FINDING KATARINA M.

by Elisabeth Elo

  The bottle landed dully on the peat and rolled a few inches.

  “There now,” Roxana said, laying her palm on my shoulder. “Things will be better for you now.”

  Wordlessly, I staggered to my feet and squeezed through the tent flap. I half-walked, half-ran to the tree line, where I vomited violently onto a fallen, moss-covered trunk. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I glanced back toward the tents. I didn’t want Ivan or Sofia to know how I’d handled their generous feast. Gosha was sitting on a stump, whittling larch wood. He glanced away discreetly, in a way that made me feel forgiven.

  Roxana met me on the way back, carrying my jacket, which she wrapped around my shoulders. “Don’t worry. You’ll sleep well now. Bayanay won’t come again tonight.”

  She was wrong. I didn’t sleep at all. I lay awake while she snored softly a few feet away. I couldn’t get my head around anything—not where I was, what had happened, or what I’d done. The image of Tanya playfully shushing the bright, noisy parrot kept dancing through my mind. Followed by an image of shrouded bodies in a Syrian village, laid out in rows on the dusty street. Meredith with her brilliant, flashing ring. Saldana in her yellow dress.

  In time, bright seams of light appeared along the edges of the tent flap. I rose and stepped outside into a dense, dreamy arctic dawn, the sky suffused with a dusky blue radiance so mute and softened that it felt like a caress. A sliver of silver moon shone down on glowing snow-capped peaks.

  There was a surprising amount of activity in the camp. Children were playing kickball, and Ivan and a younger herder sat cross-legged on the moss, deep in conversation. Lidia was rinsing out what looked like long, sinewy animal innards—intestines, organs—in the cold stream, while Misha split wood at the edge of camp with the vigor of a man exorcising demons.

  I could smell the fresh green of the hewn logs as I approached.

  He saw me coming and laid down the ax.

  “Could we talk?” I said.

  We walked to higher ground, eventually coming onto a rock promontory overlooking the valley. It seemed exactly the promontory on which the ram in my dream had stood. We sat cross-legged near the edge. Reindeer were scattered like toy figurines far below, drowsing, swaying a little, facing into a mild breeze. Small, colorful blooms dotted an alpine meadow, and the air was crystal clear and cold.

  “I found the skulls at Death Valley,” I said. “It looks like human medical experiments took place there. I assume that’s what your article exposed, why the camp was never part of the public record, and why you became an enemy of the state. But there’s one thing I don’t get: why did you go there in the first place? I mean, before you knew there was anything to find. What were you looking for?”

  He was hunched over, running his fingers across a pad of golden lichen by his feet. “Revenge.”

  After a few moments, when he hadn’t said anything more, I prodded, “Revenge… Against who?”

  He gave a long sigh, seemingly reluctant to talk. Finally he said, “A lot of bad things happened to my grandmother…our grandmother…in the work camp.”

  “What bad things?”

  He gazed over the valley with his head slightly turned away from me. “She was raped—many times—and the child she gave birth to was murdered.”

  I gasped in shock. “That’s awful.”

  Misha picked up a pebble and lobbed it over the rock ledge. The earth was so far below that its landing made no sound. “The guy who did it—the camp director. His name was Leonid Kosloff.”

  “Kosloff,” I repeated. “Did Katarina tell you that?”

  “No. She didn’t talk about those times. My mother did, though. She told Saldana and me that Grandmother had been in Camp #34 in the Kolyma Region from 1949 to 1951. So I went to Moscow and searched the State Archive, where the gulag papers are kept. I found out that the director during those years was a medical doctor named Leonid Kosloff. He was transferred to a camp called Butugychag in 1951, and returned to Moscow when Stalin died in 1953. He taught at Moscow University for the rest of his life, published a bunch of important scientific papers on human radiation sickness in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. He ended up a world-renowned expert in that field.”

  Misha turned to me. “I asked myself the obvious question: Where did he do his research?”

  “Butugychag?” I said, my stomach twisting with disgust.

  Misha nodded. “Camp #34 produced lumber and cleared roads, so Butugychag was the only possibility. I’d planned to kill him for what he did to my grandmother, but he died of cancer in his fifties, so I couldn’t have that satisfaction. But now I figured there might be another way to get revenge. If I could pin the crime of human medical experimentation on him, I could destroy his reputation and get some justice for all his victims, not just my grandmother.

  “I needed evidence, but I couldn’t find a single mention of Butugychag in the official records. The only place it was named at all was in Kosloff’s personnel file. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, Butugychag had never existed.”

  So Misha checked out all Kosloff’s scientific articles on radiation sickness from the library at Moscow University. In the footnotes, he found repeated references to an unpublished monograph that supposedly gave a complete account of Kosloff’s experimental procedures. That monograph was kept in a government archive as classified material. To get a look at it, he had to bribe a clerk with free tickets to the Kirov ballet, which he coaxed from a dancer friend. He photographed every page of the monograph—number of cases, patient charts, methods of exposure, causes of death, along with Kosloff’s handwritten notes.

  “It was all there,” Misha said. “Everything.” He paused. “Do you want to know why the barracks at Butugychag was so small?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Because the average life span of a prisoner was two to three weeks.”

  “They didn’t live long enough for the barracks to fill up.”

  “That’s right. New prisoners were constantly being shipped in. Three hundred and eighty thousand of them, by Kosloff’s own count. Not one survived. They weren’t just mining uranium. They were forced to breathe radioactive fumes from the drying vents and to swallow radioactive metals.”

  He pitched another pebble over the cliff.

  He said, “Butugychag’s location wasn’t mentioned in the monograph. I scoured every source I could think of for a clue to help me find it, and came up empty-handed. Then, soon after I arrived in Mirny, a story came out in the local paper. A herding group had driven their reindeer into a valley by the Dentin River and discovered an abandoned prison camp—one that wasn’t on any maps. The reindeer got sick from eating the grass, so I figured it had been a uranium mining camp.

  “I decided to go there on the chance that it might be the lost Butugychag. You know what I discovered: the drying vents, the mass graves, the surgery. No sign that identified it formally, but everything else fit.”

  “So you wrote the article and sent it off with your photographs.”

  “By then, it wasn’t just about Grandmother or Kosloff’s other victims anymore. It had become something much bigger for me. The monsters who ran the gulag prisons were never punished. Even today, lies are still circulating about what really went on in them. Until we Russians face our history, we’ll never go forward—we’ll just keep going round and round like a cat chasing its tail, making up new lies when the old ones don’t work anymore.”

  Another pebble arced above the valley and disappeared without a sound.

  He went on, “I sent my story to the most liberal newspaper in Russia, hoping they would have the courage to publish it. Before I’d heard back, two FSB agents showed up at the chemical plant where I worked. They said my facts were wrong. Kosloff’s monograph was a fake. Butugychag didn’t exist. And the photographs were photoshopped. They accused me of being a spy for the West—which happened to be true, only not in the way they thought.

  “I figured they were going to arrest me—if not that day, then very
soon—and I couldn’t risk that. I knew that if I didn’t stand up to the interrogation, I could end up leading the FSB to my own mother’s door. I managed to slip away on a pretext, and snuck out a back entrance of the plant. I hid outside my apartment and, sure enough, they showed up not long after to search it. I saw them leave with my computer, and knew I couldn’t go back.”

  I said, “The editor tried to warn you. He said that the newspaper was closely monitored, that he’d disposed of your article and photos, but the FSB must have got hold of them somehow.” I paused. “Did you ask Meredith Viles for help?”

  “I didn’t bother. I knew what she’d say. The CIA only cares about current issues. Old Soviet crimes are irrelevant to them, unless they can be used to blackmail someone they don’t like.”

  I thought about it for a few moments and decided to confess my role. “I know about the work you were doing for Meredith. About Mayadykovsky, I mean. I met Bohdan Duboff and Tanya Karp. Did you know they were smuggling sarin?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I found cannisters of OPA and DHA in their apartment.”

  He gave a wry smile. “Smart of Meredith to get you to finish the job.”

  “I’m not sure how smart she is.”

  “What happened to Bohdan and Tanya?” The couple’s first names fell easily from his lips.

  “Dead. Assassinated.”

  He gave a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Spies, the CIA. That’s the kind of thing they do, isn’t it?” He straightened his spine, looked up into the sky. “It’s too bad. We had some good times together. Why the fuck were they smuggling sarin? That was stupid as shit.”

  “Misha,” I said gently, aware that I was talking to a teenager. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you were here, safe? Your mother’s very worried.”

  “I wanted to. But the only communication out here is by radio. The herders use the radio to talk to people in Mirny about supplies, weather, and family stuff. I would have had to find someone in Mirny who would take a message from me and pass it on to my mother. That was too risky: it would expose my location to a third party I didn’t trust. And there was also the possibility that the FSB was monitoring my mother’s communications, so it was safer for both of us if I didn’t contact her at all for a while.”

  “What about Meredith?”

  “She was very strict about how we communicated. Cell phone was my only option. Until I had service, there was nothing I could do.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, as if to stop headache pain, or maybe tears.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He folded up his long legs and hugged them to his body, placed his forehead on his knees. “Do you want to know why my mother agreed to let me work for the CIA?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “Because she was more afraid of what might happen to me if I kept digging into Kosloff’s background than what might happen to me if I spied for the United States. Think about that. What kind of country is that afraid of its past?”

  “It sounds like she knew you’d been to Moscow, and what you’d found there.”

  “I showed her everything. I thought for sure she’d support me when she saw the evidence. But just the opposite happened: she begged me to stop. She kept insisting that if I put my name on an article about medical experimentation in the Stalin era, I’d be arrested. I told her Grandmother deserved justice. ‘She’s never asked for it. You’re the one who wants justice, not her,’ my mother said. She was upset, and I was sorry for that. But I told her she was wasting her breath.

  “Then she told me something I never would have guessed: she was an informer for the American spy service, the famous CIA. I laughed. It was ridiculous. My mother the secretary, who was always yammering at us about schoolwork and dressing warmly? This person was a spy? I didn’t believe it.

  “But when I met Meredith Viles, I started to listen. And when Meredith told me what she wanted me to do, I agreed right away. I wanted to strike back against the government any way I could. I promised my mother I’d give up my vendetta against Kosloff when I went to Mirny, so she grudgingly agreed to let me go. I didn’t mean it, of course. I only said it to put her mind at rest.”

  The sun was warming the valley now, and a single herder was riding out on the green meadow, holding his coiled lasso. The reindeer opened a path for him, like subjects scurrying before a king.

  “They say mothers are always right,” Misha said resignedly. “Turns out, she was. When I see her next, it’ll be hard to admit I lied to get her off my case.”

  “She probably just wants to know you’re safe.”

  A breeze lifted a lock of his hair. “We used to fight so much, her and me. She was always preaching caution, staying quiet, holding back. I used to resent her. It felt like she didn’t want me to be myself. Now I understand she was just trying to protect me.”

  He turned to look into my eyes. “Out here in the mountains, everything’s different. Simple and peaceful. I like it here.”

  “It’s very beautiful. This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.”

  It was true. The early morning moon had slipped behind a ridge, yet tiny, dim stars were still sprinkled across the sky. Perched so close to the edge of the promontory, with nothing but soft, pearly light all around, I could almost sense the globe twirling on its axis. I imagined the north pole canting toward and away from the sun through successive seasons, each single day lasting a long, lovely time, while the years passed quicker than you could count.

  I said, “Misha, I think you are a remarkable young man.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “That is such a nice thing to say, Dr. March!”

  “You can call me Natalie. We’re cousins, after all.”

  “Cousins,” he repeated, a smile spreading across his face. “And here we are together in this amazing place. Two people from different parts of the world. Who would have guessed this would happen? It’s a miracle, isn’t it?”

  It was a miracle. One I could never have foreseen, taking place against all odds. A deep joy settled in me. I knew it would be there all my life.

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked.

  “I promised Ivan and Sofia I’d stay until October, when some of the herders will drive a small group of the weakest reindeer to the slaughterhouse on the other side of these mountains. I’ll stop over in the town there. Helicopters go in and out, and horse caravans. If I think it’s safe, I’ll head to grandmother’s village. If not, I’ll find some work in the town and spend the winter there.”

  “But in the long run? How will you make out?”

  He shrugged. “I’m a fugitive. I’ll spend my life on the run.”

  “Come to the States,” I heard myself saying. I wanted to help him, to give him what I hadn’t given Saldana. Safety, another chance.

  He smiled ruefully. “And how will I get out of Russia?”

  “The CIA,” I said rashly. “They ought to do that much for you at least.”

  “It’s too bad they don’t see it that way.” He stood up, brushed off his jeans, leaned down, and offered me his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you how to get to Cherkeh.”

  “Cherkeh?”

  “Grandmother’s village. You still want to go, don’t you?”

  “I absolutely do.”

  The hand that pulled me to my feet was warm and strong.

  The camp was quiet. The rest of the men had ridden out to gather the herd for the day’s nomadic grazing in the lower part of the valley. I washed at the river, the cold water gently splashing over the smooth rocks at my feet, boughs softly creaking in the stand of poplars nearby. From Sofia’s tent came the clatter of tin pots and merry children’s voices. A tail of smoke plumed from the stove vent into a mass of heavy clouds that had materialized without warning.

  Roxana bustled into the tent as I was dressing and told me to start packing.
We would be leaving in an hour. The temperature was falling. If it changed too quickly, the reindeer risked pneumonia, so the herders would drive the animals to lower ground that day. The camp would be dismantled within hours. Unless we wanted to travel down the mountain with the group, we had to go.

  We took apart the bedding, stove, and tent, folding and storing everything according to a detailed process Roxana knew. Sofia gave us tea, bread, and a fatty reindeer broth, which I merely sipped. Her face crinkled into a smile when I thanked her for her hospitality. She pressed my hand between her leathery palms when she said goodbye.

  I took a few pictures: the little girls grinning and waving, Lidia standing beside the tent in a green headscarf, Ivan lumbering on his cane to the edge of the clearing to see us off. But there was little time for extended farewells. Rain was headed up the valley, and we needed to beat it back to Mirny.

  Misha appeared to help carry our bags. He was subdued, his eyes averted, and his face was pale. I assumed that the terrible work of grieving his sister had begun. He silently hoisted our bags into the back of the M1-8, then thrust into my hands a sheet of heavy brown paper folded into a square.

  “Here are the directions I promised,” he said quietly, so that only I could hear. “I drew a map for you, too. And there’s…something else. Don’t read it now. Wait until you’re in the air.”

  After performing its usual shuddering theatrics, the helicopter rose into troubled gray skies. I waited a long time, until the clouds dispersed at the western edge of the Verkhoyansk range, before I opened Misha’s map. A folded slip of white paper fell into my lap—his note. I decided to keep that for last.