Kolymsky Heights

by Lionel Davidson

  They made the tributary, and he took the bends slowly so that she would know them. From the entry, fifty-five kilometres to the cave; this too he had clocked, and she had to remember.

  The overhanging willow came on a sharp bend – the bend where spring floods had eroded the cave in the first place – and if not spotted at once it could be missed while negotiating the bend.

  At fifty-four kilometres he slowed again, and she made it out for herself.

  He turned the nose of the bobik into the cave. The tarpaulin had been left hanging, and it draped over the windscreen. They got out and in the headlights she saw the place for the first time: all as he had left it, last weekend, when he had turned up at the house at five in the morning.

  His own spirits sank as he took in the skeleton of the car. It was more of a mess than he remembered. He started the generator and backed the bobik and parked it and switched the lights off. They began unloading in the dark and he took the jerricans.

  In the naked lights the cave was exceedingly dismal, the walls gleaming with ice, the bare chassis strewn with half-fitted parts. She came in with the food and bedding, and looked around.

  ‘Oh, my darling – you’ll freeze here!’

  ‘I’ll survive.’ He lit the stove and examined the tarpaulin at the entrance, frowning.

  Then he went outside, and came in again.

  ‘The light shows. There’s a glow,’ he said. ‘Anything changing down at the bend would see it … With the generator going I’d never hear what’s coming.’

  ‘What should be coming here?’

  ‘Trucks could be running regularly to Provodnoye now. I’ll have to put the blanket up as well.’

  ‘All right, I’ll bring another.’ I’ll put it on the list.’

  The list was growing. He already had four jerricans of petrol stacked in the cave. Her three made it seven; and he now calculated he needed at least three more. He also needed a map and a compass and extra batteries for the torch, and more provisions.

  ‘Okay, don’t wait now,’ he said. It would take her at least two and a half hours getting back, and it was now almost midnight. Tomorrow she had to let her Yakut cleaning woman in; she would put in only an hour or two at the medical centre, and then go out to the stores. ‘Have you remembered the turnoffs?’

  She had remembered them: nine kilometres off the Anyuysk road for the tributary, fifty-five more to the cave.

  ‘Okay. Tomorrow night. Be very careful,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, Johnny!’

  ‘Kolya! Only that!’ he said, removing her arms. ‘And no goodbyes, just go. Tanya-Panya.’

  He waited outside while she turned the bobik, and watched the rear lights recede, and went back in. Now, on his own, it looted starker than ever. To turn this mess into a car! But he would have to turn it into one, and by the time she returned. Whatever state it was in, he’d start the engine when she appeared, anyway; it would give them both a boost. But then he realised he couldn’t start the engine. The last item taken from Vassili was still in the shed at the house. The car battery was there, charging. He had hidden it under a sack, and it was not on the list, and his stomach turned to lead.

  48

  With the December solstice so close there was now no daylight at all.

  A little after one in the afternoon the sky greyed faintly for an hour as the sun rose and set below the horizon, but this was only when there was no overcast. For some days before and after the blizzard there had been heavy overcast, perpetual night. Despite this, normal hours were kept in the region, and he took account of this in figuring when trucks could pass.

  He was midway between Green Cape and Provodnoye.

  From either point it would take the heavy vehicles three hours to the cave. From Green Cape they would leave at eight in the morning, so around eleven they could be outside. By then his lights had to be off. Even with the blanket a faint glow was noticeable in the dark. He couldn’t tell when they would return from Provodnoye – but it was unlikely to be the same day. He himself had stayed overnight and returned in the morning.

  Eleven in the morning was the time, both coming and going. The generator had to be off then.

  He would grab three hours’ rest, from ten o’clock to one; all lights out.

  He worked through the night, worked solidly; but at ten in the morning he hung the bobik’s floor panels, took a good swig of vodka, spread the sleeping-bag, and got in.

  In the biting cold he got all of himself in, including his fur hat, and slowly warmed up and dozed. And was glad of the precaution when after an hour he heard the distant sound of a truck. He listened carefully.

  From Green Cape.

  He could plot the bends as it slowed and picked up.

  It ground slowly past; a few metres from him. A big Kama. They were using them now. In the blackness he went off to sleep, and slept soundly, and woke abruptly. One o’clock, he saw on his watch in torchlight: one in the afternoon. As planned.

  He got out and started the generator, and topped up the little tank of the kerosene stove. It had been going all night Then he gave himself something to eat: bread, cheese, a cup of coffee from the flask. He hesitated over pouring a drop of vodka into the coffee, and decided against. There was not much left and it was going to be a long day. She was leaving later, and he didn’t expect her till one in the morning, another twelve hours.

  He relieved himself outside, and shifted his production, immediately frozen, to a crevice in the opposite bank with the bobik’s little snow shovel: it came with the kit.

  Then he got to work again.

  The short sleep had done him good and he felt considerably more cheerful. He had passed some gloomy hours considering his prospects. Ponomarenko would have led them to the agent, and the agent, however little he knew, must have received instructions from somebody. He himself had a number to call at Tbilisi – perhaps the agent’s own number.

  Tbilisi, bordering on Turkey, was one of two exit routes planned for him. Both exits involved a trip first to Yakutsk, where new papers awaited him. Now Tbilisi was out. But Yakutsk was still good. The Tbilisi agent (so he had been told) knew nothing of Yakutsk. All he had to do was get himself there. But not from Tchersky airport. That too was out now.

  Perversely, this cheered him. The idea of the bobik had occurred as a means of avoiding Tchersky. Too much security at that airport: the gateway to the Kolymsky region. It had seemed best, if he had to leave in a hurry, to find some other airport, a more relaxed one. And he had found it, at Zirianka, a few hours along the river.

  Zirianka was the distribution centre for the summer barges sailing south: a sleepy small place, with a sleepy small airport. This sleepy small airport, as he had discovered when running a load to it, had regular services to Yakutsk.

  That had been the idea – wheels to take him fast out of Tchersky’s control. But Zirianka too was not on now. For though away from Tchersky, it was still on the Kolyma, within the region; and soon the hue-and-cry for him would be region-wide. He needed an airport outside the region. And the reasoning still held good – a bobik could get him to one.

  A bobik with a battery could get him to one.

  The battery, obviously, was going to hold him up. She would have to make an extra journey out.

  But after some hours he saw it wouldn’t be the only holdup. Assembling the parts was one thing. One after the other, he found he had been assembling them in the wrong order. the book showed the exploded parts; it showed how to take them down for repair and how to put them back. It didn’t show how they had to go in in the first place. He leafed there and back. Each section covered a different one of the bobik’s systems. At the back there was a two-page plan of the whole thing complete. There was no plan showing how you got the thing complete.

  He struggled and cursed, dragging the chassis out and dragging it in again, to get at one part or another with the block and tackle. The transmission came in and out, and the differential. The engine was twice hoisted out. But slo
wly, by trial and error, the logic of the thing became clearer. The rugged little beast, apparently so simple, was in fact highly complex.

  At a quarter to seven in the evening, with the best part of another six hours’ work behind him, he stopped again. If the Kama had decided to return after just a couple of hours at Provodnoye – unlikely but possible – it would have left at four, and would pass here again at seven.

  He hung the floor panels back, laid his sleeping-bag out, had a snack, still left the vodka alone. Then he turned the generator off and got back in the bag.

  Seven o’clock. No Kama. He listened for an hour, decided to sleep anyway.

  He woke at ten o’clock, as he had planned – no novelty but it still pleased him for he had been very exhausted. He got out, started the generator and lit up. And now he had the vodka. He drained the bottle, a good whole measure, and felt it lighting up his whole body. Wonderful.

  The bobik didn’t look so bad now. Still only at chassis level and with a mountain of work to do, but it was beginning to look real. She would be here in three hours. He decided to make it look more real.

  He sorted through the body panels and saw how to put them on – a couple of hours’ work. The whole thing could be taken down again in no time. But it would look a real bobik and cheer them both up. He drank the last of the coffee and got moving.

  Again, the little bastard was perverse: no section fitting as expected. There was a lower frame bar that obviously had to go in first. The book showed the parts attaching to this bar. But how?

  He swore, kicked the thing, crawled underneath. Found the little holes presently, at regular intervals in the steel pockets of the frame – well concealed, wisely concealed, against the snow and the weather. Located the right bolts for them in the pack. Fitted the frame bars, and started with a side.

  Half an hour’s work showed you couldn’t start with a side.

  The rear had to go in first.

  The framework for the rear doors had to go in first.

  The constant problems, one after the other, exhausted him again, and by half past midnight he still hadn’t finished. He put a spurt on. He had the back and the sides loosely in position by one – no point in tightening anything since it all had to come down again – but she had not turned up, so he hung the hood too. The windshield had to go in with mastic so he didn’t bother with it, or with any of the glasswork, or the lighting array, or even the catches and handles. But the thing looked real.

  He lit a cigarette and walked round it.

  He could do with a vodka. Well, soon. It was nearly half past one, she was taking it slowly. He finished the cigarette and decided to fit the catches and handles.

  By a quarter past two she had still not arrived and worry began to gnaw at him. Had she missed the turnoffs? But she knew the way to Anyuysk. After a few kilometres she’d realise the mistake and turn back.

  Or had she got on to the tributary and passed the cave? With the generator going, he wouldn’t have heard. Well, it was possible. She’d done it only once. But how far would she go? Not more than twenty, thirty kilometres. Half an hour, three quarters. And back again. Well.

  He smoked another cigarette, fiddled some more with the catches. He couldn’t concentrate. At half past two he went outside. It was pitch black, unbelievably cold; at least sixty below. In the cave, the kerosene stove going for over twenty-four hours had had some effect. Here a thick mat of frost was growing by the minute, dragging at his boots. He looked both ways for some hint, some glancing reflection, of a car’s lights. Nothing.

  Had they stopped her maybe, on the main river? Perhaps stopping cars there now … And she’d dreamed up some excuse and gone back. Or an accident. Or a breakdown. She was stuck somewhere. But she had her radio phone. Except she couldn’t use the radio phone. How would she explain …

  He began walking along the track to Provodnoye. He didn’t know why he was doing it and he only walked as far as the next bend. Nothing. Blackness. His face froze; eyelashes stuck with frost. He walked back again. A faint glow from the cave, and he could hear the generator chugging away. He got to the cave and passed it and walked to the farther bend. Still nothing. Not a hint of light. If she was coming, there’d be some faint flicker down from the overcast.

  She wasn’t coming.

  He went back to the cave.

  He didn’t know what to do. A quarter to three in the morning. Even if she came now, it would be six before she got back.

  She wouldn’t be coming.

  The stove needed replenishing, and the generator. He attended to these things, brooding over the situation.

  If she couldn’t come now she would come tomorrow. She wouldn’t leave him like this. He had nothing to eat or drink. He was trapped here, stuck, couldn’t leave the place. Had there been an accident? She couldn’t have got lost. Not for this amount of time. Something had held her up. It would be another whole day and night.

  There was no point in doing anything now – all the bodywork to come down first. The truck would be back from Provodnoye at eleven – eight hours to go. He had better sleep a while, and start again.

  He laid the sleeping-bag back in the bobik, switched the generator off, and got into the little van. The loose structure swayed and creaked with his weight, and he had barely settled himself when he heard the sound of a motor. He lay for a moment listening, and raised himself, and grasped a heavy wrench and got slowly out.

  A bobik engine. And from the direction of Green Cape. He went to the entrance, raised the layers of curtain and peered through the branches. He saw the flicker in the sky and suddenly the headlights, swinging blindingly round the bend The car came on, very slowly. He couldn’t see who was in it how many were in it. Then it slowed further, and he saw the shape of her head, peering, and he switched the torch on.

  ‘God!’ She got out and hugged and kissed him. ‘I’m sorry – I’m so sorry, my darling! I couldn’t leave before. They were searching.’

  He took her inside, and got the lights working, and unloaded what she had brought and right away took a long pull at the vodka while listening to her hurried story.

  The militia had started in the afternoon. She thought they were now at Green Cape, searching the Transport Company. Her own house had been the last in Tchersky and they had not started till 10.30. They thought he had broken in somewhere and was lying low. They had gone through every nook and cranny – the shed, the cellar. It was midnight before they’d left and they were still poking about the area so that it was another half hour before she had dared take the bobik out.

  She had got everything: full jerricans from the pump at the ambulance depot. Sausage, cheese, blackbread, two bottles of vodka, more coffee. From the little general counter at the post office, torch batteries and a child’s compass, it was all they had; from the same place a school atlas of Siberia – there was no public map of this reserved area. If he could delay a little she might lay hands on one in the ambulance section or her own administrative office: it had been locked when she had realised the lack. And a blanket.

  ‘But you’ve finished it!’ She was tired and dazed from the journey, and had only now noted the transformation in the bobik.

  ‘No. I haven’t.’

  He explained about the bobik. Also the battery.

  She stared at him. ‘Oh, God! I didn’t even know it was there. I didn’t see it … They didn’t, either … Maybe people keep spare batteries … Well – I’ll bring it, then.’

  He saw she was swaying, deathly pale, and he held her. He opened the rear of the bobik and sat her there, and poured a little vodka into the vacuum flask cap. But she took only a sip.

  ‘I’ve still got to get back … Well, maybe I’ll be able to get you a proper map now … But no, I can’t – how?’ She shook her head, still dazed. ‘The office won’t be open today.’

  ‘What day is it?’

  ‘It’s Sunday.’

  ‘Sunday?’ He had lost a day somehow; both of them dazed. ‘Okay, you’d bet
ter go. You’ll make it before anything’s moving in Tchersky. But take it easy. You’re very tired.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll come earlier tomorrow – that is, tonight.’ She dragged herself up. ‘I’ll try to get here by midnight. And I’ll find out what I can.’

  He turned the bobik for her on the river and saw her into it, and she smiled wanly as he kissed her. ‘With all these mechanical activities – the disks are safe?

  ‘Yes. They’re safe,’ he said.

  She stroked has face and he kissed her again.

  ‘Go safely, Tanya-Panya.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He watched the lights recede and went back in the cave; on his own again.

  He ate a little and took another swig of vodka and turned the generator off and got back in the bag. As he dozed off to sleep he felt the body belt. Through all the activities, safe.

  49

  By noon on Sunday an embarrassing situation had arisen in Tchersky. The native driver posing as Khodyan had driven into town at 4 p.m. on Friday, had helped to unload a van in the yard of a building next to the militia headquarters and had men vanished into thin air.

  Almost forty-eight hours ago.

  There was nowhere that he could have gone. The militia had searched every building where he could have gone; they had even searched buildings where he couldn’t have gone. They had searched the jail, the schools, the old women’s baths, the militia chiefs own home, apart from all other private dwellings.

  He wasn’t in Tchersky.

  But if he wasn’t in Tchersky, how had he got out of it? He hadn’t taken his own vehicle, and he hadn’t taken anybody else’s. No vehicles were missing. Apart from Green Cape, four kilometres away, there was nowhere else to go.

  He could have walked to Green Cape, or taken a lift. Nobody had knowingly given him a lift, although he could have grabbed one; hidden in the back of something. But once arrived there, then what? He wasn’t in any private dwelling, or in the basements or boiler rooms of any apartment blocks. He wasn’t in the supermarket or its warehouse; or in any of the premises of the port authority.