And there it was, July 1934, a sum of money, and typed alongside it, repair to lift.
‘Thanks,’ he said to the clerk. ‘Thanks a lot.’
‘My pleasure,’ said the clerk to the policeman’s rapidly retreating back. ‘Entirely, it seems.’
Now one thing remained to do. Again, a telephone call to his MVD colleagues in Leningrad would probably have been the quickest way, but the same objection remained as before. So instead he took a calculated risk and drove down Leningradsky Prospekt till he reached Pravda Street, where the offices of the great newspaper of the same name were situated.
His application to examine copies of the paper for July 1934 was greeted with the bored resentment which is the Muscovite’s conditioned response to almost any request for help or information, but at least he was not required to produce any authorization other than his MVD card.
Seated at a rough wooden table, he began his search.
His first discovery was that in 1934 the thirteenth of July had also fallen on a Friday.
He found the report he was looking for printed three days later. Probably in the impatient West it would have been in the very next edition, but wise Mother Russia always takes time to weigh carefully what her children may safely be told, what is best kept from them.
This was a small report, easily missed. It merely stated a man had been killed in an unfortunate accident at the May Day Centre on July 13th. For some reason the lift had jammed between the ninth and tenth floors, but the indicator had continued to function. Thinking the lift had arrived, the accident victim had opened the outer door on the seventh floor and stepped into the shaft before he realized his error. The lift had then started to function again and medical evidence was not clear whether the fall had killed him or whether the descending lift had crushed him to death in the basement.
Chislenko swallowed hard. But it was not just the ghastliness of the story which twisted his stomach. It was the man’s name.
He was a rising light in the Leningrad Party, a valued friend and associate of the famous Sergei Kirov.
His name was Fyodor Bunin.
Chislenko called for the man in charge of the archives.
‘Do you have a copy of the Encyclopædia of Historical Biography?’ he asked.
The man looked as if he’d have liked to deny this, or at least to say that it was nothing to do with him if they’d got one or not. But something in Chislenko’s expression made him reply with only token surliness, ‘I expect so,’ and go and fetch it.
It was the latest edition, though there was nothing to show that there had been previous editions. Anyone who had a full set would be able to chart all the ebbs and flows of the great power struggles which had shaken the State since its inception nearly seventy years before. But as private ownership of the work was forbidden by edict, private owners were few and far between.
Chislenko thumbed through the bulky tome till he found Bunin. It was a sign of something, he didn’t know what, that Bunin the novelist and Nobel Prize Winner, who chose to live in Paris after the Revolution, actually merited a few lines. This contrasted with a page and a half on Boris Bunin, Head of the MVD, the Ministry of the Interior. His star was clearly in the ascendant, so much so that its light had spilled over to illuminate the brief life and minor eminence of his elder brother, Fyodor, whose promising career had been nipped off by a tragic accident.
According to the Encyclopædia, in the atmosphere of growing distrust in the early ’thirties between Stalin and his powerful henchmen, Sergei Kirov, Party Leader in Leningrad, Fyodor Bunin’s voice had been one of the few influences towards conciliation and compromise. Young though he was (only 25 at his death) he had the ear of both leaders and was widely regarded as one of tomorrow’s men. With his death any vague possibility of reconciliation between the opposing forces had disappeared, and a few months later Kirov’s assassination had signalled the beginning of the Great Terror.
Chislenko finished reading and closed the volume with a snap that made the archivist purse his lips in irritation. On his desk a telephone rang and the man glowered at Chislenko as if that too was his fault, but the Inspector did not notice.
Everything in this case seemed to lure him into greater peril. To be found pursuing a ghost as if he believed in it would do his career no good at all, but to offend the sensibility, as well as the sense, of his own MVD Minister by suggesting that this was the ghost of his own dearly beloved brother might well destroy it.
The best, the only thing to do was to tiptoe quietly away and never again mention the Leningrad accident.
‘Inspector!’
He realized the archivist was digging his finger into his shoulder as if he’d been trying to attract his attention for some while.
‘Yes?’
‘It is for you,’ said the archivist triumphantly.
He evidently meant the telephone.
Chislenko rose and went to it.
‘Chislenko,’ he said.
‘Kedin here. Look, you’d better get back, quick as you can. Serebrianikov’s in the Procurator’s office and he wants to see you.’
‘I’m on my way,’ said Chislenko. ‘Hold on though, Kedin …’
‘Yes?’
‘How did you know where to contact me?’
‘Serebrianikov said we would get you at the Pravda building. Why do you ask?’
Chislenko didn’t reply but gently replaced the receiver.
So much for all his precautions! He should have known from the start that men like Serebrianikov didn’t let their watchers go unwatched. What was perhaps more frightening was the arrogant casualness with which the man tweaked the thread to bring him back to hand.
He returned the papers and the Encyclopædia to the archivist’s desk and watched the man cross out his name. It felt like a symbolic act.
‘Chislenko,’ said the archivist. ‘Are you … ?’
‘No,’ said Chislenko. And went to meet his fate.
7
‘Well, here he is, the hero of the hour!’ proclaimed Serebrianikov. ‘Come in, sit down. You’ll take a drink with us? Procurator, a vodka for Lev. You won’t mind an old fogey like me calling you Lev, will you?’
Chislenko stood at the threshold, mouth agape, convinced he must be the victim of some hallucinatory nerve-gas. Serebrianikov, looking like the incarnation of old-world benevolence, clapped his hands together in glee and said, ‘I can see you’re too hard on your Inspectors, Kozlov. They’re not used to kind words in this office. Look at poor Lev here, not certain whether this is madness or mockery!’
Suddenly he became serious.
‘I’m a hard man myself, Lev, when the need arises. But I’ve always believed, merit should be acknowledged and rewarded. You’ve done well. We all think you’ve done well. The Minister is very impressed. He wants to see you personally. We’ll be off in a moment, but there’s time for that drink first.’
‘Comrade Bunin wants to see me?’ said Chislenko incredulously.
Kozlov thrust a large glassful of vodka into his hand, saying, ‘That’s right, er, Lev,’ (stumbling only slightly on the name). ‘He’s very pleased with the way we have handled this case.’
‘Yes, he is,’ said Serebrianikov a trifle sardonically. ‘You’ve done well too, Procurator, and your reward is still to come. But Lev’s the man of the moment. I give you Inspector Lev Chislenko!’
He raised his glass in salutation. Kozlov followed suit. Chislenko raised his in acknowledgement. Then in perfect unison the three men tossed the hot round spirit to the back of the throat, and because fifteen centilitres of straight vodka at that brief moment of initial epiglottal contact monopolizes all thought and feeling, for the first and probably the last time in their lives the trio felt and thought as one.
Then they were three again.
‘And now,’ said the old man, ‘we must not keep the Minister waiting.’
Chislenko had imagined he would be escorted to the Minister’s official chambers in the high
est reaches of Petrovka, where his own minor rank did not permit him to penetrate. Instead, they went down to the street and climbed into an oldish but still luxurious Mercedes with a plain-clothes chauffeur.
‘You like the car?’ said Serebrianikov, noting his impressed glance. ‘My enemies say it is unpatriotic to use a German car, but I reply that historically it has always been the duty of the patriot to flaunt the trophies of victory.’
Chislenko, who knew a little about foreign cars through gently envious study of confiscated magazines, wondered what particular victory over the Germans Serebrianikov had won in the late ’sixties.
He said, ‘They make excellent machinery, the Germans.’
‘Yes. Cars. Guns. Lifts even. They build to last, as Comrade Osjanin realized. A very clever man, Comrade Osjanin.’
The compliment sounded genuine. Chislenko risked a direct question, though still keeping it as ambiguous as he could.
‘Is further action contemplated, Comrade Secretary?’
The old man smiled in acknowledgement of the easy route offered him to switch the subject from Osjanin, but replied, ‘Oh yes, Lev. But you will have guessed that this business of the lifts was probably not a unique aberration. There have been suspicions before. You have given us our first sound evidence and now we shall dig and dig. There is corruption here on a huge scale, I would guess. Many, many millions of State money must have been diverted into the Comrade Controller’s pocket, and the pockets of his accomplices. Perhaps you would like to help in the digging, would you, Lev?’
Chislenko must have looked so alarmed that Serebrianikov chuckled with glee.
‘What a cautious man you are! I like that; it is a good quality in an Inspector, caution. And discretion too. You have shown them both, Lev. Now you must show them again. Tell me, what did you discover in the Pravda records?’
Was he being invited to demonstrate his powers of caution and discretion? Or was this a time for openness? It occurred to him that he had no idea where the car was headed. Perhaps at the end of the journey two KGB thugs with guns and spades were waiting if he gave the wrong answers. Sudden terror squeezed his heart for a long moment.
‘Indigestion?’ said Serebrianikov. ‘It is my fault. Vodka in the morning, without some zakuski to chew on, is all right for tough old guts like mine, but you modern youngsters! Here, have a peppermint.’
The old man sounded genuinely concerned.
Chislenko took a mint. As he put it into his mouth, he wondered neurotically if perhaps it was drugged, then grew very angry with himself. These were silly fantasies. If anything, he was safer in this car than anywhere. In a sense, the car, he decided, was a time-capsule. Outside the car, all the old rules applied. But inside, it was truth-time. Serebrianikov had shown the way.
He took a deep breath and said, ‘I found out that the Minister’s brother, Fyodor Bunin, died in an accident in what was possibly the same lift on Friday, July 13th, 1934.’
‘Possibly?’
‘There were two lifts, Comrade Secretary. The records do not show whether the one in which the accident took place in Leningrad fifty years ago was used as the north or the south lift in the Gorodok Building.’
The old man nodded approvingly.
‘Good, good. You are using your intellect, Lev. Go on, go on.’
Go on where? wondered Chislenko. He found he was surprisingly eager to continue to impress the old man but his brain was groping in a fog of vague possibilities. He tried to focus on what he knew. Fyodor Bunin. The Encyclopædia article. Because Boris Bunin was important, Fyodor Bunin was treated as important too, because … there was some kind of syllogism to be completed here … because Fyodor was important to Boris!
He said with calm assurance, ‘The Minister loved his brother dearly.’
Serebrianikov nodded.
‘Yes. It is not always so with brothers. There were almost ten years between them and such a gap can make brothers strangers. But young Boris hero-worshipped Fyodor. You must excuse me if I talk familiarly, Lev, but I know the family, you see. I talk of what I actually saw. Let me tell you this because I trust you. The official histories will tell us that the Comrade Minister was a dedicated young socialist, concerned with questions of public duty from his earliest school days. They will be wrong. Boris Bunin was a likeable child, but idle, dilatory, concerned only with football and cowboy films till adolescence started to add girls to the list. He showed no sign of ambition further than expressing a wish to be an airline pilot so he could fly to foreign countries and do all the delightful things he believed were commonplace there. It was often predicted that he might prove a considerable embarrassment to Fyodor if his political career fulfilled its promise. But I couldn’t agree. Boris’s love of Fyodor was the one area of complete seriousness in his young life. And in fact it was Fyodor’s tragic death that changed Boris. After the funeral he was a different person. It was almost as if he were trying to keep Fyodor alive by becoming him. Do you understand what I am saying to you, Comrade Inspector?’
‘Yes,’ said Chislenko with utter confidence. ‘You are telling me that the Comrade Minister has never forgotten his brother. You are also telling me that this devotion must have been common knowledge to everyone acquainted with the Minister. And you are finally telling me why, when this alleged incident of a man falling down a lift-shaft from the seventh floor on Friday the thirteenth of July exactly fifty years after Fyodor’s death came to your notice, you were immediately so concerned and interested.’
‘You’re right, Inspector. I scented a plot of some kind. Was someone trying to remind the Minister of his brother’s accident, to revive the pain? I could see no reason why this should be so, but the Minister himself had noticed the coincidence and it had indeed caused him some small agitation. So I decided it must be investigated by a clear, uncluttered mind. And I was fortunate enough to get you, Lev.’
To Chislenko’s amazement and embarrassment Serebrianikov’s hand rested on his thigh and squeezed. Perhaps it was the little clerk at the Records Office he should be talking to!
He said, ‘But I didn’t uncover any plot.’
The hand withdrew.
‘Oh yes you did,’ said the old man, a touch testily. ‘Come now, Lev.’
Chislenko thought hard.
‘You mean this Osjanin business? Let me see. That would mean this whole thing was set up to draw our attention to the lifts themselves, so that we would discover there’d been a fiddle when the Gorodok Building was constructed? In other words, it was all a simple tip-off!’
‘You sound doubtful, Comrade Inspector.’
‘Well, it’s just that a straightforward anonymous phone call would have been a lot simpler,’ said Chislenko.
‘Now you’re thinking like a policeman! This is not petty crime we’re talking about, Inspector. This is corruption on a huge scale, involving important people in high places. An informant would run tremendous risks, so it is not surprising that he should use roundabout methods to distance himself from the results of his action. The stakes are high, Lev. You, of course, are acquainted with the penalty for corruption at this level?’
‘Yes, Comrade,’ said Chislenko. ‘Death.’
Serebrianikov laughed.
‘Indeed. Death. Or promotion, Comrade Inspector. That’s always a possibility too! We are almost there. Be careful what you say to the Comrade Minister. Stick to the facts, Lev, and your future is bright.’
The car came to a halt. They had driven out of the city along the road to Archangelskoye and were in the driveway of a medium-sized villa set in a lovely garden. Standing in the open doorway to greet them was a man Chislenko recognized as the minister himself.
It did not take Chislenko long to acknowledge the wisdom of Serebrianikov’s warning. Despite his own attempts to stick to the facts, and despite the old man’s attempts to keep the Osjanin corruption case at the centre of things – and, to be fair, despite also Bunin’s own evident attempt to keep everything on a businesslike and o
fficial level – they kept on sliding sideways towards the question obviously racking the minister’s heart: could there really be any possibility of a supernatural manifestation?
Finally, with a resigned glance at Chislenko, the old man gave way to the inevitable and went for confrontation.
‘Minister,’ he said, ‘it seems to me you are still bothered by the thought that perhaps something inexplicable really did happen here. In other words, there was a ghost. Your brother Fyodor’s ghost.’
Chislenko began to rise, feeling that he should not be present if the conversation was to become so intimate. Bunin too rose and began to pace around the room. He was a grey-haired man with a strong, normally rather wooden face, but now it was working with emotion.
‘If I thought there was a chance, Yuri, however remote …’
Serebrianikov seized Chislenko’s sleeve and drew him back into his seat.
‘Boris, believe me, there is no chance,’ he said. ‘It is a cruel deception, accidentally cruel, I believe, but that does not help ease your pain. But you must recognize that this charade was mounted by some enemy of Osjanin to draw attention to his crimes. This excellent young man I have brought with me will confirm this.’
He looked commandingly at Chislenko who said, ‘Yes, Comrade Minister. All the evidence points that way.’
‘Does it? Which evidence?’ snapped Bunin.
Chislenko gulped. Frankly he didn’t blame Bunin. He found much that was still inexplicable in the whole business, but suddenly he had an inspiration.
‘The second man,’ he said.
‘The second man?’
‘Yes. All the so-called witnesses said there were two men. Now, your brother was alone when he had his accident, all the testimony points to that, so this can hardly have been a supernatural projection of what happened fifty years ago. No, what I believe is that two men were necessary to the charade so that one could be thrust forward into the lift and then jerked rapidly back and sideways, out of sight, allowing Muntjan, the lift-operator, who was obscuring the view of the passengers, to start his hysterical outburst which quickly infected the others.’
There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union Page 6