The Eyes of Lira Kazan (20 page)

“Now's the moment!” Félix said.

“No,” Nwankwo kept repeating.

But this time Félix wouldn't back down. He waved the
Guardian
in front of him. The paper had just supplied them with the clearest reason for the commissions paid by Louchsky to Douchet – a huge military construction deal. He repeated what Steffy had told him over the telephone about the large contract that was preoccupying the Quai d'Orsay – and here it was all over the papers! In France the announcement was being treated as a great coup. Dockyards that had been partially laid off for the past four months were now celebrating the fact that they would be back at full strength.

“The key word,” said Lira, “is shared technology. That's what Louchsky is paying for.”

“And that's what they're hardly mentioning. It's up to us!” Félix continued.

But they had no levers, no newspaper in which to write, no official status, no procedure they could follow. Lira's magazine in St Petersburg had been ransacked one night shortly after the attack on her. All the computer records had been destroyed, and the damage had been such that publication of the magazine was now temporarily suspended. Helen still remained deaf to Nwankwo's pleas. He had tried over and over again, with no success. As for the judge, he had been transferred and was now dealing with the statistics of juvenile delinquency.

“We must ring Charlotte,” Lira said, backing Félix up.

“No,” Nwankwo repeated. “We still haven't got enough ammunition – they can easily shut us up and hush up the whole affair. We've only got one chance, one shot, and now is not the moment.”

“So when is the moment? What are we going to do? Look how we're living! Look around you! Look at our stupid faces! Don't you think we need help? Something's got to happen. You can't make all the decisions on your own, Nwankwo. We've reached a dead end, we're caught in a trap, we're sitting on dynamite, it's going to blow up in our faces, we've got to get out of this—”

“Shut up!” Lira shouted.

Nwankwo grabbed his jacket and left, slamming the door. They didn't know where he was going, perhaps to see his children at the other end of town. Would he knock on the door or would he just wait at the end of the street in the hope of catching a glimpse of them? He never talked about them. He had built an impenetrable wall between the two halves of his life. Each day he had become harder, more methodical, intent only on the work in front of them. Félix found his abruptness hard to take; only Lira had seen the gentleness and attentiveness he was capable of.

“Don't be angry with him,” she said.

“I can't stand him.”

Lira sat for a long time, silent on the unfolded grey-velvet sofa bed, absorbing his words. They had been held together by their convictions and by their setbacks, and now these were coming between them. The friendship between the three of them was being gnawed at by fear, exhaustion and impatience, and yet it was the only thing that could save them.

“Before he went to Paris, Mark said he would prefer it if you were gone before he got back. That'll be in two days' time,” Félix said.

“All right, let's call Charlotte, we can go and see her and see how the land lies,” Lira said softly. “But we're not doing anything without Nwankwo,” she warned him.

 

Nwankwo, heading towards his family, could already hear Ezima's reproaches – he hadn't been to see them for two
weeks. The welcome was just as he had predicted. The little one stayed back, clasping her mother's legs, Baïna jumped up to his neck: she had put on pink nail varnish and was acting like a protective little wife. Tadjou, the eldest, remained quiet, but tried to catch his father's eye, as if to gain his approval. Ezima spoke for him. She said he was unhappy in England, and so he was going home; he was flying out the next day and would live with his uncle in Lagos and go back to school there. She would soon join him there with the girls. She spoke quietly, while her cousin looked on, furious and reproachful, her arms folded. Nwankwo would have liked to have been consulted, but he knew that it would be useless to say anything. Ezima would just reply that he had done enough damage, and she would be right.

He went over to his son and put his arm around his shoulder. He pulled him over to a corner where they could be alone.

“So you're going home?”

“Yes, Pa.”

“You're going tomorrow… You're lucky. I miss our country, you know. I hope I'll go back too one day and then we can all be together again.”

The teenager did not reply.

“Will you go and see your grandfather? See how he is, eh?”

“Yes,” Tadjou nodded. “And you, how are you?” he asked.

He suddenly seemed so grown-up all of a sudden, this son who had now reversed things and was the one worrying about his parents. And he looked so like Nwankwo! Ever since he was born, people had been saying that this boy was a replica of his father – and now it was time for him to fly away, and to think of his own future. Nwankwo looked around at the cousin's over-decorated and brightly coloured house, full of knick-knacks: it was right that Tadjou should escape from these surroundings. And then Nwankwo had a wild idea. It was as though the boy was suddenly just an extension of himself. He groped inside his pocket, pulled out a memory
stick and placed it in Tadjou's hand, which was as long and slender as his own. He whispered: “Put this in the bottom of your suitcase, give it to your uncle and tell him to go and see Kay at the port, he'll understand…”

Tadjou's eyes shone. At last his father was taking some notice of him. Nwankwo gave him a manly hug. They were both stiff, the father like a solid block, obsessed with one thing only, the son resisting any childish gestures now that he was being treated like an adult. From now on, he too would be in danger.

Before he left, Nwankwo wrote a cheque to the cousin, who was still looking daggers at him. He embraced each of his children. Ezima let him carry on. She understood from the tension in the air and the size of the cheque that he wouldn't be back for a long time.

He hadn't gone more than ten steps down the street when he felt a rising nausea, with painful cramps in his stomach and a terrible sense of exhaustion. He walked on a little and then leant against a wall, vomiting up his guts and his whole life.

The sound of Charlotte's stiletto heels clicking along the floor towards her reminded Lira what it was like to be a beautiful woman; those clicking heels that said “I am powerful and I am attractive” – it was a performance she would never again take part in. And then she found herself enveloped by Charlotte's arms and by her voice, a little too solicitous for her liking. She settled down with them, ordered some tea, and Félix gave the broad outlines of the situation. They had agreed beforehand what they would and would not say and all they gave her were a few Grind Bank statements in which Louchsky's name appeared as well as an account of Eyvin's death.

“We just need to know what you think to start with, that's all. Nwankwo isn't keen and we won't do anything without him.”

Of course Charlotte was excited – “It's a big story,” she said – and she needed to speak to her editor as soon as possible. Félix was excited too, what he had always dreamt of was about to take place: a victory over secrecy. Both their voices sounded like water about to boil over. Lira shivered listening to them – she could hear herself, she had been just the same, pushing open Igor's door demanding extra space in the magazine. But today she just repeated that they must still convince Nwankwo before doing anything.

The next day, as they had agreed, Félix went down to the telephone box to ring Charlotte. Even Mark's landline might not be safe. As he went into the handsome red box that had been the cover illustration on his English textbook at school, he reflected that nowadays they were only used by poor people and tramps. Charlotte suggested a meeting with the editor in two hours' time, and she gave the
address of a suitable café. Félix agreed. When he told Lira she hesitated, torn between the need to act quickly and an unthinkable quarrel with Nwankwo. She said to Félix that she would try and get hold of him while Félix was out, and that he must on no account give them anything concrete.

Félix changed trains more often than was necessary to ensure that he wasn't being followed. When Nwankwo reappeared Lira told him about the meeting with the editor of the
Guardian
. Nwankwo punched the wall in a fury.

Félix turned off his mobile and took the battery out five stations before he reached his destination. “We had to do it,” Lira murmured to Nwankwo, telling him about the first meeting. Nwankwo didn't speak. He just clenched his jaw. He couldn't bring himself to be angry with Lira.

Félix pushed open the door of a café, well off the beaten track, away from any possible dangerous encounter. He wanted to see the truth about Eyvin's fate, his anonymous death, in enormous headlines. He wanted to avenge all the humiliations he had suffered, all those mornings spent reading about unpunished crimes in the Nice newspapers. Nwankwo and Lira remained immobile, facing one another, almost without breathing, enveloped by the crushing silence of the apartment. Lira could hear all the distant sounds of the building: doors squeaking, telephones ringing, taps running.

Félix gave Charlotte and the editor Eyvin's name, as well as his position at Grind Bank, the date of his arrival in Nice, his flight, his disappearance and presumed time of death a few miles outside London. “We haven't given them anything yet, and we won't without you,” Lira promised Nwankwo.

“But you have done it, haven't you?” he retorted.

Félix showed them a few extracts from the documents that Eyvin had been carrying, a few names too, and a few accounts, including Louchsky's, all hinting at the magnitude of the sums involved as well as of the dangers he was incurring. He gave them nothing to take away, but they took
notes. When he got back, Nwankwo pointed a threatening finger at him.

“You can tell yourself one thing: on the morning, or even the night before the story appears in the paper it won't be just one or two assassins on our tracks. At least we'll be dead when the story gets suppressed, we won't have to see that!”

“Fuck it Nwankwo! Stop treating me like a naive student. I was the one who went to pick up the CDs. You might at least let me have some say in what we do with them!”

Nwankwo didn't listen. He went out, ignoring Lira's shouts: “Next time don't bother to come back, either of you! The blind girl can look after herself!” She listened to his steps disappearing down the passage, the lift doors opening. They could go in and out as much as they liked. She wouldn't be slamming any more doors.

Nwankwo walked aimlessly, something he never normally did. This sort of area was unfamiliar to him, with its warm lights in the dusk, its restaurants and pubs full of well-dressed white men and women. Nwankwo felt alienated from these places where people were having fun, trying to make their lives a little less dreary. Why did doors always slam wherever he was staying? What would Uche do on a night like this? He would probably go into a pub, order a beer, then another and another, laughing in anticipation of approaching drunkenness. He said orphans had no choice but to invent stories. Nwankwo couldn't do that. He had lived for so long with danger at his back: he could hear the voices of his father and grandfather warning him: “The toad doesn't come out in the afternoon without a reason.” You couldn't unlearn fear. Nwankwo went into a pub as though Uche was holding the door open for him; he ordered a beer, and then another – he loved that first moment with the brimming glass and the froth on his lips. He looked around at the other people lined up at the bar, with their elbows at the same angle as his. It was nice to be like other people for
once, and it was so rare. He thought of Félix and Lira, still up in the flat, particularly of Lira who from now on would be inhabiting another world. What went on inside the mind of a blind person? Or anyone's mind, for that matter? He had no idea. And he had no idea where they were all heading.

 

High Court of Justice
Queen's Bench Division
Action HQ09

 

 

 

 

Plaintiff JMD
Versus

1. Guardian News and Media Limited

2. Persons unknown

The defendant may not make use of, publish, communicate or reveal to any other party any information or document mentioning the plaintiff until 10th December. The defendant must retain any such documents for the use of the plaintiff or his representative in case they are needed for defence purposes.

If the defendant does not obey this injunction he may be called to appear in court, its directors may serve a prison sentence or face a fine or confiscation of property.