crows of strasbourg

7.

The Sokolov-Hines ceasefire lasted about three hours, during which time he kept talking, and whenever he stopped, Anton kicked him or patted him on the cheek—not that kind A friendly pat, but a senior interrogator's—toss him a new question, many thin ropes, and Hines grabs them, barely dangling on the edge of the comatose abyss.

He mentioned his sister, that's for sure, lamented for a moment that she was more suitable to be the matron than that vulture-like old nun, and then said that he didn't have any sisters, no such luck, do you have brothers and sisters, Anton ?Mind if I call you Anton?

"No." The other party spat out a syllable.Hines wondered what he was negating, the kinship or the name part.A faint flash of light illuminates the walls, then quickly returns to darkness, and the sound of the explosion is long overdue.He closed his eyes, and Anton patted his cheek again, so hard, it was almost a slap. "Don't fall asleep."

"I'm starting to think you did it on purpose."

"Maybe."

"□□."

Anton nodded, unmoved, "What did you just say happened in school?"

He couldn't remember which character he was going to play, Luke McCarron went to public school and repeated ninth grade.Alex grew up in Switzerland, split between three prep schools.Conor Hines has a roommate named Toby, the devil's advocate who pours water on his pillow and throws his books out the window.Connor finally got into a fight with him, driving his head into the mud of the baseball field.They were both suspended for a week, Senator Hines visited the principal himself, and Connor Jr. was back in the classroom the next day with a swollen cheek and a cleft lip that would bleed when he tried to speak.No one dared to look at him more.Ever had a fight, big man?

"Hit."

"Who's winning?"

"It's me most of the time."

"That must feel good."

"is acceptable."

The sound of machine guns came from a distance, like a basket of green coffee beans falling on a hot iron plate, intermittent flashes illuminated something on the wall, half a burnt painting, Hynes guessed it was for some A child won a small honor to be pinned to this wall.Then he wondered if the child was still alive, if the flames had been standing right under the crumbling roof when the flames fell from the sky.The radio set rested on the broken wall and had not been moved for hours.Why hasn't Roger, honorary captain of the "Little Bonn Orchestra" and card expert, come yet?Hines will die here, no doubt about it.

"My uncle Nikolai and my cousin, they keep horses," he heard Anton say, in Russian, as if the concepts could only be explained in their own language, "sometimes horses don't survive the winter. They take a long time Just dead, lying on the hay, panting, with pus in the eyes. 'Enter it in the farm ledger,' he would tell Aunt Olga, and take the gun to the stables. My cousins ​​would follow. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

No, for God's sake, he didn't know.

"You're going to die." Anton slammed the words into Hines's face like a brick. "Your pilot has probably been blown up to a pile of rubbish on the runway. I plan to leave before dawn Tripoli, as long as the remaining gasoline lasts. Before I go I must—how do you say it? Cut the loose thread.”

It should be "tighten the loose ends", Hines didn't make a sound.The previous friendly atmosphere disappeared, like a layer of soft flannelette was lifted to reveal the rusty surgical instruments underneath.He put his hand on his forehead, and the skin there was hot, or maybe it was because his palm was cold.

"Hynes."

"Yes?"

Without further words, Anton Sokolov directly picked him up and walked outside with half-drag and half-support.For that horrible half-minute Hines thought he was going to "cut the thread" early and shot him in the back of the head, leaving his body in the barren sandstone.Then he finally heard the sound that Anton had noticed a few minutes ago: the helicopter rotor, gradually approaching, overwhelmed the fading artillery fire in the distance.

He stopped his heartbeat for 35 seconds on the operating table, Roger later told him, sitting on the edge of the bed, peeling an apple with a pocketknife; there was the clatter of medicine carts in the hallway, and whispered conversations that sounded like sandpaper rubbing against each other. friction.Also, "The big German hurried away like a piranha was biting his ass, and didn't even bother to let the nurses tend to his head wound."

"He's not German."

"What?" Roger asked absently, tongue between his upper and lower teeth, staring at the point of the knife.

"I said I needed morphine."

Roger picked up the peeled peel and shook it in front of Hines' eyes, "Look at this, Connor, tell me you've never seen such a complete apple peel."

"Damn it, take it away."

The ex-mail pilot laughed, looking more like a pit bull than ever.

-

When the order from above came down, it was as strong as ever before, but it was ambiguous.They first moved Hines to London, announcing that they would arrange for a plane to send him back to the other side of the Atlantic "after a while". Of course, they didn't explain how long the "some time" was, whether it was three days, two years, or [-] kilometers.When embassy personnel talk about "they", if they lower their voices and pretend to cough after saying two words, then "they" refers to the group of senior members of the golf club gathered on Capitol Hill; if the tone is contemptuous, accompanied by shrugging , the "they" refers to the logistics department.

He was "seen" in London by a soft-spoken clerk who looked to be in his mid-thirties, with the hair on his head dangerously thinning. "Duncan." When we first met, he introduced himself.Half a month later, Hines still didn't know whether it was his first name or his last name.When he asked carefully whether the flight back to the United States might be scheduled for this week, Duncan smiled patiently, the way people do when they watch cats persistently attack mirrors.

"No flights, Mr. Hines. They've decided to send you back to Bonn." He shrugged.

"Bonn?"

"Gerrard said it was more 'economical'."

Hines didn't know who Gerald was, but that didn't stop him from thinking he was an idiot.He took off from Luton Airport and landed in Bonn with wind and rain.Roger and a scratched VW were waiting on the edge of the tarmac, their umbrellas useless, both drenched from the shoulders down and shivering.The mountain peak was completely engulfed by low-hanging rain clouds, and the sound of thunder came from a distance, very faintly, like the sound of drums heard through a partition wall.

The car did not make a turn at the intersection leading to Bad Goldberg, but continued onwards towards the city of Bonn.They let you live in a bird house, Roger said to the rain-soaked windshield.Hines had turned the heating knob to the maximum, but the white gas could still be seen when the two talked.Doing desk work for months, writing reports, attending parliament, or dozing off, you name it, I have never seen many people sitting sober in the gallery.

The "Bird House" is a nondescript bungalow for low-level employees who don't deserve the embassy's time, and the occasional dubious "current affairs reporter".The doctor promised to come every two days, but in fact never came.Roger visited on the weekends, sometimes alone, sometimes with his wife and son, to send them shopping for socks, crayon sets, children's racquets and whatever else a five-year-old boy needed.

"A small problem, small, but slightly hot, let's just say, wait," said Roger, halfway through his first beer, fumbling in his briefcase for what Hines had thought was A letter, and when he smoothed the paper he realized it was a photograph, a black-and-white Anton Sokolov looking at the two of them sternly, "This is the good friend who lifted you into the helicopter, Isn't it? The idiot who didn't like to sterilize the wound, an assistant at the Soviet embassy, ​​worked in the visa department, I heard."

Hines didn't answer.It was a Saturday afternoon, and a group of children were playing football on the lawn behind the house, screaming with excitement.

"Is there anything I should know?"

Hines fiddled with the beer bottle cap. "He's one of Peter's children, I think, we met in Bern. I didn't know he'd be in Beirut, just by accident."

"Just a 'working relationship,' shall we say that, Connor?"

He flicked the bottle cap into the grass. "We can say that."

Roger studied him for a moment, then crumpled up the photo and stuffed it back into his pocket.Hines picked up the beer bottle and touched his.

A typical working day is filled with boring diplomatic cables in the morning and filing documents from the visa office in the afternoon.Once a week, he walks to town hall for a regular meeting, just for coffee and those lemon cakes sliced ​​the size of a thumb.The aides, secretaries and correspondents who feed on the base of the diplomatic pyramid gather here to listen to largely identical speeches read by one official or another from Berlin, none of whom appear to be there voluntarily.

Hines always sat closest to the exit, usually the last row, and if someone was already there, he moved to a seat next to the aisle.For the sixth time he entered the oppressive hall, Anton Sokolov sat with his notebook open in his lap.He's wearing another gray tie, his coat is thrown over the back of his chair, and he's wearing an ugly felt hat that needs to cover the cut in the back of his head, Hynes thought.Anton turned sideways, his eyes fell on Hines, "Good morning."

Hines nodded.A Frenchman he had met several times walked in with an unlit cigarette and sat in the front row.Anton raised his voice slightly, as if on purpose to let the people around him hear him.

"They're going to adjust coal export quotas, I guess you've heard."

He didn't. "certainly."

The speaker tapped on the microphone, which screeched and everyone frowned.The conversation ended naturally, without talking about the weather or "nice to see you're alive" after all, they had never set foot in Lebanon on any official record.What are people supposed to say to a Soviet guy who gently threatens to execute you like a sick horse?Coal export quotas, apparently.

By lunchtime, people were fleeing as quickly as they were fleeing an airstrike.They walked down the hallway side by side, asking each other's opinion about the restaurant, and it wasn't until they were far enough away from the other diplomatic animals that they shook hands, parried a few polite words, and walked in opposite directions.