Stray Dog Winter

by David Francis

  Darcy said nothing, just slipped through the peasants to the large double doors. He did a half-halt when he saw the exit framed by two men in black-lapelled coats like his own, one man bearded, the dog muzzled in a cage like a captive thing being loaded into a van outside.

  Darcy briskly changed course to a revolving door, pursued by the beard who crammed into the compartment behind him, and the revolving stopped. Darcy made a rush against the faltering glass and it flung him outside to the cold, to a hand that enveloped his face in cloth, damp against his nostrils, stinging his eyes, the shriek was his own at the fact of his capture, his head in what felt like a sack, the septic taste of a toxin and a roaring that pounded inside his ears. Then, for a brief suspended instant, it all felt as fluid as a dream, he could no longer feel it as real or fight it, hoisted by his arms through the snow, his feet kicking faintly but only the air. He tried to shout his name but could feel he was only mouthing, coughing up a foul astringency, asphyxiating, a suffocating glove. As the cloth flapped from his face he searched the air for the dog, for witnesses, fighting his tongue for the shape of Aurelio’s name, the side of his face wet against an ice-blown roof of the van that came right at him, the feel of iron wrist bands as they clamped his hands, forced him into the back seat at an unnatural angle with his knees up, the ribbed edge beneath his hip. The slamming of a car door, then another, and they were driving through furry falling snow that drifted up high through a smeared piece of window. Ravens on the passing branches, a hint of blue above a jaundiced building. Daylight.

  Lubyanka, Saturday, 9 am

  Darcy came to, his face in his arms on a rough wooden table. A poisonous gagging taste, a cut on his lip that stung, a pungent animal smell. A tap dripped somewhere close, an echo then a whining. Darcy turned. A baba, standing in a corner outside the spray of light with a bucket in the shadows, mopping about the animal cage where the dog turned about itself, a black leather muzzle. Dog pee ran onto the floor.

  Darcy went to stand, to comfort it, but the baba raised her mop and said nyet so Darcy just dabbed his lips on his arm, on denim, his jacket, but not Aurelio’s coat. His daypack gone; Fin’s passport, the money, gone with it. He looked up at a single bulb above him, two chairs in front. There was no clock, no window. Da, said the baba, Lubyanka. She bent over her bucket and hoisted the handle, left with the mop in the air like a braided head on a stick.

  The battered metal door opened from the outside, a clanging in the passage. Fluorescent lights switched on brilliantly and Darcy clenched his eyes as a wooziness swept over him. He squinted up at the sound of footsteps, the general looming there, wide epaulettes and medal ribbons, his jacket pulling at its buttons, and Darcy smelled a different smell and knew it was his own sweat.

  Can I use the bathroom? he asked.

  The general’s eyes were caustic. It is not a hotel, he said. He lowered himself carefully onto a chair that was too small and placed a manila folder and a silver lunch box on the table. His dome head large without his hat, his hair a white shaved shadow, his eyes heavy-lidded; Darcy saw nothing of Aurelio in him but the fullness of his still-dark eyebrows.

  The general allowed a damp, bloodless smile then pulled some black-rimmed glasses from his lunch box. You may be having questions, he said, but I will be asking them. His English clipped, his deep tone almost seductive, the moist-lipped mouth. He was different close-up.

  Darcy felt an urge to retch but there was no liquid left in him, just a nasty toxic aftertaste. He carefully removed his beanie and endeavoured to sit up straight. He wanted to tell the general he had attended his wedding but realised that was all part of a recruitment that went wrong. Where is Aurelio? he asked.

  The general didn’t answer, just delved into the folder then, almost casually, he placed a photo on the table. The photo from Prague.

  A wave of fear rose up and Darcy breathed into his beanie’s damp stale wool. More photos placed across the pitted table like a flush of cards. A shot of him standing alone on the roadside at the pleshka, waiting, the perimeter fence behind him. No sign of the son-in-law. Darcy looked up helplessly.

  We have in this country Article 206, the general said. Criminal hooliganism with exceptional cynicism. Prison for five years. Or Article 121 muzhelostovo. He pointed to the photo in Prague. Another five.

  Darcy beheld his own black and white face turned to the heavens, twisting up in its fleeting shudder. He pointed at it but didn’t look up. That was another country, he whispered, but when he raised his eyes this time the general’s expression was not just callous and weary, but also oddly amused, the arm of his glasses swung gently in his hand.

  Darcy turned to look at the dog, which just watched him balefully, and he thought about the son-in-law. Has the Australian Ambassador been notified about me? asked Darcy.

  The general placed the glasses carefully on the table. No questions, he said, and Darcy’s right hand fell like a rag onto his lap as he searched the general’s big flushed face for sympathy. I’m a friend of your son’s, he said. I was at your wedding.

  The general acknowledged this with a fist slammed down on the photos. Darcy reeled back but the general just smiled again, his bottom teeth crooked, the colour of butterscotch. He set a newspaper cutting on the table, a small photo at the bottom of the page—Chernenko’s daughter on a lawn in front of a large stone house. You know this woman?

  Darcy shook his head, his palm scruffing back and forth through his hair in frustration, a sudden welling of fear. I don’t know her; I just know who she is. He looked up so the general would see his sincerity.

  You know her dog, said the general, gesturing to the restless whippet. Again the cruel amusement flashed in his eyes.

  The whippet stood with its head tucked low and its haunches curled under itself; it looked like a narrow wheel. I saved the dog, he said. Nikolai Chuprakov killed himself.

  Did he? asked the general.

  Darcy didn’t let himself cry. You know I am innocent, he said. Don’t make me a scapegoat.

  You are muzhelostovo, the general said, the syllables spat with disgust.

  Then so is Aurelio, said Darcy.

  The force of the slap from a huge pink hand stung Darcy so hard his head swung sideways, almost dislodged him from his chair, but he withstood it in silence, without cradling his welted cheek, even as the tears brimmed in his eyes.

  You think we are not listening in, said the general. The general smoothed his index finger over the newspaper photo of Anyetta Chernenko, examined the remnants of the print on his fingertips, then he placed a photo of Fin on the table, taken in the street outside the apartment. She leaned into the window of Jobik’s car, sheltered by her black umbrella, and Darcy saw himself there, on the pavement behind them, his hands in his pockets.

  Darcy cupped his burning cheek. That’s my friend, he said softly.

  We will see, said the general. Soon will be arriving the Consul-General from Turkey. He has questions for you about your friends. He pointed at Jobik’s car. Fin in her sheepskin coat and fur hat, Jobik’s face hidden.

  I only met him once, said Darcy. It was his first lie; he hoped he hadn’t wasted it.

  Tell that to the Turkish, the general said, glaring as the peep-window whined open. A pale woman’s face shadowed through the grate. Fin, thought Darcy at first, but then recognised the face from the cutting, Chernenko’s daughter, the high Slavic strength in her cheekbones, her blue eye shadow, staring in. Darcy stood to approach the door, wanting to let her know the truth, that it wasn’t his fault, but the general grabbed his silver lunch box and shoved his chair back. Please get her dog, he said, motioning at the whippet in the cage.

  Warily Darcy walked over, unclipped the metal clasp and reached for the leash that lay wet among its tapered feet. The dog shook like a spinnaker, didn’t want to come out of the cage. Darcy didn’t pull, just waited until it stepped forward. He led it quietly to the door, then he found himself kneeling, his head against the burnished silver coat, saying g
oodbye.

  Boyar, the woman said and Darcy looked up at her, tall above him in a full-length brown fur, her stunned blue eyes. Spasiba, she said.

  Darcy stood and placed the leash in her slender gloved hand. I took care of him, he said and she nodded, her mouth set in a strange effort at a smile, her eyes moist and shiny.

  She not speak English, the general said. He took her arm and guided her down the corridor, but as she turned the corner she glanced back at Darcy. I thank you, she said.

  Lubyanka, Saturday, noon

  A narrow bed, wooden slats and a worn grey blanket, an iron door. The greasy floor powdered with lime. At the oil drum in the corner Darcy held his breath against the smell of those who’d come before him, pushed the lid free and peed, then slid the iron cover tight. He clenched his elbows against his aching rib cage, pressed his hands into his eyes. He’d passed a boy in the hallway in filthy fatigues and with almond-shaped eyes, Cyrillic letters on his cheeks, branded. A haunted sawn-off face shown on purpose, so Darcy could see what he might become. Outcast and emaciated, a foreign opuscheny a thousand miles east of here, no troika through the snow with Aurelio to a secret dacha in the Urals. He was here on this uneven cot, shawled in a stagnant blanket, staring up at a dim bulb on a wire that dropped from the cement ceiling. They watch from somewhere, he thought, though the door slot was covered. On the opposite wall was a heating duct covered with chicken wire, but it blew an icy breeze. His feet were still freezing.

  He walked. Five short steps, he turned, then four. He remembered the night he arrived in Moscow, how they had passed this place in the taxi, a huge mustard building with a thousand cells inside. He remembered feeling young then, light and expectant. Fin had told him it’s good to seem naïve, spike your hair and be yourself. He lifted his numb feet and gleaned the difference—Fin only appeared naïve. A shriek from somewhere, a muffled sound like a belt buckle in a washing machine; Darcy conjured a consular official—a broad Australian face with a grim, hesitant smile—coming to collect him and feed him cheese and Vegemite sandwiches, a plane lifting off to that faraway, flyblown place where he’d never belonged but now yearned for. He felt a howling inside him. The raspy telephone voice of his mother: What are you into now?

  He veiled his nose with the blanket to reduce the stench, kept walking in a kind of stupor. The welt of the general’s hand buzzed on his face and rang hollow in his ear, electricity came in surges, the bulb bright then struggling, the peephole still a grey flap of iron. He imagined Fin in a plane on a runway, some passport in her lap. At Monash, she’d always pretended everything was wry and amusing, how they’d taken the piss out of anyone studious, regu-lar, as they called the diligent dags from the private schools, the Asians kids haunting the library, buried among the metal reference shelves. Children who’d been raised to heed warnings, who hadn’t been quite so free-range, or adulterated.

  Darcy slumped on the bed and closed his eyes tight to fake a prayer but he wasn’t sure what to ask, or how, his arms just hung like fallen branches in his lap. At a shift of the locks, the door lurched open and Aurelio stood in a drab felt suit, grey and unfashionable, a ladder-backed chair in his hand. Unshaven, his caramel hair slicked back, greasy. Darcy just stared, a sense of himself peering out bruised from the blanket like a junkie or a mendicant, a pulse in his palms, as if his heart had moved there for shelter. Aurelio moved into the room, his hazel eyes bloodshot and his cheeks slightly sunken. What happened to you? asked Darcy.

  Aurelio sat in the chair and glanced back at the door, then reached to touch the welt on Darcy’s face. My father is cruel, he said, tears glittering in his eyes, but Darcy was dry-eyed, the sight of Aurelio like this, his brow damp with sweat and the yeasty smell of beer on his breath, clasping Darcy’s hands with clammy palms, not smooth and dry like they had been. Aurelio touched the cut on Darcy’s lip, almost childlike; he leaned forward wanting to kiss.

  Not in here, said Darcy.

  Aurelio sat back in the chair and clutched his elbows. Aurelio, who’d always seemed to make his own arrangements, the golden boy of Moscow, his eyebrows now made him look sad. He’d lost the look of privilege, swanning around the park, the costumes in the dress shop, his complexion sallow now.

  Aurelio, said Darcy, I need you to get me out of here.

  My father knows about us, Aurelio said. And now Chuprakov is dead.

  I know, said Darcy, but I need your help.

  Aurelio arched his brows and delivered a loose sympathetic smile. Darcy felt an old allergy to drunkenness, watching his mother on the couch, knowing there wouldn’t be dinner. He pressed his hand to the welt on his cheek.

  My mother met Castro, said Aurelio, but he is not my father. He reached into his jacket and produced a shiny black wallet, a photo. This is her, he said. A small colour shot of himself as a child, beside a woman. Darcy rested his eyes on it in the palm of Aurelio’s broad hand, his mother young and dark, lean, in a tropical dress, a magenta ribbon in her hair. She stood on wooden stairs. Aurelio beside her, a boy in a khaki suit and sandals, the same large eyes and luxuriant brows. I want you to have it, said Aurelio.

  Darcy had a flash of Fin in her African print dress, unwanted in the driveway, under the flowering gum. I need your help, not your photos, he said.

  I want you to remember me, said Aurelio.

  Darcy rubbed his hands through his own matted hair—this was all Aurelio had for him. He took the photo and held it in a hand so pale it looked dead. His feet so cold, his boots as if lined with shards of frozen glass. Thank you, Aurelio, he said, but I need to get home. He stood up and walked again as if warmth lay in movement, afraid if his toes went numb he might never feel them again.

  I am wanting to help, said Aurelio, but you must understand me. He swigged from a miniature vodka bottle, swallowing all that was left. I am in druzhinniki, he said. I working for my father, proving him I am not a homosex.

  I—am—in—prison, said Darcy.

  I see this, said Aurelio. But the maid at the dacha, she is my friend but my father pays her for confirm. And now he knows what we do. And then Comrade Chuprakov. That was my project.

  Darcy sagged back on the cot, covered his face with his hands. All he remembered was the wild gaga girl with the spoon, Aurelio’s warm body in that upstairs shower; he’d seen no maid. He thought of the son-in-law splayed in the dark, his chest like a sump.

  The general left Cuba when I was three, said Aurelio.

  Darcy turned to him. Why are you telling me this?

  Aurelio held the small bottle half under his coat as if it were a secret. So you will remember me, he said. I was young in the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. He announced it as fact, devoid of ego, extended a long left arm, allowed his fingers to hang in the air, the movement both weary and graceful. I was an artist too, he said, like you, but of dance.

  Darcy felt as though bricks were being piled on his chest. He knew it was a special thing, for Aurelio to say it, but Darcy smelled the stench from the corner, felt the raw ache in his feet. He thought of the girl in the Hotel Ukraine and how he’d wanted to trust her, her disconsolate eyes when he asked for the dog. What this place did to people.

  Aurelio gazed at the floor as if it held some marvellous pattern. I come into Moscow at fifteen, he said. To Bolshoi. We rehearse Spartacus. Composer was Khatachurian, and director Preben Montell.

  Darcy shook his head, names he’d never heard of. He picked up the photo from the folds of the blanket, imagined Aurelio as a dark-haired boy at the ballet barre in Havana. Your father said the Turkish Consul-General wants to talk to me.

  My father is saying what he wants.

  But what do you know? asked Darcy. Tell me what you know.

  Aurelio searched up at the ceiling now. They are wanting your sister, he said, and her friend Jobik. They allegate he is murderer of Turkish Consul-General in a city you coming from. Aurelio took out another tiny bottle and upended it, let drops fall onto his extended tongue. They say your Fin was the driver.
>
  A new seam of fear travelled up Darcy’s spine. He cast his eyes low, to his Blundstone prints in the urine-stained floor. He never saw Jobik in Melbourne during that time, but he could just imagine Fin on Queens Road in St Kilda, behind the wheel of the rusted Corvair, Darcy’s car, his mother’s. He clutched his hands as if to hold himself still. The hollow sound in his ear, like a train coming in to a station.

  She’s a dangerous girl, said Aurelio.

  She’s my sister, said Darcy. He shut his eyes, wishing he didn’t believe what he’d heard but he could picture it too clearly. Fin waiting out by the tramline, the borrowed Corvair in the shade of the elms while Jobik slipped up some steps to one of those Georgian houses, the Consul-General bidding goodnight to his driver, or greeting his wife at the door. Darcy remembered the photos, slain Turks on the front page of the Age.

  Aurelio shook the bottle as if to prove it was empty. Jobik, he is having a history of blowing things up, he said. Turkish things. He is working for organisations. He spoke vaguely, as if this was irrelevant now. Armenian organisations. He stood to leave but Darcy reached for his arm.

  Listen to me, he said. I am a foreigner. I cannot be held here without my country knowing. You must tell the Australian Embassy.

  Aurelio reached down tenderly, touched Darcy’s swollen cheek. This isn’t England, he said. One time there was Jamie Brodkin, coming to start a homosex movement. Posters in the streets. He wanted to make a parade. Aurelio turned to the slot in the door. They told his family, but when his family come to take him home, his body had disappeared.

  Darcy shut his eyes and all he saw was his mother, her first morning drink in hand, staring at her bedside table, strange foreign names scratched on torn paper, wondering if she’d written them down in a dream.

  Lubyanka, Saturday, 3 pm

  Darcy curled up in the damp, fetid blanket, too tired to sleep, his mind spinning out like a wheel. The hanging bulb went out as a knocking began from beneath the bed, four beats then three, then a flurry. The grate in the door opening, the guard’s eyes looking in. Darcy turned to the bricks, to the wet day at Monash when Fin stole his car keys and then disappeared, even though she hated to drive in the rain. Images of her and Jobik on a blustery Melbourne afternoon, the Corvair parked in a dark garage near Albert Park, the two of them breathless and silent, waiting for the sirens to pass, or fucking on the strength of it, the sound of the explosion still resounding in their ears. The kind of killings Darcy’d heard of on the news, as if they’d happened far away, like history from school, Johnny Turk mowing down ANZACs by the thousand on the cliffs of Gallipoli, everyone’s great-uncles. Darcy had a vague memory of the Armenian massacres, same country, same year, 1915. But Fin had never mentioned them.