And this the following day all came about. Komarova handed her patient and his belongings over to the militia. The militia put him on Polar Aviation’s flight for Yakutsk. At Yakutsk he was escorted to the Aeroflot flight for Irkutsk and Murmansk. And at Murmansk, late at night, he was conveyed to the International Seamen’s Hostel and signed in as a transit visitor awaiting ship. Here he was given a locker and a bed; and after the long day slept most soundly.
Transit visitors at the hostel were not allowed ‘shore rights’ but as most of them were foreigners with hard currency this was never a problem. Five dollars was the recognised contribution for taking a breath of air, and taxis were always available at the end of the street. Since all passports were retained by the hostel, and there could be no question of absconding anywhere, the system worked well enough. It was usual for discreet taxi-loads of three to take the air together, and the taxis took them to the red light district.
Porter made up a threesome at eight the following evening. His Norwegian companions couldn’t understand him so at the first place they amicably agreed to split. There was no shortage of taxis in the red light area either, and he took one to the airport, again using dollars and taking his change in roubles and kopeks. With the kopeks he made three telephone calls, at precisely twelve-minute intervals. He allowed each one to ring twice, and then cut off. Then he made a fourth, and let it ring twelve times, when it was answered.
He said in Russian. ‘I am here.’
Murmansk was a major naval base and the airport was thronged with uniformed sailors. He watched quietly from a seat in the concourse and saw the man arrive thirty minutes later. The man had a sea-faring look himself; a solid, chunky individual dressed, like Porter, in donkey jacket, muffler and woolly hat. He carried a hefty grip. The plan, if no seat was available next to Porter, was to move elsewhere. But a seat was available, and the two men were soon in warm conversation. Then the new arrival asked Porter to watch his bag while he made a call and suggested that they meet in the Automat. Porter agreed and off the man went; and so presently did Porter, with the bag, following the arrow marked Toilets.
Familiar with the routine, since Otaru, he locked himself in and went swiftly to work. In the grip was a set of clothing, new documentation, a wallet and a toilet bag. He started with the toilet bag, taking out the towel and wrapping it round his neck, and then the scissors and the hand mirror. He cut off the pigtail at the roots, and dropped it in the bag, and then scissored away all over his head until it was down to the shortest fuzz he could manage. This too went from the towel into the bag. Then he lathered his scalp and his moustache with the liquid soap and started work with the razor.
He had been clean-shaven before but never totally bald, and the effect was startling. He wasted no time examining it but right away changed into his new clothing. This was handsome: winter-weight velvet cords, fine white woollen rolltop, a stylish fur-lined leather jacket, two-tone ankle boots, and a splendid bushy mink for his shaven head. Kolya (Nikolai) Khodyan was a snappy dresser. Dark snow glasses were in the top pocket of the jacket. He briefly tried the effect, and took them off again. Then he packed everything of Sung Won Choo’s in the bag, and went back with it to the concourse.
The seaman was in the Automat, by the samovars, at the busiest corner, as planned. Porter jostled his way through and got himself a glass, and they amicably exchanged a few words. Then the man picked up the bag, they nodded to each other in the scrum, and he was gone.
Porter remained a while, finishing his tea, and made his way to the left luggage office, fishing the receipt out of his new wallet. The two pieces awaiting him were every bit as opulent as the rest of Khodyan’s effects; a fine large Scandinavian case and a soft antelope grip. He took them over to the checkin desk.
In his breast pocket he had the sheaf of open-flight tickets. It took almost thirty minutes to get the stages of the journey booked, a computer being out of action at one of them. Then he handed in the case, and went and bought himself another glass of tea. The place was still swarming, flights still being called to take the fleet sailors to distant parts of the country.
But he was smoking in the lounge when, at midnight, the first of his own flights was called. This was to Irkutsk. At Irkutsk he changed for Yakutsk. At Yakutsk, in a blizzard, he made Polar Aviation again for Tchersky.
Three days after leaving it he was back. This was the second of October, just over a month after his arrival at Narita airport in Japan, and ten weeks since he had first heard of inaccessible and forbidden Green Cape. He now took a taxi there, and fifteen minutes later let himself into the apartment.
Four
THE PALE WOMEN OF SIBERIA
23
He switched the light on, closed the door behind him and stood quite still, looking and listening.
He was in a living room, a warm and foetid one. A faint smell of rotting fruit. The place had been empty for four months; its last occupant hurrying out to catch a plane in June. He had left a mess behind – newspapers on the floor, a discarded grip, scattered work boots, half-open drawers. A toy panda sat on the sofa, cutely watching. It had lipstick on. He could see all the flat at once, all its doors open, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom. A subdued noise of music and voices came from surrounding apartments.
He waited some moments longer, then moved to the window and closed the curtains. He saw that the port was not visible from here, or even the street. He was at the back of the building, second floor – a big block, 165 apartments. Directly opposite was its twin, five storeys of lighted windows. At the end of the stamped-snow courtyard the two blocks were joined by a glassed-in walkway. Through the panes of the walkway he could see, beyond, a supermarket, part of the same complex. A few lights glimmered in it but the place was shut. Almost nine o’clock. He sighed and took his mink hat off.
Apart from the night’s sleep at Murmansk he had barely stopped moving for three days. He took Khodyan’s jacket off too, and prowled the flat, sniffing, touching. The furniture looked new, Finnish, good quality. Bed left unmade; a huge kingsize; fine pillows, plump duvet: Swansdown, the label said in English. The slob who owned all this was a bachelor who liked his comforts. Wardrobe stuffed with winter clothing, all good.
The bathroom too – towels of fine quality, fluffy foreign ones; the tub and shower also far from standard, all extra, all paid for by this high earner. There was a lingering smell of used clothing. He looked around and saw heavy winter socks and underwear spilling out of a laundry basket. A bra and panties were mixed in with them.
In the kitchen further signs of hurried departure; rinsed breakfast things upside down on the drainer and, in a sink-tidy alongside, the source of the fruit smell; orange peel and pear cores. Not much food in the cupboards: tea, coffee, a few cans. He had a look in the fridge. Sausage, eggs, fuzzy cheese, all due for despatch. But not tonight.
Tonight sleep. But the sheet, on closer inspection, showed signs of use, so he changed it first. Piping hot from the linen cupboard, the new one was beautifully silky, the elasticated edges slipping neatly and smoothly under the mattress. He marvelled at it. He’d never had such stuff himself. They lived high, in the Arctic. Alexei Mikhailovich Ponomarenko had lived high.
‘Alexei! Are you back, Alexei?’
In his sleep he’d heard the ringing and thought himself again in the hospital. But now an accompanying rapping at the door brought him to, and he turned out. He turned out in Ponomarenkos’s fine woollen dressing gown. It was eight o’clock in the morning.
‘One minute, I’m coming!’ he called, as the rapping continued.
‘Alexei! It’s good to hear you again. Welcome back, Alyosha!’
‘Yes, but it’s not Alyosha,’ he said. He was smiling as he opened the door. Kolya Khodyan was a smiler; sometimes taciturn, always temperamental, mainly a smiler. He smiled at difficulties. All this had been worked out.
‘Oh.’ A little old lady in carpet slippers was gazing at him. Her face was lined and like a tabby’s, an
d it was now gazing up in astonishment at the startling Siberian native with his shaven head. ‘Isn’t Alexei here?’
‘No, he’s still at the Black Sea. He lent me the place for a while. He can’t come just yet.’
‘Is he in trouble there?’
‘No trouble! He’s enjoying himself.’
‘Ah. A girl, is it?’
‘A beauty. Don’t worry about him.’
‘Again – that bad boy! But you – excuse me – you’re –?’
‘Khodyan. Nikolai Dmitrievich – call me Kolya,’ Porter said, and warmly shook her hand. He hadn’t stopped smiling. ‘You don’t know me, but I know you, Anna Antonovna. I know everything about you! He never stopped speaking about you down there.’
‘He did? At Batumi he spoke of me?’ The old lady was delighted.
‘All the time. He said you kept him like a prince here. He said you’d do the same for me. So here I am!’
The old lady did not have many teeth but all of them were now radiantly on display in her smile.
‘Well, well,’ she said, and nudged his arm. ‘But he could have dropped me a line at least. If only to say you were coming. I’ve got his mail here, I’ve been emptying his box, he left me the key.’ Over her arm he now saw she had a string bag stuffed with papers, magazines mainly, by the wrappers. ‘He didn’t have an address when he left. Does he want it sent on now?’
‘No, no. He knows it’s only his magazines. Keep them for him,’ Porter said. ‘And meanwhile keep me like a prince.’
The old lady was peering past him into the room. ‘Well, the usual mess, I see. I thought it was him banging about – I’m just next door. You want me to start now?’
‘No, I’ll take a shower first,’ Porter said. He hadn’t investigated Khodyan’s cases yet and wanted to do so without the old babushka’s scrutiny. There was a sharp look on the catlike face. He hadn’t been banging about. He had made no noise at all. She most have spotted the light come on before he’d drawn the curtains last night.
She asked, ‘Have you anything to eat here?’
‘I brought something with me, enough for now. I won’t waste time. I want to run down to the port office.’
‘Ah, you’re on boats, too?’
‘Boats?’ Porter said. Some of the sunshine faded from his smile. Ponomarenko was supposed to be a truck driver.
‘The trucks. You’re not a driver?’
‘Ah, you know our slang!’ It was as well that he did himself now. The first example of the casual dangers. ‘Sure. On the boats. How are things shaping here this season?’
‘The usual mess at the beginning – they’re running in all directions. But the ice is nearly right. They’ll be glad of you. You’re not from these parts, then – Kolya, is it?’
‘Kolya. No – from Chukotka, the Magadan circuit. But I go anywhere – a boat’s a boat.’
‘Of course – you boys! Well, give me a knock, Kolya. You want the same arrangements to carry on: wash, clean, get in the shopping?’
‘Everything. Whatever you did before, old lady, do it again. You’ll tell me what you need and I’ll leave the money.’
‘And if I find anything?’ Her eyes were still roaming the little apartment. ‘Return it? Or?’
‘Let me take a shower, a mouthful of coffee,’ he pleaded, ‘and I’ll come and see you.’
But he was thoughtful as he closed the door behind her. It wasn’t till he was in the bathroom and his eyes fell again on the bra and the panties that it occurred to him what the ‘or’ meant. There would be a claimant for these goods.
That was another thing they hadn’t told him.
24
The Tchersky Transport Company, at this season, had the running of Green Cape. The river had frozen, not solidly as yet, but solidly enough for all the shipping to have vanished. The half-mile length of dock showed no trace of a gangplank, and would not show any for eight months. Now it was crammed with freight, the last frantic unloading of ships that had dashed for open water before the ice trapped them.
Not only the dock but the sheds that lined the dock were crammed; and the huge warehouses on the hill above the dock, acre upon acre of them; all crammed. Through this one small Arctic opening all north-east Siberia was supplied: its gold and diamond mines, its processing plants and power stations, and all the industrial settlements that had developed round them.
In the short summer, when the Kolyma flowed, barges carried the supplies south, for distribution through the river’s tributary system to east and west. But that was in summer, and in the south. Up here no long-distance tributaries ran to east or west. To east and west the area was impassable in summer, and had to wait for winter.
In winter the Tchersky Transport Company took over.
On the steep hill above the dock, Porter watched them doing it. From here he could see the spread of warehouses on top as well as the frenetic activity below. Below, some dozens of teams were at work freeing the crates jamming the dock. The crates towered crazily, dumped one on top of the other as the ships had hurried to leave. Snow had fallen and an icecap had formed, freezing the stacks together. The bulky figures, earflaps down in the bitter wind, were chipping them apart, while cranes and forklifts shifted them on to trucks. A steady stream of trucks was grinding uphill and churning into the storage area. Here the loads were being stowed under the last of the cover – a roofed and pillared overhang extending the length of the warehouses.
He watched for some time, and then turned and trudged through the rutted snow to the administrative block. He had identified it immediately, a squat two-storey building on short piles at the beginning of the warehouse row.
In the dismal morning all the lights were on inside, and the draughty foyer bustled with activity. Clusters of men were going from one wall roster to another; others gathered round the samovars, talking and smoking. He stood for a while, jostled on all sides, and presently made his way to a double set of glass doors at the end. He peered through to a large room filled with desks. Men and women were writing, phoning, passing papers to each other over glasses of tea. He couldn’t make out anyone noticeably managerial, and turned away to get himself some tea at a samovar. There were no glasses here, just paper cups and a drum of somewhat grubby lumps of sugar. He reached for a couple of lumps, and as he turned jostled another man, spilling his tea.
He apologised.
‘It’s nothing.’ The man wiped his leather jacket.
‘Some crush here!’
‘Start of the season. Nothing’s rolling. You new here?’
‘Just got in. Is Bukarovsky still here?’
‘The road manager? Sure. Upstairs.’
‘I suppose he’s the one to see.’
The man was looking at him curiously. ‘For driving, or?’
Porter noted again the ‘or’, evidently local style. It hadn’t appeared on the tapes.
‘For driving, sure.’
‘Then it’s him. End of the corridor up there. You’ll tell by the noise.’
Porter sipped his tea, looked around, and shouldered his way to the rosters. There were several of them, listing the teams and what they would be driving. The lists showed three drivers to a truck, two on, one off. He saw that Ponomarenko’s name wasn’t there. There was a large variety of trucks, different models of Tatra, Kama, Ural. He knew about this. They had some hundreds of heavy trucks, almost 1500 drivers and mechanics: close on a million tons of freight to be hauled.
He finished his tea, threw the cup in the bin and walked upstairs. Even at the stairhead he heard the uproar; and as he neared it, a nameplate on the end door confirmed the source: P. G. BUKAROVSKY, ROAD MANAGER. He paused there, uncertain whether to knock or enter, until a girl emerged in a hurry, and left the door for him, and he went in.
A sunken-chested man with a haggard face was shouting into a phone, his feet on a desk. He was doing several things at once: drinking tea, furiously smoking, coughing, pointing out something to a girl hanging over him with a clipb
oard, and offering advice to an older woman who sat talking on another phone at the other side of the desk. ‘Tell them to rot at Bilibino!’ he told her. ‘With my compliments. Not you,’ he said into the phone. ‘I promised you! Two-three days. When I see fifteen centimetres. Not a minute before! What do you want?’
The last was to Porter, who was standing before him, flashing a smile. He’d hesitated whether or not to take his fur cap off and had decided against; the men below had kept their caps on.
He carried on smiling, waving the manager on with his conversation, and looked around the room as it proceeded. The walls here were also covered with rosters; and with large maps. A phalanx of coloured flag pins was stuck neatly at the bottom of each map. No flags were yet distributed on the maps. He turned as the phone smashed down.
‘What’s your problem?’ the man said.
‘You want a driver?’
‘Where are you from?’
‘Chukotka.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘A favour to Ponomarenko. We met at Batumi. He can’t come for a few weeks.’
‘That bastard will stretch his holiday once too often! What can you drive?’
Porter offered his papers. ‘Whatever you’ve got.’
The phone rang again, and the man picked it up and laid it on the desk, where it angrily chattered. He glanced through the papers.
‘You’re square with the union?’
‘All square.’
‘What trouble are you in at Chukotka?’
‘No trouble … Look,’ Porter said amiably. He hadn’t stopped smiling. ‘I’m doing Ponomarenko a favour. You also. You want me, it’s okay. You don’t – also okay. I’ll go.’
‘Bukarovsky!’ Bukarovsky said into the phone. He continued glaring at Porter. ‘Leave your songsheet here,’ he told him. ‘And go round to the sheds. Not you,’ he said into the phone, between spasms of coughing. ‘Tell Yura to try you on a Kama 50, and to call me back. The 50, right? Hello – Pevek, what the hell is it now? … Here, you – take a bobik,’ he said to Porter.
Kolymsky Heights Page 15