The Black Maria

by Rupert Colley

  ‘I think I’ve knocked him out,’ said Dmitry.

  Petrov lay there untidily but perfectly still, his legs at the oddest of angles. It was then that I noticed it – the blood seeping out from beneath his head, staining the bricked surround of the fireplace.

  Dmitry stood staring at him, his mouth gaping, his face white, the colour drained away.

  *

  I don’t know how long we stood there, looking at each other, without seeing the person in front of us. I could hear the rain lashing against the window, the deep howl of the wind. I am a little girl again – playing with Anastasia, my wooden doll, in the fields behind our home, waiting for my father to come home from the farm. I am a young married mother, living in another hut, only yards away from where I was brought up, waiting for my husband to come home from the market. It is my first night in Moscow, finding shelter in the backdoor of a closed restaurant, rummaging amongst the rubbish, my stomach aching with hunger. I am leaning against the counter in a small office on the fourth floor of a district police station, waiting with Petrov as the chain-smoking clerk fills in our marriage certificate. I am Dmitry’s model, standing unashamed as Dmitry commits my naked image to the canvas.

  *

  How long it took to realise, I don’t know, but I became aware of the thumping knock against the door. I could hear a voice outside in the rain, shouting, muffled.

  ‘Dmitry, what do we do?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The door. There’s someone at the door.’ How hollow my voice sounded, as if belonging to someone else.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dmitry, please...’ But I could see from his eyes, he wasn’t with me. He stood there, statue-like, comatose, holding his ribcage. The body at his feet, lying on its back, a dishevelled heap.

  I had to answer the door, to stop the thumping.

  I walked the few paces to the door as a woman walks to the gallows. I ran my fingers through my hair. Immediately, on opening the door, I squeezed through and stepped outside, forcing back the darkened figure in a mac. A short man, a head as round as a button, stared at me from beneath his rain-sodden hat with anxiety written all over his piggy features. He looked like a man who had come face-to-face with a medieval witch.

  ‘Is-is everything all, all right?’ he stuttered, arching his neck sideways to try and catch a glimpse through the closing door. ‘I thought I heard shouting.’

  ‘We’re fine. Just a small argument. We’re fine now.’ I tried to smile, a crooked smile of a witch.

  ‘It sounded like two men’s voices.’

  ‘My voice goes deep when I’m angry.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes.’ Self-consciously, I coughed.

  ‘But everything’s OK now?’

  ‘Yes. Absolutely. Thank you for your concern. I apologise if we worried you.’ I glanced up at the rain. ‘We’re getting wet.’

  ‘No, no, it’s... it’s fine, I...’

  ‘Yes, well.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be...’

  But he wasn’t leaving; seemed to have no intention of leaving despite the rain. So with my hand behind me, I opened the door. ‘My husband – he gets jealous,’ I said as I squeezed backwards through the gap. ‘Very jealous,’ I said, closing the door.

  I listened and after a few moments I heard his steps fading into the wet night.

  I turned, hoping that perhaps Petrov was not dead, that somehow I had imagined it all. But no, it was real enough. Dmitry was slumped in one of the armchairs, staring at the figure on the floor.

  PART TWO

  Chapter 17: Moscow, 28 – 29 February 1992

  Caroline and I were back at the Hotel Ukraine, lounging in the soft leather armchairs, each sipping a welcome glass of red wine. We sat in silence, our thoughts reeling from the tale Maria had told us. An elderly Russian gentleman wandered passed us, dressed smartly in a thick suit and using a walking cane. He was old enough, I reckoned, to have lived through the latter Stalinist years. Had he too lived in a state of constant anxiety, had he known someone who was arrested, had he been an informal spy like Maria or Petrov? Perhaps, he’d been a victim and had spent years in a Siberian Gulag, living from day to day, eking out an existence. Everyone around us must have known what it was like to live within the all-seeing eyes of the KGB or the NKVD, as it was called in Maria’s day. I was beginning to understand the true meaning of the word ‘freedom’. One doesn’t always appreciate what one has until one learns of the alternative.

  From Maria’s apartment, Caroline and I had found the nearest Metro and caught a train to Moscow’s biggest street, Tverskaya Ulitsa, where we wandered up and down absorbing the atmosphere of rush-hour Moscow. We popped into Yeliseev’s Food Hall where Rosa had been so dumbstruck. In those days, as Maria had told us, the street was called Gorky Street and the food-hall was called Gastronom No.1, accessible only to the Party and police elite. Now, it resembled an upmarket supermarket but in the most beautiful environment, with its huge chandeliers and carved pillars. We bought a couple of four ounce jars of caviar as souvenirs and idled our time amongst the lavish surroundings. It seemed strange to be walking in the steps of Rosa some sixty years later. As we stepped back outside into the cold, I had an image of dozens of unprivileged Muscovites, their noses pressed up against the glass of the shop front, eyeing the goods that were so inaccessible to them. And the cold! I found the cold rather bracing but then I knew I could easily escape it. The hotel was extremely warm, and our bedrooms were so hot, I woke up drenched in sweat. But how difficult it must have been without the proper means to heat one’s apartment.

  ‘She still hasn’t told us this terrible secret of hers,’ said Caroline, taking a large gulp of her wine.

  ‘I think she has, her lover killed Petrov.’

  ‘No, it was something else, something that happened before she came to Moscow.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. But what could be worse than your lover killing your husband like that?’

  ‘But it was an accident; he didn’t mean to kill him. Perhaps she’ll tell us tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, if she trusts us enough.’

  ‘Oh, I think she trusts you all right.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Definitely. She likes you, it’s obvious.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  Caroline yawned and glanced at her watch. ‘Well look, Reech-hard, it’s late, I’m going to bed. Coming?’

  ‘Not yet, give me ten minutes or so.’

  ‘OK.’ She leant down and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Don’t be too late, eh?’

  I smiled and watched her leave. I was so pleased Caroline was with me; I couldn’t have come by myself, I lacked the courage. Caroline and I had only been together for about three months but already I was feeling very comfortable with her. I wished, just for once, that it would last. I’d been unlucky with my girlfriends. I don’t know what it was – I entered into relationships very easily, but my difficulty was keeping them going. It was as if I was good novelty value but once that novelty had worn off, they found nothing left to interest them.

  I decided to get myself a cup of coffee before going up to our room. The bar staff spoke broken English, so for once, I didn’t need Caroline’s help. I asked the barman for a cappuccino.

  ‘Company?’ said a female voice next to me.

  I turned to see a woman, or rather a young girl, plastered with make-up and dressed provocatively in an extremely short skirt and an eye-popping low-cut top. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You want company?’

  ‘No, no, I’m all right, thanks.’

  ‘Buy me an espresso,’ she purred, then, turning to the barman, said something in Russian.

  ‘Espresso for the lady?’ asked the barman.

  ‘No, no. Nyet. No,’ I said as firmly as possible.

  ‘No company?’ she said, pouting her lips in a fake expression of hurt.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  I took my cappuccino and pointedly sat down with m
y back against the bar. I sipped my drink and tried to think of Maria and of Dmitry, Anna, Rosa and Boris. All these names filling my mind. But somehow, I couldn’t concentrate. Knowing that the young prostitute was sitting not far away, her eyes burning in my back, made me feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder. It was a mistake. She was smoking a cigarette, her legs consciously crossed, exposing the top of her suspenders. Unfortunately, for a split second our eyes met.

  I watched a respectably dressed middle-aged couple come into the lobby from the cold. They laughed as they removed their coats and stamped the snow from their boots. I guessed, like me, they were foreigners, enjoying the novelty of snow.

  ‘Company?’

  I jumped and was annoyed that I hadn’t noticed her stealth-like approach. ‘No,’ I said, furiously shaking my head. She sat down, nonetheless, which made me feel nervous, dreading to think how much it would cost me for the pleasure of this girl’s company. Her make-up made her look older but I reckoned that under the disguise, she could have been no more than about sixteen. Her eyes were dulled and for a moment, I found myself pitying her for what must be the most tedious of work. Irked, however, that my evening contemplation had been interrupted by an indecently-dressed teenager, I gulped down the rest of my coffee and rose to my feet.

  ‘Goodnight,’ I said brusquely. And with that I took the lift and returned to Caroline and the claustrophobic heat of my room.

  *

  Having sussed out how Moscow’s Metro system worked, we decided against the expense of another taxi ride. The Metro stations were large and dark, with long, unending escalators, and Art Deco lamps at regular intervals. The signs were all written in the Cyrillic alphabet and Caroline and I had to read the shape of the letters to find our way. On the train, a young attractive girl with bright red hair smiled at me. I smiled back but Caroline noticed and glowered at me. I didn’t dare look at the redhead again. I wondered whether my would-be escort from the night before had had any luck.

  The buildings between the Metro station and Maria’s flat were imposingly large and uniformly bleak. We trudged through the snow, still not believing we were in Moscow. Until just three years ago, the Soviet Union was on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and although I knew of people who’d visited, the idea seemed almost ludicrous. I had Russian in my blood but nothing would have enticed me to visit. As a youngster, the USSR was the feared enemy. I remembered we all lived in genuine fear of a nuclear war. I actually used to have nightmares of the falling bomb, the huge mushroom cloud rising above London as the USSR and the West collided into World War Three. I had visions of Brezhnev’s fat finger on the button, bringing to an end everything we’d ever known. My class once wrote a letter to him, asking him to remember the children of the world, to allow us our future. We really believed that Russian people were different from us – automated alien humans living an existence we wouldn’t recognise. The only times we saw them was when we watched the Olympics on television. There they were, these muscle-bound men and men-like women, throwing the shot-put unbelievable distances, sprinting like devils, matched only by their Eastern European cousins, the Romanians, the mighty East Germans. I remembered almost weeping with pride when Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett won their medals in Moscow ’80, beating the Soviets on their home ground. This was more than sport, this was politics, this was ideology.

  But now I was here, I felt as if I’d been before; it seemed like the most natural place to be. I embraced the drabness, the snow, and the cold as much as I adored the beauty, the architecture and the pure culture of Russia. The language, still so alien to me, sounded so noble within its harshness. The people had lived a history that was unique and they were still living it now. And none more so than my very own grandmother.

  *

  The door was opened again by Irina, drying her hands on her checked apron. Caroline said hello but Irina merely grunted and shuffled back into the kitchen.

  ‘Richard, Karen, hello, my friends, come in, come in,’ said my grandmother from inside. She was sitting in her red leather armchair, the yucca plant standing to attention behind her. The green cardigan had been replaced by a pale blue one but the kingfisher brooch was still there. Her face broke into a broad grin as we entered.

  ‘Hello... Maria,’ I said, aware of my hesitation.

  I offered my hand but she laughed and said, ‘Now that you know me as your grandmother, don’t I get a kiss?’

  I laughed also, to hide my embarrassment, and leant down and kissed her on the cheek, noticing the delicate hint of perfume. I wanted to call her grandmother, to acknowledge our relationship. I had never known a grandmother, never had chance to call anyone by that term and I so wanted to use it. But it was like using an older person’s first name without asking – it seemed inappropriate. Would she ask me or would the opportunity pass me by while I stood on ceremony?

  Maria asked us what we did the previous night. Caroline told her about the food stall on Tverskaya Ulitsa, the hotel and various landmarks we passed along the way. While Caroline spoke, I noticed that the curious wooden bear was now sitting on the coffee table, no longer on the sideboard. I wondered why she’d moved it. I stared at the large painting of the collective farm, and realised this was Dmitry’s work, the one he got into so much trouble for. I looked at my grandmother’s younger image, and wondered how anyone could interpret the hint of cleavage and the outline of breast as pornographic.

  ‘When do you go to Saint Petersburg?’ asked Maria, interrupting my thoughts.

  ‘Tomorrow evening.’

  ‘Oh, so soon. You have much to see in Moscow but I keep you here. I am a selfish old woman.’

  ‘No, no, not at all. It’s been fascinating hearing about everything.’

  ‘It was a hard time.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it was.’

  ‘So, tell me,’ said Maria abruptly, ‘you two – you will marry, yes?’

  ‘Well, we, er...’

  ‘We haven’t known each other long,’ said Caroline, her cheeks flushed.

  Maria spoke to Caroline in Russian. Caroline nodded her head, smiled and said something back. Their conversation continued for a short while longer and finished with Maria laughing and slapping her knee. I looked at them both, wondering.

  ‘Well?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not allowed to say,’ said Caroline with a smirk.

  Naturally, this just intrigued me more but I decided against pursuing it, feeling rather pleased that Maria should like Caroline enough to talk to her confidentially.

  ‘Irina!’ yelled Maria. As if on cue, Irina appeared carrying a tray of tea. She laid it, or rather plunked it, on the table and exited without a word. ‘She is shy but she means well. I think.’

  Without being asked, Caroline started placing the cups on their saucers and stirred the tea.

  ‘I tried your English marmalade – how nice it is, but I think your Bronzed Syrup is perhaps too sweet for my teeth.’

  I smiled. ‘The painting,’ I said, pointing to the canvas, ‘is it Dmitry’s?’

  ‘The Workers’ Rest, yes.’

  ‘So, the young pretty girl at the right – that is you?’

  Maria laughed. ‘You have your father’s charm, yes, that is me.’

  ‘That’s Richard for you,’ said Caroline, passing a cup of tea to Maria. ‘Always the charmer.’

  ‘You know, I am pleased you are here. I worry you may not want to come back.’

  ‘Why? Why wouldn’t we return?’

  ‘After what I tell you yesterday. It’s not natural to kill one’s husband.’

  ‘But it wasn’t you that hit him,’ said Caroline. ‘And it was an accident,’

  I stifled a laugh, not sure whether my grandmother was purposely being droll or whether it was a solemn statement whose seriousness had got lost in translation. But then I saw a hint of a smile and realised that, even in English, she knew the value of irony.

  ‘That’s why I don’t want to marry,’ I said. />
  Caroline and Maria laughed and exchanged, what I thought, was a knowing look as Caroline passed Maria her cup of tea.

  Maria took a sip, then called out Irina’s name again. Her maid appeared and the two of them exchanged a few words. Moments later, Irina had collected her coat and was gone. I noticed Maria’s hand was shaking. A splash of tea spilt over and swam in the saucer. She looked at me, then at Caroline and then back at me. ‘What I tell you now, I have never said before. It is very hard.’

  ‘I understand –’

  ‘No, you cannot begin to understand.’ Her tone had changed, her eyes had lost their softness. Instead, she seemed almost frightened. I felt too nervous to say anything. I glanced at Caroline and she raised her eyebrows at me. Maria sighed. ‘I was always hungry in Moscow, we all were, but I never complained because hunger means nothing when you... you...’

  ‘Go on...’ I almost said it, almost called her grandmother.

  ‘When you are really hungry, so hungry you think you are about to die, then you know what hunger is. When we think of famine, we think of Africa, no? But we had famine too. Oh, they denied it, said it was all propaganda, the work of anti-Soviet agitators, but it was true. I know, I lived it. We all know of the Nazi camps, we know how the Jews suffered but no one now knows how we suffered too. They came to take our grain for the cities. Industry was everything. We peasants – yes, I was a peasant – we didn’t matter. They take everything and left us with nothing. Millions died, millions. If we didn’t die because we were hungry, they killed us off for being a kulak.’

  ‘A kulak?’

  ‘Yes, a kulak. It means a peasant who is richer than the rest, who exploits labour. It was absurd of course, you’d think kulaks lived in palaces not mud huts. But Stalin wanted us liquidated. Yes, that is the word he used – liquidated. We worked hard, buy a cow. That makes us a kulak.’ She paused and took a sip of tea. ‘I have lived with this secret for sixty years. Never have I said a word. I have longed to tell someone but it is not a story one tells after dinner. But before I die, I have to say it. After you have listened, you may hate me and for that I am sorry...’