The Dark Clouds Shining

by David Downing

  McColl smoothed it out. Fugitives left train at Saryagash. Likely now Tashkent. Search underway. He wondered if Caitlin knew. “It’s a big enough town to hide in,” he said in response to Komarov’s questioning look, forbearing to add that he himself had successfully done so in 1916. “Any news of when we leave?”

  Komarov snorted. “God only knows.”

  “I’ll go and ask the drivers,” McColl volunteered, glad to have something to do.

  He walked up the train and found that a third locomotive had joined the original pair. A driver was sitting in the cab of the new arrival, patiently splitting sesame seeds and inserting the kernels into his bushy mustache. McColl swung himself up onto the footplate. “Any sign of movement?” he asked.

  The driver laughed. “Someday soon,” he said. “We’re waiting for a train coming this way to clear the next section. Then, maybe, we’ll be on our way.”

  “Why three engines?” McColl asked, seating himself on the fireman’s put-up. The train had been shortened in Samara.

  “Because there’s a fair chance that two of them will fail in the middle of nowhere.” The driver grinned. “Come to that, there’s a fair chance they all will.”

  The tender was full of what looked like broken furniture. “What about fuel?” McColl asked.

  “You are an innocent. Once we’re out in the desert, we collect it as we go. The engine burns saxaul roots, and when the supply runs low, everyone volunteers to get out and cut some more. It takes hours, but it could be worse. In Tashkent they’ve converted two locos to burn dried fish from the Aral Sea. They burn great, but the stink!”

  McColl could imagine. He wished he could tell the Russian about the porter on Glenfinnan Station who’d decided to check a fish van door, inadvertently pulled it open, and buried himself in an avalanche of herring. Euan McColl had never tired of that story, but then other people’s misfortunes had always made the man laugh.

  The train they were awaiting arrived the following morning. It was the “Red Cossack,” an Agitation-Instruction train, a long line of bright red cars covered in huge yellow flowers and exhortatory slogans: women, learn to read and write! from darkness to light, from battle to books, from sadness to joy! Caitlin watched it pull in as she ate breakfast in her compartment, and found herself seeing it through the eyes of those farther up the line. In a day or so, this gaily colored messenger of hope would be rattling through the legions of the dying, a circus for those whose thoughts went no further than bread.

  Minutes later her own train was on the move, clanking across the bridge that spanned the Ural River. This, as Maslov had told them yesterday, was the boundary between Europe and Asia, but as time went by, the view through Caitlin’s window showed no sign of changing—just steppe and more steppe, nothing but straw-colored grass as far as the eye could see.

  Piatakov spent most of the morning by their hotel room window, enjoying the sunlight and trying to imagine how things must have been in prerevolution days. A typical colonial society, he thought, ludicrous gentility masking all the usual brutality. All the mansions taking turns holding balls, all swishing gowns and string quartets while the native servants were treated like slaves.

  Brady had gone out early, intent on discovering Rogdayev’s home address. Piatakov was not particularly looking forward to seeing their old anarchist comrade again. He and Brady had fought alongside Rogdayev in 1918, had shared many hardships and arguments with him, but Piatakov had never really liked him.

  Why not? In those days Rogdayev had been the pure anarchist, forever mocking Piatakov’s faith in the party. Now Rogdayev was the party’s propaganda chief in Turkestan, and Piatakov wondered how the man would cope when confronted with his past. He understood the political arguments for Rogdayev’s change of course—had heard them often enough from ex-anarchists in Moscow—but doubted that political arguments had influenced the man very much. Perhaps he was being unfair, and Rogdayev had actually had a real epiphany. But when it came to politics, the mind needed help from the heart, and Piatakov wasn’t sure that Rogdayev had one.

  It was early in the afternoon when Brady returned, mopping his brow.

  “We’ll be gone tomorrow,” he announced. “I got his address from a charming young typist in the Cheka office. We can renew our acquaintance this evening.”

  Caitlin was half-dozing in one of the saloon car armchairs when she suddenly realized that Komarov had joined her.

  “May I?” he asked, indicating the chair closest to hers.

  “Of course,” she said, wondering what excuse she could make to leave in a couple of minutes.

  He sat down. “Given how long you’ve known the man, I thought I should ask you about Aidan Brady.”

  She felt surprised and slightly alarmed. “What do you want to know?”

  Komarov leaned back in the armchair and interlinked his hands, looking for all the world like a cop ready to question a suspect. “Where did you first meet?”

  “In a town called Paterson—it’s in New Jersey, an hour on the train from New York City. There was a famous strike there in 1913 and a rally the following year to show the bosses we wouldn’t accept any reneging on their promises. I met him at the rally. He was an IWW man at the time—that’s the Industrial Workers of the World union—”

  “The Wobblies,” Komarov said, pronouncing the English word with a capital V. “Quite a few of them came here as volunteers in 1918. Brady among them.”

  “I traveled across Siberia with him,” she offered, hoping to make their discussion more of a two-way street. “We arrived in Vladivostok within a few days of each other, and we were both heading for Moscow. But I expect you know all this.” What, she wondered, was he really after?

  “You traveled together as far as Yekaterinburg,” he noted. “Then he went on while you—”

  “I got myself arrested for trying to catch a glimpse of the czar through his prison windows,” she said wryly. “Not my finest hour.”

  He ignored that. “But you ran into Brady again in Moscow.”

  “He came to see me at the house where I was living then. But how could you know that?” she asked, allowing a little indignation to enter her voice.

  “He told me,” Komarov said simply. “After he reported seeing you with a known English spy, I asked to see him in person, and he told me then. You never asked me who informed on you that summer, so I assumed you knew it was him.”

  “I guessed.”

  “But Brady was telling the truth—you admitted as much.”

  “I did,” she agreed, wondering, with another frisson of panic, where all this might be going. His tone was matter-of-fact, but it was taking all she had not to betray her growing anxiety. “He wanted help finding a home for an orphan boy he’d rescued,” she said, trying not to sound like a supplicant.

  “So you said at the time. And I believed you.”

  “And the last three years have proved you right,” she retorted.

  “I never regretted it,” he said, leaving the impression that he might still do so at some point in the future. “But getting back to Brady—have you seen him at all in the last three years?”

  “Once, I think.” She hesitated. “He and Sergei met on the Volga front that summer and discovered they both knew me. After Sergei and I became . . . well, he turned up with Brady on one of their leaves, and I told Sergei never again.”

  “Because you knew he’d informed on you?”

  “It was more than that. People die around Aidan Brady, and I’m not talking about other soldiers. He was partly responsible for my brother’s death in England. I know he knifed a policeman in Paterson, and he probably shot two in England. I’d bet money it was him who shot the boy in Kalanchevskaya Square, and now he’s murdering men during robberies. Wherever he goes, people die, and he always gets to walk away.” She looked Komarov straight in the eye. “I know the revolution needed k
illers like him to win the civil war, but it’ll all have been for nothing if we don’t find a way of taking their guns away.”

  Something flickered in his eyes and was gone. “I agree,” he said shortly. “And the English spy—did you ever see him again?”

  “He went back to England, as far as I know.” Her heart was suddenly racing, but at least to her, her voice seemed commendably calm.

  “I always wanted to go there,” Komarov said unexpectedly.

  “To see Marx’s grave?” she asked with a smile, just about managing to ride the wave of relief.

  He smiled. “I’ve had enough of graves. I was thinking more of the white cliffs of Dover and Holmes’s flat on Baker Street. Maybe a tour of Scotland Yard.”

  “I don’t think they do tours,” she said. This interrogation was apparently over, but she doubted it would prove the last.

  As he and Brady walked across the poorly lit town, Piatakov sifted through his memories of the man they were about to see. One stood out. They’d just retaken a village close to the Volga, where half the men were still lying dead in the streets, and most of the women looked like they wanted revenge on any available man for what the White soldiers had done to them. When Piatakov and Rogdayev had come across a young girl cowering in a barn, they had taken her to the nearest dwelling that was issuing smoke and, after shouting a warning, had cautiously walked in through the open front door. The woman they found inside had simply screamed abuse at them, and Rogdayev had screamed right back, whereupon the girl had bolted like a hare in the direction of the river. Their unit had stayed in the village for over a week, but they had never seen the girl again.

  Rogdayev lived on Samarkandskaya Street, close to the border between the old and Russian towns. He opened the door himself and, after what seemed a moment’s hesitation, hugged his visitors and led them upstairs to a large, high-ceilinged room with several armchairs and a Persian rug. An open balcony overlooked the street and dried-up river.

  The propaganda chief was a big man, almost as big as Brady, with a round face and short, pointed beard. His eyes were almost black and, as Piatakov now remembered, rarely showed any real warmth.

  Rogdayev asked them where they were staying and then asked after Aram Shahumian, whom he’d known even longer than they had. He was certainly eager to talk about the past, and the slew of nostalgic anecdotes that followed began to seem suspicious. Why hadn’t Rogdayev asked what they were doing in Tashkent? Piatakov wondered. It was a strange omission, unless he already knew. Piatakov wondered if Brady had noticed and guessed that he probably had—the American didn’t miss much. At that moment he was reminding their host of an action two summers before, a skirmish in a Ukrainian hamlet in which Rogdayev had been badly wounded and carried to safety by Aram. Reminding him of what they’d shared, Piatakov supposed, or suggesting the guilt that would follow betrayal. It was the wrong tactic, he thought. Rogdayev was one of those people who never let beliefs and personal interests stray that far apart.

  He was certainly playing the genial host, pouring generous slugs of vodka and laughing too loud at Brady’s jokes. “You’re very quiet,” he told Piatakov. “Missing your lovely wife, I expect?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I must make a telephone call,” he added abruptly, rising to his feet and walking across to the wall-mounted receiver.

  Piatakov stiffened and saw Brady do the same, but neither of them moved. Rogdayev was still beaming at them, waiting for the connection. “At last,” he said, and gave the operator a number. “Pour yourselves another,” he told his two guests. “Alexander Ivanovich?” he said into the mouthpiece. “The booklets have arrived. Yes, today. Can you collect them at the station first thing in the morning? Fine. Good night.”

  It sounded innocent enough, Piatakov thought, but in case it wasn’t, the appeal to their old comrade’s sense of loyalty would have to be quickly made.

  Rogdayev was giving nothing away. “Stalin’s tract on the nationality problem,” he explained, reseating himself. “A strangely idealistic document, considering its source. But the Uzbeks here will be reassured, and that’s the main thing. You’ve heard of the Basmachi, I suppose? They’re mostly just brigands in the pay of the Turks, but they have to be defeated, and until they are we need to keep our Muslims happy.” He poured himself another measure and pushed the bottle toward them. “And now you must tell me what you’re doing in Tashkent.”

  Brady hastened to do so, without going into specifics or mentioning the rendezvous in Samarkand. “We’re not challenging the party,” he said diplomatically. “We accept that there are limits to what can be achieved in the present circumstances, and we don’t want to criticize anyone, like yourself, who chooses to work within those limits. Each to his own—that’s fine. But we want to move on and do what we do best. And no matter what it says—or feels compelled to say—the party needs help from outside. It needs more revolutions.”

  Rogdayev listened without interrupting, occasionally shaking his head. “I was afraid it would be something like this,” he said when Brady had finished. “I believe you are wrong; I have to say that. The old days are gone, comrades—we cannot fight forever. Why do you think I threw in my lot with the party—simply because I am an opportunist? Well, perhaps a little”—a self-deprecating smile—“but that wasn’t what made up my mind. Lenin is not infallible, his subordinates even less so, but do you know of any better leaders for this country of ours? We have won, and we must make the best of our victory. You seem—forgive me, but we are old comrades, and I will be frank—you seem to be simply running away the moment things get difficult. Like knights who move heaven and earth to free a damsel in distress, then leave her locked in the tower because she has a few pimples on her face. Pimples can be treated once the damsel is free.”

  “And what if her face is truly ugly?” Brady asked softly.

  “Then perhaps we are talking about a different damsel.” Rogdayev looked into his glass. “You will do what you think is right. You do not need my blessing.”

  “No, but we do need your help,” Brady said. “Travel money.”

  Rogdayev laughed, but Piatakov heard no humor in the sound. “And you think I have rubles to spare? We fought together, and as I remember it, we never received a single day’s pay for the privilege.”

  “We don’t want your money, Vladimir Sergeievich. Moscow must fund your work here, and a few hundred rubles won’t be missed. What better propaganda could Lenin ask for than another revolution in Asia?”

  Rogdayev paused before answering, and in that space of silence, all three men heard the approaching car. The gun that appeared in his hand must have been hidden under his cushion. “I am sorry,” he said without much conviction.

  “But your loyalty is now to the party,” Piatakov sneered.

  “There was a time when you didn’t find that reprehensible,” Rogdayev retorted.

  “We must never forget Vedenskoye,” Brady said quietly.

  “What are you talking about?” Rogdayev asked.

  Piatakov’s mind went blank for a moment, but then he remembered. The maneuver Brady had taught him three years before, which he claimed had been invented out west by two notorious outlaw brothers. And which had actually saved them only a few weeks later, in that tiny village not far from the Volga. Vedenskoye.

  Back then, in the summer of 1918, a White officer had been holding the gun, an arrogant little bastard who couldn’t have been much more than twenty.

  Piatakov leaned forward to put his glass on the table, then suddenly threw himself backward, upturning the chair and falling behind it.

  A shot crashed out. Piatakov scrambled to his feet to find Rogdayev slumped back, a large bloody hole under his left eye. Brady was pushing the Colt back into the waistband of his shirt, a businesslike look on his face.

  “This way,” the American said, walking out onto the balcony. “It’s not a long drop.”

&nb
sp; “No,” Piatakov said. He could hear feet on the street outside, orders being shouted.

  “What then?”

  “They’d be right behind us. We have to take their car.”

  Brady grinned. “Good idea.”

  There were feet on the stairs. Brady and Piatakov positioned themselves on either side of the door and listened as the men outside decided to knock it down. They came in with a rush, almost tumbling over one another.

  “The Keystone Chekas,” Brady said mockingly. “Drop the guns, comrades. That’s good. Now, how many more are there with the car?”

  The three men pursed their lips with unanimous obstinacy.

  Brady stepped forward and put a bullet through the center of one man’s foot. After looking more surprised than hurt, the victim slumped to the floor with a whimper.

  Brady pointed the gun at another man’s knee. “How many?”

  “One.”

  “I’ll get him,” Piatakov said, grabbing the cap from the fallen Chekist’s head and placing it on his own. He ran down the stairs and walked calmly across to the car, aware of people down the street ducking back into their houses. They were presumably thanking God that the Cheka hadn’t come for them.

  “Trouble?” a bored voice asked from the car.

  “Only for you,” Piatakov said, pointing Rogdayev’s pistol at the man’s head. “We’re going upstairs.”

  In Rogdayev’s room Brady was holding a gun on the prisoners with one hand and trying to unravel the carpet with the other. “It’s all there is,” he said. “You watch them.”

  It took the American ten minutes to prize out enough twine to tie all four men up. “Tomorrow they’ll be thanking us for not shooting them,” he said cheerfully, before ripping the telephone off the wall. “Let’s go.”

  Piatakov took one last look at the dead Rogdayev and followed Brady down the stairs. “I’ll drive,” Piatakov insisted. The only previous occasion on which he’d seen the American behind a wheel, Piatakov had been astonished by the man’s timidity, which was so at odds with his usual behavior. “Which way?”