by Sam Eastland
Pekkala kept his eyes on the door as he sipped a cup of smoky-tasting tea. He wondered why Ilya was late. She was normally punctual, which was perhaps to be expected from a teacher of young children. Probably the headmistress had kept her behind again to discuss some change in the curriculum, not in spite of the fact that she must have known it was Ilya’s birthday and that Pekkala had made reservations at the Metropole but precisely because of that fact. The headmistress had done things like this before, and now Pekkala clenched his fist upon the tablecloth as he silently cursed the old woman.
Just when he was about to give up and go home, the door opened and this time Pekkala felt sure it must be Ilya. Instead, however, a giant of a man walked into the room, swathed in the uniform of an Imperial cavalry officer. The newcomer removed his cap in the manner of a cavalryman, lifting it from the back and tipping it forward off his head. Briefly, he glanced about to get his bearings, then climbed the stairs and strode along the balcony. The leaves of palm trees brushed against his shoulders, as if bowing to the giant as he passed. He came to a stop outside one of the Kabinets, knocked once, and entered. Late for the party, guessed Pekkala, and for a moment he went back to thinking about Ilya-whether she would like the present he had bought her, a silver dragonfly necklace made by the St. Petersburg jeweler Nijinsky. The necklace had been very expensive, and quietly it galled Pekkala to pay so much for something so utterly impractical.
The wanderings of Pekkala’s mind were halted by the sound of the door to the Kabinet opening again. This time two men emerged-the giant cavalry officer again and a man Pekkala recognized as Colonel Kolchak.
Kolchak was fastening the buttons on his tunic as he descended from the balcony and made his way towards the exit. Glancing across the sea of guests, he caught Pekkala’s eye.
The two men nodded in greeting.
Kolchak’s expression was grim and angry. He muttered something in the ear of the cavalry officer, who then crossed the dining room, sidestepping in the narrow space between tables with an agility surprising for such a heavyset man. He arrived at Pekkala’s table, clicked his heels, and jolted his head forward in a hasty bow. “I am the colonel’s aide-de-camp. He requires your help, Inspector.”
Immediately Pekkala rose to his feet, dropping his napkin on the table. “What is it about?”
“Colonel Kolchak needs you to be his second.”
“His second what?”
“His second in a duel.”
The word took Pekkala’s breath away. “A duel? When? Where?”
“Outside. Now.”
Pekkala hesitated. Although the fighting of duels was legal, as far as he knew, it had been years since one had taken place in the streets of St. Petersburg. In order to make the duel legal, a second was required for each man, and these seconds, if asked, were required by law to witness the event.
“If you don’t mind my asking, Lieutenant, why aren’t you his second in this matter?”
“Because Colonel Kolchak asked for you, Inspector. Now if you will kindly follow me …”
Out in the street, it was snowing. Horse-drawn carriages passed by, wheels purring through the slush.
A staff car, which Pekkala recognized as belonging to Colonel Kolchak, was pulled up onto the curb.
In the road stood a man Pekkala had never seen before. He was of medium height, with short dark hair parted down the middle and a neatly trimmed mustache. The man was in the process of taking off his jacket, which he handed to another man standing beside him.
This second man was gaunt and narrow-lipped. A sheepskin cap was perched high upon his head.
Opposite these two, about twenty paces away, stood Colonel Kolchak. Wobbling on his feet, the colonel was obviously drunk. “Let’s get this over with!” he shouted.
“Kolchak,” said Pekkala, “let us talk this through. I beg you to reconsider the challenge you have brought against this man.”
Kolchak turned to him and laughed. “You are talking to the wrong man, Pekkala. I am not the one who asked to fight a duel.”
“But what is this about?”
Kolchak shook his head and spat into the snow. “Nothing that matters to me.”
Realizing this was the only answer he was going to get, Pekkala approached the other men.
The gaunt figure in the sheepskin cap came out to meet him. “I am Polivanov,” he said.
“And who is he?” Pekkala nodded towards the gentleman with the mustache.
“That is Maxim Alexeyevich Radom,” answered Polivanov. “It is he who has brought the challenge against Colonel Kolchak.”
“But why?”
“This is a point of honor,” Polivanov replied. “I am acting as his second. Am I to understand that you are the second for Colonel Kolchak?”
“I …” began Pekkala. “Yes, I am but …”
From the pockets of his coat, Polivanov removed two revolvers. Holding them by the barrels, he held the weapons out towards Pekkala. “Choose, please.”
“What?”
Polivanov leaned towards Pekkala and lowered his voice. “You must select a gun, sir.”
“Are you sure this can’t be stopped?” pleaded Pekkala.
“Quite sure,” replied Polivanov.
Hesitantly, Pekkala reached out and took one of the pistols. He could tell from the weight that it was fully loaded.
Polivanov measured out twelve paces. At each end he drew a line with his heel in the wet snow.
Maxim Radom walked forward to the line which had been drawn for him. Clasped in one hand was a crumpled piece of paper. Wearing only a shirt above his waist, Radom shuddered with the cold.
Now Kolchak advanced to his line. He held out his hand to Pekkala. “Give me the gun,” he ordered.
Reluctantly, Pekkala handed him the weapon. “Colonel, I beg you to reconsider. What honor can there be in gunning down another man?”
Kolchak did not reply. Instead he opened the cylinder, cocked the revolver, and peered down the barrel at his opponent. Then he spun the cylinder, holding it up to his ear, like a burglar listening to the tumblers of a safe. With a jerk of his wrist, Kolchak closed the cylinder. “Stand aside,” he told Pekkala, and suddenly he did not sound drunk anymore.
Once more Pekkala turned to face the two strangers, still convinced that there might be a way to end this without bloodshed. But there was something about the way they stood, and the grim formality of their expressions, which made Pekkala realize that he was part of something he could not prevent.
Radom unfolded the piece of paper in his hand. “Colonel Kolchak,” he announced in a loud but shaking voice, “I will read the charge against you.”
“Go to hell!” snarled Kolchak. “Do you want to kill me or don’t you?”
Radom flinched, as if the colonel had just spat in his face. With trembling fingers, he attempted to fold up the paper again, but instead he dropped it in the snow. For a moment he stared at it and seemed to be contemplating whether there was more dignity in bending down to retrieve the note or in leaving the paper where it lay.
Before he could make up his mind, Kolchak’s voice thundered once more through the darkness. “Who’s first?”
“The choice is yours,” answered Radom.
In that moment, Pekkala no longer felt the freezing air blowing in off the Neva River. Nor could he hear the sound of laughter and music from inside the Metropole. Even the drifting snowflakes seemed to pause in their descent.
Kolchak examined the revolver in his hand. He turned it one way and then another and the glimmer of the streetlamps winked off its blued-steel barrel. Then, casually, he raised the gun and pulled the trigger.
The sound was flat and brittle, like that of someone breaking a dry stick across their knee.
Maxim Alexeyevich Radom stood perfectly still.
Kolchak missed, thought Pekkala. Thank God, the man is too drunk to shoot straight. Now surely they will call the whole thing off.
Another moment passed before Pekkala real
ized that he was mistaken.
Radom’s neat dark hair stuck up on one side, like a shard of black glass. Slowly, the man raised his arms out to the side, like someone about to set out across a tightrope. He took one careful step backwards. Then he fell into the slush, the gun tumbling out of his hand.
Pekkala and Polivanov both ran to help the injured man, but there was nothing they could do.
Radom had been shot just above the left eye. His skull had been cracked open and the scalp folded back upon itself. Steam drifted from the hole in Radom’s head.
Radom was still alive but his breathing had become a deep, guttural snore. It was a sound Pekkala had heard before, and he knew that the man had only minutes left to live.
At that moment, the double doors of the Metropole flew open and a woman ran out into the street. Her hair was a dark, tangled mass. She was wearing only a silk negligee, and as she passed through the lamplight, the gossamer fabric seemed to disappear like smoke, leaving her naked in the freezing air.
Stumbling barefoot through the snow, she made her way to where Radom had collapsed. With a wail she sank down next to him, pressing her hands against his bloody face.
Kolchak had not moved since he fired the revolver. Now he shook his head and tossed the gun away.
The lieutenant emerged from where he had been waiting in the shadows and the two men climbed into Kolchak’s car.
That was when Pekkala caught sight of Ilya coming down the road.
He ran to meet her.
“Why is that man lying here?” Her cheeks were rosy in the cold.
“We should go.” Gently he took her by the arm.
“What about the Metropole? What about our dinner?”
“Some other time,” Pekkala replied.
“What happened?” She was staring at the woman in the negligee.
“Please,” whispered Pekkala. “I promise I will tell you later.”
Sitting behind the wheel, the lieutenant started up the car.
Hearing the noise of the engine, the woman in the negligee raised her head. She caught sight of Kolchak in the backseat of the car and let out a scream of sadness and rage.
The car pulled out into the road and drove past, showering them all with icy water.
Pekkala glimpsed a match flaring in the car as Kolchak lit himself a cigarette.
As they passed, the driver turned towards Pekkala.
That man was Lieutenant Tarnowski.
Their eyes locked, and then the car was gone, and the glittering frost which filled the air seemed to close up around it, as if it had never been there.
Kolchak’s duel was the last one ever fought in St. Petersburg. Two days later, the Tsar outlawed this barbaric ritual.
After Tarnowski, there were no more visitors.
It was hunger which preoccupied Pekkala now, no matter how hard he tried to steer it from his mind.
On his fifth day in solitary, Pekkala spotted a cockroach scuttling across the floor. The thumb-sized, amber-colored insect reached the far wall and began to move along it.
Without another thought, Pekkala lunged across the floor and caught it. With nausea rising in his throat, he crushed the cockroach in his fist and ate the mash of legs and shell and innards, mixed with the gray-brown silt, like the ashes from a crematory oven, which he had clawed up from the floor along with the insect.
Pekkala felt no revulsion, knowing that in the Gulags, only those who were prepared to set aside all pretense of dignity would go on living.
To take his mind off the fact that he was starving, he focused his thoughts on the murder of Ryabov. Since arriving at the camp, he had been presented with several possibilities, all of which appeared to circle around the truth. But none of them, as far as Pekkala was concerned, pointed directly at it. Commandant Klenovkin was convinced that the killing had been carried out by the Comitati. Melekov blamed Sergeant Gramotin. The Comitati themselves seemed resigned to their gradual extinction in this place, at the hands of whoever dared to challenge them. For Tarnowski, the killer and his reasons hardly seemed to matter anymore. The only thing they had left to believe in was that their leader would one day return to set them free.
Pekkala admired the Comitati for the depth of their faith, but for that same reason he also pitied them. Even if Kolchak had promised to return someday, Pekkala did not believe that the colonel would keep his word. Although Pekkala had not been well acquainted with Kolchak, he knew precisely the kind of man the Tsar would have chosen for such an important task. Kolchak may have selected the men under his command for their loyalty to him, but the Tsar had picked Kolchak for his ability to carry out the mission, no matter what the cost in human life. That mission was to transport the gold. For such a task, cold blood, not compassion, was required. Once his soldiers had fallen into captivity, Kolchak would have weighed the risks of trying to free them and realized that the odds were too great. What the men under Kolchak’s command had never been able to accept was that they were, in the eyes of their leader, expendable.
The mission had failed. The gold had fallen into the hands of the enemy. The Tsar was dead. The war was over. For Colonel Kolchak, these bitter truths would have been harder to accept than the loss of his soldiers.
One thing continued to puzzle Pekkala more than anything else. After holding out for so many years, why had Captain Ryabov suddenly approached the Commandant in order to bargain for his freedom with information too old to be of any probable use? Even if he did possess some scrap of useful knowledge, why would he choose this time to betray the colonel?
Perhaps Commandant Klenovkin was right, and the captain had finally grown tired of waiting. But what Pekkala did not believe was Klenovkin’s claim that time and hardship had simply caused Ryabov to crack. Something specific had pushed Ryabov over the edge, perhaps a horror he had glimpsed on the horizon or else an event from his past which had finally caught up with him. If the latter was true, then the answer might lie in the contents of Ryabov’s file-if only the missing pages could be found.
The time had come to bring Kirov onto the case. All Pekkala had to do now was wait until they let him out of this cell.
At dawn on the seventh day, Gramotin and Platov came to fetch him. In their heavy greatcoats, they were sweating by the time they had trudged up the hill.
Pekkala was sitting with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest, clinging to the tiny pocket of warmth he had created under the threadbare blanket.
“Get up,” ordered Gramotin.
“Time to get back to work,” added Platov.
Stiffly, Pekkala rose to his feet, and the two guards walked him down towards the camp.
Halfway there, Platov tripped Pekkala, sending him sprawling on the muddy path.
Rolling over onto his back, Pekkala found himself staring down the muzzle of Gramotin’s rifle.
“We heard about you,” Gramotin said.
“Heard you were a detective,” Platov chimed in.
“That’s right.” Pekkala tried to stand but Gramotin swung his rifle butt into Pekkala’s shin and knocked him down again.
“We also heard that the Comitati want you to stay in one piece,” continued Gramotin. “We have learned, over the years, to get along with those gentlemen, which sometimes means granting them a wish or two, but the next time you see a fight, Inspector, you stay out of it. If I have to come all this way again to fetch you down from solitary, no matter what the Comitati want, I swear you’ll never make it to the bottom of the hill. Understand?”
Pekkala nodded, gritting his teeth from the pain in his bruised shin.
By the time they reached the camp, a large truck had arrived in the compound.
The canvas flaps had been thrown back and a group of hawk-eyed women were climbing down into the slush. Even more than their gender, it was the colors of their clothes which set them apart from the dreary world of Borodok. To Pekkala, they looked like tropical birds which had been blown off course from their migrations and en
ded up in a place where their survival would depend on a miracle.
“Hello, my darlings!” Gramotin called to them.
“I’ll see you later,” said a woman with a tobacco-husky voice. As she spoke, she drew apart the lapels of her heavy coat and swayed her hips from side to side.
“I love it when the whores come by.” Platov was grinning. “But look at the line already.”
At the camp hospital, the queue of men stretched halfway round the building. The hospital windows, lacking glass, were made from opaque panels of pressed fish skin, and they wept with condensation. Out of the back door of the hospital, the sick were being moved to other parts of the camp. Two hospital orderlies carried out one man on a stretcher. The sick man’s face was gray with fever. He seemed oblivious to what was happening, as the orderlies parked his stretcher in the woodshed beside the main building. Even though he did not fit inside the shed, the orderlies left him there, bare feet jutting out into the snow.
The two guards walked Pekkala to the kitchen.
Melekov met Pekkala in the doorway. With arms folded across his chest and a large wooden spoon clasped in each fist, he eyed Pekkala disapprovingly.
As soon as they were both inside the kitchen, Melekov launched into a scolding. “What did you think you were doing getting involved in a fight with the Comitati? If you want to get yourself killed, there are much simpler ways of going about it!” As if to emphasize his point, Melekov walked over to his cutting board. The huge slab of wood had been worn down smoothly in the middle, like a rock pool formed by centuries of dripping water. Melekov scrubbed it at the end of each shift and treated the wood twice a month with special almond oil which he kept just for that purpose.
Pekkala thought it was one of the most accidentally beautiful things he had ever seen.