2

"You didn't tell me, why from Istanbul?" I asked Pavel, as we seated ourselves at the bar of the Airport Vnukovo, relatively small and much less crowded than the other Moscow air terminals. It received mostly charter and special flights. In the recent Soviet past here came high guests from abroad, and it still had such recollections. Retired secret agents and body guards came here every now and then just for the pleasure of recalling the old glorious days when there wasn't minimal danger of getting shot, the world was safe and just…

"I did tell you. I don't know. They must be coming back from a business trip."

"What do you know at all? You're the chief of the information service, the file you gave could be taken from the Internet, I've got almost nothing to go on".

Pavel sighs and says nothing. He's used to my grumbling, he knows well that too little information only adds to the excitement of the task, it must be like climbing on a steep wall of a cliff when you don't know if your next peg will hold you or you're going to plunge to your maiming or death. Of course, it would be better if there were pegs driven beforehand, so you could mount in safety, but that'd be boring, and boredom in our profession can be fateful too. The adrenaline stores are depleting, the lack of information is a good thing to whip one up. But for how long?

Playing by ear is ok, it gives you a sense of living a real life, not just repeating the lines written by someone else, but it leaves me afterwards so exhausted, as if I'd lived months instead of those few days that lasted my new relation. Something like actors' profession, but much more intense. Looking back at my service love affairs, I sometimes have the impression of recalling my dreams which were more real than my everyday routine. My long habit of pointless reflections is getting worse. I must do something to fight it. Yet I know that it would be a vain struggle, like fighting the vices of smoking or drinking.

I'm looking at Pavel bent over his ice-cream. We have been working together almost three years, and I still can't say I know him well. And I don't want to. I have lived enough to understand that any information you receive firsthand is almost always false, any indirect evidence is much more reliable, but in my case there's nobody I could turn to in order to learn something definite. And I preferred not to. I was too tired of what I got from every new life experience to want more. It's not boredom, it's fatigue. So, why am I grumbling? Because the pegs driven beforehand seem safer, aren't they?

The cellphone in Pavel's pocket buzzed, he took it out and listened, said 'ok', clicked off and said, hastily finishing his ice cream:

"They landed, let's go."

"Is this his family jet?" I asked as we made for the exit.

"I don't think so. Just a private jet."

"I bet you won't recognize her", he said suddenly.

"How do you know? Have you seen her lately?"

"No, these are mere speculations. She's intelligent, must be ambitious, and, like any woman, not entirely hopeless in sexual life. Do you remember Karamazov father's observation that even in the ugliest vieille fille one can find spice and thrill, or something like that? She could be the case, more than any other woman. There can be in her an immense store of passion and fire, still untouched and waiting for the right man."

I made a grimace:

"Don't be ridiculous. She is, most likely, a bluestocking. Let's hope she's not a lesbian."

"That must be no problem for you," he said with a slight mock in his voice.

I knew what Pavel was referring to. I felt my face blushing. It happened a year and a half ago, when an important businesswoman came with her assistant. Both were good-looking, the boss was even more pretty, and I had to choose between them, as I couldn't stay with them both together (at least that would have been the first case in my experience, and I didn't know if it would have been any good in a triangle, the final mission was becoming hazy in the pleasurable and spicy ménage à trois). At the second serious approach it turned out that they were lesbian. I shrank in horror and dismay, but the day after the assistant came to my room and let me understand that she wouldn't mind having an affair with me provided she had the leading role. "There's a lot of femininity in you", she said, stroking my cheek and ear as if assessing a future pleasure, "you must be gentle and sweet, yes, I like this part of you very much. We shall see the rest in bed." In bed I was so overwhelmed by new sensations and a fear of not coping with my new role that I flopped as a spy. "Sweet and gentle" were two key concepts I learned on that occasion, and, frankly, I wasn't sure it would be sufficient in other similar cases, if there was similarity in such cases at all.

"Heroic acts can't be a profession", I said, "they destroy your health."

"Every now and then, why not? At least, it's refreshing."

He cast me a sly glance and said:

"Anyhow, today you'll make a reconnaissance, tomorrow the first assault, and..."

"Stop it", I interrupted him. "You'll bring me bad luck".

"Impossible, with your looks. What have you got there, in your gaze and all? They stay put like rabbits before a boa. I've seen it so many times."

He was right. There was some sort of magnetism going out of my eyes that enchanted most women, from the very first time they saw me. How I did it, I didn't know, but the effect was always astounding.

They were always hypnotized hard as they tried to withstand.

It was an unpleasant feeling. I could never see a point in having as much power as you can have. It is about the sadistic pleasure of commanding people to do what they wouldn't want to do if they had a choice. When it comes to struggle for power (political or administrative) I can't help thinking that it always has to do with struggle of sadists for the possibility of inflicting torture to other people, even if it's a torture in a more o less subtle form. In an elementary example of administrative power, when the boss tells his secretary to make him a cup of coffee, the secretary would do something more pleasurable than bringing her boss the coffee, like varnishing her nails. There's always a sadistic pleasure in every act of command, from the above-mentioned innocent example to an outright humiliation of commanding one to get down on his knees o to pull down his pants.

But it was different (at least it seemed so to me) when physical attraction (often mistakenly called love at first sight) came in. I wasn't a sadist, and I didn't feel any pleasure when I saw a person completely captivated by my magnetism and ready to fulfill any my desire, I was mostly embarrassed, and ready to do anything to free the person from the enchantment, even at the expense of love itself, always with a painful feeling because killing love is like killing a living person.

Pavel's voice interrupted my musings:

"Here we are. They must appear from over there."

I was prepared for the worst, but life rewarded my secret and vague expectation of some positive surprise.

They made, at a distance, a strangely beautiful couple. She wore an elegant hat that covered good part of her face, especially when she bent down her head, and a classical blue tailleur that fitted well her figure you coudn't define as slim, but neither plump as was my first impression looking at the picture.

The man at her side was a distinguished person wearing an elegant suit. His pace was light and springy, his features chiseled, but without liveliness, perhaps with some exaggeration, as if he were a mannequin who came out from a shop window for a walk. At a closer look such impression turned out false because of the incredibly vivid eyes with laughing sparkles in them. The long dark lashes gave them a romantic depth. I felt a pang in my heart as I figured Lena's first meeting with the man. She had seen his picture all right but no picture could render that magnetic flow out of his eyes. It occurred to me that perhaps my eyes, too, had the same effect. We belonged to the same category of bloody damned women charmers guilty of measureless happiness and subsequent unhappiness of all women who came our way.

They were exchanging some words as she noticed us. Pavel held a sign with the name of Mr Hewlett on it. I waved to them.

As I was introducing myself and Pavel, I kept an attentive eye on Mary's appearance without looking at her. She could be defined, at first sight, at least unattractive for sure, her eyes were small, with a gloomy light in them, they made an unpleasant impression when they gave you a staring look. Her figure and legs were heavy. Only her nose was a bright spot in a rather dark picture. But what can you do with a tiny nose? It was, perhaps, a spot to rest your eyes after the difficult contact with the other parts of her face.

Hewlett said a rather strange phrase as he shook my hand:

"It's good there's no official person to meet me. The less we're conspicuous the better".

"Mary Kilgorn", she said without giving her hand. "You may call me Mary, if you like." Her voice somehow didn't match her appearance, it was thin and melodious and would have suited more a slim girl with a long hair and big blue eyes. It occurred to me that such a voice could be a relief in some tricky situations, with one's eyes closed... Like an experienced artist or craftsman I made an overall evaluation of the material I had to work with and had to recognize the great difficulty of the task.