It was unusual but not unwelcome to hear my door buzzer sound. Unusual since it was Sunday evening. Not unwelcome because I had become somewhat of a recluse since my wife’s, Teresa’s, passing from cancer ten years ago and the independence of Adam and Grace, our children, who had moved out to enter the rat race some years ago and long enough for aloneness, if not loneliness, to take a hold. A visitor would not be unwelcome provided one of those loopy groupies that haunt our general practitioners’ clinics for weekly consults hadn’t tracked me down to my private residence. Mind you, we weren’t the only profession to suffer that hazard. I was hoping my caller was Ted, a neighbour of similar aloneness disposition, popping in for an early nightcap. I abandoned my reading of the latest medical journal to check the security monitor.
Four figures filled the screen: three males in suits and a female who gave away the group’s identity since she was in a police-style uniform, but I could tell it didn’t belong to the local Western Australian constabulary.
It is a parent’s nightmare to discover police at the door when one has dependents, especially should they be teens who are out and about at the time. I dismissed that concern since I had just been on the blower to both Adam and Grace and they were safely ensconced in their respective residences.
The visitors introduced themselves as members of the Australian Federal Police, Perth Office. “Good evening sir, are you Dr. Paul Siska?’ Nothing came to mind that might concern my being graced with the Feds’ presence so I had to presume this must concern a patient. I let them in and we settled around the dining table.
Fleeting pleasantries done, the Inspector, Barnes, says he wants to show me some photos, “Please tell us if you recognize any of the people in these pictures.”
The first showed a short, slight male walking from a vehicle with a house in the background. “No” I said. The next was the same man shaking hands with another male of Caucasian appearance with strong Slavic features in front of, presumably, his own car with the same house in the background. Again, “No”. Several more pictures of the two were put in front of me from varying angles and distances to which I gave the same answer. The uniformed constable Trudy something-or-other chimed in. “Doctor Siska, I’m going to need to see your computer and phone, please.” Not without a warrant, I replied. Trudy retorts, “As you may know, sir, such requirements are waived under martial law”.
I couldn’t argue with that. We were at war, after all, since Uncle Sam had declared as much following the death of one of its senators in Ukraine: a death they decided was an assassination at the hands of the Russians and matters had escalated from there. Like a faithful poodle, Australia had followed suit four months ago with our own declaration. Although conflict had not reached our shores, laws and regulations had changed and the citizenry was on tenterhooks, but not so much over a possible missile strike or invasion by the new alliance of Axis powers, namely from China. No, the immediate concerns were the effect on food, energy and fuel supplies and, critically, EMP attacks on all communications and vital infrastructure. We had already had interruptions to the internet as well as blackouts. Ordinance attacks can only do so much but enough effective EMP attacks on the electricity grid mean wholesale slow deaths. I handed the constable my laptop and phone, both opened, and she went to work in my lounge room.
The pictures kept coming but nothing rang a bell and I was dumbfounded as to the reason that they might concern me, particularly since I had noted that the two vehicles shown in the pictures appeared to have Victorian number plates, and I had very few contacts or friends in that distant state from which I had migrated in my teens.
“What about the house in these photos? Do you recognize it?” inquired the Inspector’s offsider, a sergeant of considerable size. I replied in the negative and added, “Should I?”
“I believe so, doctor, since you own it. Am I correct?” My silent reaction was an ‘Uh, oh’. It was possible that I might be the owner since I had built a tidy nest egg for an early retirement by purchasing a number of houses around the country. What were the chances?
I had pigeon-holed my intruders by this time. Barnes in charge and running the conversation; the bulky sergeant on hand in case I misbehaved; Constable Trudy the I.T. expert; and the mysterious third man whose name and title I had not taken in but, judging by the way his eyes never left my face – except to glance at my hands – I took to be a psychotherapist or some such who might detect nervousness or deception in an interviewee.
I asked for the address. He gave it to me. “Inspector,” I said, ” I own investment rentals around the country. I don’t know the specific addresses of any of them; I think fifteen or so. My agent takes care of it all. I receive a statement monthly with income, expenses, and that’s it. That said, the house in your photos you say is in Kew, Victoria, and I do vaguely recall a purchase in Kew that my agent made some years ago, but I have never seen it and have no idea if that particular house is in my name”. I breathed a sigh of relief, internally, thinking that this had nothing to do with me. How wrong I was.
Then a photo presented to me showed a woman at the front door of the house in question next to Mr. Slavic-Features. Then came a close-up of her face. My stomach butterflies went to war and I froze without, I hoped, giving away my shock.
.. ******************* ..
It is the widely accepted psycho-social zeitgeist that a seven year old is incapable of falling in love outside of filial, fraternal and puppy love, but I did. I fell in love at seven years old with the woman in the photo, and had never fallen out of it.
Anna Denisov stole my heart in grade three. I had met her first at the Russian Club since that is where her parents socialized and my own father, although Polish by ancestry, liked to attend along with one or two East Europeans with whom he had become friends. Some of those who attended regularly were immigrants but most were first or second generation Australian. Not only did Anna and I interact there, but we went to the same school; not for long, however, as I was sent off to a boys’ only school from grade four onwards. There was a long lull in our encounters which did not dampen my feelings for her which took a romantic turn in our mid teens. I began to make sure I went to church at the same time as her family even though we lived in different parishes. That offered the opportunity to talk to her afterwards and suggest a game of tennis or trip to the beach or movie matinee with a few friends whom we had in common. Thus, our regular meetings in our teens became Sunday afternoon social tennis matches but soon we sought to play alone. One thing followed another and we took in the occasional movie, also unchaperoned, as her father awaited our return on his porch, like the Russian equivalent of a doge. Although our “dates” were infrequent, my attachment to her grew stronger in both mind and body with every contact.
I was certain that Anna never showed an interest in a rival suitor , thanks to an ‘insider’ friend’s information but, due to our rather strict overseers, we were under the influence of Orthodox and Roman mores of behaviour respectively, and had little latitude in dating at the age of sixteen. Too, I was not totally certain of her own feelings towards me. Was I a temporary suitor until she had more freedom? I wasn’t going to know, I thought, because my father was transferred to Perth. All we could do to maintain our relationship was to write – snail mail style.
Nature took its course and I eventually made new friends in the foreign city and began dating. Nature again: dating was motivated by the search for a lover, a wife and future mother of a family. In the uncertain future prospects with Anna and the likelihood that she would not be amenable to moving across the country, my new romance developed with Teresa as my manhood flowered and flowered a little too much, as I shall confess shortly. I was in love with two women. The pathos was not that I made the wrong choice, but that I had to make a choice at all.
Out of the blue, a year into my relationship with Teresa, I received a surprise phone call from Anna. She was here. In my town. A group of fellow uni students had come to Perth to study some fauna that was unique to this part of the world. We arranged to meet on the two evenings which she had free. At those meetings, to truncate the story, Anna declared that I was the only one who had ever been special to her. She wanted me to move to Victoria and I wanted her to stay here. In the stalemate, we agreed to communicate after she returned home, during which time I would try to sort out my predicament. It turned out that the predicament was already solved. Two months later, Teresa announced that she was ten weeks pregnant which committed me to marriage and fatherhood. I was left with the anguish of breaking the news to Anna and we both cried into our phones. And, that was that, until Inspector Barnes showed me a photo of the woman standing at the door of a house which, apparently, she and her husband [Mr. High-Cheek-Bones-Strong-Jaw] were renting from me. The passage of twenty five years had in no way dimmed her beauty nor her stately stature, but remained a visage that threatened to destroy my composure.
In my voluminous reading, I had once read of a case where a man had jumped from the tenth floor of an apartment block just as a man on the fourth floor accidently discharged his rifle through his own window. The falling suicidal fellow was shot and killed before landing on the ground. Coincidences, believe them or not, happen. Now I was involved in a freakish and seemingly double coincidence: seeing my never-forgotten love in a random photo, and knowing that she was living in a house that I owned.
.. ======================== ..
I could sense the eyes of the three police scanning my reactions as I feigned detachment. “Is there something wrong, doctor?” inquired mystery man.
“Paul, call me Paul. No nothing wrong. I’m just a little surprised by the coincidence that I own that house. Can you tell me what you’re investigating that might implicate me?”
“I’ll just consult with the my constable first, if you’ll excuse me?” said Barnes.
I was left with Larry and Mo and small talk. I was wondering if, in their investigations, they had found the student roll from our grade three class and discovered that Anna and I were in the same class. Then there were the phone calls but, what they didn’t know was that I had a burner phone for private – very private – calls, along with another laptop. Yes, I was security and privacy conscious and had employed a little technical subterfuge involving fake identities, VPN’s and the like. Obviously, I didn’t know if it would make any difference should they find a commonality between Anna and I but I’d prefer that they didn’t. The fact that Anna’s father was Russian and my attendance at the Russian Club – should they discover that – may well be information they were privy to already. Should they find a connection between Anna and I then their investigation might well take a lengthy and adversarial turn. What if Anna’s husband was Russian himself which was likely since many of her friends were garnered from that environment and the man in the photos did have Slavic features? I was becoming anxious, more for Anna since I was not a participant in any nefarious activities. I was certain that Anna would not be involved in espionage nor turn traitor to the country we both loved but the Russian element was common to us both and Russia was enemy at this point.
Barnes returned. “That’s all clear, Paul. All I can say is that we are holding the two males in the photos for questioning having been charged with espionage related offences and are presently secured at His Majesty’s pleasure. We have evidence that this man, Belarusian by birth [he pointed to Anna’s husband] who holds a managerial position in an electricity supply company has been selling designs and protocols of his company to foreign agents. EMP attacks from the Chinese are our greatest threat at this time. Our visit here tonight is simply to tie up loose ends for their imminent court case. It appears that you genuinely have no knowledge integral to the investigation, pending a consult with the agent who manages your investments, so we may be in touch in the future but likely and hopefully we won’t trouble you again”.
“The, uh, woman in the photos, is she implicated?” I couldn’t help asking. Couldn’t help it be damned, I was in fact desperate to know.
“No,” he replied. “The woman is the wife of this fellow,” he said, pointing at the photo, “and they were estranged and awaiting their divorce. It was she who tipped off our Melbourne AFP office as to certain nefarious activities her husband was involved in. You will read the details in next week’s press. Why do you ask?”
I shrugged as nonchalantly as possible. “No reason.” [Apart from the fact that I love her and miss her like mad and she lives in my house where traitorous activities have been carried out and she is of Russian stock and I thought you might put her in an internment centre if you know that and ………… ]. My mind was racing. I did have another question: “It seems rather strange that, if this chap holds a managerial position, why is he renting rather than living in his own home?” Barnes thought my question was insightful and replied that he had been transferred from Sydney so was renting temporarily. I had more questions, lots more, but I couldn’t show my hand with undue interest, so they left my home and left questions unanswered.
I am overjoyed to report a happy ending to my strange incident. I called my agent, informed him of the visit by the AFP, and requested that he back up my position of ignorance relating to my investment houses. I was being deceptive, of course, and he knew it but promised co-operation. Firing up my private laptop which held, in fact, every conceivable detail about the properties which I owned, I brought up the contact numbers of the owners of the house in Kew and retrieved my untraceable mobile phone.
I rang Anna.
NAMNOW 