suppose my prickliness is the result of spending too much time alone. Jelena is right. Damn her, she’s almost always right, and isn’tshy about bringing up her stellar record as often as possible. Anyway, I’m no good with people, at least not in my private life.”
“What about Jelena?”
She gave him a small, wintry smile. “Jelena isn’t a friend, she’s like a sister or a priest who, despite her sharp tongue, chooses to hear my confession without judging me. And therein lies the other, better reason not to acquire friends. It’s not what you do that is your life, it’s what others think you’ve done, or not done, whatever the case. In this way, the truth becomes a lie, and eventually the lie takes on a life of its own, independent of you. Do you see how you lose control of your own life, because without quite knowing how it’s happened you’ve become what other people think you are.”
A shaft of light from the headlights of a moving vehicle outside on the tarmac briefly spotlighted Annika’s face. She was really quite a striking woman, even when she was in full-bore diesel mode, but more so now when her lips had relaxed into their natural shape and a bit of color had returned to her cheeks.
“Being in the secret service plays a role in that, don’t you think?” Jack said. “It erodes your sense of yourself. You become what your handlers want you to be, the lies you need to tell to accomplish your mission become the truth, and soon enough you lose the ability to tell the one from the other, you don’t know any other way to act or react.”
“You know about this difficulty.” Her face clouded over with renewed suspicion. “I thought you said you weren’t an agent.”
“I’m not, but I know a number of people who are, and they all say the same thing. Well, if they don’t admit to it I can see it in how they act.”
For the first time since they had met in the bar, she showed a spark of genuine interest. “But in my case, the damage had been done long before I ever came to the FSB.”
“Your father?” he guessed.
“A variation on a theme perpetrated over and over on women.” She pulled a cigarette out of the handbag she’d managed to pluck off the muck of the alley, but then remembering where she was, she dropped it back into the bag. She frowned. “My brother and I shared a bedroom, not so very uncommon in this country. From the time I was twelve, my brother raped me, night after night, with a hunting knife at my throat. When he was finished, while he was still on me, while he was still in me, he said, ‘If you tell anyone I’ll slit your throat.’ And then, to make his threat tangible, he nicked a place on my body, made me taste my own blood. ‘So that you never forget to hold your tongue,’ he said. Every night for eighteen months he cut me afterward, as if I were an imbecile who couldn’t learn.”
The turbines moved to a higher pitch, the thrumming and vibration in the cabin becoming more noticeable, but Jack could see that the movable stairs were still in place. His attention returned to Annika. There wasn’t a hint of self-pity in her voice.
“Where is he now?” Jack said.
“My brother? In hell, I trust. Not that I have the slightest interest in finding out. I’m not a victim.”
She said this last with a good deal of force, almost venom. Not that Jack could blame her, but in this he suspected she was wrong, because her brother’s words—“
If you tell anyone I’ll slit your throat
”—whispered into her ear night after night had acted like a physician’s evil tincture, poisoning her against keeping anyone close, anyone who could protect her, who could hurt him or interfere with his heinous activities. So she kept her own counsel, closed herself off from anyone who could help her—“
I’ll slit your throat
”—so in that sense she had succumbed to her brother, she was still his victim. Her strength, which was both prodigious and multifaceted, was all
“What about Jelena?”
She gave him a small, wintry smile. “Jelena isn’t a friend, she’s like a sister or a priest who, despite her sharp tongue, chooses to hear my confession without judging me. And therein lies the other, better reason not to acquire friends. It’s not what you do that is your life, it’s what others think you’ve done, or not done, whatever the case. In this way, the truth becomes a lie, and eventually the lie takes on a life of its own, independent of you. Do you see how you lose control of your own life, because without quite knowing how it’s happened you’ve become what other people think you are.”
A shaft of light from the headlights of a moving vehicle outside on the tarmac briefly spotlighted Annika’s face. She was really quite a striking woman, even when she was in full-bore diesel mode, but more so now when her lips had relaxed into their natural shape and a bit of color had returned to her cheeks.
“Being in the secret service plays a role in that, don’t you think?” Jack said. “It erodes your sense of yourself. You become what your handlers want you to be, the lies you need to tell to accomplish your mission become the truth, and soon enough you lose the ability to tell the one from the other, you don’t know any other way to act or react.”
“You know about this difficulty.” Her face clouded over with renewed suspicion. “I thought you said you weren’t an agent.”
“I’m not, but I know a number of people who are, and they all say the same thing. Well, if they don’t admit to it I can see it in how they act.”
For the first time since they had met in the bar, she showed a spark of genuine interest. “But in my case, the damage had been done long before I ever came to the FSB.”
“Your father?” he guessed.
“A variation on a theme perpetrated over and over on women.” She pulled a cigarette out of the handbag she’d managed to pluck off the muck of the alley, but then remembering where she was, she dropped it back into the bag. She frowned. “My brother and I shared a bedroom, not so very uncommon in this country. From the time I was twelve, my brother raped me, night after night, with a hunting knife at my throat. When he was finished, while he was still on me, while he was still in me, he said, ‘If you tell anyone I’ll slit your throat.’ And then, to make his threat tangible, he nicked a place on my body, made me taste my own blood. ‘So that you never forget to hold your tongue,’ he said. Every night for eighteen months he cut me afterward, as if I were an imbecile who couldn’t learn.”
The turbines moved to a higher pitch, the thrumming and vibration in the cabin becoming more noticeable, but Jack could see that the movable stairs were still in place. His attention returned to Annika. There wasn’t a hint of self-pity in her voice.
“Where is he now?” Jack said.
“My brother? In hell, I trust. Not that I have the slightest interest in finding out. I’m not a victim.”
She said this last with a good deal of force, almost venom. Not that Jack could blame her, but in this he suspected she was wrong, because her brother’s words—“
If you tell anyone I’ll slit your throat
”—whispered into her ear night after night had acted like a physician’s evil tincture, poisoning her against keeping anyone close, anyone who could protect her, who could hurt him or interfere with his heinous activities. So she kept her own counsel, closed herself off from anyone who could help her—“
I’ll slit your throat
”—so in that sense she had succumbed to her brother, she was still his victim. Her strength, which was both prodigious and multifaceted, was all
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