The owner of the voice didn’t respond. Light streamed in as the curtain was pulled aside.
He squinted. The nightclub’s bright lights stung.
“Okay, follow me.”
Stepping out into the nightclub, he looked around. Lights around the dancefloor strobed and flickered. Large parts of the space lay in enigmatic darkness. The chaos of the rave. It was all so alien now. Pulsing bodies prickled with sweat. The upstretched hands. Puckered lips and shimmering sunglasses. He’d been there before, getting lost in the music. The never-ending beat. Now he just wanted out.
He looked back at the space behind the curtain — the darkroom. Before coming to Berlin, he’d never seen anything like it. Just a dark corner of the dancefloor covered by a thick curtain to keep light and prying eyes away. What happened in there was no one’s business.
As he watched, two women stepped past him into the darkness. The eyes of a tattooed eagle stared malevolently from the shoulder of one. The woman looked from him to the Russian and back again. A wry smile curled her lips. Worry fluttered through him. She couldn’t think he was —
It didn’t matter now. Not anymore.
He glanced ahead and saw the Russian merge into the swaying crowd. He dropped the curtain on the two women, already in each other’s arms, and rushed to keep up.
He and the Russian had met several times. The Russian was one of the men who came to the shop to collect the packages. In his imagination, he invented names and identities for these silent patrons — the men whose piles of dirty money had kept his business afloat for many years. The man with the long green coat and eyes the colour of Berlin’s winter sky was one of his favourites. Unlike most of the men, he wasn’t just a thug. There was intelligence in the stare. He had to trust that stare tonight. Tonight, it was getting personal. Tonight, was his only chance to escape. But for it all to work, everything needed to be just right.
As instructed, he’d arrived at the club just after midnight. He’d nursed a succession of beers as the hours crawled past. As the techno beat clattered across the baying crowd, he’d counted the minutes until they met behind the curtain at four.
Why did they have to meet here, anyway? The secret meeting place and coded introductions were all a bit over the top. The Cold War was supposed to have finished a long time ago. Maybe old habits really did die hard.
Beyond the dancefloor up ahead the Russian turned left into a passage. They couldn’t get separated now. He shouted apologies as he pressed between a pair of dancing women. They smiled back — no problems here.
The Russian strode on, coat billowing.
Two different techno beats echoed fitfully from damp bricks walls. To the left, the strobes fired above the heads of black-clad dancers.
The nightclub was a fitting place to end it. The reason he came to Berlin in the first place. It was almost poetic. Poetry that, for some reason, he thought the slender Russian striding ahead would understand. It was as though he’d chosen the place on purpose.
They turned into the main bar area. Smoke and anticipation hung thick in the air as people queued for drinks — bottles of water, vodka and beer.
Following the Russian was becoming easier. People moved aside as he approached. It wasn’t that he looked tough; there was just something about him, something in those grey-blue eyes that exuded a warning.
The Russian shoved through a fire escape. He followed.
The air outside felt crisp and refreshing. Each breath, nourishing. Each inhalation brought hope. People continued to queue around the nightclub’s main entrance. For Berlin, the night was young. The sky above was clear. Spears of crimson warned of dawn’s imminent arrival.
For him, it was at an end. It was all at an end.
3
Leo lies back and looks up at the tropical sky. Twilight ribbons of pink and purple drain in pursuit of the sinking sun. The night is coming, and there’s nowhere he’d rather be right now. He knows that with more certainty than ever.
The noise of the jungle swells in the silence. A bird calls and another answers. Two animals yammer to one another. Sea and sand tumble together. The sounds of paradise.
Next to him on the jetty sits a woman. Her feet dangle in the lapping waves.
“How did we get here? I mean, this is crazy — it’s like a different world,” Leo says, unable to take his eyes from the darkening sky. They’ve been travelling around Asia for the last two months. First India, then Vietnam. Now Thailand. They’re on the island of Koh Tao for the final few nights. They’re clinging to the feeling of freedom before the flight home beckons.
For a moment he thinks about his job; he works as a journalist for a local paper. That’s if the editor will even have him back — he was supposed to have returned a month ago. But it doesn’t seem important right now; their ordinary lives are a million miles away.
“Koh Tao is a special place because it’s hard to get to,” she says without looking at him. “When things are hard to find, that’s when they’re precious.”
She’s right. Leo knows it. He’s spent years looking for her, years looking for someone who makes him feel complete. Someone who makes him feel normal, let alone happy. He sits up on his elbows and looks at her. Her feet dangle in the water, and her smile is currency across the world.
With an uncharacteristic certainty, he knows this is the moment he’s been waiting for. This is perfect.
“I’m just glad to be here… with you,” he says. Then, with quickening breath, he fumbles with his wallet. That’s where the ring’s been hidden for over a month. That’s how long he’s been waiting for this moment. Waiting to ask this question. “I’m so glad to be here, even the extra month…”
Every day
