‘You didn’t apply for it?’ he asked.
‘No, I’d never even heard of Pyramiden before that. Believe me, I would not have picked the closest town to the North Pole as my new home.’
Chapter 10
ON HIS WAY to work the next morning, Yuri came across Grigory and Timur standing outside the executive apartment block. They were both on the receiving end of a tirade from Cosmonaut Katerina. Yuri had never seen her so animated. The two most powerful men in Pyramiden looked as though they had not experienced anything quite like this in their entire adult lives. As he drew closer to the conversation it became clear that she had discovered that the two men lived in executive apartments in which the living quarters were larger than those for the ordinary workers. Everyone in their building lived under the same special conditions. Now she had the two of them cornered and looking for a way to escape.
‘What would Lenin say about this?’ she demanded. ‘He’d be furious, wouldn’t he?’
The two men looked sheepish. Yuri had to stop himself from laughing.
‘He’d tear down those apartments, wouldn’t he?’ Catherine continued, waving her finger at the offending block.
Yuri was not so sure that Comrade Lenin would be as outraged as she was. He imagined that he would probably actually be settled in there, with his feet up, enjoying the relative luxury of the largest apartment in town. Brezhnev and his cronies had no problem with the perks that came with their positions. They all had dachas in the finest resort spots in the USSR. It was expected. Everyone knew that was what you got when you became a party boss. A different life from everybody else. A rich westerner’s standard of living with a communist stamp of approval on its ass. It was acceptable because they didn’t get it through capitalism. They got it standing on the broken backs of the Soviet workers. But the people didn’t resent what they had, they wanted it for themselves.
‘So, what are you going to do about this problem?’ she demanded.
Neither of them had an answer. They looked to Yuri for help. He could have abandoned them to their fate, but he did the right thing.
‘There you are, Catherine,’ he said. ‘There’s a problem we need to attend to, urgently.’
The two men looked incredibly relieved. Yuri would store this credit away for later use. Remember that time I rescued you guys from a real communist?
Catherine reluctantly let them off her hook. Yuri could still feel her anger as they walked away. It was quite a fearsome sight from someone who was normally so calm. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Grigory giving her a look of admiration. Timur appeared to be still in shock.
‘If you were looking for me, you could have got me on my radio. Isn’t that what it’s for?’ she said.
‘Yes, I forgot about that.’
‘There isn’t a problem, is there?’ she said, after he had led her in no particular direction for a couple of minutes.
‘No,’ he confessed.
They stopped next to the livestock enclosures, where the pigs were just being fed.
‘Look, you can’t do what you were just doing,’ he said. ‘You can’t question people who are high up in the party. And definitely not the secret service. That’s called democracy. We are not in one of those.’
‘But when there is obvious inequality it should be stamped out, shouldn’t it?’ she asked, with a completely straight face. ‘That’s their job, to look out for that kind of thing.’
Sometimes, what she said was so naive he had to remind himself that she wasn’t making a joke.
‘When there is obvious inequality,’ he said, ‘you either grab some of it for yourself, if you’re able, or if you can’t do that, then you do what everyone else does – just be jealous and bitch about it with your friends, when you’re sure no one is listening. Although, I don’t really recommend that because the odds are high that at least one of your friends is probably an informer.’
‘You know, you have a very cynical view of your own country, Yuri. The Soviet Union would not have achieved all that it has if everyone had the same negative attitude as you.’
Everyone was accusing him of being a cynic lately.
‘This is why I left England,’ she said. ‘People would say they believed in a just socialist society, but then when you put them to the test, no one had the bottle to follow it through. If it’s to work, you can’t compromise on anything. Why haven’t the other workers revolted over this?’
It always amazed him how her questions could be like a sharp blow to the chest, knocking the wind out of you. Revolution was a word from another, distant lifetime. His grandfather’s time. Leonid, his father’s father, had, with youthful enthusiasm, taken a full part in the overthrow of the tsarist system. After a stunning victory that shocked the whole world, he had been hit by one disillusionment after another. The difference between Stalin and Tsar Nikolai II was hard to discern. Both were totalitarian rulers. However, as Yuri’s grandfather was fond of pointing out in private, the latter interfered less in people’s lives, and the former had managed to murder a lot more of his subjects.
Yuri sat Catherine down, deciding to give her some truths as he understood them.
He told her that the communist party, instead of being a revolutionary force as it was originally intended to be, had instead become the biggest criminal mafia organisation the world had ever seen. If there had ever been true ideals in the Soviet Union, which he seriously doubted, then they had all been trodden down by decades of corruption and abuse. Tears welled up in her eyes. He was having this effect a lot lately.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘You are telling lies because you have lost faith, and you need to get it back. I’ll help you.’
It was a dilemma, what to do with this woman. Crush her? Or lie?
He sighed. ‘You’re right. I am a cynic and I must try to fight it.’
‘At least you know, Comrade Yuri,’ she said. ‘That’s a good start.’
He knew it was only a matter of time before she would come to understand. The same way children eventually discovered that Father Christmas wasn’t real. At some point, well before their teenage years, children were destined to discover two shocking truths: that the world was not as magical as they had been led to believe, and that their parents were capable of perpetuating a lie for years. In the Soviet Union, communism had replaced Father Christmas as the great fraud every child had to discover for themselves.
Yet, here was a grown woman who had never been through the process of enlightenment that the average Soviet went through. She had missed the rite of passage from indoctrinated believer to non-believer who kept his or her mouth shut. This, he guessed, was where the Father Christmas myth and communism went on different paths. In the case of communism, you were expected never to admit that you didn’t believe. And you took this secret to the grave. For those who insisted on professing their true feelings, an early grave might be arranged. Or there were other ways of silencing you, such as internal exile to somewhere like the city of Gorky. The only other option, as chosen by Anya’s husband, was defection.
Not wishing to shatter Catherine’s illusions too quickly, he said, ‘You know, I think you had an idea of what we were like before you came. And maybe the reality is a bit different.’
‘It is,’ she agreed. ‘It’s so much better than I imagined. I can’t believe how well you are all treated here. If our miners back home had any idea about all of this luxury, they would all be coming over.’
‘Well, Pyramiden is not an average Soviet mine,’ said Yuri. ‘It’s a one-off.’
‘I guess it is,’ she agreed. ‘But what an example to set. I suppose the plan is that all Soviet mines will be like this some day.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ he said, fearing that he was fighting a losing battle with her. ‘It’s a showcase town, that’s right, but the show is not really for us. The point is that it’s in the west, and westerners can visit here and they are given this impression of Soviet life to take aw
ay with them. It’s not real.’
‘What’s not real?’ said Catherine. ‘We’re here aren’t we? It’s a working, fully functioning mining town. And one hundred per cent communist.’
Yuri decided to throw in the towel. She was unshakeable and would just have to find out for herself.
‘Do me a favour,’ he said. ‘Lay off Timur and Grigory about their apartments. They were built that way, long before they got here. And it’s not something anyone can fix.’
‘All right,’ said Catherine. ‘If you say so. I’m glad we had this talk.’
‘Me too,’ he lied.
She walked on, leaving him feeling as though he had just done ten rounds with a better fighter.
Today, instead of working at Pyramiden, Yuri was due to accompany one of the resident polar researchers to a weather station they had set up a mile out of town. There were always scientists here, doing this and that. Mundane, everyday research. Not like Anya and her husband. His companion today was a bearded, outdoors type from Mongolia. Conversation was not the man’s strong point, which suited Yuri. He was glad of the opportunity to get away from everyone and to clear his head.
They travelled by snowmobile for the first part of the journey, with their headlights on full. Usually Yuri led the way, but the Mongolian was someone who liked to be in charge and he sped to the front as soon as they left town. The last part of the trip required a twenty-minute hike up the side of a mountain. Yuri was sorry this climb had not happened during his recent dry period. The Mongolian took off on foot like a mountain goat, as Yuri huffed and puffed behind him. There was no way Yuri could keep up with him. When he broke out in a fit of coughing, the man paused and waited for him. Yuri, gathering his breath, took the opportunity to look back the way they had come. From here, you could see all the way out to open sea, beyond the frozen limit. It was strange to see waves moving in the moonlight, having been surrounded by nothing except rigid ice for so many weeks.
‘You smoke?’ asked the researcher as Yuri caught up.
‘Yes,’ said Yuri. ‘You have one?’
The man shook his head. ‘Bad habit,’ he said, and took off again.
Yuri decided not to bother trying to keep up this time. He went at his own pace and let the Mongolian win the race to the weather station. This building, and a couple of others, had been built in the 1930s. They had recorded continuous weather data since then, except for a brief period during the Great Patriotic War. A British ship had sailed up the fjord one day, and had told everyone they had to leave. The Nazis were coming and the Allies could not protect all of these isolated outposts. Soviet mining and research only resumed after the war had ended.
His companion was already busy at work when Yuri reached the station. Yuri’s job on these trips was to check that all the equipment was in good working order. Happily, this meant he had little to do. The monitoring gadgets the researchers left here were designed to be abandoned in the harshest of elements. A maintenance engineer like him was rarely required. He went inside the main building, a round brick tower. After lighting the wood stove, he made himself a black coffee. Through the window he saw the Mongolian taking notes outside before moving on to the next instrument. At the rate he was going, the man would be finished in no time, but Yuri was not in any hurry to leave.
He sat back in a chair and sipped the hot, soothing coffee. Then he rested his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. Thoughts of the war brought back memories. His brother had not wanted him to go and fight. They had been inseparable up to that point. By ’44, it was just the two of them and their mother. Their father had died defending Stalingrad, along with countless others. A medal was posthumously awarded. But it wasn’t enough for Yuri; he wanted revenge against the Germans. He was much too young to join up, but he managed to attach himself as a helper to a regiment that was heading west. Yuri confided in his brother, but he went straight to their mother and told her about his plans. She tried to stop him. He was headstrong back then, more so than now, and he ran away at the first opportunity.
He got his revenge but it did not bring his father back, or make him feel better. But to have won the war was a powerful feeling. One that still brought a smile to his face. They had faced the greatest evil the modern world had ever known. And they had crushed it. All the way to Berlin. After that came a feeling of emptiness. He had never found a purpose or cause in life since then that even came close.
When he finally returned a year later, he and his brother were both different people. Their mother said she had not seen her younger son for months. It took several days to find him, running with a gang of street kids in another neighbourhood. Yuri expected to resume his role as his brother’s protector but his help was no longer wanted. When he tried to explain what he had been through in the war, and tell his stories, his brother would switch off. Then it would descend into a row, with his brother asking if he thought it was a picnic for those left behind.
He never said it in so many words, but Yuri knew he had never forgiven him for leaving. They were never as close again as they had been. And over the years they drifted apart more and more until they were strangers. Their mother, when she was alive, was the only tie that bound them. After her death they rarely communicated.
At the funeral, his brother’s neighbours had spoken of an open and generous man. Sure, he had a drink problem, but if anyone needed anything he could not do enough for them. He always had time for a chat, and a joke. Everyone smiled when they told their stories about him. They seemed genuinely to like and miss him. Yuri did not know the man they were talking about. He wished he had.
He opened his eyes and saw that his coffee had gone cold. His neck felt stiff, and he realised he must have fallen asleep. He looked up and found the Mongolian staring in at him through the porthole window. The man said nothing and walked on. Yuri presumed this was the signal that he was done.
‘Everything OK?’ said Yuri, when he came outside. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’
‘Yes,’ said the Mongolian. ‘All done.’
‘So what did all those instruments tell you?’ he asked.
‘They told me that it is very cold here,’ the Mongolian replied, with perfect deadpan delivery.
The man walked on down the slope with his haversack on his back. Yuri took one last look at the sea, which was dotted with glowing icebergs. In the darkness it was difficult to tell where the sea and the starry sky met. Both looked the same. The white dot of an iceberg in the distance could easily be mistaken for a star in the sky. As he prepared to follow the researcher, a feeling of foreboding came over him. For the first time in his life, he was not looking forward to returning to Pyramiden.
After they had parked their snowmobiles, Yuri watched the researcher walking away. Semyon had done this job with the research team, several times. He wondered if the Mongolian could be the person called Eagle in Semyon’s notebook. Mongolians hunted with eagles, so it was not such a stretch. The problem was that it could also be anyone in town. Only Semyon could explain why he had picked a particular animal for each person. Yuri walked in the opposite direction, and as he turned a corner he bumped into Grigory.
Grigory smiled. ‘Thank you, Yuri. Your arrival this morning was just in time.’
‘You both looked in a tight spot,’ agreed Yuri. ‘Any longer and Timur might have had to shoot her.’
‘She’s right, of course,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have the answers she was looking for. An idealist expects perfection but in the real world, things are sometimes not as they should be.’
‘Most of the time, I would say,’ said Yuri. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ said Grigory. ‘But then we are different, you and I. I was actually hoping to run into you today. Don’t you think it’s about time we had that game of chess? It’s been a while.’
‘What, now?’ said Yuri.
He was tired after his trip, and hoped Grigory would suggest another day.
‘I’m fr
ee now,’ said the party man. ‘How about you?’
Yuri sighed. ‘All right. One game. Then I have to be somewhere.’
Grigory gave him one of his knowing smiles. They walked together to the library, where Yuri organised the table and chairs while Grigory set up the pieces. He had his own personal set, made of real moulded silver plough horses and workmen. Proletariat royalty instead of kings and queens.
They chatted idly for the first few moves, and then the reason for this hastily arranged rematch became apparent.
‘How much do you think a person should drink?’ asked Grigory.
Yuri didn’t bother controlling the flash of anger in his eyes. Grigory saw it and ignored it.
‘Should one set a limit, I mean, or not?’ he continued. ‘We are all drinkers, us Russians. Brezhnev has even made it easier for us, with the prices. But where should we draw the line between pleasure and problem? It’s a difficult one. Don’t you think?’
He had already had this conversation with Timur, and he was tired of their interference. But he knew that Grigory was generally well meaning.
‘You’re talking about Anya,’ said Yuri. ‘Just say what you want to say.’
‘Am I?’ said Grigory, playing all innocent. ‘Well, let’s take her as an example. Why not. A teacher has the right to enjoy herself, in her free time, like anyone else, as long as she is productive during her working hours. Yes?’
‘Agreed,’ said Yuri.
Grigory took one of Yuri’s pawns, and placed it on the table in front of him.
‘And if a person, Anya for instance, ceased to be productive, then we could say she has strayed over that fine line into the problem area. Couldn’t we?’
‘She is a good teacher,’ said Yuri. ‘The kids like her.’
‘Ah, I’m not sure that last part is true,’ said Grigory. ‘I believe they call her the ice queen, for a perceived lack of emotion. But that’s not important. They are at school to learn. They don’t have to like their teacher. I didn’t like any of my teachers. One maybe. But by the principal’s account, she is an excellent teacher who elicits good grades from her students. Or at least, she did until recently. Round about the time she started seeing you, as a matter of fact.’
The Reluctant Contact Page 12