Men in Space (31 page)

“Love Boat.” Han swings them to the side again.

“The programme?” Didn’t he have some conversation about this recently?
I gape in sympathy …

“No. This boat coming.” It’s a wide, flat
bateau mouche
with
Lover’s Rondvaart
written on the side, hearts swimming round the letters. Should be
Lovers’
, not
Lover’s
. Solitary people, jerking off. That spermy stuff that Maňásek cooked up and mixed, the gelatin and whiting. What is it the girl says on that song Sasha’s always playing – the Sonic Youth girl, Kim Something?
The human bond, the goo
. Heidi’s dad making his pile from sticking guidance systems onto rocket bombs. Imagine one of those coming at you: must look just like an aeroplane at first, all glinting in the sky, but then it’s falling, whistling, sleek death wrapped in metal … The
bateau mouche
glides by them and they start up again, pass another bridge, turn a corner and arrive in the big pool in front of Centraal Station. The station’s red-brick; there’s a clock above the entrance with golden strips on its face to mark out each hour: same colour as the sheets Maňásek was blowing round the atelier and then pasting to the wood around the saint’s head. To the left of the clock there’s a wind gauge, one hand swinging gently round the four coordinates of a circle while a weenie-cap contraption spins on top. Steps drop down from the station’s outer concourse towards jetties on which signs announce more
Rondvaart
s. Higher up the hotels scream their names out, their neon lettering jostling for space with that of brewers and travel agents:
HOTEL IBIS
,
THOMAS COOK
,
VICTORIA HOTEL
,
HEINEKEN
,
OIBIBIO
,
BARBIZON PALACE
.
JESUS ROEPT U
–
JESUS LOVES YOU
 …

“The ships are on the other side,” Han shouts to him, squinting against the sunlight.

“These tourist boats, you mean?”

“No, the great ones. The old ones. What I’m making the posters for. They’re on the far side of the station, in the harbour.” They’re entering a narrow tunnel, heading away from the station into the Red Light District. The tunnel’s long and dark; Han’s present to him now as just a voice. “It’s a large competition. There will be celebrations in the next few days. You should go watch.”

“I will.”

They nose out of the tunnel into a very narrow canal from both sides of which old buildings rise straight up; there’s no bank or footpath. The sun’s straight ahead of them, directly behind the top of the Oude Kerk, which breaks it up and amplifies it till it’s blindingly intense: they’re bathed in it, wrapped up; it seems to Nick that they’re not sitting on the water’s surface any more but are rising, or maybe falling, through pure light.

* * * * *

They pick him up right by the Summer Palace. In the Merc there’s Milachkov, who’s driving; then Ilievski, in the front-passenger seat; then, in the back, Koulin and Janachkov. Jana gets out and opens the door for Anton, lets him enter first and then slides in again, sandwiching him between himself and Koulin.

“Hi guys.” Anton wriggles his hips into the leather, then, bending forwards to direct the question at Ilievski, asks: “Aren’t you worried about tails?”

He’s been wondering, ever since the phone call one hour ago, why there’s been this sudden lapse in caution. They didn’t take the Helena route to which he’s grown accustomed since mid-January – just called him right at home and told him to meet them here, behind the Castle, up in embassy land.

“The whole thing’s moved to Amsterdam,” Milachkov mur murs from the front. Next to him, Ili’s shoulders are quite still, impassive: broad and vulnerable, like that day in the car market – what, three months ago now. “If we know that, the police know it too. They’re not interested …”

“What?” Anton leans further forwards. Mila’s still talking, but he hasn’t turned his head even half round and there’s a loud rattling coming from the car’s boot, muffling his words.

“The police aren’t interested any more. In us.”

“Oh.” No one seems very happy here. Ili and Mila are gawping straight ahead; Jana and Koulin are glumly staring through their windows, away from him. It’s as though they all feel hurt, abandoned by this new lack of interest in their activities. They’re driving uphill along Mariánské Hradby, alongside the Castle garden’s north wall. Birch trees peep above it, dwarfed by evergreens. Behind these, the backs of the Castle’s offices and the giant, Gothic arches of St Vitus’s Cathedral. To their right, a carpet of fresh grass has unrolled between the tram tracks. A tram’s sliding over this beside them but they’ve been going slightly faster, pulling away from it – although now the tram’s catching up as Mila slows down for a turning car and even, a few seconds later, overtaking them so now it seems they’re going backwards. Mila steps on it again and the car claws ground back, as though measuring its own movement against the red-and-white tube, the indifferent faces in it – all rather disorientating, two moving objects; Anton feels the need for something to hold on to, solid earth … He looks left again, to the Castle wall. This section’s lower, shabbier, with ivy spilling over it and glass nurseries with tomatoes standing in long grass behind it, food for the visiting dignitaries; then, further along, cherry trees in bloom. First ones he’s seen this year. That means it’s spring, officially. They’ve blossomed early: it’s only mid-March …

Milachkov changes gear as the road steepens; whatever it is that’s rattling in the boot slides back and clunks against the side. They’re still passing the Castle. Largest administrative complex in the world, bigger than even the Pentagon. Helena told him that: she’d read it in an encyclopedia. Somewhere in there, in some minor office off some secondary or tertiary corridor, they’ll have her letters: twenty, thirty of them, all filed under Ignore. And then in the American Embassy tucked beneath the Castle, there’ll be another letter being processed for him, reminding him that time’s running out on his visa. He’ll have to go there and explain, ask them for an extension. Beyond the Castle there’s the Strahov Tower; past that, the football stadium. Anton leans forwards again and says to Mila:

“There’s a top game Saturday. Czechoslovakia versus Cyprus. World Cup qualifier. Probably the only chance you’ll ever have to see a team that has no country play. Let’s go.”

“… on.” More rattling.

“What?”

“Sure.”

“We’ll meet on Újezd again, by the funicular? Mila?”

“OK.”

What’s wrong with this lot? The lights above the stadium crane in, as though trying to get a better view. Anton announces to the car:

“I’ve got a joke. It’s the Olympics, the Moscow Olympics, 1980. The opening ceremony. Brezhnev’s reading a speech his advisors have written for him. ‘O!’ he shouts, raising his finger in the air. ‘O! O … O!’ he thumps his hand down on the rostrum. ‘O!’ And an official whispers in his ear: ‘No, comrade, that is the Olympic logo. The speech begins beneath.’ ”

Silence, just total silence. Koulin and Janachkov have turned their faces so far from him that they seem to have acquired owls’ necks. Ilievski’s back is motionless, like the
back of one of those half-dead Soviet premiers. Anton asks them:

“Where are we going?”

“Up here,” Milachkov, utterly un-owlish, refuses again to turn his head the slightest bit. “Out a little.”

“Out? What, to the airport?” He can see a plane overhead, descending towards Ruzyn?, wheels stretching out like hawks’ or eagles’ feet.

“On a journey. Sort of … after …” This clunking in the boot’s annoying.

“What?”

Koulin takes over: “There’s this guy, this Turkish guy – you speak Turkish, right?”

“No.”

“Greek,” Janachkov mumbles, still facing away.

“Right, Greek. That’s what I meant. You speak Greek …”

“A tiny bit. My wife’s the one who …”

“So, there’s this guy we’re doing business with, and he’s Greek, like I said, and we need you to cut this deal with him.”

“What deal? What type of business?”

“Just business. You know …”

“You have to brief me if I’m going to negotiate. And anyway, my Greek’s really not good. Three or four phrases is all. Maybe it’s …”

“It’s pretty straightforward. You just need to fix a price for some stuff he’s exporting. Keep him below half a million.”

“What stuff?”

“Oh, machinery. Nothing interesting.”

“Well, I’ll try. Maybe he’ll speak English. Or German. Or whatever …”

They’ve cleared the castle complex now. You can see right back down into the city’s bowl. There’s Staré Město, all the golden roofs, the river, the television tower. The green awning of the Hotel Savoy blocks it out, flashes five stars at Anton
as they turn a sharp corner above which a convex mirror’s mounted, elongating other cars then catapulting them towards their own as they pass its centre. There’s the sliding in the boot again, then the clump as Milachkov accelerates into another uphill straight. A police car passes by, going the other way. The road’s quite steep now. Steps lead up from it on the left; more steps tumble down the hillside to the right. Beside them there’s a statue of … who is it? He’s holding a slide rule, looking straight at Anton, and there’s an inscription: K-e-p … Kepler. Of course. One of old Toitov’s favourites. Worked here in Prague under Tycho Brahe; figured out that planets orbit not in perfect circles but in ovals. Copernicus’s
On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres
bumps Earth from the centre, sending it careening into space, making space itself infinite and uncentred and removing any single point to which objects might fall, its title naming all future revolutions – then his follower takes away the basic form of measurement, the circle. Kepler must have chosen to live here on this hill, up above the city, closer to the stars. His eyes still seem to follow Anton as he falls away behind the car – and, as they do, Anton sees Toitov’s eyes in them, watching him receding upwards, drawn away. Force of association. Maybe the eyes are similar, though: kind, indulgent eyes that seem to understand the gravity of his journey, all his journeys …

“Stop!”

These are the first words Ilievski’s spoken since Anton stepped into the car. His back’s still totally impassive, but now Anton can see movement at the top edges, round the shoulders. They’re moving up and down in keeping with his heavy breathing. Too many cigarettes. Maybe the air’s thinner up here, too. Milachkov’s pulled up beside a large and well-stocked flower shop. In its window and in buckets lined up on rising benches, like a choir on a stage, are hundreds of flowers. There are birds of paradise and tiger, calla and stargazer lilies, daffodils, purple tulips, agapanthuses –
plus, dominating the display, chrysanthemums. The chrysanthemums take up a whole bench. They’re all white: powerful, globed white masses that seem to bulge with the fullness of their volume. Ilievski’s looking sideways, out of the car window, at these. He lays his hand on the door lever, then withdraws it again and turns round to face Anton. Anton’s amazed to see that Ili’s eyes are watery.

“Constantine! What …”

Ilievski raises his hand – and then seems not to know what to do with it. He moves it first towards his own mouth, as though he wanted to signal for Anton to stop talking; then he moves it out towards Anton’s shoulder, as though he wanted to pat or clasp it. But it’s barely cleared the space above the handbrake when he draws it back towards himself again. It’s shaking. Something drops onto the leather of his seat, a tiny drop of … is that a
tear
?

“Constantine! What on …”

But he’s opened the door, spun out of the car and walked away, and Mila’s pulled off again, before he can even … Anton looks through the rear window at Ili’s back, his brown coat and grey hair shrinking against a billowing sea of white chrysanthemums, retreating down a corridor of other shopfronts, motorbike shops, tobacconists, textile shops, a bath-and-shower centre, posters lining the road on each side …

“What’s wrong with him?” Anton’s voice is squeaky with sheer disbelief. Did he just see a, yes, a
tear
splatter the leather?

“He’s preoccupied,” says Jana, still looking away.

“
Preoccupied
? He looked absolutely … I don’t know. Devastated. About something or other.”

“He’s got the flu. I think we’re all coming down too. Better watch out.”

They’re on the same steep uphill road, but its name’s changed now, to Bělohorská. Means “white mountain”, like the one the saint was floating above in the painting. There’s
a motorcyclist chugging along beside them wearing a scarf and goggles, like some early aviator. They pull up at some lights. Anton leans back and knocks his shoulders against Koulin’s and Janachkov’s. He leans forwards again and says to Milachkov:

“Shouldn’t one of us move into the front?”

“We’re almost there now.”

The light turns green. That sliding, then the bump again. They’re really out of town now, passing villas with dogs lounging in the gardens. They’ll have one like that, he and Helena, when he retires. He’ll sit there on the porch watching Kristof and Larissa and their own, his own two children playing football: Bulgaria against America, although they’ll all want to be America of course. The last villa on the hill is a shop selling giant satellite antennae that look designed more for air-traffic control than for television viewing – maybe even mission ground control. Past this villa it’s shrubby woodland, bushes, rocks and grass. Then the ground evens out into a plain. Must be the highest point around Prague: top of the white mountain. Milachkov turns right into a lay-by just beside where the tram rails that have accompanied them all the way up from the Summer Palace cut an elongated loop into the ground. The twenty-two they raced with earlier is sliding into this right now, stopping, its driver climbing out to buy a
káva
or a
pivo
from this little stand …

“OK, then.”

Mila, Koulin and Jana have all thrown their doors open as though they couldn’t get out of the car fast enough – as though somebody had farted, or they’d been carrying meat long past its sell-by date. Anton steps out too, stretches his legs, looks up. The sky’s overcast but bright. The hidden sun’s making a patch of cloud glow brighter – a sphere that seems to buzz or hum: what’s making that … It’s an aeroplane, circling above the plain: must be held in a queue, waiting to land, in which case why’s it smaller than the raven it’s just passed beneath?
Is this some kind of optical illusion only Kepler or Toitov would understand? It’s turning now, outlined against some trees that rise behind a wall on the plain’s far side. What on … Now he sees them, standing on the grass: two kids holding a radio controller with a pointy aerial, guiding their model’s twists and loops. The other three are leading him towards the wall. It’s a long, white wall that runs right across the plain’s perimeter, enclosing the trees behind it. Anton says: