by Alex Dryden
‘What will the others think?’ she said.
‘Does it matter?’
She looked directly back at him and didn’t answer his question. But they both knew she would be shunned by the rest of them if she stayed with him.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Come!’ the Wolf Dmitry ordered.
The two other OMON officers with emblazoned wolves entered. Dmitry stood and looked at Anna. ‘I’m doing this for your own good,’ he said. Then he looked at the two officers. ‘Stand her up.’
They took her by the arms and dragged her from the chair, pinioning her against the wall.
She knew the training the OMON went through – she’d gone through something similar when she’d trained for the Russian foreign intelligence service. One of the final acts before acceptance into the ranks – and one which most applicants failed – was to fight bare-handed against five other men. Pinioned against the wall, even she had no chance.
Dmitry came up to her slowly. He looked at her with black eyes. Then he punched her face, once to the right eye, then the mouth, and then once to the left eye.
She reeled at the blows and the two officers held her head up against the wall for more.
She waited for further blows to rain down on her. She couldn’t think, only endure. But through her crushed eyes, she saw Dmitry turn and walk casually back to the table. He sat down and poured himself a glass of vodka. When he’d drunk it, he said, ‘That’s enough.’
The two officers dropped her and she slumped against the wall.
‘You’ll have two black eyes and a lot of swelling by the morning,’ Dmitry said. ‘That way the rest of the people on this damn boat will trust you, won’t they,’ he sneered. ‘That’s what you wanted.’
He got up from the table, then, and walked across the room, stopping in front of her. He looked at her slumped head harshly and lifted it by her chin with his fingers so that she was forced to face him in the eye.
‘Use your eyes and ears, Valentina. Here, and when we get to Igarka. I want to clear this ship of any suspicion. There’ll be no saboteurs coming up north in the Rossiya while I’m in charge. And there’ll be no one coming through that shitty little timber town who shouldn’t be, either.’ He slipped his fingers intimately along her chin and then wiped them deliberately on his uniform trousers. ‘Now get out,’ he said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ALEXEI PETROV WALKED back from the bridge to the the port-side steps that led below decks. It was lunchtime and he was hungry. Maybe it was all the fresh air of Siberia after the yellow polluted smog of the city that had made him hungry, but whatever the cause it was convenient to be heading for the restaurant for other reasons. The Americans, he’d noted, lunched at the same time every day.
When he reached the mid-deck and had walked to the restaurant, he saw that it was as it usually was at mealtimes. There was just himself there and the three Tajik businessmen from Krasnoyarsk who were selling a container full of electrical goods; some Armenian salesmen who seemed to own most of the vodka the ferry was carrying to the north; a Russian technician who worked at the nickel smelters beyond the Arctic Circle; and the three Americans. It was only the rich – or the relatively rich at any rate – and the tourists who could afford to use the restaurant. And he now knew the three Americans were the only foreign tourists on board at this time of year. He’d checked that on the manifest. And so the restaurant was almost empty as it had been since the voyage began. This time he didn’t order a drink at the bar or hang back for other reasons, he went straight to the table where the three of them were sitting and with a cheery ‘Hello’ took a seat without asking.
‘It’s time for your first lesson,’ he said. ‘I must teach you some Evenk before we reach Potapovo.’
As usual, the Americans didn’t seem pleased to see him, but the woman Eileen at least made some effort at small talk. Over lunch, which he noted they ate quite sparingly as if they were on a diet or in training for something – or perhaps just afraid of Russian food – Petrov told them some useful Evenk words and phrases and then, just for their amusement, he told them of words the Evenk possessed that could be found in no other language.
There was the Evenk word for ‘the noise a bear makes walking through cranberry bushes’, for example, and another word for ‘the noise a duck makes landing silently on water’. It was Petrov’s obvious charm and easygoing nature, as well as the little insights of the Evenk world that he gave them through his native language, that finally seemed to thaw them – even endear them to him. He was hard to resist, asking for nothing, giving everything, and all with a sense of spiritual calm – as Eileen later described it to the two boys – that seemed eventually to allay whatever fear they had of him. Temporarily at least. And Petrov was genuine in his friendly manner and this genuineness shone through. He displayed no artifice, despite holding the question in the back of his head that, if the opportunity arose, he would politely lay on the table what he really wanted to ask.
Over coffee, Petrov slowly reintroduced the awkward subject that had come up in their first conversation; the international incident that was slowly unfolding between Russia on the one side and America, Canada, Norway and Denmark on the other – the ownership of the Lomonosov Ridge, three miles below the ice all the way under the Pole. By this time, Petrov had drunk three beers and, though in a festively inebriated mood, still had his plan for the conversation he hoped would lie ahead clear in his mind.
‘It seems to me,’ Petrov said, ‘that whoever owns this subterranean mountain range won’t be able to exploit the oil and gas in it anyway. Not yet. As far as one can tell, there’s not the technology to drill beneath the Pole.’
‘One day they’ll know how to do it,’ Sky answered him. ‘If they don’t already. That’s why everyone’s laying claim to it now. Technology will follow. It’s the same with the growing of illegal crops like marijuana. The big cigarette companies have been buying up land in South America for decades, just waiting for it to be declared legal.’
‘Is that so?’ Petrov said in genuine surprise. ‘And the environment of the Arctic?’ he asked gently. ‘What about the effects on that up here, in one of the world’s most sensitive areas?’
‘Ah,’ Clay said, with a deep cynicism in his voice, to Petrov’s mind. But the American didn’t elaborate.
‘They always find the excuses they need to bypass environmental questions,’ Sky answered him.
‘But there’s the nuclear reactor the Russians built,’ Petrov protested. ‘The first of its kind. It can be dragged across the ice, they say. Surely there’d be an international outcry!’
The three Americans looked back at him uncomprehendingly. But it seemed to him, nevertheless, that they knew exactly what he was talking about.
‘It’s probably classified information,’ Petrov said in a falsely mock-whisper. ‘But then everything is in this country.’ He paused as if wondering whether to go on. ‘The State is building – maybe already has built, I don’t know – a nuclear power station up in the restricted area by the Kara Sea, up near a place called Dikson. They plan to float it across the sea in the summer, or drag it with tractors across the ice in winter. Towards the Pole itself. The problem with drilling there is power, as well as the depth, of course. That’s the solution from the Russian point of view. The world’s first transportable nuclear plant on the ice that can drive the drills through the thickest ice and then three miles down into the sea and the rock below that. A nuclear reactor up near the North Pole. And a Russian one at that,’ he said in a voice laden with misgiving.
‘The question of ownership still isn’t decided,’ Eileen said rigidly at last. ‘The ridge is still in dispute.’
‘But didn’t you know that one major international tribunal has granted the whole ridge to Russia?’ Petrov replied. ‘According to normal questions of judging these things, the ridge is part of Russia – geographically, geologically it’s joined to Siberia – even if it does go under t
he Pole to Canada. The tribunal is only going according to these set rules, they say.’
‘But the other countries are still appealing the decision,’ Eileen protested.
‘And in the meantime, Russia has its reactor ready and waiting,’ Petrov replied.
There was a silence at the table.
‘I know nothing of these things,’ Petrov said, half-apologetically. ‘But I’ve been reading quite a bit about them. Because of the effect all this has on my people. All of it affects the native peoples, mine included. It could be the end of us altogether.’
‘A nuclear reactor that can be dragged across the ice sounds like just the sort of end-of-the-world scenario we need,’ Sky said.
‘As I say,’ Petrov replied, again with apology in his voice, ‘I know nothing about nuclear science, but it sounds pretty dangerous to me too. Even when they’re on dry land, they pose enough danger. Look at Chernobyl. Another Russian-built nuclear disaster,’ he said generously. ‘Then Japan. And you had one yourselves in America. And that’s just three we know about.’
He sipped his coffee, now tired of the beer.
‘And there are the best Russian nuclear scientists up there, isn’t that right?’
This time it was Eileen who spoke, in a statement, but one that sounded like a question. And Petrov noticed there was the faintest hint of tension in her voice.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Petrov said. ‘But of course there are nuclear facilities way up in the north. All for research. But that’s double double double classified information, I imagine. And I’m just a regular cop.’
His open declaration seemed to intensify the tension he’d noticed in them before and Petrov wondered why again.
‘A cop on holiday,’ he added, and smiled a serene smile. ‘But at least if you run into any trouble, I can add that to any help I might be able to give you.’ He sipped his coffee again and leaned back in his chair. ‘You all look like intelligent people,’ he said. ‘Have you been to university in America?’
They nodded.
‘Linguists?’
The two boys shifted in their seats.
‘You all speak such perfect Russian,’ Petrov explained. ‘I’m amazed, to be frank.’
‘Clay is a Russian literature student. I studied science,’ Sky said. ‘Eileen works in advertising. But we all learned Russian for this trip.’
‘You’re a scientist?’ Petrov said.
‘That’s what I studied. But just for three years.’
‘One thing I was reading recently about all these nuclear plans mentioned something called muon nuclear fusion. I’ve no idea what that is. Perhaps you can help?’
This time, the tension around the table was almost tangible. It was as if a wall of non-communication had suddenly gone up between him and the three Americans. But he also detected confusion, amazement even. He saw that they all stared at him, before realising they were giving something away and returning their gazes to the table, only to then attempt some normal behaviour; picking up a spoon in Sky’s case, looking around for the bill in Eileen’s. Sky got up from the table, said ‘Excuse me,’ and left.
With his hands squarely on the table in what looked like a preamble to springing over it, Clay replied without more than a brief glance in Petrov’s direction.
‘Just what is it you want?’ he said to Petrov.
It was a deliberately aggressive question. Eileen put a warning hand on his arm, but Clay wasn’t to be deflected.
‘What are you doing here, Petrov? Following us? What do you want?’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SIBERIA EMERGED FROM the short night in a display of pre-dawn pyrotechnics. Long before the sun appeared to the east, the western sky was a kaleidoscope of swirling colours. There were the normal pinks and reds and oranges, but also blues and greens which were reflected in the high, ice-crystal clouds in the western skies. The whirl of ever-changing tints seemed formed by some invisible Impressionist’s brush that painted the skies.
The glow reflected by the clouds from below the eastern horizon was so strong that it transposed the dawn light on to the eastern banks of the Yenisei from the western sky first, dappling the trunks of the spruce and fir trees. Then the sun finally appeared above the horizon and shone directly on the western bank, lighting it for the first time.
By now the landscape was showing signs of the tundra ahead, slowly beginning to leave the taiga behind as the Rossiya crept closer and closer to the Arctic Circle. But still the vast forests dominated the view as far as the eye could see and way beyond. The town of Igarka lay less than a day’s journey ahead.
Anna lay on the bench in the hold. The old woman, whose name she’d discovered was Evgenia, had placed some kind of herb potion on her face and then some muslin over the top of it. When she’d staggered through the metal door and down the steps the night before, the lights had still been switched on in the hold and everyone saw her condition. Many of the women now came up to her as they woke and asked her what had happened. And why. Why did he do this? Through puffed and cut lips, Anna told them she thought he’d hit her just for the fun of it. To them it seemed a perfectly plausible explanation. At least he didn’t break your teeth, one of them said.
‘My father was a Gulag victim, as I told you,’ Evgenia said slowly. ‘When he was sixteen, he was sent to the place that came to be known as Devil Island. On the Ob river. Its real name was Nazinovo. There were six thousand of them and they were left on this island at the end of May – about this time of year. They were given a little flour, that’s all, a few clothes and no shelter. It was snowing. On the first morning they buried over four hundred of the prisoners. That happened morning after morning. When the little food ran out, they began to eat each other. That’s how my father survived. He ate other men. By the end, there were fewer than two thousand of the original six. They were put there because the Kremlin called them “outdated elements”. Not even outdated people. What that strange phrase means to anyone outside the NKVD’s self-strangling bureaucracy would be impossible to fathom. To the NKVD, predecessor of the KGB, it meant they were no longer human. But my father lived. There may be no such places in Russia now, but we are all still treated with the same contempt. That officer upstairs, he’s no different.’
Such atrocities were committed by people like her father, and her grandfather, Anna thought, yet here she was being looked after by the children of their victims. She had nothing to say in reply, as Evgenia stroked her forehead.
She hadn’t slept, except in a few brief doses of pained and shattered dozing. She was exhausted, her face hurt and her eyes had puffed up so that it was difficult to see. She could barely use her mouth to eat. Now, she thought, now at last I’ve become like one of them. Dmitry the Wolf had given her the perfect disguise.
She went out on the deck before the sun appeared and watched through running eyes the colours in the sky. Then she was joined by Evgenia and a few of the women.
‘Many of us have men on board,’ Evgenia said. ‘Sons, brothers, husbands and other good-for-nothings. They won’t like this.’
But Anna heard in the tone of her voice that betrayed her that they were all utterly helpless in the face of a brutal OMON special forces officer. And now there were two more. If they aren’t corrupt, they’re brutal, she remembered. And if they’re not one or the other, it means they’re both.
As the day began, the men, too, appeared on deck. The atmosphere was exactly the same as on the previous days, but they, too, noticed what had happened to her and one or two of them, as long as the Wolf and the other two officers weren’t present, expressed their sympathy, gave her things to eat, a bottle of beer or a cigarette. From knowing nobody, from being entirely alone in a country whose power wished only to destroy her, she was now surrounded by well-wishers.
It was then that the young man with the wispy beard whom she’d seen staring at her two days before approached her. Again, she thought she recognised his face. He sat down next to her and opened a bottle of b
eer, offering her the first sip, which she took.
‘So you’re from Bratsk,’ he said.
She handed back the bottle. ‘Yes.’
He turned to look her in the face. There was a smile on his lips which she saw was friendly. ‘So what were you doing in Kyzyl down near the Mongolian border eight days ago?’ he asked.
She sat completely still. So that was where she’d seen his face – and where he had seen her. She remained perfectly calm.
‘Picking something up,’ she replied without pausing.
‘Oh?’
She didn’t reply.
‘What would anyone be picking up down there?’ he persisted.
She turned to him this time and she saw the same smile hovering around his mouth, the same burning eyes. ‘From across the border. From China,’ she said. ‘Just cheap electrical stuff.’
‘But in Kyzyl you were pretending to be a woman from one of the villages there,’ he gently protested. ‘You had all those apples for the market. It was a good disguise. What were you picking up? TVs? Computers? Or something more interesting?’
She thought for a moment. ‘That’s my business,’ she said finally.
‘And where were the things you were picking up illegally from China?’ he said, the same smile on his lips.
‘My brother took them.’
‘So why pretend to be going to market?’
She shrugged. ‘This country thrives on pretence,’ she answered.
He laughed this time. He had wide open eyes that still flared with a fierce intensity like they had when she’d first seen him on the boat. But as she’d now found, that wasn’t the first time she’d seen him. She remembered his voice now too, from the morning in Kyzyl and the bus journey north.
As they’d headed north downriver his sunken cheeks had become raw from the cold which seemed to affect him more than it did the others. But he either affected indifference, or physical pain was of no interest to him, a badge of honour, even. He looked to Anna like someone who’d been in a dark room or in an office or a library all his life.