What the Light Reveals

by Mick McCoy

  The clock in the Saviour Tower struck midday; the military band didn’t answer. Unnoticed, the stage atop Lenin’s tomb had emptied – Brezhnev had slunk away with his generals and black-suited men.

  Finally, the ropes that cordoned off different sections of the crowd were dropped and people began to dissipate, shoulders swaying and umbrellas ducking as they shuffled away. It felt to Ruby as if the whole crowd had turned their backs on her, which brought relief. But twenty feet away was the father of a friend of Peter’s from their apartment block. As other filed past he stood where he was and faced them.

  ‘Conrad,’ Ruby said, lacing her fingers through his hand and nodding towards Alim Börteki. ‘It’s that creep from two floors down.’

  Conrad smiled at the man and raised his hand in salute. Börteki’s face, framed by a beard shaved clean from the cheeks but tracing his jawline and growing thickly under his chin, didn’t move at all. His expression was neither friendly nor hostile. There was no smile, no tilt of the head. His hands remained behind his back and he made no step towards them, or away.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Ruby said, leading Conrad by the hand. ‘He informs on us. You know he does.’

  ‘I don’t know that,’ Conrad replied, walking easily at Ruby’s side. ‘I don’t know that anyone informs on us.’

  She let go of his hand. ‘Just because they’re giving you this silly little medal tonight it doesn’t mean Börteki doesn’t want to see you sent to a gulag.’ He stopped but she kept walking. ‘Even Valentin says so.’

  ‘They wouldn’t do that,’ Conrad said, ‘they’d deport us.’

  She stopped. ‘Good, we could all go home then.’

  Ruby saw him watching passers-by, saw his worry they might be listening, confirming the lie of his constant denials about informers.

  ‘We are home,’ Conrad said, across the gap between them.

  ALEX

  ‘Gol! Goal! Go-oa-a-ll!’

  Alex sat on a low rock wall at the edge of the ice, camera in hand, watching Peter play hockey with Vashka Börteki, the informer’s son. Vashka had a good pair of lungs.

  Peter retrieved the puck from between the makeshift goals: his street shoes placed six paces apart. ‘Vashka,’ he said. ‘Pozhaluysta, zatknites. Please shut up.’ He flicked the puck across the wet, grey ice and skated towards his friend.

  Vashka was a good kid. Alex liked him, although he sensed he and Peter were growing apart. Before Peter went away to boarding school, he and Vashka had shared every class together for three or four years, maybe more, and spent as much time outside school at each other’s flats. Vashka seemed unaware his father reported on his best friend’s family. Or maybe he did know, but what could he do about it? Alex was sure Peter didn’t know either.

  Vashka wasn't going to shut up. ‘The huge crowd at the Ice Palace has gone wild at the ease with which Mikhailov, the champion from Lokomotiv, glided past the CSKA defender – Kuzkin no less, the legendary Viktor Kuzkin – and casually slid the puck past the hopelessly exposed goalie into the net.’

  ‘You can’t claim Mikhailov, he plays for us,’ Peter said. He glared at Alex, pointing at the camera. ‘And put that away.’

  Peter didn’t want Alex to be there, at least not with his camera. After he’d bloodied Peter’s nose, Alex had sat him down at the living room table, told him tip his head forward and pinch his nose shut, then run to the bathroom to wet a flannel. The bleeding had stopped quickly enough. Alex had offered to play chess, knowing Peter would beat him no matter how hard he tried. He’d always envied Peter’s natural talent for so many things. Swimming, ice hockey, athletics, an easy way of talking to people, making friends. Drafting and graphics were his only vocational talent, much to their father’s pride. And chess. He was magnificent at playing chess. Alex wished he had half of Peter’s pluck, half the willingness to risk taking part in something new. To not care about the outcome, not hide behind a camera.

  ‘I’ll meet you there,’ he’d said, when Peter told him he and Vashka were going to Gorky Park that afternoon. ‘I’m going out soon. I’ve got to work on a photo-essay.’

  ‘So you’ll have your camera? That’s what you’re telling me?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘You can come if you get on the ice,’ he’d said. ‘Maybe then I’d have a chance against Vashka.’

  ‘You’d lose by more if I played.’

  ‘Don’t bring the camera,’ Peter had said, as he completed his strangulation of Alex’s king’s exit points and the game was over. ‘Don’t sit on the edge of the ice and take photos of Vashka and me like you’re some kind of pervert.’ He’d stood. ‘All right?’

  ‘All right.’

  Peter liked Alex’s photographs, or said he did, but he was uncomfortable being the subject. Once they’d been developed, once he could see the images, he liked what they showed: pictures of him going about his life naturally, unaware of the camera. But when he knew the camera was there, he was uneasy about being recorded. ‘Are you training for the KGB or something?’ he’d said to Alex once. ‘You take pictures of everything. Why don’t you just get out from behind that thing and join in?’

  By the time Alex had arrived, Peter and Vashka were already playing. The ice had only been playable for that week of the Revolution Day holiday, with water hosed onto it every morning to thicken it, and Peter had skated every day since coming home from boarding school. He’d told Alex how desperately he wanted to make the school hockey team, as goalkeeper if need be, which was probably why he was willing to take these routine hidings from Vashka. Alex’s love of the park was different: what it shielded him from was at least as important as what it was. Its vast size allowed him to forget the city was at its gates. Ringed by thick banks of oak, even with leafless winter branches, it reduced the outside world to an occasional hint of distant concrete and brick and glass. He loved the grainy pre-dusk light, broken by the regularly spaced lamps on their steel posts, the constant stream of people trudging home from work and the fact that he wasn’t part of it. He and Peter and Vashka were the lucky ones, free to spend their time on the new ice in the shadow of the fountain that towered above it. The stone eagle sitting on the fountain’s central pedestal was the only spectator for Peter and Vashka’s game, other than Alex and his camera.

  ‘I’m telling you, you can’t claim Mikhailov,’ Peter said, scuffing at the ice with the blade of his stick.

  Alex raised his lens as Peter gave up his protest and hunched his body, shoulders forward and goal at his back. He focused on Peter’s profile, the concentration and tension so different from his usually mellow mood. Full of energy and potential. In the fading light, this would be the last image he would capture. It would be beautiful; it already was. He didn’t need it developed to know that.

  ‘Kuzkin is worried,’ said Vashka, easing the puck one way and then the other, ten yards from Peter. ‘Yes, the older man is worried, and I think Mikhailov can sense it.’

  ‘Vashka, I swear if you don’t shut up I’ll …’ Peter looked up at the sky. ‘It’s getting late. We have to go.’

  ‘Just five more minutes.’

  Peter skated to the edge of the ice, breaking the goal by kicking his shoes together, and began unlacing his skates. ‘Take many?’ he asked Alex.

  ‘A couple.’

  ‘Pervert.’

  ‘Five minutes, Peter,’ said Vashka, still out on the ice. ‘Come on.’

  ‘It’ll be completely dark in five minutes,’ Peter said. He threw the skates into his bag, shouldered it and set off. ‘Are you coming?’

  Alex wasn’t sure Peter was talking to him, but he followed.

  ‘All right, all right.’ Vashka skated to the low wall. ‘Do you want your stick? Or are you expecting me to carry it for you?’

  Peter retraced his steps and picked up his stick.

  ‘And I don’t know what you’re doing here,’ Vashka said to Alex. ‘We’d still be playing if not for you.’

  ‘Stop sulking,’ said Peter. �
��You won.’

  Vashka unlaced his skates.

  ‘And we have to get home, Alex and me. We’re going with Dad to get his medal tonight.’

  ‘Ah yes, the new patriot.’

  ‘Vashka, give it up. We’re not new,’ Peter said. ‘I wish it wasn’t true but we’ve been in Moscow longer than you.’

  They set off towards the edge of the park, crossed Leninski Prospekt and trudged silently along the nameless lanes trodden into the mud and snow between the bare concrete slabs and brick walls of current and future apartment blocks.

  ‘You’re right,’ Vashka said. ‘You’re more Russian than we are, you Murphys. Much more.’

  Alex heard a trap in Vashka’s words. One night months ago, perhaps longer, when Valentin was around for dinner, his mother had asked about informers. ‘There’s a man in our block …’

  ‘Oh please,’ Conrad had said.

  ‘Alim Börteki, a Lithuanian Tatar, poor family. Six hundred miles from home and he has a Moscow permit and a nice apartment, despite having no special skills.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘How did he get a permit to move to Moscow?’

  ‘She has a point, Conrad,’ Valentin had said. ‘Such people in the city, residency papers, a flat, a job. Their repayment is to inform.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean Alim Börteki is such a person.’

  ‘The way Ruby describes him …’

  Alex was sure his mother and Valentin were right. Peter was too naive, like his father.

  They reached a wire fence at the back of an unfinished apartment block. ‘Is that a good thing?’ Peter asked. ‘Being more Russian? Why do I feel like you’re still making fun of me?’

  Vashka watched silently as Peter fed his hockey stick through the fence, slipped the bag from his shoulder and slung it over. It landed in the mud with a slap. He prepared to leap the fence, but almost pushed it over with his weight. He tried again: the fence swayed and creaked, but he managed to swing his legs across and land on the other side without flattening it.

  ‘Peter,’ Alex said, holding out the Leica. ‘Can you take this?’

  Peter took it, and shaped to throw it. When Alex cleared the fence he snatched it back.

  ‘I wasn’t going to do it.’

  Alex wiped imaginary dirt from the viewfinder and worked the focusing lever back and forth.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Peter said to Vashka.

  ‘You’re embarrassed about what I said, aren’t you?’ Vashka said through the fence wire.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘You know what.’

  Peter shrugged and began walking away. Alex followed.

  ‘About being more Russian than my whole family,’ Vashka called after them. He leapt the fence and skidded through the mud and snow. ‘You’re so Russian you get embarrassed by the fact that someone pays you a compliment.’

  Peter smiled.

  ‘You’d have to be way more Russian than a Russian to give up your life on the other side of the world.’ Vashka slid a hand across Peter’s shoulders and pulled him in to his side. ‘Or, at least, your father would.’

  Alex dropped back a step, eyes on the darkening path. The grit and clumps of muddy ice could have been frozen turds in a cow paddock.

  ‘You think about it, Peter. I’ve read that to play one of your games of cricket it takes five days,’ Vashka said. ‘Five whole days! My father would use his entire year’s holiday to play just one game.’ He shook his head. ‘That is truly the perfect country to live in!’

  Alex bit his tongue. For Peter’s sake, he wanted to believe this was the talk of an innocent fourteen-year-old rather than an attempt to trick Peter into making an unpatriotic comment.

  ‘But just imagine what you’d have missed out on if I hadn’t come here,’ Peter said. ‘Who else would let you beat them at hockey?’

  ‘Ha! Let me beat you?’

  Peter stood with his friend. The cold and the exercise had caused his nose to run. He wiped at it with the sleeve of his jacket.

  ‘You can’t beat me,’ Vashka boasted.

  Peter walked on. ‘I didn’t say I could.’

  ‘Well, don’t even joke about it,’ Vashka called after him.

  ‘You’re not that good,’ Alex said.

  ‘Is that what your little camera told you?’

  ‘Don’t you two start,’ Peter said.

  ‘What are you going to do, Vashka? Run and tell your father so he can write us up? They pretend to be patriots, those Murphys, but they still long for their capitalist roots. They’re nothing but spies.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘What everyone knows.’

  ‘Alex, would you shut up?’ Peter said.

  ‘That your father informs on us.’

  ‘Alex, shut up.’

  ‘Fuck this. I’ll see you later, Peter.’ Vashka started walking away. ‘But do me a favour,’ he added, over his shoulder. ‘Don’t bring your arsehole brother next time.’

  Peter turned to Alex.

  ‘It’s true,’ Alex said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Ask Mum about Vashka’s father. Ask Valentin.’

  Peter’s head dropped. ‘If you had any friends you’d know how bad what you just said to Vashka really is.’ He started off down the path.

  ‘I’m adopted,’ Alex said. ‘Did you know that?’

  Peter stopped. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m adopted. But don’t worry, you’re not.’ Alex saw the surprise on Peter’s face. ‘When I was trashing Mum and Dad’s bedroom this morning, that’s when I found out.’

  ‘They hadn’t told you?’

  ‘No, they hadn’t.’

  ‘Can we keep moving?’ Peter said. ‘Or we’ll be late for Dad’s thing.’ He broke into a run.

  ‘Did you already know?’

  ‘We’re late,’ Peter called back. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ He kept running. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So run away then,’ Alex shouted. ‘Arsehole!’

  Peter kept running.

  CONRAD

  ‘You never know when your life will change,’ Conrad said to Alex, like some drunken prophet. It was well past midnight as they drove through Moscow’s wet streets. And he was drunk, that was certain.

  He began to cough. He checked the rear-view mirror for traffic, ducked into a side street and pulled over to the kerb, all the while resisting the convulsions of his lungs. He squinted across at Alex as he searched his pocket for a handkerchief. With his free hand he reached out and gripped tight around his son’s arm.

  Conrad had finally decided it was time to tell Alex and Peter about his worsening health – or at least the few details he’d already told Ruby – and he was just sober enough to realise he should wait until morning. Peter was asleep in the back seat, and anyway, he hadn’t the breath in his lungs to spare for confessions. He wiped the tears from his eyes, swallowing as fast as he could to soothe his throat. With his fingers still clasped around Alex’s arm he squeezed tight as he caught blood and muck in his handkerchief.

  ‘Dad, are you all right?’

  He had to tell them, since he’d be in hospital the following Monday. He was barely able to blow out a match after lighting a cigarette. Not able to breathe the cold air. Not able to climb the stairs to the flat without stopping on every landing, gasping, wheezing, coughing. They wanted to do more tests at the hospital. X-rays, blood tests – put his phlegm under a microscope or whatever they did with it. They’d tried to scare him by saying it was a wonder he wasn’t dead already.

  Ruby was suspicious. Back in Australia, she’d been a nurse in a cardiothoracic ward, after all. The tuberculosis he’d told her about, but not the emphysema. She’d pleaded with him again that it must be time to go home. For his health, for the boys’ education, for her sanity. For their marriage. ‘Do you think we don’t know?’ she’d said. ‘Do you think you can hide it from us?’ But she didn’t know – not about the emphysema, anyway.r />
  It was his relief at having found the courage to confess to the boys, about the TB at least, that made him say what he did. ‘You never know when your life will change.’ What kind of vanity was that, anyway? Why would Alex’s life change? What was he saying? That his father was about to die and he’d better get ready for it?

  Conrad didn’t know what he meant.

  At the next bout of coughing he threw his handkerchief across his open mouth like he was hacking up his whole lungs. His whole life.

  ‘Dad, are you all right?’ Alex repeated.

  Conrad was too busy trying to control himself to reply. He was gripped by dizziness and he slumped back in his seat. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually, swallowing down saliva. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  He twisted to check the back seat. Peter was still asleep. Another bolus of foaming blood and thick brown muck came up. He was sweating and felt sick.

  Alex reached up towards the cabin light but Conrad grabbed his hand. ‘No.’

  ‘Let me turn on the light,’ Alex said. He yanked against his father’s weakened grip. ‘Dad, let me turn on the light.’

  Conrad continued to cough into his handkerchief, still holding Alex’s wrist. ‘No.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you crying?’

  Conrad let go and leaned against the door, so foggy he could barely stay upright. ‘I’m not crying.’ He wiped his eyes, blinking as he peered out the windscreen. The rain had eased to flurries of drizzle dancing through the headlights’ weak yellow beams. He couldn’t possibly drive, so how were they going to get home? Or maybe they should go to a hospital? Maybe he couldn’t wait until Monday.

  Could Alex drive? The streets were deathly quiet but it was so dark and there were potholes, cambers that sloped the wrong way at corners. The rain might pick up any minute. ‘It might be better if you drive.’ In the moments of silence that followed, Conrad had plenty of time to take back his words.