Darcy sat half-asleep at Fin’s laminated counter. He ate a version of All-Bran bathed in milk that tasted vaguely of tin. He looked out the window, the morning cold but crystalline. Fin in her bedroom doorway slipping on sheepskin gloves, heading out already. I need to get to the embassy, he said.
I’ll take care of your passport, she said. She grabbed a scarf from a coat hook without noticing the dog lead dangling down the wall. You stay home and paint.
Darcy drank down the remains from the bowl and stood. He didn’t see how they’d issue new papers to her, or how she could charm his passport back from the railway station without him, but she was snatching her patchwork coat and fur hat. Remember to lock yourself in, she said.
I’m coming with you, said Darcy. He rugged himself up with his own scarf and gloves, reached for his fleece-lined oilskin coat, but by the time he had pulled the door closed behind him there was no sign of her. He ran down the stairs and out through the main glass entrance, caught sight of her in the ice-covered street getting into a small battered car. It was driven away by a man Darcy couldn’t quite see, a man who must have been waiting.
Darcy forged through the whistling cold to the corner in hopes of a cab, fumbling for his foldout map in his ski gloves. He knew the embassy was across the river so he walked in that direction. At the lights he waited beside a man with a greatcoat draped over his shoulders, European-style, then he recognised the black roping eyebrows and golden skin, the man from the Bolshoi, his caramel hair now covered by a brown fur hat. He heard Fin’s warning—There’s no such thing as coincidence here—but he was already imagining the possibilities. A choreographer, perhaps, or a poet from the Caucasus, a diplomat from Portugal. Darcy put the map away, didn’t want to appear like a tourist, and the man acknowledged him, as if he recognised Darcy too.
Darcy entered the park, the same one as yesterday, and when his friend followed without even hesitating Darcy felt a pang in his underarms. They threaded each side of a young woman who pushed a primitive baby carriage with a fogged-up plastic cover. His suitor stopped, kneeled to coo to the baby, but looked up at Darcy, the smile for the baby still on his face. Darcy divined being escorted to some embassy, drinks on a heated terrace overlooking the Arbat, introduced to local envoys. Perhaps he’d get his passport that way. He waited at a railing, trying to keep his senses, watched the cold light play where the pond was frozen. He knew this was a country where they tortured men for being with men, the warning in Spartacus was clear: Severe penalties under Soviet laws.
He focused on the end of the pond where it had thawed to a tinged green, a spurt bubbling up from a pipe, but in Darcy’s side view the man stood a few feet away, watching him almost blatantly, fingers still clasping the edges of his coat.
Darcy looked away at a pair of ducks floating motionless in the reeds. At first Darcy thought they were decoys— the ducks should have flown south by now—but then he realised they were real, hovering near a pipe that spurted steaming water. Darcy turned slowly; he couldn’t help himself. And the man was smiling almost cheekily, his teeth too white to be from here, a small scar that broke the line of his right eyebrow saving his face from being too perfect. I saw you at the Bolshoi, ventured Darcy.
The man made a little gesture with his brown eyes as though such things were not unexpected. He seemed to understand. Faint smudges shadowed below his eyes as if he hadn’t slept, a shadow of moustache above his untasted lips, his sideburns shaped and close-shaven. He didn’t look Russian. Are you a dancer? asked Darcy.
I was once a dancer, the man said. A curiously accented English.
And now?
Now I look at you, he said. He allowed a disarming, pursed smile. Darcy thought of the uniformed boy in the railway station in Prague, the searching, desperate eyes, his cap on the cistern and how he made him feel; he thought of the man from yesterday, not far from this same place. But there was nothing afraid or desperate about the one who stood before him now. This was something different.
Is this part of Gorky Park? asked Darcy.
Mandelshtam, the man said, a word that sounded like a compound sentence.
Darcy moved along the railing and stopped nearer the winter ducks, and he was followed like a courted bird.
Mandarins, said the man, motioning with his chin at the pair of ducks, their bluish-green feathers and a crest of orange. One kept wetting its head and then shaking it. They are being a long way from China.
They are being that, thought Darcy. Many of us are far from home, he said. The ducks manoeuvred among the reeds where the ice had melted. Where are you from? he asked the man.
Cuba.
Made sense, Cubans in Moscow, Vietnamese and Libyans, Nicaraguans, Angolans, the patronage statues on bridges. Darcy’s feet were getting numb with cold but a nervous pulsation ran through the depths of him, the man’s coat sleeve almost grazed his ski glove as they walked. Darcy contained his desire to brush against him. They looked at each other dead on. In Moscow, all is connected by politics, said the man.
Darcy had hoped for something more intimate. I’m not here for the politics, he said.
The man raised his eyebrows with a false inquisitiveness. So why you are here?
I’m a painter, said Darcy, but he immediately thought of the money belt, how he was afraid he’d been a smuggler too.
Ah, said the man knowingly, like your friend. He laughed.
Darcy’s breath seemed to stop in the air, stunned in front of his mouth. He gathered his thoughts as he picked up a stone and skimmed it out across the glassy ice, but the stone slid further than he’d planned, not far from the ducks. They winged up into the white winter air. How do you know about her?
I am to be keeping an eye on you, he said. So I know a little.
Darcy’s heart skidded like the stone. How much? he wondered. Maybe he knows what I need to find out. He tried to keep breathing normally, standing before a row of iron placards set up on frosted posts. He brushed the cold rusted letters with his glove. They appeared to be in braille; a nature walk for the blind.
For those who do not see, the man said philosophically, right beside him, but there were no blind children reaching to touch the leaves, even the ducks had flown, everything bare and frozen save for toxic water steaming from the pipe. Are you supposed to speak with me? asked Darcy, aware of his keeper’s lips. Part of him wanted to kiss them and part of him wanted to run.
No, he said, nonchalantly, but I like the look of you.
Are you having somewhere you want me to go? asked Darcy.
I go to a wedding soon, said the man, his eyebrows raised again, full as cats’ tails. It wasn’t an answer Darcy had expected. My friend Sofia marries the general. I work for him. I introduce them.
They were walking now, chatting like friends in odd conversation. What kind of work is that? asked Darcy.
I am sometimes druzhinnik, he said, head of patrollers for hooligans and blues—then I wear an armband. He pointed to his empty sleeve, his coat still draped over his shoulders.
Darcy asked him what blues were.
Homosexes here are called blues, he said, but they have no official existence.
They passed a statue clad with what looked like medieval armour and Darcy realised it was a cosmonaut. And what are you called? Darcy asked.
His friend’s ungloved hand appeared for the first time, his fingers dark and long, his nails polished-looking. I am Aurelio, he said. Darcy took off his ski glove and his hand was shaken firmly, the warm fingers inviting him, a complicity in his touch. My house is near, he said. His eyes now seemed to have an almost olive quality, where Darcy would have sworn they were hazel before. Come with me, he said. Why not? You are in Moscow!
Together, they drifted back through the avenue of empty elms. An old woman raked the path. It was the same babushka from yesterday, even though he had entered the park from a new direction. The baba tucked her woollen scarves into her coat and leaned on her rake for a moment as if she was trained to look out for the likes of the two of them. The Cuban smiled at her, unconcerned, as if he knew her or wasn’t fussed, but she didn’t smile back.
She works for me, he said. Darcy thought about yesterday, the man in the trees and the tremulous whippet, the Polaroid.
On the street they wove elegantly among the bulky pedestrians who shuffled through the snow, leaden-faced, bodies bent forward with the weight of plastic bags. Darcy felt light by comparison, walking with Aurelio, excited about his prospects. Serve Fin right, he thought, off on her own frolic. He’d get to see a wedding on his second day in town. Darcy grew wary, though, as they turned down a narrow lane. He’d followed strangers into alleys before, but not in a country like this. Yet Aurelio seemed more preoccupied than dangerous, jingling his keys at a door under a tattered awning at the back of an old brick building. An adventure, he said, sensing Darcy’s apprehension. No?
Inside was not what Darcy expected. The walls were stacked high with rolls of cloth and cobwebs, a long sewing table, racks of garments and scarves on hangers, a troubadour’s outfit. Costumes for the Bolshoi, Aurelio said. He grabbed a pinstriped jacket from a hanger, long and grey like a funeral coat. Try this.
Darcy removed his coat, pulled on the pinstripe and checked himself in an ornate full-length mirror. In a Goth sort of way it worked with his cords and combat boots, his black and white Collingwood beanie. Do not be worried, said Aurelio, it’s a come as you are when the ship went down. Darcy assumed that was a Cuban expression.
As Aurelio brushed the dust from the back of the jacket, Darcy felt an energy against his shoulders, then Aurelio kissed his neck. Muted tobacco on his breath, tinged with something sweet, aniseed, fennel; perhaps he smoked cigars. His lips in the fine hair behind Darcy’s ear, as if he knew his favourite places. Darcy arched his neck back. What time is the wedding? he asked.
It is now, said Aurelio, drawing away to reach for his scarf and some black leather gloves that lay on a stool like the wings of a blackbird. He took off his hat to replace it with another and his hair was luxuriant. He undraped his coat from his shoulders to reveal a double-breasted navy suit. Over it, he pulled on a tailored Kensington floor-length overcoat.
Darcy said he felt underdressed in his oilskin so Aurelio tossed him the greatcoat he’d just been wearing. A leather-scented cologne imbued the lining as Darcy slid it on.
Aurelio escorted him past an old treadle machine to a front entrance, out into the frigid street where a rusty Lada waited with a corpulent driver sandwiched behind the wheel, waking from sleep as Aurelio knocked on the window. Darcy and Aurelio both got in the back, Aurelio speaking in a language that sounded neither Russian nor Spanish. Darcy asked him what it was. You have no languages? Aurelio asked him, surprised. You English, having it easy.
But Aurelio was the one with the car and a driver.
Is this yours? asked Darcy, looking about as they rattled along.
Aurelio shrugged as if he couldn’t help good fortune.
How did you end up in Moscow? Darcy asked.
Aurelio looked out the window and Darcy was afraid the question had been gauche. My mother is a friend of Castro, he said. He put his hand on Darcy’s leg reassuringly and Darcy felt the hairs rise on his neck.
They both looked out at the river, at big discoloured wedges of ice too deep to be sliced by any sharp-hulled barge. Darcy imagined the climates they’d both come from, worlds with heat and beaches. I’d love to go to Havana, he said.
It is so far away, said Aurelio wistfully.
The traffic was light and it was now raining, groups of cream taxis flying past like large wet birds. A building draped in scaffolding and workers perched up high in the cold. Aurelio leaned close to Darcy, the sweet faint tobacco on his breath. Darcy found himself leaning too, as if they were on their own. Aurelio pointed. St Anne’s in the ominous shadow of the Rossiya Hotel. The car slowed and Darcy looked up. A pale stone church, onion domes and limestone walls the colour of dirty washing, dwarfed by the towering building. He could paint the juxtaposition, baneful and clichéd.
As he opened the car door he heard the organ moan from inside the church as if it hadn’t been played since the revolution. Aurelio offered him a square of fruity fennel gum. We go for the party, he said. A gust of cold air and the chill returned to Darcy’s feet—he wasn’t sure if Aurelio meant the Communist Party or the wedding reception.
They walked briskly across the rain-slicked cement and up some steps into a stone-cold church lit only by lanterns and candles. Darcy smiled at the unlikeliness, attending a place of worship in a communist country when he never set foot inside one at home. The crowd was sparse, the men in the usual drab suits and the women in dark shapeless coats, and Darcy thought of Aurelio’s expression about when the ship went down.
The ceremony was already underway. Darcy pulled off his beanie and slipped into a pew beside Aurelio. Above them, the central cupola was boarded over; if there’d once been frescoes they’d been painted over too. Aurelio made a slight sign of the cross as he sat—a gay Catholic communist, maybe even Castro’s misbegotten son. A secret of his own.
As the organ played Darcy removed his gloves and rubbed his aching fingers. The pew was cold. Aurelio pressed his knee against Darcy’s and tipped his head to the bride near the pulpit; she wore white but no veil, a trail of silk and tulle floating down the steps behind her. My friend, said Aurelio. No bridesmaids or maids of honour. The groom stood a good head taller, slab-sided, square-shouldered, imperious in his military cap and uniform, a sword sheathed at his hip, curved like a narrow dragon’s tail.
The general. His boss. But Darcy saw little evidence of high-ranking people, considering his stature, no minister either or priest, just an official celebrant, short and stout in a green uniform, speaking in muffled, dissonant Russian with the mike fading in and out. Candelabras framed a vase of red carnations on a table behind him. He lit the candles as the couple turned to face the guests; Sofia was beautiful, big-mouthed and Roman-nosed, her broad teeth showing, her smile full-lipped. She nonchalantly spat on her fingers and flattened her hair.
Is she Cuban too? asked Darcy.
Aurelio nodded, quietly chewing. Of course, he said, a smile like that.
Darcy felt the general’s eyes rest on him with a kind of disdain—or was it Aurelio he was staring at? Darcy figured him in his sixties, Mussolini-faced and handsome in his military cap, snatching another glance at Darcy then glowering out beyond, as if on parade. Then the bride caught Aurelio’s eye and made a subtle face, both mocking and desperate. She says he’s like an animal, Aurelio whispered, making a claw with his fingers. He showed his unstained teeth. Darcy squinted to see the general’s well-set features, the gold stars on the pocket of his jacket.
They took my passport, he whispered.
I know, said Aurelio.
What do you mean?
He shrugged. I know many things, he said. It is my job.
A man crouched in the aisle taking photos and Darcy craned his neck in case it was his Pentax but it wasn’t. Aurelio began to translate the proceedings with the pressure of his knee, his breath near Darcy’s face. Are you taking me to be your legal wedded husband? he said as the bride took the general’s hand.
I hardly know you, said Darcy.
Aurelio turned to face him. You don’t know anything, he said.