The Power(74)

There are infinite numbers of people to meet. Ambassadors and local dignitaries, business owners and leaders of new movements. This party – coming so soon after their defeat in the Battle of the Dniester – is meant to shore up support for Tatiana both at home and abroad. And the presence of Mother Eve is part of that. Tatiana gives a speech about the heart-rending cruelty done by the regimes of the North and the freedom she and her people are fighting for. They listen to the stories of women who join together in small bands to seek Our Lady’s vengeance on those who have escaped human justice.

Tatiana is moved almost to tears. She asks one of the smartly dressed young men standing behind her to bring drinks for these brave women. He nods, backs away, almost tripping over his feet, and heads upstairs. While they wait, Tatiana tells one of her long-winded jokes. It is about a woman who wishes she could combine her favourite three men into one man, and then a good witch comes to visit her –

The young blond man bounds in front of her with the bottle.

‘Was it this one, Madam?’

Tatiana looks at him. She tips her head to one side.

The young man swallows. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘Did I tell you to speak?’ she says.

He drops his eyes to the floor.

‘Just like a man,’ she says. ‘Does not know how to be silent, thinks we always want to hear what he has to say, always talking talking talking, interrupting his betters.’

The young man looks like he’s about to say something, but thinks better of it.

‘Needs to be taught some manners,’ says one of the women standing behind Allie, one of those who run the group seeking justice for old crimes.

Tatiana plucks the bottle of brandy from the young man’s hands. Holds it in front of his face. The liquid sloshing inside is dark amber, oily like caramel.

‘This bottle is worth more than you,’ she says. ‘A glass of this is worth more than you.’

She holds the bottle in one hand by the neck. Swirls the liquid around once, twice, three times.

She drops it on to the floor. The glass smashes. The liquid starts to soak into the wood, staining it darker. The smell is strong and sweet.

‘Lick it up,’ she says.

The young man looks down at the shattered bottle. There are glass fragments among the brandy. He looks round at the watching faces. He kneels down and begins to tongue the floor, delicately, working his way around the pieces of glass.

One of the older women calls out, ‘Get your face into it!’

Allie watches in silence.

The voice says: What. The fuck.

Allie says in her heart: She is actually crazy. Should I say something?

The voice says: Anything you say will diminish your power here.

Allie says: So what, then? What is any of my power worth if I can’t use it here?

The voice says: Remember what Tatiana says. We don’t have to ask what they’d do if they were in control. We’ve seen it already. It’s worse than this.

Allie clears her throat.

The young man’s mouth has blood at the lip.

Tatiana starts to laugh. ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ she says. ‘Get a broom and mop it up. You’re repulsive.’

The young man scrabbles to his feet. The crystal glasses are filled with champagne again. The music can once more be heard.

‘Can you believe he did it?’ says Tatiana after he’s run off to fetch a broom.





Roxy



It’s a boring fucking party is what it is. And it’s not that she doesn’t like Tatiana, she does. Tatiana’s let them get on with business over the past year since she took over from Bernie, and anyone who lets you get on with business is all right by Roxy.

Still, you’d think she could throw a better party than this. Someone had told her that Tatiana Moskalev went around this castle with her own blooming pet leopard on a chain. That’s the disappointment Roxy can’t really get over. Plenty of nice glasses, fine; plenty of gold chairs, all right. No blooming leopard anywhere.

The President seems to have only the dimmest understanding of who Roxy is at all. She goes and does the line-up to shake hands, the woman with the heavy mascara and the green-and-gold eyes says hello and you are one of the fine businesspeople who is making this country the greatest on earth and the most free, without a shadow of recognition crossing her face. Roxy thinks she’s drunk. She wants to go: Don’t you know, I’m the woman shifting five hundred kilos across your borders every day? Every day. I’m the one who’s got you in trouble with the UN, although we all know they won’t do a fucking thing, just send some more observing forces or whatnot. Don’t you know?

Roxy necks some more of the champagne. She has a look out of the windows at the darkening mountains. She doesn’t even hear Mother Eve approaching her until the woman is at her elbow. Eve’s spooky like that – tiny and wiry and so quiet she could walk across a room and stick a knife between your ribs before you even knew it.

Mother Eve says: ‘The defeat in the North has made Tatiana … unpredictable.’

‘Yeah? It’s made it bloody unpredictable for me, too, I can tell you. Suppliers are nervy as fuck. Five of my drivers have quit. They’re all saying the war’s going to push south.’

‘Do you remember what we did at the convent? With the waterfall?’