Pravda (17 page)

There had been another bomb and the pictures had been coming through all afternoon: sons lying on the ground, legs twisted and half covered by bloodstained blankets; fathers carrying their bruised, limp-limbed daughters across broken glass; yet more mothers crying. There was fresh violence in the air. Barbarity and a cold-skinned fear. Even in the hotel, police and security men—newly authorized, self-assured, righteous—were everywhere: on the doors, outside his window, in the lobby. The whole city (country, world) felt as though it were under imminent threat, besieged and bewildered. By whom? For what reason underneath all the other reasons? The news was deeply unreliable. What would happen next was uncertain. And where the hell was Isabella?

All he could do was smoke.

It was almost eleven, and she was therefore an hour late. And so ... And so he lit another cigarette from the previous. He wanted a proper drink but did not dare, for fear of not being able to stop, for fear of being drunk when she finally arrived. Oh God. Probably just a delay. Her phone didn't work outside the U.S. He checked the time. Julian Avery from the consulate was coming at eleven-fifteen. He had gratefully made the appointment earlier in the afternoon, assuming that they would be able to go through everything together with Isabella as soon as she arrived and utterly forgetting (or not thinking about) the convenience or otherwise of the late hour to Avery himself, who had said nothing of it but calmly promised to be there as though it were all in a day's work, which perhaps it was. He had thought Isabella would have time to shower and change. Now he didn't know whether to call Avery and cancel or see him on his own. Give it five minutes.

He looked up. In the mirrors above his head he saw a man, much older than himself, sitting upside down in a chair, looking back at him as if he were about to fall and smash his face open on the floor. He fidgeted with his virgin mary. He fought the war with his desire to order a vodka. He closed his eyes.

Earlier that afternoon he had returned from the Hermitage to find the light on his bedside phone flashing. Another message from Isabella, Isabella-brief as always: "Hi, it's me—hope you are okay. I'm at Tegel. And I am on a Petersburg flight. Thank Christ. I don't have to go via Moscow. Arrives at eight-thirty your time. Be with you tennish. See you tonight. Grand Hotel Europe. Take care."

So then an almost crazed euphoria had seized him. He retuned the radio to the Russian thrash-rock station and smoked thick and deep out the window, looking at the Russian Museum—a strange echo of the White House or vice versa, he did not know. He did not know
anything.
(He had said this all his life, facetiously, but now at last he knew he really meant it: he did not know
anything.)
But it didn't matter. The worst that could happen was that he might die—not so bad. Happens to everyone. If she could do it, so could he.

Five minutes later he had calmed, gathered, reordered, found some Chopin, and lain down. But just as sleep was ushering him away from himself, Avery had called, and he had begun (absurdly) pretending to have a cold as he rehearsed his thanks over and over, insisting on being as well as he could be, in the circumstances. Holding up. In the circumstances. And unthinkingly, mind all over the place again, surfing his mad excitement that Isabella was coming, he had made the arrangement to meet up with Avery at eleven-fifteen in the lobby bar.

So next, feeling freshly vulnerable, he had called Connie ... And had been so touched and taken aback at her sheer human kindness and wisdom and perception and support (when really all he had ever been to her was a pointless heart-clawing complication) that he had begun to choke again—not this time for his mother, but because he couldn't believe that Connie could be so good to him, couldn't believe that he knew a woman this selfless and compassionate. And soft-spoken Connie had talked him all the way back to steadiness, so that when he hung up he had felt able to call Lina again and thank
her
for everything and tell her, in a stable voice, that he was okay and the hotel was such a huge relief and that Isabella was due and that the funeral was already being organized, and that they hoped for this Friday, and that if it went ahead on Friday, then she, Lina, need not be crazy and fly out because he'd be home Saturday, in three days, since there was no way he was going to hang around, and had she got her visa back yet? And yes, he was okay. And speak again tonight, before Isabella arrived.

After that he had taken a bubble bath, listening to the news on BBC World—wars, famine, armies on the march, and then all of
a sudden the bomb, and hell seemed loosed again, outside, inside, everywhere—and so he'd climbed out to see the pictures, and then, exhausted, distraught, appalled to the point of epilepsy, he'd turned everything off and tried once more to sleep. And that's when he had fallen to thinking that perhaps his mother's death had begun directing his only-just-subconscious in a new and unwanted direction ... that each reluctant step he was being forced to take away from her as a living reality was in fact leading him back toward the shadow of his father. But not to sleep. Not to sleep. Rather, it was as though grief's corrosion had somehow rusted over his eyes so that he couldn't open them even had he so wished.

"Hey, Gabs, you awake?"

He started, catching his knee on the table.

"Is—Jesus. You scared the shit out of me."

He stood up, drowsy and confused.

And so they faced each other, standing in the selfsame square meter of the swarming planet at last, the selfsame genes, the selfsame history: Isabella with her hair longer than usual, curling a little against the pale cream of her scarf; Gabriel with his shorter than when they had been together last, clean-shaven and thinner too than he had been for a long time.

"I made it," she said.

"Jesus, Is, I think I passed out ... I thought you had ... I thought something..."But he could not marshal words to sense.

"I'm sorry. Security stuff." Isabella speaking softly, her usual hint of subversive humor banished entirely. "How you doing?"

"I'm actually okay—I'm just ... I'm just really tired. I should have slept this afternoon. But..."

And for the first time in their adult lives, brother and sister embraced. There was no thinking; it was pure compulsion—too quick for the ruthless intellectual habits of their nature, their nurture. But when they parted, neither was visibly distressed—Gabriel's dark eyes ever unguarded, Isabella's slightly smiling—as if they had silently agreed that for tonight at least, process and organization would be their joint enterprise. As if tears were for people much less tired than they. As if all that might have to be said could wait.

Instead, Isabella smiled, openly and freely, as she did only in her brother's company.

"Sorry, Gabs. My phone doesn't work, or I would have called
you again. There was a security nightmare in Berlin. Some complete wankers on a stag jerking around. And we lost another hour. But I couldn't face going back to buy another phone card. I just wanted to get here."

"You seen the news?" he asked.

"Yeah, it was on the TV while we were waiting to board. And Pulkovo was like an army barracks when we landed. It's awful—weird."

The nature of death itself, or death's meaning, had somehow changed.

"The Russian TV has stopped showing it," Gabriel said. "Nobody knows who is in charge or what is really going on." He shrugged heavily, and Isabella saw how extraordinarily tired her brother was. There were broken blood vessels in his eyes. And his face was blank. He really was exhausted. She had wondered how she would behave when she arrived. Now she knew: a reaction to her brother's evident wretchedness—she was going to be all competence and coping.

They were still standing. Isabella glanced around. "Okay, well, I think I'm going to grab a shower and then let's get—"

"Julian Avery is coming over," Gabriel interrupted, still a little frenetic but seemingly unable to moderate anything. "Now, in fact—in five minutes. We're meeting him here. Sorry, but I wanted to—"

"The guy from the consulate?"

"Yes. They've been—they've been brilliant. I mean, Christ knows what would have—"

"Don't." Isabella bit her lip. "Shit. I think that's him."

Isabella looked behind her. A short, surreptitiously overweight man was crossing the lobby toward the bar. Julian Avery moved with surprising alacrity, his walk a double-time waddle. He had not seen them.

Isabella drew a deep breath. "Okay. Right. So..."She hooked her hair behind her ear. "Shall we all get some coffee, then?"

"Good idea." Gabriel nodded. "I was wondering what to drink."

"Hang on a sec." She put down her bag on one of the chairs.

Gabriel spoke softly. "They are being very can-do. Because of Grandpa Max, I suppose. God knows how they have even heard of him. It must be fifteen years since he left."

"They remember everything in the Foreign Office." Isabella took off her scarf. "They will have known exactly who Mum was too,
since she had a British passport. You know how it is. They always know everything, somehow. Okay, let's go."

Avery had begun flicking through his briefcase, which he had propped on a stool. Now he stood smartly to greet them. He wore a blue, round-necked, fine merino wool sweater and beige slacks, and Isabella guessed his age as late thirties, but he had one of those fair English faces that appear to change hardly at all between the loss of freckles and fifty-five. His features were genially unremarkable, she thought, save for his hair, which was wound in the tightest possible curls, and his unusually large ears.

She introduced herself, her name sounding strange as she said it out loud. She felt suddenly very British, the granddaughter of Maximilian Glover.

"Julian." He took her offered hand with a demure nod. "I can't say how sorry we all are. My condolences. It must be a very difficult time."

"Thank you."

Gabriel presented himself and said, "We thought coffee, but please, feel free to—"

"Coffee is fine."

The barman nodded and they went back to Gabriel's table and sat down, Isabella taking the chair opposite Avery.

"Thank you so much for coming over here tonight—it's very kind of you," she said.

"No, not at all."

Almost businesslike, she opened her bag for pen and notebook. She was conscious that this was overdoing it but could not stop herself. Since she had taken Gabriel's call outside the Angelika, a renegade part of her had been noticing the increase in unintentional words, involuntary actions. "We were only now saying how grateful we are for your help. Thank you so much for coming out."

"It's the least I could do."

"I've only just arrived from the airport, I'm afraid, so we haven't really had a chance to catch up. And we're both pretty much at sea. With more or less everything we need to be doing..."

"Of course." Perhaps taking his cue from Isabella's pad, Avery adopted an air of quiet professional practicality, leaning forward a little, small hands joined, fingers loosely knitted, thumbs pointing toward the mirrored ceiling. "Okay. Well, first of all, the good news is that we have managed to jump the cemetery queue and short-cut
some of the other bureaucracy—with the kind help of your father. Your mother can be buried at the Smolensky graveyard on Vasilevsky, which is, I understand, in accordance with her wishes. That's official as of close of play today."

Without needing to look over at him, Isabella felt the entire force field of her brother's attention change direction. So now she spoke quickly, fearful of what he might say if she did not. "Sorry, I'm totally behind here. I live in New York." This was also unnecessary, but she felt the need to invoke the strength somehow resident in the city's name.

Avery had a way of moving his head from one side to the other every so often, as if he were required to hear things with each of his ears in turn in order to quite believe them.

"I've been on flights for the last God knows how long," she explained. "And I haven't had a chance to speak with my father. I don't think Gabriel has either." She did not look across but kept on as casually as she could. "Is our father helping?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. I assumed..." Avery hesitated, but only for a second. "I assumed you had all had the chance to talk."

"No. Not yet." Isabella smiled adeptly. She could not tell how much Avery was reading into their strange lack of familial communication. "We were going to go through everything after we had spoken to you."

"Right. Well, I should ... I should fill you in." The coffee was set down, and Avery was silent until the waiter had left. "I had a conversation with your father earlier today. Just after I spoke with you, Gabriel, this afternoon. Actually, he rang me. I'm sure he will tell you all of this ... He was calling to confirm that he would be meeting all the expenses. Unfortunately, there is something of a cemetery ... er, shall we say a cemetery
system
operating here in Petersburg, and, well, certain people have to be paid ... Though as I say, everything is now settled on this score, as of this afternoon." He sipped his coffee. "Once that side was sorted out, the rest was just a matter of contacting the relevant people at the hospital and the undertakers—and, of course, the people who organize the service itself. I have passed all three sets of details on to your father's solicitors. I understand that it is his intention to meet these expenses as well. But as I say, once the cemetery is confirmed, and the service, the rest is comparatively straightforward. So Friday should, fingers crossed, be just a matter of details."

Again she spoke quickly. "That's really great news—about getting a space at the cemetery, I mean." Only now did she risk a glance at her brother. He had his hand to his forehead and she could not see his face. "And it's a massive relief to know that it's all being done so quickly. Is it okay if I give you a call first thing tomorrow and check if there is anything you need us to do—once I've had a chance to catch my breath?"

"Yes, of course." Avery raised a manicured finger and thumb to his stiff shirt collar. "I can be the liaison, if that's helpful—in case your father gets through to me first, or you need a man on the ground, as it were."