Rising Read online

  Already there were gun battles between groups of Jeyshulla, Soldiers of Allah, and local security forces on the streets of Armavir in Krasnodar Krai, Mumbai-style attacks on hotels in Sochi, and Dagestani militants laying siege to the Ossetian capital of Vladikavkaz. Schoolchildren had been burnt alive in Buynaksk. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq were acting as base camps for sedition. Salafist money paying for the new madrasah schools opening in Perm, Samara, and Nadym. The whole frontier across Chechnya, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and North Ossetia-Alania was aflame.

  Within Russia itself, self-segregation, suspicion, and open hostility was breaking out in previously peaceful communities. The bitter memory of the bombings on the Nevsky Express and Moscow Metro were still fresh in people’s minds, as were those in Kizlar, Stavropol, Domodedovo, and Volgograd. Now there was the slaughter of Russian families in Nazran, the torching of Orthodox churches in Kazan, and acid attacks on blonde women in Ekaterinburg. The rantings of Al Qaeda leaders declaring that ‘anyone who prays and fasts but advocates parliamentary democracy are apostates’ had been painted on the walls of churches in Noril’sk. Mosques were filled to the brim. Guns, ammunition, and heroin passed from hand to hand under the cover of darkness.

  Tom was mildly irritated that his arrival did not warrant vocal opposition from the Left, but he quickly dismissed such feelings as petty vanity as he stood waiting patiently for his ride. Beaten-up Volga saloons with hanging doors and dangling wing mirrors drew up next to sleek limousines. No class distinction here, he laughed silently to himself. The new models purred like warm panthers on the prowl. The older vehicles’ ball bearings grated like knives on stone. Drivers stood out in the rain, smoking, joking, and staring at the slim-rimmed girls as they passed, pushing luggage in screech-wheeled trolleys, ignoring the wolf whistles, refraining from making eye contact with the lecherous loiterers. Tom saw two blue trails of beer breath punctuate the night air. He was looking for someone looking for him. Then he saw the red tip of a cigarette’s glow, rising on the intake and fading on the exhale, disappearing slowly into the headlight’s gloaming.

  Roman had picked him out and peeled away from his gaggle of leather-jacketed Jacobins and their tiresome conversation about the price of BMW spares. He flicked his cigarette, a fire-fly fizz of light in a sheen of petroleum. Taking Professor Hunter’s suitcase in his firm grip, he clumsily shook hands with the other.

  ‘Good evening’, Roman said in strained English. ‘Please, my car.’ Tom noticed the Gromoviti Znaci thunder flash badge on Roman’s collar as he slid into the passenger seat. He realised almost immediately that the slack on the safety belt rendered the harness useless. Officious policemen walked past in big hats and stretched uniforms. They were Russian Gary Coopers, sauntering self-importantly, scratched leather holsters riding high on their hips. The new arrival wondered if they would use their VUL pistols or run at the first sight of an Avar with a scimitar. Roman slammed the trunk closed, jumped in behind the wheel, and fired up the engine. ‘No belt!’ he said, shaking his head. He pulled out onto the near-side lane of Pulkovskoe Shosse, edging into traffic back towards Moskovskiy Prospekt.

  The road was a tan leather whiplash. Wheels sprayed mud, and cancerous trees stood like skin-scratching sentinels, marking the car’s progress. Tom noticed how the lethargic march of white birch was sometimes interrupted by electricity pylons, metallic stalagmites set stark against the blanched skyline. Roman aimed straight ahead, following a clear path under the overhang of dying branches and dripping cables. His cigarette rolled back and forth along the narrow crack between his clamped lips. Yevgeny Nikitin blared out the speakers, a crescendo of guitars and the singer’s conservatoire-trained voice spliced by the sporadic sweep of squeaking wipers. The headlights of oncoming cars washed over hoardings, adverts for mobile phones, and high-tech gadgetry. Occasionally, a back ripple of exhausted light would catch on the chipped edges of the miniature icons decorating Roman’s dashboard, setting off a glint of gold, torpid yellow washing over the two fixed expressions staring back at them from the dark windscreen.

  Tom was going through his pockets, checking the authorisation on his entry visa, recalling the surly face at passport control. He had recoiled at the inky thud of the stamp, still picturing the pretty young girl in the small cubicle behind the screen, tight green uniform, yellow braid and pure white complexion. She had those judgemental eyes that ran like a scalpel through your scrotal sack. ‘No secrets, absolutely no secrets here’, they seemed to whisper. ‘We have rules and you will abide by them!’ That click of the authoritarian heel was still resonating as the car swept by a statue of Lenin. The dictator’s stiff arm pointed forward to a bright proletarian future. A brave new world without kulaks. Professor Hunter surveyed the cold bronze figure, deliberately set back off the road in order to intimidate, standing amid the colonnades of the old party headquarters. Arrogant and haughty, Comrade Vladimir Iliyich’s slanted eyes, bald head, and goatee glistened under a crescent arc of light. There was no doubting his tribal lineage.

  ‘How far to city?’ he asked.

  ‘Nyet?’ came back the reply.

  ‘Hotel?’ Tom supplemented the word with Esperanto gestures signifying the cutting of food and sleeping on a pillow. Roman’s unshaven jaw broke into a grill-toothed smile.

  ‘Da!’ He lit another cigarette, offered the ragged end of the pack to Tom, who declined with a tentative ‘Nyet’ of his own. The driver laughed loudly.

  ‘Gorad!’ he pointed. Tom shook his head. ‘English?’ he continued. ‘London, Big Ben, the Beatles.’ This time it was Tom’s turn to laugh.

  ‘Da, Leningrad, Peterhof, Putin!’

  ‘Da, da, da!’ Well, it was communication of a sort, the Professor convinced himself, even if it was a touch primitive. As they drove further, the post-war office blocks and shabby Khrushchovka apartments lining the avenues began to thin out, and the crumbling teeth of nineteenth-century mansions and onion-domed churches stood out against the sparkle of silver starlight. Blue- and ochre-fronted streets sat astride hump-backed bridges. Their nocturnal journey led them further towards the centre, penetrating deeper and deeper into a cobweb of fading baroque stonework and moonlit canals.

  Tom could not shake the feeling that people were standing on the upper floors of the Italianate facades, dark glass eyes spying on the vast squares filled with mounted bronze horsemen and wrought-iron railings. Cafés and bars were full to bursting. People’s faces contorted with laughter, cigarettes fencing in gesticulating fingers. He was witnessing a nation in denial, his imagination chilled by the thought of the Mongol hordes gathering once again, ready to overwhelm Holy Russia.

  Lines of pedestrians crossing the Voznesenskiy caused the traffic to stack. Teenage carousers with armfuls of liquor sang and danced on both sides of the road. Two young blondes clip-clopped by on chestnut horses, linear bodies projecting elongated silhouettes from the bulbous streetlights onto the front of the Mariinskiy Palace. Tom could just make out the great golden dome of St Isaac’s Cathedral looming like a dirty iceberg, all marble and grimy granite, filling the night sky ahead.

  ‘Hotel?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Astoria’, Roman replied, pulling up sharp in front of a gang of drunken students criss-crossing the road, falling about, making general nuisances of themselves.

  ‘They seem to be having fun’, the Englishman muttered irritatedly to himself. Fingers tapped the roof of the car. Nervously he opened the window, only to be confronted by what he took to be the beaming face of God’s most favoured angel, passing him a bottle of Altai vodka. He hesitated. She threw back her long brown hair and said something Tom assumed was encouragement. Roman nodded.

  ‘Blue label is good’, the driver confirmed. In a bid to seem hospitable, the reluctant Professor had a long swig, almost immediately suffering the hot needle stab of pure alcohol as it thrust its poisonous blade deep into his liver. Eyes watering, he coughed uncontrollably, tongue swelling like an aroused penis, its hard, re
d tip throbbing inside his throat, causing him to gag.

  ‘Welcome to Russia’, his beautiful benefactor laughed in perfect American-English.

  The Astoria squatted like a fat brown bullfrog on the corner of the square, red awnings jutting like giant eyelids. It had once been the most fashionable hotel in pre-revolutionary St Petersburg. It was the location from where M15 had plotted to assassinate Rasputin, and was the scene of a famous last stand by the White Cadets against the Reds. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin hosted the Second Communist International there. Later, the British Fabian writer and Slavophile H G Wells was a regular visitor.

  Roman helped Tom carry his luggage into the plush lobby. Once there, he stepped aside, making a call on his mobile to confirm his passenger’s safe arrival. The driver talked quickly, while Tom checked in, only halting to receive further instructions. After completing registration Tom, handed over his passport. Then Roman passed him the Nokia so he could speak to his host.

  ‘It’s Grigori from the International Forum’, croaked a fractured voice down an intermittent line.

  ‘Privet, Grigori! It’s Tom. Yes, a good flight . . . Roman got me here on time, no problem . . . Yes, one hour will be fine. I just need to shower and shave . . . The Sakura . . . A car will pick me up, where? At the door, horosho . . . See you there . . . ’

  Tom slipped Roman thirty crisp US dollars, and there was a moment of male discomfort before they hugged. Professor Hunter pointed to the Gromoviti Znaci badge. ‘Tovarich’, he insisted.

  ‘Dobre’, Roman announced loudly, ‘Russki way!’ With a slap on the shoulder they parted as friends. Roman returned to his familiar routine on the dirty streets of the congested city, while his new comrade went to a third-floor suite to freshen up before an urgent appointment with Russia’s political opposition.

  Tom had a clear view over St Isaac’s Square. The city centre was aglow with honking cars, flashing headlights, and constant foot traffic. He dropped his case and pulled off his shirt and tie. Swallowing the complementary chocolates decorating his pillow, he sat on the corner of the bed, removing his Loake handmade shoes and cashmere socks. The carpet’s luxurious thickness felt reassuring after his long flight. Opening the suitcase, he lifted a copy of Alexander Dugin’s The Eurasian Mission: An Introduction to Neo-Eurasianism, which had been printed by Arktos, as well as a well-fingered copy of American socialist John Reed’s 1919 classic about the October Revolution, Ten Days That Shook the World. Placing the opposing texts at juxtapositions on the bedside table, he reached for his washbag, peeled off his sticky underwear, and wandered into the ensuite.

  The plastic shower curtain slid easily on its rail, luke-warm water sputtering from the groaning nozzle. He felt his age as the spray cascaded over stiff shoulders, soapy bubbles trickling down pale thighs. Travelling economy did that to him. Aches and pains, real or imaginary, shot though his body. Running gel between his fingers, he washed his hair, memories of the cramped plane melting away with the citrus tang wafting from the open bottle.

  Stepping out onto marble tiles, wrapped in Egyptian cotton, he lathered his face and reached for a cut-throat razor. His slate-grey eyes looked tired as he drew the blade over a stubbled chin. He stood for a few seconds admiring his chest in the mirror, steamy droplets running over chrome, posing self-consciously, picking the most favourable angle. Swimming and bench-pressing kept his stomach wall tight and firm. Middle age was a battle he could rightfully claim to be winning. But some days were better than others, and he knew he was reaching the tipping point.

  Tom always laid out his toiletries with a military precision that would have made von Clausewitz proud. Vitamin tablets and cod liver oil were set at a thirty degree angle from his hand cream. The blue body lotion was like a rook in a Bobby Fischer chess match, ready to sweep down the channel between the taps. A half-empty bottle of Terre D’Hermes glinted in the mirror light. His fingers smelled of fresh eau de cologne. His cheeks were stinging as he slapped the tincture onto smarting skin.

  Standing in his bathrobe, twisting the top off a bottle of Perrier, he bent and sniffed at the bouquet of seasonal flowers. The message from Grigori read, ‘Welcome to Piter’. The room was a generous double. Pulling the red velvet curtains over his view of the Cathedral, he began combing his fair hair in the large mirror, noting the first threads of grey, reflecting philosophically that they offered the potential for a distinguished look. The sort of academic gravitas he longed for. Climbing into a Hugo Boss suit, fresh white shirt and claret tie, he was like a chevalier putting on his armour. Black cufflinks engraved with silver hagal runes gleamed in the half-light. Shiny Italian shoes and an Omega co-axial chronometer wristwatch completed the ensemble. Tom felt like a Nietzschean Overman in designer suits. Adrenalin levels began to rise. Moving to the door, checking the time with an elegant twist of his wrist, he caught himself saying to the empty room, ‘Five minutes early, perfect!’

  In the hallway, he caught the sound of multilingual matrimonial arguments through half-closed doorways. The familiar hum of domestic discord narrated his journey to the top of the grand stairwell. For a moment he thought of his own failed marriage. Cecilia had never understood him, what had really moved and motivated him. And what moved and motivated her, disgusted him. The product of a middle-class military family and an exclusive boarding school, she was geared to sibling rivalry, the bigger house, better car, and the executive career in marketing. When his studies into group evolutionary theory began to make his lectures controversial amongst the faculty, she worried more about his promotional prospects, rather than the validity of his theory. Tom’s favourable critiques of Vladimir Avdeyev’s Rasologia and the Biblioteka Rasovoy Mysli made him about as popular as Arthur Jensen and Glade Whitney amongst the politically correct crowd at the academy. ‘Why doesn’t Dean Meyer like you?’ she hissed, harridan style. ‘We never get invited to his soirees!’ For months she had lacerated him with her box-cutter tongue. Then, one morning, while he was giving a class on Hans Eysenk, Cecilia had slipped away, leaving her solicitor’s business card and some scorch marks from a spilled coffee on the dining room table.

  He hit the touch pad and rode the mirrored elevator to the ground floor. Emerging from sliding glass doors, Tom thought he caught an admiring glance off the pretty redhead at reception. A bespectacled doorman in a powder-blue waistcoat watched him coming from the far end of the bustling lobby. With perfect timing, he bowed and pulled on the brass handle, letting in a gush of cold night air. The Englishman thanked him and stepped out onto the stone-angled corner of Bolshaya Morskaya.

  A hotel car sat waiting, graphite and chrome in the pale wash of the foyer’s roof light. The barrel-chested driver made sure his passenger was safely belted before pulling out into traffic. They had not gone far before they stalled in a jam on the Pereulok Antonenko, just a little short of the Griboedova. A battered yellow street cab squeezed in alongside. The Mongol driver pressed hard on his horn. ‘Just like Milan’, Tom said under his breath. Vehicles edged forward, cutting each other up, trying to force their way into gaps before they closed.

  Ten minutes later, the knot broke free. Cars were moving slowly past a broken-down Zhiguli 1500, bonnet lifted, its dead metal carcass lying flat like an old carthorse on the side of the road. A young family stood bereft, the blonde wife remonstrating with her husband, a crying infant in her arms.

  ‘Rubbish!’ his driver spat. Tom did not respond, unsure if he would be subjected to a tirade about how bad things were now, as opposed to the nouveau riche Russia of a decade earlier. The chauffeur had already shared his views on how normal Russians were hurrying to change their savings and pensions into furniture and jewellery. Tom was imagining scenes reminiscent of the bread queues of the early ‘90s as they listened to the car’s radio. An interview was being conducted by Benny Efrati for RIA Novosti with the new Governor of Russia’s Central Bank, indicating that the economic situation was reaching ‘super-critical’:

  The Russian Central Bank
raises interest rates by 18 percent as a ‘shock and awe’ tactic to stem the tide, but fails to tame the market;

  George Soros re-emphasises his case, made a few years previously, that the West should see this return to Smutnoye Vremya, a time of troubles, as a precursor to open warfare;

  EU bankers escalate their economic leverage as a means to force Russia into accepting western Ukraine as a part of the NATO sphere of influence.

  They pulled up in a narrow side-street near the water. Stragglers sauntered on both sides of the canal, heading back towards Nevsky after enjoying the Orthodox Choir at the Church of the Spilled Blood. Giant onion domes stood out against the stars, casting deep purple bruises over the stone embankment. He noticed a beautiful young couple standing hand-in hand-on a wrought-iron bridge. They embraced passionately. An old man cycled by, thin metal wheels rattling on chipped cobbles.

  Tom stood at the driver’s window trying to negotiate the return trip. Getting nowhere, he twisted away, walking through the crowd, his body, along with many others, reflected in the burning translucence of a passing canal boat’s windows.

  His initial impression was that the Sakura was anything but remarkable, a single neon sign hooked crookedly on a plain cement wall. He stepped down into the dimly-lit entrance and was quickly swallowed by the wide throat of a sunken stairwell. Pushing on the door, he entered, silver globes strobing the faces of guests as they swilled sake, rang forks on wine glasses, and called for birthday toasts.

  He was name-checked by a demure kimono-clad waitress who took his coat, leading him through a tight tangle of drunken patrons. Credit cards were being swiped and handfuls of crumpled notes were clipped into a snapping cash register. Tom tripped along behind the diminutive Oriental through dense cigarette smoke to an alcove where Grigori was waiting with three other guests, two middle-aged men and a young woman.