David Francis - Stray Dog Winter

Fin said she’d love to go and broke into Russian. She got in the front seat and Darcy found himself getting in the back like an afterthought, deciphering only occasional names and movements: Kandinsky, Chagall, Isaak Brodsky, realists, avant garde. Aurelio didn’t meet his eyes in the rear-view mirror; he slid his gloves from his long fingers and fiddled with the radio dial.

Darcy felt disoriented. He’d wanted to talk with him about last night’s jazz but his mind was swamped with what almost happened with Fin. In the mirror he caught a glimpse of his own face; his hair stuck out like a shelf from being slept on, his Australian tan already gone. Aurelio kept his colour despite the winter and Fin kept hers too, porcelain white, pristine against her fresh morning lipstick, but even paler this morning, drawn, as she chatted away as if all was on the level.

They wended the wet streets to the river, a dirge crackling through a speaker attached below the glove box, vibrating near Fin’s knees—the place where Darcy’s legs should have been. In the front they continued their exchange with such passion their Russian sounded like the quarrelling of lovers. Darcy listened to the music. I’m not crazy about Shostakovich, he said, to get them back to English.

It is Prokofiev, Aurelio said matter-of-factly, turning the volume down. Fin glanced back at Darcy but he chose not to receive her look, focused instead on the furry place at the nape of Aurelio’s neck where he’d buried his face only yesterday. Then he watched out into the leafless streets—the whine of the wipers with the lament of the requiem was hypnotic and it was beginning to snow. They stopped at a light near the frozen drainage canal where men perched on buckets on the embankment, bundled up like bears. They contemplated dark holes they’d made in the ice, their fishing poles draped into them. Wherever there’s water men are fishing, said Darcy, mostly to remind himself of his own voice.

Aurelio turned back to Darcy, a desire for forgiveness in his eyes, but the music stopped abruptly and there came an announcement. Fin reached for the volume. Andropov’s dead, she said, wide-eyed. They all listened.

How? asked Darcy, afraid it had been the Americans, but Aurelio smiled; he seemed pleased.

He is been sick for months, he said. He wiped the fog from the window in front of him and put down his foot at the change of the light. The engine gushed as if it might flood. He drove faster now as if in his own world, making calculations.

I just saw him on the TV, said Darcy.

He’s probably been dead for weeks, said Fin. They play old footage.

And they play dirge on radio to prepare the people, said Aurelio. Is hard to know what is real.

Together Aurelio and Fin seemed to know everything, except perhaps about each other.

Didn’t Andropov write to the American schoolgirl? asked Darcy. It was the only thing he could remember.

He wrote romantic poetry, said Fin, and arranged the invasion of Hungary.

He was two people, Aurelio said, turning to her. Like you.

She’s more than that, thought Darcy.

I’m an artist, said Fin. I’m allowed. A new torrent of their fluidsounding Russian.

No, thought Darcy. I’m the artist.

The Monastery of St Peter rose up behind a high stone fence, a stepped belltower with a tapered green dome, a conglomerate of churches. Will it be Gorbachev’s time now? asked Darcy to break them up.

Things get worse before they get better, said Aurelio, and Darcy heard them mention Chernenko’s name. He thought of the daughter, how she might become more influential now.

News of Andropov’s death had pedestrians hurrying to the metro entrance at Prospekt Marksa as if there were things to prepare. Their movement was infectious. Aurelio said he’d have to drop the two of them off at the Pushkin because he needed to return to his office now. Darcy felt both relief and disappointment. He hadn’t imagined Aurelio having an office, just the dress shop.

Can you drop us instead at the Beriozka on Petrovka? asked Fin as if a car was a bonus she couldn’t let slide. She pulled her netted perchance bag from the pocket of her coat.

Aurelio watched Darcy in the mirror as if intuiting he’d still want to see the museum. I have some thing for you, said Aurelio with a certain sad amusement, dividing something into two separate words. He produced a small package from the sleeve in the door and handed it back to Darcy over the seat. More dull colour postcards. The Museum of Science and Achievement, the same shot of the arcing obelisk dwarfing the bright red bus. Captions in both Russian and English, the Atomic Energy Pavilion, colours unknown to nature added to the images like artificial sweetener. Pictures taken in summer. Aurelio looked in the rear-view mirror again, waiting for Darcy’s gratitude. To help for your painting, he said.

Another shot of the People’s Friendship Fountain, the goldleafed women holding bouquets, the water festooning, not frozen or smudged with snow. The grass a torpid green. Thank you, Aurelio, said Darcy. The sound of the name felt round on Darcy’s tongue.

Fin asked if she could look but Darcy continued flipping. The Stone Flower Fountain, he said. The huge ornate petals that sprouted from rocks with high cascading flutes of water. He envisioned his canvas with the rocket-shaped monument bent and shining into the ether, mounted with the polaroid of the prickeared dog. Multimedia might be interesting here, he thought; both real and surreal, an ode to achievement and Laika heading into space on her own, the pavilions below. He could imagine it.

Then he came upon a black and white picture, loose. Two men in a lavatory stall, shot from above. Had Aurelio left it accidentally? And then it dawned, a shadowed version of himself, his pained expression, eyes twisted closed, searching upwards. The one standing was Darcy. Shame and panic rose in a wave to his throat and came to his eyes.

Aurelio had seen what Darcy uncovered. He pulled over outside the nondescript self-service market as Fin had requested. That is why there is a problem with your passport, said Aurelio.

Darcy got out onto the pavement, stunned by the cold and the photo. He always knew there’d be a day of consequences. Fin stood behind him, watched the Lada motor away. I’m not convinced he’s on your team, she said. Darcy didn’t ask which team she meant. Let me see them, she said.

Reluctantly, Darcy let her flip through the photos, waiting until she came to the black and white. A photo, not a polaroid. The railway station in Prague, he said. Together they stared—the guy in his uniform, down on his knees, his army cap on the cistern. One of Darcy’s hands in the young man’s wavy hair, the other gripping his own abdomen as if clutching a pain.

Fin gazed in disbelief. She’d warned him to be careful and yet there he was, captured from a hole in the ceiling. Darcy could feel her seething, an anger no doubt magnified by what she’d almost let happen the night before. They stared at the strange grey shapes. Darcy could hardly believe it himself; the shame of it made him feel woozy.

Where was the money belt? she asked.

Darcy pointed to his mid-section, just above the soldier’s head. That’s what Darcy was holding onto, the leather belt pulled up high, his arm hugged around it, holding himself, his face twisted up and his hair falling back from his forehead. He was too handsome to refuse, said Darcy. It was a thudding consolation.

He was in uniform, she said. Are you crazy?

Darcy didn’t answer at first. It could have been that he was.

One minute you’re acting normal and the next you’re in a foulsmelling place with a stranger, risking everyone’s lives.

At least I look happy, said Darcy, but he could feel his insides convulsing.