Matthew Palmer - Enemy of the Good

It was after-school hours, so Mrs. Larson invited Kate back into the office for tea, which she drank in the Australian way with milk and sugar rather than in the local fashion with honey or strawberry jam.

“You mentioned on the phone that you needed my help with something,” Mrs. Larson said after a few minutes of catching up on the events of the last decade. “How can I be of service to you?”

“I’m hoping to reconnect with some old friends while I’m back in town. I’ve lost touch with most of my old classmates, I’m embarrassed to say. I’m hoping that you can help me track some people down.”

“I’ll do what I can. Any place you’d like to start?”

Kate could not help but look away for a brief moment, as though she had been caught in a lie.

“I’d like to see if I can get ahold of Valentina Aitmatova.”

“Two peas in a pod, you were,” Mrs. Larson agreed. “But I was thinking that you might want to begin with that boy. What was his name? Oh my, I’m getting old.”

Kate knew that there was no chance Mrs. Larson had forgotten the name of her high school boyfriend. The Aussie was both famous and infamous for her encyclopedic memory of everything that had happened at ISB and everyone who had walked through the doors of the school since its founding.

“He’s long gone, alas. Last I heard he left for Moscow and then Berlin and then I lost track of him.”

“You were such a sweet couple. As a high school guidance counselor you see a great deal of young love. Most of it is of the puppy variety. But you two were something else. There was something quite… mature about the two of you. It was unusual.”

Kate knew she was right. Their affair had been relatively brief, the final eight months of their senior year and the summer before Kate left for college. But it had also been intense, and the first time they had made love was a memory that still burned bright and hot. It had been the first time for both of them, and Kate kept it close to her heart along with other memories of him that she had strung together like the beads on a rosary. Kate had had other lovers since, of course, including one at Georgetown that had been serious, at least for a while. Nothing, however, had quite measured up to that first flush of young love. Kate had no desire to discuss this with Mrs. Larson.

“He was special,” Kate agreed. “But a girl can’t live in the past.”

“No, of course not,” and for a moment Mrs. Larson had a faraway look in her eyes as though she were remembering her own youth and an early love that had offered, at the time, so much hope and promise.

“But about Valentina…”

“Oh, yes. I’m afraid that we’ve lost touch with her. Alumni outreach has always been one of our weak spots here at ISB. I can give you the last address that we had for her parents, but there’s no guarantee that it’s still good. I heard that her mother died, poor thing, and her father was a drinker. I remember some stories from PTA meetings that would curl your toes. Valentina had a lot on her plate, what with her brother and all. I don’t know what happened to him. Kyrgyzstan isn’t especially well equipped for that sort of thing.”

“No, it’s not,” Kate agreed. Val’s brother was maybe five years younger than they were and he had been born with cerebral palsy. It was relatively mild, Kate remembered, but even mild CP was severely debilitating, especially in a developing country like Kyrgyzstan. Val had not spoken of her brother often, but Kate knew that she had been devoted to him.

“Maybe there’s something I can do to help. I’ll take the old address if that’s all you’ve got.”

Mrs. Larson went into the back room and returned a few minutes later with the address written in neat block letters on school stationery.

“Good luck, dear.”

Kate’s luck was not good.

Valentina’s old apartment had changed owners at least twice. In an awkward exchange conducted over the apartment’s aging intercom, a tetchy old man speaking in Russian had denied ever hearing the name Aitmatova. When Kate asked him the name of the person from whom he had bought the apartment, he hung up. Kate understood. Soviet-era abuses had so clouded the issue of property rights that even the most benign requests for information could come across to the nervous current occupants as a potential threat of litigation.

A café across the street from the apartment building offered Kate an opportunity to drown her sorrows in cappuccino and contemplate her next move.

How did you find someone in Bishkek who didn’t want to be found? For that matter, was Valentina even in Bishkek? What if Crespo was right, and the evidence that she was a key player in Boldu was a red herring? Either a misreading of the intelligence or deliberate misinformation. Boldu’s version of maskirovka . In that case, Valentina could be anywhere. She could be in London or New York or Timbuktu. Asking the Kyrgyz government for help was out of the question. Kate’s objective was not only to find Valentina but to win her trust and gain access to Boldu, to find out who the mysterious Seitek was, to learn whether—in fact—he existed at all.

Kate was convinced, however, that Valentina was in Bishkek. The conversation with Mrs. Larson had jogged her memory about the brother. If the parents were out of the picture and unable to care for him, it was impossible for her to imagine that Valentina would abandon her brother to the mercy of the state.

Kate stiffened abruptly and almost spilled her cappuccino. Of course. The brother was the key. There were only a few institutions in the entire country that would be equipped to provide the kind of care he would need. Assuming, of course, that he was still alive. And Kate felt guilty for even thinking about measuring the value of a young man’s life in terms of how it furthered her mission. There was a part of her chosen profession, however, that required using people as instruments. A bias toward transactional relationships was one of the more unattractive aspects of diplomatic practice.

Val would want to visit him on a regular basis. If she could find out which facility her brother was in, Kate would know the place Valentina would be, if not necessarily the time. It was the best idea she had. The only idea she had.

Kate left without finishing her coffee, and twenty minutes later she was back in her cubicle. The embassy nurse gave her the contact number for a local neurologist who the medical unit had vetted for referrals. The doctor, in turn, gave Kate the names of every institution in Bishkek, public and private, capable of managing a patient with cerebral palsy. It was a short list, four public hospitals and two private clinics. Kate felt like she was minutes away from success.

Forty-five minutes later she was back at square one.

None of the hospitals or clinics had a record of a patient named Aitmatov.

With a sudden insight, Kate realized her mistake.

“Oh my god, I’m such an idiot.”

“I promise not to tell anyone,” Gabby said from the next cubicle.

“Thank you.”

“Your secret dies with me.”

“Take your time.”

Kate had been asking the wrong question. She had been looking for someone with the family name Aitmatov. But if Valentina was trying to hide, she would not want to use that name. She would have registered her brother under a different family name. It was doubtful, however, that she would have wanted to change his first name. Cerebral palsy was often associated with intellectual disabilities, and it would have been confusing to her brother to force that change on him.

She dialed Mrs. Larson’s number at the school.

“Hello.”

“Mrs. Larson, it’s Kate. I need a quick favor.”