Kolymsky Heights

by Lionel Davidson

  The call did not come that day, but the next. It came when he was out on a local run, and he returned to find Liova signalling him over.

  ‘Kolya, you want a light number with the medical centre?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘They need somebody tomorrow morning – a three-day job. Komarova has a sprained ankle and can’t drive out of town. She has a few trips, maybe including the collective. And since you know the place,’ he said, grinning, ‘it’s yours if you want it.’

  ‘Okay, I don’t mind,’ he said.

  He went to his own apartment after work, to pick up his ID and some clothing out of the wardrobe. He had worn very little of it; had been in the apartment very little the past few days.

  He was taking a shower when Anna Antonovna looked in, and when he came out she was still waiting, ready for a chat. And within ten minutes of her departure Lydia Yakovlevna also looked in, alerted by the old lady, he had no doubt. The girl was furiously resentful.

  He had someone at the collective, didn’t he? Everyone was saying he had a girl there. It was very insulting for her. People knew she was his girl now; she was braving Alexei’s future wrath, risking her reputation. And for what – for him to go with a filthy little Evenk whore? Come on, the truth now. He had an Evenk girl, didn’t he?

  Not an Evenk girl, he said. Just Evenk friends. They were good people. He had always had Evenk friends.

  Oh, yes? And Chukchee ones, too? He had been seen! Going off with high and mighty Komarova, to that Chukchee place. And what had that haughty bitch said about her? Had she been spreading any lies?

  What lies? Nothing. Why should she? Everyone knew what a lovely person Lydia Yakovlevna was. Everyone spoke well of her, of her charm, her warmth, as he did himself.

  Oh, did he? Well, let him prove it. He was a different person since he’d come back from Bilibino with all that money. Go on, let him spend some of it, a good meal, she’d dress up for the occasion, and they’d share a full night together.

  Ah, that he couldn’t; he was tired, had to start early in the morning. He was driving for Komarova the next three days. His knowledge of native languages was useful to her. She mustn’t see anything wrong in that. Green Cape was full of gossip, she knew it. After the three days, then they’d get together again.

  The girl reluctantly went and he mused over what she had said. It was true the place was full of gossip. Anna Antonovna had told him plenty of it. But nothing about Komarova had come up. Would she have told him if it had? Maybe he had been seen near the house … He decided not to go back tonight. He went below and made a guarded call from the public phone in the hall. Then he gave himself a couple of drinks and some food from the fridge, and watched television.

  There was a talk show on television and he saw again the jolly little man in reindeer boots – the deputy mayor of the town, he now knew, a token Yakut – and remembered where he had seen him first. The flickering tapes, rainy Prince George …

  Suddenly he could not eat the food. The events of tomorrow rose up in his throat.

  At Prince George he should have backed out. At any time since he could have backed out: at the camp, in Japan, on the ship, even here with the Evenks. But tomorrow he couldn’t back out. Once started then, he had to continue. And it would end – he knew it suddenly, could recollect a distant voice warning – it would end in tears.

  One call now, then, and cancel?

  He poured himself another drink.

  No. To hell! To come so far, and give up? Something for him to do in. the world – Rogachev had told him long ago. See it through to the end. He tossed the drink back and went to bed.

  39

  He was up early in the morning, and was early at the medical centre, in one of Ponomarenko’s jazzy lumber jackets.

  There he helped load up, in the packing bay at the rear.

  The distilled-water jars were jammed tightly into heavy crates, and the packers normally loaded them last to hold the lighter materials in position: the crates went fifty kilos apiece.

  The man who would now be driving the bobik had other views on this. It would make them tail-heavy, he said, and the route was very slippery this season. The track up to the guard post was bad enough – he had hauled a load there not long before – and the stinking heads had said the farther slope was even worse. For that final leg stability up front was needed: the big crates ought to go in first.

  The packers bowed to his superior knowledge and they were amicably completing the job when Medical Officer Komarova showed up, leaning on her stick.

  ‘Ah. A driver for me today. Good.’

  The bobik’s doors were closed and they were off, and soon on the river. It was still dark.

  ‘What problems last night?’ she said.

  Her face was very pale, he saw, and stiff.

  ‘Nothing serious.’ He explained them.

  ‘That little tart. I can have her in trouble any time. Concealing a sexual disease is a serious offence. Still, you were right not to come. You’ve brought your papers?’

  ‘Everything.’ His particulars had been telexed to the research station and would be waiting at the guard post.

  They left: the river and entered the creek, and he drove a few kilometres along it and stopped.

  She wound a scarf around her head and chin and put her fur cap back on, while he shrugged into Khodyan’s balaclava. It was a Finnish one, decorated with ski figures; and he topped it with the opulent mink hat.

  ‘All right?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Very becoming.’ But her voice was dry and tight.

  He drove on again, and presently the red flag for the turnoff ramp came into view in the headlights.

  ‘Switch on the circuit radio,’ he said.

  She switched it on and got the familiar crackling voices.

  ‘I’m not sure I can go through with this,’ she said.

  He wasn’t sure himself. He didn’t answer, turning up the ramp.

  The logs had been gritted again, he saw, and on top the two men were waiting again. Not the same two, for, as the Evenks had said, the security staff had changed over; but a pair almost identical. Bundled-up figures, ear flaps down, breath standing in the air, automatic weapons slung. A military jeep stood by the guard post.

  The men saluted the medical officer, and one of them, a sergeant, bent in to the window.

  ‘A hard morning, Doctor. No trouble getting here?’

  ‘No.’ She licked her lips. ‘Do you want me out?’

  ‘No, stay where you are. You’ve got a bad leg, I hear. Just your papers. He can come out. What’s the name – Khodyan?’ He was checking his own sheet, but spared a look at the fancy headgear and the lumber jacket.

  ‘Khodyan.’ He managed to crack his face into a smile. He got out; produced his papers; had them checked; waited while Komarova’s papers were also checked.

  ‘How’s the track up there today?’ she said, her voice forced.

  ‘Not so bad. There’s four-wheel drive on this?’ the man asked the Chukchee.

  ‘Sure, four-wheel.’

  ‘Follow me. In first gear. Open the back now, I’ll check it out.’

  The rear doors were opened and the sergeant checked off the goods crammed inside. ‘Okay, close her,’ he said, and walked off to the military jeep.

  ‘How long you staying there, Doctor?’ The remaining man was beating gloved hands in the frigid air. He had just opened the gates barring the upward track. A harsh wind was sweeping from the mountain.

  ‘No time. There’s been – an emergency call.’ The radio was still crackling out. ‘I’ll be down almost at once.’

  ‘Thank God for that!’

  ‘Stay in the hut – this wind isn’t good for you.’

  ‘I don’t need telling!’

  ‘Okay, let’s go!’ The sergeant had backed the jeep and was signalling them, and the small convoy set off.

  They exchanged a quick glance, but he said nothing. The path up was a sunken road, ploughed in
to the slope and zigzagged to keep the gradient manageable. It was still very steep, and they ground slowly up in first gear.

  In just over a kilometre the top of the dome came suddenly into view, pinkish floodlight reflecting off it. He recognised it at once from the photographs. And after the dome, the whole camp, laid out on the plateau; two, three hundred metres of low buildings, spread out, enclosed by tall chain-link fencing, all floodlit.

  Just as they reached the gates he identified the storage sheds too, and the generator housings, and the landing strip. The jeep halted at the gates, which opened, admitting them to a pen and another guard post, where they were stopped again.

  Here papers were once more checked; both sets of gates, those behind them and those in front, kept shut. Then they were motioned on, the jeep leading the way. It stopped at a squat concrete building, until a couple of uniformed men emerged; and then left, the sergeant waving them to remain.

  ‘This is it,’ she said. Her voice was barely a croak. ‘Open the door for me.’

  ‘Remember your words. And that you’re in a hurry.’

  He ran round to the door; and she emerged stiffly, poking with her stick.

  ‘What’s this, Medical Officer?’ The first uniformed figure was a major, very smart in his fur hat and shoulder boards. ‘They say you’ve hurt yourself.’

  ‘A sprain, nothing. It doesn’t interfere with my work. Apart from this wretched driving,’ she said irritably. ‘I can’t stay, I’m afraid – an urgent case on my radio. A wasted journey, except for these stores. Have them unloaded at once, if you please. Open the back,’ she ordered the Chukchee.

  He ran round to do so, and the officer looked in.

  ‘Yes. I heard it was a fair load. The tractor’s called for – here, it’s coming. You’ll step inside for refreshment?’

  ‘Not – just for the moment. I’ll see them started first. I don’t want any dawdling here. Be so good as to look out the medical indent for me, Major. I’ll look at it on the way down. And I’ll join you inside very shortly. Come on, now, hurry it along!’ she called to the approaching tractor.

  An Evenk was driving the tractor, and another one was in the small flat car that it was pulling. Porter recognised them both – they had been with the herds: the changeover had taken place.

  As the major withdrew inside, his subordinate took over, and supervised the unloading.

  ‘Now, men, make fast work!’ he urged the Evenks. ‘The medical officer has to get off on a case.’

  ‘You won’t be seeing us today, Doctor?’ one of the Evenks asked. Maddeningly, both Evenks were grinning at her broadly.

  ‘Not today. I’ll have to come back. Careful with those cartons,’ she said severely. ‘There are bottles inside.’

  ‘What case you on, Doctor, what’s the urgency?’

  ‘Never mind the case! Just look what you’re doing. And don’t throw, now – carry them!’

  The driver was pulling the light goods out of the back and tossing them to his mate for stacking on the flat car.

  ‘Only two pairs of hands, Doctor,’ the man complained. ‘And if we’re to hurry it up –’

  ‘Shall I get a few extra hands?’ the guard asked her.

  ‘No, no, they can manage perfectly well. Just see they do it properly. Look, they’re stacking too high, everything will tumble. See it’s re-done-’ she looked at her watch ‘ – and the crates have still to go on!’

  The guard hurried to supervise the restacking, and the Evenk at the bobik hurried to haul out the crates. The crates, having been stowed well up front in the van, required him to jump inside to get them; and to assist him the Chukchee jumped in with him. Once inside he swiftly removed his mink hat, balaclava and lumber jacket; and just as swiftly the Evenk removed his own upper gear. The Evenks were clad in deerskin jackets, fur-side in; their crude caps worn flaps-down. In no time they had swapped over.

  ‘Quick, take my papers!’ Porter said. ‘You’ll need them to get out.’

  ‘Papers? Where the devil should I put –’

  The man had still found no place to put the papers when the guard, at the flat car, noticed the Chukchee in the bobik.

  ‘Hey! You there – come out!’

  The two men looked round at him.

  ‘You, in the fur hat, come out at once! You’re not allowed!’

  The man now in the fur hat came slowly out, shaking his head at the medical officer, and the guard walked suspiciously over.

  ‘Now, officer,’ Komarova said, swallowing. She had observed the shake. ‘Those crates are very heavy. One man can’t handle them on his own.’

  ‘Well, he can’t handle them. You know that, Doctor. No outsider handles anything here.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said, but remained staring at him. ‘This – it’s your first trip here? I don’t remember examining you before.’

  ‘No, first time, Doctor.’

  ‘Put your tongue out.’

  ‘My tongue?’ The man bemusedly extended it.

  ‘Yes. Slight soreness. And some nausea, too, I expect.’ All the guards had slight soreness and some nausea the first few days. ‘Let me see your eyes.’ She helped herself to them, pulling down a lower lid and getting him to gaze skywards while she did so; at the same time noting that papers had changed hands behind her and were now secreted. ‘It’s the altitude. Not so good for your heart, I’m afraid. I’ll take a look at you later. For now, carry on. And get the men moving.’

  This the man did, at speed, but still in a state of abstraction over his heart.

  ‘You’re coming back when, Doctor?’ he anxiously asked.

  ‘Not today. And tomorrow’s out of the question. It will be the day after. Ah – and I have a message for you!’ she called to the Evenks. ‘Tell Stepan Maximovich his grandchild will be premature, perhaps with complications. Let him choose names without delay, for a boy or a girl.’

  ‘Wonderful! We’ll celebrate. But they keep us dry as a bone here, Doctor! Can’t you bring us up a drop?’

  ‘No, I can’t. Tell him to write the names down, and I’ll take them when I come. You shouldn’t be drinking up here,’ she told them sternly.

  ‘Doctor,’ the guard said. He was earnestly staring at her. ‘Is there anything I shouldn’t be doing here?’

  ‘Yes. Try not to sleep on your back. Or the left side. Use the right.’

  ‘The right,’ he said.

  ‘And call the jeep for me now. I won’t be long with the major.’ She glanced at her watch again. ‘A sick woman is waiting down there! See the sergeant is here in the jeep. And I’ll be out in two minutes.’

  And in two minutes she was; with the medical sheets and a flurried major. The sergeant was there in the jeep. The Chukchee was there in the bobik. And the small convoy was off once more; through two sets of opened gates and down the icy path to the guard post. There the two certified visitors – checked down below, checked on top, and now checked out – were saluted off the premises; security one hundred per cent. The guards saw them safely down the ramp, and removed it. And the medical officer was back in the creek again, with her driver. It was the first time the man had seen it.

  Up on top, his replacement was also seeing things for the first time. He had accompanied the tractor back to the storage sheds, receiving many winks from the Evenks working there while the guards slowly patrolled. Now he was helping transport another load, to the supply bay.

  The supply bay was at the rear of the complex, and as they neared the boundary fence he suddenly saw what he’d come for. Beyond the perimeter, a lake. A great basin of it, now iced, but with machinery of some kind mounted, evidently at work to keep a section of the floodlit water open. The water that it kept open was black, inky black. Reached at last. It was here: Dark waters. Tcherny Vodi.

  40

  Major Militsky, the camp commandant of Tcherny Vodi, was a rosy young man, not quite thirty years old, but risen fast in his profession. His present job he greatly disliked. Twice before h
e had been rotated to it, and each time he had disliked it. But this time he disliked it the most. It was his first time here in winter; and for an ambitious security man in winter Tcherny Vodi was an insult. The place was impregnably secure.

  In summer some problems could arise. All supplies had to come by air then, and strict routines were needed to prevent contacts between the Evenks and the aircrews – vetted crews, naturally, but given to stretching their limbs and loitering in the fine mountain air.

  In winter there wasn’t even that. The crews that arrived went right to the heated crewroom and stayed there. And not so many did arrive. For in winter deliveries could also come by land; and they did, to the lower guard post, for later collection by the camp’s own vehicles. An excellent system – no contact possible between the truck drivers and the camp.

  With the Facility, of course, no contact was possible at any time. It was perched 1200 metres up a mountain. It was built actually into the mountain; with the camp securely on top of it.

  The camp occupied Levels One and Two of the plateau: Level One for the guards’ barracks, the major’s suite, and all other visible structures. And Level Two for services: the kitchen, bakery, laundry, boilers, workshop, and Evenk quarters. Underneath all that, on Levels Three and Four, was the Facility, but about this the major knew nothing. The Facility ran itself, through a body called the Buro.

  Major Militsky had never visited the Buro, and was not permitted to do so, but three channels of communication existed with it. These were the internal postal system, a telephone, and a teleprinter. The printer was the most regular in use, and messages chattered to and fro on it several times a day. The post, in the form of a deed box that went up and down in a lift, was for papers requiring signature (the Administrator’s or, more rarely, the Director’s hieroglyph) and was also quite regular.

  The telephone was not regular at all.

  The telephone was a hotline, for emergency use only.

  No emergencies had so far arisen in the major’s tours of duty and he had not had to use it. He greatly hoped he wouldn’t have to do so now, though an emergency showed signs of developing. To nip it in the bud, without any panic on the hotline, would need fast action from him on the teleprinter. And some of the clearest explanations in the world to the swine at the other end.