“Yes.”
Had he seen the beginning of a smile? He believed he had. “Good. Then we’re sure of a decent audience. Or do you think”—as if a sudden anxiety had struck him—“or do you think your beasts only hear you, and mine only hear me? No, that simply can’t be, can it? I’m no electronic whiz, but they can’t be on different wavelengths. Or can they?” He peered to left and right over her shoulder, affecting to check. “One really shouldn’t worry about them so much,” he said, shaking his head in self-reproach. “After all, we’re the stars tonight. They’re just audience. All they can do is listen,” he explained, and was rewarded with a smile so heartening, so utterly undefended, that it was like a whole new world to luxuriate in.
“You’ve got his passport,” she said, still with the smile. “They told me you were being kind.”
“Well, kind I don’t know, but I thought you’d like a sight of it. I thought I’d quite like a sight of it too. These days, one simply has no idea who one’s dealing with. I can’t give it to you yet, unfortunately. I can only show it to you, then hand it back to young Mr. Lantern on our right, who will hand it back to one of your people, who will then activate it, if that’s the expression, once our client has done what he intends—and is intended—to do.”
He was holding the passport out to her. Not covertly, just offering her a passport across the table with an ostentation that caused both groups of watchers to abandon all pretense of doing anything except watch them.
“Or are there variants on your side of the house?” he went on breezily. “Vital to compare versions with these people, I find. They’re not what we might call overburdened with truthfulness. Here’s how they described it to me. You bring our client to the bank, he makes his dispositions and is then taken—directly, I am assured—to an establishment of which I am not permitted to know the address, where he will fill in some forms in triplicate and be handed his German passport. This very one we have here, which will then come immediately to life. Does that accord? Or do we have a problem?”
“It accords,” she said.
She took the passport from him and examined it. First the photograph, then a few innocent entry and exit stamps, nothing too new. Then the expiry date, three years and seven months from now.
“I’ll need to go with him to collect this,” she said, delighting him with her old decisiveness.
“Of course you will. As his lawyer, you’ll have no choice.”
“He’s sick. He needs time out.”
“Of course he does. And after tonight, he can take all the time out he wants,” said Brue. “And I have a little document for you personally.” He took back the passport and placed an unsealed envelope into her waiting hand. “Don’t bother to look at it now. It’s not an embarrassing jewel, I’m afraid. Just a bit of paper. But it sets you free too. No vindictive prosecutions or anything of that sort, provided you don’t do it again, though I naturally hope you will. And it thanks you for being aboard, so to speak. That’s about the nearest they come to a proposal of marriage in this business.”
“I don’t care about being set free.”
“Well now, I really think you should,” he replied.
But this time he spoke in Russian, not in German, which to his pleasure caused a violent flutter in the two camps either side of the aisle. Heads whipped up, heads consulted each other desperately across the aisle: Is there a Russian speaker among us? By their mystified expressions, there wasn’t.
“So now that we have each other alone for a few minutes—or I hope we have,” Brue went on in his classical Paris-learned Russian, “there are a couple of highly personal and top secret matters I should like to take up with you. May I do that?”
To his joy, her face had brightened magically.
“You may do that, Mr. Brue.”
“You said about my bank. My fucking bank. Without it, he wouldn’t be here. Well, now he’s here. And he can stay here, we believe. Do you still wish he hadn’t come?”
“No.”
“I’m relieved. I also wish you to know that I have a much-loved daughter named Georgina. I call her Georgie for short. She is the child of an early marriage I contracted at a time in my life when I didn’t understand the nature of marriage. Or for that matter, love. I was unfit for marriage and unfit for fatherhood. That is no longer the case. Georgie is going to have a baby and I shall learn to be a grandfather.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Thank you. I’ve been waiting to tell someone, and now I have, so I’m pleased. Georgie is a depressive. I mistrust jargon of that kind, but in her case I am persuaded that the diagnosis fits the condition. She has to be balanced. I think that’s the term. She lives in California. With a writer. She was also in her time anorexic. She became like a starved bird. There was nothing one could do. So it was a bad story. The divorce didn’t help. She wisely took herself to America. To California. Where she is now.”
“You said.”
“I’m sorry. My point is, she has got herself into clear water. I spoke to her just a few nights ago. I sometimes think, the greater the distance on the telephone, the easier it is to hear whether she’s happy. She did have a baby before, but it died. This one won’t, I’m sure of it. I know it won’t. I’m losing my point. Forgive me. It occurred to me that, when this is over, I’d give myself some time off and slip over and see her. Maybe stay awhile. The bank is dying, frankly. I can’t say I’ll miss it. Everything has its natural lifespan. And then I thought: once I’m there and installed for a bit, and you’re in clear water too, you might care to join us for a few days—at my expense, obviously—bring someone if you wish—and get to know Georgie a bit, and her baby. And her husband, who I’m sure is appalling.”
“I’d like to.”
“You don’t have to answer now. It’s not a pass. Just think about it. That’s all I meant to say. So now we can go back to German before our audience gets too restive.”
“I’ll come,” she said, still in Russian. “I’d like to. I don’t have to think about it. I know I would.”
“Excellent,” he resumed in German now, checking his watch as if establishing how long he’d been away from his desk. “I have one other piece of business, and that is Dr. Abdullah’s wish list for Chechnya. He has general proposals concerning the Muslim community at large, but this is a shortlist of his recommendations for Chechnya. He thought our client might care to run his eye over them ahead of tonight’s conference. Perhaps it will make the time go by more easily. May I say, I look forward to seeing you both at ten o’clock this evening?”
“You may,” she said. “You may,” and with a vigorous nod to emphasize the words, turned and walked stiffly towards the swing doors, where her escorts were already waiting for her.
“Nothing seditious, Ian,” Brue assured Lantern lightly, as he handed back Issa’s passport. “Just taking our free will for a walk.”
It was half past eight when Annabel’s women dropped her at the harbor front to climb the stairs alone to her attic apartment for what she now thought of as the last time: the last time Issa was her prisoner and she was his, the last time they would listen to Russian music by the harbor lights flickering in the arched window, the last time she would have him as her child to feed and humor, as her untouchable lover and as her tutor in unbearable pain and hope. In one hour, she would deliver him to Brue and Dr. Abdullah. In one hour, Bachmann and Erna Frey would have what they wanted. With Issa’s help, they would have saved more innocent lives than the Sanctuary could save in a lifetime—except how do you ever count the unkilled?
“These are Dr. Abdullah’s recommendations?” Issa inquired, in a somewhat imperious tone, standing beneath the downlight at the center of the room while he read.
“A few of them. He’s put Chechnya at the top of the list. As you asked.”
“He is wise. This charity he names here is well known in Chechnya. I have heard of this charity. It takes medicines and bandages to our brave fighters in the mountains, al
so anesthetics. We shall support this charity.”
“Good.”
“But first of all we must save the children of Grozny,” he said, as he read further. “And afterwards the widows. Young women who have been defiled without their complicity will not be punished but, God willing, accommodated in special hotels. Even if their complicity is in question, they will be accommodated. That is my wish.”
“Good.”
“Nobody will be punished, even by their families. We shall appoint expert caretakers for these women.” He shuffled a page. “Children of the martyrs will be favored, that is Allah’s will. But provided only that their fathers have not killed the innocent. If they have killed the innocent, which is not permitted by Allah, we shall nevertheless accommodate them. You agree with this, Annabel?”
“It sounds great. A bit confused, but great,” she said, smiling.
“Also this charity I admire. I have not heard of it, but I admire it. The education of our children has been neglected in our long war for independence.”
“Why not put a tick against the ones you like? Have you got a pencil?”
“I like all of them. I like you also, Annabel.”
He folded up the list and shoved it in his pocket.
Don’t say it, she was begging him from her place at the far end of the loft. Don’t make me promise. Don’t paint the unlivable dream. I’m not strong enough for this. Stop!
“When you have converted to God’s faith, which is the religion of my mother and my people, and I am an important doctor with a Western qualification and a car like Mr. Brue’s, I shall devote all my nonprofessional time to your comfort. That is my assurance to you, Annabel. When you are not too pregnant, you will be a nurse in my hospital. I have noticed you have great compassion when you are not being severe. But first you must be trained. A legal qualification is not sufficient to become a nurse.”
“I don’t suppose it is.”
“Are you listening, Annabel? Please concentrate.”
“I’m just watching the clock, that’s all. Mr. Brue wants us there well ahead of Dr. Abdullah. You need to make your claim first, even if you don’t want to accept the money.”
“I am aware of this, Annabel. I am conversant with such technicalities. That is why his limousine is coming to collect me here in good time. Are Melik and Leyla coming to the ceremony?”
“No. They’re in Turkey.”
“Then I am sad. They would draw comfort from what I am about to do. I shall provide our children with a wide and varied education. Not in Chechnya, unfortunately, it is too hazardous. First they will study the Koran, afterwards, literature and music. They will aspire to the Five Excellences. If they fail, they will not be punished. We shall love them, and pray with them many times. Personally, I am not proficient in the steps that are necessary to your conversion. A wise imam must undertake the task. Once I have formed a personal opinion of this Dr. Abdullah, whose writings I respect, I shall consider whether he is appropriate. I have never insulted you, Annabel.”
“I know.”
“And you have not attempted to seduce me. There have been moments when I feared you were about to. But you controlled yourself.”
“I think we should start to get ourselves ready, don’t you?”
“We will play Rachmaninoff.”
Crossing to the arched window, he switched on the disc player. It was set at the high volume that he liked when he was alone. Huge chords boomed into the rafters. He turned to the window and she watched his silhouette as he methodically dressed himself for the journey. Karsten’s leather jacket no longer appealed to him. He preferred his old black coat and woolen cap, and the yellow saddlebag across his shoulder.
“So Annabel. You will follow me, please. I will protect you. That is our tradition.”
But at the door he stopped dead, and stared at her with such unprecedented frankness that for a moment she really believed he was about to close it again and keep her inside with him, in order to continue forever the life they had shared up here alone in their own world.
And perhaps she half hoped he would, but by then he was heading down the stairs and it was too late. A long black limousine was waiting. The driver was holding open the rear door. He was young and blond, a boy in his prime. She climbed in. The driver waited for Issa to follow her, but he declined. The driver opened the passenger door and he got in.
Brue led the way to his sanctum, followed by Issa then Annabel in her legal black suit and headscarf. Issa, he had at once observed, was a changed character. The pious Muslim fugitive had become a Red Army colonel’s millionaire son. Entering the hall, he glowered round him with disdain, as if the bank’s noble premises weren’t quite what he was accustomed to. Seating himself uninvited in the chair Brue had intended for Annabel, he folded his arms and crossed his legs, waiting to be addressed, thereby incidentally relegating Annabel to the end of the row.
“Frau Richter, do you not wish to come a little nearer to us?” Brue asked her, in the Russian they all spoke.
“Thank you, Mr. Brue, I’m very comfortable,” she replied with her newfound smile.
“Then I’ll begin,” Brue announced, swallowing his disappointment.
And began, despite the curious sensation of speaking to a packed hall rather than two people sitting six feet away from him. On behalf of Brue Frères, he welcomed Issa formally as the son of a long-standing client of the bank—but tactfully refrained from offering his condolences for the client’s passing.
Issa bridled, but nodded his acknowledgment. Brue cleared his throat. In the circumstances, he said, he proposed to keep formal proceedings to a minimum. He had been advised by Issa’s lawyer—with a small bow in Annabel’s direction—that Issa proposed to claim his inheritance on condition that, immediately thereafter, he dispose of it to selected Muslim charitable organizations.
“I am further informed that for this purpose you will be guided by the noted religious authority Dr. Abdullah, to whom I have referred your instructions. Dr. Abdullah is pleased to be joining us shortly.”
“It will be the guidance of Allah,” Issa corrected him in a surly growl, addressing not Brue but the golden Koranic bracelet he was clutching in his hand. “It will be God’s will, sir.”
To which end—Brue continued undeterred—he would under more normal conditions require the claimant to identify himself. However—thanks to the persuasive powers of Frau Richter, he said with emphasis—he felt able to dispense with that formality, and proceed without delay to the claim—again addressing Annabel—if that was still her client’s wish.
“It is, sir! I claim,” Issa cried before she could reply. “I claim for all Muslims! I claim for Chechnya!”
“Well, in that case, perhaps you’ll follow me,” said Brue. And picked a small, cleverly engineered key from his in tray.
The door to the oubliette creaked open. After the technicians’ departure, Brue had engaged only one of its systems. The safe boxes were stacked along one wall, dark green, two keyholes apiece. Edward Amadeus, who adored silly names for things, had called it his dovecote. Some of the boxes, Brue knew, had not been opened for fifty years. Now perhaps they never would be. He turned to Annabel and saw that her face was alight and filled with cautious eagerness. Her eyes full on him, she presented him with Issa’s letter from Anatoly, with the number of the box inked in heavy numerals. He knew it by heart. He knew the box by heart, though not its contents: more battered than its neighbors, it put him in mind of a Russian ammunition box. The inscription on its label—a stained yellowed card held at its four corners by a miniature iron claw—was done in Edward Amadeus’s own pedantic hand: LIP—a stroke, the number and then the legend: no action without reference to EAB.
“Your key, sir, kindly?” he inquired of Issa.
Returning his bracelet to his wrist, Issa unbuttoned his long coat and delved in his shirtfront for the chamois leather purse. Loosening its throat, he drew out the key and thrust it at Brue.
“I’m afraid
this is something you must do, Issa,” Brue told him with a paternal smile. “I’ve got one of my own, you see.” And he held up the bank’s key for Issa to look at.
“Does Issa go first?” Annabel asked, with the pleasure of a child at a party game.
“I think it’s customary, don’t you, Frau Richter?”
“Issa, do as Mr. Brue asks, please. Put your key in the lock and turn it.”
Issa stepped forward and rammed his key into the left-hand lock. But when he attempted to turn it, it stuck. Thwarted, he pulled out the key and tried the right-hand lock. It turned. He stepped back. Brue stepped forward and, with the bank’s key, turned the left-hand lock. Then he too stepped back.
Side by side, Brue and Annabel looked on as Colonel Grigori Borisovich Karpov’s son, with unmixed revulsion, took possession of his late father’s ill-gotten millions, as salted away for him by the late Edward Amadeus, OBE, at the behest of British Intelligence. At first look, the contents of the box did not amount to much: one large, oily envelope, unsealed, unaddressed.
Issa’s emaciated hands were shaking. His face, under the overhead light, was once more a prison face of pits and shadows, cast in an expression of disgust. With his forefinger and thumb, he fastidiously drew out a length of engraved paper like a large banknote. Tucking the envelope under his arm to reuse another day, he unfolded the document and, with his back turned to Brue and Annabel, examined it—but as an artifact rather than for any information it might contain, since the writing on it was in German, not Russian.
“Perhaps Frau Richter would care to do the translating upstairs,” Brue suggested softly, after a minute or more had gone by without Issa stirring.