David Francis - Stray Dog Winter

Darcy couldn’t remember if the Bosporus was a river or a mountain range but the Turk was treating him like he knew these things. How many did Jobik kill? asked Darcy.

The Turk looked slightly deflated. That’s what we want to know, he said. He flicked ash on the floor. In 1979 the Archbishop of the Armenian Church in New York was shot dead. He searched Darcy for a hint of recognition.

I thought you said the Dashnaks were Christians, said Darcy.

The skin around the Turk’s wrinkled mouth tightened, the smell of his cigarette was strong. The Archbishop supported Soviet Armenia, he said. He reached for the general’s silver lunch box, turned it to face Darcy.

Darcy sat perfectly still. You can’t suspect me of being with a party I’ve never heard of, he said softly.

The general smiled lazily, folded his arms, as the Turk removed a zippered plastic evidence bag from the lunch box. What about this? he asked.

A panic ran up inside Darcy like he’d never felt, his throat closing. The money belt held up like a ragged leather pendant, the back of it hacked open. A sleeve in it after all. The Turk’s weathered finger like a small gnarled branch, poked at it through the plastic. What was inside dis? he asked, his accent suddenly thick.

Darcy struggled for air. Airline tickets, he murmured. Some money. My passport. The leaf they’d extended sailing down into a well. It was a present, said Darcy. Delivered to my flat in a padded yellow envelope.

Do not pretend you know nothing, said the Turk. You are not so stupid. He dropped the evidence bag back in the tin and his chair scraped on the floor. As he walked around the table and stood close, Darcy felt himself cringe. I was stupid, he said, but the Turk leaned down and twisted his ear, the foul cigarette right next to Darcy’s hair.

There is no immunity in ignorance, the Turk whispered. Your friends are killing my people.

Darcy let out a stifled cry as the Turk reefed his ear and looked in his eyes, his pupils narrow and black. Sarik Aryak was my friend, he said.

Darcy looked up at him beseechingly—No, I don’t know—but the Turk jabbed his neck with the lit cigarette and sizzled it deep and Darcy remembered the name of the restaurant as his mouth yawed open with an otherly howl and he flung himself down to the cement, writhing in agony. The Jaguaroff, he tried to say but the word was sewn into his screaming.

Darcy lay restless, his eyes clenched, his breathing erratic, the cigarette burn throbbing. He’d slept for a spell and dreamed of his mother in the dark, her scrabbling around for a pen and then scrawling names in red all over her bedroom walls—Russian names like Davydov , Katkov , Kosygin , Bogdanova , Chekhov , all of them wrong. At a creaking he woke in fright, disoriented. Through the thin weave of blanket, a broad shape at the end of the flimsy prison bed, seated quietly with his black-framed glasses on, the general looming silently, as a parent might watch a child.

Darcy lowered the blanket, edged up, a tremor that began in his chest, juddered out into his arms. The general in a black dinner suit, his bow tie hanging loose down his shirtfront. He raised an imaginary glass in a cupped hand, as if toasting. Anyetta Chernenko says many thankyous for being shepherd of her dog, he said.

Darcy smelled anise liqueur on the general’s breath as the general pulled up his dinner jacket sleeve, smiled ruefully at Darcy’s Longines watch, its silver band stretched about his massive wrist. Visiting hours, he said, showing his yellowed teeth.

Darcy half sat up on the slatted wooden bed, his aching back against the cold brick wall. He clasped his knees up under the raggedy end of the blanket, then noticed Aurelio’s coat draped on the chair back, the roll of currency on the seat. How do you say in English? said the general. Your things .

Darcy found himself rocking slightly, suspiciously, the chance of being released, the general placing a thick pale hand on Darcy’s covered foot as if to still him. First we have some business, he said.

A siren wailed somewhere and Darcy hugged the blanket tight, up over the sore on his neck, in a kind of hopeless defence, but the general reached forward, carefully pulled it down to inspect the wound. Ah, yes, he said. Consul Tugrul is quite cruel.

Darcy nodded in nervous agreement but recoiled even further; he’d known the feel of the general’s great open palm in the same interview room, slapping him almost through the air, but it was coupled now with a memory, the missionary looming over a small boy’s body. He clutched the stringy blanket like a rope out at sea as the general reached to touch his cold unsteady fingers, as though fascinated by fear, his hand almost twice the size of Darcy’s.

You are shaking, said the general.

Darcy looked up at the general’s moist, late-night smile, tried to slide his fingers from the touch, but then he felt the blanket tethered tight over his knees, stretched like a threadbare tent. Death felt like a not-so-timid visitor, waiting outside in the snow. He felt the quiver deep within him, to be left bloody on this greasy floor, ruptured.

I did not come to hurt you, said the general. I need you. His great square knees shifted over, corralling Darcy’s huddled feet.

My mother is contacting the Australian Embassy, said Darcy, his voice just a shadow.

I thought you were Polish, said the general with a lascivious smile. He extracted the burgundy passport from his jacket pocket, and shoved the photo of a black and white Fin up against Darcy’s blistered lips. Kiss her, he said. Kiss your naughty sister.

Darcy drew back from the tasteless laminated page against his mouth, blood from the cut on his lip as it smeared Fin’s small, determined face. Fin, what have you done to us?

You agree she is with Armenian Dashnaks, the general said. He removed his glasses thoughtfully, put one arm of the frames in his mouth. I am supposing she gave a place to find her? He seemed to choose his English words carefully, as if he had only a few, his tongue remaining on his lower lip. His hand gripped Darcy’s ankles like they were sparrows in a vice.

Darcy’s own lip throbbed; he squirmed to free his ankles, the whirr in his ears began like the dull sound of propellers approaching. He knew this was his window, the restaurant— if things go bad , the Jaguaroff sat like a jewel in his sore dry mouth. Maybe I can find her, he said.

Where? Where are they? The general’s whisper so vehement, the blood vessels pushed at his skin, his scalp darkened red. Garabed’s men. Tell me where or I will fuck it out from you. Is that what you want? Darcy’s ankles felt close to snapping as he fought the general flipping him over, writhed against the weight and screaming, the blanket deftly stuffed in his mouth like a choking sock and held there, the general’s fingers cupping Darcy’s chin from behind like a claw, the breadth of his wrist across Darcy’s eye, the sharp metal catch of the watchband. Darcy contorting, trying to breathe as his belted pants were forced to his thighs and the sound of the general unharnessing, climbing up over him, on top of him, the weight of a piano as Darcy now shoved against the putrid blanket, heaving for air, shunted over the cot on an angle and pinned there, the general whispering like a madman in Darcy’s ear. Do you scream when you are doing fuck with my son? In my dacha. The general the size of a fist shunting near the base of Darcy’s spine, forced lower as Darcy’s eyes crunched deep in their sockets, the suffocating bulk on top of him, his bloodied lips contorting against the fleshy hand, the general prying apart Darcy’s narrowed buttocks. Darcy’s chin twisted against the bricks, the wrong red names that ran the length of his mother’s bedroom wall, and the fervent spittled anise whispers in his upturned ear. You like fuck with men. You think you like that? I show you fuck with men. Thrusting but not finding, like a blunt axe determined to split a narrow log. Then Darcy heard urgent whispers through the slot in the door, footsteps and clanking in the corridor. The general withdrew from him, the weight of a hand in the small of Darcy’s back, and Darcy pulled the blanket over himself, heaving for air, and lay like a rag, his face against the wall.