The Twelfth Department

by William Ryan

  At least Yuri had revived enough to now be whistling. He was walking beside Korolev and, even if he was avoiding his eye as he whittled his damned stick with that little pearl-handled pocket knife of his, he seemed cheerier. Maybe he’d believed him after all.

  Was his behavior normal though? It seemed odd to be so upset and then, not an hour later, to be whistling tunelessly as if nothing had ever happened. Korolev scratched his head—he didn’t know much about small boys except what he remembered from his own youth. And since he’d left school at ten to work for a butcher in Khitrovka, he wasn’t sure his memories were that useful—boys grew up quickly in those days. Perhaps there was a book he could read.

  They stepped out from the trees onto a grassy expanse that stretched down to the slow-moving river—the slope dotted with sunbathers and picnickers. There was a workers’ rest home on the other side of the bridge—at least some of them must be from there—and the lean youths gathered around the volleyball net by the far trees would be from the Komsomol camp past the cemetery. It was a complete cross-section of Soviet society, in any event. Some of the citizens had the trappings of relative prosperity—a crisp white shirt or a summer dress of a quality that couldn’t be bought in an ordinary store—while others looked as though they might be factory workers or the like. Children ran backward and forward, wet hair shining in the summer sun and watched over by women in white headscarves.

  It occurred to him that most other people seemed part of a larger grouping, while Yuri and he were relatively unusual in their isolation among the hullabaloo. But Korolev was used to standing apart from things and, anyway, there were two of them—that was all he cared about.

  Korolev picked a spot on a slight rise so that he could keep an eye on Yuri if he went swimming, and under a tree so that he wouldn’t be burned to a crisp. He spread out the blanket he’d brought from the house, rolled up his sleeves like all the other men, and eyed the curve of the tree’s trunk with the anticipation of a man who’d had an early start to a day that had turned out to be, well, not an easy one. He doubted he’d sleep but he might be able to empty his mind for a few minutes. And that would be as good as a holiday in itself, after the last couple of days.

  “Off you go, Yuri. No need to wait around for me.” Korolev settled himself down. “Don’t swim out too far—there might be a current.”

  In fact, the water looked sluggish as engine oil, and if Korolev hadn’t known better he’d have suspected it of being a long, meandering pond rather than a river. Still, he was sure this kind of caution was expected of fathers.

  “I’ll just finish this off first,” Yuri said, looking at the group of youngsters who were splashing in the shallows, before resuming scraping at his stick.

  “Go on,” Korolev said, moving his back from side to side to find the perfect spot. “They won’t bite.”

  Yuri looked skeptical about that, and Korolev took a second look at the boys in the water—and had to admit Yuri might have a point. And now that he glanced around, he could see the other citizens were keeping a safe distance between themselves and this particular bathing spot and he couldn’t blame them—it was temporary home to as evil a gathering of rascally youth as he’d ever seen, certainly in the same place anyway. The orphans had hard thin faces and sharp yellow teeth and, on second thought, he wouldn’t put it past any of them not to bite—and probably infect you with something nasty when they did so.

  Korolev was about to turn his attention back to his tree trunk when he realized one of the boys was showing just as much interest in him and, not believing it could be who he thought it was, he stood to get a better view. There, in among the mayhem, was the red-haired Kim Goldstein, onetime leader of the Razin Street Irregulars and now, it seemed, the ringmaster of a much hardier crew. He’d filled out a little and grown an inch or two—but there was no mistaking him.

  With a word to some of his fellows, Goldstein swiped water backward over his skull and stepped up onto the pebble beach. He walked slowly over to where they were sitting—taking his time, confident and purposeful.

  “Goldstein. I never thought they’d get you into an orphanage—I’m surprised.”

  “Me too, Korolev—but it was a hard winter. I looked for you but you were off somewhere in the south—I thought you might have found us a better class of establishment.”

  “I’d have done what I could,” Korolev said.

  “I know it. Still, we made it through the winter alive—most of us anyway. That’s what’s important.”

  Korolev had absentmindedly taken out his cigarettes when he caught Goldstein’s meaningful glance. He offered the packet without thinking, then became aware of Yuri, the boy’s expression caught somewhere between disapproval and fascination.

  “This is my son, Yuri.”

  Goldstein raised a finger to his forehead in a laconic salute to which Yuri responded in kind. For some reason, this amused Goldstein.

  “Well, Yuri—your dad’s all right for a Ment. Straight and reliable—can’t ask much more.”

  “Yes,” Yuri said, raising himself to stand. He held out his hand and Goldstein took it, shaking it firmly.

  “The winter’s over,” Korolev said, nodding toward the other kids. “Not planning to move on?”

  Goldstein smiled and Korolev noticed he’d lost one of his front teeth since the last time they’d met. He’d also picked up a raw-looking scar on his left cheek.

  “We’ll go soon enough,” Goldstein said, “but some things can’t be rushed.”

  Korolev sensed there was some secret irony in what the boy was saying but, whatever it might be, it wasn’t his business. He was on holiday.

  Goldstein lifted the cigarette he’d given him to his mouth and Korolev lit it for him. Korolev turned to Yuri and offered him the packet as well. It seemed only fair.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Yuri—they taste like old boots soaked in petrol and they make you smell like a crematorium. But, if you want one, you can have it. There’s no need to tell your mother, though.”

  Yuri and Goldstein exchanged a glance and Korolev could have sworn some sort of challenge was made and accepted. The result was that Yuri picked out a cigarette, Korolev held up his lighter, and the next moment his son was doing his best not to cough up his lungs. Korolev cursed and patted his back, immediately regretting having given him the damned cigarette, while Goldstein dropped his tough facade enough to giggle. Korolev scowled at him.

  “You weren’t lying about the taste,” Yuri said, spitting on the grass. Korolev leaned forward to take back the cigarette—but Yuri took a step back, taking another puff on it, this time managing to do so without coughing. He made a wry face. “But it just takes getting used to.”

  “Come on,” Goldstein said, smiling widely and putting an arm around Yuri’s shoulder. “Come and meet the guys. Don’t worry, Comrade Captain—they’ll behave themselves. I’ll make sure of it.”

  Korolev watched his son walk down to the river with Goldstein then sat down once again underneath the tree. Well, that had been interesting. He felt a glow of pride in the way the boy had behaved. Good for him. He found himself smiling fondly and all seemed well with the world—for the moment, at least. The day was hot, but not too humid. The sun was shining and the people nearby were happy and laughing. He thought about opening the book he’d brought with him and then found his eyes were closing whether he liked it or not—and his thoughts slowly spiraled toward something that seemed like oblivion.

  How long he slept he couldn’t tell—and when he woke he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t still dreaming because the first people he saw were the two men from the train station, standing in among the far trees, half hidden by branches. They were talking together in a serious manner. And it wasn’t him they were looking at—but Yuri.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Korolev took Yuri back to the dacha shortly afterward—he didn’t feel safe down by the river after he’d seen the men. At first he was sorely tempted to head straight b
ack to Moscow—but when he thought about it, he realized that wasn’t the sensible thing to do. If he was being watched, then running back to Bolshoi Nikolo-Vorobinsky might be seen as an admission of guilt—even if he’d no idea what it was he could be guilty of. And anyway—if those men were State Security there was nowhere he’d be safe. The thing to do was not panic.

  Lipski, meanwhile, had found them some eggs, two fish that were still cold from the ice they’d been packed in, a small bag of potatoes, half a watermelon, and a piece of butter. It was enough, with what he’d brought from Moscow, for a good lunch—though Yuri only picked at it, his gaze drifting to the open window from time to time. Korolev wondered if he’d seen the men as well.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked, after several minutes during which neither of them spoke.

  “No,” Yuri said. “I think I’ll just go upstairs and read for a while—is that all right?”

  “Of course—your brain is a stomach too, you know. Except you have to feed it with books.”

  Korolev thought about that for a moment—not sure if he’d expressed himself remotely well. Yuri glanced up at him, looking a little confused.

  “What I meant to say was—” Korolev began.

  “I know,” Yuri said. “Don’t worry, Papa. I like books. I read as much as I can.”

  “That’s good, very good.”

  When Yuri left the room, Korolev waited a moment or two before reaching across the table for the boy’s plate. He’d learned early in life that you never knew for sure when you might be able to eat again.

  He’d barely finished the last mouthful when the phone rang, much louder than he’d been expecting—it was as if there were a fire engine in the room with him. He picked the receiver up carefully, a part of him wanting to let it ring and not answer it at all. He’d tried to get through to Zhenia again when they’d come back to the house and this must be the operator calling back.

  “Hello?”

  “Your call to Zagorsk. The line’s clear—I can put you through now.”

  “Thank you.”

  He listened to the phone ringing at Zhenia’s end. Once, twice, five times. The phone was in the communal hallway and sometimes it took awhile for someone to answer. After all, answering might mean climbing four flights to find the person the call was intended for—no fun in the middle of a hot summer. Eight times now.

  “Hello?”

  A man’s voice, elderly would be his guess—and annoyed at having been the one to answer, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  “I’m calling for Citizeness Koroleva. Apartment 3 on the second floor.”

  “Koroleva, you say?”

  The voice sounded half-amused.

  “That’s the one.”

  “She won’t be answering phones today, I don’t think. No, my guess is she won’t be answering phones for a while.”

  The man chuckled and before Korolev had a chance to question him, there came the click of the phone being hung up.

  Korolev stood there, listening to the monotone hum of the empty line in his ear. He heard a floorboard creak behind him and turned to find Yuri standing in the doorway, his face pale. Korolev smiled.

  “I see,” he said, speaking into the phone. “Well, I’ll call back tomorrow then. Can you tell her Alexei called? Thanks.”

  He hung the receiver back onto the phone and shrugged.

  “She’s out, it seems. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  Yuri nodded and Korolev listened to his footsteps retreating back up the stairs to the first floor.

  It might be nothing—some people made dark humor from other people’s misfortune these days. And the whole house would know Chekists had come to visit, that was certain. It could just be a neighbor who wanted to make a call of his own or someone who couldn’t be bothered to go and find her. It was unnerving—but it was probably nothing unusual. Neighbors were like that sometimes. He should just remain calm—that was the sensible thing to do.

  * * *

  Later they searched for mushrooms in the woods around the dacha and turned it into a game. Yuri was soon scampering around, his eyes roaming the ground in front of him and his nose pointing forward as if he might sniff their quarry out.

  “Yuri,” Korolev had said, in what he hoped was an offhand way, “if I should suddenly be called away, do you think you could remember how to get back to Moscow—to the apartment?”

  Yuri, whose feet had been making their careful way across the sunshine-dappled forest floor, looked up at the question.

  “You think you might be called away?”

  “It’s possible. I’m a detective, sometimes these things happen. Like the other day, if you remember.”

  Yuri considered this. “You’d want me to get the train on my own?”

  “I don’t see why not—you made it all the way from Zagorsk on your own.”

  “I’m only twelve.”

  “I was only ten when I started work for the butcher Lytkin—and you’re a brighter spark than I was.”

  Yuri looked pleased at the compliment.

  “I’d need money for the train and the tram.”

  “You’re right—and I should have given you money before, anyway. A young man needs a rouble or two on his person, or so I’ve always found.”

  Korolev reached in his pocket and Yuri rubbed the notes he handed him between his finger and thumb. He looked suspicious.

  “It’s just in case,” Korolev said. “But if I have to go—make your way to Valentina, she’ll look after you till I get back.”

  * * *

  In the evening they played chess and then listened to a football game on the radio, an important match between Spartak and Lokomotiv, and then, when Yuri fell asleep in his chair, Korolev carried him to bed.

  He looked down at the boy in the half-light of the dusk and saw Zhenia in his features, but also some of himself. He couldn’t help but feel frightened for the boy, and leaned forward to kiss his forehead before he left the room.

  Korolev stayed up for a while pretending to himself he was reading, knowing he wouldn’t sleep while his brain kept going over the little he knew and trying to make sense of it. And when he did go to bed he found himself shifting around, unable to relax or get himself comfortable, turning over possibilities and probabilities in his head; wide awake—no matter how much he wished he wasn’t.

  So when the silence was shattered by someone hammering on the door downstairs, Korolev was on his feet and reaching for his clothes before he’d even thought who it might be. He went straight to Yuri’s room and found the boy sitting up in his bed, his eyes dark and round in his moonlit face. Korolev tried to keep the fear out of his voice.

  “I’ll go and see who it is—but if I’m called away, remember what I told you. Valentina will look after you and I’ll come as soon as I can.”

  He turned and went down the staircase, his feet hitting the steps with the same rhythm as whoever was still banging at the door. Whoever? Well, no thief ever knocked and no honest citizen battered another’s door in the middle of the night.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he called out as he passed through the kitchen—and the knocking stopped.

  He turned on the light in the small winter hallway and opened the door. Two men were outside, their faces yellow in the glow that spilled from the doorway. They were wide-bodied, slab-shouldered professionals—one a dark-skinned, black-haired fellow with the look of the Caucasus about him, and the other a blond, unseasonably pale Slav. They examined him without speaking and he wondered if they were deciding whether he’d come easily or whether he’d be trouble.

  “Comrades,” Korolev said.

  “We’ll see about that,” the paler of the two answered, with a curl of his lip that didn’t bode well.

  “Korolev, Alexei Dmitriyevich?” The dark one’s cheeks were round and might have been jolly with another man’s eyes. This one’s had seen too much.

  “That’s me.”

  “Do we need to introduce ourselves?�
�� the pale one asked.

  From behind them came the sound of a door closing and Lipski appeared from the caretaker’s hut. The men turned quickly and Lipski had the good sense to come to a halt, putting his hands on his head as he did so. By then the dark one had a pistol pointing at the old man’s chest and the other was aiming his weapon at Korolev.

  “It’s Lipski, the caretaker,” Korolev said in what he hoped was a calm voice. “He must have heard the noise. This is nothing to do with him.”

  “That’s the truth,” the pale one said, an ominous tone coloring his voice.

  Lipski looked at the Chekists for a moment, then seemed to decide this was the worst possible thing to do and shut his eyes altogether.

  “I’ve seen nothing, Comrades, and I’ve heard nothing. Nothing whatsoever.”

  “Remember the orders; the matter’s to be handled quietly.” The darker of the men spoke quietly, with a Georgian accent. “Citizen Lipski here will oblige us by keeping his mouth shut, I’m sure.”

  “Of course, Comrade,” Lipski said, his eyes still closed and his shoulders hunched over as if to make himself a smaller target.

  “Good. So we’ll all be very calm, won’t we? And then we’ll be on our way all the quicker.”

  The Georgian was speaking as much to his colleague as to them, and the pale Chekist nodded his agreement.

  “Korolev? You’re coming with us.”

  Korolev nodded, looking down at his feet.

  “I’ll need some shoes.”

  “We’ll come with you to get them, don’t worry.” The dark one spoke softly. “And you’ll need to wake the boy while you’re at it. He’s coming too.”