“Love Boat.” Han swings them to the side again.
“The programme?” Didn’t he have some conversation about this recently? I gape in sympathy …
“No. This boat coming.” It’s a wide, flat bateau mouche with Lover’s Rondvaart written on the side, hearts swimming round the letters. Should be Lovers’, not Lover’s. Solitary people, jerking off. That spermy stuff that Maňásek cooked up and mixed, the gelatin and whiting. What is it the girl says on that song Sasha’s always playing — the Sonic Youth girl, Kim Something? The human bond, the goo. Heidi’s dad making his pile from sticking guidance systems onto rocket bombs. Imagine one of those coming at you: must look just like an aeroplane at first, all glinting in the sky, but then it’s falling, whistling, sleek death wrapped in metal … The bateau mouche glides by them and they start up again, pass another bridge, turn a corner and arrive in the big pool in front of Centraal Station. The station’s red-brick; there’s a clock above the entrance with golden strips on its face to mark out each hour: same colour as the sheets Maňásek was blowing round the atelier and then pasting to the wood around the saint’s head. To the left of the clock there’s a wind gauge, one hand swinging gently round the four coordinates of a circle while a weenie-cap contraption spins on top. Steps drop down from the station’s outer concourse towards jetties on which signs announce more Rondvaarts. Higher up the hotels scream their names out, their neon lettering jostling for space with that of brewers and travel agents: HOTEL IBIS, THOMAS COOK, VICTORIA HOTEL, HEINEKEN, OIBIBIO, BARBIZON PALACE. JESUS ROEPT U — JESUS LOVES YOU …
“The ships are on the other side,” Han shouts to him, squinting against the sunlight.
“These tourist boats, you mean?”
“No, the great ones. The old ones. What I’m making the posters for. They’re on the far side of the station, in the harbour.” They’re entering a narrow tunnel, heading away from the station into the Red Light District. The tunnel’s long and dark; Han’s present to him now as just a voice. “It’s a large competition. There will be celebrations in the next few days. You should go watch.”
“I will.”
They nose out of the tunnel into a very narrow canal from both sides of which old buildings rise straight up; there’s no bank or footpath. The sun’s straight ahead of them, directly behind the top of the Oude Kerk, which breaks it up and amplifies it till it’s blindingly intense: they’re bathed in it, wrapped up; it seems to Nick that they’re not sitting on the water’s surface any more but are rising, or maybe falling, through pure light.
* * * * *
They pick him up right by the Summer Palace. In the Merc there’s Milachkov, who’s driving; then Ilievski, in the front-passenger seat; then, in the back, Koulin and Janachkov. Jana gets out and opens the door for Anton, lets him enter first and then slides in again, sandwiching him between himself and Koulin.
“Hi guys.” Anton wriggles his hips into the leather, then, bending forwards to direct the question at Ilievski, asks: “Aren’t you worried about tails?”
He’s been wondering, ever since the phone call one hour ago, why there’s been this sudden lapse in caution. They didn’t take the Helena route to which he’s grown accustomed since mid-January — just called him right at home and told him to meet them here, behind the Castle, up in embassy land.
“The whole thing’s moved to Amsterdam,” Milachkov mur murs from the front. Next to him, Ili’s shoulders are quite still, impassive: broad and vulnerable, like that day in the car market — what, three months ago now. “If we know that, the police know it too. They’re not interested …”
“What?” Anton leans further forwards. Mila’s still talking, but he hasn’t turned his head even half round and there’s a loud rattling coming from the car’s boot, muffling his words.
“The police aren’t interested any more. In us.”
“Oh.” No one seems very happy here. Ili and Mila are gawping straight ahead; Jana and Koulin are glumly staring through their windows, away from him. It’s as though they all feel hurt, abandoned by this new lack of interest in their activities. They’re driving uphill along Mariánské Hradby, alongside the Castle garden’s north wall. Birch trees peep above it, dwarfed by evergreens. Behind these, the backs of the Castle’s offices and the giant, Gothic arches of St Vitus’s Cathedral. To their right, a carpet of fresh grass has unrolled between the tram tracks. A tram’s sliding over this beside them but they’ve been going slightly faster, pulling away from it — although now the tram’s catching up as Mila slows down for a turning car and even, a few seconds later, overtaking them so now it seems they’re going backwards. Mila steps on it again and the car claws ground back, as though measuring its own movement against the red-and-white tube, the indifferent faces in it — all rather disorientating, two moving objects; Anton feels the need for something to hold on to, solid earth … He looks left again, to the Castle wall. This section’s lower, shabbier, with ivy spilling over it and glass nurseries with tomatoes standing in long grass behind it, food for the visiting dignitaries; then, further along, cherry trees in bloom. First ones he’s seen this year. That means it’s spring, officially. They’ve blossomed early: it’s only mid-March …
Milachkov changes gear as the road steepens; whatever it is that’s rattling in the boot slides back and clunks against the side. They’re still passing the Castle. Largest administrative complex in the world, bigger than even the Pentagon. Helena told him that: she’d read it in an encyclopedia. Somewhere in there, in some minor office off some secondary or tertiary corridor, they’ll have her letters: twenty, thirty of them, all filed under Ignore. And then in the American Embassy tucked beneath the Castle, there’ll be another letter being processed for him, reminding him that time’s running out on his visa. He’ll have to go there and explain, ask them for an extension. Beyond the Castle there’s the Strahov Tower; past that, the football stadium. Anton leans forwards again and says to Mila:
“There’s a top game Saturday. Czechoslovakia versus Cyprus. World Cup qualifier. Probably the only chance you’ll ever have to see a team that has no country play. Let’s go.”
“… on.” More rattling.
“What?”
“Sure.”
“We’ll meet on Újezd again, by the funicular? Mila?”
“OK.”
What’s wrong with this lot? The lights above the stadium crane in, as though trying to get a better view. Anton announces to the car:
“I’ve got a joke. It’s the Olympics, the Moscow Olympics, 1980. The opening ceremony. Brezhnev’s reading a speech his advisors have written for him. ‘O!’ he shouts, raising his finger in the air. ‘O! O … O!’ he thumps his hand down on the rostrum. ‘O!’ And an official whispers in his ear: ‘No, comrade, that is the Olympic logo. The speech begins beneath.’ ”