***
“So, they never found other bodies?” asked Sayeed. It was an early spring day, still too early for the snow to start really melting, but at noon you could already sit outside and not worry about the frostbites. Vasya and Sayeed were sitting on the veranda of a fast-food restaurant that Sayeed was temporarily guarding having their coffee out of the thermos. Sayeed was very proud to have been on the crew that built the place, and that it wasn’t quite crumbling yet: “See this porch? Still holding strong, five years now”.
“No, the boilerman from nearby was also on their payroll”, said Vasya, “that was their team really, the Doc, the Nurse and the Boilerman; the Director was just a front, actually the doctor was running the show. He had some pretty good connections in the customs and overseas, could fake all kinds of papers to smuggle the organs out”. He paused for a moment; it was a great day outside, the spring was likely to come early this year. “The doc was running it fairly well but his associates screwed it eventually, it’s like in the movies, really. First the nurse failed to give me enough of that anaesthetic shit, she didn’t assess my weight properly, and then the security director came in with his toy gun. These stupid pistols fire rubber bullets, you know, they’re supposed to send you in a pain shock, but of course I got just enough anaesthesia so I didn’t care”. After a few weeks it still hurt though, the cracked rib was still healing.
“Another funny thing”, Vasya recalled, “I just remembered, the boiler house also provides heat for the Cement Plant, and I hear now, they actually recycle some of the ashes for their Portland cement-making needs. So, we may actually be sitting on some of the bones of all those guys”. “Makes a nice tombstone, in a way”, said Sayeed, “better than nothing at all”.
“So, yeah, I guess that’s what made me go back there again. Mom kept nagging me about finding a girlfriend, getting married, having kids, all that stuff, day after day”, continued Vasya, “and you know, Dima had put my name on his rental contract as the next-of-kin, he had nobody in the whole world”.
“And that’s why you went?” asked Sayeed, “As a friend would do?” “No, I don’t know really”, said Vasya, “it just made me revisit this whole thing, go back to that place. See, these bastards were targeting lonely chaps, filtering out everyone who had a family, like your coworkers or yourself. They would tell them, “oh sorry, your tests shows this and that”, basically just turning them down”. “I see”, said Sayeed, “they needed folks that nobody would care if they lived or died”. “Exactly”, said Vasya, “isn’t that a sad thing?”
Barbershop “Otto”
Otto Aurelius Luis-Alberto von Stieglitz-Covarrubias had a long and distinguished career in foreign intelligence, espionage and sabotage. It was a lonely, joyless work made mostly of waiting. Sometimes he thought he was getting too old for it, but he still kept his barbershop open, and every day at noon he would hang a flower basket outside the window of his tiny apartment upstairs. The flower was a signal and today it had a special meaning for the Colonel. Forty years ago he, then a young man fresh out of the army, started his special mission with the Foreign Clandestine Service. Every year on this day, instead of the usual red begonias, he would hang a basket of purple petunias that reminded of his home country. A tiny little variation from the protocol but he liked that personal touch.
He closed the shop a bit earlier today and opened a bottle of the rather good local red wine he bought a month ago. When his wife was alive she would join him in this little celebration, she thought it was his birth day, and in a way it was. But it was six years since Marta died and the special day now had another poignant meaning.
The first glass was always for his parents. He stopped seeing them, or was told to stop seeing them, even before being sent overseas so right now he was older than his father was when he last saw him. They were long dead, first father and then mother, - he recalled that night when he received the special communication.
The second glass was always for the Revolution, the eternal and perpetual struggle of all the good against everything evil. He had joined the army to serve the Revolution and then the Clandestine Service for the same noble purpose. It was a beautiful ideal, he thought: The Revolution. When he was younger he could spend hours thinking about it, delivering fiery speeches that nobody could hear. Now it was just a word and a memory of his youth.
Since six years ago the third glass was for Marta, the last living soul that cared for him. He was perhaps never truly in love with her, perhaps only in the first few months of their courting and marriage, but he had grown to genuinely appreciate the little hard-working woman who admired his combination of a military bearing and eloquent speech. “Otto could easily become a President”, she liked to say, “if he only wanted”. They were a handsome couple, too. The pictures on the walls could attest if there was anyone to attest to.
On that day forty years ago, Otto Aurelius was really born, after three years in the Academy of Secret Service where he enrolled as a young army lieutenant. For three years he studied languages extinct and existing, hand-to-hand combat, radio communication and things like how to read a newspaper upside down. The Academy itself was a secret installation, disguised as one of the departments of the State Conservatory, so he had to learn a bit of violin as well. “May be I should have applied for fortepiano”, sometimes lamented Otto Aurelius.
While in the Academy he was made Captain, got to see his family for one last time and soon all contacts with his past life were mercilessly cut off. “The Revolution needs sacrifice”, he was told. Gone were the childhood friends, army comrades and all the numerous cousins. He was training for a special mission as a deep-cover agent behind the enemy lines. He learned to speak the language with several perfect regional accents, learned to disguise himself among the locals and also learned several trades to support himself while on the mission.
Then there was a secret within the secret. The final stage of his training involved deep psychological conditioning. “We have to make sure you remain faithful to the Revolution”, said the Supervisor whose name Otto Aurelius never knew, he only remembered him as a perpetually ageing man in thick horn-rimmed glasses. “We will implant your mission details during this secret stage, and you won’t know them until it’s absolutely necessary. Besides we have to make sure you become a nearly perfect Otto Aurelius”. “Why not completely perfect?” he remembered asking then. “Because a completely perfect Otto Aurelius would be our enemy”, laughed the Supervisor. So, he was allowed to remember his parents, or rather, their hands. “Bring them to life in your mind”, instructed the Supervisor, “cherish them because they will be the last thing in you that belonged to your older self”. And so on that day forty years ago he forgot his old name and became Otto Aurelius, - a nearly perfect one.
“Every day at around noon you will post a signal, a flower on your apartment window, just above the shop”, said the Supervisor. “Choose some bright red or yellow flowers, easily seen from a distance. Begonias will be the best; they are easy to take care of”.
“The flowers are just a physical cue”, said the Supervisor. “Your betrayal of the Revolution if it ever happens will happen first in the subconscious, and before you even realize it, and are able to harm our goals, you will betray yourself. In other words, you won’t be able to put up the flowers. That’s how it works. But as long as you maintain this routine, we know you can be trusted”.
“So what will be my special mission?” asked Otto Aurelius. The Supervisor took his time to reply. He reached for another cigar, examined it, and put it back in the box. He said, “That I cannot tell you yet. The day will come and the Revolution will require your special mission, perhaps even a sacrifice”.
“You won’t be alone”, said the Supervisor, “There will be others like you, working in disguise, some just leading ordinary lives, maybe even next door to you. Of course you are not allowed to establish any contact. That would almost certainly lead to a disaster”.
The Superviso
r continued, “The day will come, Otto Aurelius. Listen to the radio, the first government channel; we have our people planted there. Keep it always on at work, we will broadcast a special message”.
“The message, Otto Aurelius, may sound like any other everyday news and government communiqués, but it will activate your mission program. Just keep the radio on and you won’t miss it”. “Understood”, said Otto Aurelius even though he didn’t understand anything.
“The broadcast will be a general wake-up call”, said the Supervisor, “but we’ll establish another, very special channel to communicate with you only. But only in the exceptional cases. You will understand when you receive the messages. In the most exceptional case, I may personally visit you with an assignment”, said the Supervisor, “but most likely it won’t happen”.
Over the next few days he crossed several borders, all under different temporary identities, until he finally arrived in his mission country. He was posted away from the capital, so it took him another day to get to the small town where he was supposed to spend the next few years or longer. All the while he was afraid of being discovered.
“Open a little shop”, were the instructions, “something small, not flashy. Something you can handle on your own, without any assistance. Something that will let you stick around for a long time, without raising any suspicions”.
The Center supplied him with the money to open a barbershop, and he was expected to repay that loan over time. That seemed natural, he couldn’t expect that the Revolution would pay for his comfortable existence overseas. He kept putting aside a portion of each month’s revenues, waiting for a chance to transfer the money but was afraid to use the bank or even at the post office. So the money was just sitting in his bank account.
His standard everyday tasks were quite simple. He would take a little walk in the morning, visit nearby shops, then go open his own barbershop around nine, serve his customers, – not very many at first, - then go for a lunch at noon, usually alone, and not before posting the signal. The afternoon hours were very quiet; there was scarcely a visitor or two, so he would simply have a coffee in his shop reading the newspaper. In the evening there would be a few more customers and at seven or eight he would remove the flower basket, close the shop and go for another lonely meal. The same routine would repeat each day except Sunday and a few local holidays, but he was still supposed to post the signal.
The first five years passed without any news. He just worked in the barbershop, mastering his trade, making acquaintances. People were starting to like his haircuts. Then on a hot summer day, during the local fair, two strangers walked into his shop, first one and then another. These were not the townspeople, Otto Aurelius was pretty sure and he could feel they both came from afar, he could smell the locomotive dust in their clothes. The first one was definitely from the capital, although not a native. The other one, hmm, Otto Aurelius couldn’t quite tell where he was from. He was busy at the moment working on one of his regulars and only threw a quick glance at the first visitor who sat down on a waiting bench and immersed himself immediately in a newspaper.
The second stranger walked in, greeted everyone and occupied a small chair next to the bench. Then the first visitor muttered something comical like “Oh I am terribly late for the train!” and rushed for the door. After a moment the second stranger moved onto the bench and picked up the newspaper left by the first man. Otto Aurelius could feel by his skin the tension of the moment and it took him an effort to say very casually, “Oh please wait, I am almost done here”. He still did a very good job for Senior Aragon although the regular customer would go on talking endlessly about the latest football match. Finally he left and the stranger took his seat in the barber’s armchair while still holding the paper. Otto Aurelius covered it with the linen he used to protect his customers’ clothes, but making sure the visitor noticed that he Otto Aurelius has noticed the paper. “Not too long, not too short”, said the stranger looking right into the mirror, “just the way it was two weeks ago”.
“I see”, said Otto Aurelius.
“Anything new in town?” asked the customer.
“Not much”, said Otto Aurelius, “it’s been a quiet month”.
“I see”, said the stranger, looking in the mirror and at the street behind his back.
“Any news from the… capital?” asked Otto Aurelius.
“Same old”, said the stranger, “you’re doing a great job, I see”.
“Oh thank you”, said Otto Aurelius.
Then another regular customer walked in and the conversation was stopped. The stranger paid with a crisp ten-dollar bill and left, - also for the railway as Otto Aurelius noted. The stranger took the newspaper with him. That night Otto Aurelius could barely sleep, everything all seemed so important. He examined the banknote in minute detail, afraid to miss any message. There wasn’t any, but still he kept the bill in a separate place.
Next night, the Supervisor appeared in his dream. “Otto Aurelius”, he said “this is a special communication from the Center. Can you hear me?” “Yes, loud and clear”, said Otto Aurelius as they taught him in the radio class. “The Center wishes to express gratitude for your valuable service for The Revolution”, continued the Supervisor, “the yesterday’s transaction in your barbershop was vital to our major intelligence operation”. “Happy to serve The Revolution”, said Otto Aurelius. “On this occasion, let me also inform you that you have recently been made a Major in the Clandestine Service”, solemnly declared the Supervisor. “Proud to serve”, said Otto Aurelius once again. For the next couple of weeks he was in a very good mood. “Otto is just beaming with happiness”, thought his customers.
Before long he was the best barber in town, having a bespoke haircut at “Otto’s” became a comme il faut for all the local brass. He raised rates only slightly, and kept them at the same level for the old regulars, “my old guard” he called them. Known as “one of our good men”, he was often asked to act a Treasurer for local causes which he gladly agreed to, and once even asked to run for a Mayor. After a brief consultation with the Supervisor he declined that offer as it would cause much scrutiny of his biography.
Another decade passed without much news. One day a high-ranking military officer walked in the Otto Aurelius’s shop and asked for a short crew cut. His adjutant sat on the waiting bench, apparently bored, armed with a big service pistol. Otto Aurelius became all ears, - was it the chance to sacrifice himself for The Revolution? Was he supposed to assassinate the General? He hated to admit, but it would be a rather ill-timed sacrifice; he had just started dating Marta at the time. Still, faithful to the call of duty he listened very carefully to the tiniest sound in the surroundings. The radio went on with the usual blubber on football and the harvesting season. The General got his crew cut and left without ever knowing what a tight rope he was walking that day. Otto Aurelius was relieved too.
They got married in a quiet ceremony. Marta was slightly upset that there were no relatives from his side, but he invited some regular customers he had befriended. At night he would wake up and listen to her steady breath, wondering how curiously everything ended up. “Here I am”, he would think, “a spy, a barber, a married man”. Those years were not bad, he thought in hindsight.
A few more years went by; his home country became merely an entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Sometimes he would open a newspaper, read a short news report and it would make any sense to him. And still he knew who he was, Otto Aurelius, and The Revolution, his mission, still lived in him, like a faint smile. Every day at noon he went upstairs to post his revolutionary signal.
One night, not long after the eighteenth anniversary, the secret channel was reactivated again. The Supervisor, now a much older man, offered words of consolation, “I regret to inform you, Otto Aurelius”, he said, “that both of your dear parents passed away: your Father two months ago and your Mother just a few hours ago”. Marta hugged him in her sleep and he cried like a child.
Over the next few nights he was having bad dreams, each worse than the previous one. His dreams were telling that everything had been a hoax from the beginning, that he had imagined everything, or worse, that he had wasted his life for a dream. In one of them he was trying to shoot himself with his Browning pistol, but it turned out a dummy, the coating peeled off and he saw the white plaster it was made of. He woke up, walked to the locker and the cold steel of the very real gun reassured him, for a while at least. The Revolution was real.
And so was his dedication to it. Even when he was telling himself he really didn’t care to post the signal, his feet would take him upstairs at noon, his hands would do the same established routine and he knew his faith in the mission lived on. The Revolution may have been dead, but his faith in it was not.
A couple of days after Marta’s funeral as he was walking alone from the fresh grave in the town’s cemetery, thinking “Here I am, a spy, a barber, a widowed man”, he felt that someone was following him, watching him from the distance. Otto Aurelius thought it would be awkward or worse, unprofessional, if he just turned around and challenged the watcher. Passing through the main market square, he stopped to buy some fruits as he had to do his own groceries again, and used that opportunity to throw a quick glance at the watcher. He recognized him immediately, although the Supervisor now seemed even older than the last time. The old agent looked at him indifferently and walked by, saying nothing. Otto Aurelius didn’t know if he was to follow the Supervisor, he thought about it at length and decided that it was not required. Still, he was dying to talk to the old man. He recalled that the Supervisor said he would visit him in the most exceptional case but what would that exceptional case be?
That night the secret channel was activated again. “Sorry to have upset you”, said the Supervisor, his voice betraying sympathy, “but I couldn’t meet you openly”. “I understand”, said Otto Aurelius. “I thought it was a matter of courtesy to deliver the message in person though”, continued the Supervisor, “On this day in the thirty-fourth year of your faithful service for The Revolution, may I inform you of your promotion to the rank of Colonel in the Clandestine Service”. “Proud to serve”, said Otto Aurelius just as he did twenty-nine years ago. “I also have to remind you of the mandatory retirement age for all our agents which is sixty years old and you are…” “Fifty-nine”, replied Otto Aurelius. “Exactly”, said the Supervisor, “However taking into account your excellent and distinguished service and the fact that you’re still in remarkable health, I can petition the Center on your behalf to make an exemption for you, Otto Aurelius, from this mandatory retirement provision”. “I would be much obliged”, said Otto Aurelius. “My pleasure”, said the Supervisor and disappeared.
He stayed in the service for a few more years, keeping the shop open, posting the signal every day at noon, until one day he suddenly found it very hard to get up from the bed. He still managed to post the signal that day, but also had to attach a piece of paper inside the glass door of his barbershop, saying “Will be closed for a few days. My apologies.” On the next day he was too weak to post the signal. A neighbour’s boy went for a doctor and when he returned there was no longer Colonel Otto Aurelius Luis-Alberto von Stieglitz-Covarrubias.
The funeral was well attended by the former regular customers, some prominent townspeople and relatives of his late spouse. Only after the service, when the mourners broke up into smaller groups, some of them realized there was a stranger in attendance: an old man wearing strong horn-rimmed glasses. “Must be a distant cousin from another city”, some thought.
A couple of days later the old man known to Otto Aurelius as the Supervisor could be seen getting off the train in the capital. “Well, colleagues, I had an interesting funeral to attend the other day”, he said at the dinner gathering. “My old patient with a deep guilt complex; he tried to kill himself in our custody when he was younger. We experimented with implanting false memories, or, rather, shaping a new identity for him and that has worked to a rather surprising effect. You will see the article in The Clinical Psychology next month”.
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