Kingfisher

by Gerald Seymour

  GERALD SEYMOUR

  Kingfisher

  FONTANA/Collins

  CHAPTER ONE

  News of the arrest spread fast.

  There had been, of course, nothing of it in the Party newspapers, nor on the radio, nor on the television news programmes, but then they were not the tried and tested sources. News moved in a different and more circuitous way, a constant process of dissemination. In the queues they heard of it while the sun was climbing high over the monuments and parks and lofty buildings that were the achievement of the regime. Queues waiting for the buses, queues at the food store where there was the delay in the arrival of the fresh baked loaves of the day, queues at the bank before it opened.

  The talk of the arrest was neither loud nor furtive - just a subject of conversation amongst a bored and tired people - so that it rippled their lives momentarily, spreading the tedium of the day a little less harshly, easing the personal load because of the knowledge that somewhere in the city there was a being in great trouble, someone with a problem more real and more acute than any that the mass would face that morning, or that afternoon, or that night. And the thought of it sent an eddy of apprehension through those that knew.

  They were a few who had seen him taken, seen the cruising black car of the militia come to a sudden halt in the midst of the traffic, the rear doors snap open and the men in the pale-brown uniforms weave a path through the other cars till they had reached the pavement and were sprinting for their quarry. He had walked casually and unaware of the risk till they were on him.

  There had been one at his legs, pitching him forward, another to spread out his arms on the pavement, so that if he had had a gun secreted on his person, hidden impossibly beneath his trousers or his light summer shirt, he would not have been able to take advantage from it. A third had stood above him, looming and huge, right arm extended with the cocked pistol aimed into the small of the boy's back. And then they had gone, even as the crowd, unsure and hesitant, had circled to watch. They had bundled him to - wards the car, its rear door open and spanning the gutter, dragged him so that his torso was far in front of his feet. There was no siren, no flashing light, and the curious waited till the accelerating car was again engulfed and lost in the traffic.

  Others looked on as the vehicle spun hard, tyres fighting for a grip, and disappeared into the shadowed entrance of the militia station. The noise attracted them, and because of the loss of speed of the car they had had the opportunity to notice for a fraction of a second a face half-buried amongst the uniforms. A face that was white, eyes staring, and with the hair already dishevelled. That there was fear in the boy was clear for all to see, however short the opportunity.

  A deep animal fear, and word of it had passed through the city that night, and spread further the following morning.

  There were some who conjectured and said that they knew why he had been held. Those that knew of the shooting had heard of the wounding of the policeman far out in the industrial suburbs to the west across the river.

  The principal headquarters of the security police in Kiev, capital town of the Ukraine, is a formidable construction. Built close to the seat of power, it is adjacent to Party offices, and within a short walk of the administration centre. There is a wedding-cake decor on the front facade, and it has columns and gently sloping steps and statues, all maintained in a bright and soft-coloured stone by the regular spray of water jets. The legacy of Stalinist post-war rebuilding: but for all that the interior does not match the finery of the facade. Behind the walls no allowance has been made for aesthetics: a functional honeycomb of rooms and corridors and narrow staircase, while deep in the basements are located the prisoners' cells.

  At the far end of the buried passage, devoid of natural light, and behind a door numbered '38', Moses Albyov now lay. He rested on a mattress of straw held together by rough farm sackcloth that rustled with each shift of his weight. A slightly- built figure, he had a pinched and concerned face, and dark, straight hair that had been thrown haphazardly in all directions and that needed the attentions of comb or brush. They had taken his shoes and his belt, and his hands held the waist of his trousers - not that he was about to rise and move, but simply through some vague fantasy of protection. His glasses, too, had gone - left on the pavement where they had spilled from his face at the moment they had taken him, probably broken in the short scuffle, certainly abandoned. Without them his sight was reduced, blending the hard lines of the cell walls, causing them to be softer, less cruel. Not that there was much for him to focus on. A door to the front, steel- faced and scratched where others had attempted to achieve a pathetic immortality by carving their names and the date; fearful perhaps of entering and leaving the cell in total anonymity. Only a spy hole, small, circular and reflecting the light of the room, interrupted the smooth surface of the door. No natural light was permitted to enter the cell: illumination was from a low-powered bulb recessed into the ceiling and covered by what Moses presumed was toughened glass embedded with wire mesh. The floor was of roughened cement, as though the workers had wished to be rid of their. job and had hurried their work, leaving it pitted and lined like a ploughed field when the winter frosts have come. Nothing to call furniture, no table, no chair, no cupboard, no shelves. Only the mattress and a bucket that he had moved away to the furthest point from him because of its smell, the odour of vomit and urine and faeces. In the corner, behind the door: it was not far, perhaps seven feet-not far enough to divorce its presence from him, not far enough to shut out the taste that swelled in his mouth.

  For company there were the cockroaches. They came fearless and exploratory, and because of the quietness of the cell he believed he could hear their legs, brushing in a gentle passage across the floor towards him. He had thought that the light that burned through the night would have frightened them, and could not believe that creatures so devoid of intellect could recognize his helplessness, but some instinct told them that they had nothing to fear. Once he had brushed two away with his hand and his whole body had trembled in the aftermath of the contact. He could not touch them again, and they had come, sometimes singly, sometimes in their cohorts, to examine him, to ponder their visitor. And as if bored and disinterested they had gone on their way. It is because there is no food, he thought.

  His right shoulder still hurt, ached where the bruising had now won through and discoloured the pale skin into a kaleidoscope of blue and mauve and yellow. On the final flight of stairs, and he had not been ready for it. Already down two flights while they held his arms above the elbows, squeezing and firm, and then on the last leg, without warning, the hands had gone and the knee was in the small of his back and he was away, arms flailing in the vacuum, seeking to break his fall against the cement steps that rushed to meet him. Toes in his ribs, a fist in his hair, and he had risen to walk the rest of the passage, stayed on his own feet while they produced the keys to the cell door, made his entry without interference, and stood stock-still in the centre of the floor as the door had shut behind him. That was all the violence they had shown him. Just the once, reckoning in their trained minds what was sufficient to inculcate a message, insufficient to harden his resistance. The footsteps and the casual conversation of the guards had faded, become immersed in the silence around him, and since then, nothing. Not a door slammed, not a raised voice. As if he were immured, cemented away, forgotten.

  He could understand what they were doing. Simple if you examined it, applied logic. The process of vegetation, that is what it was all about. They wouldn't talk to him yet; they would wait until they had assembled the dossier, hardened the evidence. When they were ready and not before, that was when interrogation would begin. Stupid if they rushed it So he knew what they were at, why they were taking their time. And he knew wha
t they would be asking of him when finally they had prepared themselves.

  It had been decided in the group that he would be the first, because it had been he who had drawn the short straw.

  All four had known their role in the attack. Rebecca from the front, asking the policeman for directions and fumbling in her bag for the map, holding his attention. David from behind, his clenched fist landing on the tunic cloth of the man's right shoulder, enough to fell him. Isaac springing from the shadow, hands at the holster flap to prise away the precious pistol, drawing it clear and throwing it abruptly to where Moses stood. When the gun was in his hand the others had run off, deserting the stage.

  Moses's hand had been shaking, and the barrel waving, dancing in the air. And all the time the elephantine form of the policeman had convulsed as semi-stunned he had tried to rise from his knees and make his escape. Bewilderment and pain were etched on the policeman's features, as he struggled to make some sense from the previous moments of confusion. And as Moses had looked down at the barrel, fascinated by its movements, the identity-protecting balaclava had slipped and obscured his vision. He had pulled at it, ripped it across his face, over his head, clear of his hair. A distant scream from David for him to hurry, in concert with a sharper growl, Isaac's.

  When he fired the policeman was gazing at him, the trained bovine mind eating into the description that he sought to remember, conjuring the facial features even as the bullet struck his chest. From the way the policeman fell Moses had known it was not a fatal shot. That was the moment that he needed to root his feet to the pavement and finish what he had started. But he was running and panting and sobbing to get air in his lungs, frantic to create distance between himself and the man he had failed to kill. The others were at the corner, and when he had come they had all run together till they had not the strength to sprint any further. It was only after he had vomited the early supper his mother had prepared for him, spewed it out behind the bus shelter, that he had felt in his pockets, one after the other, and realized that he no longer had the balaclava.

  The importance of the loss had been demonstrated to him with brutal clarity within minutes of entering the militia headquarters. They'd sat him in a chair, in a room at the back and on the ground floor, and a man in a white coat had come forward with a shined and scrubbed steel comb and had run it through his hair and looked with pleasure at the hairs he extracted. There would be a match: they had the skill to do that. It would be no problem for them, to marry what they found embedded in the wool of the balaclava with the hairs that lay between the teeth of the comb. The man in the white coat had said nothing, just placed the comb in a plastic bag. Too simple, and damning, confirmation of what they would already have obtained from the injured policeman.

  Sitting in his bed he'd be, with the men around him who make up the photographic imitations of people they are hunting. Moses's 'face' would have been circulated, and the militia men who had come from behind him as he walked must have seen the features that the experts had recreated and assimilated them sufficiently for them to act. When they'd walked inside the headquarters with him they'd shown their pleasure in the knowledge that there was no mistake, that they had the one they wanted. Before, they had been in the realm of belief; now they had the evidence to swing their opinion to certainty. Two follicles of hair, that was all they needed. So silly. Two strands, nothing, till there was a microscope. But they would have a microscope, and scientists to use it, and a laboratory for them to work in.

  Yet wasn't it still too easy, Moses, to rely just on their luck? Go deeper, hunt for the source of identification, the factor that isolated him from the mass of youths that paraded the streets of the city . . . Remember the balaclava, remember the campus shop, at the north side of the university, remember the label of sale. They would have stored the information, cared and gloated over it while the bed-ridden pig put together the description of the man that had shot him. Then treasured and coveted the two. The militia would have seen the shoulder satchel, worn carelessly and without concern; emblem of the university emblazoned on its flap. You did it for them, Moses.

  Performed their work. A student with the features to match- what more could they have asked of you? So forget about photo-fits and laboratories and the magnification of hair roots. There was nothing that should minimize his stupidity. He had given it to them-all they needed for suspicion.

  He'd left them only to supply the proof. And their technology would be massive, equal to that, hugely excessive for the task.

  So how many hours more, how long till the report was typed and the knot tied, till they were ready for him?

  It was cold in the cell, and the memory of the warmth as he had been walking in the street, wrapped in his own thoughts, was fading. There was a chill and sort of dampness that he could not identify, for the walls showed no rivulets of moisture. As if water had once been there and had strangely found no route of escape.

  There was no escape. He sat up sharply, disturbing the straw underneath him. What would they do to him? It would be easier for him if he knew- he would know then whether he could counter it or not. But he had no answers; all outside his experience. Drugs - perhaps they would use drugs?

  That would be painless and would remove the stigma of confession, at least. But what if it were to be pain? What if that were the instrument they should use? They'd break him, not because he was special, or different: they'd break anyone with pain . . . David and Isaac as well, and Rebecca quicker than all of them. Everyone has a limit, and they'd push you right through it till you were screaming, shrieking, till the names came tumbling out so fast that they couldn't write them down, and the addresses and the rendezvous. Everything they wanted and much more, only stop, stop and no more! Please, not again, please! He was stirring on the mattress, his body squirming, compressing the flesh together. Pain was what frightened him, the pain of a beating from the truncheons, from the electrodes they would wire to his limbs. And they'd have a place to do that, somewhere in the building, that too was a certainty. If it were to be drugs then you were helpless, unable to summon resistance. But what was the antidote to pain? Moses tossed and heaved now, his mind taking control and leading him along a course from which he could not deflect it.

  Perhaps it was courage? Not really important for how long. For a few hours, a day perhaps. To give the others time - had to give them time to go. And what if they didn't know that he had been taken? He wondered how long he had been in the cell, but realized he had lost any sense of time after they'd taken his watch. Would have heard by now, wouldn't they? Must have done. And they should be running, dispersing, because he wasn't strong, wasn't ready for the pain, could not give them much time. He sagged back, flattening the harder lumps of the straw, and turned his body so that he lay on his stomach with his face buried in the sacking, and with his arms clasped around his head to shut out the light. There were tears that he could not control, that came without noise, and that ran a little way over his upper cheek before falling on the sacking, staining momentarily, then disappearing.

  There was the opportunity to think: just what they wanted him to do. He had to put it together in his mind, sort out where it had started, and why, and what were their aims and intentions.

  Quicker for them that way - they'd get their answers faster. And be easier for him, too - he'd suffer less. Have it all ready when they come for you, then they won't need to hurt you so much. The awful fear of waiting - but this would be only the start of it. First the waiting for the time when they were ready to take the confession. Then the waiting for the trial. And after that more waiting.

  Waiting for sentence, waiting for execution. Be from a cell like this that they'd take you out. Still dark before the creep of dawn, and floodlights playing on the high walls, and somewhere in the yard they'll trip you over, Moses, then jerk you down to your knees, and there'll be a hand to hold your head steady and then the grip will loosen from the hair and there will be the noise of the pistol being cocked. That's what
you're going to wait for, Moses, that's the future, that's eternity.

  They'd grown up together, the four of them. The war was long over when they were born, and the fighting finished, but nothing changed in the lot of the Ukrainian Jew. Second- class people, on the outside, without benefit or recognition. They didn't live in a ghetto - that was not the way the housing was allocated - but they'd learned to fall in together because that was survival in an alien world. Taught to be quiet, taught not to answer back, taught not to risk provocation, to ride a jibe or an insult, and to be better and fitter and stronger and more able, because those were the necessities of equality.

  As children David had been their leader, the one who knew the answers and understood the struggle. It had been David who told them of Babi Yar, and none of them past eleven years of age. It was not a place their parents spoke of, not talked about by the rabbi, but David had led them to the ravine on the edge of the city's suburbs and told them what had happened there, of the machine-gunning of the Jews, told them there was no monument to commemorate the place because those who had died there had been Jewish. David had pointed to where the Germans had set up their machine-gun tripods, marked the spot for them, explained how the columns of the condemned came without thought of flight or resistance, spoken of the meek and pallid acceptance of the orders to wait patiently, to file forward, to kneel down, not to move, not to obstruct the soldiers' aim. Then he had shown them the refuse of the suburb that had been thrown into this place, and walked with them to the broken jars in which the brave placed flowers at night, when they were safe from view, and which were destroyed in the morning by the boots of those on their way to the trams and the buses. The trio listened as David explained their position in life, their heritage. For a boy of his years he knew so much, had the patience to tell them, when they wanted to play the games of children, the matters with which they should concern themselves.