Sally’s bonhomie abruptly evaporated.
“Oh,” she said sadly. “Didn’t you know? That’s the late lamented Sarah.”
“Sarah?”
“Gussie’s wife. She died.”
I instantly felt that I had trespassed somewhere that I had no right to be.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s none of my business.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” she said, and to my amazement she actually laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.
“No secrets between the Class of ’84,” she said.
* * *
Lily was sleeping when I entered the hotel room at last.
I immediately went to the bathroom and was violently sick. I watched the liquid remains of the finest meal I was likely to ever have trickle down the white porcelain and cloud the water beneath.
I lay crouched on the bathroom tiles and tried to breathe as beads of sweat the size of gallstones formed on my brow and flowed down my face.
Eighty-four. Oh God. Christ.
Memory and recognition had descended upon me like a plague and I felt like I might die from it.
Eighty-four. That was where Coe knew me from, and I now remembered her.
Why would she bring that up? What kind of animal was she?
I lay still on the floor of the bathroom, trying to focus on the coolness of the tiles on my face and chest.
* * *
September 2184 had seen a period of uncharacteristic peace settle on the South household.
Olesya and I were sleeping in the same bed (by choice, no less) and the signs were that, in defiance of all history, this period of tranquility was going to last.
We had been married for three years, and I had been in StaSec for around the same length of time. Olesya was working in the Ministry of Culture in a fairly senior role and was already gleefully planning its violent immolation. She detested everything they did, and was determined to turn the place inside out and upside down. She had already formed relationships with some of the most despised and ostracized artists in the Caspian Republic, who found themselves baffled and enthralled by this glorious, curly-haired libertine who somehow claimed to be part of the hated government. Olesya was going to bring these hell-raisers into the Ministry of Culture and throw more money at them than they knew what to do with. If MoCu survived the operation, it would be scarcely recognizable. The point was, Olesya was busy. That was good for her, good for me and good for the marriage. So we slept comfortably together, hands interlinked.
The phone by our bed barked angrily and I groped blearily in the darkness to silence the ringing. Beside me, Olesya tossed and turned irritably and buried her head in the pillow.
“Hello?”
“Nikolai? It’s Vassily. Sorry to call so late but…”
His voice trailed off and I realized that he was wheezing and short of breath. My father-in-law had suffered with asthma all his life, and it had a tendency to flare up when he was worried or stressed.
“Vassily? Is everything all right?” I asked.
“Is that Daddy?” Olesya said, her voice muffled through the pillow.
“Yes,” I said.
“Well kindly tell him to fuck off as it is two o’clock in the morning.”
On the other end of the line I heard a hiss and a sharp breath, and knew that Vassily had taken a blast from his inhaler. When he spoke again, his breathing was clearer but his voice was no less taut.
“Nikolai, we have work tonight. Get dressed and eat. We will be gone for a long time.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll say in the car. Fifteen minutes.”
I had been quite terrified upon first meeting Major General Vassily Manukov (ex–Russian Army, ex–Caspian Army, recipient of the Order of the Karabakh for valor during the Taking of Baku, the man who single-handedly delivered Meghri, StaSec Department Head, etc., etc.). A reputation like that conjures a certain image and it certainly wasn’t that of the slight, kind-eyed Russian who rose from his chair like a rocket, clasped my hand warmly and told me how much he had been looking forward to meeting me when I first stepped into the parlor of his magnificent home in Azadlig.
My customary shyness was no match for his exuberance and before long we were dominating the dinner table with long dense streams of Russian and English while Olesya, Zahara and Alia rolled their eyes and ate in silence. As it turned out, Vassily knew my mother from her days in the Moscow branch of the New Humanists. I recounted with pride how she had helped organize the party’s international conference there in 2146, where the creation of a state free from the influence of AI and all forms of consciousness transferal was first adopted as official party policy.
“I remember her!” Vassily boomed joyously. “Such a woman! Such drive! Where is her statue, I ask you? They should have built one next to Koslova’s in the square! None of this, Nicky,” he said, gesturing around with his arms as if he could encompass the entire nation, “none of it without her!”
He was flattering me, I knew. But he did it with such enthusiasm and joy that it was hard to doubt his sincerity. I listened to his stories of the war with Armenia for hours, for they were the stories my father might have told if he had come home from that war.
It was Vassily who had suggested that I take the entrance exam for StaSec, and who had been my mentor during my early years there until his death.
I loved him deeply.
Vassily pulled up to the house and rolled down the window. He made a gesture with two fingers and a thumb, forming the shape of a gun.
I nodded, and pulled back my coat to reveal my holster.
He nodded in reply, and opened the door for me.
We drove in silence for many miles until we had left the city limits and were in total blackness. I kept waiting for him to say something, but he simply stared at the two pools of light from the headlights on the road ahead. I wanted to ask him where we were going, but this was clearly official StaSec business and we were not father and son-in-law, but deputy head and junior agent, so I waited in silence.
Finally, he spoke.
“Now, Nicky…,” he said. “Now, Nicky, you must do as you are told. Understand? This is going to be bad business. But you must do as you are told. Yes?”
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
Vassily sighed and shook his head wearily.
“We’re all going to miss Dascalu,” he said sadly. “I tell them this. I tell Zahara and Olesya, you hate him now, but you’ll miss Dascalu when he’s gone. What is it that your people say? ‘Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss’? No. New boss will not be the same.”
“Your people” meant the English. Even though I had been born in Caspian and raised by my Russian-speaking mother, for Vassily the stamp of my father’s nationality was indelible.
“It’s Little Papa’s coming-out party, Nicky,” Vassily continued dourly. “His big show. Look at me. New big boss.”
“Little Papa” was Papalazarou Junior, who had taken over as director of StaSec from Doctor Dascalu two years earlier. In that time he had achieved something that his mentor had long sought but never clinched, the elevation of the director of StaSec to a position in the cabinet. Now Papalazarou was no longer answerable to Parliament, and had only to keep on the right side of the prime minister. He was virtually untethered now, and the rumors were that Little Papa was very anxious to use his newfound freedom to get out of Big Papa’s shadow and make a name for himself in the party to equal that of his father, the great hero of the Founding.
“So what are we doing?” I asked but Vassily hissed irritably and raised his hand as if to swat my question out of the air.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. I get the call, I come to your house, get you. This is all I know.”
“They asked for me?” I said, incredulously.
“Of course not!” he barked. “Everybody. They ask for everybody. You would have gotten a call from Sotchi. But I call her and tell
her that I will bring you myself.”
Ilyana Sotchi was my own department head. Vassily and I worked in separate departments in StaSec, which was rather strict on nepotism in those days.
“Why?” I asked.
“So I could tell you what I have told you. Bad business. Do as you’re told. No matter what. Yes?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good boy.”
We drove in silence.
“How are Zahara and Alia?” I asked.
If anything, this seemed to darken his mood.
“Zahara, Zahara, Zahara…,” he hissed. “I think, this is what brings me and Alia together, Nicky. A shared interest in rearing wild, wicked daughters.”
The last few years had firmly disabused Vassily and Alia of the illusion that Zahara was the dependable daughter.
“You picked the right one, Nicky,” he said. “In the end.”
Nothing is simple in love, of course, but I think a diagram of the history of my relationship with Olesya might well induce vertigo in anyone unfortunate enough to gaze upon it. When I had first been introduced to Vassily and his wife, Alia, it was not as Olesya’s boyfriend, but as Zahara’s. Olesya, upon meeting me on that street off Koslova Square (and quite ignorant of what I had been doing there) had decided that I was just the kind of reserved, scholarly young man who might bring Zahara’s feet back to earth.
She had invited me to her friend’s party for the purpose of setting us up, which (somehow) worked. Zahara and I dated for three months during which time our complete and utter incompatibility came rather explosively into focus (although not before Zahara very generously resolved the problem that had brought me to that doorway off Koslova Square in the first place).
After the breakup, some of Zahara’s friends took me on a sympathetic pub crawl where I tried absinthe for the first time and had a religious vision where the Virgin Mary descended from heaven wreathed in purple fire and told me (in rather shockingly salty language) that the woman I was meant to be with was Olesya. After being violently sick, I raced to her house in Azadlig and banged on the door until she appeared in her nightgown at which point I professed my love to her.
Olesya replied that if I ever showed up at her house stinking drunk and covered in vomit at four in the morning again she would tell her father and have me shot. That said, she slammed the door and I went home.
After a few months, I had realized that the Virgin Mary had either been a filthy liar whose mendacity threw the entire foundation of Christianity into doubt or, more likely, an absinthe-induced hallucination. Either way, she should not be trusted as an authority on matters of the heart, and so I started a relationship with another girl. Things proceeded pleasantly enough until one night we were invited to a party where I happened to run into Olesya.
What happened next is a matter of irreconcilable debate between the historians.
The Pro-Nikolai historians contend that Olesya told Nikolai in no uncertain terms that she had realized that she did indeed have feelings for him and that, if he were free and unattached, she probably would be willing to go out with him. The Pro-Olesians, however, vociferously argue that Olesya was speaking only in the vaguest hypothetical terms and that there was never anything that should have been construed as a concrete expression of interest. Regardless, by midnight I had broken off my relationship and informed Olesya that I was all hers, to which she responded in a shocked tone that she had not asked for all, or even part of me. After which I had quite made up my mind that the less Olesya Vassilyevna Manukova was in my life, the better and healthier I would be for it, and I bid her “good night” for what I hoped would be the last time.
And that seemed to be that. There followed, for both of us, a string of brief and pointless romantic entanglements with other people (three for me, eight for her, but who’s counting?) during which time we kept running into each other, our social circles now having become hopelessly and inextricably intertwined. I even briefly got back together with Zahara during three short days where we finally and definitively proved to an empirical certainty that our being together really was the worst idea imaginable. We parted with relief and absolutely no bitterness, and as she kissed my cheek she casually mentioned, “Oh by the way, Nicky. I think my sister might be insane about you. Maybe give her a call?”
Olesya and I went on our first date on the 4 of March 2178 and had broken up by the 16 of April. But now our fates were sealed. We were in each other’s orbits and would be perpetually swinging back and forth toward or away from each other. We were like a moth and a bare bulb, though who was the unfortunate insect was up to the observer. We were back together again by 3 of June, broken up by August 21. There followed a long, nonexclusive on-off period where we slept together while pretending to be single and had absolutely no interest in anyone else. Then there was the long dark winter of 2178 where Olesya fell in love with a woman named Laura Enderby, whom she claimed was the person she had been waiting for her whole life. Then, when Laura Enderby was revealed as a poisonous narcissist who viewed Olesya less as a person and more of an organic cash machine, we were back together by 28 February 2179.
Broken up by September. Back together by October.
Broken up by July 2180.
Back together by August. Married 10 February 2181.
Divorced. Bereaved. 12 August 2190.
You picked the right one, Nicky.
21
For I was born on fertile soil,
Heir to my father’s crown,
But by my kin I was betrayed,
My foes did cast me down,
But here I built my nation dear,
And shall not wander more
For man stands tall!
Man stands tall!
Man stands tall on Caspian’s Shore!
—“National Anthem of the Caspian Republic”
There has not been (as far as I can find, at least) a true and definitive accounting of the events of September 9, 2184. My countrymen deserve to know what happened, so I will now attempt to reveal this part of their history.
I will tell the truth, and let others make of it what they will.
My friends will say I am taking on too much responsibility for what happened, my enemies will say that I am minimizing my role to escape blame. Neither is the case. I will recall these events as accurately as memory and the available facts allow. That is all.
The reader may rest assured that the guilt of my actions that night have never been far from my thoughts, and it is a burden I do not expect to lay down until the day I lay all burdens down. But you will not find any garment rending or performative displays of remorse here. My guilt is my own, and it is not an exhibit to be gawked at. Nor do I find myself tempted to seek absolution from those who have never had to live in a nation like the Caspian Republic. It is easy to judge, much harder to understand, and life in the Caspian Republic frequently defied all hope of understanding. If there is someone who lived through those times with clean hands, let him be my judge. Let all others think what they will.
The landscape outside Ellulgrad was as desolate as the moon, and as we drove on through the endless night I felt as if my father-in-law and I were the only living beings on earth. But slowly, other lights began to join us on the endless, dusty road. More StaSec cars appeared before us, and behind us. And not just cars but the meat wagons, those great black vans we used for transporting prisoners, that would tear through the tiny streets of Old Baku, rattling windows and teeth and guilty consciences. At first they were in pairs, then fives, then tens. And at last, as Vassily was forced to stop as the tiny road became jammed with vehicles, I realized we were part of a convoy. Virtually all of StaSec’s vehicular fleet was on the road, and heading to some remote secret place in the wilds outside of the capital. I said nothing, but my eyes were full of questions.
Vassily studiously avoided my gaze.
Our destination was a building site, around a hundred kilometers outside of Ellulgrad, seemingly in the center of the
largest circle of uninhabited terrain in the entire Republic. There were floodlights scouring the darkness away with white-hot sodium, and we could see construction machines lying idle like great yellow dragons, a few massive concrete walls and sheds for storing tools and safety gear.
None of us knew it, but we were standing in the bones of what would eventually become Internment Center 3, or Kobustan.
Christ. That place was killing before it had even been built.
I looked around me in wonder. The site was now filled with StaSec agents, most of them, I noticed, junior agents like myself. Vassily gave my shoulder a squeeze and left me with my peers, going off to talk with a small clique of department heads who had gathered off to the side. There were hundreds of us. Not a one spoke.
Suddenly, a large StaSec car roared into the site and did an extravagant handbrake turn, firing plumes of dust into the air. We all leaped back to avoid it and I found myself pressed between two female junior agents, a short, stocky woman with blond hair and a square jaw, and a very thin, elfin-looking girl with her brown hair cut very short and who looked like a fifteen-year-old boy, though she must have been at least in her early twenties.
The car’s engine was silenced and we stood there, staring at it.
Then, with an unmistakable sense of dramatic timing, the door flung open and a tall, bearded man sprung out like a devil from a trapdoor. He was wearing a long brown greatcoat more suited to a general than the head of a civilian agency, but he doubtless would not have recognized the distinction. For standing before us was none other than Samuel Papalazarou Junior, the Director of State Security.
He had a voice that could shake the stars in the night sky, and as he addressed us, his words echoed crisply against the concrete walls like gunshots.
“Brothers!” he barked. “And sisters.”
The first word he spoke with passion and fire, the last with a sense of concession, as if performing a wearying act of noblesse oblige. Beside me, the stout woman cursed angrily under her breath: “Prick.”
When the Sparrow Falls Page 15