Kolymsky Heights

by Lionel Davidson

  No, they didn’t remain in the one place; that was plainly impossible with such a large herd, over two thousand beasts. The reindeer grazed the moss under the ice. They grazed it and were moved on every few days. No problems. A small party dismantled the tents and carried them ahead and reerected them. The same with firewood: every week or so a party would go south to a great woodstack nearer the timber line and collect it. Sure, on sleds, you harnessed up a couple of reindeer; wonderful beasts. They carried you, clothed you, fed you. Better than beef. And cheaper to produce than beef, and fetching better prices! Yes, everywhere, all over Russia, and Japan too, and God knew where else. The collective did all that.

  He didn’t know the collective? Novokolymsk. All that work was done there, the carcase-handling, packing, despatch, accounts. They went back there themselves regularly. A big helicopter came and transferred them. One party went back, another party came out. The schoolchildren stayed at the collective, of course; only came out to the herds for holidays. No, not everybody returned regularly; Innokenty didn’t, and many of the older folk also. They preferred the wandering life, didn’t feel the need for television, videos, parties. All that was for the younger ones. But a good life for everybody, a natural one, full of variety.

  Indeed, he said, indeed it was. And he’d heard they also found time to fit in work at the docks in the summer. How did they fit all that in?

  How did they fit it in? They could fit anything in. They were free. They did what they wanted. And it wasn’t the only thing they fitted in. They also worked regularly at a science station up in the hills.

  Ah yes! He knew about that. Had actually met a couple of them when he’d freighted a load to the guard post there a few weeks ago. He explained the situation, to their very great interest Which Evenks were they? Well, he hadn’t caught their names, but from his description it was generally agreed who they must be – and what a pity they weren’t here to greet him. They wouldn’t be down for a week yet. Yes, the same system, one party came back and another went up to replace them.

  Truly an interesting life, he said, admiringly. And he regretted not having picked up any science himself. They’d had a scientific training, had they, the people who went up there?

  This occasioned a great deal of laughter, and also another round of drinks.

  You wouldn’t call it science, old Innokenty said, smiling. Just honest work – cleaning, laundry, cooking, maintenance. And the heating, and such things. Scores of people had to be looked after up there, a big government station, scientists, guards – yes, stinking heads. You didn’t have much to do with them. And they had nothing to do with Tchersky or Green Cape. All their supplies came from far away, thousands of kilometres. Which the Evenks offloaded and shifted, too. But not to the people below, of course. All the science happened below, and nobody was ever allowed there.

  ‘Only my Stepanka!’ exclaimed a very old lady, smoking her pipe and nodding.

  ‘Of course Stepanka. But nobody else.’

  ‘Who’s Stepanka?’ asked the Chukchee.

  ‘Her son. Stepan Maximovich. He looks after the boss of the place – took over his father’s job when he died. It’s in their family. He lives there. And he has a wife, not old, but beyond child-bearing age so they let him take her. For his natural needs,’ Innokenty said, winking.

  ‘Ah. Aren’t there any other women there?’

  ‘No, none.’

  ‘So what do the rest of them do for – you know?’

  More laughter. Well, with the guards there was no problem. They were shifted regularly – in fact a new crew would be on next week. As for the scientists, a party of them went out, every couple of months – to opera houses, concert halls, things of that kind. They got private boxes, and various stinking heads had to go with them. But Stepanka thought they were given a ration of the other as well, it was only right.

  Oh, they got to see Stepanka, did they?

  Of course they got to see him. Stepanka had to know how his family was getting on – and all his people! And they were trusted. They were the only outsiders trusted. They wouldn’t trust any white workers in there. Or Yukagir or Chukchees, for that matter. No offence to Chukchees, it was just a different way of life in these parts. And the Yukagir could never keep to timetables. They were out scouting their traplines all winter. Go and find them! No, the Evenks with their regular herds were the only ones the authorities took. And they took them from the herds, not the collective. Took them and brought them back to the herds, so they shouldn’t contact anybody in between. That was the way of it with stinking heads.

  Well, a fascinating life, he said. But where was the opera house in Tchersky they’d mentioned, or the concert hall? He hadn’t found these places yet.

  More laughter – hilarious laughter, everyone rolling on the carpet – and also more drinks.

  Tchersky! An opera house in Tchersky! Oh, no! Not that, Kolya! No opera houses in Tchersky. God knew where the opera houses were – maybe as far as Novosibirsk. They flew them out in a big plane! In Novosibirsk they had opera houses now, and theatres, everything. Well, they must have had them when he was there last.

  Ah, when he was there last, he said, and grew solemn. (The moment had come now and he braced himself.) The vodka had flowed very freely all evening and a tear now stood in his eye. When he was in Novosibirsk last!

  What, Kolya? What? Unhappy memories?

  Yes, unhappy. A person had to keep them to himself.

  Why to himself? It helped a person to speak.

  No. He wouldn’t burden them with unhappy stories.

  What burden? With friends? Take a drink, Kolya. Speak.

  He took a drink. Well then, he said, and wiped his eyes. Well … In Novosibirsk he had left a most tragic case. A white girl. Dying. He had met the family in his early tearabout days there. The father had worked at an institute outside the town; Akademgorodok – Science City. He had done odd jobs for the family, a fine family, just the three of them, father, mother, daughter.

  And then evil things had happened. The mother, still a young woman, had taken ill and died. And a grandmother had come to look after the girl – just eight or nine years old at the time. This was twenty years ago. Until one day, out of nowhere, another disaster. The father too had gone – not dead, just gone, disappeared. A letter saying urgent government business and he would be in touch. But he had not been in touch. Not from that day to this, not a single word – nothing.

  What nothing? Innokenty said. How could they live on nothing?

  Money wasn’t a problem, Kolya said. Money came, regularly, from the ministry that had employed him. It was just – no word from him, no idea what had happened.

  The ministry couldn’t tell them what had happened?

  The grandmother tried. She tried everybody, the ministry, the place where he’d worked, his colleagues. Nothing.

  So then what?

  So then time passed, he went back to Chukotka, got a driving job. And the girl wrote from time to time. Told him the grandmother had died. Until suddenly, this year, a few months ago, she wrote again, very urgently. Could he come and see her at once? Which as it happened he could. The driving season had just ended, it was June, he was going to the Black Sea. So he went to Novosibirsk first, and saw her. And was shocked by what he saw. The girl was desparately ill, wasting away – the same disease as her mother, and the same age, twenty-nine. And the doctors said nothing could be done for her.

  Well he couldn’t accept that, wouldn’t believe it. On the Black Sea they had other doctors, different cures. So he had taken her there, gone to top specialists, paid them privately. But the same story: nothing to be done. And the Black Sea was too hot for her, so he had taken her back to Novosibirsk. And there they had stayed, and had wept together …

  Until, he said, wiping his eyes again, one day she had asked him to do something for her, one last thing.

  When she first knew of her illness, she had gone herself to Akademgorodok – the place her father had wo
rked. Had pleaded with them, pestered them, gone from office to office. And in a certain room, where records were kept, had overheard officials whispering together about a place in the Kolymsky region. And dimly from her childhood she remembered her father had also spoken of this place. A mysterious kind of place, a weather station, from which he had received reports, also spoken of in whispers. And from this she had got it into her head that it was the explanation of his disappearance. He was in this mysterious place. He was not allowed to write!

  And this was what she wanted of him – to take a letter to her father, begging one last word and his blessing before she died. She knew Kolya drove about in the north. To her, Chukotka, the Kolymsky region, were all the same. They knew nothing of the north down there, none of them. So, for a dying girl, what else could he do? He had come up to Tchersky and taken a job with the transport company and looked for this weather station. Of course he knew now there wasn’t such a place … But yes, that was the reason Novosibirsk had sad memories for him.

  Wait a minute! Innokenty said. He had been staring hard at him. Twenty years ago you say this man disappeared?

  Twenty years ago.

  But twenty years ago there was a weather station here – our science place up in the hills!

  You don’t say so! Kolya said.

  I do say so, Innokenty said. That’s what they said then. And there has never been any other weather station in the region.

  God above – you mean I’ve actually found it? Kolya said.

  God has found it! Stepanka’s old mother said. She had thrown her pipe down and was weeping. He has led you to it! My Stepanka will take this letter for you. He’ll see her father gets it.

  It’s a miracle! Kolya said. I can’t believe it! Only tell me when it can be done!

  In just a week, Innokenty told him. When the helicopter brings the others down, the new party will take the letter up.

  And the reply – when would I get it?

  Four weeks later, when they come down again.

  Ah God! Too late! Kolya said, bitterly. She’ll never last that time. In two weeks I have to leave. To be at her deathbed.

  Then what’s to be done?

  They had another drink while thinking what was to be done.

  Nobody could think what was to be done.

  Was it possible, Kolya said at last, his face creased up as he puzzled the matter out, was it possible for them to get him up there somehow?

  Well, Innokenty said. Possible, yes. He could go up as a member of a party. The stinking heads didn’t know one from another. But what was to be gained? He would still have to stay there four weeks. They didn’t bring them down again for four weeks.

  And if he was changed?

  Changed?

  Kolya tried working this one out, too, his face again very creased. He worked it out once, and he worked it out twice, and by the second time tears had turned to laughter and even the old lady was rolling on the floor with her pipe.

  Oh God, yes! Oh God, why not – if it could be done? Comfort for a dying girl – and in such a way – from people who were free and did what they wanted!

  All night the blizzard raged and he drowsed by the stove, disturbed occasionally as men stumbled out to re-tether the leaders keeping the herd together. But in the morning the weather was clear and the helicopter came with the vitamins, and he went back with it; the Evenks waving boisterously up at him as he rose in the sky. ‘We’ll meet again,’ they had told him, winking. Oh yes! Yes, indeed they would!

  So that part too was over.

  And now there remained only the last.

  38

  After his week’s rest Kolya Khodyan signed on for work again at the Tchersky Transport Company. And he returned the bobik.

  The story of his supposed Evenk girl had passed around, he saw, for he was greeted everywhere with hilarity.

  ‘Had your rest cure, Kolya? Found something nice and comfortable to rest on?’

  He smiled sheepishly, and took all this.

  From Yura, the Kama truck chief, there was no hilarity. The plan called for him to go and see the little man anyway; but that same morning he was sent for.

  He decided to walk the half kilometre to the hangar.

  ‘What’s this, Kolya?’ Yura furiously demanded. ‘What? I put you down for a long haul. And this note comes back: “No long distances – struck off”. What the hell! What’s happening here? What?’

  He assumed his sullen expression.

  ‘My skin is what! They no like it. Say bad heart.’

  ‘Who says bad heart?’

  ‘At the medical. They make me do medical. Look at my papers, say no good – bad heart. Is all lies, those papers! Nothing wrong with my heart. Is my skin!’

  ‘Wait a minute. What trouble with your heart?’

  ‘I have a fever as a kid – is nothing! Some doctor in Anadyr says later maybe I get bad heart. I don’t get a bad heart. Nobody says so, nobody in Chukotka! Here they say it! Not my heart. My skin, eh – Chukchee skin. No good!’

  The heavy-truck chief breathed loudly through his nostrils.

  ‘We’ll soon see about that!’ he said.

  He picked up the phone and called Bukarovsky.

  Kolya lit himself a cigarette and waited. Nothing would be coming out of Bukarovsky. All the road manager could ask for was an urgent hospital check. Which Komarova would hold up for two weeks. In two weeks he would no longer be here.

  He listened to the shouting match, and the phone slammed down. ‘Okay, all fixed! He’s getting you a hospital check – urgent. Komarova will arrange it herself. You’ll have the long hauls, I promise!’

  ‘Did I ask for them? Did I ask anything? Is my skin!’

  ‘Kolya, come on! It’s a fuck-up with your papers. Everywhere there are fuck-ups! You’re wanted here. Everybody wants you!’ He came and put his arm round the Chukchee and squeezed him. ‘And didn’t I hear you’ve got a little bit somewhere who also wants you? Somewhere out at a collective? Eh? Eh?’

  ‘Is my business,’ the Chukchee said, sullenly.

  ‘Sure it is, Kolya. Sure. Shagging your ears off, you dog. What? Tearing down there every night in a bobik!’

  ‘Yes, one thing more,’ he said. ‘No bobik. I come in, give up bobik. No-good driver, no bobik. I have to walk here now.’

  ‘What!’ Yura reached for the phone again. ‘Liova? Liova, what’s this −’

  More minutes of shouting before the phone slammed down.

  ‘You’ve got a bobik. He said you never even asked him.’

  ‘Why ask? If I’m no good? No favours.’

  ‘Kolya, Kolya.’ The little man squeezed him again. ‘Nobody says that. You’re the best! Don’t get so hot. Okay, for a few days you do short runs, until your check-up. After that, I promise you – Bilibino, Baranikha, Pevek, everywhere! Go on, off now. And someone will run you back. My drivers don’t walk!’

  So that was settled: his medical condition established, hospital check-up in motion, a bobik once more at his disposal, and short runs a certainty.

  He started on them at once.

  He managed a trip to Ambarchik in the week and brought back a fish for Vassili, and also one run each to Provodnoye and Anyuysk. He carried the rest of the car on them.

  The same week he started the night assembly.

  ‘She is making stroganina,’ Vassili told him on Friday. ‘You want to come tomorrow?’

  ‘Vassili, what I am getting is better than stroganina.’

  ‘Sure. I told her. Your eyes are hanging out.’

  ‘It’s not the only thing.’

  ‘I believe you. You’re overdoing it. She says you need oil and if you can’t come she’ll send you stroganina.’

  ‘I’ll be very glad. Also for the oil.’

  ‘So what work did you manage with the bobik?’

  ‘A bit, not much.’

  ‘You’ll find the underside can be a bastard. Unless you have a pit. Everything fits from below.’

 
‘I expect I’ll find it.’

  He found the underside a tremendous bastard. He took sacking and a bit of carpet with him but still his back froze as he lay under the chassis.

  As Vassili had said, the thing was a toy, but an unbelievably heavy toy, clumsy, rugged, all of it unexpectedly difficult. He had brought the block and tackle just for the engine. He found he was using it for everything.

  To fit the front suspension the completed frame, immediately fast-frozen to the ground, had to be lifted. The block and tackle lifted it. To fit the other end he had to attach wheels to the front, drag the thing out like a wheelbarrow, and turn and back in again, to get the rear in position. The block and tackle lifted that, too. He was improvising all the time, and swearing all the time; yet everything fitted – laboriously, painfully; but locking together like a meccano set.

  He slept all day Saturday and Sunday and worked through both nights, muffled to the eyebrows, the kerosene stove pushing out feeble warmth. But when he drove back Monday morning the chassis was on wheels, the steering in, the transmission ready, even the exhaust loosely attached.

  ‘Look, you can’t continue like this,’ she told him. It was five in the morning. She was in a dressing gown, having heard him come in. ‘You can’t finish it before you go up, anyway. In two or three days you will be going up. Even today I could be given a date. And you need to be thoroughly rested for it.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, dully. He was truly desperately tired.

  ‘Today you won’t accept all jobs. They’ll understand – your medical coming up … this Evenk girl. And stay near the depot. My office could phone in at any time.’

  He fell into bed and slept like a log for two hours, until she woke him with coffee. Then they left together, still in the dark, Komarova scouting the street before signalling him out in his bobik.