Page 158 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

nobody had need of me. I watched my mother dashing to and fro muttering into

a walkie-talkie and my dad and Odette striding about with their thumbs tucked
into the vacant loops in their tool belts. Had I missed my chance? As I ran
through my savings I decided to work on developing ambition at the same time
as amusing myself. I stole expensive items and in the moment of acquisition
found that I didn’t want to keep them and couldn’t be bothered to sell them. I
returned them before anybody noticed they were gone. The trickiest and most
pleasing endeavor (also the endeavor that required going up to London and

applying the most detailed makeup and speaking with a Viennese accent that
was perfect down to the pronunciation of the very last syllable) was the theft and
fuss-free return of a diamond necklace from Tiffany’s on Old Bond Street. I
almost didn’t put the necklace back, but Aisha didn’t like it and I couldn’t think
of anybody else to give the thing to. The diamonds looked muddy. Upon stealing

the necklace my first impulse was to give it a good wipe.
—

THERE’S A SHORT film of Aisha’s I watched more than a few times during this
period. It’s called Deadly Beige, is set in Cold War–era St. Petersburg, and
relates the dual destruction of the mental health of a middle-aged brother and
sister. The siblings share a house and are both long-standing party members,

employed as writers of propaganda. One night they receive notification from
Moscow that it’s time for them to do their bit toward helping keep the party
strong. They are to do this by raising subtle suspicion among their fellow party
members that they, the brother and sister, are in fact spies and observing the
investigation into their activities at the same time as doing their genuine best to
thwart this investigation. Discussion of this “exploratory exercise” is prohibited,

so the siblings are unable to discern whether their St. Petersburg colleagues are
aware of this exercise. Neither do they have the faintest idea who to report back
to in Moscow. The letter they received was stamped with an authentic, and thus
unrefusable, official seal, but was unsigned. This letter is delivered to them very
late at night—the sister takes it from the trembling hand of a man who is then
shot by a sniper as he walks away from their front door. The siblings then hear
further shots at varying heights and distances that suggest the sniper has also

been shot, followed by the sniper’s sniper. There can be no doubt that
disobedience would be stupid. So would half-hearted obedience: If the brother
and sister fail to perform their tasks satisfactorily they will receive
“reprimands”—what does that mean, what is this suggestion of plural