by Daniel Kemp
“I understand you have been handled by Elijah up to now and all of what I'm about to ask has been covered by him. No matter. I want to go through every trivial detail again. I would like to start at where and how you met Fyodor Nazarov Razin for the first time, please. You might include why you were in the same part of the world as he was, Henry.”
“I see! The new Joseph man is an impatient man. Similar to the one I have just said goodbye to. Let it not be me that delays you from your vital appointments, sir.” There was no sigh, no sign of resentment before he began. The file said he was a stoic and pensive man. The analysis was correct.
“I first came across Razin in an American military camp at Khost, Afghanistan in December last year. It was a year ago yesterday, on the ninth. All the press corps were huddled together for calls to announcements from their propaganda bureau, or so the Americans said. I thought perhaps it was for the convenience of an enemy mortar shell or friendly fire. What is it they say—truth is the first casualty of war—well, if those who expose the truth are all blown up then there would be no truth to kill would there?”
His sunken eyes travelled across mine looking for a response, but I had no answer to that, in fact, I didn't understand it. We exchanged exhaled cigarette smoke and sipped our whisky until he spoke again.
“How is Elijah since I saw him? I would like to see him before I leave.” His deviation annoyed me.
“He's fine. Back to Khost and those details, if you would be so kind, Henry.”
“You're not interested in me, are you? Your interest lies with Razin the Russian and him alone. But what of it? Same with the old Joseph as it is now with the younger one. At least Elijah cared. Okay, I give you what I got.” A long draw on his scented cigarette and a single gulp to empty his Scotch preceded his rebuke.
“My cover was the same as always, international freelance journalist. I am, or was, a war correspondent who carried his own camera. My cover was good, it was authentic and what's more I was an ace cameraman. But no, don't lose yourself in that drink before your own ears hear the truth of how good my cover was, it's burnt to the file, Mr Joseph. It's been on there for nearly forever. Razin was billeted with us all, in the bed next to mine in the roughed out, tented press quarters. Before you ask, Control had not sent me there for him, or at least that's what I believed.”
I watched as he slowly refilled his glass using his left hand, on the back of which was a tattoo of an eight-pointed red opened rose above which was a traditional four-pointed cardinal cross in gold, and a four-pointed ordinal cross in silver. I saved any questions about that for a later date.
“No one knew of Razin until I told Control of a suspicious Russian bear pretending to be a Finnish tree-hugger. He told me to snap away then send him the pictures. I took a few and a copy of his press pass. That was signed by the same General who had signed mine, but if the Yankee General had known that Oban Raikkonen from somewhere in Finland was really Fyodor Nazarov Razin from Moscow Centre, he would have torn it up, I'm sure he would. Why was I there? I was there to save the world from American expansionist plans and substitute them with British ones. What else would I be there for? I bet you're wondering how I knew he was a hood if Control hadn't told me? I'm not a Russian spy hunter, but equally I'm no fool. He wasn't there for his health, but he might have wanted the opium. That's why I was there. Looking after HMG interests. I wasn't going to stand by and allow the poppies to be processed in Arkansas instead of Kandaha. That was just too long a flight for flowers. Processing plants were being built in the valley of the Hari River, near Herat in eastern Afghanistan. And so Control told me that the Brits wanted to stop the greedy Yanks, but he never told me what the Brits wanted to put in its place and I never found out. Everything went back to London including America's plan to run thousands of miles of gas and fuel carrying pipes from the Caspian into the Arabian Sea. All the information is safely locked away in MI6 safes, Mr Joseph sir.”
His glass was full and as he added more to mine I offered no objection. I asked how he knew Razin was not who he was supposed to be.
“He was speaking Russian into his phone. The dialect he used sounded Finnish to others I guess, but not me. I learned all the nuances of the Russian language from a very early age at the hands of a Russian tutor, but I'd had the chance to practise some of them when I was freelancing in Istanbul, Turkey for an American magazine. I was there for over a year. Armenians are adopted Russians, you know. We are hated by the Turks and we hate them back. You will know that when eventually you read my file. Anyway, I was mostly educated privately until I attended Oxford University when I was nineteen. I am digressing, I apologise. Razin, or Oban as I knew him then, never spoke to anyone in the camp for the first few days. On the phone, yes, but not verbally to any of us. When he wasn't using a phone all he did was sit on his camp bed holding a thin silver stiletto bladed knife, a vicious but beautiful looking thing held over and stabbing into the dancing flame of a candle. All day he sat there. Only once did he attend a press conference which I found suspicious but the Americans never did. He would never fell asleep before me and was always awake before me. I thought he was a demon who never needed sleep. It was because of all those things that I noticed him, plus his size. He is large, Mr Joseph, like yourself.”
Henry's file read that he never tried to hide his sexual orientation. If it had not said he was attracted to men I would not have guessed he was anything but heterosexual until the way he spoke that last sentence. I thought the pitch of his voice carried overtures of a sexual nature.
“I was on my way out one evening when Razin called me over—'Hey, Rosco, come here.' I went. I had nothing else of importance to do.” He shook his head and went slightly pale at this point. When he leant across the table to extinguish his cigarette I could smell the starch on his clothes.
“Why did he call you Rosco? I asked. “Was that the name on your press pass?”
“No, I am always who I am; Henry Mayler. I asked him the same question—why Rosco? as he stabbed at the flame of one of his candles and he just smiled before he started into his introduction speech.
'Do you know where this flame goes when I blow it out?' he asked, before supplying his own answer.
'No, you don't know, do you. This flame is the only thing that's consistent in life. You light it. You play with it, you blow it out. But where is it when it's not alight? Ah, your face. I bet you think I'm mad. A flame is a flame after all, isn't it. You're probably right, I am mad, but aren't all of us that come wanting to photograph bodies after being blown apart by land mines or tank shells mad? No? Not you? Is that what your face is telling me? You want to capture the look on American faces in defeat or victory? You think you will sell those images to a magazine editor? Is that your game, little Rosco?'
“He stood and asked if I knew what happened to a human soul if it had no time to grieve when dead. I thought it was stupid and another of his rhetorical questions, offering no answer as he turned from me and made his way towards the open flap of the double canvas tent. He was almost there, thirty foot away from me when he suddenly stopped and walked all the way back.”
'The soul is the opposite to my flame. The flame forgets what the soul cannot. The flame will always forget as it never stays long enough in a single place for any memory to remain. A flame is trickery, my little Rosco friend. It is mercurial. That's why it flickers when there is a painful memory that needs to be thrown away. It shakes and shakes until the memory is gone. The soul cannot be like that. The soul holds memories which must be forgotten in grief before it can be guided to the afterlife. And there we have the irony; in order to grieve we must have time, but the longer we spend reminiscing the more chance of the memory being stolen by time and vanishing as my flame vanishes when extinguished. If you believe what I have just said proves I'm insane, then think of the flame being a woman who plays games on us. When the flame isn't alight, we can't see her in her game. When she comes to life in the flickering flame she plays another game a
s you look on. You know the sort I mean, don't you?'
“By the way he was standing there looking away from me, and the length of the pause, I thought this time he had definitely decided that he'd finished, but he hadn't and this was the bit that Elijah really loved. The big Russian was two paces from me, but he closed that gap and bent so close that his face was almost touching mine. The garlic on his breath was suffocating me and his body odour was nauseating. I still smell that face in my nightmares, Mr Joseph, but the odd thing is I can't remember him walking away. All I see in those nightmares is a ghost beside me whispering the Elijah words in my ear,
'If it is mere curiosity that has brought you here, leave now. If you are afraid of the places you find yourself in, withdraw from them. Look within yourself for the truth because you will not find it in me or anyone else. I am the earthly depiction of destruction and death'.”
“Did any of that mean anything to you, Henry? I asked.
“Yes, I've heard words like that before.” There was a slight hesitation to his reply. “None of what he said worried me, Mr Joseph. What did was the spectral glaze that covered his eyes, and as he fell silent it left him with a deathly scowl on his face the like of which I'd never seen. He scared me then and that look still does. He and I have met again of course but that first memory will not leave my mind, no matter what side he's supposed to be on.”
“You have a remarkable memory to be able to recall exactly what he said and recite it to Elijah, and then to me, Henry.”
“Is that merely an observation of yours, or a question, Mr, sir, man? But of course I do. That's why you Brits fell in love with me. If you'd read the files you would know that I also have a photographic memory, and I'm able to read lips. I do passable voice impersonation as well. Boris Yeltsin is a favourite when I'm drunk. That's when I can juggle twelve oranges at the same time. I'm a good all round circus act when on form, Mr English. Stop commending me on my attributes because of your failure to acquaint yourself with them. That either proves your own incompetence or you have not found sufficient time to read about me; in other words I'm unimportant to you.”
Ignoring the annoyance hiding inside his clouds of cigarette smoke, I pressed him to answer more fully. “Was there nothing else he said on that first occasion?”
“Elijah had someone typing it all up whilst I was being recorded on a machine he had running. He was old-fashioned and thorough.”
“So am I. I have both those records, but I'm from the old-school way of doing things, so there's a bit of a conflict going on inside me. One side wants to rely on the files, but my old-school training wants first-hand knowledge. Indulge me a little, Henry, please. The whisky is nice and smooth and I'm in no rush. We can natter a while longer, unless you have somewhere to be?”
He sighed regretfully but seemed to mellow as he accepted another of my proffered cigarettes and the refreshed glass I pushed towards him. He drank from the glass but didn't light the cigarette. I changed tack with the questions, but I hadn't forgotten what he obviously wanted to forget.
“I understand you met Razin earlier this month just before you arrived in this country, but you also met last month in November. Can you enlighten me on those meetings? We'll make a start with the first one in November, please.” My question had allowed a genie to escape.
“Did that knowledge come by word of mouth, or am I wrong and you have read some page of my history? I know what it is,” he said as his dejected body slumped in the chair before he continued. “You only had time to thumb through the pages and speed read, didn't you? You are brand new and if I was a betting man, which thankfully I'm not, I'd say you were like me—living on your wits for most of your life. If that were so it would explain how you're having trouble trusting what you're told and certainly why you won't depend on what's written down. You trust what you see and hear only. How am I doing, mister spy catcher? Is there a Greek siren calling you back to where it's hot and the bullets fly? Please, don't let your frustrations become my problem, will you.” After the display of petulance he carried on.
“Yes, it was a Friday. The sixth of November to be precise. I was in Kabul, but not on business directed from Control. I was in that part of Afghanistan freelancing for a magazine I do a lot of work for. I was in a café when the news on a radio said an Iraqi suicide bomber had been arrested. As the report went on it said that the bomber's target was the Afghan Defence Minister. I was about to leave for my appointment with that government minister, Mohammed Fahim, just as that report was broadcast. At first I put it down to coincidence, after all he was a target for the Taliban and I just happened to be going to the Defence Ministry. What else could it be? But a couple of hours later, after finishing my report, I was in a bar watching the recorded arrest on the huge television set, when in walks Razin and plants himself down next to me. You would know all this if you'd read the files.” His voice was rising as his anger grew. I had been wrong to assume he had settled down.
“Go on, please,” I asked fruitlessly. His eyes fixed firmly on me then through clenched teeth he offered his indignant explanation of why he was so irritable.
“I have been kept in this country for six days. Every new day you spend questioning me delays my flight to Canada. If you were going to keep me locked up on a smelly farm in freezing cold England why bloody mention Canada? Everything about today has been a waste of time. Sod your old-school preferences. I was promised a new name, a solid background, money and a safe place in bloody Canada to live. Now Russian Razin turns up in London and old Joseph has me dragged out of a nice London hotel room wearing a hood over my head and driven here. If the Russian wants me dead don't you think he would have shot me by now? And if you think he's looking around for where I've gone then you're making it rather easy for him to find me. I heard those police horns way before I heard your elaborate cavalcade pull into the yard.”
I went for more ice as he stood and wandered towards a window overlooking the farm grounds and the copse of trees standing on the hill beyond. His right hand was tapping at his leg as he walked. The grey coloured clouds hovered low across the frosty fields, threatening a difficult drive home. I briefly wondered how close Geoffrey Harwood was to home before the pain in my toes shot into the back of my leg and I thought of making things more difficult for Henry and seeing where it led.
“None of that has been my doing, Henry. Up until now your safety has been our prime concern, and I can categorically assure you that every effort is being made to place you in Canada with a legend guaranteeing your well-being and safety. Transfers between countries of this kind are not always a straightforward thing to arrange. The red tape involved in crossing international borders for stateless immigrants, which you would have to become, can be endless, but believe me I'm doing as much as I can to hasten things along. However, I'm the one now in charge of your future.” I sat and watched him. “Nothing is set in stone in this game. You should know that by now. Work with me and I'll work your ticket, if you don't—” I never finished that warning.
It was the wretched figure of a man who turned from the window twirling his cigarette dextrously between the fingers of both hands. He was shorter than I thought. Probably no more than five foot six or seven. Weighed in at around nine stone nothing, and I worried about his choice of location as he looked as though a strong Canadian wind would blow him clean away. He lit the cigarette, leaving it between his lips with his hands thrust deep into his pockets as he stood there resembling a stand-up comedian whose joke had just failed. I hadn't finished with him.
“When I ask a question I expect an answer not a trip down memory lane and then back again. A little while ago I asked if Razin said anything else to you in December last year when you were both in Khost playing with candle flames. I then asked about the meeting last month. You have yet to completely address that first question and if I were you I'd think long and hard about your answer.”
“I apologise, Mr Joseph. I wrongly judged you to be in a hurry as I thought we'd cove
red all that. You must have all day, the same as I do. Okay, what did Oban Raikkonen from Finland say? He told me a fictional life story that evening over some beers while we watched the ISAF troops play pool and have a laugh.”
When Henry finished relating the story that Razin had spun him, I asked what else had happened when Razin sat next to him in that bar in Kabul.
“He leant heavily against my shoulder and spoke in his Russian. He had never spoken to me before in his native language. He said that he knew of my meeting and he knew the Iraqi bomber was going to the same place. Told me the bomber's middle name, which had not been reported by the authorities. I checked it out and he was right. Said that the minister presented a useful target—'Он убьет две цели за один раз,' which roughly translates as killing two targets in one go.
'You found out too much too soon, little Rosco and now you are beginning to get noticed, you son of Dietmar of Magdeburg. You have avoided being killed today as did your ancestors in centuries before at the hands of the byword for sadism and the dark side of Catholicism; Konrad von Marburg. I might not know of the next Farsi Ahmadulia Pasclli, and he or she might get all the way and blow you up. You must stop picking at people's toes, Rosco'.”