Tom Callaghan - A Spring Betrayal

“I suppose Tynaliev knows who he is,” I said. “Maybe even does business with him?”

“You think you’re being set up by him?” Saltanat asked.

Now it was my turn to shrug. I thought about the films I’d seen, gaping mouths with screams torn out of their throats, the eyes filled with dread, knowing there was no help or hope left. I saw how the knives filleted slices of flesh, rivulets of blood spilling over the chains and leather straps that held the children down. The weeping, the pleading, and then, finally, resignation, eyes filming over as death approached.

“It doesn’t matter. Only one thing does.”

I wasn’t surprised at the anger in my voice. I could see the masked man smiling, enjoying the degradation, the terror, the despair. The glint of camera lights off the blade, and then the blood.

“I want the bastard who did all this. Not to send him to court so he can buy his way out. Not to a comfortable cell with three meals delivered a day.”

I paused, wondered about another cigarette, decided against it. I stood up, wincing at the pain in my shoulder. Somehow that didn’t seem important. In fact nothing seemed important, except for one thing.

“I want him under the ground. And I want to be the one who puts him there.”

“How are you going to do that?” Saltanat asked. “He’s got connections from here to Moscow, maybe even further.”

“First of all, I’m going to rattle some cages, give our Mr. Graves something to worry about. Push a few buttons, stir the shit, watch what happens.”

I took the iPhone out of my pocket, dialed a now-familiar number.

“He’ll kill you,” Saltanat warned.

“Not if I kill him first,” I said, rewarding her with a smile that stopped somewhere south of my cheekbones.

The phone rang and was answered.

“I imagine that so far this evening has cost you some time,” I said, “trouble, and perhaps even a little expense.”

There was only silence at the other end of the phone. The silence when the wolves are about to attack the sheep, when the farmer’s finger tenses on the trigger.

“We’ve both learned something tonight. You’ve learned I’m not in this for the money, and I’m not an amateur.”

“And what have you learned?” The Voice, dark, menacing, storm clouds looming over the Tien Shan mountains.

“I’ve learned who you are, Mr. Graves. Where you are.”

I paused for effect. Saltanat stared at me, perhaps wondering if I’d lost my senses.

“And most worrying for you, what you are.”

And I listened as the phone went dead.

I held up the phone, then passed it to Saltanat.

“Can we leave this with your friend, Rustam?” I asked. “There isn’t anyone I can trust, not even Usupov.”

Saltanat thought about it, then nodded.

“Rustam doesn’t say much, but if he likes you, he’ll always be there for you. If he thought Graves had anything to do with the heroin that killed Anastasia, he’d go up there with one of his boning knives and gut the American himself.”

I wondered what it would be like to lose a daughter. All the hopes and ambitions you’d cherished for her, memories of those first staggering steps, the school prizes, the graduation ceremony. And the events you’d never see, the wedding, your first grandchild, the eternal circle starting again. Worse than losing your wife to cancer? Loss is loss, and it comes to live with us all.

Saltanat touched me on my arm and I came back from my reverie.

“Let’s get back to the hotel, and I can stitch your shoulder up again,” she said, and I was touched by a tenderness I heard in her voice.

I placed my hand on hers, the slender fingers warm and alive against mine. I wanted to tell her I cared for her. But the words wouldn’t come. So instead we each took one of Otabek’s hands, and with him secure between us, walked out into the night.

As before, we parked inside the hotel grounds, the high steel gates hiding us from view. Carrying our bags, Rustam led us through the kitchen and up a flight of narrow stairs to the first floor. Without saying a word, he nodded as Saltanat explained about Otabek. Rustam pocketed the iPhone, crouched down so as not to frighten the boy, said there was a special bedroom with lots of toys for brave boys. Otabek looked at Saltanat for reassurance, worry clear in his eyes. She nodded and took his hand. Rustam handed me a key to one of the rooms, and then the three of them climbed up the next flight of stairs.

The room was fairly basic, twin beds set against one wall, a small bathroom, a wardrobe big enough for one person’s clothes. I waited until Saltanat returned, closing the curtains, pushing the night away, a circle of light from the bedside lamp soft in the darkness.

“Poor child,” she said. “He was asleep in seconds. He must have been terrified.”

“Maybe when all this is over,” I said, the words thick in my mouth, “we can get him some help. See he doesn’t have to go back to the orphanage.”

I wondered if Saltanat guessed the thought in my mind; a ready-made family created out of terror and love. Regaining what I had once lost and never thought to get again.

“You should shower,” she said, “and clean your shoulder before it gets infected.”

I started to peel off my clothes, wincing as the dried blood on my shirt tore at my skin, and the wound started to bleed once more. I looked in the mirror, saw a face as worn and creased as my clothes. Stains like black eyes on my face matched the bruise on my forehead, weariness deep in the lines around my mouth. Maybe I was coming to my end, but right then I was too tired to care.

The hot water in the shower did a little to wake me up; it’s never easy to feel good in clothes you’ve been wearing for three days. I was letting the water wash over my shoulder when I sensed movement behind me.

Saltanat was naked, dark nipples erect, her hair pinned up to avoid getting wet. She took the soap from my hand and started to wash my back. I began to turn but she put her hand on my good shoulder, to stop me. She rinsed the soap off my back, sliding her hands across, down, and then around my waist. I could feel the weight of her breasts against my back, small and firm, her thighs against mine, and I felt my heart surge.

“This is going to hurt, Akyl,” she said, washing my shoulder, fingers probing the wound. “You really need to get this stitched properly, but I suppose going to a hospital isn’t really very practical. How about your friend Usupov?”

“Have you seen the stitches he puts in corpses?” I said, wincing as she cleaned my shoulder. “You’d swear he does it with his eyes shut. Mind you, they don’t ever complain.”

I shut my eyes and gave myself up to the simple sensation of hot water, smooth skin, hands stroking my waist. Saltanat’s fingers barely grazed my hips, light as cobwebs, circling, moving down toward my thighs. I heard a groan, almost silent as if from a great distance, and wasn’t sure whether it came from her or me. And then, shockingly, I remembered a winter afternoon, in the apartment where Chinara and I lived when we were first married, a dismal studio down in the concrete depths of the tower blocks in Alamedin.

The building’s heating had broken down, so we spent the entire day in bed, getting up only to run to make chai , our breath white in the bitter cold. Her long hair spread out on the pillow, her eyes closed, smiling with pleasure and contentment as we kissed. In our first bed, where we conceived the child that was never to be born, the center of our universe on that distant endless day. And I remembered another bed, the final one, where the morphine took her from me, piecemeal. Where Chinara had sometimes groaned in her sleep, waiting for nothing more than the ending of pain. An ending I gave her, with my hands and an embroidered cushion.