the operation, was the machine of steel and electricity: the famous Gaukh Engine, right at the heart of the Lodka. And now Lom was standing in its shadow.
The archivist came back.
‘The material you ordered is unavailable,’ she said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you can’t have it. You don’t have the appropriate authorisation.’
‘Where do I get authorisation? I mean urgently. I mean now.’
‘This material is stored in Commander Chazia’s personal archive. They are her personal papers, and her personal permission is required. In writing. I’m sorry, Investigator. There’s nothing I can do.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you. I’m grateful for your help.’
Shit.
I’m running out of threads.
Pull another one.
19
The tattered pelmet of an awning fluttered in the wind. It was the colour of leather. Florid script crawled across it. Bakery. Galina Tropina. Confections. Coff –.
Vishnik went in.
The woman behind the counter frowned at him. She had arms the colour and texture of uncooked pastry, and her hair was artificially curled, sticky-looking, dyed a brash, desiccated copper. There were a couple of empty tables at the back.
‘I would like coffee,’ said Vishnik. ‘Strong, please. And aquavit. A small glass of that. Plum. Thank you.’
His legs were trembling. He was getting sensitive: things were getting to him more than they should. I’ve been spending too much time on my own. He used to like being alone, when he was young. But that was a different kind of loneliness: the solitude of the only child who knows that he is free and safe and loved. That was the rich, enchanted solitude of Before. Before the purge of the last aristocrats, when the militia had come winkling them out of the obscure burrows they had made for themselves in their distant country estates.
That was a different world. The storms smashed it long ago. All I am now is fucking memories. I move through life facing backwards.
He checked the camera. It was a precise, purposeful thing. A Kono. When he was growing up in Vyra, a camera was a hefty contraption of wood and brass and leather bellows, which required a solid and man-high mahogany tripod to hold it steady. But the Kono was matte black metal, about the size of his notebook, and sat comfortably in the palm of his hand, satisfyingly solid and weighty. Vishnik had built a darkroom in the kitchen of his apartment, where he developed his own films and made his own prints, which he kept in boxes. Many, many boxes.
A girl came into the bakery and put a basket of provisions on the counter. Her black dress fell loosely from her narrow, bony shoulders. Her fine strengthless hair had parted at the back to show the pale nape of her neck. She wore thick grey stockings and scuffed, awkward shoes. The woman behind the counter smiled at her. The smile was a sunburst of love, extraordinary, generous and good, and in the moment of that smile it happened: the surface of the world split open, spilling potential, spilling possibility, spilling the hidden truth of things.
The sheen of the zinc counter top separated itself and slid upwards and sideways, a detached plane of reflective colour, splashed with the vivid blues and greens of the tourist posters on the opposite wall. The hot-water urn opened its eyes and grinned. The floorboards turned red– gold and began to curl and writhe. The woman’s arms were flat, biscuity, her hands floated free, dancing with poppy-seed rolls to the tune of the gusting rain, and the girl in the black dress was floating in the air, face downwards, bumping against the ceiling, singing ‘The Sailor’s Sorrow’ in a thin, clear voice.
O Mirgorod, O Mirgorod,
Sweet city of rain and dreams.
Wait for me, wait for me,
And I’ll come back.
Cautiously, slowly, so as not to disturb the limpid surface of the moment, Vishnik raised his camera to his eye and released the shutter. He wound the film on slowly – cautiously – with his thumb and took another. And another. Then he opened his notebook and began to write, spilling words quickly and fluently across the page.
The Pollandore, buried beneath a great and populous upper catacomb of stone in the heart of the city, waits, revolving.
In darkness, but having its own light, it turns on its axis slowly. Swelling and subsiding. Gently.
Like a heart.
Like a lung.
Like respiration.
Every so often – more frequently now, perhaps, but who could measure that? – somewhere inside it – deep within its diminutive immensity – a miniscule split fissures slightly wider – a cracking