They were four hundred yards from the
Suddenly there was an explosion from the vessel ahead and a spout of water shot up almost simultaneously about fifty yards to the right of the
“
“Turn away now,” Logan said and the skipper swung the wheel sharply to the left until they were far to the left side of the
“Beers all round, Rick,” he said.
23
BALTHASAR STOOPED TO COME OUT from beneath the hanging plastic sheet that served as a porch. The heat through the plastic roofs in the shantytown was intense, even now in early spring. It must be unbearable in high summer. Once he was outside, he straightened up and stood for a moment, welcoming on his face the cool air that came in from the sea. He stayed still for a moment, listening to the sounds around him from the encampment on the hill, orienting himself. The speech of the inhabitants was a mix of Tatar and Russian, a sort of pidgin language that owed a great deal to the Russian language after centuries of rule from Moscow.
Balthasar heard a man shouting about a missing goat, then a boy replying, who in turn was told finally to go and find it. He picked up the sounds of pots and pans jangling together on a woman’s back, on her way to the stream for cleaning. An old motor was turning over and over, sounding less healthy each time, until it died—a Neva jeep, he decided. There were random shouts of men, a kick against something metal. Tinny music was playing on a radio, an old Tatar folk song.
But what he sensed over and above the smells and sounds of the shantytown on the hill was the deep air of resignation, which was occasionally ignited by anger, then doused again by despair. The river of the camp’s collective psyche contained little else in its flow but these three elements. He turned to his left, away from the lean-to, and went to find Irek. When he found the old man’s home, he stooped again under more plastic and entered.
“How long ago was she here?” Balthasar asked when they were sitting on cushions and facing each other.
Irek looked up at the sightless eyes of the man opposite him. It was true what their mutual friends in Ingushetia and Chechnya had said about this man. He saw more than the seeing did.
“Around four hours,” he replied. Then not being able to completely believe the man could have known of her visit without some information, he said, “Someone told you she’d come?”
“I felt her. I feel her now,” Balthasar said. “She sat here, on this cushion where I’m sitting.”
“You know her well?”
“Once. But not for many years. Not for decades.”
They sat in silence for more than a minute. Balthasar sipped water from a metal cup, a round copper mug without a handle, not the tin cup that Irek had served the tea in four hours earlier. Balthasar was in no hurry.
“My acquaintances said you are a Muslim,” Irek said finally. “Yet you come on behalf of Russians. Which Russians?”
“Money is money, old man,” Balthasar replied. “What does it matter which Russians?”
“Maybe it matters a great deal.”
“We are offering to build you a mosque,” Balthasar continued. “But that’s just the beginning. There will be more mosques, madrassas for learning. Eventually, we’ll get you out of this camp and into proper homes. My sponsors wish this to remain anonymous.”
“The woman said you would offer us good things,” Irek replied.
“Did she? What is her interest in what we offer you?”
But Irek didn’t answer his question.
“Why are you making gifts?” he said at last.
“Why? We are all Muslims. We should all stand together. We understand the treatment of your people. It was the same with us.”
“But you…?” Irek said quietly. “I don’t think you are a religious man.”
Balthasar stirred, shifting slightly on the cushion, and put down the copper cup, very precisely but with an ease of purpose, onto the small level space beside the rug.
It is as if he sees everything, Irek thought. Sometimes he wondered if this man Balthasar was even blind at all.
“Religion is just man’s imperfect attempt to see God,” Balthasar replied. “But religion doesn’t always look in the right places.”
“Then you and I are similar in our views of religion,” Irek replied. “But that doesn’t explain why you wish to finance mosques for us. What we want is homes. First homes, then we can see where religion fits in.”
“My sponsors who are providing the financing are offering mosques and schools,” Balthasar said. There was a pause, as if he was waiting for Irek to show his gratitude, but none was evident. “You haven’t reached the age of ninety, I see, by believing what you’re told without doubting its truth. It’s the woman, isn’t it? She has made you wary.”
“Everything has made my people wary,” Irek replied.
“You’re concerned about the origin of the money,” Balthasar stated.
Irek was silent. This man could see inside his mind, he thought.
He reached for the hookah and flaked apple tobacco into the bowl, lighting it with a piece of charcoal that he put in place with his hand though it was burning. He took two or three puffs, then passed it to Balthasar without putting a different mouthpiece onto the pipe as he had for the woman. Balthasar received it easily and took a long draw and the water in the glass bowl bubbled. Then he exhaled slowly, tilting his head upwards to the roof of the dwelling. A dog began to bark outside, then squealed and fell silent; a kick or a stone must have been aimed at it. In the pecking order of human anger there’d always be someone or something to beat up that was less than you, he thought. Even these people who were fixed by history and circumstance in the drainage system of humanity needed something to oppress, something to feel superior to.
“What did she tell you?” Balthasar said. “No. Wait. First, tell me how she appears.”
“Physically?” Irek said.
“What is your impression of her? How does she present herself? And what is her disguise, if you could penetrate it? Then, yes, you can tell me what she looks like if you wish,” he added, as if that was not important.
Irek told Balthasar what Anna had told him earlier, that she represented an American company with business interests in Ukraine. For those business interests to be successful, the Americans needed Ukraine to be free, or at least not a vassal of Russia’s. Her disguise? What did the blind man in front of him mean by that? “She didn’t tell me everything,” Irek continued, “if that’s what you mean. And neither do you,” Irek added. Then he finished by saying, “She is a beautiful woman whose beauty seems to be irrelevant to her. Maybe she even feels it gets in her way. Maybe she’s met too many men who don’t see beyond her physical beauty.”
Balthasar smiled. To Irek, it was unexpected. Did the blind man not know that she’d warned him against Balthasar?
As if to answer his thoughts, Balthasar spoke through the smile that hadn’t left his lips. “She knew about me, didn’t she.” It was a statement and Irek saw he was still smiling.
“I don’t know. All she said was that someone would offer to help us. That money would be given.”
“And not to trust this offer of friendship?” Balthasar said, the smile still playing around his lips. “This money?”
Irek wasn’t afraid to say the truth. “She said it would link us to terrorism,” he said flatly.
