by Clive Barker
"I am no longer a Communist," he stated plainly, "I have not been a party-member – not here -” he put his fist to his chest'- for many years."
He fetched an off-white handkerchief from his coat pocket, pulled off one of his gloves, and plucked a bottle of tablets from the folds of the handkerchief.
"Forgive me," he said as he shook tablets from the bottle. "I have pains. In my head; in my hands." Ballard waited until he had swallowed the medication before asking him, "Why did you begin to doubt?" The Russian pocketed the bottle and the handkerchief, his wide face devoid of expression.
"How does a man lose his… his faith?" he said. "Is it that I saw too much; or too little, perhaps?" He looked at Ballard's face to see if his hesitant words had made sense. Finding no comprehension there he tried again.
"I think the man who does not believe he is lost, is lost."
The paradox was elegantly put; Ballard's suspicion as to Mironenko's true command of English was confirmed. "Are you lost nozi?" Ballard inquired.
Mironenko didn't reply. He was pulling his other glove off and staring at his hands. The pills he had swallowed did not seem to be easing the ache he had complained of. He fisted and unfisted his hands like an arthritis sufferer testing the advance of his condition. Not looking up, he said: "I was taught that the Party had solutions to every- thing. That made me free from fear."
"And now?"
"Now?" he said. "Now I have strange thoughts. They come to me from nowhere…"
"Go on," said Ballard.
Mironenko made a tight smile. "You must know me inside out, yes? Even what I dream?"
"Yes," said Ballard.
Mironenko nodded. "It would be the same with us," he said. Then, after a pause: "I've thought sometimes I would break open. Do you understand what I say? I would crack, because there is such rage inside me. And that makes me afraid, Ballard. I think they will see how much I hate them." He looked up at his interrogator. "You must be quick," he said, “or they will discover me. I try not to think of what they will do." Again, he paused. All trace of the smile, however humourless, had gone. "The Directorate has Sections even I don't have knowledge of. Special hospitals, where nobody can go. They have ways to break a man's soul in pieces."
Ballard, ever the pragmatist, wondered if Mironenko's vocabulary wasn't rather high-flown. In the hands of the KGB he doubted if he would be thinking of his soul's contentment. After all, it was the body that had the nerve-endings.
They talked for an hour or more, the conversation moving back and forth between politics and personal reminiscence, between trivia and confessional. At the end of the meeting Ballard was in no doubt as to Mironenko's antipathy to his masters. He was, as he had said, a man without faith.
The following day Ballard met with Cripps in the restaurant at the Schweizerhof Hotel, and made his verbal report on Mironenko.
"He's ready and waiting. But he insists we be quick about making up our minds."
"I'm sure he does," Cripps said. His glass eye was troubling him today; the chilly air, he explained, made it sluggish. It moved fractionally more slowly than his real eye, and on occasion Cripps had to nudge it with his fingertip to get it moving.
"We're not going to rushed into any decision," Cripps said.
"Where's the problem? I don't have any doubt about his commitment; or his desperation."
"So you said," Cripps replied. "Would you like something for dessert?"
"Do you doubt my appraisal? Is that what it is?"
"Have something sweet to finish off, so that I don't feel an utter reprobate."
"You think I'm wrong about him, don't you?" Ballard pressed. When Cripps didn't reply, Ballard leaned across the table. "You do, don't you?"
"I'm just saying there's reason for caution," Cripps said. "If we finally choose to take him on board the Russians are going to be very distressed. We have to be sure the deal's worth the bad weather that comes with it. Things are so dicey at the moment."
"When aren't they?" Ballard replied. "Tell me a time when there wasn't some crisis in the offing?" H e settled back in the chair and tried to read Cripps' face. His glass eye was, if anything, more candid than the real one. "I'm sick of this damn game," Ballard muttered.
The glass eye roved. "Because of the Russian?"
"Maybe."
"Believe me," said Cripps, "I've got good reason to be careful with this man."
"Name one."
"There's nothing verified."
"What have you got on him?" Ballard insisted.
"As I say, rumour," Cripps replied.
"Why wasn't I briefed about it?"
Cripps made a tiny shake of his head. "It's academic now," he said. "You've provided a good report. I just want you to understand that if things don't go the way you think they should it's not because your appraisals aren't trusted." "I see."
"No you don't," said Cripps. "You're feeling martyred; and I don't altogether blame you."
"So what happens now? I'm supposed to forget I ever met the man?"
"Wouldn't do any harm," said Cripps. "Out of sight, out of mind."
Clearly Cripps didn't trust Ballard to take his own advice. Though Ballard made several discreet enquiries about the Mironenko case in the following week it was plain that his usual circle of contacts had been warned to keep their lips sealed.
As it was, the next news about the case reached Ballard via the pages of the morning papers, in an article about a body found in a house near the station on Kaiser Damm. At the time of reading he had no way of knowing how the account tied up with Mironenko, but there was enough detail in the story to arouse his interest. For one, he had the suspicion that the house named in the article had been used by the Service on occasion; for another, the article described how two unidentified men had almost been caught in the act of removing the body, further suggesting that this was no crime of passion.
About noon, he went to see Cripps at his offices in the hope of coaxing him with some explanation, but Cripps was not available, nor would be, his secretary explained, until further notice; matters arising had taken him back to Munich. Ballard left a message that he wished to speak with him when he returned.
As he stepped into the cold air again, he realised that he'd gained an admirer; a thin-faced individual whose hair had retreated from his brow, leaving a ludicrous forelock at the high-water mark. Ballard knew him in passing from Cripps' entourage but couldn't put a name to the face. It was swiftly provided.
"Suckling," the man said.
"Of course," said Ballard. "Hello."
"I think maybe we should talk, if you have a moment," the man said. His voice was as pinched as his features; Ballard wanted none of his gossip. He was about to refuse the offer when Suckling said: "I suppose you heard what happened to Cripps."
Ballard shook his head. Suckling, delighted to possess this nugget, said again: "We should talk." They walked along the Kantstrasse towards the Zoo. The street was busy with lunchtime pedestrians, but Ballard scarcely noticed them. The story that Suckling unfolded as they walked demanded his full and absolute attention. It was simply told. Cripps, it appeared, had made an arrangement to meet with Mironenko in order to make his own assessment of the Russian's integrity. The house in Schoneberg chosen for the meeting had been used on several previous occasions, and had long been considered one of the safest locations in the city. It had not proved so the previous evening however. KGB men had apparently followed Mironenko to the house, and then attempted to break the party up. There was nobody to testify to what had happened subsequently – both the men who had accompanied Cripps, one of them Ballard's old colleague Odell – were dead; Cripps himself was in a coma. "And Mironenko?" Ballard inquired.
Suckling shrugged. They took him home to the Motherland, presumably," he said.
Ballard caught a whiff of deceit off the man.
"I'm touched that you're keeping me up to date," he said to Suckling. "But why?
"You and Odell were friends, weren't yo
u?" came the reply. "With Cripps out of the picture you don't have many of those left."
"Is that so?"
"No offence intended," Suckling said hurriedly. "But you've got a reputation as a maverick."
"Get to the point," said Ballard.
"There is no point," Suckling protested. "I just thought you ought to know what had happened. I'm putting my neck on the line here."
"Nice try," said Ballard. He stopped walking. Suckling wandered on a pace or two before turning to find Ballard grinning at him.
"Who sent you?"
"Nobody sent me," Suckling said.
"Clever to send the court gossip. I almost fell for it. You're very plausible."
There wasn't enough fat on Suckling's face to hide the tic in his cheek.
"What do they suspect me of? Do they think I'm conniving with Mironenko, is that it? No, I don't think they're that stupid."
Suckling shook his head, like a doctor in the presence of some incurable disease. "You like making enemies?" he said.
"Occupational hazard. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. I don't."
"There's changes in the air," Suckling said. "I'd make sure you have your answers ready."
"Fuck the answers," Ballard said courteously. "I think it's about time I worked out the right questions."
Sending Suckling to sound him out smacked of desperation. They wanted inside information; but about what? Could they seriously believe he had some involvement with Mironenko; or worse, with the RGB itself? He let his resentment subside; it was stirring up too much mud, and he needed clear water if he was to find his way free of this confusion. In one regard, Suckling was perfectly correct: he did have enemies, and with Cripps indisposed he was vulnerable. In such circumstances there were two courses of action.
He could return to London, and there lie low, or wait around in Berlin to see what maneuver they tried next. He decided on the latter. The charm of hide-and-seek was rapidly wearing thin.
As he turned North onto Leibnizstrasse he caught the reflection of a grey-coated man in a shop window. It was a glimpse, no more, but he had the feeling that he knew the fellow's face. Had they put a watch-dog onto him, he wondered? He turned, and caught the man's eye, holding it. The suspect seemed embarrassed, and looked away. A performance perhaps; and then again, perhaps not. It mattered little, Ballard thought. Let them watch him all they liked. He was guiltless. If indeed there was such a condition this side of insanity.
A strange happiness had found Sergei Mironenko; happiness that came without rhyme or reason, and filled his heart up to overflowing.
Only the previous day circumstances had seemed unendurable. The aching in his hands and head and spine had steadily worsened, and was now accompanied by an itch so demanding he'd had to snip his nails to the flesh to prevent himself doing serious damage. His body, he had concluded, was in revolt against him. It was that thought which he had tried to explain to Ballard: that he was divided from himself, and feared that he would soon be torn apart. But today the fear had gone.
Not so the pains. They were, if anything, worse than they'd been yesterday. His sinews and ligaments ached as if they'd been exercised beyond the limits of their design; there were bruises at all his joints, where blood had broken its banks beneath the skin. But that sense of imminent rebellion had disappeared, to be replaced with a dreamy peacefulness. And at its heart, such happiness.
When he tried to think back over recent events, to work out what had cued this transformation, his memory played tricks. He had been called to meet with Ballard's superior; that he remembered. Whether he had gone to the meeting, he did not. The night was a blank. Ballard would know how things stood, he reasoned. He had liked and trusted the Englishman from the beginning, sensing that despite the many differences between them they were more alike than not. If he let his instinct lead, he would find Ballard, of that he was certain. No doubt the Englishman would be surprised to see him; even angered at first. But when he told Ballard of this new-found happiness surely his trespasses would be forgiven?
Ballard dined late, and drank until later still in The Ring, a small transvestite bar which he had been first taken to by Odell almost two decades ago. No doubt his guide's intention had been to prove his sophistication by showing his raw colleague the decadence of Berlin, but Ballard, though he never felt any sexual frisson in the company of The Ring's clientele, had immediately felt at home here. His neutrality was respected; no attempts were made to solicit him. He was simply left to drink and watch the passing parade of genders.
Coming here tonight raised the ghost of Odell, whose name would now be scrubbed from conversation because of his involvement with the Mironenko affair. Ballard had seen this process at work before. History did not forgive failure, unless it was so profound as to achieve a kind of grandeur. For the Odells of the world – ambitious men who had found themselves through little fault of their own in a cul-de-sac from which all retreat was barred – for such men there would be no fine words spoken nor medals struck. There would only be oblivion.
It made him melancholy to think of this, and he drank heavily to keep his thoughts mellow, but when – at two in the morning – he stepped out on to the street his depression was only marginally dulled. The good burghers of Berlin were well a-bed; tomorrow was another working day. Only the sound of traffic from the Kurfurstendamm offered sign of life somewhere near. He made his way towards it, his thoughts fleecy. Behind him, laughter. A young man glamorously dressed as a starlet – tottered along the pavement arm in arm with his unsmiling escort. Ballard recognised the transvestite as a regular at the bar; the client, to judge by his sober suit, was an out-of-towner slaking his thirst for boys dressed as girls behind his wife's back. Ballard picked up his pace. The young man's laughter, its musicality patently forced, set his teeth on edge. He heard somebody running nearby; caught a shadow moving out of the corner of his eye. His watch-dog, most likely. Though alcohol had blurred his instincts, he felt some anxiety surface, the root of which he couldn't fix. He walked on. Feather light tremors ran in his scalp. A few yards on, he realised that the laughter from the street behind him had ceased. He glanced over his shoulder, half-expecting to see the boy and his customer embracing. But both had disappeared; slipped off down one of the alleyways, no doubt, to conclude their contract in darkness. Somewhere near, a dog had begun to bark wildly. Ballard turned round to look back the way he'd come, daring the deserted street to display its secrets to him. Whatever was arousing the buzz in his head and the itch on his palms, it was no commonplace anxiety. There was something wrong with the street, despite its show of innocence; it hid terrors.
The bright lights of the Kurfurstendamm were no more than three minutes' walk away, but he didn't want to turn his back on this mystery and take refuge there. Instead he proceeded to walk back the way he'd come, slowly. The dog had now ceased its alarm, and settled into silence; he had only his footsteps for company. He reached the corner of the first alleyway and peered down it. No light burned at window or doorway. He could sense no living presence in the gloom. He crossed over the alley and walked on to the next. A luxurious stench had crept into the air, which became more lavish yet as he approached the corner. As he breathed it in the buzz in his head deepened to a threat of thunder. A single light flickered in the throat of the alley, a meagre wash from an upper window. By it, he saw the body of the out-of-towner, lying sprawled on the ground. He had been so traumatically mutilated it seemed an attempt might have been made to turn him inside out. From the spilled innards, that ripe smell rose in all its complexity.
Ballard had seen violent death before, and thought himself indifferent to the spectacle. But something here in the alley threw his calm into disarray. He felt his limbs begin to shake. And then, from beyond the throw of light, the boy spoke.
"In God's name…" he said. His voice had lost all pretension to femininity; it was a murmur of undisguised terror. Ballard took a step down the alley. Neither the boy, nor the reason for his whispered p
rayer, became visible until he had advanced ten yards. The boy was half-slumped against the wall amongst the refuse. His sequins and taffeta had been ripped from him; the body was pale and sexless. He seemed not to notice Ballard: his eyes were fixed on the deepest shadows.
The shaking in Ballard's limbs worsened as he followed the boy's gaze; it was all he could do to prevent his teeth from chattering. Nevertheless he continued his advance, not for the boy's sake (heroism had little merit, he'd always been taught) but because he was curious, more than curious, eager, to see what manner of man was capable of such casual violence. To look into the eyes of such ferocity seemed at that moment the most important thing in all the world.
Now the boy saw him, and muttered a pitiful appeal, but Ballard scarcely heard it. He felt other eyes upon him, and their touch was like a blow. The din in his head took on a sickening rhythm, like the sound of helicopter rotors. In mere seconds it mounted to a blinding roar. Ballard pressed his hands to his eyes, and stumbled back against the wall, dimly aware that the killer was moving out of hiding (refuse was overturned) and making his escape. He felt something brush against him, and opened his eyes in time to glimpse the man slipping away down the passageway. He seemed somehow misshapen; his back crooked, his head too large. Ballard loosed a shout after him, but the berserker ran on, pausing only to look down at the body before racing towards the street.
Ballard heaved himself off the wall and stood upright. The noise in his head was diminishing somewhat; the attendant giddiness was passing.
Behind him, the boy had begun sobbing. "Did you see?" he said. "Did you see?
"Who was it? Somebody you knew?"
The boy stared at Ballard like a frightened doe, his mascaraed eyes huge.
"Somebody…?" he said.
Ballard was about to repeat the question when there came a shriek of brakes, swiftly followed by the sound of the impact. Leaving the boy to pull his tattered trousseau about him, Ballard went back into the street. Voices were raised nearby; he hurried to their source. A large car was straddling the pavement, its headlights blazing. The driver was being helped from his seat, while his passengers – party-goers to judge by their dress and drink-flushed faces stood and debated furiously as to how the accident had happened. One of the women was talking about an animal in the road, but another of the passengers corrected her. The body that lay in the gutter where it had been thrown was not that of an animal. Ballard had seen little of the killer in the alleyway but he knew instinctively that this was he. There was no sign of the malformation he thought he'd glimpsed, however; just a man dressed in a suit that had seen better days, lying face down in a patch of blood. The police had already arrived, and an officer shouted to him to stand away from the body, but Ballard ignored the instruction and went to steal a look at the dead man's face. There was nothing there of the ferocity he had hoped so much to see. But there was much he recognised nevertheless. The man was Odell.