It wasn’t a very good impersonation, but Joseph smiled in recognition.
‘They’ve said the same kinds of things to me.’
George laughed.
‘Imagine the face on one of those guys meeting two brothers, one sounds like a German, the other sounds like an Englishman!’
Joseph laughed with him, warmed suddenly by the sense that he liked the man.
‘In England it’s different?’ George asked suddenly.
The answer was on the tip of Joseph’s tongue.
‘It feels different,’ he said. He pointed. ‘Look around you. You’re the first black person I’ve seen here. In England it would be impossible to pass through the centre of a large city without seeing hundreds of black people or Asians.’
In normal circumstances, he would hesitate before describing his nationality, but from the moment he got on the plane he’d been more and more conscious that he thought of himself as English. Climbing into the clouds above Heathrow he had craned his neck, as he usually did, trying to pick out the district of London where he lived. At the customs barrier the Czech inspector had subjected his European passport to a long scrutiny, glancing repeatedly at him and running his fingers over the photograph. Can’t you see, Joseph had thought, almost angry, that I’m English?
‘Maybe it was like this in England fifty years ago,’ he continued, ‘but now it’s different.’ George didn’t reply. Looking at his profile, trying to guess what he was feeling, Joseph found himself noting signs of resemblance. How alike we are, he thought, and how little I know about him.
They came to the end of the square, and George turned left to bump over a stretch of paving. A few blocks further on he pulled around another corner and stopped. Then he pushed open the door on his side and turned to look at Joseph.
‘Come.’
Joseph hesitated.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To a café.’ George pointed and Joseph saw a splash of light spilling out from under a covered walkway. ‘We meet Valentin here. No tourists here. Only Czechs and Romas. You call them gypsies. You’ll like it. Come.’
Joseph got out of the car and looked around. Unlike the square the street had the air of gloom and abandonment. The lamps, dim and far between, cast a light so feeble that it seemed to deepen the darkness which lined the street. On the other side he could see the mouths of alleyways which seemed filled with shadows. On the corner two women leant back against the wall, for an instant posing expectantly, then lapsing into indifference as they went past. The thought flashed through his mind that he might be walking into some kind of trap and in a moment George would throw off the guise of brotherhood and reveal his true colours. Then he dismissed the idea as quickly as it had arrived. He would have known if Radka had been lying, he thought. Radka had to be genuine.
The café was smoky and crowded. Along one wall ran a row of high-backed benches. An oval-shaped bar bulged from the wall opposite. They sat in a booth near the back, behind the curve of the bar. George ordered beer.
‘What will he say when he hears this news?’ he asked Joseph.
Joseph took his time answering. The truth was that he didn’t know. It was possible, he thought, that his father wouldn’t remember, or perhaps, that for him, the events which Katya remembered with such dedication had merely been a casual episode. Perhaps, he thought viciously, the old man had been doing a dozen Russian secretaries. He wouldn’t put it past him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘What kind of man is he?’
Joseph shrugged.
‘He’s old. About seventy, I think. He and my mother separated when I was young. He used to take me to museums and the cinema. Later on I didn’t see much of him. Then my mother died and I didn’t see him at all for a while. He lives in a flat by himself.’
It must have been five years ago that he’d got the phone call late at night. He had just put the key in the door. Liz stood behind him, her face set and angry. He couldn’t remember now what they’d been arguing about, but that was in the terminal stage when they’d been arguing all the time. He’d picked up the phone intending to tell whoever it was that he’d call them back. Then the cold female voice told him that his father had suffered a heart attack earlier in the day.
At the hospital his father lay in the bed staring at the ceiling. At first Joseph thought he was asleep, then his head turned slowly. For a few seconds it seemed that Kofi hadn’t recognised him, then Joseph realised the expression on his face was one of complete indifference.
‘I will come to London soon,’ George said.
His look was speculative, as if he was waiting to be told that Joseph would somehow smooth his way.
‘How soon?’
Before George could reply a man loomed up behind him, bent down and slid into the seat. He was African, smartly dressed in a red silk shirt and a check jacket. Joseph stared openly. It was two days since he had seen a black face, apart from George, and seeing the African all of a sudden in this place gave him a kind of shock. Trying to place the man, he discounted the idea that he was Nigerian or Ghanaian. Apart from the style of his clothes, there was a kind of elegance about his bearing which would have been unusual among the Africans he knew. Probably from a French-speaking country, Joseph guessed.
‘Wie geht es, George?’ the African said.
George grunted. He gestured at Joseph.
‘Bruder.’
The African nodded seriously.
‘Wie geht es?’
‘He’s English,’ George told him.
Joseph saw the African look up and he sensed a movement behind his chair, but he smelt her perfume before she sat down next to him. She was young; not much more than her early twenties, Joseph thought. Thick black hair, a broad round face, heavy eyebrows, a complexion dark enough to be Indian. She was wearing a low-cut sweater, mesh holdups and a short, tight black skirt. When she sat down the skirt rode up to display the smooth brown skin above her stockings. She saw Joseph looking and grinned cheerfully at him.
‘I speak English,’ she said.
She put her hand on Joseph’s leg, and smiled at him.
‘Milena,’ George told Joseph, nodding at the woman.
‘How is your name?’ Milena asked Joseph.
He told her, and she laughed.
‘Hey Joe,’ she said.
The African said something in German to George and laughed. He got up, went over to the bar and came back with four small glasses. The liquid in them had a yellowish tinge. Milena pressed closer against Joseph, her hand rubbing lightly up and down his thigh.
‘Becherkova,’ George said, lifting his glass.
‘This is a drink for ladies,’ the African said. He laughed again.
The drink was sweet and so strong that Joseph almost choked as he sipped at it.
‘Haben Sie meinen Leichenwagen?’ the African asked George.
Joseph caught the end of the sentence, and remembered that ‘wagen’ was something to do with cars.
‘So you’re a car dealer,’ he said.
George burst out laughing.
‘Almost, but no. This deal is about hearses. Leichenwagen. Arnaldo is buying hearses. He’s a businessman from Angola.’
‘You’re an undertaker?’ Joseph asked.
The Angolan shook his head, smiling.
‘Importer. In Angola there’s a big demand.’
‘We convert,’ George said, before Joseph could ask the question. ‘This is my business with Valentin. We take vans and estate cars, make them into hearses, then we sell them. Very cheap. You can buy six from us for the cost of one new transport. Arnaldo makes a big profit.’
‘Where is the Russian?’ Arnaldo said in a complaining tone. ‘He promised me two days ago, but I can’t find him. When I go to the garage the gypsies say he’s coming. But I don’t see him. Tonight you tell me to come here. Okay. He’s not here. Every day is costing me money, I should have gone to Holland.’
George held up his ha
nds in a placatory gesture.
‘You would have had to pay them double,’ he said. He turned to Joseph. ‘You see? This is the problem. This is why I had to go to the garage tonight. Arnaldo was there making a big noise, but there is nothing I can do. Valentin went across the border to buy parts and we have to wait.’
The African muttered something insulting about Russians, but Joseph hardly heard him, because his attention had been distracted by what Milena was doing. Under the table her hand had been searching for his erect penis and when she found it she held on and squeezed.
‘You like me?’ she whispered.
Joseph put his hand down and held hers. She shifted, pulling his arm round her waist, trapping it behind her body. She put her other hand back under the table and stroked him gently.
‘I want your banana,’ she said. She grinned at him. Joseph was startled into laughter. ‘Banana, banana,’ she chanted softly into his ear.
On the other side of the table George was looking at him with something speculative in his gaze, as if trying to gauge his reaction. Meeting his eyes Joseph suddenly recalled seeing Radka for the first time as he entered George’s apartment, and he began shifting along the seat, trying to pull away from Milena.
‘Here is Valentin,’ George said.
For some reason Joseph had expected Valentin to look like a construction worker, a tough guy with a five o’clock shadow. In contrast, the man threading his way through the tables was dressed in a smart dark suit, a light-blue shirt and a matching tie. When Joseph offered his hand Valentin clasped it in both of his.
‘Joseph, Joseph, Joseph,’ he intoned soulfully. He looked at George and Joseph in turn, his head switching dramatically from side to side, a curl of tow-coloured hair flopping over his forehead as he did so. ‘Bruder, bruder.’ He gestured at them. ‘Good. Good.’
‘I’ve been looking for you three days,’ Arnaldo said, breaking in abruptly.
Valentin scowled for an instant, his jaw tightened and his eyes squinted. Then he grinned broadly and swung towards the African. He spread his arms.
‘Mr Arnaldo,’ he exclaimed. ‘Good news. We deliver tomorrow.’
‘You told me that four days ago,’ Arnaldo answered. ‘If I don’t see you tomorrow it’s finished and I go to Holland.’
Valentin’s mouth worked as he struggled for a reply in English. Then he gave up.
‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow,’ he said heartily. ‘You come.’ He looked at the gold watch which glittered on his wrist. ‘Ten o’clock. You come.’ He glanced over at George and nodded. ‘Now we go.’
Without pausing he turned and made for the door. In the same moment George stood up.
‘Let’s go,’ he told Joseph.
Milena had his genitals in her grip and he reached down to prise her fingers away.
‘You have dollars?’ she whispered into his ear.
Joseph fumbled in his pocket. He had changed his money for US dollars at the airport, and he still had most of the twenties they’d given him. He gave one to Milena, and she took it without looking. Instead she kissed her fingers and put them to his lips.
‘Come again. Come to Resslova.’
After the café the street seemed even darker and more threatening than before. Valentin was carrying a big cardboard box and they walked in single file on the narrow pavement, footsteps echoing off the thick brick walls of the buildings. Opposite where George had parked the car was a building faced by a group of statues, still cast in the heroic manner of socialist realism, an assortment of tools and implements jutting from their upraised fists, poised as if about to take flight from the first floor. Emerging from the dark sky above him, they had a lowering air of menace, as if it would only take a word for them to come alive and launch themselves at him.
Valentin sat in the front seat next to George.
‘What is Resslova?’ Joseph asked.
‘A street. It goes to Jiraskuv Bridge. This is where you find Milena.’
‘Who is she?’
‘Roma. From Romania. Same thing. Her brother works for us, fixing the cars. She works for herself. On the street.’ He chuckled. ‘You like her?’
Talking about her made Joseph remember the feel of her hands on him. He shifted in his seat and tried commanding his erection to go away.
‘Not much,’ he replied.
George chuckled again as if he could read Joseph’s mind.
‘This is the city of Faust,’ he said. ‘The Faust House is near Resslova in Karlovo Namesti, Karlovo Square. They say that a student lived there. He found gold and had a good time, gambling, drink and women, but he didn’t know the price until the devil came and took him away. In this city you have to be careful of your soul.’
He chuckled again, enjoying the story. Valentin had been listening, his expression blank, frowning, unable to follow the English phrases, and now he twisted round, his expression serious, and spoke in German. Joseph didn’t understand a word.
‘What’s he saying?’
‘He says he is very pleased to see you, because we’re so much alike. It’s like having another cousin.’
Valentin grinned broadly and reached over to pat Joseph on the shoulder. George laughed out loud.
‘He says that he is sorry to take you away from the café, but he has just come back from Switzerland and he’s very tired. He says that if we had stayed in that place for one more minute he would have killed that African.’
He grinned at Joseph as if to make sure that his brother recognised this was a joke.
‘He went to Switzerland for car parts?’
George stopped grinning, giving it a tiny pause before he replied.
‘There was other business.’ He hesitated. ‘There are some things you can buy here, but some parts for the engine, only Germany.’
They were crossing another bridge. To the right Joseph recognised the lights of the Charles Bridge glowing along the river, and it struck him that his hotel was on the other side of the town.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked. ‘I thought you were taking me back.’
‘Sure. We take you back. First we go to Smichov. We must see the hearses and give Milos the parts so that he can do the work.’ George twisted round and winked at Joseph. ‘If not Arnaldo will be angry and Valentin will kill him. Don’t worry. Five minutes.’
Joseph felt a sudden spike of irritation. He hadn’t asked to see the things, and he wanted nothing more than to get back to his hotel and be alone.
‘You wanted to know about my business,’ George said, reading his mood again. ‘I show you. Don’t worry. This is,’ he hesitated, ‘rechtmässig.’ He glanced round at Joseph, searching for the right word in English. ‘Legitimate business.’
There was a note of pride in his voice, and it occurred to Joseph that George wanted to show his new-found brother how well he was doing.
‘You only make hearses?’ he asked.
‘No, no. This is a big market. Everywhere they need specialist transport, hearses, small buses and trucks, water carriers, containers. These are very expensive to buy in from Western Europe, and no one here makes them. When we came here one year ago we bought an old factory in Smichov, and now we take cars, vans, anything that still runs and convert them for special use. We sell them very cheap.’
‘You’re a mechanic?’
It seemed a bizarre idea.
George laughed.
‘No, no. I make deals. This city is full of mechanics looking for work – Romanians, Bulgarians, Poles, Russians. Labour is cheap.’
So much for his suspicion that George was some kind of gangster. At the same time it crossed Joseph’s mind that his brother was actually a species of scavenger, up to his elbows in the castoffs of the Western world.
Now they were passing through a street lined with what looked like factories and workshops. It was a few minutes since Joseph had seen another vehicle, and, in the middle of a city, the shadowed vista of empty streets had an eerie, melancholy feel. He glanced at his watch. Tw
o o’clock. Wrapped in darkness and silence the deserted buildings loomed around them, the windows glittering in the reflected light of the Jaguar’s headlamps, like the secret gleaming of hooded eyes.
George turned another corner and swung in through an open metal gate. Beyond the gate was a big square box of a building. It looked like a pile of concrete blocks slung together and Joseph guessed that it couldn’t be more than thirty years old. Even so the plaster which made up the façade was already crumbling, and on one corner he could see a nest of iron rods sticking out at an angle.
The Jaguar came to rest in a maze of vehicles jumbled together on the strip of tarmac which ran between the factory and the iron railings facing the street. The cars were too many for Joseph to count. As he got out he recognised a few Ladas, but the yard seemed to be filled with every make that he’d ever seen. Their condition varied, a few were brand new, others were crumpled wrecks standing on blocks, waiting, he guessed, to be cannibalised for their parts.
A flood of light was streaming from the open garage doors at the front of the building, and Joseph followed Valentin and George as they walked towards it. Inside there were more cars, mostly arranged in neat rows. In the far corner a transit van was perched up on a lift, wires dangling from its exposed underbelly. Along the walls wheels and tyres were stacked precariously. Everything was still and silent, as if the scene had been frozen in the middle of a working day.
Valentin walked towards the stairs near the entrance. They led to a platform which ran along the wall, beyond which was a cubbyhole of an office. The lights were on, but there was no one to be seen through the grimy windows. Valentin, standing at the bottom of the stairs, called out, but there was no answer.
‘There should be a guard here,’ George said irritably, ‘for security, and they should be working.’
A Shadow of Myself Page 11