Napoleon Great-Great-Grandson Speaks
Page 31
«We also, back in the old days, exchanged Powers for Abel.»
«And Sophia has been swallowed up by the earth»-Sandy squeezed out these words casually, watching my reaction out of the corner of his eye.
The transition from one topic to the other had been planned ahead of time and sounded clumsy, but I had nothing to cheer him up with.
«I don't have any information either.» I confess I pronounced those words with a sense of relief. Fate had once again preserved Sophia. In spite of the fact that her participation in eliminating Yandarbiyev had been included in one of the plans worked out by the CIA, she hadn't had to carry it out. How things were going with her, whether she was alive, or had also become a casualty of the undeclared war-the answer was hidden in a deep fog.
Sandy was satisfied with the answer, and turned his attention to the TV screen. Football, to which Europeans, to put it mildly, are indifferent, along with baseball and basketball, tops the ratings among sports programs on American television. I sat with him until eight-we each ordered another bottle. Then we did it again. Gradually, the bar filled up with regulars. I took my leave of Sandy and left him to enjoy football, beer, conversations with the bartender, and, when the clientele warmed up, Irish songs, customary in pubs on Broadway; and went out onto the street. Without hurrying, I went up Broadway to the Lafayette Street subway station and descended into the subway.
From here to my house on the subway is just a little more than an hour-there's time to think everything over. In the evening, after the train crosses the bridge and gets into Brooklyn, the car is half empty. Nobody comes through the cars singing songs or begging.
After the Bay Park subway station I was left alone in the car. Nothing would hinder me from reliving events from a month ago.
Although…the news from Qatar only upsets those who are involved in it. Today the world is shouting about Spain. Everyone becomes wise after the fact; but, unfortunately, the enlightenment is of short duration. The relapse into political blindness comes on very quickly.
The Spanish police had information about the terrorists ahead of time. To the best of my knowledge, since 1999, it had been painstakingly supplied by a Moroccan informer going by the nickname of «Juan,» and since 2002, by the mullah at one of the mosques south of Madrid. The police had the addresses and phone numbers of the suspected terrorists at their disposal; they could follow their movements and record their conversations, but actually, no real measures were taken towards the prevention of a terrorist act. Only now did they arrest Basel Gaoun, data on whom had been transmitted to the FBI back in September, along with a pointer on Mohammed Atri. You see, the police never supposed the terrorists would have the nerve to attack Spain, famed for its peaceful attitude towards the Muslim world.
Only three days after Gaoun's arrest did the Spaniards inform the FBI that, during the search of his Madrid apartment, they had found a pilot's uniform, a flight schedule for the international airport in Memphis, Tennessee, and a laser disc entitled, «How the Captain of an Airliner Ought to Look and Behave.» Enviable efficiency! And if the terrorists had attempted, during that time, to carry out their devilish plan?!
Madrid judge Juan del Olmo, who wrote out the order for Gaoun's arrest and accused him of participation in mass murders and belonging to a terrorist organization, rather awkwardly explained his subordinates' sluggishness: «They arrested him on a Friday. The technical workers who were supposed to inform our American colleagues, had left Madrid for the weekend.»
A convincing argument. But where was Atri, Ted's murderer and the supposed twentieth suicide pilot? – On the «Most Wanted» list. Five days before Bloody Thursday, he had hidden himself from the investigators' field of view.
I arrived home at half-past nine. The apartment, which I had loved, had suddenly become strange to me. Like a hunted beast, I wandered from room to room in search of shelter. Useless! Since Gulya's death, every point of contact with the past was like an electric shock. The psychologists console us: with the passage of time, wounds will cicatrize and become scars. But in the meantime, as soon as one relaxes, up from the watery depths comes the body of the drowned vessel, reminding one of the passengers eternally sleeping in its staterooms.
So it was today…What did Sandy start talking about Sophia for? What did he stir up events a month old for? For the fifth month now, there's been no news of her. The last reliable information-Gulya's words-was the story about how she helped to liquidate Dawalibi. The threads that stretched out to her have been broken.
I couldn't get to sleep for a long time. I called to mind September 11, 1683. On that day, the fate of European civilization was decided. The Ottoman Empire got as far as Vienna. But the invincible army of Kara Mustafa Pasha was routed. Islam's expansion was checked, but only to begin a new offensive in the twenty-first century. Is this a three-hundred-year-old boomerang from September 11, 1683?
Instead of sleeping pills, I drank Captain Morgan rum, which I had become partial to in Las Vegas. I fell asleep at about three-and was awakened an hour later by a telephone call: Sophia.
The voice was cheerful and came from very far away. She announced that she was living for the second month now in the island nation of Vanuatu. I was surprised, and she explained that she was tired of cataclysms, and had decided to settle on a little island at the edge of the world.
«I like Vanuatu best. It's in the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean, on the New Hebrides Archipelago. I bought a villa on the island of Efate in the suburbs of Port Vila. I want to live a carefree life here, to a very old age.»
«On what dough?'
«Don't forget the condo I sold,» Sophia lied with conviction, and without turning a whisker, «There's enough money for more than one day.»
I held my tongue, I didn't want to say that she had never inherited any condominium, and hadn't been mentioned in the will, but had tricked that other brigand, Peter Berlin, out of the money.
«What are you telling me this for? Nobody's after you: the US government has pardoned you in gratitude for Dawalibi,» I deliberately showed my hand, «Live wherever you want. What does it have to do with me?»
My voice sounded irritable and tired. The ten-thousand-mile-or-so distance between us smoothed out the abrasiveness, and Sophia let my reproaches go in one ear and out the other.
«I've taken on a five-year-old girl to bring up-a Melanesian child, whose parents and close relatives were killed in a ferryboat wreck.»
«How long will that keep you occupied?»
She didn't react to the irony in my voice.
«Come and rest. Vanuatu is the untouched paradise of Oceania. There are lots of volcanoes here, nine of which are active. Maybe you've heard of Yasur? It's the most accessible and 'peaceable' active volcano on the planet. And the sea that surrounds Vanuatu is called the 'Coral Sea.' Come for a month. Get a change of scene.»
The proposal was unexpected and I was taken aback.
«I won't make any promises. Let me think it over.»
«To the best of my knowledge, since your wife died, you've gone to pieces,» she hauled in an additional argument.
A fresh surprise. How had that news reached her? Suppose Gulya told her about the wedding. When she got back from Las Vegas, they might have met up in Damascus. And she'd have heard of her tragic death from the CIA representative who had helped her get to Vanuatu as part of the Witness Protection Program.
The silence dragged on, and Sophia asked, «You won't object if I call you again?»
«Call me,» I answered without thinking.
Captain Morgan lets you get to sleep. The waking up is the hard part. Before my eyes is Gulya's portrait, her smile. Mornings everything is aggravated to the limit: nothing has been changed. A radical cure-to change my situation. Take a vacation and get away as far as possible. As a lover and a wife, Sophia belongs in the past. As a friend? We're both suffering from loneliness…
She called again. And then another time. Despite her carefree life, she needed c
ompany.
After long thought, I got a ticket to Melbourne. From there, my path leads to Bauerfield Airport, in the suburbs of Port Vila. I'm not inclined to rebuild burned bridges. Real life is different from a Hollywood «happy ending.» But in order to go on functioning normally, as the programmers say, I need to reboot the computer. As everyone knows, this won't wipe anything off the hard drive. What will cease to work are unwanted processes and programs, invisible to the user, which are executed in the background.
Ahead lies a two-month vacation for 2002 and 2003. I have to take a breather and start writing my memoirs, so as once again, this time more intelligently, to travel the whole path, and silently stand before the marble slabs with the names of Yurochka Dubovtsev and Gulya Kuliyeva. What will come after that-it's hard to guess. I will trust in the Almighty. Although, what with being eternally busy and the desire to keep up with everything, His eyes frequently dart around and slip past me.
New York-Vanuatu