she’s doing it. How she wants to be close to power! How she desires it! She longs to feel power’s hot breath on her skin, and open her legs for power. She is jealous of me, because the angel comes inside me, not her. She felt it once and she wants it again. She’s hooked like a fish.
‘What does it say?’ said Chazia. ‘What does the angel say to you?’
He saw how weak she was. Desiring to be near power is not the same as desiring power. It is the opposite.
‘It is impatient,’ he said. ‘It urges haste. It makes promises.’
‘Promises?’
‘To me, Lavrentina. Not to you. To me.’
‘Of course you would say that. To save yourself.’
‘One cannot lie about the angel. One cannot deceive it.’
Chazia showed the tip of her tongue again, pink between pale thin lips.
‘Is it here? Is it with you… now?’
‘Of course not. I couldn’t speak to you if it was.’
‘Why does it choose you, Josef? Why doesn’t it come to me again?’
Kantor said nothing.
‘Do you know why not?’
‘No.’
‘You could ask it.’
‘No.’
Chazia sighed and leaned back in her chair.
‘So. What does it promise you, Josef?’
‘Stars. Galaxies. Universes. The red sun rising.’
‘Meaning? Meaning what?’
Kantor looked at her and said nothing.
‘Meaning nothing,’ said Chazia.
‘It has given me an instruction. The Pollandore must be destroyed.’
‘It knows about that?’
‘It knows everything.’
‘Then it knows we cannot destroy the Pollandore. We have tried and failed.’
‘It must be done’
‘This doesn’t change your position, of course,’ she continued. ‘The logic is inescapable.’
‘I do not see it.’
‘Think, Josef. See it from my perspective. Soon the Iron Guard will step in and put things right. This weak and backsliding regime will fall. The One Righteous War will recommence with renewed vigour.’
‘With me alongside you, Lavrentina. That is the agreement. It must stand.’
‘But consider this, Josef. How would it be if Krogh makes the connection between you and me? If he can prove it? If he takes this to the Novozhd before we are ready? Surely you see the impossibility of this?’
Kantor watched her steadily. He said nothing.
‘What would you do, Josef?’ she said. ‘In my position?’
He shrugged. ‘It is not complex,’ he said. ‘Krogh must be killed.’
Her eye flickered.
You are transparent to me. You garrulous intoxicated mad old fox-bitch.
‘Nothing is easier than death,’ he said. ‘The more deaths there are, the better for our purpose.’
‘But—’
‘The solution is clear,’ Kantor continued. ‘Krogh must be killed. Of course…’ He looked her in the eye. Held her gaze. ‘If you don’t have the stomach for that, I will do it myself. It doesn’t matter so long as it is done.’
Chazia glared at him.
‘It will be done,’ she said. ‘It’s not a problem.’
‘Thank you,’ said Kantor. ‘Good. Of course, that isn’t why I came to see you.’
‘So why did you come?’
‘I have a couple of requests.’ He smiled. ‘No doubt these also will be no problem.’
Chazia bridled.
‘Be careful, Josef. Don’t go to far. You are not… safe.’
‘No one is safe, Lavrentina. Such is the world. But there are some favours you could do for me.’
‘What?’
‘My former wife, the slut Feiga-Ita.’
Chazia looked at him in surprise. ‘What about her?’
‘Kill her. Kill that bastard daughter of hers too.’
‘I see,’ said Chazia. ‘But… surely you could do this yourself? You have people.’
‘They would want to know why. That would not be helpful.’ Chazia sat back and considered.
‘I see no objection,’ she said eventually. ‘But you will owe me, Josef. The service is not your personal execution squad. Is that all?’
‘No. I want you to take me to the Pollandore. I want to see it.’
31
In Vishnik’s apartment, Lom poured another glass and reached for the file with his own name on it. It was a standard personnel file, tied with ribbon. The registry slip on the front showed it had been referred to Commander Chazia only the day before. The day he had arrived in Mirgorod and seen Krogh. The referring signature was Krogh’s own private secretary.
The file itself contained all the paperwork of an unexceptional career. Good but not brilliant academic achievement. Stalled promotions and rejected applications. The criticisms, complaints and accusations. And one other thing. The earliest document. A letter. Lom read it over and over again until he had it by heart. It was addressed to the Provost of the Podchornok Institute of Truth.
Righteous and Excellent Provost Savinkov
I bow to you deeply from the white of my face to the damp earth, and I commit to your care this boy, gathered in by my artel when, in pursuance of the Forest Extirpation