The Squire Quartet. Brian Aldiss

‘Now we must look at the Castle.’

      They walked past the tourist stalls. Out of habit, Squire stopped and bought some postcards. He would send a card to Teresa, damn her, and to Deirdre, and possibly one to Willie and Madge in their new home. Rugorsky stood solidly by his shoulder, breathing hard, bored by the transaction. Squire also bought some little toy Sicilian carts for souvenirs, and tucked them in his jacket pocket.

      Surrounding the cathedral was a maze of mean streets, through which Rugorsky led confidently. The alleyways were full of people, some selling vegetables, sentimental religious baubles, or toys. Sunshine blazed through an archway; they went towards it, emerging in a small square behind the cathedral. Ahead was the Castle of Nontreale.

      The great stone walls of the Castle, tufted with fern here and there, were fringed by white Fiats, nestling together round the ramparts like fleas round a cat’s ear. The Castle had withstood many attacks throughout the ages, before eventually succumbing to the internal combustion engine. Although it lay more or less in ruins, and the lizards flickering over its hot stonework were its chief occupants, its two great towers remained intact, looking towards the distant sea.

      The towers faced northwards, the direction from which all invaders had come. Nontreale was poised on the brink of a great basalt core of rock which loomed above the plain as it had done ever since prehistoric times. Its Castle stood on the very edge of the precipice, with the road far below, then – below the labouring road – plain, studded with vines and villas, across which the shadow of the eminence was flung.

      A narrow and crumbling path, fringed with wild flowers at which butterflies sipped before fluttering away into the abyss, led round the base of the northern wall and the two towers. ‘Let’s go that way,’ Rugorsky said, pointing.

      ‘It’s only a goat track,’ Squire said.

      ‘We get a good view. Come on.’ He gripped Squire’s arm and led him forward.

      It seemed to Squire that they would have enjoyed a better view from the top of one of the towers, but he followed the Russian. It felt cold as they entered the shadow of the fortress.

      The chill entered Squire. As they moved forward with their right hands steadying themselves against the rough wall, he found himself dwelling uneasily on Howard Parker-Smith’s early morning call. Parker-Smith had more information concerning Vasili Rugorsky. Rugorsky was in trouble back in Leningrad.

      ‘He’s been embezzling public funds,’ Parker-Smith said. ‘All these Russians involve themselves in graft as they rise in the hierarchy – it’s a disease. The authorities probably allowed him a visa to Sicily so that they could turn everything over while he’s away. I guess there’s not a shred of paper left in his office by now. They’ll bag him when he gets home again.’

      ‘How do you know this?’

      ‘Same way Rugorsky now knows it,’ Parker-Smith said. ‘A friendly colleague of his at Leningrad University got the word to him yesterday via the grapevine. We tapped the grapevine.’

      ‘What happens next?’

      ‘Depends. The friendly colleague may stand to gain if Rugorsky does a bunk. His friendly message may not be so friendly. Keep your eye on Rugorsky. One thing’s for sure – he’s in a spot. We must see which way the cat will jump.’ He rang off.

      The path became narrower. Rugorsky went forward more slowly. A little roll of fat at the back of his neck glistened, and the ends of his white hair were dark with sweat. Far below them, a bus laboured up the road they had come, the sound of its engine frail in the still air. Below the road were tiny trees, shrubs, fields, roofs, stretching all the way to the distant sea, where a peninsula of rock pointed its finger towards Italy.

      Squire thought, ‘All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.’

      Rugorsky turned round, steadying himself against the wall of the Castle. His eyes were narrowed; he was a man in the grip of a strong emotion. He reached forward and grasped Squire’s arm.

      ‘You were in Yugoslavia in 1948…’

      Immediately, a blaze of images was released in Squire’s mind. Once again Slatko died on the floor of an Istran farmhouse, even as he himself plunged into the precipice. Rugorsky was sent in belated vengeance for that ancient killing; by killing Squire he would acquire enough virtue to cancel out the embezzlement charges awaiting him in the USSR. Sometimes the figure falling was not he, but Rugorsky, or some more mythical figure, falling into a plumbless gulf.

      He slipped and regained his balance, leaning with his back against the ancient stonework. The alarming images faded. He and Rugorsky stared at each other, ringed by wall and blue sky.

      ‘Come,’ Rugorsky said. ‘We’re safe here.’

      ‘Safe …?’

      ‘No person in the world can hear what we speak. As I wrote in my letter, we talk together like men.’ He shuffled nearer.

      ‘Keep your distance, Vasili. You were going to push me off the cliff. What’s this you say about Yugoslavia?’

      ‘So in your heart you really believe we are all murderers and criminals after all? You think I’d be so naughty? It’s not so. Maybe I can convince you of it, you see. For you and I have met once before. More than once. Twice. When we first spoke at the conference, I reminded you that we had met previously, with Leslie Lippard-Milne and his pretty wife, in front of Richard Hamilton’s picture at the Tate Gallery, yes? You had forgotten the occasion, because you are slightly an egotist, I believe, and so do not easily recollect other people. It’s just a slight punishment. But – I knew I had set eyes on you previously.’ He paused, adding with distinct emotion, ‘Many many years ago, Thomas, when you and I were young men, and much more inclined to push people off cliffs than we are now – then I saw you. I had a good look at you. It was in a region of Yugoslavia called Istra.’

      Hearing the thickness of his own voice, Squire asked, ‘What were you doing in Istra?’

      With a gleam of his self-mocking humour, Rugorsky said, ‘What do Russians do anywhere abroad except foment trouble? My government had something against me, and so I was sent abroad to work on their behalf. I was being punished for writing a silly satirical poem about our beloved late leader, Comrade Stalin.’

      ‘“Winter Celebration”.’

      ‘You are properly informed in our literature. My poem circulated in samizdat. When the authorities caught up with it, they were not amused. They are never amused. So after some training I was sent to Belgrade, where I became – I suppose you would say a gundog for a very important KGB high official who had the codename Slatko. The word is Serbian for “sweetness”. You remember that name, I am sure.’

      ‘I remember,’ Squire said. ‘Slatko …’

      ‘You see, it was important to our Comrade Leader that all socialist countries should appear in agreement before the outside world. Just to have this one little country, Yugoslavia, disagreeing was bad for his sleep every night. Yugoslavia must be crushed. Therefore this evil man Slatko was sent in, with orders direct from Stalin. It was easy to send him in secretly, and many others like him.’

      ‘And you?’

      ‘Slatko was not sweet. He had many murders to his credit. He had especially the ambition to kill Tito, so he proceeded very cautiously. But he was also a drunken sot and, one spring morning in Istra, when he had hit the bottle and his actions were slow … well, Thomas, you drove up at the place where he was hiding, and by good fortune you managed to shoot him. It was the luck of the beginner, as we say.’

      Squire imitated the Russian in giving his face a mop. ‘That’s thirty years ago.’

      ‘Do we ever forget such moments of our youth? Time’s nothing.’

      He gestured out towards the sea. ‘Here we are, almost in a similar situation, you might say. Here I stand, speaking with the man who assassinated the evil Slatko. I am proud.’

      He