Fenek Solère: Rising

‘ Do you like Aveparthe’s Landscapes over the Sea ?’

‘Yes, and Outer Tehom by that Ukrainian drone guy, Oleg Puzan’, she enthused, pouring some German beers and stepping out onto the balcony. ‘Be careful, it’s not very safe’, she said as his facial expression changed with the creak of metal wires. The storm had passed, and now silence reigned in the courtyard below.

‘Thank you’, he said.

‘For what?’

‘Helping me.’

‘You are a guest in my country, it was my duty.’

‘Duty?’

‘Pleasure’, she corrected herself.

For a while he stood at the bookshelves, glass in hand, head to one side, reading esoteric titles by Mircea Eliade, Titus Burckhardt, and Aleksander Zinovyev. He felt a pang of jealousy that she owned a signed copy of Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s Death of the Gods , and Against Liberalism , a collection of essays assembled by Dugin in consultation with Alain de Benoist. His fingers settled on a large, familiar volume. ‘I see you like Tolkien?’ he said.

‘There was a time when owning The Lord of the Rings was a revolutionary act’, reminisced Ekaterina. Like Heidegger, Tolkien was concerned with the rise of the machine, the massification of everything. Are you familiar with Dugin’s book Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning ?’

‘That was published by the Radix people, right?’

‘Yes, a beautiful edition. I have an English-language version in my bedroom.’ Tom followed her, accepting the copy as she took it from the bedside table.

She explained that her participation in the Right was inspired by Mikhail Antonov and Sergei Kurginyan’s economic vision for a new Russia. ‘I also have ecological concerns’, she explained. ‘For me, the preservation of Russia’s natural habitat is a primary objective. I hate the fact that the forests have been logged, lakes poisoned, and the Aral is now a dust bowl. I love traditional buildings. I want to fight the malyi narod agenda, like crime, alcoholism, dissolution of family values, and the lack of idealism amongst young people.’

‘Noble intentions.’

‘I am an idealist in a land of pessimists!’

‘And a mystic’, he added, pointing to a book on Sufism.

‘I have many interests and many appetites!’ She wandered into the kitchen, pulling open the fridge. ‘You want another drink?’ He answered in the affirmative and she fired the cork from a bottle of sparkling wine, the contents frothing madly, spurting everywhere. After a glass or so, Ekaterina dipped her fingers into a bowl of honey and reached out provocatively for his mouth. ‘You have sweet tooth?’ He gripped her wrist and licked her thumb. She bent into him, tonguing his ear, golden fingers wrenching his shirt while he opened her blouse, clutching at the brassiere’s metal catch, unzipping trousers, sending them sliding to reveal crimson knickers.

They fell into bed and made love to the rhythm of rain tip-tapping on windowpanes. He could feel Ekaterina’s hips suck him deep inside and hear hot words of encouragement to push harder. She was lying beneath him when she came to orgasm, eyes closed, hands gripping his shoulders. His mouth was on her throat, panties coiled around a leather belt, black shoes pointing north and west.

Afterwards they lay together, listening to water pipes gurgle.

‘Tell me more about England’, she said.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Do you all live in cottages with thatched rooves?’

‘Of course!’

‘And roses, are there always roses in your gardens?’

‘Naturally. And we stop everything for tea with jam and scones at three o’clock.’

‘Really?’

‘You look surprised. I thought you had studied English culture.’

‘You must not mock me’, Ekaterina smiled. ‘We were told you were a very polite people. That you would wait in line for a red bus and let ladies sit first.’

‘Only in the suburbs’, he replied. ‘In the city it is dog eat dog.’

‘What is suburbs?’

‘I’ll explain later’, he promised. They disentangled their bodies, wrapping themselves in crumpled sheets, padding barefoot into the lounge to take coffee. Ekaterina watched him over the rim of a big cup. Tom leaned forward and touched her flushed cheek.

‘You were wonderful’, he said.

‘Are you sure?’ His hand was still resting against her blushing face. She did not withdraw, but did not melt with emotion either. There was a challenge in her tone now. ‘You mean it?’

‘Yes, I mean it’, he confessed, as much to himself as to her. Outside, the rain had stopped, and stars shone like embossed rhinestones on black suede. ‘A lovely night’, he said. She put down her steaming drink and embraced him. Her warm tongue probed deep. Then with a wicked smile, she slipped his right hand between her legs and nodded towards the bedroom, ‘Again’, she said, ‘I like strong man in lovemaking.’

Tom lay where he fell, bedcovers pushed back, completely naked. The curtains were half drawn, and there, opposite his half-open eyes, beside the window pane, body bleached by the pale white moon, Ekaterina sat cross-legged, staring at him like a manifestation of Priya, the Slavonic goddess of love and spring. A towel hung over her shoulder. Motionless, she gazed at him from under long lashes, mouth pouting, her expression serious.

‘Come to bed or you will catch cold.’ The caring tone in his voice frightened him.

‘Do you mean to stay long?’ She spoke softly, like someone scared of being overheard.

‘We’ll talk in the morning’, he replied. ‘Let’s sleep now.’ The moonlight cast a cold glow over her right cheek, her mouth hung open, a soundless sigh perched on puckering lips. Tom closed his eyelids tightly and tried to sleep. He heard a metallic noise and felt Ekaterina’s weight press down on the mattress. She was sitting beside him, arms outstretched across the pillows. Tom coughed. She leaned into him, nudging his neck with her forehead. They kissed. Tom held onto her for a long time, asking himself if it was possible to feel so strongly so quickly for another person? Any normal male feelings of mere sexual gratification, conquest, and the urge for a quick exit strategy seemed to have vanished. ‘Are you afraid of what is happening?’ he eventually asked.

She did not reply. Ekaterina had drawn back, propping herself against the head of the bed. The towel rose and fell with her breathing. She watched him with quiet interest, something like how he imagined a scientist might study a laboratory rat. Then she took his hand. Her fingers played chase across cotton.

‘No, I am angry.’

‘Angry?’

‘How we Russians have let things come to this.’ Her frail voice was distant and low-pitched.

‘How we Europeans, you mean?’

When he was sure she had fallen asleep, he got up and stood at the window, looking out over bridges and domes glowing under a corona of red light. A gull rose on an updraft of air, wings gliding against the sun, sailing far on the estuary’s wind. He longed to feel the freedom of the breeze carrying him in its ebb and flow, to know that whichever way it took him, he could find his way home.

Over his shoulder, Tom could hear the rise and fall of her chest, sucking and blowing sounds through linen.

‘I’m going to have to leave’, he whispered to himself. ‘Leave this place.’ Then, looking down at Ekaterina, ‘Leave you.’

At that very moment, Peter Janssen received clearance from his commanders in the European underground to proceed with Operation Hydra. He had been fully briefed by his Spetsnaz counterpart on logistics and tactics during the journey back from Pulkovo airport, after dropping Ulrick Hoffman off for his flight to Frankfurt. Janssen’s commander, a man called Geir, headquartered in Norway, told him, ‘The assassination would be the starting pistol, just like the shooting of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo.’