Kolymsky Heights

by Lionel Davidson

  ‘Here’s the letter. You’ll need it to show the Evenks. It’s just blank paper – a few sheets.’

  ‘How about the ring – I tell them it couldn’t be found?’

  ‘No. It’s here.’ He opened his hand. ‘My wife’s, actually … There’s no one to send it to, and they’ll cremate me in a few weeks. You have it. You may find the inscription a little sentimental.’

  He turned it over and over in his hand for a few moments, smiling rather crookedly, and offered it with a magnifying glass.

  Through the glass Porter examined the gold band. The engraving was on the inside, its Russian words very worn: As our love the circle has no end.

  He read them silently.

  ‘Her death is why I’m here,’ Rogachev said simply. ‘This is how it happened. A funny circle, life, eh? Well, that’s the ring. And here’s the book. Put the belt on.’

  Porter put it on, under his clothing.

  ‘You’ve remembered the temperature?’

  ‘240 degrees.’

  ‘Minus 240. Even below that. Say liquid hydrogen, it’s easier. That’s to allow it to be opened. Once safely opened, no special conditions are needed. They’ll figure out how to read it. Remember, the gold one has the technical information. Now … Do I thank you again, or is it just goodbye?’

  It was just goodbye, without words. And it was in the library; their four hands clasped for long seconds. Then the chair was whining out of the room, and Porter’s last view was of a single arm raised. Vale!

  In ten minutes, goodbye to Stepanka too, and hello to the washroom. And soon after, to his bunk.

  All done now. Everything accomplished. Under the covers he felt the belt. Just a few hours to go. And in two or three days he’d be gone for good. He thought over the arrangements, but the day had been long. Up most of last night, little rest after it, and none at all since they’d been called in from the wind and the snow. He closed his eyes, drifting into darkness.

  45

  At the time that Kolya Khodyan and the Evenks had been summoned from the wind and the snow to learn that a name had been chosen for the baby, another man was learning some news, far away.

  It was eight time zones away, and eight o’clock in the morning. And it was a very curious piece of news.

  He knew he must have read it wrong.

  He read it again. The print was so poor, it was hard to read anyway. His eyes were bad today. He looked up from the newspaper and blinked at the sea. It was at the other end of the short side street and he could see just a bit of it, beyond the promenade, the water a surly lead colour. A palm tree was lashing about there.

  He had drunk a lot last night, for his cold. It hadn’t done anything for his cold but it had given him a bad head. God, how he hated the Black Sea!

  Alexei ‘Alyosha’ Ponomarenko sat under the flapping awning outside the café and longed for the north. He’d never had a cold in the north. Wonderful Green Cape. Wonderful Kolymsky. Pure, pure snow; good comrades, plenty of money. New frost outside every morning. Good dry heat inside. Not draughty, not damp. He longed for the princely apartment he had left behind in June. Here he lived like a pauper. Above this shitty café! Him! Even apart from the civil war now messily spluttering on here, his money was running out and he’d had to move from his decent place on the front to this back street.

  He lit a cigarette but left it smouldering in the ashtray, and went in to get another cup of coffee. A kerosene stove was stinking away inside, which was why he was sitting outside. Nowhere in the place was there central heating.

  ‘Put a shot of brandy in it,’ he said.

  ‘Cash,’ the surly proprietor said.

  Ponomarenko slammed the cash on the counter. The coffee he’d poured himself: it came with the breakfast.

  ‘And who gave you exclusive rights in the newspaper? Others are waiting for it.’

  ‘Buy another paper,’ Ponomarenko told him. He hung on to the paper.

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ one of the other guests said. A few disconsolate individuals were sitting about eating their lousy breakfasts; ghosts, wrecks, pensioners. ‘It’s all lies, anyway. They tell you what they want to tell you. Who’s winning today?’

  ‘Everybody’s winning,’ Ponomarenko said, and took the newspaper and his coffee out with him.

  The paper was full of tanks going here, there. Sod the tanks. He swallowed the improved coffee and felt his eyes improve. He concentrated on what interested him. The two panels were side by side, one in Georgian, one Russian. He read the Russian one again. Edict of the Government: Ministry of Justice.

  He read it twice more. Very tricky, the bastards here. Very. There was bound to be a catch in it somewhere.

  He lit another cigarette and thoughtfully smoked it, blinking in the distance at the threshing palm tree. Then he folded over a few pages so they wouldn’t figure out what interested him and took the paper inside.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said to the fellow behind the counter, ‘is there a respectable lawyer anywhere in this town?’

  The lawyer was a small man with a very large moustache, and he was an Armenian, which made Ponomarenko anxious; he had wanted a Georgian, one who knew all the shifts and changes of Georgian law anyway. He was also not impressed with the premises. To enter the lawyer’s office he had had to walk through a room with a dentist’s chair in it. The man reassured him on both points. He had practised for twenty years, he said, both in Batumi and Tbilisi; this was his week in Batumi. The dentist’s chair was his brother-in-law’s, who was this week in Tbilisi.

  The lawyer first of all had a point of his own to make. He understood his visitor had come to consult him on behalf of a friend. Did the friend understand that such consultations were on a cash basis, and the cash was US dollars?

  Ponomarenko put twenty down and when the man merely looked at it explained that his friend wanted only one simple question answered before deciding whether to go further. The lawyer remained looking at the money, but he nodded, and Ponomarenko told him the question.

  There had been a government announcement in the paper that an amnesty was being offered to drug offenders who disclosed the source of their supply; what was the meaning of this announcement and what was the catch in it?

  The lawyer nodded again.

  The meaning of the announcement was that the government had recognised that an enemy of good government was organised crime. For the maintenance of law and order in the present turbulence it had identified it as a principal enemy. Organised crime was based in this region upon powerful drug rings. To isolate the rings it had been decided to pardon lesser offenders. That was the meaning of it. There was no catch.

  Ponomarenko remained silent for some moments.

  ‘Your friend is known to the police?’ the lawyer quietly suggested.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is being blackmailed, perhaps, forced to continue with … certain activities?’

  ‘Not exactly … ’

  ‘It’s a well-known squeeze. Speak freely.’

  ‘Well – what if certain things came to light – after he’d gone and said everything – things that aren’t really, sort of, to do with it?’

  The lawyer looked at Ponomarenko and then he looked quite hard at the twenty dollars.

  ‘That’s not the same simple question,’ he said.

  Ponomarenko put another twenty on the table.

  ‘If I understand you,’ the lawyer said, leaning back more comfortably, ‘your friend is worried that the police might start investigating other misdemeanours, once they’ve got him. Forget it. They’re interested in drugs. They want to eliminate the small offenders. A fault of the previous system was the harsh sentencing – capital punishment, life terms. They want to wipe the slate. Once the facts are given, that’s the end of it. Finish. Nothing on the record. Have no fear – for your friend. Unless it appears, when they look into it,’ he said jovially, ‘that he’s committed a couple of murders. Has he?’

  ‘Christ, no!’ Ponomarenko
said indignantly. ‘Not that. But supposing, if they look into it, they find out he has a wife and – various things. That maybe he hasn’t kept up with, like payments. Things like that.’

  The lawyer laughed heartily. ‘My dear friend,’ he said, ‘they are interested in powerful forces challenging the state. Once your friend has reported the facts regarding drugs, he will be pardoned. It’s guaranteed. Take my word for it.’

  ‘Well, I would,’ Ponomarenko said. ‘But there’s my friend. How do I get him to believe this guarantee?’

  The lawyer leaned back and hoisted a telephone directory from a shelf. He leafed through the pages. ‘You read Georgian?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘What does it say here?’

  ‘Ministry of Justice.’

  ‘Call them.’ The lawyer pushed the phone across. ‘Ask for the Chief Prosecutor’s office. When you’ve got somebody – I’ll talk.’

  Ponomarenko dubiously dialled the number and followed instructions. He got the deputy prosecutor, and handed over the phone.

  The lawyer identified himself and spoke affably to the deputy prosecutor. He said that on behalf of a client he would like today’s amnesty announcement for drug offenders explained in simple terms, and listened, nodding for a few minutes.

  ‘Quite so … Well, I have here, Deputy Prosecutor, a friend of the client. He would like it confirmed that no action whatever would be taken against his friend once the full facts have been given. And that a pardon would be automatic – nothing on the record, and no other areas investigated. Exactly. And the same with revenge evidence? … Oh, I expect the usual – photographs, tape-recordings. Yes. Yes. Destroyed and no copy taken – very good. Well then, Deputy Prosecutor, if you would not mind repeating that to my visitor I think I can deliver the first success in your campaign. Eh? Very good, ha-ha. Yes. Here he is.’

  He handed the phone to Ponomarenko who asked a few husky questions, and listened intently.

  ‘Satisfied?’ asked the lawyer, when he had hung up,

  Ponomarenko lit a cigarette. He was not so much satisfied as stunned with relief. The slimy little bastard blackmailing him had been met barely two weeks after his first joyous arrival in Batumi. Six nightmarish months ago – in June!

  He let out a great lungful of smoke.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, slowly, ‘there isn’t any friend. It’s for me. I’m the client.’

  ‘No!’ the lawyer said, opening his eyes very wide. ‘You surprise me!’

  But what Ponomarenko had to tell him soon surprised him much more.

  The lunch hour was twelve to two in Batumi, but half a chicken each was sent up to the prosecutor’s office and they talked right through it. By then the discussion was exclusively on the agent who had trapped Ponomarenko, and on making arrangements to meet him again. In this matter, too, Ponomarenko had been given immunity, and was gladly cooperating.

  His earlier statement – on handing over the keys to his apartment in Green Cape, on the detailed information he had given of conditions there, on the strange interest the man had shown in a chance Asiatic companion – had already gone off to Tbilisi.

  With regard to the chance Asiatic, Ponomarenko could remember very little. He had met him in a bar. His name was Kolya, also a driver from the north. The agent had seen them drinking together; had been very interested; had wanted every detail about him. God knew why; Ponomarenko didn’t. But Kolya had been glad to talk about himself and he had let him talk and had later given the details.

  Kolya what? Couldn’t remember. What details? Couldn’t remember those, either. Something about Chukotka and his background, he vaguely thought, and various places the guy had been. He was a native, a Chukchee. Only stayed a few days, anyway. Hadn’t seen him again.

  But at two o’clock a fax arrived from Tbilisi that threw more light on this chance-met Chukchee. It also threw Ponomarenko into something like a stupor. The name of the Chukchee was Khodyan – Nikolai Dmitrievich Khodyan – and he was presently occupying Ponomarenko’s apartment in Green Cape.

  The fax, transmitted via Yakutsk and Irkutsk, had originated in Tchersky.

  Tchersky was in the same time zone as Tcherny Vodi.

  There it was now 10 p.m., and Kolya Khodyan was just going through the wall.

  46

  The Evenks were especially jovial to Kolya Khodyan on this, his last morning at Tcherny Vodi.

  One of them, cleaning Major Militsky’s suite, had heard that the lower guard post was being opened up at eleven. Medical Officer Komarova would be at the camp before noon. And surgery would be held as usual in the guards’ barracks: which had occasioned so much winking and chuckling that Kolya was apprehensive that even the thickest of the staff must notice it.

  Major Militsky noticed it.

  ‘They’re cheerful today, Sergeant,’ he said, on his rounds.

  ‘They are, Major. No accounting for these fellows.’

  ‘This baby’s name, is it – making them so happy?’

  ‘Ah. That. Never thought of that, Major. I think you’ve got it. Childish people.’

  ‘Yes. They are childish,’ the major confirmed, with a nod. ‘Respect their traditions, though, and you get good work out of them. Makes for order.’

  ‘Well, that’s certain. I’ve known ’em turn very awkward, otherwise. Oh yes, that’s certain.’

  ‘Yes,’ the major said. He was never more certain of anything in his life. To be congratulated on his tactful handling. He felt tactful. He felt well braced. His face was rosy as an apple this morning. ‘Good morning all,’ he said in the storage sheds. ‘Everything in order here?’

  ‘All in order, Major.’ The corporal of the stores detail saluted him. ‘Empties stacked. Got them ready for a quick hitch in case the medical officer has to take off fast again.’

  ‘Ah well, she won’t be in such a hurry today,’ the major said, smiling. ‘That was a special situation before.’ Although said with a smile there was nothing particularly humorous in the remark, so that he was surprised at the great explosion of mirth it drew from the Evenks. He continued nodding kindly at them. ‘Very good news – that the baby now has a name. Excellent!’

  ‘Yes. Excellent, Major!’ agreed the Evenks, grinning.

  ‘My congratulations again,’ the major said, and took his leave; but somewhat puzzled. There was something anticipatory in all the grins as though they expected him to say something even funnier. Well, they just felt good, and it made them smile. He felt good and it made him smile.

  It had not, however, made Kolya Khodyan smile. There was a childish delight in guile among tribal people that he knew too well. He hoped the guards didn’t know it so well. Just a few hours more to get through. He felt very tense. He had a sense of premonition. Something wasn’t right today. He scented the freezing air. Something not right.

  He had shown them the sealed letter, and the ring. They knew, and very joyfully, what they had helped him do; and what still had to be done. And an unexpected problem had arisen. In the guards’ barracks, where the surgery would be held, the rule was ‘hats off’. The Evenks in the general business of the camp remained always covered but here, as a courtesy in the guards’ quarters, they did uncover. Obviously he couldn’t uncover. The matter had been debated. Since the present squad of guards had only seen them covered they couldn’t tell whether or not one of them had a shaven head. But it would draw attention to him, at the last moment, and he could do without that.

  Then what?

  Then they would all keep their hats on.

  And say what?

  ‘We’ll see,’ they said.

  This happy-go-lucky attitude filled him with foreboding. He wondered if it was responsible for his feeling. He didn’t understand the feeling. He was very tense.

  But he continued at work. Yesterday’s plane had again filled the storage sheds, and the tractors were kept on the go to the delivery bay at the rear. A good deal more snow had fallen and he wondered if she could even make it today; wheth
er the thing wouldn’t be cancelled at the last moment. But at a quarter to twelve, returning to the sheds, he saw the small convoy appear at the perimeter gates, and his heart leapt.

  He carried on working. The guards would be attended to first at the surgery; and the dinner hour was being staggered so that everybody would see the doctor in turn. Already it had been agreed he would be among the last.

  He had his dinner. He had trouble eating it, but he ate it; and while doing so was joined by the first returning Evenk patient, grinning.

  ‘It’s okay with the hats.’

  He looked up inquiringly.

  ‘For the baby!’

  He didn’t inquire any further, wiped his mouth, and went out to take his place. A guard stood in the porch outside the barracks keeping the few Evenks in line. As one came out he sent another in. Kolya evaded the grinning eyes and looked around him. It was dark, but under the floodlights he could see the bobik. It stood outside Major Militsky’s office and a guard was standing by it, beating his hands together. The motor was running and the driver was sitting inside out of the cold.

  ‘Okay, next.’

  An Evenk had come out, and the first in line went in.

  She was taking them very briskly. Within three or four minutes another man was going in; and Kolya had been joined in the rear by two more. One further man was still to come; this had been arranged. The further man arrived at just the moment when Kolya was at the head of the line.

  ‘Next man inside.’

  He went inside.

  The guards’ dormitory was exceedingly tidy; iron beds, not bunks, and all made up with military precision. There was also a long table and a few comfortable chairs but these had been moved to the far end of the room, beyond reach of contaminating Evenks. The only piece of furniture for the Evenks was a bare form, and three of them sat on it, with their hats on. A guard stood beside them, his uniform fur hat held ostentatiously under his arm. They moved up, winking, and made room for the new man, and Kolya sat.

  There was a small sauna off the dormitory. It had running water, and here the surgery had been set up. Another guard, hat under his arm, stood sternly outside it. The door was a little ajar and he could hear her voice. She dealt just as briskly with the new patient, and soon another man had come in and he was moving along the form. In no time he was at the head of the form – the last three Evenks shuffling along with him and grinning so broadly that even the guards began to stare. He couldn’t tell what they made of it. No sense was expected of the Evenks; what sense was there, after all, in keeping hats on because a baby had been named? But it kept him on tenterhooks, until it was his turn to go in.