by Mark Mills
They parked in the shadow of the cathedral and collared a well-heeled woman for advice. She looked Pippi over with eyes that said “and none too soon,” and directed them to a boutique on Marktgasse. After the playful painted facades and coiling streets of Konstanz and Meersburg, there was something stolid and earnest about the architecture of Bern. The streets cutting through the old town were long and straight and flanked by buildings of a neutral, uniform gray. The sober feel was even more pronounced in Marktgasse, where the shops were set back beneath low arcades, stripping the street level of life, variety, and color.
The boutique was a large, gloomy establishment, and the assistant who approached them as they entered took them for a married couple. Pippi didn’t correct her, and Luke was happy to play along: “Not that, my darling; your mother will have a heart attack.”
The assistant chuckled, warming to them, or possibly calculating her commission as the garments continued to pile up: two skirts, one with a matching jacket; a patterned crepe de chine summer dress; two blouses; a cashmere sweater; a pair of leather court shoes; and a pair of low sandals (which the assistant thoroughly approved of because Pippi was quite tall enough already). When the subject turned to lingerie, Luke made himself scarce, going in search of a suitcase to house Pippi’s new wardrobe. By the time he returned, it had swelled to include a silk evening gown, a cream satin nightgown, a straw hat, and a navy blue swimsuit. “I like swimming,” she said as she packed it away in the suitcase. She settled up with the cash she had received from Major Kendrick, and they went on their way.
“You were very patient.”
Luke shrugged. “As a British taxpayer, I was curious to see where my money went.”
Pippi smiled. “I earned it.”
“You certainly did.” They walked on a little way. “I haven’t thanked you for what you did—with the professor, I mean.”
“All I did was tell your story. It’s him you should thank.”
“Maybe I’ll get a chance to one day.
They found a café in the sunshine and examined the map of Switzerland that Herr Knecht had, remarkably, thrown in for free. Pippi was firmly of the view that for caution’s sake they shouldn’t arrive in Zurich until shortly before the meeting with Borodin, which left them more than twenty-four hours to kill. By the most direct route, Zurich was maybe three hours away, and she suggested they loop south instead. It added fifty kilometers to the journey, but it also offered some spectacular countryside.
“I’ve been to Interlaken and Luzern,” she said. “They are beautiful.”
“It sounds good to me.”
It sounded better than good: a lazy meander through the foothills of the Alps, and plenty of time to relax, recuperate, and prepare themselves for Zurich. Whatever Borodin’s intentions, they had stolen a small advantage over him. He wasn’t to know that Pippi would be present, too, covering Luke’s back.
Pippi must have sensed his mind at work, because she said, “Try not to think about it.”
“Which tells me you’re thinking about it, too.”
She smiled. “Well I’m not going to, not until tomorrow. In fact, we’re not allowed to talk about it until breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, but what do we talk about until then?”
Pippi caught their waiter’s eye and scribbled in the air for the bill.
“The Faqir of Ipi,” she said. “Tell me more about him.”
Chapter Twenty
Zurich Hauptbahnhof had undergone a dramatic transformation in the years that Borodin had been away. As he stepped from the train onto the platform, he paused, perplexed, taking in his surroundings. Where was the big, luminous hall where the trains came and went, and from which he had departed some twelve years ago? A low, undulating blanket of steel-and-glass arches now pressed down on the platforms. The effect was depressingly claustrophobic compared to before.
Andrej was waiting for him on the new concourse at the end of the platforms. He had changed, too. He looked smaller, shrunken, and what remained of his hair was oiled back in a few hopeful, desultory strands. The two men greeted each other with a hug that was more than cursory.
Andrej stepped back, gripping Borodin by the shoulders and surveying him. “By God, you look good, you old Croatian bastard.”
“I wish I could say the same of you, you Serbian donkey-fucker.”
They spoke the language shared by their two nations.
Andrej ran a hand over his bald pate. “Oh, this? I haven’t lost it; it just decamped to my shoulders and my arse.”
Borodin laughed. “How is Analisa?”
“She decamped, too, a few years ago. Left me for someone else.”
“A younger man?”
“Older. Also uglier, if such a thing is possible.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You won’t be when you meet Frieda. That’s the woman I live with now.” He picked up Borodin’s suitcase. “The car’s out front.”
Borodin cast a parting glance around him. “I liked the old place. Why did they have to knock it down?”
“They didn’t. It was too small to take the extra tracks, so they added this on. You’ll see.”
The old station hall, a soaring cathedral of stone and glass, lay just back from the new concourse, as magnificent as ever. The old tracks and platforms had been paved over to create a public space fringed with cafés and restaurants. Not bad, thought Borodin. If this was progress, he could just about live with it.
“So what brings you back to Zurich?” Andrej inquired.
“Nothing good, I’m afraid.”
“Excellent. Life has been very dull since you left.”
“Do you still have contacts in the police?”
“A couple. Most have retired.”
“Any favors you can call in?” Borodin asked.
“For you, of course.”
“I’m also going to need two taxis, with drivers who can be trusted to keep their mouths shut.”
“Now I’m properly intrigued. You can tell me everything over lunch. I’ve booked us a table at the Kindli.”
“Ah, the Kindli.”
“That hasn’t changed one bit since you left.”
“You mean they still serve tepid soup?”
Andrej laughed. “You’re right; they do.”
It was a sudden impulse. Borodin held Andrej back by the arm. “I can trust you, can’t I, Andrej?”
“Of course you can.”
“Has anyone been in touch with you about me? Anyone at all?”
“No.”
Behind the wounded look in his old friend’s eyes, he detected something else. Something reassuring: concern. “Forgive me,” said Borodin, “but I had to ask.”
“That bad, huh?”
“I’m afraid so. And I won’t be insulted if you don’t want to help.”
“Come on, you old fool. I’ll give you my answer over a bowl of tepid soup.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The road directly south of Bern ran straight as a telegraph wire through flat and featureless countryside. Luke drove, the windows down, warm air blustering around them as he spoke.
Pippi hadn’t been joking. She did indeed want to hear about the Faqir of Ipi, who had come up briefly in conversation in the car yesterday, during Major Kendrick’s questioning of Luke. The faqir was a Pathan religious leader who had galvanized a number of the hill tribes in northern Waziristan to turn against the British, even declaring a jihad against the foreign oppressors. The first uprising, near Bannu, had been swiftly dealt with by British and Indian troops shortly before Luke was posted to 11 Squadron at Risalpur.
The faqir was no fool, though. Realizing that he couldn’t hope to win by conventional methods of warfare, he had vanished with his followers into the hills, from where they made lightning raids on army outposts and
the very columns of troops sent to hunt him down.
The British military adopted a policy of proscription in order to dislodge the faqir and punish those who harbored him. This meant singling out a valley known to be sympathetic to him, and bombing its villages from the air. Leaflets would be dropped a couple of days in advance, warning of the coming attacks and advising the inhabitants to vacate their homes—a practice that the faqir cleverly turned to his own advantage.
His influence extended far wider than anyone had imagined—all the way to Peshawar, in fact, and the printing press that ran off the leaflets. Having been tipped off, the faqir would hurry to the next proscribed valley and advise the tribal elders that a vision of an imminent air attack had come to him in a dream. They weren’t to worry, though, for he would remain among them, and he had the power to turn the British bombs to paper.
Sure enough, the planes would appear as predicted, and harmless confetti would flutter down from the heavens. The day before the bombing began in earnest, the faqir would take leave of his hosts, claiming that the exertions of the past couple of days had depleted his magical powers to the point where he was no longer able to protect them. They would all be wise to make themselves scarce for a bit.
Amusing enough. They had laughed about it in the mess when they finally discovered what the wily old faqir was up to, and Luke laughed about it now with Pippi. The reality, however, was far more sobering. It certainly had been at the time.
You didn’t need to be a genius to figure that the faqir’s ruse worked only because none of the tribesmen could read the leaflets. Even the headmen were simple folk who scratched a meager living from the vertiginous slopes. They were religious, superstitious, and illiterate. In this sense, the faqir was indeed protecting his people, because without him they would never have known that death and destruction were about to rain down on their heads.
One evening in the mess, Luke had made the case for allowing the faqir to continue with his shenanigans, or they would find themselves bombing compounds and villages packed with people, chiefly women and children during the day, when the men were off working in the fields. His suggestion met with frosty silence before Captain Trevelyan asked, “Are these the same women who wouldn’t think twice about slicing off your privates and stitching them into your mouth?”
“So it’s said.”
“So it is, Hamilton. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
Others began to pipe up. They were at war. Under no circumstances could the faqir be allowed to enhance his reputation still further. The situation needed to be dealt with swiftly and firmly before the trickle became a flood. Desperate times, desperate measures.
Luke was genuinely shocked. These counterarguments, while sound enough in their logic, made no allowances for the moral dilemma he had imagined they all were experiencing at some level. Even his good friend Tommo Spurling took him to task as they strolled back from the mess to the bungalow they shared, suggesting that he keep his own counsel in the future. Yes, it could be unsavory work at times, but it wasn’t as though they’d started the thing in the first place. Ultimately, the Faqir of Ipi was the one with blood on his hands.
That evening in the mess, Luke later realized, marked the beginning of the end for him, the moment when the seed of doubt already lodged in his conscience began to germinate and put down roots, fertilized by the seeming indifference of his friends and fellow officers.
The only real danger they faced on the bombing sorties came from the tribesmen who lined the ridges of the proscribed valley and took potshots at them as they swooped in low to drop their payloads. Luke now found himself welcoming the sight of the black headdresses bobbing behind the rocks—just the right side of the crest, where they knew the pilots were not allowed to fire on them—for it meant that the news had got through. When it hadn’t, consolation came in another form.
Yates, the bomb aimer, who sat behind him in the Hart and who had shown such promise during their training exercises, now seemed incapable of hitting a football pitch from a hundred feet. He came close on occasions and even vaporized a donkey one time, but the people on the ground had little to fear from the silver biplane with “K-2118” emblazoned on its tail fin.
One donkey. That poor animal somehow crystalized the absurdity of proscription. What were the brass hoping to achieve? Did they seriously think that a bunch of peasant farmers could be coerced into handing over the faqir? Or was it just punishment for punishment’s sake? Either way, it soon became clear that Military Intelligence had no grasp of the intricate web of alliances, counteralliances, and historic enmities that bound the various hill tribes together. Bribes were paid for information, and more often than not the informants simply disappeared with the money. Meanwhile, the faqir remained at large, forever on the move, sheltering deep in the network of caves that honeycombed the hills.
The British weren’t accustomed to being given the runaround by a bearded Sufi mystic, and the frustration began to breed vindictiveness. There were rumors of maltreatment of prisoners, torture, even murder. These came to Luke’s ears more often as the campaign progressed and the pilots found themselves cooperating closely with the regiments stationed at Risalpur, offering air support to the columns of ground troops that snaked through the hills in search of the elusive faqir. Assisting his own side in battle against a determined enemy far more adept at the ancient art of mountain skirmishing was something Luke had no trouble squaring with his conscience. It also seemed to bring out the best in Yates, whose aim improved immeasurably whenever they flew to the aid of the infantry.
Gradually, inexorably, the dirty tactics became more commonplace. The average Pathan’s most prized possession was his rifle, usually a Lee-Enfield replica made of cheap railway steel. Ammunition was extremely scarce, and it was Captain Trevelyan’s fiendish idea, after an engagement, to scatter some about, which the enemy would then recover, unaware that the .303 cartridges had been doctored to blow up in the breech when fired. As for the air force, they were instructed to start dropping delayed-action bombs—anything up to twenty-four hours—in the fields around the proscribed villages, to cause maximum disruption to the tribesmen’s lives. The strafing of livestock was also encouraged.
Luke didn’t share all the grim details with Pippi, nor did he speak of the creeping stain on his soul. He did voice some doubts about the wisdom of trying to bomb a proud and independent people like the Pathans into any kind of lasting submission. Mainly, though, he talked about the flying: the wild summer thermals that tossed you about like a cork on an angry sea; and the beauty of a dawn sortie, the sun rising over the Himalayas, chasing the purple shadows down the slopes.
On one memorable occasion, toward the end of his time in India, he had flown deep into the high Himalayas, on a landing-ground inspection of the garrison at Gilgit. They set off from Risalpur at dawn and within an hour were winding their way up the valley of the foaming Indus, the mountains rising ever higher around them, shrinking them, turning their craft into toy airplanes. They were among the monsters now, with their eternal snows. Nanga Parbat passed by on their right, trailing a long plume of wind-whipped ice crystals from its summit, which topped Mont Blanc’s by a full two miles.
It had been a humbling experience, though not as humbling as playing polo with the locals when they finally landed in Gilgit. The first time Luke was thrown from his horse, some wag in the crowd had shouted, “It’s true, they really can fly!”
Pippi laughed at the anecdote. He decided not to tell her about the scandal already breaking while he was making a fool of himself on that dusty polo field, and which would be waiting for him when he returned to Risalpur.
The town of Interlaken, as its name suggested, lay between two alpine lakes. They stopped just long enough in the center for Pippi to ask directions from a shopkeeper, and ten minutes later they found themselves at a public lido on the shores of Lake Brienz.
It was a simple setup,
with picnic tables scattered about in the shade of some pines, and a large expanse of grass running down to the water’s edge. A swimming pontoon with diving boards was moored some distance from the shore. No doubt the place had been mobbed yesterday, but at two o’clock on a Monday afternoon, they had their pick of spots to spread out their one and only towel.
Pippi made straight for the changing cubicles. When she reemerged in her new swimsuit, a navy one-piece number made from some kind of synthetic material that hugged her long, lean figure, Luke wasn’t quite sure where to look.
“Aren’t you coming in?”
“I only have my undershorts.”
“Then they will have to do.”
He lost them on his first dive from the springboard out on the pontoon, after which he stuck to jumping. Pale, coltish, and tireless as a child, Pippi kept hauling herself up the steel steps for another dive. Her composure deserted her momentarily when she graduated to the high board. Creeping out to the end, she peered past her toes at the drop to the bottle-green water. Then, with a fearful little squeal, she jumped. She also jumped the second time. After that, she dived, and kept diving until she had mastered it.
They swam out a little farther and lay on their backs, floating. Or rather, Pippi did. Luke’s legs kept slipping beneath the surface.
“I’ve never been able to float on my back.”
“Everyone can.”
“Not me, I’m a sinker.”
She told him to extend his arms above his head and tilt his chin toward the sky, and to relax his legs and imagine a straight line running from the tips of his fingers to his heels. She made some minor adjustments to his body position, then released him. “Ta-dah!” she declared triumphantly.
“I’m floating! I’m not a sinker!”
They lay there together in suspension, gazing at the sky. Somehow, the setting felt entirely appropriate to their circumstances: a placid strip of water sandwiched between two menacing slabs of plunging mountainside; their past, present, and future enshrined in the alpine landscape.