Michelle Butler Hallett
CONSTANT NOBODY
For David, Oliver, and Kendall.
A confidential prisoner, he has no shape! Tie him down!
1937
PYROGENS
International Red Aid Clinic, not far from Gerrikaitz, Spain
Friday 23 April–Saturday 24 April
— Swallow each and every one, or your cock will fall off.
— Wait, what?
She rattled the bottle. —You have gonorrhea. These sulpha pills will shoot back up your throat and taste like bile. Unpleasant, I know, but you must take one every eight hours until they’re gone.
He squinted at her. —Nurses don’t wear trousers.
— I do. Now, for the crabs. This ointment will smother them, and it will soothe the kerosene rash, too. Please don’t use kerosene again. Stand too close to a fire and you might become a lamp.
He took the ointment. —Petroleum jelly?
— I’ll fetch you a nit comb. What’s your name, comrade?
Kostya fastened his trousers. Despite weeks of drill, he still spoke Spanish with a Russian accent. His friend Misha spoke much better Spanish and never lost a chance to remind Kostya of the fact. Then Kostya considered the common rumours — rumours he knew to be true — of the heavy presence in Spain of NKVD, the Soviet secret police. NKVD agents hunted, tortured, and killed members of POUM, an anti-Stalinist communist faction that ignored and defied orders from Moscow. Disobedience caused disunity, and so POUM must be purged. Even as NKVD destroyed POUM one bullet at a time, Moscow sent arms and food for the republican side of the Spanish Civil War, the side on which the communists all fought.
Kostya decided this nurse hardly needed to know he worked for NKVD, not yet. So he lied. —Tikhon. I’m a journalist.
— Just Tikhon?
— Just Tikhon.
Considering how her nurse’s uniform had never materialized — just another of the administrative cock-ups plaguing the cash-strapped British Secret Intelligence Service — Temerity also lied. —Well, Comrade Just Tikhon, you may call me Mildred Ferngate.
Kostya studied her. Brown eyes, curly brown hair, petite: not his type. Quick, confident, almost serene: irritating. —You’re British.
Ignoring how her patient adjusted his holster, Temerity focused instead on his jacket, khaki canvas boasting many useful pockets, and then on his dark hair and beard. Both needed a trim. His skin, while burnt by wind and sun, still looked soft, and his strong cheekbones, she thought, gave him away as Russian as much as any accent. That, her handler Neville Freeman would say, and his apparent inability to smile. You can always spot a Russian. Not got much to smile about, what? Temerity had asked her father about that. Nonsense, Temmy. Your mother smiled all the time. Your smile is very like hers.
She considered smiling now, if only to test this Tikhon’s belief in her nurse cover story. Instead, she decided to remain brisk. —English, to be precise. Here, take this.
Kostya studied the comb’s long metal teeth. His mouth twitched, as if he wished to frown, or laugh. Then he tucked the comb in a pocket. —Where’s the doctor?
— He’ll be back later. Now, let’s see that bad toe. Are your boots the right size?
Kostya pried off his right boot and exposed the foul portyanki wrapped around his foot, the cloth stained yellow and green around the big toe. Blushing, he plucked away the cloth. Gonorrhea and pubic lice he considered inevitable. An abscessed toe? Well, that came down to poor hygiene. —My boots fit fine. I’ve walked most of the way from Madrid.
The odour of long-unwashed feet, the abscess of an ingrown toenail, some of that nail pried loose from its bed: Temerity almost gagged. Her medical knowledge consisted of Girl Guides’ first aid and whatever she’d crammed into her head on the voyage from London. The clinic’s doctor, Cristobal Zapatero, had, for reasons of his own, accepted the Nurse Mildred Ferngate story. He did say that he hoped they’d never have to perform surgery in the clinic, adding that he worried as Franco’s fascists gained ground. Hell marches north, Comrade Ferngate. Temerity had nodded, hiding her recognition that, in a medical crisis, she’d be almost useless, if not dangerous.
An ingrown toenail, however, she could handle. And the Russian attached to it. Surely.
Thinking about how this Tikhon had limped from a lorry, which then drove on, Temerity decided to shake loose some information. —Madrid? That’s quite a walk.
— Most of the way, as I said.
— Oh, so the man who brought you here in the lorry picked you up between here and Madrid? When is he due back from Gernika?
Kostya neither flinched nor blinked. —Gernika?
— That’s the direction he drove in.
— He won’t be long.
Temerity nodded, then turned to a shelf of medical supplies. Her orders while in Spain: observe and report on Dr. Cristobal Zapatero and any other POUM members, and observe and report on any possible NKVD activity. The arrival of an armed Russian — perhaps two, counting the fair man who drove the lorry — not long after Cristobal left on a bicycle trip to Gernika? With Tikhon’s colleague in likely pursuit? Well, one must observe. And hope to report. NKVD rarely left witnesses.
Releasing the catch on a leather case, she expected to find a set of lances. Instead, dilatation rods and a speculum glinted in the light. She stared at these instruments a moment, imagined their touch, shut them away.
Then she opened the correct case. —I need to boil this lance. Wait here.
Ignoring the instruction, Kostya followed her from the main room, crowded with cots, shelves, and medical gear, to the clinic’s tiny kitchen. He discovered a kerosene camp stove, a sink equipped with a hand pump, piles of coiled rope, a spade, a hammer, and a five-litre can labelled with an O and a minus sign. He crouched before the stove, a German model called a Lichtträger ringed with a narrow cooking surface marked in German, Spanish, Russian, French, and English. The stove could, with some strategy, cook food for three or four adults, but boil enough water for an influx of wounded? Unlikely. The inventory of bandages, ointment, medicines, and gear, and the smell of disinfectant, created a layer of legitimacy. Yes, Kostya told himself, this place could function as a clinic, but the chaotic storage in the kitchen might signal a hurried setup. He considered the clinic’s distance from Gernika: far enough to make a walk or bicycle ride long and tedious but not impossible, not if one needed the Gernika telegraph. So, a clinic, and also a communications corridor for POUM, those communications sent and received by his target, Dr. Cristobal Zapatero.
Temerity touched his arm. —Tikhon, are you all right?
He shook her off. —Dizzy spells. I really need to see the doctor. When will he be here?
How to answer? Lie and say Cristobal might be days yet, in the hope this Russian might give up and leave? A journalist might not waste time. An NKVD agent, however, would wait. Tell the truth and risk giving useful information, say she expected Cristobal tomorrow morning on his bicycle, again in the hope the Russian might get tired and leave? No. A journalist with dizzy spells and a sore foot would not want to leave, knowing the doctor would return soon, and neither would an NKVD agent. Back to lying. Yet if she lied, and Tikhon was NKVD and then discovered the deceit…
Blasted blasted bloody hell. —I expect him back tomorrow morning.