The Reluctant Contact

by Stephen Burke

  ‘Look at the bright side,’ said Yuri. ‘If he hadn’t done all of that to you, you would never have come to Pyramiden and met me.’

  She gave a wry smile. ‘True. Beautiful Pyramiden. And what would my life have been without you!’

  He had a strong desire to tell her that he loved her. But he kept this feeling to himself. He took her hand in his and noticed something.

  ‘You don’t wear your wedding ring?’

  She looked down at her bare finger.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I took it off because I did not want to be reminded of him. Then, I lost it.’

  Timur’s insistence that he keep English Catherine away from sensitive places had put an idea into Yuri’s head. He knew that every worker in Pyramiden had two files related to them. One was in the main administration office, and listed each person’s wage history, work record, personal details, merit badges and so on. The second file was under lock and key in Timur’s office. This one, written by a stranger, documented your commitment, or lack of, to the advancement of the communist project. It would include your profile, affiliations, relationships and friendships, crimes committed, and anything informers might have said about you, whether they were true or not. Suspect people would have thick files, with many entries. Loyal communists would have thin files, but there would be a file nonetheless, even for the staunchest.

  Yuri decided he would like to take a look inside Semyon’s file. The one in Timur’s office. He hoped it might provide some information about any trouble he was in, or the names of any enemies he might have. Unfortunately, this room did not operate like a library, with files that could be checked in and out. To view it, he would have to commit a crime.

  The KGB man had regular habits. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at 7 p.m., he could be found in too-tight shorts and a vest, gambolling around with a basketball, along with the other enthusiasts in the Yuri Gagarin sports centre. Timur always wore the same all-red outfit that the Russian Olympic team had worn in ’72 when they had beaten the Americans and won gold. Like them, he played to win. Nobody liked playing against him or with him. But no one would tell him that to his face. His office remained locked and empty during game time. Yuri did not possess a key, but he knew where a set was kept for every office in town, in case of emergency.

  On a lazy starlit afternoon a few days after his trip to the mine, he spied on the custodian of all key copies, the chief accounts clerk. A large lady from Georgia, she was also a creature of habit. She could be found at the head of the lunch queue on most days.

  When she left her office, Yuri entered the building and liberated the key. Then, later that evening, he hung around outside the administration building until he saw Timur leaving. In the corridor, he made sure no one else was about. Then he unlocked the secret service office door, stepped inside and locked himself in. The office consisted of two rooms. The first contained Timur’s desk, two chairs and not much else. Beyond that, there was an adjoining room, which Yuri had never been in before. He turned the door handle, and found it unlocked. Inside was a small iron stove and a dozen tall, alphabetised gun-grey metal filing cabinets.

  If he had not recently eulogised Semyon, he would not have known that his surname was Gulbis. He tried the corresponding filing cabinet, but found it locked. As were all the others. He wondered if Timur would go to the trouble of carrying around a dozen keys all day long.

  He walked back in to the main office and tried to guess where Timur might hide them. He paused as he heard a woman’s quick footsteps outside in the corridor, followed by a knock on the door. Yuri stared at her stationary shadow under the door frame. Only the outer office had a window, and it had bars on the outside. If she came in through the door, there would be nowhere for him to hide. It would be difficult to explain why he was on the wrong side of a locked door. The woman tried the handle once more and then walked on.

  While he was waiting for her to leave, Yuri spotted the silver ring of small cabinet keys. They were standing in plain sight, sharing a fruit bowl with a decaying banana. He grabbed them, hurried back to the other room and unlocked the G–H cabinet. He located Semyon’s file and pulled it out. It was an inch thick.

  ‘My, what a bad boy you’ve been,’ Yuri said to himself.

  However, when he started to flick through it, he discovered something entirely different.

  ‘The little shit,’ he said, out loud.

  Semyon had been operating as an informer for Timur, and had been the whole time he had lived in Pyramiden. He had made detailed reports on a dozen or so individuals, including Yuri, several times. He quickly scanned the ones that were about him. It was the usual stuff: accusations of sabotage, self-interested, not a team player. Nothing he hadn’t heard before, and definitely nothing he was going to be in trouble for in the future. All the reports were dated, and the most recent report about him was from the same date as the one he had noted in Semyon’s notebook. He pulled out the notebook from his pocket. All of his reports in the file matched the dates on that page in the notebook. So he was Spider.

  Semyon had kept a record of the dates of all his reports to Timur. And he had given each person a corresponding animal name in his notebook, in case anyone ever caught sight of it, Yuri supposed.

  He wondered if one of the others mentioned in the file could have found out that Semyon was spying on them. Most people would not be too happy to discover that. Men and women had been killed for less. He considered writing down the other people’s names, and what the Latvian betrayer had said about them. But he worried he had already been in here for too long.

  He hesitated a moment before stuffing the whole file inside his coat. It was a further risk to take it, and he would have to replace it soon. He should really have left then. But as an afterthought, he decided to look up Anya’s file. He expected to find one several inches thick, given the stories that she had told him. However, when he searched for it, he found that she didn’t have one. Perhaps, he thought, she has been here such a short time, Timur hasn’t gotten around to opening one yet. The other possibility was that she was just a teacher, and she had made up all the rest of it. He checked his watch, and decided to go. After replacing the cabinet keys where he had found them, he left as quickly as he could.

  When he returned home, the first thing that hit him when he opened his apartment door was the overpowering smell of alcohol. Anya was lying fully clothed, but semi-conscious, on the bed. An empty bottle of vodka lay on the floor beside her. It wasn’t his, so she must have brought it with her. He hoped it hadn’t been full when she had started drinking it on her own. He brushed away the matted hair covering her face and she stirred. She half-opened her eyes and closed them again.

  ‘Why do you think he hasn’t come for me?’ she asked. ‘The one I am supposed to meet.’

  ‘Him again? I don’t know. I thought you didn’t care any more.’

  ‘I lied,’ she said, half-asleep. ‘You don’t understand. How could you?’

  ‘What don’t I understand?’ he asked.

  She started to retch, and he helped her up on to her feet and into the bathroom.

  ‘How much did you drink?’

  ‘Quite a bit,’ she said. ‘Hard to say. You were late. What was I supposed to do?’

  ‘In future you could just wait for me, how about that.’

  She slid down the wall and slumped against the toilet. Somehow she managed not to be sick. When it came to drinking she was not a delicate flower. But she was so drunk, if he left her here she would pass out where she was.

  Her body was completely limp, and he almost put his back out lifting her off the floor.

  ‘Just leave me,’ she slurred. ‘I’m fine.’

  He ignored her protests and made her walk beside him to the edge of the bed. The only thing keeping her upright was his arm around her waist. When he let go, she crumpled in a heap on to the bed.

  He began to undress her. There were no more complaints. She would not speak again, or open her eyes,
until the morning. He pulled her left arm gently, encouraging her to move on to her side. She settled in that position and started to snore. His brother had died like this. Such a stupid way to go. Unfortunately for him, he had no one watching over him to make sure he did not choke in his drunken slumber.

  He had noticed the familiar signs of winter depression in her, but he suspected the cause of tonight’s behaviour was not just a lack of sunlight. He wished this mystery visitor of hers would show up so that he could beat the crap out of him. If he existed at all. The man, imaginary or not, had become an obstacle in their relationship.

  Chapter 8

  IN THE MORNING, he left Anya sleeping peacefully exactly where he had left her, on her side in his bed. On his way across the playground he saw a dozen kids, carrying flashlights, on their way to school. He dropped in to the principal’s office on his way to the power station and told her that Anya was feeling under the weather. Despite his best lying face, she gave him a knowing look of disapproval, which he did not think was fair. How the hell could she know that Anya had drunk herself into unconsciousness? She could have been sick. He resisted the temptation to start a row with her.

  He guessed that Anya would surface around lunchtime, with a sore head. Coffee and a light meal would fix her. He resolved to check in on her at one o’clock.

  Around mid-morning, Timur walked into the control room, without knocking, and looked at Yuri with a loaded expression. Yuri wondered if he could have discovered that Semyon’s file was missing from his office. It had been stupid to take it on impulse, without having thought the risks through. He hadn’t even hidden it well in his apartment. He had been so distracted by Anya’s state when he got home that he had just kicked it under the bed. It would take a good lie to explain how it got there.

  ‘Catherine,’ said Timur, ‘would you mind if I have a private word with your boss here?’

  Catherine turned to Yuri for his approval.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, after he raised no objection. She walked by Timur to grab her coat and hat.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ said Timur, with an annoying smirk.

  ‘Shall I come back in half an hour?’ she asked.

  ‘No, five minutes is all I need.’

  Yuri’s heart rate quickened as he foresaw the end of his life here in Pyramiden. He could only guess what the punishment might be for the burglary of a KGB office and the theft of a confidential file. Murderers probably got less.

  Timur looked around at the various machines and dials.

  ‘Quite a system you’ve built here, Yuri. You must be a clever man. Do you agree you are a clever man?’

  He thought it best to give a non-committal shrug to this one.

  ‘Am I in trouble for something?’ he asked, after losing patience waiting for Timur to spill the beans.

  ‘Not really, no,’ said Timur. ‘At least not for anything you’ve done. Your girlfriend, Anya. Her drinking has become a problem.’

  So everyone knew about them, Yuri realised, even though they had been discreet when other people were around. Nothing stayed secret for long in Pyramiden. And especially not from Timur, whose job it was to keep tabs on them all.

  ‘A problem for who, exactly?’ Yuri asked.

  ‘For me, and therefore you. She had to be sent home from the school today after making some sort of a scene in front of the children. There were tears apparently.’

  Damn it, thought Yuri. She must have woken and gone to work after all. No doubt she smelled like a distillery. And he had set her up for a bigger fall with the story he had told the school principal.

  ‘The parents were none too happy,’ continued Timur. ‘If anyone is going to shout drunkenly at their kids, I think they would prefer if it was them.’

  Yuri wanted to find her straight away, but Timur was enjoying taking his time. He wished there was some sort of test that people had to go through before they were given power over others. Anyone considered likely to abuse that power should automatically fail.

  ‘Are you going to get to the point of this any time soon?’ Yuri asked. ‘Because if not, I’d like to go and see how she is.’

  Timur was not pleased about being rushed.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Here’s the deal. From today, I am making Anya your responsibility. If she shouts at a kid again, I am going to blame you. If she comes to work smelling of booze, I am going to blame you. If she gets out of line in any way, I am going to blame you. Got it?’

  ‘That’s not exactly fair,’ said Yuri. ‘Maybe she had one too many last night. She’s not the only one who drinks in this town.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Timur. ‘But the miners can drink all they like. She works with children. So she can’t just do whatever the hell she wants. Let me put it like this, if you can’t control her, I will. Now you can go find her, if you want.’

  Yuri did not move. He waited for Timur to leave so he could gather his thoughts. He had known from the beginning that Anya was going to be trouble, so none of this came as a surprise. But now, if he was to keep her, this situation would need careful handling.

  Yuri found her in the canteen drinking coffee. Her face was colourless, and she looked shaken. She was staring up at the mural on the wall, the Arctic scene with its large yellow sun beaming down. Yuri sat down beside her.

  ‘I don’t know how you stand it without the sun for so long, every year,’ she said. ‘I think I’d lose my mind if I had to ever do it again.’

  ‘What happened at the school?’ asked Yuri.

  She turned to face him and he saw that she was ashamed. ‘How did you know something happened?’

  ‘Timur paid me a visit,’ he replied. ‘I have been tasked with keeping an eye on you.’

  Anya laughed. ‘Weren’t you doing that already?’

  ‘Not well enough, apparently.’

  She held her cup in both hands. Despite her best efforts to control them, they shook as she brought the coffee to her lips.

  ‘I’m fine. It’s just something that happened once. It’s not a big deal. I don’t need looking after.’

  ‘I think you do,’ he said. ‘It’s my fault too. I need to try harder.’

  ‘And what do you care, Yuri?’ she asked.

  Her raised voice made the waitresses look over in their direction.

  ‘I care,’ he said. ‘You know I do.’

  She looked at him strangely, like she had that very first time.

  ‘It isn’t you … is it? You’re not the one?’

  Yuri sighed, and touched her hand.

  ‘You’ve got to stop this. It isn’t healthy. No one is coming to meet you.’

  Anya gave him an angry glance, and pulled her hand away from his.

  ‘They told me to come here. For nothing. Three months I’ve been waiting.’

  ‘Who told you?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you know why they’ve ignored me? Because I am a nobody – nothing. I used to be someone. Now look at me. Look where I have ended up.’

  It occurred to him again that maybe she was crazy, and her obsession with this absent visitor was all in her head.

  ‘You’re with me. Isn’t that something?’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re a good guy, Yuri. But I am not what you need. Maybe we shouldn’t see each other any more.’

  ‘I am afraid that’s not possible,’ he replied. ‘You are now officially my responsibility. If we stop seeing each other, I will be in trouble. We are stuck together.’

  ‘You would be better off without me. And you have your little foreign dolly bird, don’t you?’

  Yuri smiled. He was pleased to detect a hint of jealousy in her tone.

  ‘I work with her, that’s all. Catherine is not my dolly bird. You still haven’t told me what happened at the school.’

  She closed her eyes for a second, the memory of the incident obviously raw.

  ‘I was still drunk from last night. And this morning when I went in, they wouldn’t stop talking. Yak, yak, yak, in their l
ittle high-pitched voices. I told them not to. I didn’t shout. But it was going right through my head, and when they kept on doing it, I just lost it. I shouldn’t have. Poor little things. I don’t think they knew what hit them. They are good kids really. I’m going to apologise to them tomorrow. I didn’t get a chance to do it today because the headteacher came in when she heard them crying and she ordered me out.’

  Yuri was thankful he had not witnessed this scene.

  ‘How many of them were crying?’ he asked.

  ‘All. All of them. One started, and that set them all off. Like a choir. The more I tried to calm them down, the louder they got.’

  Yuri sighed. ‘I want you to promise that you’ll stop drinking. If you don’t you’ll lose your job at the school. Do you want that?’

  Anya looked over at the waitresses, who were still watching them from the far side of the room.

  ‘I hate my job,’ she said. ‘But no, I don’t want to lose it, it’s the only one I’ve got. I will stop drinking. For you. Because you are the only one who likes me.’

  Yuri smiled, even though he knew she did not mean it. At least if he could get her to stay dry for a while, that would be something.

  ‘More coffee?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes please. Keep it coming.’

  ‘And something to eat?’

  ‘Yes, I probably should. Though I’m not sure my stomach will agree.’

  Yuri loaded a tray for her, with fresh coffee and potato pancakes. Then he sat and watched her eat.

  ‘I’ve been a bad girl,’ she said, between mouthfuls, ‘but the punishment is not so bad, being looked after by you.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘No, I mean it,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Yuri.’

  He shrugged. ‘Less talking and more eating. The food will help.’

  He wanted to think that this incident was the start of a turning point for her, and for them. But he didn’t really believe that. Not yet anyway. There was still something in her eyes that said she was not at peace with herself.

  The next morning, Yuri escorted a nervous, sober Anya through the lamp-lit streets to the front door of the school. They had rehearsed what she would say, both to the principal and to the children. It would not be acting. She was genuinely sorry, and wanted to put it behind her. Between themselves, they had made a pact to avoid alcohol completely for a whole month. This was not something he would have chosen for himself, in December of all months, but it certainly would not do his body any harm. And he reckoned she needed as much support as she could get. As she said herself, he was the only one who seemed to take an interest in her. She had no friends among the other women. He had even heard one of them calling her the ice queen behind her back. He could understand where they were coming from. She was not open or welcoming, until she got to know people, which her closed manner made almost impossible. As far as he was concerned it was their loss. And he liked not having to share her with anyone.