empty bowls were removed while he slept again, which was seldom. The coffee kept him high and awake for long periods. When he did sleep, he was restless and easily wakened. He quickly became disorientated. He suffered from constipation, then bouts of severe diarrhoea that kept him huddled for hours over the toilet. He would wake from disturbed dreams, shaking and nauseous.
Sometimes they would let him sleep ten or fifteen minutes, then waken him by banging loudly on the door. That would continue for hours: each time he began to nod off, the banging would start, until he grew agitated and angry. By the tenth or eleventh time, he would be so tired and confused that he started weeping from sheer frustration. Afterwards, he would feel ashamed of his tears: he was determined to show his gaolers no signs of weakness. But the tears came, whether he wished them or not.
He dreamed of De Faoite incessantly, of the wounded and bleeding altar on which he lay, inarticulate, like a tortured animal. The priest would rise and open cracked lips and whisper a single word over and over: Passover, Passover. And in the dream flakes of plaster would crumble and fall from the high vaulted ceiling, white and sharp as snow, drifting across the bloody church, blanching its floor and walls, bleaching it of all corruption.
‘Talk to me, Patrick,’ Natalya Pavlovna would say in a hushed voice, like one of the nuns he had known as a child, praying, alone with God. ‘Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your past. We have plenty of time, all the time in the world.’
But he sensed an urgency in her voice, a frisson of alarm that belied the patience with which she approached her task. She never spoke of things directly, never asked leading questions. Her inquisition was roundabout, yet Patrick knew it hungered for a certain and sudden quarry.
At first, Patrick would not respond to these overtures. He kept a determined silence, as though vowed to it. That was his novitiate. But as time passed and he lost track of night and day, present and past, dream and reality, he came to crave Natalya Pavlovna’s visits more and more. In the end, he felt only gratitude for her presence and an overwhelming desire to please her.
At times he would wake out of some twisted dream or nightmare to find his mind preternaturally sharp, and in such moments he knew his gratitude to be no more than Natalya Pavlovna had contrived. But he could not wholly throw it aside. Lack of sleep and repeated caffeine buzzes kept him off balance. His resources were diminished, his resistance increasingly difficult to summon. There were moments when he felt he loved her, her soft, reassuring voice, her dark, questioning eyes.
It was not love, of course, but fear mixed with gratitude. And yet at times he could feel a shiver of sexuality pass between them. Even nuns on their hard beds wake with a shudder of desire. Often when she visited, he had the beginnings of an erection. Her subtlety was like a finger drawn along his flesh. They experienced a growing intimacy. Her questions were a lover’s hands, stripping him bare. He would wake up sweating, dreaming of betrayal. But who was left for him to betray?
On several occasions, she asked him about his sins, major and minor, old and new. It was a way into his soul, and from his soul to his heart, and thence to his mind, where he kept all his recollections of names and dates and places. Natalya Pavlovna cared nothing for theology. Sins were nothing to her, or at best keys with which to unlock the doors of Patrick’s mind.
‘Think of me as a priest,’ she would murmur, ‘as a father confessor. How long is it since your last confession?’
And Patrick - who had indeed been many years absent from the confessional, and who did indeed suffer from a guilty conscience and the creeping footsteps of unquiet ghosts - unburdened his spirit gladly and without remorse.
Natalya Pavlovna never rushed, never applied overt pressure, though it was becoming increasingly clear that she was working against time. From sins religious they passed to sins secular, from morals they ascended to pragmatism and the absolutism of the state.
The sessions with Chekulayev were more down to earth. Unlike the woman, he was not interested in the state of Patrick’s soul. After a session with Natalya, Patrick found it almost a relief to be faced with Chekulayev’s directness.
He knew the names of Patrick’s principal agents in Egypt and Lebanon, most of his contacts in the PLO and Hezbollah, and several of his agents of influence in Syria. He had details of CIA houses in Cairo and Port Said. He could recite details of several important cases in which Patrick had been involved, including some that had gone wrong, wrong enough to lead to unnecessary loss of life. He knew about Hasan Abi Shaqra.
What he sought, of course, were the gaps. The things he knew were nothing to those of which he was ignorant. But Patrick knew when to talk and when to keep silent.
‘Tell me about Shifrin.’ Chekulayev returned time and time again to Patrick’s old mentor, his station chief in Cairo. When did he tell you about Passover? What does he know about the Brotherhood?’ Patrick did not answer, for the simple reason that he had nothing to offer.
Natalya Pavlovna, however, possessed the skill to blur the difference between what she knew and what she did not. Each time they spoke, Patrick sensed his resistance weakening. He had talked and he wanted to talk more. He longed to confide in her. The white walls pressed in on him like the blocks of a hydraulic press. He thought they were growing closer. But he could not bring himself to measure them.
‘Tell me about Passover.’ Natalya Pavlovna returned to the subject with increasing frequency. She seemed almost nervous. Her thin hands lay on her lap like pale, crustless crabs, naked and exposed. ‘What do you know of Migliau? Is he here? In Ireland? What have you heard? Have they set a date?’
To all of these questions Patrick could only plead complete ignorance. His head ached and he longed for darkness. Even with his eyes closed, the bright light lanced his brain like a thin blade.
‘I’ve told you. All I know of “Passover” is that De Faoite mentioned it before he died.’
‘You mutter it in your sleep. I’ve heard you many times.’ This admission that she eavesdropped on Patrick’s moments of slumber did not seem to cause Natalya Pavlovna any awkwardness. She knew Patrick assumed it, expected it. Sleep was not sacrosanct. In the religion they shared, nothing was sacrosanct. They were like husband and wife now. Surely there could be no more secrets between them.
He woke three or four times to find himself alone. By the fifth he was sure something was wrong. He was starving: why did no one come? He shouted and banged the walls, but there was no response. Exhausted, he fell asleep again. When he awoke, nothing had changed.
He called out again. You can hear me, you bastards, you can hear me!
‘Where are you, Chekulayev? Where are you, Natalya? Why don’t you answer?’
But no one responded to his entreaties. A ball of fear settled in his stomach.
He crouched down by the wall, disorientated. So, they had changed tactics. Isolate him, deprive him of all human contact, starve him. He felt helpless and afraid. How long could he go on? His cupboard was bare, at least of those things Natalya Pavlovna really wanted to hear. Would lies suffice?
He thought of ways to pass the time, mind games to blot out his growing distress. First, he taught himself to recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards, first in English, then in Latin, as he had learnt it as a child. After that he composed elaborate, meaningless poems in Arabic, in which each word began with the same letter and each line ended with the same rhyme. And he wrote letters in his head to everyone he had ever known. Still no one came.
For a long time he stood defenceless at the mirror. He watched himself curiously, as he might have watched a monkey in a cage: his unshaven face, his red-rimmed eyes. Perhaps this was all there was
left: himself and his reflection. If he vanished, he wondered, would the reflection remain there, like a wound after the knife has gone? He banged hard on the glass, bruising his knuckles.
‘Chekulayev, you fucker! Stop playing games! Get your ass in here, I want to speak to you!’ His voice sounded cracked and hollow, crashing against the tight walls and falling to the floor. For the first time, he was gripped by a fearful claustrophobia. It took him by the throat, forcing him painfully onto his knees, pressing him in onto himself. He began to sob. Tears coursed down grimy cheeks into his beard.
Time passed. He grew calm and called again. Still no one came. There were no sounds. It was as if he had been buried alive. He pushed the thought out of his head. You’re still in the interrogation room. They’re out there, watching you. Hold on.
He used the toilet and cleaned himself with a strip torn from his thin garment. There was no more paper.
The fear grew more intense. More than ever, he had lost track of time and place. If he did not leave soon,
