Free Document Z by Andrew Croome Page B

lovers. He had a beginning and a middle, now he was looking for things to go wrong. It had to be a case of fate conspiring, only he was stuck, couldn’t think. His ideas were somewhere else, possibly ahead or behind him, which was why he had coffee brewing and why he was wearing a fez.
    The doorbell rang. Lydia Mokras in a raincoat: Ta da! ‘Hello, Doctor,’ she said.
    Bialoguski wondered how she’d found where he lived, but guessed it wasn’t an A-1 secret. His first reaction to women alone on his doorstep was to get his doctor’s case. Instead, they sat together on the couch. Lydia had a smile that wouldn’t disappear.
    â€˜You have a beautiful flat,’ she said, studying a page of score.
    â€˜Is it raining outside?’
    â€˜Hmmm?’
    â€˜Your coat.’
    â€˜I wanted something dark.’
    She was more blonde than he remembered. Small hands and smaller shoes. Under her coat was a blouse so drab it was definitely Russian. He pictured them lovemaking, her wearing nothing but the blouse, on the Poynters’ U-shaped lounge.
    â€˜I am here to invite you to dinner,’ she said. ‘Myself and Vladimir Petrov at the Adria Café.’
    First she was Lydia Mokras with connections in Russian intelligence; now she was Lydia Mokras, Soviet embassy go-between. She removed her coat. On the blouse, just over her left breast, was a large white flower, crepe paper and plastic.
    Turn the dinner down, he told himself. As if I can take it or leave it. As if eating with spies is a bore.
    â€˜That would be delightful.’
    She was pleased. He decided her head was fishbowl-round, and got up to put a record on the gramophone. When he came back, she was pointing a camera at him.
    â€˜Happy birthday,’ she said.
    â€˜Oh?’
    â€˜It’s a gift.’
    â€˜What is it?’
    â€˜A 35mm Russian Leica.’
    He took it from her to inspect. She was not lying. The camera’s top plate was crystal clear: ‘Manufactured Kharkov, NKVD.’
    â€˜It’s not my birthday.’
    â€˜Who says?’
    The coffee pot was howling. He stood with the Leica to his eye, peering down the finder.
    She wanted to photograph military installations. Okay. They drove to Beacon Hill. Bialoguski felt somewhat invincible, thinking about a surprise arrest and an overnight stay in a holding cell. To their captors he’d bark on about his rights. Away from Lydia, he’d dress down some shithead military policeman for disrupting a Security operation.
    She loaded the camera on her lap with her knees showing. He thought it no accident; that was the kind of effect he had on women, at least those who were slightly unhooked. The landscape was prickly. Hard rocks sprouting grass. Some construction was happening: fibro cottages or their empty shells, earth-moving machines with their dirt-pulling teeth. The radar station was on the hilltop. Bialoguski thought it looked like the conning tower of a battleship. There’d be men inside, scopers, short-sighted operators with caffeine addictions and polished hair. He wondered at what point he should stop the car; or did spies just drive right up?
    LOOK OUT. NEXT LEFT.
    They pulled into a flat picnic area right below the target. He slammed the door hard, like a fearless tourist admiring the ten-mile view. Lydia wasted no time pointing the Leica. Snap. She had him stand with the station in the background. Snap, snap. He took the camera from her and they did the reverse. Snap. Nothing happened, but then what did they expect? They walked obliquely from the lookout, circumnavigating the hilltop. They tried to project the idea that they were an ordinary Sunday couple. Lydia took him by the arm.
    â€˜Let’s drive to Mascot,’ she said. They did. Snap.
    â€˜There’s a US warship in the harbour,’ she said. There was. Snap.
    They needed fuel. She insisted on giving him money, reimbursement for his costs. The afternoon was