Or whom he could trust, in fact.
The laughter outside continued. Jonas ought to get to sleep, but it was impossible. The air inside the chalet was too warm, and he felt wide awake. Eventually he sat up, reached under the mattress, felt the butt of the gun and pulled it out.
It was big and heavy. He felt as if he had grown in stature, just from holding it.
He tucked the barrel into the waistband of his trousers at the back, then pulled on his shirt. He left it loose, just like the gangsters in films did to hide their guns.
Then he went out into the night.
It was dark, but still mild in spite of the breeze. Dry summer air, with the scent of flowers and herbs.
He could see the group of boys over on the ridge, still laughing. He walked through the garden in front of Villa Kloss, picking his way among a series of marker posts that had been driven into the ground; someone was obviously planning a building project. He crossed the coast road, feeling the gun rubbing against his back with every step he took.
As he got closer, he could see that there were five boys in the group. He recognized Mats, who was sitting on his bike. His brother seemed to have grown taller since midsummer, as did Urban and Casper.
The boys fell silent as he approached.
‘It’s your kid brother,’ someone said.
Nobody said hello, but they all turned to look at him.
Perhaps this was the moment to produce the gun, but Jonas didn’t do that. He just went over and stood between Mats and Casper, as if he were one of the gang.
The boys resumed their discussion; apparently they had been talking about girls.
‘Of course they ought to shave,’ someone said.
‘Under the arms, anyway.’
Someone laughed. ‘And in other places!’
‘I shave under my arms, too,’ Mats said firmly. ‘I mean, you can’t have a girl lying with her head on your arm if you haven’t shaved there … She’d feel as if she had a grizzly bear in her face!’
They were all laughing now. Jonas had nothing to say; he was an outsider.
But he did have one advantage.
He took a step forward and stood next to cousin Casper. He fumbled behind his back and got hold of the gun.
‘Look what I’ve got,’ he said quietly to Casper.
He pulled out the gun. He had intended to hold it up so that everyone could see, but it was too heavy, so he just held it in front of him, with the moonlight shining on the barrel.
Once again, they all turned to look at him, and the conversation about girls came to an abrupt end.
‘It’s a gun,’ he said, in case anyone hadn’t realized.
A hand reached out, but he moved the gun away. ‘I found it,’ he said.
‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ Mats said.
Jonas shook his head – he was in control. He would just press the trigger a little bit, a little bit more …
Suddenly, a bright light swept over the group. ‘What’s all this?’
There was a familiar voice behind the light: Uncle Kent’s. He must have come up from the shore; he was carrying a torch.
Jonas lowered the gun. He would have hidden it behind his back, but it was too late; Uncle Kent had already seen it.
‘Give it to me.’
It wasn’t a polite request. He was already holding out his hand, and he took the gun off Jonas.
Kent drew him aside and leaned closer. Jonas could smell alcohol on his uncle’s breath.
‘It looks real. Where did you find it?’
What could Jonas say?
‘Down in the dip,’ he said eventually.
‘And whose is it?’
‘Don’t know.’
Kent pushed the gun into his waistband, just as Jonas had done.
‘Show me, JK,’ he said. ‘Show me exactly where you found it.’
The boys were all looking at him now; he was definitely the centre of attention. There was nothing to say; he set off along the ridge and down the stone steps. Kent followed him, lighting the way with his torch.
When they reached the dip, Jonas turned north and led Kent to the door of the bunker. It was closed and locked.
‘It was here,’ he said.
‘By the door?’
Jonas shook his head. ‘The bunker was open.’
Kent shone the beam of his torch on the rusty metal door and the padlock.
‘So someone has a key …’ he muttered. ‘Unless they’ve changed the lock.’
He went over and tugged at it, but it didn’t move.
‘There was someone inside,’ Jonas said. ‘It sounded as if he was digging.’
‘Digging? Someone was in there digging?’
Jonas nodded, and Kent stood in silence for a moment, then straightened up. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Good. Let’s go home.’
Kent turned and made his way back to the stone steps. The gun was still tucked in his waistband, as if it belonged to him now.
The Homecomer
Trapped and frightened … The Homecomer had dreamed the old dream again, the nightmare about a little boy being forced to crawl in beneath the barn wall.
‘In you go,’ Sven had growled, sweaty and stressed in the forest. ‘Get in there and fetch his money.’
Into the darkness. Aron had crawled in over the cold earth, in beneath the hard wooden wall. Past the nails reaching out for him. One of them had scratched his forehead, but he had kept on going.
Towards the body.
Edvard Kloss, his real father, who was lying there underneath the wall.
Trapped. Motionless.
Aron had felt something hard in Edvard’s trouser pocket: a wooden snuff box. He took it, and fumbled in the other pocket, where he found a fat wallet and pulled it out.
At which point the body twitched. There was a whimpering sound, and a hand closed around Aron’s arm.
Edvard Kloss was still alive.
Aron had panicked in the darkness. He raised the hand holding the wooden box and struck at the body. Hit his father on the head, on the temple, several times. Over and over again.
Edvard fell silent, and the hand around Aron’s arm lost its grip.
The Homecomer woke in the car with a start.
His father was gone. He was alone.
The morning sun was finding its way through the birch trees and had reached the car, but its rays did not warm the Homecomer. He remembered too much.
They had found the chalet where he was staying at the Ölandic; he had got away with only his rucksack, nothing more. He had had to leave his shoes, clothes and two guns. And Kloss had stolen Sven’s snuff box.
He couldn’t go back. Nor could he sleep in the car any longer – his old bones were too stiff. If this was his last week on the island (and that was how he felt), then he needed to be well rested.
He needed a proper bed.
He had to find a new hiding place, somewhere in or near Stenvik.
It was seven o’clock, and the summer’s day had begun. Cars and trucks were starting to zoom past along the main road.
The Homecomer started the car. He pulled out of the car park and headed north.
Right now, he was on the run, but it was only temporary.
The New Country, May 1937
After six long years, Aron is back in Leningrad as a new man: Vladimir Nikolajevitch Jegerov. Back by the wide bay leading out into the Baltic Sea – the bay that was the gateway to the new country for Aron and Sven.
Back then, they stayed in a hotel, but now Vlad is living in the barracks while he waits for a single room of his own.
Vlad the soldier has not brought very much with him when it comes to mementoes of the long, hard years in the north. A Party membership card, a uniform, a few minor scars on his face and a torso pitted with the marks left by scratching countless mosquito stings and louse bites. And his name and citizenship, of course. It has become Aron’s name now, his whole identity: Vlad Jegerov. The Swede within him is carefully locked away.<
br />
The old concrete buildings in Leningrad are not as tall as he remembers them. The city seems low, stretching out along the banks of the shining River Neva, but new palaces exuding power have been built in honour of Stalin.
Vlad’s workplace is not as beautiful as the palaces, but it is substantial and impressive. It is Kresty Prison, a red-brick five-storey building surrounded by a wall four metres high and built in the shape of a huge cross. On each floor the corridors run straight through the prison, with rows of cell doors on each side. There are thousands of prisoners behind those doors, twenty or thirty men in each cell. Very little noise seeps out, and it takes a death scream to persuade the guards to open them.
The cellar is also soundproofed. That is where Vlad will be working, in the innermost interrogation room. The air is thick with the smell of sweat and blood and cheap cleaning products, and the doors are even more impressive.
The new colleagues Vlad encounters in the corridors are tall and grim-faced, but they have a certain style and elegance; they move gracefully in their dark-blue NKVD uniforms. They glance at his grey coat and worn boots and smile at one another. Vlad realizes he is a country bumpkin.
‘Come in, Comrade Jegerov.’
His new commanding officer, Captain Rugajev, welcomes him into his office and offers him tea and a piece of dried black pudding. The captain carefully studies the new guard’s Party membership book and other documents, giving Vlad the chance to look around the room.
He sees Stalin gazing into the future on the wall behind Rugajev, of course. To the right of his portrait is a poster featuring a Soviet worker dragging a long, venomous serpent out from under a stone, with the caption ‘We will eradicate spies and saboteurs!’
Eventually, Rugajev nods and hands back the papers. Then he smiles at Vlad’s scruffy uniform, just as amused as everyone else in Kresty. He gets to his feet.
‘Look in here, Comrade.’ Rugajev opens a cupboard, which is full of neatly pressed uniforms and shiny leather boots. ‘We were issued with new outfits in the spring as a reward for our hard work. Choose one that fits you.’
Vlad quickly glances along the row and picks out a uniform. Rugajev hands over a gun belt with a leather holster, and a brand-new pistol. A Mauser.
‘There is a great deal of night work here in Kresty Prison.’ The captain nods towards the portrait on the wall. ‘Our leader works late into the night, and so do we.’ Then he nods towards the picture of the worker and the serpent. ‘And that is our job, day and night. But you were hunting down our enemies up in the north, weren’t you, Comrade Jegerov? All the time?’
Vlad nods. He understands what the Mauser is for.
‘Can you type, Comrade?’
‘No, Captain.’
‘Then learn. You will be conducting many interrogations, and they must be documented and filed. Go and see Comrade Trushkin in the morning.’
Before he does anything, Vlad changes his clothes in one of the guardrooms. He takes off his old uniform and puts on his new black boots, billowing blue trousers with sharp, dark-red lines, a light-brown jacket, the leather gun belt with the Mauser in its holster and, finally, the wide peaked cap with a brown band around it and the red star in the centre.
He looks in the mirror and lifts his chin, like a sheriff. Now he fits in here. He is ready.
And there is a lot of work, just as Rugajev said.
The first prisoner Vlad interrogates is an emaciated, worn-down man who is fetched from his cell in dirty underclothes; he was arrested for crimes against Article 58 of the Soviet Penal Code, which is always used when charging enemies of the state.
Vlad positions himself on the cement floor just a metre away from the prisoner, his legs wide apart. Perhaps Rugajev has given him something simple to start with, because this man is already broken. Fear shines in his eyes when he is placed in the interrogation chair.
Vlad hears the rustle of papers behind him. He turns his head; he hadn’t noticed, but an older colleague has entered the room and sat down at a desk over by the wall. He is there to record proceedings and is feeding a sheet of paper into his typewriter.
It is time. Vlad looks at the prisoner. ‘Tell me about your crimes,’ he says quietly.
The man starts talking almost before Vlad has finished, his head drooping. ‘I am a Trotskyite. At the beginning of the year, I decided to sabotage several machines that were absolutely essential for production at my tractor factory in Charkov. I threw hammers and chisels into the machinery, and it was only thanks to the intervention of a quick-thinking foreman that a total shutdown was avoided.’
‘What else did you do?’
‘I recruited several other workers to my Trotskyite group, in order to increase the incidence of sabotage within the factory.’
‘And who are these individuals?’
The saboteur starts reeling off names, and the typewriter clatters into action.
They are given a dozen or so names.
When the saboteur has finished, he seems relieved. He looks up at Vlad. ‘I am evil,’ he says. ‘Aren’t I?’
He is still looking at Vlad, who does not reply.
Aron doesn’t know what to say either.
The typewriter has stopped clattering. In the silence that follows, the last sheet of paper is removed, and the typist hands it to Vlad.
It is time for the saboteur’s signature.
Vlad holds out the document and the prisoner signs it with a trembling hand.
As Vlad watches him sign the confession, he feels better. Standing erect in his new uniform in front of an enemy of the state is terrific. Getting him to admit his crimes is a small but important victory in a major war.
After completing his first few shifts, Vlad begins to learn how to type. How to feed the paper into the roller, how to tap out the words. Comrade Trushkin teaches him with patience, one key at a time.
Grigori Trushkin is a couple of years older than Vlad, a Russian worker’s son who, like many other guards, was trained in the Young Pioneers and Komsomol. He was only four years old when the Bolsheviks brought down the Tsar; he remembers nothing other than the Communist government. After leaving school, he was forged into a young OGPU soldier when the wealthy farmers had to be broken at the beginning of the thirties. Trushkin can discuss Marxism and class struggles without any problem, but he also enjoys chess, and loves to play Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring on his gramophone, in spite of the fact that it has been banned for many years.
‘Stravinsky came from my home town,’ he says proudly.
Trushkin takes Vlad out and about in Leningrad, and does what Sven never did with Aron: he allows him to discover the city.
The heels of their boots tap loudly on the wide, cobbled streets of Leningrad, and their blue uniforms make them highly visible. They are never stopped by the police and asked to show their identity papers, not once. They merely nod, like colleagues. And all around them on the pavements, ordinary citizens lower their voices and glance away nervously.
Vlad feels good when he is with Grigori Trushkin. So does Aron. They wander along the quayside by the River Neva and visit a dimly lit teahouse, eventually ending up in a smoky restaurant where vodka glasses are frequently raised – but Trushkin doesn’t drink as much as many of his colleagues. He prefers hot chocolate.
Later, in a grocery shop in the city, Vlad finds anchovies and smoked eel from the Baltic. He buys some pieces of fish and savours every mouthful – and suddenly Aron is thinking of the island across the sea, and his own shore.
He ought to get in touch, write home to his mother. But it’s impossible, of course. Countries outside Russia are full of spies, and anyone who is in contact with foreigners also becomes a spy. Letters are much too dangerous.
After three months’ hard work, Vlad is given a reward by Rugajev: a watch, presumably confiscated from an enemy of the state. He places it on his left wrist so that he will know what time it is when he is interrogating prisoners or writing up reports.
The pressure is increasing from above, with constant demands to elicit more and more names.
Comrade Trushkin conducts interrogations that are at least as harsh as anyone else’s, but one evening, as Vlad is about to run and catch him up a few blocks to the north of Kresty, he sees Trushkin stop by a park bench, then bend down and drop something on the ground before quickly moving on.
Vlad walks up to the bench and picks up an envelope addressed to a woman in Leningrad.
He stares at the name: Olga Bibikova. He recognizes the address; he has written it down himself after an interrogation.
Maxim Bibikov’s wife. But Bibikov is dead; he got a bullet in the back of his neck three days ago.
Vlad doesn’t understand, so he hurries along and catches up with Trushkin. ‘Comrade.’ He holds up the letter. ‘What’s this?’
Trushkin looks, and smiles like a shy schoolboy. This is unusual.
‘It’s just a letter.’ He grabs the envelope and slips it in his pocket. ‘I leave it in a dry spot on the street in the hope that someone will find it and post it.’
‘But why?’ Vlad asks. ‘What kind of letter is it?’
Trushkin laughs, quietly and nervously. ‘It’s just a message.’
‘About what?’
‘I wrote and told Bibikov’s wife that he died of tuberculosis,’ Trushkin says. ‘So that she won’t have to keep wondering what’s happened to him.’
Vlad looks around; there is no sign of anyone else in a blue uniform. Vlad wants to move on, but Aron makes him stay, ask more questions. It transpires that Trushkin has written a series of anonymous letters to the relatives of those who have been executed, informing them that their husband or father has passed away following a heart attack or a lung infection. Short letters, admittedly, but still …
‘It saves them wondering what’s happened,’ Trushkin says again, with a shrug. ‘It’s just to give them peace of mind.’
Aron nods silently, but Vlad is furious. Letters are dangerous. They leave a trail. And he knows that this is wrong, writing letters and sympathizing with the enemy.
‘Stop writing them,’ he says to Trushkin. ‘Immediately.’
The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) Page 29