Archangel Page 18

  'I didn't cry . . . I begged nothing of them,' he whispered.

  'Then you have beaten them.'

  Holly managed a bitter smile. Blood ribbons sailed on his cheeks.

  'I won't wait twenty years, Mikk.'

  'Why do you tell me?'

  'Because I look for help.'

  'What help?'

  'I have to know everything that has been tried . . . everything that has failed, everything that has succeeded.'

  'There are many who say it is impossible.'

  'You're not one of those.'

  'For a certain man it is possible. In my time there have been a few . . . for a few escape is possible.'

  Because they spoke so quietly, whispered in each other's ears, they heard the sound of the woman sobbing. A damaged sound muffled by brickwork, but for all that the noise of a woman who was sobbing.

  -

  He had worked late and because the contents of the file still played irrationally in his mind, Yuri Rudakov was not ready to go home to his bungalow and his wife. He went to the Officers' Mess in the hope that a brandy, or two, or three, would relax him. He would need something to calm him before he faced Elena and the newest bitching criticism that she had for his return.

  As he came through the door he knew that the Commandant was drunk.

  Kypov stood with his back to the stove, telling a story, and his collar clasps were unfastened and a twist of hair draped over his forehead.

  The story died on the Commandant's lips.

  The young officers shuffled in guilt around Major Kypov.

  Nobody slackened his guard when the KGB officer was present, nobody allowed alcohol to talk when the KGB

  officer listened.

  Rudakov went to the bar, asked the mess steward for a brandy, signed the docket, took his glass to a table, selected a magazine and sat down. Silence hung like a shroud on the room.

  'Where have you been, Rudakov, working . . . ?' Kypov shouted across the carpet. A voice of slurred treacle. 'Working or holding a coffee-party .. . ?'

  There was a titter from one of the younger officers.

  Rudakov stared at the printed page.

  'Our Comrade from the Organ of State Security likes to entertain his prisoners to coffee-parties, but they are not always grateful.. .'

  Rudakov snapped shut the magazine, reached for his glass. The men around Kypov backed away, rats on a ship's hawser.

  'Have no fear, Comrade, he'll not do it again. He's learned. He'll not give any more cheek.. . not to you, not to me, not to anyone.'

  Rudakov stood up.

  'How will he have learned?'

  No movement in the Mess. The eyes of the watchers ranged from Rudakov, erect and ice-cold, to Kypov whose hand was against the wall beside the stove-pipe as if he needed support.

  'The boot and the stick, that's how he's learned. The boot in the balls, the stick on the shoulder. . .' Kypov giggled, steadied himself.

  'You put the boot into Michael Holly? You're a stupid bastard, Major Kypov. More stupid than 1 could have imagined.'

  The door slammed on Rudakov's back.

  The room emptied. Those who a few minutes before had been happy to surround the Commandant now slipped from his company. Behind the bar the mess steward found work for himself in polishing glasses.

  He was alone. What had happened? In a fortnight what had happened in his camp? The camp that had been a model of management and efficiency. The bastard thing had fallen on his head in one fortnight. His office had been burned, his garrison incapacitated. There had been reinforcement platoons and the indignity of an interrogation squad in his compound. The KGB officer had sworn at him in the full hearing of his officers.

  Kypov slumped to a chair.

  The mess steward without bidding brought him a brandy and a glass of beer to chase it.

  Michael Holly and Mikk Laas sat on the floor with their backs against the far wall from the door.

  Beyond the wall the woman cried, in fear and isolation.

  Mikk Laas had said that it was always harder for the women. Long into the night, while the woman wept in a cell that backed onto theirs, Mikk Laas talked of escape and Michael Holly listened. Holly bled the experience of the old man.

  '. . . The escaper is not a man who is loved in the camp.

  Each time that he attempts the breakout, whether he succeeds or fails, he makes the life harder for those who have not been involved. On the morning of a breakout the camp is consumed with excitement, everyone waits to discover his fate - then the penalties come. For that reason when the escaper returns he has no friends. He is a sullen man, the escaper. Between each attempt he is haunted by the fear of failure. He prowls looking for a weakness in their defences, in their wire. When he smiles, it is because he believes that he has found again the hole through which he will crawl. The desire to escape becomes obsessional. He thinks of nothing except the height of the wire, the pattern of the guard changes, the thoroughness of the counting and the checking, the identity of the 'stoolies'. If it is not an obsession he has no chance of success. There was one of our people who was an escaper — Georgi Pavlovich Tenno - he tried to break out of Lubyanka as soon as he was arrested, then from Lefortovo when waiting for the trial, then from the Stolypin as he was taken to the East, then from the lorry that took him from the station to the camp . . . every attempt failed. It was said that he marvelled at the thoroughness of the guards' procedure. He was intelligent, an officer, yet he failed. There is another kind of escaper, a suicide. He knows that he will not break clear of them, that they will catch him and kill him. In the philosophy of the camp that is honourable. There are some - not the suicides -

  who will try to recruit a fellow prisoner, others who swear that the escaper must be alone. There is no right answer. If there are two men perhaps they can feed from each other, give each other strength. But there is a saying in the camps -

  only fools help other people. Occasionally, very occasionally, there has been a mass escape, all out and everyone out.

  Once, in the Stalin time when the camps bulged, a whole compound went; they walked in a snow storm over the drift that covered the wire . . . I am tired, Michael Holly, you have four more days with me. In that time I will tell you what I know, all that I know . . . '

  Behind the wall a woman still cried.

  'Thank you, Mikk Laas.'

  'You listen well, Michael Holly.'

  'I have the best of teachers.'

  Holly rubbed the back of his hand in affection across the Estonian's jaw.

  'And you have hope, and that woman believes she has nothing.'

  'Have you ever cried, Mikk Laas?'

  'Only when no one could hear me.'

  'What could you say to her?'

  'That they should not hear you cry. If they hear you then they are satisfied.'

  Holly struggled to his feet. It was the first time that he had stood since the warders had brought him back to his cell from the workshop and stiffness bit in his knees and hip.

  There was weakness in his legs, and he pushed himself up with a hand that rested on Mikk Laas's shoulder. When he was upright he leaned on his hands and felt the damp of the walls.

  'Don't cry,' Holly shouted. His voice boomed around.

  'Don't show them you are afraid. Don't please them with your tears.'

  Silence.

  It was as if Holly was alone in the punishment block. He sank down to his knees, and in front of his eyes were the scratches and messages of zeks who had gone before him.

  'What is your name?' Holly called.

  A small voice, the cry of a bird carried on the wind from past the line of a hill top.

  'My name is Morozova . . .'

  Holly heard the advance of the warder along the corridor.

  There would be an eye at the spy hole. He rolled onto his side and remembered a small face trapped between the swathe of a scarf and the peak of a cap.

  He did not hear the crying again that night, and when he called
in the morning he was not answered.

  Chapter 13

  All the officers of the Zone had gathered in the Mess for breakfast. Only the young and unmarried would normally have taken their first meal in the Mess; those who had bungalows and quarters in the village would have eaten away. But word of last night's cat fight between Commandant and Political Officer had spread with speed from man to man. They must both appear at breakfast in the Mess, not to show would be to admit humiliation. And every man who had the rank to gain access to the Mess had made it his business to play the part of witness. Not every day that a Major of paratroops was raging drunk and personally supervising the beating of prisoners - not every'day that a Captain of KGB felt secure enough in his position to abuse his senior in the full hearing of company.

  The Deputy Commander, the Adjutant, the guards' platoon commanders, the supervisory officers of the warders, the officer in charge of camp maintenance, the officer who oversaw camp provisions and factory materials, they were all there. They waited in a strung-out line around the central table on which was stacked bread and cereal and the coffee-pot on its candle heater.

  Major Vasily Kypov strode through the door. No fool, this man. He could recognize the craving for drama. He nodded brusquely to the four corners, and seemed to curl his lip as if in disappointment that one man was not yet present.

  He poured his coffee, elbowed away the steward who tried to offer him a cereal bowl. He wore his best uniform and the medal ribbons blinked in the dull room. Dressed as for a parade. There was a defiance about the old goat, the Deputy Commander thought, something that was not pretty but assuredly brave. Kypov held the centre ground and watched the door.

  Captain Yuri Rudakov came into the Mess before his Commandant had drained that first cup of coffee. A great silence about him as he eased the door shut. Something blatant about the watchers now. They devoured him. Rudakov had taken to his uniform, and his boots were cleaned and his cap was worn jauntily. Rudakov ignored the food, took only coffee. He hesitated for a moment inside the circle beside the table, then seemed to stiffen and walked straight towards Vasily Kypov. Collectively the watchers bit at their breath, craned to listen.

  'Good morning, Commandant... I think we'll be spared more snow today . . . '

  'I didn't hear the radio . . . we can do without snow.'

  They spoke with a brittle politeness. Two men who share the same lover and have met at a party.

  'I have my uniform back from the cleaners.' Rudakov smiled thinly.

  'Put the charge on expenses. . . ' Kypov felt he had m?de a joke, that the ice wall would soon crack.

  'This once I will do t h a t . . . it won't be stained again.'

  'Of course.'

  'I was working late last night.'

  'After . . . after you came into the Mess?'

  'Yes. I was drafting a report of my interrogation of Michael Holly. I was going to send the report, now I have decided not to.'

  'No?'

  'I have decided that there should be no interim report. I 185

  will submit a report to Moscow when the interrogation is completed.'

  'I am sure you have made the right decision.' The relief sighed in Kypov's mouth.

  'I hope so,' Rudakov said quietly, in Moscow they put great store on this interrogation.'

  'A good decision.'

  'Last night I wrote a draft of what would have been an interim report, but I've consigned it to my safe. If the interrogation is as successful as I hope, then the interim report will become irrelevant.'

  'I wish you luck with your interrogation.'

  Rudakov looked around him. He was aware of the rampant disappointment of those who had overheard him.

  'Thank you for your encouragement, Commandant.'

  Rudakov offered his hand, Kypov accepted. The Commandant cuffed the Political Officer on the shoulder, the Political Officer smiled at the Commandant. There had been a public quarrel, there was now a public friendship.

  But the Commandant knew who had won.

  A draft report snuggled in the safe of the Captain of K G B, a report that would tell of gross interference by the camp Commandant in the legitimate investigations of Yuri Rudakov, a report that if it went to Lubyanka and headquarters would spring the trap of removal and premature retirement.

  He felt the straps around him that would confine for all time his independence from his Political Officer.

  if you will excuse me, Commandant.'

  'Of course . . . I hope you are correct in your forecast. . .

  about the snow . . .'

  Rudakov turned his back on the vulture eyes and hurried out of the Mess. Those bastards would still be rotting in the camp long after Yuri Rudakov had returned to Moscow or been posted to Washington or had taken a trusted place in Berlin. Rudakov was temporary, Rudakov was going through, Rudakov was on his way and the Dubrovlag was a diversion on that journey. Rudakov was singled out for something better than the zek scum of a Correctional Labour Colony. Yet his ride out of the reach of Barashevo's claws was not certain. Michael Holly was the means.

  He needed the confession of the Englishman. He needed his back to climb over.

  He walked past the lines of prisoners drawn up for the roll-call. He saw the passive faces, the worn uniforms salvaged by shades of patchwork. He trod a path where the pack snow merged with the ochre dirt of the compound's sand. He went along the high wire and the high wooden wall and through the vague shadow of a watch-tower. He came to the main gate where two sentries stood with machine-pistols slung across their chests. He saw the dogs that waited beside their handlers ready to escort the prison column from the compound to the Factory zone. And he wondered. Was there not another way? That the camps had been filled by the purges of the Thirties was now explained by the Stalinist cult of personality. That the camps had been filled in the years after the Great Patriotic War was explained by the power of Lavrenti Beria, now executed. That the camps had been filled in the latter days of Krushchev had been explained by the incompetence of that First Secretary. But why were the camps still filled? Why, under the benevolence of Brezhnev, had they not found another way? It was a brief thought, and he trembled because it had shadowed across his mind.

  They said a million men and women were held in the camps.

  He shook the aberration from his head, and the wind whipped at him, the gusts caught at him, and through his greatcoat he shivered.

  He had not known that thought before.

  Rudakov took Michael Holly from the work cell of the SHIzo block and escorted him back to his office. He saw the way the man limped, the way he had tucked his wrist between the buttons of his tunic for support, the spectacular bruises. As they went past the zeks there was a growl of reaction to the hobbling, bowed prisoner.

  Holly scraped a smile to his face.

  It hurt to lift his free arm, but he managed a half-wave.

  He saw Chernayev and Poshekhonov, thought he could recognize Feldstein in the back lines. He heard the few shouts of support that merged with the yelled orders for quiet and the calling of the names.

  He had found friends.

  It required a beating on the floor of the SHIzo cell to find friends, it took a mug of coffee thrown into the face of authority to discover comrades. And when he went back to his cell in the evening Mikk Laas would be waiting.

  He followed Rudakov into the Administration building and he closed the door of Rudakov's office behind them. He saw the stain of coffee on the wall beyond the swing chair.

  'Sit down.'

  'I'd just as soon stand, thank you.'

  Holly recognized the strength that had been given him by the boot and the truncheon. He would not have believed it before. Mikk Laas had explained. What can they do now?, he had said.

  'Sit down, Holly. . . please . . . '

  Every action, every word, should be divided into the zones of victory and defeat. The Political Officer had used the word 'please', that was victory. There could be no defeat in accepti
ng the chair.

  He saw the half-smile at Rudakov's mouth.

  'Should I offer you coffee?'

  'I don't need coffee.'

  'Would you like something to eat?'

  'I don't need anything to eat.'

  'What happened yesterday, I had no involvement. . .'

  'Should that matter to me?'

  'It was on the initiative of the Commandant.'

  'It doesn't concern me.'

  'You have to make a choice, Holly. There is the way you are heading, there is the way that I am offering. Perhaps you don't know that the choice exists, so I will make it very clear to you. The way you are heading will keep you here for fourteen years, the way that will trundle you between the SHIzo block and Hut z. There is also the opportunity for commonsense, the opportunity of the flight home to London. The choice is clear. The choice would be clear to a child . . . '

  The pain came in swingeing bursts to Holly's body. Rich, live pain and in its wake were the memories of the flailing boot and the falling truncheon. He thought of Mikk Laas from whom they had not yet stamped the heritage of Estonia, of a woman who cried in solitary and did not believe that she was heard. He thought of Feldstein who had passed on a samizdat paper, of Adimov whose wife was dying of a cancer ravage, of Chernayev and Poshekhonov who had befriended him.

  'If I don't go back to the work cell I won't be able to complete my output norm,' Holly said flatly.

  'I have protected you, Michael. For what you did to me in here I could have put you before a court—under Article 77- 1

  of the Criminal Code you could have had another fifteen years. Can't you see what I am doing for you?'

  'What happened to your investigation team?'

  'They found a man, they have left. .. You have to think of your life. You have to think of your future. I cannot protect you for ever . . .'

  'Which man did they find?'

  'A maniac from Hut 4, half-mad anyway, used to work at the Water Authority in Moscow .. . it's irrelevant... I am protecting you now. I cannot go on doing that. Are you asking me to abandon you? Are you listening to me, Holly . . . ?'