David Francis - Stray Dog Winter

His car is black, Svetlana said. A Borgward. It is Swedish.

She motioned for Darcy to take a cigarette, nodding at the pack on the dash. A gesture of familiarity, or perhaps granting a last wish. He took a first drag, the smoke warm and ghostly in his throat. What if he doesn’t like me? he asked.

He like you before.

He ran away, said Darcy. He remembered the man’s afflicted expression.

They crossed a canal where a rowing eight leaned forward and back, oaring a skiff that somehow plied over the top of the frozen water, on tracks. A radio tower loomed up above and then they turned and drove down the road to the pleshka . Everything similar to last night yet not quite mirrored in daylight, except for the travesties at the bus shelter, one outside, draped against the chainlink fence, a black trilby hat and baggy trousers despite the cold, the other two perched on the wooden railing, buried in coats.

Svetlana reversed the car into the lane where Aurelio had parked, where passers-by couldn’t see. You be the hitchhiker on the corner. She pointed. He usually passes by soon.

Darcy felt again the insects inside him, buzzing up from their slumber. Does he speak English?

He is studied, she said, you will talk to him. She adjusted the sunglasses on top of her scarf. Time that you go now. She retrieved the piece of paper from Darcy’s fingers in exchange for a small device. The face of a compass, no larger than his watch. You press this. She pointed her pink-coated fingernail to a tiny red button. They want all sound and talking.

Darcy carefully pressed the button.

Once to start it and once to stop, she said.

The recorder seemed stylish for such a primitive country. He put it in his pocket as if it might explode. Stay hopeful, he told himself, but he felt as if he was heading to war without a weapon.

They will be watching you, Svetlana said. She tightened her lips in sympathy or pity, or just as a warning. Aurelio says you must please be careful.

Darcy dipped his head to get out into the cold, unsure how much Aurelio cared. He turned. Are we doing this for Gorbachev?

Svetlana regarded him curiously. Gorbachev who? she asked, and smiled.

The transvestites stared, silent and knowing, as the cold wind welled in Darcy’s eyes. He was here to ensnare who they couldn’t. He thrust his hands in his pockets as he turned the bend and stood where he was supposed to, waiting; the ache in his glands, a chill already in his feet. He cursed himself, then Fin and Aurelio, all that had led him here. He checked about himself for reference points: a disused railway line, an old apple orchard, a high-tensile perimeter, a prison perhaps. He felt the small recorder in his pocket, breathed and felt the iced air fill him; he was the perpetrator this time, a feeling that lay heavily, like an anger turning sour. He wanted to vomit in the snow.

He let out his breath at the sound of a car. The same as Svetlana’s but a middle-aged woman who passed, ignored him standing there. Another and then a black car approaching, sloped like an old Vanguard, a driver alone. The licence plate beginning Xu3 . Darcy pushed his fringe up under his beanie thinking he should hold out his cold, gloved hand, extend a thumb for a ride, but his hand stayed somewhere over his mouth. He just stood there.

Through the curve of the driver’s side window he could make out the narrow face and horn-rimmed specs. It was him, slowing, then rolling to a halt up ahead in the slush. Darcy turned but his feet seemed frozen; the back window of the car, oval and small, mirrored the dull white sky. There was a pulse in Darcy’s neck as he tried again to imagine himself on a Lufthansa jet on a runway. Cautiously he found himself drawing alongside the vehicle, a panicked stare reflected in the side mirror. Darcy wondered if it was his own but then he stood at a crack in the window. The face almost ferocious, as if Darcy was an apparition.

What are you doing here? the man asked in a clipped British English. Gingerly reaching behind him, he unlatched the rear door. Get in and keep yourself low.

Darcy’s first instinct was to shake his head no, but there was something like hope in the son-in-law’s watchful eyes, a glimmer of understanding. Darcy climbed inside, lying down on a cracked leather seat, the warm car about him, the smell of dog and pipe tobacco. The son-in-law drove off. The same slender whippet laid his chin on the console between the bucketed seats, a stark recognition in everyone’s eyes.

The son-in-law drank from a silver hipflask. Are you American? he asked, a soft vibration in his voice.

Darcy coughed softly. Australian, he said, knowing it was little consolation. The son-in-law took another swig, looking at Darcy in the rear-view mirror as if the road ahead was incidental. Who sent you? he asked.

Darcy felt again for the tape recorder, pocketed against his chest. He’d planned on saying the pleshka was in the Spartacus Guide under cruising in the outskirts . Can I sit up? he asked instead.

Nyet , said the son-in-law, not yet.

Darcy raised himself on his elbow. The dog was monitoring him, the son-in-law gauged the risk in the mirror, his wavy saltand-pepper hair above the seat back. The ride was heavy and smooth and the engine rumbled dimly. A bundle of maps in the seat pocket facing him, an empty ashtray.

Can I see your passport? the son-in-law asked.

I don’t have it with me, said Darcy.

The son-in-law slowed suspiciously at a roundabout and Darcy quietly switched on the tape in his pocket. You have so many maps, he said, a bleak attempt at conversation. Are you travelling a lot?

The son-in-law turned and glanced down. What you are doing in Moscow? he asked.

I’m an artist, said Darcy, but Svetlana was right, he didn’t feel like an artist today. There was also doubt in the son-in-law’s greying eyebrows, the way they strained into an arch of fear.

A fellowship to paint industrial landscapes, Darcy added. He peeked above the level of the window. Low undulating country dotted with wooden houses, patches of skeletal deciduous trees; the industrial landscapes were fading away. What about you? he asked. His voice sounded choked with weeds.

I am teaching at the university, said the son-in-law, staring out, his pipe tight between his teeth. The clouds were so low you could stand on the car and touch them. Distant people in the wintry fields, a cart pulled by a pair of Clydesdales through the snow. Soviets are now the most literate people in history, the son-in-law added almost proudly. He sucked at the embers of his tobacco, still pensive and wary behind his glasses. They sent you, didn’t they? he said.

Darcy smelled the worn leather seats, heard the drum of the tyres on the bitumen, the fields an eiderdown of snow pocked by trees, flat and unprotected. No evidence of a car behind them. No, he said, I found it in the Spartacus Guide under cruising in the outskirts .

The car suddenly turned down a narrow side road and rolled to a halt beside a low drainage channel. The son-in-law left the engine running for the heat, ordered the whippet to the floor so he could sit on the passenger side himself. Breathing uneasily, the son-in-law ordered Darcy to take off his coat, then gestured with the stem of his pipe for him to climb forward between the seats.

Darcy paused, felt the can-opener against his ankle as he began to struggle through, over the console. He slipped behind the steering wheel as the son-in-law, his free hand shaky, reached back for Darcy’s overcoat. Russian chewing gum fell from the pocket, a few roubles in an elastic band in the son-in-law’s fingers.

They pay you? he asked, searching Darcy’s face.