ‘Her hair was golden and her eyes blue, bluer than the sky on midsummer’s morning. She lived not far from here, just off the coast, beneath the waves in a palace built of amber.

  ‘In a small village like this one, there lived a young fisherman called Kastytis. Kastytis would take his boat and fish in the waters of the beautiful Jurate’s kingdom. Jurate sent her mermaids to warn him away, but Kastytis paid no attention to the messengers of the goddess beneath the waves. He continued to sail out and cast his nets on the water above her palace.

  ‘One morning Jurate herself rose to the surface to confront the fisherman. But when she approached him in his boat, she instantly fell in love. She took the young fisherman with her, beneath the waves, to her amber palace, and there they lived.’

  Vassily stubbed out his cigarette in the dirt. Clumsily the heron took to the air, its wings beating over our heads, up across the trees towards the seashore.

  ‘And they lived happily ever after?’ Tanya asked.

  She was sitting by him and with a small pang of jealousy I
noticed their closeness. Vassily shook his head. He took another cigarette and Tanya lit it for him. The flare of the match illuminated their faces in a warm, bright glow. The sun had settled behind the trees and the air was pink and blue and cool.

  ‘Jurate, you see, was already promised to another,’ Vassily continued. ‘Long before, Perkunas had promised the young goddess to the god of the waters. Perkunas was furious when he discovered that Jurate was in love with a mortal. He cast a bolt of lightning down from his heavenly throne, shattering the goddess’s palace of amber. Jurate was imprisoned within the rubble of her ruined palace for all eternity.

  ‘When the winds are high and the waves break heavily upon the shore, the sea throws up fragments of her palace. And sometimes, too, it throws up these.’ He touched the tear-shaped amber drop on the necklace that lay at Tanya’s throat. ‘The tears of Jurate, a prisoner still, crying beneath the waves for her lost love, Kastytis.’

  Before I turned off the desk lamp, I glanced around to see whether there was anything needing my urgent attention. There were bills that needed settling, but I was in no mood to deal with them. I gathered them together and pushed them into a leather briefcase to take with me. Switching off the lamp, I turned to the heater. As I extinguished the flame and bent to check it, I noticed a shadow flit across the door. Straightening up, I turned to call that the shop was closed. A dark shape stood outside, face pressed to the dirty glass, peering through.

  ‘We’re closed,’ I shouted.

  The figure did not move. Irritated, I took the key from the desk and shuffled over. As I approached, the figure stepped back, away from the glass. It was an old lock, and the key fitted awkwardly, so that I had to jiggle it to get it to turn. It undid with a solid clunk. The door flew open, catching my wrist, twisting it painfully. Astonished, I stepped back as the figure moved forward rapidly, entering the shop, pushing the door closed.

  ‘Zdrastvuy, Antoshka,’ the man said. ‘It has been a long time.’

  ‘Kirov.’

  The lean figure nodded and grinned humourlessly, turning the key in the lock.

  ‘Don’t want any of your customers disturbing us, now, do we?’ he said.

  ‘I thought you were in prison…’ I stammered.

  Kirov laughed. He threw back his closely shaved head, his mouth opening to reveal gold teeth that glinted dully.

  ‘I would have come to see you at home,’ he said, ‘but when I telephoned this morning you were not in.’ I was about to explain I had been in the shower, but stopped myself. In his presence the familiar feelings flooded back; feelings I thought I had left behind, that the years and the haloperidol and vodka had scratched from the surface of my memory. The stink of thornbush. The scent of wood smoke. Oil. Sweat. Fear. Dust billowing up from the wheels of the APC. For a moment I was back there, in Afghanistan. I stood rooted to the spot, unable to speak, unable to move. It was as if he had leapt from my dreams; my nightmares.

  ‘What do you want, Kirov?’ I asked, finally.

  ‘To renew old acquaintance.’ He chuckled, wandering over to my desk. He placed the door key on the table and picked up one of the tear-shaped amber beads, examining it closely. ‘In these times of mourning it is important we all pull together, no?’ He grinned again, dropping the amber on to the table.

  ‘He always was fascinated by amber,’ Kirov continued, settling himself in Vassily’s chair. He waved his hand, indicating I should sit. Reluctantly I did so, opposite him. ‘Never understood it myself,’ he said, ‘not unless it was worth something. Very few of the stones and jewellery we smuggled out of Afghanistan were worth much. There was just the one, really. Just the one.’

  His fingers formed a tight steeple, the tips resting against his lips. He gazed over them, his piercing grey eyes settling on me, examining me.

  ‘You would know all about that one, wouldn’t you,’ he said.

  I shook my head. ‘No, Kirov, I know nothing.’

  ‘Oh, come now, Antoshka, he told you nothing? You know nothing of the bracelet?’

  Again I shook my head.

  ‘We got it in Ghazis,’ he said, gazing at me, openly examining the effect of his words. He laughed as if this were funny, but as he chuckled his eyes continued to stare at me stonily.

  ‘Vassily told me nothing,’ I said. ‘You really are talking to the wrong person.’

  ‘You think you owe him something? I know, you’re an honourable man, Antanas. The question is, was he?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  Kirov eased himself forward in Vassily’s chair. A sly grin crept across his face.

  ‘Vassily. Was he an honourable man? Was he worthy of your gratitude, your respect?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said.

  I got up and took the key from my desk, indicating to Kirov I considered our conversation ended. Kirov, however, did not move. He watched me closely. With deliberate care he slid a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and extracted one. Slouching back into the chair, raising his feet and resting them on the edge of the desk, he lit the cigarette and blew a cloud of thin blue smoke into the air above his head.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ he said at last. ‘You have no idea what I am talking about, do you? How much did our friend Vassily…’ He paused mid-sentence, took another drag on his cigarette and tapped the ash from it on to the floor. ‘How much did he tell you? About what happened there, in Afghanistan?’

  ‘We didn’t talk about it.’

  Kirov laughed. ‘I’ll bet he didn’t.’

  ‘I said “we” didn’t talk about it,’ I corrected him pointedly.

  Kirov rose from his seat suddenly. He stepped over to me, raised a finger and prodded my chest.

  ‘There are things you should know,’ he whispered. ‘There are things he should have told you. The kind of things a friend would have told you. You think he was being considerate of your feelings, stepping around the past, keeping it from you? You think it was for your sake he did not say anything? You’re mistaken, Antanas. You’re very mistaken. There are some stories Vassily should have told you. There are some confessions he should have made.’

  He drew steadily closer, until I could feel his hot breath against my face. His eyes had narrowed and his lips were trembling. With a shudder I recalled the almost sexual thrill he had taken from killing in Afghanistan. Recalled the way he would lick his lips before we went on a raid, the way they would tremble like this as he tested the blade of his knife against the soft pad of his thumb, drawing a little blood, sucking it up, savouring it on his tongue.

  I recalled the evening when, drunk, he had grabbed me in the heavy darkness by the latrines, the blade of his knife cold and sharp against my throat.

  ‘I’ve seen you watching me,’ he whispered, his breath hot in my ear. ‘In the showers.’

  I had heard of his reputation. I tried to pull away, but he pressed the blade deeper so that it bit into the soft flesh of my throat. I felt his hand reaching, searching. A torch beam startled him and I was able to slip out of his grip.

  ‘I’ll get you,’ he whispered.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know what Vassily did?’ Kirov taunted me. ‘Wouldn’t you like me to tell you?’

  I stepped away from him and stumbled against a worktop. As I steadied myself, my hand came down on a pair of shears we used for cutting metal. My fingers curled around them, behind my back, opening the blades. Kirov advanced on me. His eyes glittered maliciously. A sudden image of him bent over a body flashed through my mind, the knife bloodied in his hands as he slit around the ear of the dead Afghani. Taking the lobe, he lifted it with the care of a chef and eased it away from the side of the skull as his knife sawed at the gristle.

  ‘It’s not a pretty story.’ Kirov grinned. ‘But then that’s why I like it so much.’

  I whipped the shears from behind me and flicked the blades threateningly in his face. He stepped back, startled. Not giving him a chance to recover, I thrust them at him again, f
orcing him to take several paces backwards and stumble on the bags of unworked amber.

  ‘I want you out of here,’ I said, my voice trembling. ‘I want you out and I don’t want to see you back.’

  ‘Now, Antanas…’

  ‘Get the fuck out of my shop.’

  I stabbed the shears forcefully towards him, and he had to step back again. This time he tripped and sprawled on the floor, in the soft pale dust of the amber.

  ‘I want you out, Kirov,’ I breathed, standing above him, ready with the shears to slash him if necessary.

  He got to his feet, dusting himself off as he rose. For a moment I thought he was going to lunge forward and fight, but he grinned and backed away. When I unlocked the door and opened it, he lingered a moment longer.

  ‘That bracelet, Antanas, it belongs to me,’ Kirov said. ‘I paid for it with all those years rotting in a cell. Kolya has it, da? You know where he is? Is he here in Vilnius? I will get it – and him for what he did to me. While I was in prison, he thought he was safe, but now…’

  ‘I’ve not seen him, Kirov.’

  Kirov nodded and grinned, as if he did not care whether or not this was the truth.

  ‘I’ll find him,’ he muttered. ‘You just stay out of it. If you don’t…’ He smiled. ‘I know where Tanya lives. She’s all on her own now…’

  When he left I locked the door immediately. Taking the key from the lock, I drew the blinds down over the windows. Without turning on the lamp, I slumped into my chair by the desk and waited until I had stopped shaking.

  Chapter 9

  Kabul. February. The sky had cleared and the temperature had risen a few degrees. The mountains that ringed the city were thick with snow. Kabul was fragrant with the scent of wood fires, the air blue with smoke and sharp, bitter cold. The plane left Tashkent on the first. Our last days in Uzbekistan were an unbearable strain and Andrei Konstantinovich, a plump, red-faced conscript from Estonia, blew a hole in his hand while on sentry duty.