David Francis - Stray Dog Winter

Darcy leaned against the door of St Nicholas, the ache in his chest and arms like a fixture, knowing if he crouched he might sit and if he sat he might never get up. He closed his eyes and waited; the sound of footsteps and tyres compressing the snow, car engines, buses. Darcy appealed to a wonder worker: Keep me. He’d spent his life sneaking around, prayed he’d become good enough at it. If he’d been set loose on purpose, to think he was on his own, he prayed he might be now—he’d been quick across the streets from the apartment, no footsteps behind him, no cars following. He’d always run faster than anyone he knew, even racked with aches and pains. He listened out into the empty shadows; if he had led them to Fin, she’d left him no choice. He walked resolutely to the alley as if it held some final promise.

The lane was dark and wet and quiet, splitting around an angled wooden building a hundred metres up. He moved along a solid wall until he saw the sign in a draped plate-glass window and old-fashioned door. HET BXOH. He knew that meant ‘closed’ but knocked anyway. Through the curtains he thought he saw the dull shapes of small tables, some lit with candles, and there were vague kitchen smells, yet no one appeared at the window or door. A restaurant not open to everyone.

Darcy felt weak and fuzzy in the head as he ventured on along the side, skirting past crates and piled cartons, then froze at the sight of a pocked, ferrety teenager out in the cold, clad in a stained apron with a cigarette clasped between thumb and index finger, the way Jobik smoked. He smirked at Darcy knowingly and mumbled something Darcy couldn’t understand, then motioned him into a narrow-countered kitchen. The waft of cabbage and warmth felt like bottled rays of possibility.

Inside, pots of broth were set on a stove and a dish-filled sink, sepia pictures of vintage sports cars lined the walls. Jaguars! A cook in a traditional patterned vest looked up then returned to his chopping but, at the beaded archway into the dining room, Darcy turned back and the cook stared him down, narrow hooded eyes set below an olive headband. Mozhna? asked Darcy. May I? He felt like someone walking in from the treeless plains of the north, emerging from moss and lichen after being mauled by bears.

The cook nodded deliberately and Darcy pulled back the beads. A dining room with burgundy tablecloths lit only by candles in bottles, threads of dried wax draped from their necks. A boy sat alone in a chair in the corner, his old man’s eyes watchful and unblinking. Fat paper dolls on the sill. Then a sharp-faced woman in a print folk dress slipped through and showed Darcy to a booth beneath a coat of arms with a double-headed jaguar.

Darcy sat, didn’t yet mention Fin’s name, unclear if he should. Tabaka, kartofel, pomidor , the woman whispered respectfully, without producing a menu. Her eyes held a quiet understanding, her grey hair thickly braided, a minute silver star around her neck and a silk shawl with salmon-coloured flowers. Kvass, she added. These were not questions. Darcy noticed her star pendant had eight points—not a Star of David but a pagan or Balkan star, an Armenian symbol maybe. Did you know I was coming? he asked.

She retreated, nodding reassuringly, but Darcy guessed she hadn’t understood. Maybe she was Jobik’s mother, Jobik’s little brother sitting against the wall, his other brother smoking, keeping watch. Darcy’s ear hummed a low refrigerator sound, the jitter still in his hands as he took off his gloves. He left his coat on in case, pulled back a corner of curtain to spy out but the boy made a tsking sound, warning him, then shook his head quickly. Nyet.

That boy could be dangerous, thought Darcy. He was tempted to say the name Jobik, to see the boy’s reaction, but the woman returned with a jug on a wooden tray, a stern expression as she poured into a water-spotted glass. Kvass; the bread drink. Darcy took a sip and tried not to wince. She offered him a steaming brown cloth and he held it to his cheek and lip and said Spasiba . Then the hooded-eyed cook slid a plate before him and nodded: pressed chicken, potatoes and tomatoes, slices of ashy cheese. Darcy knew food served in minutes was a rarity here. He felt himself still as if for the first time in a week. Fin might never come but these people could help him; he pictured himself in a truck heading south to the Caspian Sea.

Darcy was eating, shovelling food but stopped dead when he heard men’s voices in a small adjoining room. They entered by some other door and Darcy caught glimpses of them through a slender archway as they stood in dark suits by a mantelpiece, filled and raised vodka tumblers, then laughed as a girl with a balalaika began singing for them. Kalinka, kalinka, kalinka . The boy in the chair watched Darcy as if guarding his corner, folding napkins. A cracked-glass fixture in the ceiling shed light in sections that divided his face. He smiled at Darcy and nodded as though the men and the entertainment were just part of the ruse. Darcy heard murmurs in the kitchen and then Fin appeared in the doorway like a mirage. She glanced at the men being serenaded, then at the window, and Darcy felt his chest constricting as she gestured to him not to move. Without make-up she looked softer but worn down, a dullness to her eyes with no mascara, nervous, pale and beautiful. Her face mostly hidden by a black beanie, she wore a man’s grey argyle sweater. Darcy half stood but then didn’t as she walked over; all he did was hold onto himself as she perched on the edge of the banquette. He watched her in the flickering candlelight, in a new light, knowing why she was in this city, why she’d called him to this winter. He’d been her faithful, gullible pigeon. Her pigeon and her painter.

Fin acknowledged the boy in the chair, leaning now on its back legs against the wall. The boy glowered as though he’d been taught that foreigners were trouble. Darcy had never seen Fin so drawn, the dye faded from her eyebrows, the pale translucence of her skin seemed almost ashen. She took a quick sip of the silty dregs of Darcy’s drink then, registering his bruised face in the wavering light, she winced.

What did they do to you?

They took me from the Hotel Ukraine, he said. His voice sounded strange even to himself, without its usual lilt. He didn’t mention the call to his mother. They held me in Lubyanka, he said. He dabbed a paper napkin in his water and unveiled the burn, pressed the napkin on his neck.

Who did that? she asked. She leaned in close, not the way his mother would strain to see sores as if there was nothing, but concerned, as if distressed by what she’d wrought.

Darcy examined the round stamp of blood on the napkin. The Turkish Consul-General, he said. He heard her short, almost imperceptible breath and raised his eyes. What colour had been left was blanched from Fin’s cheeks, her concern focused suddenly inward. What was his name? she asked.

Consul Tugrul, said Darcy.

A small fridge nearby jump-started and Darcy jolted. A new sound hummed to accompany the one that sang in his head, but Fin didn’t react.

What did you tell them? she asked.

It’s what they told me , said Darcy. He held her gaze with a mix of dashed hopes and welling fury. You brought me into this, he said, knowingly. He reached and grabbed her sleeve and the cook appeared in the kitchen doorway. Fin turned and shook her head at him like she could handle it.

You must be important, said Darcy.

If the KGB is cooperating with Turkey, she said, you can’t go with me. There’s too much at stake. Where’s Aurelio?

He’s in trouble, said Darcy. I have to come with you. It’s not just that they want Jobik. The general’s a madman. In the night he tried to rape me. He said he wanted to fuck me in pieces . I saw what happens to the likes of me in the gulag. Darcy gripped her narrow wrist tightly, the other hand pulling her sleeve. I’m not going back there, he said.