Polar Star

by Martin Cruz Smith

Gury pleaded, 'Arkady, help me. "That's the point"? We have one day in an American port. Men here will spend it looking for fucking Siberian flowers, and Obidin wants to pray with cannibals! Explain to them; they listen to you. We spend five months on this ocean-going shitcan for that one day in port. I have room under my bunk for five stereos and maybe a hundred tapes. Or computer disks. All the schools in Vladivostok are supposed to get Yamahas. Supposed to, at least. Someday. So anything compatible is worth a fortune. When we get home I'm not going to go down the gangplank and say, "Look what I got in America" and hold up pots of Siberian flowers.'

  Kolya cleared his throat. He was the smallest man in the cabin and had the unease of the smallest fish in an aquarium. 'What did Bukovsky want?' he asked Arkady.

  'That Bukovsky gives me such a pain in the ass.' Gury studied the picture of a colour television. 'Look at this: "nineteen inches". How big is that? I had a Foton colour set in my flat. It blew up like a bomb.'

  'There's something wrong with the tubes,' Kolya said meekly. 'Everyone knows that.'

  'That's why I had a bucket of sand by the set, thank God.' Gury leaned out to look up at Arkady. 'So what did the third mate want from you?'

  There was just enough room between the overhead and the bunk for Arkady to wedge himself into a semi-sitting position. The porthole was open to a faint line of grey. Sunrise in the Bering Sea.

  'You know Zina in the galley?'

  'The blonde,' Gury said.

  'From Vladivostok.' Kolya stacked his pots.

  Gury grinned. His incisors were porcelain and gold, decoration as much as dental work. 'Bukovsky likes Zina? She'd tie his cock in a knot and ask if he liked pretzels. He might.'

  Arkady turned to Obidin, who could be counted on for a judgment from the Old Testament.

  'A slut,' Obidin said and examined the jars that lined the bottom of the wardrobe, the lid of each one plugged with a cork and a rubber pipe. He unscrewed one, releasing the sweet exhaust of fermenting raisins. He examined a jar of potatoes.

  'Is this dangerous?' Gury asked Kolya. 'You're the scientist. These fumes, can they explode? Is there any vegetable or fruit he can't make alcohol from? Remember the bananas?'

  Arkady remembered. The closet had smelled like a rotting tropical jungle.

  'With yeast and sugar, almost anything can ferment,' Kolya said.

  'Women should not be on a ship,' said Obidin. On a nail in the back of the closet was a small icon of St Vladimir. His thumb to two fingers, Obidin touched his forehead, chest, right shoulder, left shoulder, heart, then hung a shirt on the nail. 'I pray for our delivery.'

  Curious, Arkady asked, 'From who?'

  'Baptists, Jews, Freemasons.'

  'Although it's hard to see Bukovsky and Zina together,' Gury said.

  'I liked her bathing suit,' Kolya said. 'That day off Sakhalin?' A warm-core ring of water had wandered north from the equator, making a false few hours of summer. 'That string bathing suit?'

  'A just man covers his face with a beard,' Obidin told Arkady. 'A modest woman keeps herself from public view.'

  'She's modest now,' Arkady said. 'She's dead.'

  'Zina?' Gury sat up, then removed his dark glasses and stood to be at eye level with Arkady.

  'Dead?' Kolya looked aside.

  Obidin crossed himself again.

  Arkady thought that probably all three of them knew more about Zina Patiashvili than he did. Mostly he recalled that freak day off Sakhalin when she had paraded on the volleyball deck in her bathing suit. Russians loved the sun. Everyone wore the skimpiest possible bathing suit in order to apply the greatest amount of sunshine to their pale skins. Zina, though, had more than a meagre bathing suit. She had a Western body, a bony voluptuosity. On the infirmary table she looked more like a damp rag, nothing like the Zina walking up and down the deck, posing against the gunwale, her sunglasses black as a mask.

  'She fell overboard. The net brought her back up.'

  The other three stared at him. It was Gury who broke the silence. 'So why did Bukovsky want you?'

  Arkady didn't know how to explain. Each man had his past. Gury had always been a bizness man, dealing inside and outside the law. Kolya had gone from academe to labour camp, and Obidin zigzagged from drunk tank to church. Arkady had lived with men like them ever since Moscow; nothing broadened acquaintanceship like internal exile. Moscow was a drab hive of apparatchiks compared to the diverse society of Siberia. All the same, he was relieved to hear a brusque knock on the cabin door and to see Slava Bukovsky's face again, even if the third mate did step in with a mock bow and address him with scorn.

  'Comrade Investigator, the captain wants to see you.'

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  Viktor Sergeivich Marchuk needed no uniform or gold braid to announce he was a captain. Outside the Seaman's Hall in Vladivostok, Arkady had seen his face among the giant portraits of the leading captains of the Far East fishing fleet. But the picture had softened Marchuk's face and propped it on a jacket and tie so that he looked as if he sailed a desk. The live Marchuk had a face with angles of rough-hewn wood sharpened by the trim black beard of an individualist, and he commanded his ship wearing the wool sweater and jeans of an outdoorsman. Somewhere in his past was an Asian, somewhere a Cossack. The whole country was being led by a fresh breed of men from Siberia – economists from Novosibirsk, writers from Irkutsk and modern mariners from Vladivostok.

  The captain seemed at a loss, though, as he pondered the confusion on his desk: a seaman's dossier, a codebook and cipher table, scrap paper covered with rows of numbers, some circled in red, and a second page of letters. Marchuk looked up from them as if trying to get Arkady into focus. Slava Bukovsky took a tactful step away from the object of the captain's attention.

  'It is always interesting to meet members of the crew.' Marchuk nodded at the dossier. ' "Former investigator." I radioed home for details. Seaman Renko, these are some details.' A heavy ringer thudded on the deciphered letters. 'A senior investigator for the Moscow prosecutor's office dismissed for lack of political reliability. Next seen in the lesser metropolis of Norilsk on the run. No great shame, many of our finest citizens came east in chains. As long as they reform. In Norilsk you were a night watchman. As a former Muscovite, you found the nights brisk?'

  'I'd burn three oil cans of tar and sit in the middle of them. I looked like a human sacrifice.'

  While Marchuk lit a cigarette, Arkady glanced around. There was a Persian carpet on the floor, a sofa built into the corner, a nautical library on railed shelves, television, radio, and an antique desk the size of a lifeboat. Over the sofa was a photo of Lenin addressing sailors and cadets. Three clocks told local Vladivostok and Greenwich Mean Time. The ship ran on Vladivostok time; the log was kept on GMT. Altogether, the captain's dayroom had the look of a private study that merely happened to have lime-green bulkheads for walls.

  'Dismissed for destruction of state property, it says here. The tar, I assume. Then you managed to sign on at a slaughterhouse.'

  'I dragged reindeer on a killfloor.'

  'But again it says you were dismissed for political instigation.'

  'I worked with two Buryats. Neither of them understood Russian. Maybe the reindeer talked.'

  'Next you show up on a coastal trawler in Sakhalin. Now this, Seaman Renko, really amazed me. To work one of those old trawlers is to be on the moon. The worst work for the worst pay. The crews are men on the run from their wives, from child support, from petty crimes, maybe even manslaughter. No one cares, because we need crews on the Pacific coast. Yet here it is again: "Dismissed for lack of political reliability." Please tell us, what did you do in Moscow?'

  'My job.'

  Marchuk brusquely waved blue smoke aside. 'Renko, you've been on the Polar Star almost ten months. You didn't even leave the ship when we returned to Vladivostok.'

  When a seaman disembarked he had to pass the Border Guard, frontier troops of the KGB.

  'I like the sea,' Ark
ady said.

  'I am the leading captain of the Far East fleet,' said Marchuk. 'I am a decorated Hero of Socialist Labour, and not even I like the sea that much. Anyway, I wanted to congratulate you. The doctor has revised his estimate. The girl Zina Patiashvili died the night before, not last night. In his capacity of trade union representative, Comrade Bukovsky will naturally be responsible for preparing the report on the matter.'

  'Comrade Bukovsky is no doubt equal to the task.'

  'He's very willing. However, a third mate is not an investigator. Besides yourself, no one on board is.'

  'He seems a young man of initiative. He already found the factory. I wish him luck.'

  'Let's be grown men. The Polar Star has a crew of two hundred and seventy deckhands, mechanics and factory workers like you. Fifty of the crew are women. We are like a Soviet village in American waters. News of an unusual death on the Polar Star will always find an interested ear. It is vital there be no suggestion of either a cover-up or a lack of concern.'

  'So the Americans already know,' Arkady guessed.

  Marchuk conceded the point. 'Their head representative has visited me. The situation is even more complicated by the fact that this unfortunate girl died two nights ago. You speak English?'

  'Not for a long time. Anyway, the Americans on board speak Russian.'

  'But you don't dance.'

  'Not recently.'

  'Two nights ago we had a dance,' Slava reminded Arkady. 'In honour of fishermen of all nations.'

  'I was still cleaning fish. I just glanced in on the way to my shift.' The dance had been held in the cafeteria. All Arkady had seen from the door were figures bouncing in the lights reflected from a ball of mirrors. 'You played the saxophone,' he said to Slava.

  'We had guests,' Marchuk said. 'We had two American catcherboats tied up to the Polar Star and American fishermen at the dance. It's possible you might want to speak to them. They do not speak Russian. Of course this is not an investigation; that will, as you say, be carried out by the appropriate authorities when we return to Vladivostok. Information should be gathered now, however, while memories are fresh. Bukovsky needs the assistance of someone with experience in such matters and with a command of English. Just for today.'

  'With all respect,' Slava said, 'I can ask questions with complete correctness and no help from Renko at all. We must keep in mind that this report will be studied by the fleet, by departments of the Ministry, by –'

  'Remember,' Marchuk said, 'Lenin's thought: "Bureaucracy is shit!"' To Arkady he said, 'Seaman Patiashvili was at the dance, which was held about the time you say she died. We count ourselves fortunate in having someone with your skills on the Polar Star, and we assume that you count yourself fortunate to have an opportunity to serve your ship.'

  Arkady looked at the litter of papers on the desk. 'What about my political reliability?'

  Marchuk's smile was all the more startling in contrast to his beard. 'We do have an expert in your reliability. Slava, some interest in Seaman Renko has been expressed by our friend Comrade Volovoi. We would not want to start any enterprise without Volovoi.'

  Films were presented twice a day in the cafeteria. All Arkady could see from the hall were murky images on a screen set up on the stage where Slava and his band had performed two nights before. A plane was landing at an airport with modern architecture: a foreign locale. Cars swung to the terminal kerb: limousines, maybe a few years old and a little dented but definitely American. In American accents voices addressed each other as 'Mister This' or 'Mister That'. The cameras focused on foreign wingtip shoes.

  'Vigilance Abroad ,' said someone wandering out. 'All about the CIA.'

  It was Karp Korobetz. Barrel-chested, with a hairline that started within a millimetre of his brows, the trawl-master resembled those massive statues erected after the war, the soldier hoisting his rifle, the sailor firing his cannon, as if victory had been gained by primitive man. He was the model worker of the Polar Star.

  In fact, on display in the hall was a board that kept count of the competition between the three watches, the winner each week being awarded a gold pennant. So many points were awarded for the quantity of fish caught, for the quality offish processed, for the percentage of the all-important quota. Karp's team won the pennant month after month. Because Arkady's factory team had the same shift, they won too. 'You Are Building Communism by Feeding the Soviet People!' said the banner over the board. That was him and Karp!

  The trawlmaster idly shook out a cigarette. Deckhands didn't take much notice of crew that worked below. He hardly glanced at Slava. On the screen, white packets were being passed from one secret agent to another.

  'Heroin,' Karp said.

  'Or sugar,' said Arkady. That was hard to get too.

  'Trawlmaster Korobetz was the one who found Zina,' Slava changed the subject.

  'What time was that?' Arkady asked.

  'About 0300,' Karp said.

  'Was there anything else in the net?'

  'No. Why are you asking questions?' Karp demanded in turn. The quality of his gaze had changed, as if a statue had opened its eyes.

  'Supposedly, Seaman Renko has experience in matters like this,' Slava said.

  'In falling overboard?' Karp asked.

  'Did you know her?'

  'I only saw her around here. She served food.' Karp's interest was growing all the time. He tried Arkady's name like a bell. 'Renko, Renko. Where are you from?'

  'Moscow,' Slava answered for Arkady.

  'Moscow?' Karp whistled appreciatively. 'You must have really fucked up to end up here.'

  'But here we are, all of us proud workers of the Far East fleet,' Volovoi said as he joined them, and with an eye to another newcomer, an American boy with freckles and a bush of springy hair who was coming warily down the hall. 'Bernie, go in, please,' Volovoi urged him. 'It's a spy story. Very exciting.'

  'You mean we're the villains, right? Bernie had a sheepish grin and only a slight accent.

  'How could it be a spy story otherwise?' Volovoi laughed.

  'Think of it as a comedy,' Arkady suggested.

  'Yeah.' Bernie liked that.

  'Please, enjoy yourself,' Volovoi said, although he had stopped laughing. 'Comrade Bukovsky will find you a good seat.'

  The first mate took Arkady down the hall to the ship's library, a room where a reader had to slip sideways between the stacks. In such a limited collection it was interesting to see who was represented. Jack London was popular, as were war stories, science fiction and a field of literature called tractor romances. Volovoi dismissed the librarian and sat himself at her desk, pushing to one side her tea cosy, pots of glue and books with broken spines to make room for a dossier he had brought in his briefcase. Arkady had tried to stay out of the political officer's way, hanging back at meetings and avoiding entertainments. It was the first time the two of them had ever been alone.

  Although Volovoi was the ship's first mate and habitually wore a canvas fishing jacket and boots, he never touched the helm or a net or a navigational chart. The reason was that a first mate was the political officer. There was a chief mate for more mundane matters having to do with fishing and seamanship. Very confusing. First Mate Volovoi was responsible for discipline and morale; for hand-painted signs in the corridor that proclaimed 'Third Shift Wins Gold Pennant for Socialist Competition!'; for announcing the news every noon on the ship's radio, mixing telegrams to proud crew members about babies born in Vladivostok with items from revolutionary Mozambique; for running movies and volleyball tournaments; and most important, for writing a work and political evaluation of every member of the crew from the captain on down, and delivering that judgment to the maritime section of the KGB.

  Not that Volovoi was a weakling. He was the ship's champion weightlifter, the kind of redhead whose eyes were always pink, whose eyelids and lips had a crust of eczema, whose meaty, well-kept hands had golden hair. Crewmen called political officers 'invalids' for their lack of real work, but
Fedor Volovoi was the healthiest 'invalid' Arkady had ever seen.

  'Renko,' Volovoi read, as if familiarizing himself with a problem. 'Chief Investigator. Dismissed. Expelled from the Party. Psychiatric rehabilitation. You see, I have the same file as the captain has. Assigned to labour in the eastern section of the RussianRepublic.'

  'Siberia.'

  'I know where the eastern section is. I notice also that you have a sense of humour.'

  'That's basically what I've been working on for the last few years.'

  'Good, because I also have a more complete report.' Volovoi placed a thicker dossier on the desk. 'There was a murder case in Moscow. Somehow it ended with you killing the city prosecutor, an unexpected twist. Who is Colonel Pribluda?'

  'An officer of the KGB. He spoke for me at the inquiry, which decided not to charge me.'

  'You were also expelled from the Party and kept for psychiatric observation. Is that the fate of an innocent man?'

  'Innocence had nothing to do with it.'

  'And who is Irina Asanova?' Volovoi read the name.

  'A former Soviet citizen.'

  'You mean a woman whom you helped to defect and who has since been a source of slanderous rumours about your fate.'

  'What are the rumours?' Arkady asked. 'How far off?'

  'Have you been in contact with her?'

  'From here?'

  'You've been questioned before.'

  'Many times.'

  Volovoi flipped the pages of the dossier. ' "Political unreliability"... "political unreliability". Let me tell you what is humorous to me as first mate. In a few days we will be in DutchHarbor. Everyone on this ship will go into port for shopping with one exception: you. Because everyone on this ship has a No. 1 seaman's visa with one exception: you. I must assume you have only a No. 2 visa because those people who should know believe you cannot be trusted with foreigners or in a foreign port. Yet you are the man the captain wants to assist Bukovsky, even to help him speak to the Americans on board or to those on the trawlers. That's either humorous or very odd.'

  Arkady shrugged. 'Humour is such a personal thing.'