Brian Freemantle: Dead Men Living

Irena seized it, too. “Daddy?”

“If I can be,” said Charlie. He wasn’t enjoying the encounter.

“Why don’t I bathe you myself-and read you a story-while Daddy gets me a drink?” suggested the woman.

Charlie decided he liked the way the title sounded. He was glad, too, that Irena had taken over bathtime duties: he was learning how to be a father at roughly the same pace as Sasha was mastering basic spoken English. “There’s most things,” he invited.

“Scotch. Water back.”

Very American vernacular, thought Charlie, amused. He took Islay scotch as well, pouring both straight, setting out her water glass separately and putting ice in a bucket for her to add herself, to avoid it melting to dilute the drink. For someone who until that moment had been a total stranger, Irena-Irena Seminova Modin, Charlie remembered, from the McDonald’s conversation-seemed very adept at appearing an old friend. It probably had something to do with being a stewardess. Long-haul, he recalled: Australia as well America.

There was a lot of splashing and laughing from the bathroom. Sasha was in her nightdress, warm and fresh-smelling, when she ran in to kiss him good night. She announced, “Aunt Irena is going to tell me a story. Girls only, but you can come in to say good night later,” and ran out again, giggling.

Irena emerged ten minutes later pulling her sweater down about her and said, “I got splashed.”

Charlie wondered what had happened to the flying jacket. Irena was far bigger-busted than her sister and seemed proud of it, from the tightness of the sweater. He said, “What’s this girls-only all about?”

Irena smiled, taking the large, enveloping chair beside the couch on which Charlie sat. “She said she wanted to have a secret, so I told her to make one up.”

Charlie indicated the drink, pouring a second for himself. Irena added just one ice cube, properly sipping the water separately, and Charlie decided there was nothing wrong with a pretension if it was carried out confidently enough. Irena was doing fairly well.

“How long have you and Natalia been together?”

“A while,” said Charlie, evasively.

The woman was looking around the apartment. “And isn’t she the lucky one. Sasha said princesses lived here once and I believe her. You must be either very important or very rich or both.”

“There’s a lot of opportunities in Moscow now.” Charlie decided that apart from an obvious facial resemblance Irena was different in every way from Natalia. He preferred Natalia’s natural darkness to Irena’s blond-highlighted hair and if he was making a direct comparison-which he was-he thought Natalia’s figure was better, too. Irena verged upon the voluptuous and seemed to want to, from the tightness of the second-skin jeans as well as the sweater.

“I know someone from the American embassy trade division,” Irena declared. “Saul Freeman. You know him?”

“ Of him,” said Charlie, cautiously. Saul Freeman headed the FBI’s station at the U.S. embassy. It had been the Bureau’s success in getting a man based in Moscow-and the dominance and Western crime links of the Russian mafia-that had been instrumental in Charlie’s appointment. Freeman was a balding New York bachelor who shared with the British embassy’s matchingly single MI6 resident,Richard Cartright, the apparent ambition to screw every woman in Moscow. Natalia wouldn’t be happy at Irena finding them together and most certainly not at Irena knowing someone with a Bureau function from another Western embassy. “How’d you meet Saul?”

“He was on my flight, about six months ago.” She grinned. “Not by choice. It was the only plane available.” She looked around the apartment again. “But his place doesn’t come within a million miles of this.”

Cautiously Charlie said, “You seeing each other?”

Irena grimaced again, pulling down the corners of her mouth. “We went out to dinner once or twice.”

“But?”

“He didn’t make me laugh. And he counts.”

“Counts?”

“In a notebook. Writes down what he spends, when he spends it.”

“You’re joking!”

“I told you, there was nothing to laugh about. I think you’d make me laugh, though. What do you think?”

“I think I know someone who’d think he was terrific making a note of his expenditure,” said Charlie, refusing the flagrant invitation.

“She’d be disappointed. He makes love by number, too. Hup, one two three, hup, one two three ….”

Charlie laughed, because he was expected to, curious just the same. Genuine free spirit? Or something else? He shouldn’t kid himself it was anything else.

“It’s a man.”

“Maybe that’s his real interest. He tried to explore.”

Time to call a halt, Charlie decided. “I’ll check Sasha. Say good night.”

“She’s okay.”

“I’ll still check.” Sasha was asleep, the Donald Duck string around her wrist. Charlie gently disentangled it and put it on the bedside table. Sasha snuffled but didn’t wake up. When he returned to the smaller sitting room, Irena had moved from the chair to the couch upon which Charlie had earlier sat. He momentarily considered the chair but went back to his original seat, although wedging himself in the corner farthest from the woman and half turning toward her.

Irena swiveled toward him, one leg crooked onto the seat, smilingover the separating gap. “I won’t bite. Not unless I’m asked.”

“Good.” What the hell was this all about? Careful against misinterpretation, he warned himself.

“What’s Natalia told you about me?” demanded Irena.

“Very little.”

“She hasn’t told me anything about you, either. So why don’t you?”

“Ask Natalia.”

“Why so shy?”

“I don’t want to bore you, like Saul seems to have done.”

“I don’t think you would.”

He lifted the bottle. Irena nodded. Once, thought Charlie, this might even have been fun. “How do you know I don’t keep an account book?”

“I’m usually good at judging men. Saul was a mistake.”

So what was Irena? A prick teaser or a pubic scalp collector? One was potentially as dangerous as the other, quite apart from the embassy connection. That wasn’t a danger, now that it was over. And he wasn’t interested in-didn’t want to answer-either of the other questions. “Maybe this is a mistake.”

“What?” The smile was quite open now.

“I think you are a very exciting woman. Beautiful,” said Charlie, who believed, without conceit, that he’d perfected sincere-sounding dishonesty into an art form. “At any other time I would have liked to have played these word games-every other sort of game-for a very long time. But I’m with your sister, whom I love. As I love Sasha. We’re wrongly met: wrong time, wrong circumstances. Lost opportunities ….” Jesus! thought Charlie. There should have been violin music for that last bit. “So it’s got to be just friends. Okay?”

Before Irena could answer, the telephone jarred into the room and Charlie thought, saved by the bell, and was right. He replaced the receiver and said, “Natalia’s on her way home.”

“No,” said Irena.

“No what?” frowned Charlie, momentarily lost.

“No, it’s not okay.”

Fuck you, thought Charlie. At once he corrected himself. No, I won’t, despite the obvious offer.

There is an elite group of men who observe with what can best be described as tolerance the comings and goings of political parties in what are described as democratic elections in the countries of the West. Invariably the word secretary appears somewhere in their title, which conveys totally the wrong impression of their absolute power and unparalleled influence, a misconception they foster because these are men who, if it were possible, would choose physically to be as invisible as they metaphorically are. It is they who, irrespective of briefly passing governments and electorally promised policies, ensure the stable passage of their respective countries through life’s stormy seas. Each is known personally to and operates with the other in a structure without name or written rules or constitution. It is enough that they know , which they do instinctively, without the need to explain to one another. They discuss.