The Yermakov Transfer

by Derek Lambert

  “Where are you heading for?” Pavlov asked.

  “East,” the trapper said. He picked up his rifle and stroked it with love. “They want me to go north-west of Baikal to help out with the barguzin – a pure black sable,” he explained. “But it’s going brown and they want me to help put it right. Catch the blackest I can find and mate them. I might smoke out some ermine while I’m at it. There’s money in ermine but I don’t like killing them, You just squeeze them till they die.” He put down the rifle. “Then I’ll go back East. That’s my territory. Tigers, leopards, wolves, elk, sable, glutton, mink, squirrel. You name them,” said the trapper, “and you can find them in the east. We clothe Hollywood.”

  The general went on snoring and his wife joined him in a duet. They had both turned on their sides, away from Pavlov and the trapper.

  Pavlov nodded at the trapper. “Good hunting,” he said. The trapper smiled because they both knew that this time the prey was a man and that in the hierarchy of the Zealots the trapper was known as the Poacher.

  The Poacher patted his rifle. “No more use than a walking stick,” he said. “They took all my ammunition off me when I got on the train.”

  * * *

  In the next compartment the duel between Larissa from Intourist and Stanley Wagstaff continued. Stanley was writing in his notebook while the girl recited facts about the railway.

  “Soon,” she said, “the whole line will be electrified.” She stared hard at the little bespectacled man who reminded Libby Chandler of a bird trapped in the compartment. “I believe,” Larissa said distinctly, “that the last type of steam locomotive to be built in the Soviet Union was the E Class.”

  Without looking up from his notes Stanley Wagstaff said: “I’m afraid you’re wrong there.” He had a North Country accent with a rasp of coal dust in it. But he was kind – “It’s a mistake anyone could make. The E Class was the most numerous in the world. The last steam passenger loco to be made over here was the P 36.”

  “No,” the girl said, “the E Class.”

  “Sorry,” Stanley said, closing his notebook and polishing his spectacles. “The P 36.” He delved into his suitcase and brought out a book, thumbed through it and stabbed his finger at a photograph of an engine. “There. It says so.”

  The girl glanced at the book with disdain. “It’s by an American,” she said. “What would he know about our railways?”

  Stanley felt a train coming from the opposite direction. He opened his notebook and peered out of the window. There were twenty-five cars on the train, each loaded with howitzers covered with olive tarpaulin. Stanley noted the number of the engine and closed his book again.

  A girl arrived to vacuum the compartment – the second time that day. She was followed by the two K.G.B. officers searching the train.

  “Again?” Harry Bridges asked.

  “Again, Comrade Bridges,” the one with the Mongolian features said.

  “What is it this time?”

  “Just routine.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Bridges guessing they were looking for a lead to the disappearance of Gavralin.

  He glanced at Libby Chandler sitting on the edge of her bunk thumbing through a volume of War and Peace in Russian. He noticed that the fear had returned.

  The K.G.B. officer with the boyish face looked cursorily through Bridges’ luggage. They knew all about him: he was tame.

  They checked out Stanley Wagstaff and asked Libby Chandler to open her bags. Bridges watched fascinated at her reactions. It was as if she was going through customs with a bar of gold, the studied nonchalance that every customs officer looks for. Christ, he thought, I hope they don’t find whatever she’s hiding.

  The “Mongolian” consulted a notebook. “Miss Chandler,” he said, “I believe you went out in Novosibirsk alone,”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  Larissa glared at her.

  “Did you buy anything?”

  “This,” Libby said handing him War and Peace.

  The officer ignored it. “Please,” he said, “your cases.”

  She put her two cases on her bunk. One made of faded white leather with the stickers of famous old liners on it; the other a smart grey holdall by Favo of Paris. In the two cases Bridges, the professional, saw the life she had told him about: the colonial upbringing, the boredom, the escape. She bent over the cases, unlocking them. Bridges hoped she hadn’t got anything – but he knew she had. He noticed her hands fumbling with the keys and prayed for her.

  The cases opened exposing her belongings. It was humiliating and Harry Bridges knew he shouldn’t be looking. Clothes, minute underwear, skirts and sweaters, books, toiletries, some pills.

  The boyish officer rummaged through the contents. “That’s fine,” he said. “Sorry we had to trouble you.”

  Libby attempted a smile, but it was a failure. There was sweat above her lip.

  The other officer stopped the descending lid of the white suitcase and took out a wooden doll with rosy cheeks and painted hair. He shook it and it rattled. Bridges saw the colour leave Libby Chandler’s face, the sweat spreading to her forehead.

  The officer said: “Pretty, eh? And inside are several other little wooden dolls?”

  Libby nodded.

  “Good. They will like those back in England. I have a set back home.” He popped the doll back into the suitcase.

  The two officers saluted and left the compartment.

  Bridges thought: Before we get to Irkutsk I’ve got to find out what’s inside that doll.

  * * *

  At 14.01 the train pulled into Taiga, where passengers for Tomsk changed to a branch line. According to legend, the Trans-Siberian should have passed through Tomsk which, in the 1890s, had many gold millionaires and forty distilleries. The railway surveyors demanded bribes to bring the track to Tomsk but the millionaires turned them down because they believed the railroad would have to come to such a prosperous metropolis as Tomsk. So the surveyors returned to Moscow and reported impenetrable terrain on the approaches to Tomsk – and the track by-passed the city fifty-four miles to the south.

  There was a fourteen-minute stop here so Viktor Pavlov jumped on to the platform where he bought half a roasted hare and a bottle of beer. He was joined by Bridges.

  One Zealot was due to board the train here, the Painter. Pavlov searched the queue of peasants and workers from Tomsk being frisked by the K.G.B. Half way down the line he spotted the house-painter in blue, paint-flecked blouse and trousers and fur hat. He was the son of a mixed marriage and the word JEW was missing from his papers. But, with one Jewish parent, the Painter was a risk and they were relying on the lack of enthusiasm of the local K.G.B. who resented orders from their masters at the Lubyanka in Moscow. Siberians were like that.

  Bridges said: “They’re pretty worried, aren’t they.”

  “The K.G.B. have a great responsibility.”

  “It would be a hell of a thing if something happened to Yermakov.” Bridges tilted his brown bottle with a barley-sugar pattern on it and drank some beer.

  Pavlov stared at him speculatively. Was it possible that Bridges knew something? Had he started to sniff round for a story? Pavlov drank his own beer from a paper-cup. No, the man had abandoned all his principles; he was a pathetic puppet like all the dreary Western sympathisers in Moscow. Just the same, Pavlov thought, letting the beer fizz in his mouth, if he does start to interfere I shall have to kill him.

  The Painter passed the check-point and boarded the train.

  The engine gave a blast from its compresed air whistle warning passengers to get back. Pavlov and Bridges strolled back together, two tall, striking men, one distinguished by purposefulness, the other by thoughtfulness.

  Razin watched them from the window. They made him uneasy. There was a threat there somewhere. He felt it most with Pavlov, to a lesser degree with Bridges. Seeing them together compounded his unease. The difficulty was that he wasn’t sure these days when his suspicions were justif
ied. He had lived his whole life with betrayal and deceit and he could no longer identify other qualities. Except in his own family – his wife and his two teenage sons. It’s for them that I live like this, he thought. It’s for them that I survive.

  Pavlov and Bridges boarded the train. Both men, Razin thought, could make trouble if he acted against them too hastily. He then made a decision, possibly born of fatigue: he decided to consult Vasily Yermakov about Pavlov.

  * * *

  Yermakov looked up and saw Razin standing beside him. He respected and distrusted Razin because he knew his mind intimately: it was the same as his. “Yes, Comrade Colonel, what is it?”

  “Could you spare a few moments?”

  Yermakov dismissed his secretary who retired gratefully with a copy of the Irkutsk speech which they had been working on.

  Razin sat down. They might have been twins, these two men, each hunched warily as if a stiletto had been poised behind their backs all their lives.

  “Well?”

  “I’m not happy about one of the passengers.”

  “Only one? That’s quite a tribute to my popularity.” The harsh voice was sardonic. “Which one, Comrade Razin?”

  “The Jew,” Razin said, hoping to shock.

  He failed. “You mean Viktor Pavlov?”

  Razin nodded.

  “Hardly a Jew. Just a drop of blood, a splash of semen, a long time ago.” His knowledge of Pavlov’s antecedents disturbed Razin; it was as if he had police informants other than himself. Yermakov went on: “We can’t indict every loyal Soviet citizen who has the misfortune to have a trace of ancient Jewish blood in him.” He smiled – the airport smile which visiting heads of state knew so well. “If we did we’d lose half our brainpower.” Yermakov paused. “What’s worrying you, Comrade Razin? Is it the disappearance of one of your men in Novosibirsk?”

  This jolted Razin but nothing showed on his face. He had made a point of keeping the disappearance from Yermakov: someone had made a point of telling him.

  “He and Pavlov shared the same compartment,” Razin said.

  “He was watching Pavlov, I presume.”

  “He was,” Razin said, “and now he’s disappeared. It may be a coincidence.”

  “Is anyone with Pavlov now?”

  Razin shook his heavy head. “I’m watching him and he’s got a Tartar general and his wife in there. If he tried anything the wife would crush him to death.”

  “I see.” Yermakov gazed out at the countryside dotted with small thick-set pines spinning past the window. “And what do you propose to do about Pavlov?”

  Razin didn’t make decisions in Yermakov’s presence. He rolled the responsibility adroitly back across the table. “I just thought I would communicate my feelings about him.”

  Yermakov lit a cigarette. “That was very sensible of you, Comrade Razin.” He appraised the K.G.B. colonel. “But I don’t think we need worry too much about Viktor Pavlov. The man is a genius and he has done superb work for the Soviet Union. He is also married to Anna Petrovna. He will be meeting her at Khaborovsk. They are a handsome and heroic couple and the three of us will look very well together on the platform.”

  Tentatively, Razin continued to play his defensive hand. “You know, of course, that there’s been a quarrel. That they’ve been parted for several months.”

  The Leader smiled benevolently, enjoying a small triumph. “Oh yes, Comrade Razin, I know all about that. And I shall enjoy being the instrument of reconciliation.”

  * * *

  Razin went back to his compartment in the special carriage looking meditatively at his two aides. One of them was feeding information to Yermakov. You’re too young to be double-crossing Yury Razin, he thought.

  He said to the boyish-faced assistant: “Do you have reports on everyone on this train?”

  “Yes, Comrade Razin. Dossiers on the names with red crosses beside them. Page reports on all others.”

  Razin sat down. “Good, good,” he said. “I want to see two reports.”

  “Which two?” the other assistant officer asked.

  Razin raised his big head and stared at them. “On you two,” he said.

  He enjoyed their expressions before lighting one of his American cigarettes and relaxing a little, like a man with a liqueur after dinner, happy that Yermakov had accepted responsibility for keeping Pavlov on the train. The euphoria didn’t last because, half way through his cigarette he realised that, if anything went wrong, the responsibility would be denied.

  * * *

  For dinner that night, as the train ran smoothly between Chernorechenskaya and Krasnoyarsk, Harry Bridges and Libby Chandler ate cabbage soup floating with meat and curdled with cream, saddle-hard steak and French fried, fruit salad, and drank half a litre each of strong, red Georgian wine.

  Opposite them sat the Tartar general and his wife who didn’t speak while they ate. Vodka from the general’s own supplies, red wine, two plates each of cabbage soup, marrows stuffed with mincemeat, goat’s cheese and black bread, Ghanain bananas, Georgian oranges, Armenian brandy and coffee. They ate for two hours, then synchronised their belches.

  At last the general spoke. He said to Bridges: “Were you in the Army?”

  Bridges nodded. “I did my stint.”

  The general looked pleased. He said to his wife: “He was in the American Army.”

  “I know,” she said. “I speak English too.”

  Her face had turned mauve and her bosom rose and fell rapidly. The general looked at her fondly; perhaps, Bridges thought, the real warrior was the lady.

  “Where did you fight?” the general demanded. His English was slow and heavily accented.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Not even Vietnam?”

  Bridges shook his head: he was a big disappointment.

  The general’s wife was talking to Libby. “You don’t eat enough,” she said. “You would never exist in Russia. We eat to keep the cold out and the warm in.”

  Libby said: “I’m afraid I don’t have much of an appetite.”

  “Russian men don’t like thin girls,” the general’s wife announced, as if Libby was here to sample Soviet manhood. “They like everything big and strong. And we” – she stared hard at every Western weakling in the restaurant car – “we like strong men. Once my husband had his appendix out without an anaesthetic. He had it removed at nine and by one o’clock he was eating a good lunch.”

  The general asked Bridges: “Which do you think is the best Army in the world?”

  “The Soviet?” Bridges speculated, grinning.

  “Of course the Soviet. I mean after the Soviet.”

  “The French Foreign Legion?”

  The general leaned across the table so that Bridges could smell the brandy on his breath. He spoke softly. “The Israelis. After the Red Star, they’re the best fighting soldiers. I salute them. Everyone in Russia salutes them – except the Kremlin.” He found some morsels of cheese on his plate and ate them. “Politicians? I shit on them.”

  “You could get into trouble saying things like that, I guess.”

  “Who from? The police?” The general picked up his fork and bent it in half. “That’s what I would do to the police.”

  “Didn’t Alexander III have a habit of doing that?” Bridges said, pointing at the fork.

  “It was the same in Germany,” the general went on, ignoring him. “If Hitler had listened to his generals he would have won the war. Instead he listened to the police – the Gestapo, the S.S. Good soldiers,” he added, “the Germans.”

  His wife said in Russian: “Be quiet. You’ve got a big mouth and you’re drunk.” She returned to Libby. “You should eat more bread and potatoes. Get some meat on you. Men don’t like skin and bone.” There were red blotches on her neck and the button at the foothills of her bosom had burst open.

  Bridges excused himself for a moment and walked down the corridor towards the bathroom. He closed the door of the restaurant car carefully behind him
. Then he went into the compartment. Neither Stanley Wagstaff nor the Intourist girl was there.

  He picked up Libby’s hold-all lying on her bunk and found the little keys. From under the bunks he took the white suitcase with the labels on it. He inserted one key; it opened with a genteel click. He rummaged through the clothes and took out the doll. He rattled it, then decapitated it by unscrewing the smiling, flaxen-haired head. He tilted the body so that the object inside fell into the palm of his hand. It was another smiling, flaxen-haired doll. He unscrewed that; then three more. Libby Chandler, he thought, you’re cleverer than I thought. He searched the rest of the suitcase and the French holdall and found nothing. He replaced the keys and went back to the restaurant car.

  * * *

  They passed into the fifth day of their journey east of Krasnoyarsk. By the evening of that day they would be in Irkutsk, the Paris of Siberia. Outside the snow was falling as if it intended to stay. The engine gave a melancholy, melodious hoot, acknowledging the arrival of winter.

  Chapter 7

  The fifth imponderable in Viktor Pavlov’s scheme of things occurred at 06.34 on the fifth day of the journey about four miles east of Taishet.

  Taishet lies north of the Mongolian border – and the Gobi Desert farther south – and south of the Angara River which flows between the River Yenesei and Lake Baikal. It lies roughly on Longitude 105.

  When the Great Siberian was first built Taishet merited little attention. A third class station with a buffet, a feeding and medical station close by for pioneer colonists. The nearby village of Biruisa had 1,600 inhabitants, a wooden church of the Holy Trinity and a school.

  In the 1930s it achieved recognition of a kind when the Russians decided to build a second railway in case the potential enemy – then the Japanese – decided to wreck the eastern sectors of the Trans-Siberian. The plan was to link Taishet to the east with 1,600 miles of track. Little is known of the project to western observers except that, with slave labour, 434 miles of track was laid between Taishet to Bratsk, now the site of the world’s largest hydro-electric power station, finishing at Ust-Kut, some 200 miles north of Lake Baikal. The little publicised railway, not marked on the latest Russian atlas, proved invaluable to Soviet geologists such as Anna Petrovna seeking diamonds in the Yakutsk Autonomous Republic.