to remember when his brother said he might be home. There was never a firm date. So many factors could delay him, the most common ones being the weather and late arrival of his replacement. He checked the cheap plastic clock on the wall. As soon as he was finished with his chores, he would call on Vladimir’s wife. They lived only a few miles away in a nice, large house that backed on to a wood where their children loved to play. Vladimir would have telephoned from the ship and told her when he was coming home. But first, he would go to the shops and buy some meat and potatoes for the supper she would insist he stayed for, and then some toys for the children who loved to see Uncle Mikhail, if for no other reason than he always had a gift for them.
Zhilev held up the letters and read the return addresses. One was from the bank, a statement no doubt, since it was due about now. The second was a gas bill and the third was from the oil company his brother worked for, based in Dubai. Zhilev thought it strange the letter from the oil company was addressed to him. He had never had anything to do with it. It was possible the letter was from his brother, but the address was typed, not handwritten as usual, and besides, Vladimir was not in Dubai. He flew to his ship wherever it was in the world then, three or four months later, he would get off at the first available port and fly back home to Riga.
Zhilev opened the envelope from Dubai that contained a single sheet with the company’s letterhead and no more than a few typed lines. His heart skipped a beat and he filled with dread as he saw the first few words: I regret to inform you . . .
When he got to the part that confirmed his fear that his brother was dead, he put the letter down and spread his hands out either side of it to steady himself. He started from the top again and read it through slowly, and when he got to the end, he lowered his head into his hands and began to gently weep, his heavy shoulders shaking.
Zhilev remained at the table for a long time after he had stopped crying while steam gushed from the bubbling kettle on the stove.When he eventually got to his feet, he went to a cupboard and took out a mug, placed a spoonful of instant coffee into it and filled it with the boiling water, stirring it slowly as if in a trance. All he could see and hear were memories of his brother.
Zhilev was a year younger than Vladimir although most people thought they were twins. They were inseparable throughout their youth.Vladimir was the quiet, intelligent one while Zhilev was the adventurer and very much the risk-taker. When Zhilev accepted a bet one day from fellow schoolboys that he could not ride his bicycle off a ramp and over a ditch from a culvert that gushed vile black water from the old generating station, it was only because Vladimir had inspected the width of the ditch, the angle of the ramp, the mechanics of the bike and told his brother it was possible. The first time they were apart was the day Vladimir was called up to serve his mandatory time in the military. Vladimir was more fortunate than most since, as a gifted engineer, he went directly to an engineer battalion and spent virtually his entire three years in an armoured depot on the outskirts of Moscow thus missing active service. Zhilev considered his military career just as fortunate and for quite the opposite reasons. From the day he joined he dreamed of a future filled with adventure and exciting operations behind enemy lines, gathering information and carrying out direct action.
The day after Vladimir left home for the army, Zhilev walked into town and joined the local military youth school where he learned to scuba dive. By the time his call-up papers arrived a year later, he had some idea of what he wanted to do and even a vague plan. Rumours abounded of special units that carried out clandestine operations in enemy lands and every youth soldier and conscript had at least one exaggerated story he had heard of their derring do. What nobody seemed to have a clue about was where the mysterious