Let me also say that I'll answer no more questions about this. I have written this in my own hand, so it constitutes a "confession" — you should believe it for this reason alone — and if you present it to the police or a Crown Attorney I might be obliged to answer to them, but I won't answer to you. For me, having stated everything that I know about it, the matter is closed.
Still, I have thought about this for a very long time, and as a last word I suppose I might as well give you my theory as to who the child was. I assume that some of what Brightman told me was true; it was a good lie, and the best lies always contain some of the truth. He did go to Russia, after all; I'm still certain he had an affair with Anna Kostina (though the child couldn't be hers); and I'm sure he did get to know many men, like Zinoviev, in the senior Communist leadership. So I suspect that Brightman's daughter was (is) the child of one of those men — someone who believed he would soon fall victim to Stalin's Terror. Of course, that doesn't much narrow the field, but as a theory it fits most of the facts. I hope it's true. If it is, you may agree that neither Brightman nor myself has cause to feel any shame.
Charles Grainger, M.D.
The rain drummed on the roof of the car, the smoke from my cigarette curled back from the window, and with a soft, sibilant hiss, a car drifted by down the street… I lifted my eyes from Grainger's letter, and then, looking through my own ghostly reflection into the glittering nigfyt, I felt something like awe — an astonishment so complete that it left me dumbfounded. I'd never known anything like it. His story was extraordinary in itself, but the circumstances by which it had come into my hands — on this cold, rainy night; in this dark little city — seemed to lift it into the message-in-a-bottle category. Revolutionary Russia… Zinoviev, chief of the Comintern… a child snatched from the jaws of the Red Terror… even if it wasn't true, you couldn't ask for anything more melodramatic. Question: who was May Brightman? Answer: a fascinating political mystery.
I stubbed out my cigarette. Lit another. Put the car into gear. And then for ten minutes I simply drove around the dark streets. Did I believe it? Was this the truth, as Grainger knew it? And how much of this "truth" was a lie? Above alclass="underline" who was the man in the alley?
Like waves on a beach, the questions began piling up and they were no easier to catch hold of than the surf. But as I made my way back to the hotel, I began to grasp a few things. I had a clearer picture of Grainger, to begin with. As he himself had said, the best lies contain some of the truth, and that went for the lies he'd told about his own past. He'd been "idealistic," all right, and definitely "a bit of a socialist": so idealistic, and so much a socialist — I was prepared to bet — that he'd been a member of the Communist Party with connections that went straight back to their embassy. Was that too big a leap? I didn't think so. Lots of Communists become kindly old men. And some coincidences are too great to ignore. Brightman, doing business with Russia… Grainger, the accidental "socialist" friend. No, it was too good to be true. The Russians, inevitably, would have been curious about Brightman — and they would have taken steps to satisfy their curiosity. Grainger was that step, and I had no doubts at all that the original meeting between the two men had been at his initiative. Indeed, it was even possible that Grainger stood at the center of all I'd discovered. He could have had the friend in Russia; Brightman could simply have been doing his bidding. Yet, at this point, I drew back: I wasn't prepared to cast Brightman in so minor a role — he'd adopted May, after all; he'd disappeared; these ghosts had come back to haunt him. As well, tilting the balance, there was one other thing…
Or perhaps it was two; or even three.
That evening, as I changed out of my soaking clothes, sipped a long whiskey, and watched the lights crawl back and forth over Halifax harbor, I kept coming back to them. May. She was number one. How much had she known? If she'd known nothing at all, then the last few days had been a proof of woman's intuition, par excellence. And I wasn't sure I believed it. Perhaps she hadn't known what I'd find, but she'd known I'd find something. She'd run me up the flagpole, then waited to see who'd salute. Why? Why not tell me the truth? But this led to problem number two: me. That incident with my mail was still working away at the back of my mind; I'd been involved, somehow, even before I'd known there was something to be involved with. But why was I involved? Why had May turned to me in the first place? Blessed as I am with a reasonable ego, it's probably not a question I would have troubled to ask except for another coincidence — but that was a big one: Russia. At first, Brightman's connection with the country had seemed a peripheral question, adding a dash of color to his character. But now it seemed central. And Russia was central to my life as well. I didn't need Grainger's little lectures about Zinoviev or the Purge Trials — those subjects were my bread and butter. Wasn't it passing strange that someone like myself should have stumbled into this peculiar eddy of Soviet history? But that raised point number three… because maybe this history wasn't so ancient. Sitting there, my feet up on the heater and the whiskey warming me inside, I played through that scene in the alley, and there were no doubts left. When the red-haired man had taken his tumble, he'd uttered a curse— a curse I'd recognized at once, but only because I'm fluent in Russian, moy tvoyou mat! being more or less their equivalent of "motherfucker." A Russian: a real, live Soviet Russian…
What was he doing?
What could he want?
Why would he care about Florence Raines, or what Harry Brightman had been up to in 1940?
Twice more, I read through Grainger's letter. Over and over, I kept asking the questions. By eleven-fifteen I hadn't found any answers. After that, it didn't seem to make any difference.
The phone rang.
It was May, about to go into hysterics.
They'd found her father, dead, in Detroit.
PART TWO
GEORGI DIMITROV
Sitting in Moscow, the controllers of the Third International — which is only an instrument of the Soviet government and is entirely dependent on Soviet financial support — consider themselves, by reason of the money they distribute, the absolute lords and masters of the Communist parties they sustain.
7
He spoke deliberately, with the patient condescension of a professional coping with a layman. "Mr. Thome," he said, "have you ever seen someone who's killed himself with a shotgun?"
I am moving in a dream. I float, suspended in the fiery sunlight. Sweat burns on my skin, my eyes sting, and when I emerge from the forest onto a road, dust cakes against my lips. Beyond, the woods open up, and now I start running again. He must have come here, I think, he must have come here. The trees are larger, the sunlight falling in long shafts between them. Finally I see a tumbled-down shack. That's where he is. He must be inside. And so I run faster. And then, glistening—
"Yes," I said. "I have."
Katadotis, a lieutenant of detectives in the Detroit police force, raised his eyebrows. Avoiding embarrassing questions, I quickly added, "It was a hunting accident, Lieutenant. Not very pleasant. So I know what you're talking about, and I appreciate your concern for Miss Brightman. I just want you to understand that I never met Brightman and it's stretching things to describe me as a friend. Accepting that, I'd be happy to identify his body."