Rupert Thomson - Katherine Carlyle

“No.”

The conversation has arrived at a crucial point more quickly than I envisaged. If you’re speaking a language that isn’t your own, perhaps you become less subtle, more direct. Or it might be a Russian characteristic. Anna glances at Oleg, then back at me. Is it my imagination or did one corner of Oleg’s mouth curl upwards just a fraction?

“You have money?” Anna asks.

“Enough for now.”

“And when it runs out?”

“I’ll earn some more.”

“What can you do,” Anna asks, “to earn money?”

“I’m not sure. Something will turn up.”

“Turn up?” For the first time Anna’s English lets her down.

“Something will happen,” I say.

Oleg mutters a few words in Russian.

“You’re very confident,” Anna says, “for someone who is so young — or perhaps it’s because you’re young.”

Cheadle lifts his head. “More drinks?”

“Vodka,” Oleg says.

“Also for me.” Anna smiles at Cheadle. Her front teeth are white, but the teeth farther back in her mouth are a dark rotten yellow.

Cheadle orders two large vodkas, a sparkling water for me, and another whiskey for himself. When the waiter has gone I ask Anna where she’s from.

“I live in Moscow,” she says, “but I was born in Cherepovets. It’s north of Moscow, about an hour by plane.”

“And your friend?”

‘He’s from farther north — from Arkhangel’sk. Or you would say Archangel.”

A sweet shaft of anticipation cuts through me, and I stare at the tablecloth in an attempt to disguise what I’m feeling. I can’t allow myself to think Cherepovets or Arkhangel’sk . I think glass instead. I think plate and spoon . Even so, I sense Anna’s interest growing, as if I’m a safe to which she now, quite unexpectedly, has the combination.

“I’d like to visit the north.” I turn to Cheadle. “Do you think your friends could help with that?”

“The north?” He makes a face. “What do you want to go there for?”

“I’d like to see it.”

“It can be dangerous,” Anna says.

“Also in Moscow,” Oleg says, addressing no one in particular, “it can be dangerous.”

“And it’s cold,” Anna says. “Extremely cold.”

“Yes,” I say in a low voice, almost a whisper. “Do you think it can be arranged?”

“Do you have a visa?” Anna asks.

“No.”

“It’s not so easy to get a visa,” she says. “You need a letter of invitation or support. You need to book hotels in advance. You need” — and she turns to Cheadle — “what do you call it, the list of destinations?”

Cheadle smothers a yawn. “Itinerary.”

“Yes,” she says. “You must tell the authorities where you are going, and when.”

I look down into my glass.

“Maybe we could help,” Anna says after a few moments.

“Really?”

Anna glances at Oleg again. “Yes. We have a contact. At the embassy.”

The drinks arrive, and I excuse myself.

Alone in the Ladies I look at myself in the mirror. Suddenly I’m so excited that my arms are in the air above my head and I’m dancing — crazy dancing, like I’m at a rave. It occurs to me — too late — that I might be caught on a security camera. I stop what I’m doing and begin to wash my hands.

When I return to the table, the bill is already paid. Anna tells me she needs my passport. I hesitate. She can’t get me a visa, she says patiently, if she doesn’t have my passport. I reach into my bag and hand it over. She will also need a scan of my credit card, front and back. She’ll be in touch, she says. Through Cheadle.

Out on the street Oleg hails a taxi, and the two Russians climb in. I wait until the car has turned the corner, then I thank Cheadle for the dinner and kiss him on the cheek.

“I don’t think you should go,” he says.

“That’s what you’re supposed to say,” I tell him. “That’s what everybody says.”

He’s shaking his head.

“I mean, I can’t stay here .” I look up Schlüterstrasse, towards Savignyplatz, then swing round and look the other way. The Ku’damm with its clogged traffic, its splashy neon. “This isn’t what I had in mind, not even remotely .”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“You don’t understand. You never will.” I open my arms wide and spin slowly on the pavement, my face on a level with the murky sky. “This is only the beginning.”

“Maybe,” Cheadle says, “just maybe, you’re the one who doesn’t understand.”

/

It’s two days later, and I’m drinking beer and vodka with Oswald in his two-room apartment in Neukölln. He lives alone, with his dog Josef. We’re sitting in the kitchen, which is a bright, sickly green, like the algae on canals. The heating has broken down, and we have kept our coats on. Our breath shows as we talk.

Oswald faces me across the table, his left hand flat on the zinc surface, his fingers spread, as if he’s about to do that trick where you pick up a knife and stab the gaps as fast as you can. He has drunk more than I have and his eyes look fierce, bleached.

I ask to see his tattoo. He pushes his sleeve back to the elbow. Running up the inside of his forearm in Gothic script are the words Religion ist eine Lüge . Religion is a lie.

“Umstritten,” I say. Controversial.

He pushes the sleeve down. “I’m going to tell you something — something no one knows.”

I steady myself. We have reached a certain point in the night. He’s going to try and impress me or confide in me and then I’m supposed to sleep with him. I’ve no intention of sleeping with him, though. If I imagine him naked, his body looks raw and urgent, like an animal that has just been skinned. I shudder, then feel guilty.

“Jesus wasn’t really Jesus.” He sits back, pleased with himself.

“You know something?” I say. “That would make a good tattoo. You could put it on your other arm.”

“I’m serious.” Without taking his eyes off me, he adjusts his position on his chair, staying within the frame of my gaze but moving inside it, as though testing its limits.

I finish my vodka. “Who was he then?”

“You remember the Slaughter of the Innocents, right?” Oswald leans forwards. “Everyone thinks Jesus escaped — but he didn’t. He got put to death, along with all the rest. He died .”

“So who did all the miracles?”

“That’s what I’m saying. That’s the thing no one knows.”

“Except you.”

My words have a sarcastic edge, but he doesn’t waver, or even seem to notice. “Except me,” he says, as if it’s true, and obvious, and can’t be disproved.

I finally ask the question he has been longing for me to ask. “If Jesus wasn’t really Jesus, who was he?”

“Herod’s baby.” He nods slowly, agreeing with himself, a habit of his that still annoys me, then he reaches for his cigarette papers and his Ziploc bag of grass. “Herod had Jesus killed and had his own son placed in the manger and Joseph and Mary were sworn to secrecy, under pain of death, and then the Wise Men came with all their gifts — ‘the Wise Men.’ ” He lets out a derisive snort.

“Joseph and Mary fled into Egypt,” he goes on, “pretending they had got away with the Messiah, but actually —”

What Oswald is telling me is giving me a glassy feeling, and I’m worried I might black out on his sticky lino floor. I wish he would shut up, but he’s on a roll with his Jesus-wasn’t-Jesus theory. I light one of his cigarettes, hoping it might straighten me out.

“— everything people believe in,” he’s saying, “everything that comforts them when they feel alone, or when they’re in trouble, or when they’re dying, it’s all a fabrication, all a lie —”