The Redbreast

60

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 27 April 2000.

Bernt Brandhaug's long and varied experience with women had taught him that on the rare occasions he decided that there was a woman he not only wanted but had to have, it was for one of the following four reasons: she was more beautiful than all the others; she satisfied him sexually more than any others; she made him feel more of a man than any others; or, more crucially, she wanted someone else.

Brandhaug had realised that Rakel Fauke was that type of woman.

He had rung her one January day under the pretext of needing an assessment of the new military attache" at the Russian embassy in Oslo. She had told him that she could send a memo, but he had insisted on a face-to-face report. Since it was Friday afternoon, he had suggested meeting over a glass of beer at the bar in the Continental. That was how he had found out that she was a single parent. In fact, she had turned down the invitation, saying she had to pick up her son from the nursery, and he had brightly asked, 'I assume a woman of your generation has a man to take care of such things?'

Although she didn't give a direct answer he had intuited from her response that there was not a man on the scene.

When he rang off he was generally pleased with his gains, even though he was mildly irritated that he had said your generation and thus emphasised the age difference between them.

The next thing he did was to ring Kurt Meirik and discreetly pump him for information about Ms Fauke. The fact that he was less than discreet and Meirik smelled a rat didn't bother him in the slightest.

Meirik was his usual, well-informed self. Rakel had worked as an interpreter in Brandhaug's own department for two years at the Norwegian embassy in Moscow. She had married a Russian, a young professor of gene technology who had taken her by storm and had immediately converted theory into practice by making her pregnant. However, the professor had been born with a gene that predisposed him to alcoholism, combined with a predilection for physical discussion, and so their wedded bliss was brief. Rakel Fauke had not repeated the mistake of many in her sisterhood: she didn't wait, forgive or try to understand; she marched right out of the door with Oleg in her arms the second the first blow fell. Her husband and his relatively influential family had appealed for custody of Oleg, and had it not been for her diplomatic immunity she would not have succeeded in leaving Russia with her son.

As Meirik was telling him that the husband had taken out a lawsuit against her, Brandhaug vaguely recalled a summons issued by a Russian court passing through his in-tray. But she had only been an interpreter at that time and he had delegated the whole business, without making a mental note of her name. When Meirik mentioned that the custody suit was still being chewed over by the Russian and Norwegian authorities, Brandhaug abruptly broke off the conversation and rang down to the legal department.

The next call, to Rakel, was an invitation to dinner, no pretext this time, and upon her friendly but firm refusal he dictated a letter addressed to her, signed by the head of the legal department. The letter, in brief outline, told her that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since the business had dragged on, was now attempting to reach a compromise solution with the Russian authorities on custody 'out of humane consideration for Oleg's Russian family'. That would require Rakel and Oleg to appear before a Russian court and comply with the court's ruling.

Four days later Rakel phoned Brandhaug and asked to meet him concerning a private matter. He answered that he was busy, which was true, and asked if the meeting could be postponed for a couple of weeks. When, with a hint of shrillness behind her courteous professional tones, she begged him for a meeting as soon as possible, he discovered, after lengthy reflection, that Friday at six at the bar in the Continental was the only option. Once there, he ordered gin and tonic as she elucidated her problem with what he could only assume was a mother's biologically determined desperation. He nodded gravely, did his utmost to express his sympathy with his eyes and was finally emboldened to place a fatherly, protective hand over hers. She stiffened, but he went on as if nothing had happened, telling her that unfortunately he was not in a position to overrule a department head's decisions. Naturally, though, he would do whatever was in his power to prevent her having to appear before the Russian court. He also stressed that, bearing in mind the political influence of her ex-husband's family, he fully shared her concern that the Russian court's ruling might go against her. He sat there, staring spellbound into her tear-filled brown eyes, and it seemed to him that he had never seen anything to surpass her beauty. Nevertheless, when he suggested extending the evening to include dinner in the restaurant, she thanked him and declined. The rest of the evening, spent in the company of a glass of whisky and pay-TV, was an anticlimax.

The next morning Brandhaug called the Russian ambassador, explaining that the Norwegian Foreign Ministry had had an internal discussion about Oleg Fauke-Gosev's custody case. Would he send him an update on the Russian authorities' wishes in the matter? The ambassador had never heard of the case, but promised to accede to the Foreign Office head's request and also to send the letter in the form of an urgent summons. The letter in which the Russians requested Rakel and Oleg to appear before a Russian court arrived a week later. Brandhaug immediately sent a copy to the head of the legal department and one to Rakel Fauke. This time her phone call came one day later. After listening to her Brandhaug said that it would be contrary to his diplomatic code of behaviour to try to influence the matter, and in any case it was injudicious of them to discuss this on the telephone.

'As you know, I don't have any children myself,' he said. 'But from the way you describe Oleg he sounds like a wonderful boy.'

'If you had met him, you would -' she began.

'That shouldn't be a problem. By chance I saw in the correspondence that you live in Holmenkollveien, and that is only a stone's throw from Nordberg.'

He noticed the hesitation at the quiet end of the telephone line, but he felt the momentum was with him.

'Shall we say nine o'clock tomorrow evening?' A long pause ensued before she answered. 'No six-year-old is up at nine o'clock.'

So they agreed on six o'clock instead. Oleg had brown eyes like his mother and was a well-behaved boy. However, it annoyed Brandhaug that the mother would not drop the topic of the court summons or send Oleg to bed. Yes, one might almost suspect that she was keeping the boy there on the sofa as a hostage. And he did not like the boy staring at him either. Brandhaug knew, ultimately, that Rome was not going to be built in a day, but he still tried as he stood on the step to go. He looked deep into her eyes and said, 'You are not only a beautiful woman, Rakel, you are also a very brave person. I would just like you to know that I hold you in great esteem.'

He wasn't sure how he was to interpret her expression, but he took the risk anyway and leaned forward to plant a kiss on her cheek. Her reaction was ambivalent. The mouth smiled and she thanked him for the compliment, but her eyes were cold as she added, 'I apologise for keeping you so long, herr Brandhaug. Your wife must be waiting.'

His invitation had been so unambiguous that he decided to give her a few days to reflect, but no telephone call came from Rakel Fauke. On the other hand, unexpectedly, a letter from the Russian embassy did come, requesting an answer, and Brandhaug realised that his enquiry had breathed new life into the Oleg Fauke-Gosev case. Regrettable, but now it had happened he saw no reason not to exploit the opportunity. He immediately rang Rakel in POT and acquainted her with the latest developments in the case.

Some weeks later he found himself once more in the timbered house in Holmenkollveien, which was larger and even darker than his own. Their own. This time after bedtime. She seemed a lot more relaxed in his company than before. Furthermore, he had manoeuvred the conversation on to a more personal track, which meant that it did not appear altogether too obtrusive when he mentioned how platonic the relationship between him and his wife had become and how important it was to forget the brain occasionally and listen to your body and your heart. Then the doorbell rang, providing an unwelcome interruption. Rakel went out to answer it and returned with a tall man with a close-shaven head and bloodshot eyes. She introduced him as a colleague from POT. Brandhaug had definitely heard the name before, he just couldn't remember when and in what context. He took an immediate dislike to everything about him. He disliked the interruption, the fact that the man was drunk and that he sat down on the sofa and stared at him, like Oleg, without uttering a word. But what he disliked most was the change in Rakel, who brightened up, ran to make coffee and laughed with abandon at this man's cryptic monosyllable answers as if they contained brilliant flashes of wit. And there was genuine concern in her voice when she refused to allow him to drive his own car home. The only redeeming feature Brandhaug could discern in the man was that he suddenly went on his way and immediately afterwards they heard his car starting up, which might of course mean that he would have the decency to kill himself. The damage he had done to the atmosphere was irreparable, however, and not long afterwards Brandhaug was sitting in his own car on his way home. It was then that his old hypothesis came back to him-there are four possible causes for men deciding that they have to possess a woman. And the most crucial one is that you know she desires someone else.

When he rang Kurt Meirik the following day to ask who the tall, fair-haired policeman was, he was initially very surprised, then he started to laugh. Because it was the very person he had promoted and deployed in POT. An irony of fate, naturally, but fate is also on occasion subject to the counsel of the Royal Norwegian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. When Brandhaug put down the receiver, he was already in better spirits. He strode through the corridors to the next meeting, whistling on his way, and reached the conference room in under seventy seconds.