The light from the bulb seemed to increase as though monitored from elsewhere. Darcy looked down at the whorls in the wooden tabletop. He remembered Jobik in jeans against his burgundy Monaro, on the beach at Flinders, how he almost drowned. He said nothing.
The Turk produced a sheet of paper and read from a list. Sarik Ariyak, he said, Turkish Consul-General, Melbourne. August 1983. Again he watched for Darcy’s response.
Blinking, Darcy pretended not to understand; the sound of the sea returned in his ear, the light now brilliant as halogen. He shielded his eyes as the general pushed another photo across the table—Fin smoking a papirosa on the steps of a theatre that wasn’t the Bolshoi. Wearing her red twenties dress, the print with black fireflies on it, under a green coat. The Turk ordered Darcy to stop his nervous humming, his tone suddenly hostile. He now stood over the table, over Darcy and this new photo. He lit a dark unfiltered cigarette. Then what do you know about her? he asked.
She brought me here to paint, he said.
The general grunted, examining a separate photo.
A picture for an exhibition, said Darcy. I painted it for her.
We know she is not much of an artist, said the Turk. He balanced his cigarette on his lower lip and turned the matches in his fingers. A turbaned horseman adorned the matchbox cover. How long do you know her?
Darcy looked at the general again, a curve at the corners of the general’s mouth. She’d only changed her last name three years before, but maybe the Turk didn’t know. I met her at university, said Darcy. He counted it as truth—they’d met up in the Ming Wing, Fin by his side like an apparition.
The Turk put his cigarette down on the edge of the table and reached into his leather folder for a piece of paper. Monash University, he said. Clayton, Victoria. A hotbed, no? He put the paper down. Before that she was at Berkeley, California. He paused. Were you religious? he asked.
He saw Darcy’s puzzlement.
The Dashnaks are Orthodox Christians, he said.
Darcy shook his head cautiously. I was a Marxist, he said. But I’m not sure now.
The Turk fished for another document, showed Darcy a sheet of red paper. Sixty-one killed since 1973. He pointed at the page. Attachés, consuls, ambassadors, wives. Vienna, Vatican City, Ottawa, Paris, Los Angeles. He reattached his cigarette to his lips, took another pull. Funded by Armenians from west of the Bosporus. From United States, Australia, you can name it.
Darcy couldn’t remember if the Bosporus was a river or a mountain range but the Turk was treating him like he knew these things. How many did Jobik kill? asked Darcy.
The Turk looked slightly deflated. That’s what we want to know, he said. He flicked ash on the floor. In 1979 the Archbishop of the Armenian Church in New York was shot dead. He searched Darcy for a hint of recognition.
I thought you said the Dashnaks were Christians, said Darcy.
The skin around the Turk’s wrinkled mouth tightened, the smell of his cigarette was strong. The Archbishop supported Soviet Armenia, he said. He reached for the general’s silver lunch box, turned it to face Darcy.
Darcy sat perfectly still. You can’t suspect me of being with a party I’ve never heard of, he said softly.
The general smiled lazily, folded his arms, as the Turk removed a zippered plastic evidence bag from the lunch box. What about this? he asked.
A panic ran up inside Darcy like he’d never felt, his throat closing. The money belt held up like a ragged leather pendant, the back of it hacked open. A sleeve in it after all. The Turk’s weathered finger like a small gnarled branch, poked at it through the plastic. What was inside dis? he asked, his accent suddenly thick.
Darcy struggled for air. Airline tickets, he murmured. Some money. My passport. The leaf they’d extended sailing down into a well. It was a present, said Darcy. Delivered to my flat in a padded yellow envelope.
Do not pretend you know nothing, said the Turk. You are not so stupid. He dropped the evidence bag back in the tin and his chair scraped on the floor. As he walked around the table and stood close, Darcy felt himself cringe. I was stupid, he said, but the Turk leaned down and twisted his ear, the foul cigarette right next to Darcy’s hair.
There is no immunity in ignorance, the Turk whispered. Your friends are killing my people.
Darcy let out a stifled cry as the Turk reefed his ear and looked in his eyes, his pupils narrow and black. Sarik Aryak was my friend, he said.
Darcy looked up at him beseechingly—No, I don’t know—but the Turk jabbed his neck with the lit cigarette and sizzled it deep and Darcy remembered the name of the restaurant as his mouth yawed open with an otherly howl and he flung himself down to the cement, writhing in agony. The Jaguaroff, he tried to say but the word was sewn into his screaming.
Lubyanka
Sunday, 4 am
Darcy lay restless, his eyes clenched, his breathing erratic, the cigarette burn throbbing. He’d slept for a spell and dreamed of his mother in the dark, her scrabbling around for a pen and then scrawling names in red all over her bedroom walls—Russian names like Davydov, Katkov, Kosygin, Bogdanova, Chekhov, all of them wrong. At a creaking he woke in fright, disoriented. Through the thin weave of blanket, a broad shape at the end of the flimsy prison bed, seated quietly with his black-framed glasses on, the general looming silently, as a parent might watch a child.
Darcy lowered the blanket, edged up, a tremor that began in his chest, juddered out into his arms. The general in a black dinner suit, his bow tie hanging loose down his shirtfront. He raised an imaginary glass in a cupped hand, as if toasting. Anyetta Chernenko says many thankyous for being shepherd of her dog, he said.
Darcy smelled anise liqueur on the general’s breath as the general pulled up his dinner jacket sleeve, smiled ruefully at Darcy’s Longines watch, its silver band stretched about his massive wrist. Visiting hours, he said, showing his yellowed teeth.
Darcy half sat up on the slatted wooden bed, his aching back against the cold brick wall. He clasped his knees up under the raggedy end of the blanket, then noticed Aurelio’s coat draped on the chair back, the roll of currency on the seat. How do you say in English? said the general. Your things.
Darcy found himself rocking slightly, suspiciously, the chance of being released, the general placing a thick pale hand on Darcy’s covered foot as if to still him. First we have some business, he said.
A siren wailed somewhere and Darcy hugged the blanket tight, up over the sore on his neck, in a kind of hopeless defence, but the general reached forward, carefully pulled it down to inspect the wound. Ah, yes, he said. Consul Tugrul is quite cruel.
Darcy nodded in nervous agreement but recoiled even further; he’d known the feel of the general’s great open palm in the same interview room, slapping him almost through the air, but it was coupled now with a memory, the missionary looming over a small boy’s body. He clutched the stringy blanket like a rope out at sea as the general reached to touch his cold unsteady fingers, as though fascinated by fear, his hand almost twice the size of Darcy’s.
You are shaking, said the general.
Darcy looked up at the general’s moist, late-night smile, tried to slide his fingers from the touch, but then he felt the blanket tethered tight over his knees, stretched like a threadbare tent. Death felt like a not-so-timid visitor, waiting outside in the snow. He felt the quiver deep within him, to be left bloody on this greasy floor, ruptured.
I did not come to hurt you, said the general. I need you. His great square knees shifted over, corralling Darcy’s huddled feet.