Men in space, p.15
Men in Space, page 15
“Helena? Have you got …” Ilievski’s holding up his cigarette as though it were something he’d just found behind the sofa. It’s almost half smoked; a tall column of ash is bending sideways from the vertical lower half.
“What? Oh! Sorry, Constantine. I’ll just go get one.”
“Bring some nuts as well, honey.” Anton’s craning forwards at the TV, as though worried that he’ll miss some detail if he spreads out and relaxes. “Liverpool are favourites here,” he says, explaining this ostensibly for Ilievski’s benefit, although he’d probably do it if Ilievski weren’t there. “They’ve got Redknapp, McManaman, Barnes, Matteo, Fowler – and Rush, of course. And they’re at home. And the statistics bear this out: they’ve had three corners, Bolton none. Two, now three shots at goal. Played mostly in the other half, their opponents’ one …”
“Didn’t the Liverpool team all die in some coach crash or something?”
“A plane crash, yes – but it was Manchester United, not Liverpool. In nineteen fifty-eight, in Munich. Not just Manchester United: half the English team as well. The Man U players were so good that half of them were playing for the national side.”
“It’s always sporting teams.” Ilievski’s speaking cautiously, without gesturing, so as not to tip the ash column over. “That, and rock stars. Never get into an aeroplane with a rock star or a football team. That’s my advice to you. When you and Helena and,” he lowers his voice, eyes darting to the door, “the children – when you all go over to America, my advice to you is that before you step onto that plane, just as you’re checking in your luggage, ask if there are any rock stars or football teams on it. Keep still Rambo. And if there are, don’t get on board. Film stars are alright, mind. Thank you Helena.” He removes his cupped left hand from underneath the right one, which then slowly steers the cigarette towards the ashtray she’s brought for him, but the column drops just short. “Fuck it! I’m sorry!”
“No worry. I’ll get a cloth.” She sets the nut bowl on the side table and goes back into the kitchen.
“Bring some nuts, honey.”
“She did. They’re right beside you.”
“Oh? Good.”
“What’s that, Anton?” Helena calls through the wall.
“Nothing. I just wanted … It’s a corner. Came off McAteer.”
“We’ll take it out of here tomorrow.” Ilievski balances what’s left of his cigarette on the rim of the ashtray. “The painting. The fake one, I mean. Anton.” He’s looking at the two paintings that are leaning against the filing cabinet beside the television, eyes moving from one to the other then back again.
“Right. Look: Fowler’s going to take it. How are you going to let it be found by the police, then?”
“It’s going to our people in Vienna. They’ll leave it with a gallery, who’ll check it against Interpol’s art loss register as a matter of course, and call the police in when they realize what it is – I mean, what they think it is. If they don’t recognize it straight away, of course.”
“It’s that high profile?”
“Oh yes.”
“Might someone not eventually discover it’s a fake?”
“Perhaps, eventually; perhaps not. But that’s not our problem. As far as we’re concerned, all that matters is that it’s taken off the art-loss register for long enough for us to move it around and unload it.”
The ball’s been curved too fine, and flighted too high anyway. It drifts above a wedge of straining heads and catches in the goalkeeper’s gloved hands. The crowd crrkk! Anton cracks a pistachio. Ilievski says:
“The real one stays here till the people in Sofia give the go-ahead. You might like to rewrap it and take it down to your cellar, just as a precaution.”
“OK. I’ll do that. Look: there’s the whistle. Half-time. He’s done well so far, this referee. He’s let the game run smoothly, not held it up. More wine?”
“Are you back with us now?” Ilievski stubs out his cigarette. “Sure. I’ll have another glass. First day of the new year. Happy New Year, Rambo. Cheers, Anton.”
They clink glasses. Ilievski asks:
“Which is the real one?”
“The one on the left.” Anton gets up, walks over to the paintings and crouches beside them. “Maňásek made a small red mark on the side, right here,” he says, tapping it. “Good thing he did. They’re hard to tell apart.”
“That’s what we paid him for. Funny painting, huh?”
Anton straightens his legs, then comes and sits beside Ilievski again. “We looked at it lots, Helena and I, when I brought it up here last night. We were trying to work out who the figure is.”
“Isn’t it Jesus?”
“Helena doesn’t think so. He always has long hair. Isn’t that what you said, honey?”
“Is it half-time?” She’s dabbing at the ash mark on the sofa with a damp cloth. “Oh, the painting. Yes, it’s strange. Quite beautiful. But that’s a very odd shape at the top he’s rising into. It’s kind of egg-shaped – like in those Dutch Renaissance paintings that have different planes. As though if you moved around and looked at it from another angle there’d be a different painting: another work entirely, with its surface angled differently, in line with the oval.”
“I don’t know about the Dutch Resistance,” says Ilievski, looking round her. “But I’ll tell you this: I think the birds are kind of funny.”
“See that, Helena? He thinks they’re birds as well.”
“I don’t.” She crouches down like Anton did a moment ago by the two paintings. “I think they’re humans who are falling down the mountain.”
“Why have they got wings then? Huh? Huh?” Anton throws a nut at her, which flies past her head and hits the painting. Ilievski winces.
“Watch out there! That cost us fifty thousand. And it’s probably worth fifty times as much.”
“Sorry.” Anton pours himself another glass as well. “I saw a painting recently, a modern painting, with a bird-man in it, falling. It was at that party of the French painter: Jean-Something. That was when I first met Ivan Maňásek and gave him the job.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s where I saw a painting of a bird-man falling.”
“Who?”
“In the painting. This figure was falling, with his wings on fire.”
“Icarus,” says Helena, picking the fallen nut from the carpet and popping it into her mouth. “He flew too close to the sun and the wings his father’d made for him caught fire.”
“When was this?” Ilievski holds his glass out to let Anton refill it.
“No time. In a Greek myth.”
“Something your father told you?”
“No, an ancient Greek one. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman. He built …”
“Listen to her, Constantine. My wife’s done a degree in this stuff.”
“I thought it was in physics. I thought that’s how …”
“That was her second degree. She’s a genius.”
“He built wings, and a labyrinth, where children were taken each year.”
“Every two years a new degree …”
“What children?” Ilievski asks. Anton reaches for more nuts.
“Athenian children. They were taken away each year, twelve of them …”
Her voice trails off. Anton rises from the sofa, carries the nut bowl to where she’s standing and offers her one.
“Have you got a glass?”
“I’ll get one.” She walks back into the kitchen. There’s a moment’s silence. Anton starts back towards the sofa, then turns around and peers at the paintings instead.
“This building at the bottom’s a bit like a labyrinth. A maze on several levels, with joining alleyways and floors. It’s like a Hopi pueblo.”
“Who’s that? Another painter?”
“No,” he answers, smiling, “it’s in Arizona. The Hopi are Indians. They lived on mesas, in buildings carved out of the rock. Still do, only now they have proper houses. That’s our first American holiday: Arizona.”
“You must understand that writing, then, if you studied ancient Greek,” Ilievski says to Helena, who’s come back with a wineglass.
“It’s not ancient Greek, though. It’ll be Byzantine, I should think, which is slightly different.” She pours herself a glass.
“Oh! The second half’s about to start.” Anton scampers back to the sofa, sits down on it and immediately shuffles forwards to its edge. A banging comes from somewhere.
“Was that the TV?” Helena’s holding her glass still, listening.
“No,” replies Anton, right hand feeling for the nut bowl on its left, flailing slowly on the table like a seal’s flipper. “Maybe it’s some fireworks left from last night. Here come the officials!”
The banging comes again from the hallway. It’s the door.
“Could you get that, honey?”
Helena sets her wineglass down and goes to answer. Ilievski looks out to the hallway.
“Are you expecting anyone?”
“Who knows? Maybe Milachkov’s come round to watch the second half. Look: here they are!”
The players’ tunnel’s mouth disgorges from whatever labyrinths lie behind it two lines of young men. The men jog out in single file; then, as they cross the painted touchline, they spread across the field, jump, stretch their groins or sprint in short bursts back and forth, waiting, like Anton, for the moment when the whistle will once more release them into game time, into pure geometries of green and white.
* * * * *
Nick’s been partying at Karolina’s place, at Gábina’s, at Marek’s and at Karolina’s again for days – over a week now. At Karolina’s in particular. He always thought, when modelling at AVU, that she scrutinized his body in a way that was more than academic; once or twice he let his imagination slip, picturing them together at a club or concert, then back at Maňásek’s, beneath the angel – and caught himself just in time, before his fantasy became public in front of a dozen people ready to capture its effect in crayon, ink and charcoal. Somewhere between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve and several bottles of Becherovka, he found out he hadn’t been too far off the mark in his imaginings when Karolina pulled him into a spare room at Marek’s, wrapping herself around him as they tumbled onto coats and pillows. He’s barely been back to Maňásek’s since then. He’s only left her flat right now because Mladen told him he’d heard of a phone box at Jiřího z Poděbrad that connects you anywhere in the world for a crown …
This turns out to be true, but half of Prague seems to have heard about it by now. There were six or eight shivering people queuing when Nick got here, all foreigners like him. The rule seems to be ten minutes each. He’s at the front now, right after this African who must have been in there eight minutes already. Behind him three short South Americans hop from foot to foot, black felt hats pulled down tight over thick, oily hair. Probably musicians: he’s seen guys like them playing at Mústek. Never on Charles Bridge; those Californian potheads who were in Jean-Luc’s atelier play there most days. Bizarre: must be some kind of quid pro quo. Heidi said the South Americans sent all the cash they earned back to the Maoist guerrillas in Peru. It seems unlikely, but you never know. Behind them stands a gaggle of Vietnamese. They all have crooked teeth. Behind them, two fat Gypsy women with scarves wrapped around their heads, then two white men wearing old grey caps and jackets: maybe Poles. It’s an assembly line of the displaced, all waiting patiently to connect, if only for ten minutes, through a black, spiralling cord, to a spot in the past, some warm and fuzzy navel …
Somewhere up in the grey sky an aeroplane groans by, descending towards Ruzyn?, wheels clunking out to feel their way through cloud into this new year. Back on the ground, the cabin’s door swings open and the African steps out. Inside the box it’s even colder for some reason. Nick’s fingers won’t grip on the coin that’s in his pocket, have to scoop it out instead; as valuable seconds tick away it drops back twice before he brings it up towards the slit. It’s zero-zero, then four-four for the UK, and then you have to drop the zero, so it’s one-eight-one, then … His father picks up.
“Duncan Boardaman.”
“Hi Pops.”
“Nick! Where are you?”
“Prague. Where did you think I’d be?”
He hears his mother in the background, his father telling her: Your son, from Prague. His father’s about to tell him she looks beautiful and pass him on.
“How was the uncoupling?”
“From Slovakia? Seamless. Mission accomplished without hitch.” He makes a crackling sound, as though he were reporting the news from an international space station.
“I’ll pass you to your mother, who’s looking beautiful. We’ve just done a New Year’s jog.”
The receiver hangs in the air of the kitchen for a few seconds, picking up the scrape of feet on red clay tiles, a coffee mug being set down on the sideboard. Through the window at the end, beside the blue towel hanging on its wooden rail, the garden will be cold and hard, silver with frost if the sun’s out, or if it’s snowed then white with green blades poking through. His mother’s voice comes on the line:
“Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year.”
“How are you?”
“Fine. Cold.”
“We saw pictures of Prague on New Year’s Eve.”
“Yeah, it’s a new country now. How was New Year in London?”
“It was strange this time, with Dad gone. Oh! Somebody phoned from Amsterdam for you.”
“Was it Julia Emerson?”
“Emerson, yes, like Ralph Waldo. She wants you to start at European Art in February. She left a number here.”
“Art in Europe. When did she call?”
“Two days ago. I’ve been trying to call you, but the number didn’t work. I got a prerecorded operator saying something in Czech.”
He’s been getting this, too, each time he tries to call Ivan: that infuriating na-na-NAH routine, three rising pips, then some nasal slapper telling him that the number he’s dialled isn’t in service. Nick asks his mother:
“Did she leave Art in Europe’s number?”
“Yes. I’ll give it to you. Hang on.”
“Oh! I haven’t got a pen. I’ll … hello?”
“Yes, I’m back. The number’s …”
“I don’t have a pen. I’ll have to memorize the number and then hang up and ring her straight away.”
She reads him the number. He repeats it to her twice, then quickly says goodbye and, severing the connection, dials it. A well-to-do English girl’s voice answers:
“Hello, Art in Europe?”
“Hello, could I speak to Julia Emerson?”
“She’s not here right now. Can I take a message?”
“This is Nicholas Boardaman. She phoned me in London. Only I’m in Prague.”
“Oh yes, I know who you are. You can call her at home.”
He goes through the same routine with her as he did with his mother. She laughs as he explains to her why he has to hang up. He pictures her as young, pretty and smart. Home Counties, West London at a pinch. Always has a pen on her, a Filofax … One of the South Americans is tapping on the window, holding up a watchless wrist. Nick holds his index finger up: one minute. Julia Emerson turns out not to be at home. Nick leaves Maňásek’s number on her answering machine, then remembers it’s not working and changes his message halfway through, telling her he’ll phone her later today – before remembering that he hasn’t written her number down. The South American is tapping again. Nick hangs up and leaves the cabin.
Art in Europe. That means he’ll be leaving Prague. Karolina, Ivan, cold mornings naked up at AVU all seem to telescope away from him. It’s a vertiginous feeling. He’ll have to get over to Amsterdam, sort out a place to live. Mladen mentioned a friend of his who lives there. Maybe Julia Emerson will help him. But it doesn’t matter: getting the job’s the main thing. I’m an art critic. Yeah, I write for Art in Europe. Yeah, that’s right … Bars stretched along canals unfold in his imagination; he populates them with Dutch girls who are impressed by him. As he leaves the cabin he lets out a loud whoop. The people still queuing turn to look at him, then look away again.
* * * * *
… that the equipment had been changed. The change had been implemented in the period between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, as foreseen. I had, of course, been made aware of this, but it had slipped my mind during the days I spent in their entirety outside Ivan Maňásek’s apartment. It was only when I entered Headquarters after resting for several hours that I became aware of it again. I was making my way to the equipment store to be issued with my new radio when I bumped into my colleague Robinek, who, looking at my directional microphone, addressed a question to me. Sleep had done little to improve my ears’ condition, and I had to ask him to repeat his question several times. Eventually I understood him to be asking whether I was returning from the Korunní swoop. Completely unaware that such an event had been planned, let alone that it was occurring at this very moment, I ran from the building. My car was still where I had left it the previous night, some distance from Headquarters; not wanting to waste time by going through the process of requisitioning another one, I hailed a taxi and made straight for Korunní.
On my arrival there, I found the area around the entrance to Associate Markov’s building cordoned off. From my taxi’s window I could see Associate Markov, a man whom I recognized from photographs as Subject himself and a woman unknown to me being led handcuffed from the building by uniformed officers. Behind them, 2 [two] officers in plain clothes were carrying what I assume were the 2 [two] paintings I’d observed being transported from Maňásek’s the previous night. The paintings had been removed from their paper wrapping and re-covered in bubbled plastic. The whole operation was being directed by Lieutenant Forman, whom I could see positioned some metres from the building’s door. Around him were my colleagues Rosický and Novotný, and sundry members of the visual surveillance team I’d seen outside Maňásek’s throughout the previous week.
