‘Well, good for Geser! I was thinking about ringing him myself… to ask for protection.’
‘You’re serious? You’ll allow it?’
Svetlana looked at me and nodded. Then she added:
‘While I’m with her, Nadya’s in no danger. Believe me, I’ll make mincemeat of any three Higher Ones. But it’s best to take precautions. When’s your flight?’
‘In five hours. From Sheremetievo.’
‘Semyon will get you there in an hour. So you still have two hours left. You can have something to eat, then we’ll pack your things. How long are you going to be there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then how much underwear and how many pairs of socks shall I put in?’ Svetlana asked reasonably. ‘I can’t imagine you washing anything while you’re away’
‘I’ll buy new ones and throw the old ones away. Geser promised to give me heaps of money.’
‘I wonder how much “heaps” is for him,’ Svetlana replied doubtfully. ‘I’ll pack five sets of underwear. Sit down at the table – I’m serving the soup.’
‘Daddy!’ Nadya called from the sitting room.
‘What, my little daughter?’ I answered.
‘Daddy, will Uncle Afandi give me the beads for a present?’
Svetlana and I looked at each other, then walked quickly into the sitting room. Our daughter was still watching the cartoons. The screen showed a group of different-coloured animals gathered round a campfire.
‘What uncle’s that, Nadya?’
‘Uncle Afandi,’ said our daughter, without looking away from the screen.
‘What Afandi?’ Svetlana asked patiently.
‘What beads?’ I asked.
‘The man Daddy’s going to see,’ Nadya told us, with that ‘How stupid you grown-ups are!’ intonation. ‘And the beads are blue. They’re beautiful.’
‘How do you know who Daddy’s going to see?’ asked Svetlana, continuing the interrogation.
‘You were just talking about it,’ Nadya replied calmly.
‘No, we weren’t,’ I objected. ‘We were talking about me going on an assignment to Uzbekistan. That’s a beautiful country in the East – Geser used to live there once. Do you remember Uncle Geser? But we didn’t say anything about Afandi.’
‘I must have misheard, then,’ Nadya replied. ‘There isn’t any uncle.’
Svetlana shook her head and looked at me reproachfully. I shrugged – okay, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have butted in. Mummy would have got a lot more out of her …
‘But the beads are real anyway,’ Nadya suddenly added inconsistently. ‘You bring them, all right?’
There was no point in asking any more about Uncle Afandi. Nadya had had ‘fits’ of clairvoyance ever since she was three, if not two. But she was absolutely unaware that she was prophesying, and as soon as you started asking ‘How do you know that?’ she clammed up.
‘My fault,’ I confessed. ‘Sorry, Sveta.’
We went back to the kitchen. Svetlana poured me some soup without saying a word, sliced the bread and handed me a spoon. It sometimes seems to me that she plays the role of a perfectly ordinary housewife with emphatic irony. But after all, it was her choice. Geser would be absolutely delighted if Svetlana came back to the Watch.
‘Rustam has had a lot of names… is that what Geser said?’ Svetlana asked thoughtfully.
‘Uh-huh,’ I said, slurping my soup.
‘We can assume that now he’s called Afandi.’
‘Anything’s possible.’ I wasn’t exactly counting on it, but in my situation I couldn’t afford to ignore even the slimmest lead. ‘I’ll ask around.’
‘It’s good that Alisher will be with you,’ Svetlana observed. ‘You let him do the asking as often as possible. The East is a subtle business.’
‘Now there’s an original thought …’ I said sourly. ‘Sorry, I’ve been hearing wise thoughts about the East all day long today. The rivers of eloquence have already flooded the lake of my awareness, oh Turkish delight of my heart!’
‘Daddy, bring back some Turks and some delight!’ my daughter responded immediately.
I didn’t meet Alisher often at work. He preferred working ‘in the field’ – he was always out on patrol and usually only appeared in the office in the morning, with his eyes red from lack of sleep. I once heard that he was having an affair with some girl from the accounts department, and I knew he was a seventh-level Other, but apart from that I knew very little about him. He was naturally reserved, and I don’t like to force my friendship on anyone.
However, Semyon seemed to be on friendlier terms with him. When I went down and got into the car, Semyon was just finishing telling a joke. As I sat beside him, he was leaning back over his seat and saying:
‘All right, Daddy, let’s go the long way round. Bring me a little scarlet flower, please!’
Alisher laughed first and then held his hand out to me.
‘Hi, Anton.’
‘Hi, Alisher.’ I shook his hand and passed my bag back to him. ‘Dump it on the back seat, I don’t want to bother with the trunk.’
‘How’s Sveta? Did she scold you?’ Semyon asked as he drove off.
‘No, of course not. She wished me luck, fed me a delicious dinner and gave me heaps of useful advice.’
‘A good wife even keeps her husband happy,’ Semyon declared cheerfully.
‘You’re in a good mood today,’ I remarked. ‘Is Geser sending you to Samarkand too?’
‘As if he would,’ Semyon said, with a histrionic sigh. ‘Listen, lads, why are you going to Samarkand? The capital’s Binkent, I remember that for certain!’
‘Tashkent,’ I corrected him.
‘Nah, Binkent,’ said Semyon. ‘Or isn’t it? Ah, I remember! The town’s called Shash!’
‘Semyon, you’re not old enough to remember Binkent,’ Alisher scoffed. ‘Binkent and Shash were ages ago – only Geser remembers that. But we’re flying to Samarkand because that’s where the oldest Light Other who works in a Watch lives. The Watch in Tashkent is bigger, they have all the swank of a capital city, but most of them are young. Even their boss is younger than you are.’
‘Would you ever …’ said Semyon, shaking his head. ‘Incredible. The East – and everyone in the Watches is young?’
‘In the East the old men don’t like to fight. The old men like to watch beautiful girls, eat pilaf and play backgammon,’ Alisher replied seriously.
‘Do you often go home?’ Semyon asked. ‘To see your family and friends?’
‘I haven’t been there even once in eight years.’
‘Why’s that?’ Semyon asked in surprise. ‘Don’t you miss your home at all?’
‘I haven’t got a home, Semyon. Or any family. And a devona’s son doesn’t have any friends.’
There was an awkward silence. Semyon drove without speaking. Eventually I just had to ask:
‘Alisher, if this isn’t too personal a question … Your father, was he a man? Or an Other?’
‘A devona is a servant whom a powerful magician creates for himself.’ Alisher’s voice was as steady as if he were giving a lecture. ‘The magician finds some halfwit who has no family and fills him with Power from the Twilight. He pumps him full of pure energy … and the result is a stupid but very healthy man who possesses magical abilities … No, he’s not quite a man any more. But he’s not an Other, all of his power is borrowed, inserted into him by the magician at some time. A devona serves his master faithfully, he can work miracles… but his head still doesn’t work any better than it did before. Usually the magician chooses people who are mentally retarded, or have Down’s syndrome – they’re not aggressive and they’re very devoted. The power inserted into them gives them good health and a long life.’