The Beast in the Red Forest

by Sam Eastland

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘The real reason you are here,’ replied Linsky.

  ‘The real reason? I don’t understand.’

  ‘But you are about to, Major Kirov.’

  Cautiously, Kirov took hold of the envelope, opened it and removed the piece of paper it contained. As he read, his head tilted to one side, like a man who has suddenly lost his balance.

  The typed letter was an order for a new set of clothes, specifically two pairs of brown corduroy trousers made of 21-ounce cotton, three white collarless shirts made of linen with mother-of-pearl buttons, two waistcoats made of dark grey Bedford cord and one black double-breasted coat made of Crombie wool and lined with navy blue silk. At the bottom of the page was a date, specifying when the clothes should be ready.

  The breath snagged in Kirov’s throat as he recognised the familiar patterns and materials. ‘Are these clothes for Pekkala?’

  ‘It would appear so,’ answered Linsky.

  ‘And this is from two weeks ago!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you have seen him!’

  Linsky shook his head.

  Kirov held up the piece of paper. ‘Then where did this come from? Was it mailed to you?

  ‘Somebody slid it under the door.’

  ‘So how can you be certain that these are for the Inspector? I admit I don’t know anyone else who dresses like this, but . . .’

  ‘It’s not just the clothing,’ explained Linsky. ‘It’s the cloth. No one but Pekkala would have requested Crombie wool or Bedford cord. Those are English fabrics, of which I just happen to have a small quantity. And the only person who knows that I have them is the person who brought them to me before the Revolution, when I ran my business out of the Gosciny Dvor in Petrograd! He left the cloth with me so that I could use it to make the clothes he wanted. And that is what I have done for many years, for Pekkala and for no one else. The measurements are his, Major. There can be no doubt about who placed the order. They are exactly the same as he has always ordered from me. Well, almost exactly.’

  ‘What do you mean by ‘almost’?’ asked Kirov.

  ‘The coat had some modifications.’

  ‘What kind of modifications?’

  ‘Little pockets, two dozen of them, built into the left inside flap.’

  ‘What was the exact size of these pockets?’

  ‘Four centimetres long and two centimetres wide.’

  Too wide for a bullet, thought Kirov.

  ‘And there was more,’ continued Linsky. ‘He also ordered several straps to be fitted into the right inside flap.’

  ‘For what purpose? Was it clear?’

  Linsky shrugged. ‘The specifications were for double-thick canvas straps so whatever things he intended to carry with them must have been quite heavy. It required reinforcement of the coat’s entire right flap.’

  ‘More than one strap, you say?’

  ‘Yes. Three of them.’

  ‘Did they correspond to any particular shape?’

  ‘Not that I could tell. I puzzled over them for quite some time.’

  ‘And did you make the clothes?’

  ‘Of course, exactly as instructed.’

  Kirov turned his attention back to the piece of paper in his hand. ‘According to this, everything should have been picked up by now.’

  ‘Yes, Major.’

  ‘But you say you haven’t seen Pekkala.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then where is the clothing? May I see it?’

  ‘No, Major. It’s all gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ Kirov’s forehead creased. ‘You mean somebody stole the clothes?’

  ‘Not exactly, Major.’ Linsky pulled back a dark blue curtain directly behind him, revealing a grey metal bar, on which hung several sets of newly finished clothes, waiting to be picked up by their owners. ‘On the day before everything was due to be picked up I placed the garments here, as I always do with outgoing orders. But when I arrived here for work on the following day, the clothes were missing. The lock had been picked.’

  ‘Did you report the break-in?’

  ‘No. Nothing was stolen.’

  ‘But you just told me you were robbed!’

  ‘The clothing was gone, but payment for the order was left in a small leather bag, hanging from the bar where the clothes had been hanging.’

  ‘And there were no messages inside?’

  ‘Just the money.’

  ‘Do you still have that leather bag?’

  ‘Yes, somewhere here.’ He rummaged in the drawer and pulled out a bag of the type normally used by Russian soldiers to carry their rations of machorka tobacco. The bags were made from circles of leather, which then had holes punched around the edges. A leather cord was threaded through the holes and drawn tight, forming the shape of the bag. The bag Linsky held out to Kirov was, like most bags of this type, made from soft, suede leather, since it was intended to be worn around the neck of the soldier, where the tobacco stood the best chance of staying dry.

  ‘What type of payment was used?’ asked Kirov. ‘Gold? Silver?’

  ‘Nothing so exotic, I’m afraid. Just paper notes. That’s all.’

  ‘Was anything written on them? There might have been a message.’

  ‘I thought of that,’ Linsky replied, ‘but it was just a fistful of money, the likes of which you’d find inside the pocket of every person walking past this shop.’

  ‘And all of this happened almost a week ago.’

  ‘Five days, to be precise.’

  ‘And why didn’t you tell anyone until now?’

  ‘I did,’ answered Linsky. ‘I told Comrade Poskrebychev the day after the clothes disappeared, when he came in to pick up a new tunic for himself.’

  ‘Let me get this straight, Linsky. You don’t trust me enough to let me know that Pekkala himself, with whom I have worked for over a decade, was, in all probability, standing right here in this shop when the whole world thinks he is dead and yet the only person in whom you choose to confide is Poskrebychev?’

  Now Linsky leaned across the counter. For a moment, he did not speak, but only stared at Kirov, his pupils the colour of old glacier ice. ‘Would you mind if I spoke plainly, Major?’

  ‘I imagine that you’re going to, whether I mind it or not.’

  ‘There have only ever been a handful of people I trusted in this world,’ said Linsky, ‘and you and your Internal Security thugs killed most of them a long time ago. I do not question your loyalty, Major, only I find myself wondering with whom that loyalty ultimately rests. As for Poskrebychev, he and I have spoken about Pekkala many times before and I know he would do anything, just as I would, to help the Emerald Eye. I can only hope his instincts are correct and that you will use whatever help we can offer to guarantee Pekkala’s safe return.’

  ‘That much, at least, we can agree upon,’ said Kirov, as he handed Linsky the leather tobacco bag.

  Linsky held up his hands in refusal. ‘Hold on to that, Major. Perhaps, one day soon, you can return it to our mutual friend. Now,’ he gestured towards the platform on the other side of the room, ‘if you would not mind standing over there, we can get you fitted for your new uniform.’

  ‘Is that really necessary now?’ asked Kirov.

  Linsky glanced at him knowingly. ‘Why else would you be here, Comrade Major?

  *

  After his brief conversation with Major Kirov in the hallway outside Stalin’s office, Poskrebychev had returned to his desk and immediately resumed his rubber-stamping of official documents. But his hands were trembling so much that he kept smudging the facsimile of Stalin’s signature. Eventually, he was forced to set it aside. He folded his hands in his lap and breathed deeply, trying to slow the tripping rhythm of his heart.

  Ever since Linsky had confided in him, Poskrebychev had known that he could not go to Stalin with the news. As far as the Boss was concerned, Pekkala was either dead or soon would be if he ever reappeared. In spite of wh
at Stalin had said to Major Kirov, Poskrebychev knew from experience that death warrants, such as had been issued for Pekkala, were rarely, if ever, rescinded. Only Kirov could help Pekkala now, and Poskrebychev’s loyalty to the Inspector demanded that he pass along to the major what he had learned in Linsky’s shop. But how? He couldn’t place a call to Kirov. All of the Kremlin lines were monitored, even those originating from Stalin’s own office. The same was true for telegrams and letters. Poskrebychev didn’t dare go in person to the Major, in case he was observed along the way. If that happened, questions would be asked and those questions would end with his brains splashed on the wall of Lubyanka prison. Days passed as Poskrebychev struggled to find a solution. Valuable time was being wasted. Just when Poskrebychev was on the verge of despairing, Stalin had summoned Kirov to a briefing. Poskrebychev knew that this would be his only chance, but he couldn’t just blurt it out there in the halls of the Kremlin, where ears were pressed to every door and unblinking eyes peered from each polished brass key hole. All he could do was to point the Kirov in the right direction and hope that the major did as he was told.

  But now his mind was filled with doubts. He won’t go, thought Poskrebychev. It would never occur to Kirov that I might know anything of value except those scraps of information which Stalin permits me to overhear from his office, like breadcrumbs swept from a table for a dog to lick up after a meal.

  But this time it was different.

  In spite of the risk, Poskrebychev did not regret what he had done, nor would he have taken such a risk for anyone except the Emerald Eye.

  The reason for this was that he and the great Inspector shared a secret of their own which, if Pekkala had ever divulged it, would undoubtedly have cost Poskrebychev his life. But Poskrebychev knew without a shadow of doubt that his secret would be safe with Pekkala. The very fact that Pekkala had never used this knowledge as leverage against him, nor even mentioned it in passing, was what now compelled Poskrebychev to do whatever he could on behalf of the Emerald Eye.

  It all had to do with a joke. Several jokes, in fact, all of them conjured by Stalin and unleashed upon his secretary. They amounted to three or four each year, and ranged from sawing the legs off Poskrebychev’s desk to dismantling it entirely so that it collapsed on top of him when he opened the main drawer. There had been others, less inspired, such as the day Stalin’s bodyguard, Pauker, threw him in a duck pond on Stalin’s orders, after Poskrebychev had admitted that he could not swim.

  When Poskrebychev described these events to the few friends he possessed, he was astonished and frustrated to discover that none of them actually believed him. Comrade Stalin would not engage in such behaviour, they told him. The Boss is too serious a man to be amused by acts of mere frivolity.

  What their shuttered minds so stubbornly failed to comprehend was that these jokes, and the cruelty which lay at their core, revealed more about Stalin’s true nature than anything which they might ever wring out of the pages of Izvestia.

  If they could only have witnessed Pauker, describing to Stalin how, at the trial of Nikolai Bukharin, one of Stalin’s most loyal followers, the accused man had begged the court to notify the Boss as he was led away to be shot, little realising that it was Stalin himself who had ordered the execution. With ape-like gestures Pauker acted out the scene, clawing at the walls and promising to make amends for crimes he had never committed.

  Stalin enjoyed it so much that he ordered Pauker to tell the story twice. Each time Stalin wept with laughter, gasping for breath until finally he had waved everyone out of his office. For the rest of the day, fits of giggling exploded from the room as Stalin replayed Pauker’s antics in his head.

  But there was no laughter when, soon afterwards, Stalin ordered Pauker himself to be shot against the wall of Lubyanka.

  After Poskrebychev’s desk collapsed, and Stalin’s crow-like cackling reached him through the scratchy intercom, something snapped inside him. Poskrebychev did something he had thought he’d never do. He took revenge.

  Knowing the fastidiousness with which Stalin monitored his surroundings, Poskrebychev waited until Stalin left for a meeting, then crept into his master’s office and began to rearrange the objects in the room. The chair. The clock. The curtains. The ashtray. He moved them only fractions of centimetres, so that the displacement of each object by itself would have gone unnoticed. But cumulatively, the effect was exactly as Poskrebychev had intended. When Stalin arrived at his office, he was driven almost to distraction by some nameless anxiety whose source he could not comprehend. After the Boss had left, Poskrebychev replaced everything exactly as it had been before, which only added to Stalin’s consternation when he showed up the following day.

  For a brief moment, Poskrebychev believed he had committed the perfect act of revenge. Then Pekkala emerged from a meeting in Stalin’s office and, stopping at Poskrebychev’s desk, very carefully moved the black box of the intercom a hair’s breadth to one side. No words passed between them. There was no need. In that moment, Poskrebychev knew he’d been discovered by the only person, he now realised, who could possibly have figured it out.

  This was the secret they shared, the value of it measured not only by the fact that it was safe, but that someone aside from Poskrebychev had enjoyed a laugh at the expense of Joseph Stalin. And survived.

  (Postmark: none.)

  Letter hand delivered to American Embassy, Spano House, Mokhovaya St, Moscow.

  Date: July 2nd, 1937

  Dear Ambassador Davies,

  My name is Betty Jean Vasko and I am a citizen of the United States of America. I came here to see you in person, but the secretary here told me you are away on a sailing trip and will not be back for some time. I asked him to forward this letter to you and he said he would see what he could do.

  I am writing to you about my husband, William H. Vasko, who is a foreman at the Ford Motor Car Plant in Nizhni Novgorod.

  We came to Russia last year so that my husband could look for work. He had been laid off from his job where we lived in Newark, New Jersey, and we had no prospects there at the time. We brought our two children with us because we didn’t know how long we would be gone and we considered the possibility that we might settle here in Russia for good.

  When we arrived, my husband quickly found work at the Ford plant and, for a while, things were pretty good. My husband was promoted to foreman of the welding section. We had a house, thanks to the company. We had food and we had a school for our children. Truly, Ambassador, the closest I have come to living the American Dream was right here in the Soviet Union.

  But things have taken a turn for the worse and that is why I am writing to you now. Last week, Bill was arrested by Russian police at our home, just as we were sitting down to dinner. I do not know why this happened and the police did not give us a reason. They put him into the back of a car and drove away and I have not seen him since. And Mr Ambassador, that car was one of the same Fords my husband helped to make!

  I went to the police station in Nizhni-Novgorod but they told me he wasn’t being held there. They told me to go home and wait for a call, which I did. I waited three days, then four then five and finally I decided I would have to come to you to ask for help.

  Ambassador Davies, please help me to find out what has happened to my husband and to secure his release because whatever they are saying he did, I swear he is innocent. As a citizen of the United States, I’m sure he must be entitled to representation by our government.

  Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. Please hurry. I do not have a job as I have been home with the kids. I have no means of support except my husband’s salary and do not know how much longer the factory will continue to allow us to remain in the housing they provide.

  Yours sincerely,

  Betty Jean Vasko

  Immediately after departing from Linsky’s shop, Kirov drove straight to NKVD Headquarters in Lubyanka Square. But instead of heading up to the fourth floor to visit Elizaveta, as
he usually did, this time he made his way down to the basement to consult with Lazarev, the armourer.

  Lazarev was a legendary figure at Lubyanka. From his workshop in the basement, he managed the supply and repair of all weapons issued to Moscow NKVD. He had been there from the beginning, personally appointed by Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first head of the Cheka, who commandeered what had once been the offices of the All-Russian Insurance Company and converted it into the Centre of the Extraordinary Commission. From then on, the imposing yellow-stone building served as an administrative complex, prison and place of execution. The Cheka had changed its name several times since then, from OGPU to GPU to NKVD, transforming under various directors into its current incarnation. Throughout these gruelling and sometimes bloody metamorphoses, which emptied, reoccupied and emptied once again the desks of countless servants of the State, Lazarev had remained at his post, until only he remained of those who had set the great machine of Internal State Security in motion. This was not due to luck or skill in navigating the minefield of the purges, but rather to the fact that, no matter who did the killing and who did the dying above ground, a gunsmith was always needed to make sure the weapons kept working.

  For a man of such mythic status, Lazarev’s appearance came as something of a disappointment. He was short and hunched, with pockmarked cheeks so pale they seemed to confirm the rumours that he never travelled above ground, but migrated like a mole through secret tunnels known only to him beneath the streets of Moscow. He wore a tan shop-coat, whose frayed pockets sagged from the weight of bullets, screwdrivers and gun parts. He wore this tattered coat buttoned right up to his throat, giving rise to another rumour; namely that he wore nothing underneath. This story was reinforced by the sight of Lazarev’s bare legs beneath the knee-length coat. He had a peculiar habit of never lifting his feet from the floor as he moved about the armoury, choosing instead to slide along like a man condemned to live on ice. He shaved infrequently, and the slivers of beard that jutted from his chin resembled the spines of a cactus. His eyes, watery blue in their shallow sockets, showed his patience with a world that did not understand his passion for the gun and the wheezy, reassuring growl of his voice, once heard, was unforgettable.