Thoughts of the icon agitated me.
I pulled out my phone and called Bj?rnar, who answered just as I was about to tap the red button with my finger.
“Good morning,” I said. “You do exist!”
“Yes.” He yawned. “Just barely.”
“How’s it going?”
“The way it usually goes when you’re solo-parenting three kids and are busy at work.”
“Yeah.”
He yawned again and then asked, “How are you?”
“Fine. It’s a little weird here. I wonder if I have a fever.”
“Mm.”
“Well, I just wanted to say hi. Make sure you weren’t just a dream.”
“Nope, I’m real.”
“No news on the house?”
I regretted it as soon as I heard the words slip out of my mouth.
“The agent thinks we should consider taking it off the market.”
“Oh?”
“So it comes up higher in the searches. There’s no interest in it, not even from reptiles.”
“Replicants.”
“What?”
“You meant replicants.”
“Anyway, nothing’s happening. We’re probably going to have to be prepared to own two houses.”
“Don’t say that!”
“I’m trying to be a little realistic.”
“I know.”
“We can talk about it when you get back. I have to hang up in a sec if I’m going to manage to get us all out of here on time. I have an early meeting.”
“Say hi for me,” I said flatly.
I looked at the canal and thought about gulags.
25
When I got back to the hotel, breakfast had just been served, and I sat down at a table conveniently positioned right behind a gigantic palm, but with a view of the lobby. Ivan turned up a few minutes later. He stood at the entrance to the breakfast room and looked around, but didn’t see me.
I was nowhere. I was invisible.
Right up until I wasn’t.
Pretty Putin bowed slightly, without saying anything.
“Hungry?” I held my plate up to him.
“I already had breakfast,” he said.
“Lucky you. It’s not that good.”
He nodded disinterestedly.
“I don’t know if the others are up yet,” I said, “but Ivan was just here, if you’re looking for him? He was wandering around in the lobby.”
He looked tiredly up at the ceiling.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“To me?”
He nodded and pulled up a chair.
“What about?”
“About the purpose of your visit.”
“Oh?”
I began to break out in a cold sweat. Truth be told, I had no idea what the purpose was beyond general descriptions like cooperation, internationalization, and synergistic potential. After Ivan’s crazy tour of the university, I had assumed that no one else had any idea, either, that everyone was just pretending.
I cursed the Voight-Kampff test.
I cleared my throat.
“The purpose of the visit is to negotiate the terms of a cooperative agreement.”
“With whom?”
“Saint Petersburg State University.”
“With what intentions?”
“Intentions?”
I took a sip of my coffee.
“Internationalization.”
“Internationalization?”
I nodded.
“For students?”
“Bilateral ties at all levels.”
“A broad exchange agreement then?”
“Innovation. Synergy. Professional lock-in. Mobility.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I see.”
“Do you?”
He nodded.
“I have to go now. Ivan and Irina will be here soon to pick you three up so that you can photograph the Neva. I understand that your colleague with the cowboy hat really wanted to see it.”
“It’s not a cowboy hat,” I said. “It’s an urban bowler.”
“Why does he have it?”
“He’s cold.”
“But he bought it in America?”
“I doubt that. I bet he bought it in Hounslow.”
“Where?”
“Hounslow.”
“Can you spell that?”
He jotted down the name on a small notepad, bowed slightly, and disappeared into the lobby.
I counted slowly to sixty, then stormed out the same way and took the stairs three at a time up to Peter’s room, where I pounded on the door until he opened it.
“Where did you put it?” I asked, forcing my way into his room.
“Put what?”
“The icon!”
“It’s still in the bag.”
I ran over to the table he pointed to and found the icon with a sad mix of half-melted chocolate.
“You can’t store it like this! Look, you got chocolate on it.”
I got a hand towel and started rubbing away the brown spots.
“I just talked to Pretty Putin.”
“Who?”
“Artemis! He suspects us. I’m convinced. Oh, and we’re going to go see the Neva with Ivan and Irina. They’re definitely going to search our rooms while we’re gone. We have to hide the icon somewhere they’ll never find it.”
“Go right ahead,” Peter said and laughed hysterically.
“Why are you laughing?”
“I have faith in you. You’ve got this.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t like Artemis being so involved. If only we had duct tape!”
“I have duct tape.”
“You do?”
“Of course. I never travel without it.”
I considered asking what kind of travel he usually did but had no time to lose, so I started wrapping toilet paper around the icon and then stuck the little bundle into an empty pillowcase. I wrapped that in newspaper and used most of a roll of duct tape sealing it.
“Aren’t you overdoing it a little now?”
“You can thank me when we’re sitting on the plane home,” I said, and thrust the icon and the duct tape under my jacket. “If anyone asks you, say you vaguely remember someone showing you a picture when we were in the dean’s office, but you weren’t really paying that much attention. You know nothing. Nothing! Got it?”
I swung the door shut on my way out and hurried down the hall as if I had a plan. In reality, I had no idea what my next move should be.