The Eyes of Lira Kazan (17 page)

When Nwankwo and Baïna had come back from the hospital after the accident, Ezima had been on the doorstep. She had hugged her daughter, but not for long. She had pushed Nwankwo out of the house, banging her fists against his chest, taking no notice of the children, the neighbours or the two policemen who were escorting them. She screamed that he was no longer a father or a husband, he was just a madman. He let her scream for a moment and then grabbed her wrists firmly and in silence, just to calm her down. Ima had watched, without crying.

The tears had come when it was time to say goodbye to her father and get into a police car which was going to take them to a cousin she didn't know in London. Ima thought about her doll's house with its miniature plates on the table,
the miniature flowery pillowcases on the bed, the miniature version of happiness inside, and then she cried. Leaving that behind, that was why she was crying, whatever the others might say. They didn't realize that she was a big girl now, and that she had kept quiet for weeks. They still thought she hadn't stopped crying since leaving Lagos, climbing down that ladder at the port. The fact was they needed her to be crying – she had to cry for everybody.

Nwankwo gave a great sigh; the air he breathed in seemed to scorch his lungs. He was burning up inside. It was better that they should go. He hadn't known what to say, he had just tried to express himself with his hands, big hands made to hold children. Baïna was fine, that was what mattered, but that was no argument, she could have died that day. So could he of course, but that was in the nature of things, to be expected almost.

 

The next day Nwankwo found the two protection officers waiting outside his door. He knew how to live with this type of escort. They weren't planning to keep it up for long – he wasn't an official person, just a teacher living in exile. He greeted them and walked along to the criminology department. There, amid the excitement of a new term starting, people turned to look at him, and it was clear from the lowered eyes and the over-sympathetic greetings that news of the attack had spread. He was told in the secretary's office that he could have three weeks' leave. He replied that he didn't need it, that he was keen to start work, but they eventually made it clear that it would be necessary for the students' safety as well. He set off down the corridors in search of Bolton to tell him that he wouldn't stay any longer. He could have his house back to himself again. He didn't want to expose anyone else to any danger. As he approached the staffroom he overheard an excited conversation between three lecturers about the previous day's incident.

“Fancy having cops in the classroom!”

“And for someone like him! In the end he's no safer here than back at home!”

“The students will be thrilled.”

“And we're going to look like fools with our comparative-criminality courses.”

“Old fools you mean. We can't compete with a teacher who's been shot at the day before with his little girl on the back seat.”

“Especially as we're all beyond the school-run stage of life.”

Nwankwo wrote a note for Bolton, left it at the reception desk and fetched his car again. He drove to London, his escorts still with him. He was secretly hoping for a message from Helen, thinking that perhaps news of the attack would calm her fury, but she didn't call. Two hours later, he was at the hospital. In the corridor he could hear shouts coming from Lira's room. He recognized one of them as Dmitry. He was speaking Russian, and laying down the law. There was a woman too, waiting outside. She seemed to be hesitating about going in. Nwankwo slowed down. Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea.

“Mr Ganbo?” the woman said.

“Yes.”

“I'm Charlotte MacKennedy. I'm a friend of Lira's. I work at the
Guardian
.”

“Oh yes, I read your piece, in fact I'm here thanks to you.”

“Well it's thanks to me that she went to see you. I suggested it. I had heard about your arrival in Oxford.”

“I sent her packing,” Nwankwo admitted, lowering his head. “What's happening? Does he want her to go home?”

“Yes he's organized her repatriation for tomorrow. The doctor has signed a release. But she doesn't want to go.”

The door opened and Dmitry appeared. When he saw Nwankwo he seemed to freeze. He hesitated and then came over.

“If you've got the slightest affection or respect for her, you'd do well not to give her any bad ideas.”

“She's strong – much too strong to let herself be influenced.”

“What matters today isn't whether she's strong or weak, it's whether she lives or dies!”

He turned on his heels. Charlotte and Nwankwo watched him go without reproaching him. They shared his sense of powerlessness. They went into the room. Lira seemed to be expecting them. She sat on the edge of the bed, with her legs dangling a few inches off the ground. Even those few inches seemed to give her vertigo, and that vertigo had become the justification for looking after her, for things to be decided for her by a husband she had left years earlier, in the offices of an embassy which regarded her as an enemy.

She moved her head, said no and again no. If she had been dead anyone could have taken her body, even those who had intended to kill her. But she was alive, very much alive, and was still capable of deciding about what would happen to her. She felt herself to be a dead weight, not just to herself but to others; everything was dark inside her as well as outside – in her head, her mouth, words came out with difficulty as though afraid to be heard. It was all so painful, but in the end she forced herself to say:

“Could anyone have me to stay for a while, just to give me time to get organized?”

“There's room in my house,” Nwankwo said at once.

He added:

“But I must warn you, it won't be particularly safe. I've got a few killers after me too.”

Lira knew nothing about the attempted murder of the day before and she didn't ask any questions. She was delighted – a decision had been taken, a risky one certainly, but her own. As agreed, when Dmitry came back that afternoon, she kept quiet. And when he reminded her of the timetable for the following day, eleven o'clock departure by ambulance for the airport and a two o'clock flight to St Petersburg, she continued to protest, but weakly. He became gentler, and
seemed to believe that she had resigned herself to her fate. After all, what choice did she have now? He had hardly left when Charlotte reappeared. She had brought some clothes for Lira. She helped her get dressed, insisting on tying a scarf around her head. Lira laughed softly.

“There's nothing to worry about! They think I'm going to catch their wretched plane tomorrow? What on earth are you making me look like?”

“Marianne Faithfull escaping from her fans, thirty years ago!”

There was hardly anything to take with them from the room, just the medicines and lotions prescribed by the doctor. Lira had no possessions of her own. Then they left, saying goodbye to the nurse, who assumed everything was in order since the release had been signed. Lira felt Charlotte's arm trembling with fear. Nwankwo was waiting in the car park. He opened the door. Lira lingered for a moment; it was so long since she had felt fresh air on her face. Charlotte hugged her before she got in:

“I wish I could have done more,” she said.

“Don't worry, this will be fine.” Nwankwo closed the car door.

“Charlotte, thank you for everything, I'll keep you posted. Don't call me. I'll ring.”

And they set off. In his rear-view mirror now there were two policemen whose job it was to protect him. They would protect her too, he thought.

He would write her a note, but since Lira could no longer read, it would have to be one that could be read out to her, not saying too much… Félix approached the entrance to University College Hospital, where he had read that she was, wondering how he would get past the barriers in order to speak to her. His reflection in the glass doors still seemed to wobble: Mark had dragged him to a nightclub the evening before. It had been one of those wild noisy bars, full of men, with alcoves for assignations between people escaping from their conventional daytime existence. They had got home at dawn, still far from sober. At least the hospital's reply had been clear: Lira Kazan was no longer there, the woman said, not even looking at the file. Félix only had one card left: the journalist who had written the article. “Kings Place, 90 York Way,” he told the taxi driver.

“Charlotte MacKennedy? She's not available,” the receptionist said. She was a tiny, heavily made-up girl sitting in the middle of a huge, light-filled hall with
The Guardian – The Observer
etched in giant letters on the glass partitions. She hadn't said Charlotte was absent, so Félix indicated that he would wait. He stood around, pretending to be interested in the photographs exhibited in the entrance, and the television screens from which world events seemed to spew like volcanic lava – they were the only indication that this was a place that dealt in news and current affairs. Otherwise this clean, modern, smooth building could have been that of any random insurance company. A tide of journalists came in and out, talking fast. Félix remembered his adolescent years listening to the BBC with gratitude. Nothing escaped him. He stood there for an hour, maybe two, feeling that he
had become invisible. A man and a woman came down the escalator, arguing.

“We can't print that statement!” she said.

“We're cornered,” he answered.

“It's a pack of lies!”

“Rassmussen is dangerous, Charlotte, he won't let go. And I don't want to have to pay damages and costs to Louchsky.”

Rassmussen, Louchsky, Charlotte! The winning combination! The words he heard made Félix wonder if he might still be under the effect of the hallucinogenic drugs of the night before.

 

The two figures left the building. Félix fell in behind them. They were walking fast, Charlotte in very high heels. Félix could no longer hear what they were saying, and waited for them to separate, but they went into a restaurant together. It was lunchtime. Félix chose not to follow them in, but bought a sandwich and a newspaper and settled on a bench within sight of the restaurant door. He felt like a private detective on an assignment. He hardly looked up at this development surrounded by water. The canal and the boats reminded him of a barge that he had seen in a documentary on television about the City of London: a priest on board heard confessions during the lunch hour. Traders could be forgiven for all the harm they had done to the world in the time it took to eat a sandwich. It was a pity they couldn't tape the confessions, Félix thought, as Linda Stephensen's shrink had done. That would have been a fascinating research project all right – hearing about the complexes of those who dealt in everything and nothing. He sometimes remembered what she had said; it came to him in entire sentences, nothing that advanced the inquiry, just enough to glimpse the chaos of a muddled life:

 

 

Félix wouldn't have liked Linda Stephensen alive, but now she was dead he was becoming rather fond of her.

Finally the couple reappeared and went their separate ways. Charlotte MacKennedy took out her mobile. This wasn't the moment to approach her. She went into a supermarket. Odd, that habit women have of always wanting to do some shopping just after lunch. In the household aisle she picked up soap, face cream, shampoo, cotton wool, hairbands and a hairbrush. She was filling up a basket – she seemed to be re-equipping her entire bathroom. Félix was just about to go up to her, but hesitated, trying to order what he wanted to say to her. Now she went to the underwear section. He might start looking suspicious if he began hovering around alone among the knickers. She chose plain cotton ones, some white and some black, without lace. Félix thought she would have worn more exotic lingerie, which would have gone better with her painted nails and high-heeled shoes. He grabbed some aftershave and stood behind her at the checkout. It was his last chance – she would be out in the street, on the telephone again and back in the office if he didn't speak now. “Excuse me, miss, I need to speak to you about Lira Kazan. It's urgent, I've got something for her.”

She stiffened. “Who are you?”

“I'm not dangerous, please let me speak to you.”

 

Charlotte's purchases were already past the cash desk. Félix stared at them rather than at the journalist who was trying to get away. He paid for his aftershave as she closed her bags. She looked at him. “Who are you?” she asked again. He explained what his job was, told her about the investigation and what had brought him here; he showed her his pass for
the law court, and she relaxed a little and agreed to have a quick cup of coffee with him, just next door.

There, leaning over the table so he wouldn't have to talk too loud, she listened to him recounting the details of the Nice affair, how Louchsky's name kept reappearing and how he had stumbled on Lira's articles on the Internet. In return she told him about how she had met Lira long ago in St Petersburg during an earlier investigation, and how she had been to see her in hospital when she had heard about the attack.

“And you haven't had any more news of her?”

“No,” she lied. “Just a demand for a right of reply from Louchsky's lawyer, who thought my piece was full of libellous insinuations…”

“Rassmussen.”

“Do you know him?”