On his visits Leo didn’t always linger outside. It was possible to go on a tour of the United Nations building and he’d been inside, listening to the guides, understanding only a little of their English. He’d seen the hall where Raisa’s concert had taken place, not because it served his investigation but because he enjoyed thinking of her success here – a war refugee who survived Stalin’s purges leading a performance in a venue such as this, the diplomatic elite on their feet, applauding her. Zoya told him the concert had gone better than anyone expected, all Raisa’s preparations had worked ctly. While she’d planned for hope and music and song, others had planned for murder.
Twenty minutes had passed and he hadn’t moved, standing in the same spot, hands behind his back. The guards at the United Nation were staring at him, suspicious. Taxi cabs slowed to see if there was somewhere he needed to be. But there was nowhere else he needed to be. There were no more journeys to be made. Now his task was purely an investigative one. Peering up at the skyscrapers he considered them to be holders of the city’s secrets, silent giants, answers locked away in steel, concrete and glass. He did not lay a flower. He had no interest in any memorial except to catch his wife’s killer.
He’d been instructed not to come here for security reasons. It would be easy for the Soviets to find him if they ever suspected his defection. This would be the first place they’d stake out. As was his way, he ignored the instructions. He walked towards the subway station, conscious that he was being followed. He knew this to be true without stopping and turning around, without seeing the agent on his tail, or glimpsing him out of the corner of his eye. His instincts had been honed over many years. He didn’t blame the American secret police for trying to keep tabs on him. Normally he’d allow them to follow him so that they’d feel reassured. But not today – he had work to do, and he did not want the company of the FBI.
Bradhurst Harlem West 145th Street
Walking past the apartment building where Jesse Austin once lived, Leo resisted going in. He haunted the location as though he believed that some trace of the past remained, some imprint of the day when young Elena had arrived, with dreams of equality and fairness. His persistence had not yet been rewarded: queries had been rebuffed on every occasion with responses that ranged from hostile to blank incomprehension. There was no one in the building he hadn’t approached, acquiring a reputation with the inhabitants as a crank. When he’d knocked on what was once Jesse Austin’s door he’d addressed the current occupants, a young couple, in rudimentary awkward English, asking if they knew anything about Jesse Austin. They shook their head, seemingly under the impression that he was looking for someone who lived there now. Unable to articulate his real purpose, he’d taken out the newspaper clippings of the assassination. From their confusion, they had no knowledge of the event, no idea who Jesse Austin was, and certainly no idea why this strange foreign man was asking about him sixteen years after the murder. Though they’d been more polite than most, they’d shut the door and locked it.
Moving away from the apartment building, Leo walked down the street, clutching the articles that he showed to almost anyone, particularly those men and women old enough to have been adults at the time of the murders. While he’d been in the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, he’d always presumed that reaching New York was the main obstacle he faced. He was wrong, underestimating the difficulties an outsider would experience when trying to solve a sixteen-year-old case that no one wanted to remember.
There was a cafe on the other side of the street, always busy and something of a social hub in the neighbourhood, popular with an older clientele. He crossed over and entered. Filled with lunch time customers, it was noisy and lively, packed with small square tables situated so close together the waitresses needed to side-step between them, which they did with some lity. Wearing blue-and-white-striped aprons they delivered plates loaded with inelegant, delicious-looking food. The kitchen was visible, steam rising. There was an almost constant sound of plates clattering. Many of the men and women eating here were at least fifty years old. Surely someone knew Jesse Austin and the truth about his death, even if it were no more than a rumour. Leo would have gladly listened to even the idlest speculation.
Approaching the woman at the cash register, Leo felt frustrated by his limited English, verbal clumsiness that would not endear him to an already suspicious audience.
– I want to ask questions. About this man… Jesse Austin.
As Leo unfolded his newspaper articles, the woman cocked her head, a dumbfounded expression he’d seen countless times. She called out towards the kitchen:
– You better get out here!
An older woman emerged. As soon as she saw Leo she shook her head. Leo was out of luck, he’d asked for her help before. She’d declined.
– You got to leave!
– Please – I told you before. I told you no!
Leo decided to say aloud the man’s name, to see if anyone reacted.
– I want to speak about Jesse Austin.
– Get out, right now!
Her command was loud, silencing the entire cafe, customers staring at him, waitresses staring at him, everyone trying to figure him out. Leo observed one interesting point, no matter how much he annoyed her, no matter how angry she became, she never threatened to call the police. He held up the newspaper clippings, showing them to the customers, and repeating the name.
– Jesse Austin. Please. Someone. Talk to me.
He waited outside, loitering on the off-chance someone was going to respond to his request. No one did. He sighed. Hopefully that woman didn’t work every day. He would try again, and again. The breakthrough would come.
New York City Brighton Beach
Same Day
It was mid-afternoon and the subway was nearly empty as it approached Brighton Beach. Leo sat, regarding an advertisement depicting a young, beautiful woman in a bikini, holding a bottle of orange soda labelled: FANTA
No other passengers appreciated the notoriety of this brand, no other passengers were aware of the ways the bottle had been used in Kabul – the fear that label created in the minds of prisoners awaiting interrogation. Here, in New York, it was a sugar drink, a symbol of frivolity and fun, and no more. Staring at this advertisement, Leo felt like a visitor from another world.
A fellow passenger was reading a newspaper, bags of shopping sagging by his feet. Another man was standingeven though there were seats available, hanging from the bar, lost in thought as the train emerged from under the city. A mother sat with her young daughter whose legs dangled over the edge of the seat, not reaching the floor of the carriage. Leo was reminded of the daughters he’d left behind in Russia. There wasn’t a day, or even an hour, that passed when he didn’t think about them. He hadn’t seen them in eight years and he had no idea when he’d see them again. The price for this investigation had been high. The idea that Elena and Zoya did not even know that he was alive made him ache. He couldn’t contact them. He couldn’t risk the Soviet government finding out that he was alive. If that happened, the girls would surely be targeted. Just as he found it impossible to believe that he would not solve Raisa’s murder, he found it impossible to accept that he would not see Elena and Zoya again even if he couldn’t rationalize when or how that might happen.
Advertisements aside, Leo found the subway the one place where life in Moscow and life in New York were not so dissimilar. Commuting served as a great leveller of men. He would always watch with interest as the doors opened and a new wave of passengers boarded. The subtle flirtations flickering between passengers were faint echoes of the chance encounter between him and Raisa on the Moscow metro. Far from the memory upsetting him, he’d wonder whether the strangers would part ways, never to see each other again, or try to turn that chance connection into something more.
As he got off at Brighton Beach the sun came out and Leo unbuttoned his coat, feeling warm despite it being late in the autumn. He looked at his surroundings with a sense of w
onder, not having adjusted to the fact that this strange new world was home. The notion remained bizarre to him. Perhaps because of his daughters in Russia, he could not imagine ever truly feeling at home. After arriving in the United States, he, Nara and Zabi had spent several weeks moving between temporary accommodation in New Jersey – a disjointed, disruptive experience, but one which Leo found less peculiar than being given a permanent address. He’d insisted upon New York, disguising his true intentions by stressing that this area offered several advantages. There were a large number of Soviet immigrants so his lack of English was not a problem, nor was his foreignness as conspicuous as it would have been in smaller cities. He went largely unnoticed, living under a new name, telling the more curious that he’d fled from persecution.
Zabi and Nara lived in an apartment next to him, also under new names and also with fictional back-stories, pretending to be Pakistani rather than Afghan so that they were harder to trace should anyone come looking for them. They’d wanted Leo to live with them but it would undermine their assumed identities. Arranged in this fashion, they were two different immigrant households who’d befriended each other. Officially, Nara had become Zabi’s mother. She had the paperwork to prove it and Leo sometimes caught her studying it as if unable to believe the words. The girl she’d called out to be killed was now legally her child, a contradiction that she would think upon every day. Far from being destructive, though, it made her a devoted mother. Since she was young to have a daughter aged seven, any questions from outsiders regarding the matter were met with stern silence and the suggestion that the explanation was too bleak to detail – a partial truth, at least.
So it was that’s Leo’s fourth home was on Brighton’s 6th Street, in a third-floor apartment. They hadn’t been able to secure a sea view, in fact they didn’t have much of a view at all, but the apartment was comfortble, with air conditioning, a refrigerator and a television set. Unlike in the apartments in Kabul, he hadn’t removed the doors to other rooms. The unbearable restlessness was gone. He no longer needed opium: he was a detective again.
Unlocking the front door and entering the living room, Leo sensed someone else was in the room. Were it a Soviet operative, Leo would surely be killed before he had time to turn on the lights. With this in mind, he reached for the switch.
Same Day
Marcus Greene, impeccably tailored, took out a cigarette and sat down as though this was his home. He said:
– You seem nervous.
Leo didn’t reply. He disliked the casual disregard with which they broke into his apartment or bugged his phone, and the way in which they searched his belongings when he was out, something that he was aware of since they failed to put items back into the correct position. But he was under no illusion that he belonged to the Americans, a piece of intellectual property, and they would behave exactly as they pleased. It was almost comical that Greene would then ask:
– May I smoke?
Leo nodded, taking off his coat, hanging it in the hall. Returning to the living room he stood opposite Greene.
– Why aren’t you in Pakistan?
– I’m on leave, visiting my family.
Greene sucked deeply on his cigarette, with the loving intensity known only to an addict. Leo took a seat opposite, leaning forward, hands on his knees. Greene remarked without self-pity:
– I have not been a good father. I regret my shortcomings, I suppose. But I haven’t done much about them, so I’m not sure what that regret is worth, at least not in the eyes of my wife and my sons. I tell you this because it is part of the reason I’m here. I know how much your family matters to you, not just the family you brought to New York, but also the family you left behind in the Soviet Union.
Leo asked, his voice strangled with tension:
– What’s happened?
– The Soviets suspect that you’re alive. We thought that killing the captain might mean your existence would be unconfirmed. Perhaps it is. However, they’re testing the water. While I was in Peshawar, they made sure that we became aware of certain pieces of information regarding your daughters. Zoya and Elena…
Leo stood up, as if ready to leave immediately. Greene gestured for him to sit down. He ignored the gesture and in the end Greene stood up too.
– We have no means of verifying these rumours. They might be lies intended to flush you out. There was pressure on me not to reveal them to you but I was sure you’d want to know. It’s your decision whether you believe the stories or not.
– What stories?
– Because of your defection your daughters have been taken in for questioning. Their husbands have also been interrogated. They have been released, but their futures are unce of cin. The next step would be for them to be arrested. That hasn’t happened yet, but it could. It is bait, crude, but I can see from your expression, effective.
– If I don’t return, they will arrest them? That’s the threat?
– Leo, we have no way of knowing if this is just a play. They can’t be sure you’re alive.
– Do they have an American source?
– I don’t believe that’s likely. The Soviets have never been very effective at penetrating the CIA. If you do nothing, if you don’t react, they will presume you to be dead and nothing will happen to your daughters. I’m sure of that.
But Leo knew better how the KGB functioned: he knew their mindset. He remembered how he would have behaved as an ambitious young agent. Shaking his head, feeling sick with fear at the danger he’d put his daughters in, he said:
– I don’t have much time.
Same Day
Leo sat in silence over dinner, picking at the food he’d cooked. The threat to his daughters would be carried out even though they were innocent. During Stalin’s reign it was established that the son was tainted with the father’s guilt. A single crime, a single allegation, could bring about the ruin of an entire family, the toxin of suspicion travelling along bloodlines. Times had changed only so far. This mode of thought remained within the mindset of the KGB, an organization that had always preferred its agents to marry other agents, structuring itself like a dynasty of operatives distinct from the ordinary citizen. This was part of the reason they had always opposed his marriage to Raisa. If Leo did not surrender, his daughters would be arrested, detained in the worst conditions. The KGB’s malice would be impersonal, procedural and utterly predictable. Just as it did not matter that his daughters were innocent, it did not matter that they could not be sure if Leo was alive. The Soviet intelligence network in the United States was weak, certainly compared with the European cells of agents. However, they had within their means an easy way of flushing Leo into open. So much had depended upon them presuming he was dead. That plan had failed.
Leo pushed his plate aside. Both Nara and Zabi knew something was wrong, exchanging glances. He could not tell them the news since he’d not decided what to do. The uncertainty would be an unnecessary strain. Zabi had only just returned from a session with a psychiatrist. Though her physical injuries had healed, she was in therapy, two sessions a week, a process delayed for several months while she’d undergone intensive schooling in English, lessons she attended with Nara. Leo skipped most of the lessons, concentrating instead on his investigation. However, he always made time to accompany Zabi to the psychiatrist, surprised that the doctor’s office was not in a hospital but a pleasantly decorated room in her house. After the third or fourth session, he’d become more relaxed about treatment. Zabi didn’t fear the sessions. Needless to say the American government covered the cost. They covered the costs of all their expenses. In exchange, Leo met intelligence officers, providing information on Afghanistan. His knowledge of the Soviet Union itself was dated, particularly with regard to the KGB and secret police. This information was primarily of interest to historians and academs, a few of whom had been granted security clearance to question him. Only his reports on Afghanistan were classified. It was hard to gauge what impact they were having on American po
licy – he was never trusted enough to be told anything, only ever questioned. Some of the questions revealed their way of thinking. There were clearly elements in the CIA keen to fund the insurgency, to provide weapons. Whether that was being carried out, Leo could not tell.
At the end of dinner, Leo tidied away the plates, returning to the table with a carton of ice cream that he’d bought from a grocery store run by a woman from Ukraine, one of the few people in the neighbourhood that he spoke to, as unsociable in New York as he had been in Kabul. As he spooned the ice cream into three bowls he said:
– I’m flying to Washington tomorrow. You remember the work I spoke about? There is an archive of items relating to Soviet espionage in the United States. They want me to take a look, see if I can throw any light on the objects.
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