by Asa Avdic
I read through what I had written about each of them several times before burning the papers in the fireplace. When only ashes remained, I swept them up and flushed them down the toilet. Then I wiped the hearth clean. The secretary had been very clear about this: there must be no traces that could put the classified nature of the operation at risk.
HENRY
WHEN I CAUGHT sight of Anna on the frozen brown lawn in front of the house, it gave me a shock. She appeared to have aged ten years since we last saw each other. From thin to emaciated, from pale to transparent. Her skin seemed to strain across her skull, and what used to be sharp features were now more like gouges. It was clear that the project in Kyzyl Kum had been no vacation. On the contrary, it seemed to have cost her a great deal. And it wasn’t just that she looked exhausted, it was that she looked destroyed, in a way that was rather ghastly.
To judge by the expression on her face, she clearly was not prepared for me to show up, but somehow I got her to understand that we should not reveal our acquaintance, because in a split second she arranged her features and greeted me formally. I squeezed her thin, cold hand, hardly more than a bundle of dry twigs, and exchanged a few polite phrases. I noticed the secretary registering this little scene out of the corner of his eye. Anna somehow managed to linger in a perfectly natural way, so that she was the last one up to the house, and it was hard to keep myself from turning my head and looking at her as I dragged my suitcase behind me. The house looked as unwelcoming and imposing as always, and as I approached its great bulk a shiver ran down my spine. I pretended to have trouble with my suitcase on the stairs, and I was able to turn around and throw a glance backward as I wrestled with it. The sky and the sea blurred together in varied, heavy shades of gray, full of ripples, wisps, and haze. Down by the pier, the boat was bobbing on the surf with uneven little jumps. Whoever had docked the boat had done so in an idiotic location that caused it to scrape at the pier, and the thuds as the hull struck it could be heard all the way up at the front steps. Anna was trudging along in her black leather jacket, up the gravel path on the slope, past the low bushes that had been planted unmercifully on the lawn. I don’t know if they were meant to look like some sort of bower, but if they were, it was an unsuccessful one. This was not a place to thrive in. A cold gust of wind tore at me up on the stairs, and I watched as Anna tottered on the hillside below. I had been studying the weather forecasts for several weeks, trying to determine which days would be optimal, but in the end I had to give up. It was impossible, in these circumstances, to say whether the weather would be on our side or not, as fast as it changed out here.
Once inside the hall, I received the key to my room from the secretary, walked up the stairs, unlocked the door, closed it behind me, and quickly began to unpack. Just as I finished, the secretary yanked the door open without knocking.
“Assembly in ten minutes. Come on down; be your most pleasant self. Don’t act suspicious. Don’t miss anything.”
I wanted to ask him about the true state of Anna’s health and tell him that what I had seen so far was worrying, but I didn’t have time before he closed the door again.
The round of introductions on the ground floor was really rather dull. I noticed that the secretary didn’t mention my military rank when he introduced me, but I also understood that it was better if the others didn’t know. Don’t attract unnecessary attention; don’t appear to be a threat or a competitor. The only thing of note, aside from the fact that Lotte Colliander became upset when they forgot to introduce her, was how uncomfortable Anna seemed when it was time for her introduction. The secretary was precisely the type of authority Anna usually had issues with, so I assumed she thought he was an imbecile, and I had expected that she would start to challenge him on some detail or another, the way she always used to do when we were colleagues (“Well, technically, we weren’t actually in Kyzyl Kum, but just outside it, or at least on the border . . .”), but instead she remained silent and seemed to be studying some detail of the carpet pattern, her jaw set, as the secretary went on about her merits. When the meeting was over and the room emptied of people, she stayed behind, standing near the window. Her shoulders looked more angular and narrow than ever, and I felt the urge to wrap her in a blanket. But instead I went over and tried to initiate a conversation as naturally as possible, both to guarantee that she wouldn’t give either me or herself away to the others, and also to try to figure out how much she had guessed. It went well at first, but suddenly, as we were talking, she smiled that smile again. She excused herself rather suddenly, and I ended up standing there watching her thin figure vanish up the stairs. When she was out of sight, I went the same way, only to my own room, and stretched out on the bed. I knew why I had accepted the assignment. It was the right decision, perfectly reasonable, and the thought of that made me feel a touch calmer, but I still couldn’t help wishing there was another way out of this.
ANNA
I DIDN’T NOTICE it had gotten dark out until I walked down the grand staircase to join the others. I wondered if Henry was still in his room, and for a brief moment I considered knocking on his door to see if he wanted to come down with me, but then I decided against it, so as not to risk being rebuffed. It was as if anything to do with him was really taxing for me. I went down the grand staircase and stopped on a landing halfway down, where large floor-to-ceiling windows looked out at the sea. The house bore the same touches as all the party’s official buildings. Photographs of great leaders on the walls; pastel-colored, national romantic-style paintings that all party members seemed to love—waterfalls and forests, blond children playing around farm equipment, moose peering out of the woods near hydroelectric plants. All the floors were covered in the obligatory linoleum. But there were also a few details that hinted that this house had once seen a different time, the same time that appeared to rule down on the Strategic Level. An old escritoire, an upholstered velvet chair with brass fittings. Dark wood; heavy, scrolled carvings. Objects that had been made by hand rather than produced in factories. I wondered how old this building really was. It must have been here long before we entered the Union, part of the old world, Nour’s world. The staircase I was standing on looked as if it had been salvaged from the Titanic, and when I ran my hand along the shiny black wood of the banister it made me feel a little more secure, as if Nour were watching over me. This feeling surprised me, since Nour had never been much of a mother hen. More like a mother dinosaur, the type who laid her egg and then walked away. I wondered what she and Siri were doing right then. Maybe they were eating dinner; maybe they were watching TV; maybe Siri was already under the blanket with the blue bubbles, looking up at the ceiling and wondering what I was doing. Maybe she didn’t think about me at all. I found myself gazing out the window into the darkness, as if there were a chance I could see what they were up to, before I realized that the window looked the other direction, away from land, out to sea. I leaned even closer to the window to find out if I could see anything in the darkness. My breath made a frosty circle on the pane; apparently it was cold out, and the chill from the window sent tiny, prickling contractions through my whole body. I could hear the rumbling sound of strong winds causing the windowpanes to sing a dull, cavelike song. Through the great windows I could see the moon suspended above the horizon, huge and yellow like in a drawing, shining a lovely moon-path on the sea. There was nothing out there but sea. Shiny, cold, wet, dark, deep. No other islands, no boats, nothing. Suddenly something came rushing toward the window and struck it right in front of my face. I screeched and jumped backward, tripping over my own feet, feeling my heels roll on the step behind me. I was about to fall down the stairs. My hands snatched at the railing, and I caught it. The adrenaline that had instantly been pumped out into my body began to abate just as rapidly once I realized that it must have been a branch whipping the pane just in front of my face. From a tree, probably; it was too dark to tell. I looked back at the window, but by now I was too far away to
make out any details in the darkness outside. The interior lighting turned the window into a mirror, and all I could see was my own frightened face floating in the uneven, handblown glass panes. I put my hands to my cheeks as if to calm the panicky adrenaline that was still washing through my body, and when it felt like I had everything back under control I continued downstairs.
DINNER PREPARATIONS WERE in full swing when I stepped into the spacious kitchen. I looked around and almost wanted to rub my eyes. I had never seen such overabundance. The counters were heaped with food: meats, pâtés, pierogi, aspics—all sorted by date and labeled with instructions. The evening’s dinner appeared to consist of entrées the others were just putting into the oven on large baking sheets. I noticed the familiar seal of the parliamentary restaurant on the trays. Apparently they’d been the ones in charge of catering. I wondered if this extravagance was meant to maintain some sort of expected standard for the more prominent candidates. Both Jon and Franziska found it perfectly normal to eat lunches and dinners at restaurants that ordinary citizens didn’t even have access to. I had never been there myself, of course, and if I ever had been I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the food because I would have been spending all my energy on feeling out of place: observed and unseen all at once. On the table was a large basket of fresh fruit: bananas, pineapples, papayas, grapes, passion fruit, and coconuts. I realized as I stared at a coconut that I had no idea what it actually tasted like.
The others were already hard at work, moving food in and out of fridges and ovens, chatting all the while. I remained standing in the doorway, and just as it had many times before, it felt like there was a thin film of plastic between me and everyone else. They seemed so comfortable in their bodies, so relaxed, so incredibly natural in their human costumes. I always found it a strain to spend time with other people, and I was deeply envious of them, of this thing they apparently weren’t even aware they were doing: the ease with which they were together. But what do I know? I thought. What do I know about the costs of this? Maybe they were like gymnasts, who always seem to twist effortlessly into somersaults in the air, when in fact they have tens of thousands of hours of pain, practice, tears, and hopelessness behind them. Maybe it was like that. But I was still envious of them.
“Red or white?”
I twisted around to look over my shoulder. Beside me stood the colonel with his arms full of wine bottles that looked like props from a pirate play. Some of them were even dusty.
“What a fantastic wine cellar they have here! Truly well stocked. There’s everything imaginable, even French and Italian wines! I checked with the Chairman and he said that it’s just fine to go browse through it.”
He held up one bottle and looked at it with the sort of loving gaze most men reserve for their wives, or possibly their cars.
“Dear God, Bordeaux wines . . . it’s been ages,” he mumbled, almost to himself. Then he looked at me with those brilliant blue eyes that made him look like a little boy.
“Just between us, no offense to Black Sea wines, but this . . . this is something else, let me tell you. May I tempt you with a dry Sancerre . . . or maybe something stronger?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Red is fine,” I said.
“Aha! Good, good. And do you have any preferences? Light? Fruity? Dry?”
“No, you choose. You seem like the right man for the job.”
The colonel smiled contentedly, turned on his heel, and slipped back into the bustle of the kitchen. I thought he seemed kind. It was an uncomfortable thought, given what I was about to subject him to.
The colonel returned with two ridiculously large wineglasses in hand and held one out to me. Although it looked like there was just a splash of wine in the bottom, I suspected he had poured half a bottle into it.
“See if you like this!”
I accepted the glass and took a sip. The flavors blossomed one after the next: fruits, something woody, something dull, something bright. It was the most fantastic wine I had ever tasted. I stared at him in wonder and he nodded delightedly.
“Thought as much. So. Kyzyl Kum?”
I automatically looked away, as I always did when it came up. The colonel seemed to be an observant person, someone who had spent his entire professional life training himself to read people and evaluate what they said (and didn’t say). I tried to appear as nonchalant as possible.
“Yep.”
The colonel swirled the wine in his glass for a moment, then went on in the same low tone, just loud enough for me to hear what he was saying, just quiet enough so that no one else would overhear any of our conversation.
“I hope you don’t mind my asking. I’m genuinely interested. I was stationed near there myself, before the turn of the century.”
I knew this already, from back when I was working with the personal dossiers, that the colonel and I had this in common, even though I hadn’t been prepared for him to bring it up so directly.
“I understand if it’s not something you want to or even maybe can discuss. That sort of thing can be very difficult to talk about. Very few people understand it.”
His tone conveyed neither judgment nor blame; instead it was quite friendly. The two of us watched the others in the kitchen. I saw Henry slicing vegetables on the other side of the kitchen table, engrossed in what appeared to be a somewhat captivating conversation with Lotte, while Franziska took a baking sheet from the large, shiny convection oven, and I inwardly thanked myself for sparing myself that knock on Henry’s door and the feeling of foolishness when it didn’t open. I probably would have read far too much into it.
“Thanks,” I said simply to the colonel. It felt like I should say something more, but I couldn’t think of what and so just stood there silently beside him, holding my wineglass. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable; instead it felt restful. Under different circumstances, he might have been a person I really could have talked to.
“How did you happen to end up here?” I asked him. Even if I wasn’t as clever at it as Henry was, I still understood his basic principle—start talking about the other person instead of changing the subject. People love talking about themselves, almost everyone does.
The colonel looked at me with one eyebrow raised in amusement.
“Perhaps you think that I look a little too old for this type of assignment? That I should be retired, sitting on Rügen and nursing my arthritis? Well, you might be right. But you know, it’s hard for someone who has spent his whole life giving and obeying orders to refuse when someone tells you to go. And I do still work. Not the way I used to, certainly, but I’m still in the service. Behind a desk. Throughout the years I have discovered that you can accomplish things there as well, isn’t that right?”
“Where are you stationed now?”
“On staff. Unfortunately, that’s all I can tell you.”
“I understand,” I said, mostly to have something to say.
“Do you?” He still looked amused, as if he didn’t quite believe me. “It does seem a little silly these days, all this secrecy. Sure, there are some instances when it’s justified, but for the most part it’s just a way for people to make themselves feel special and interesting. Or maybe you disagree?” the colonel went on. “Maybe you’re the sort who wants to stamp ‘classified’ on everything?”
“Is this one of those instances?” I asked him.
“One of what?”
“One of the instances where secrecy is justified.”
The colonel stood there for a moment without responding, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, this time I think it really is justified.”
BEFORE I COULD formulate my next question, Lotte Colliander approached us and held out a stack of plates. I handed my wineglass to the colonel so I could take them.
“Would you mind setting the table?”
Without waiting for a response, she piled a bunch of linen napkins on top of the plates. I was balancing an unsteady tower in my hands.
“Where are we eating?”
“In the parlor. They’re in the process of setting up tables in there right now.”
I looked around the kitchen again. Jon von Post and Katja were missing. I wondered if Katja was already in the parlor because she was preparing for the next step in our assignment. If so, perhaps I had underestimated her a bit. I followed Lotte. Her stride was efficient; she was dressed in a navy blue pencil skirt and practical kitten heels. Not too high, not too low. Although she was quite short and presumably only a year or two older than me, I felt like I was fetching books for the teacher. She was the type of person who seemed to have been born an adult. She bobbed her head slightly, as if she had heard my thoughts and was dismissing them.
I HEARD JON von Post’s voice even before we entered the parlor.
“. . . so then I told him there was no chance that would get approval. But he’s stubborn. Of course he wouldn’t listen, even though . . .”