The Trace of the Wolf

by Siegfried Wittwer

  Suddenly he thought he heard a warm voice. Did it come from the woods or from inside him? He didn't know how to say it. "Mischka," that voice said, "would you have come this far without me?"

  He looked around dazed. No one was seen, but he felt he wasn't alone. He tried to fight the tiredness that arose, but eventually his consciousness faded. He sank into a feverish half-sleep. Tangled dream shreds swirled through his head, startled him, and made sweat beads run over his forehead.

  Mischka threw himself back and forth in the canoe. He did not feel the mosquitoes greedily drilling their trunks into his body and sucking up his poisoned blood. He did not see the full moon flooding the mist of the swamp with a silvery light. He neither felt the warming rays of the morning sun, nor heard the screams of the wild geese fleeing south before winter. Darkness captured his senses.

  How long the fever had shaken him, he didn't know to say. Was it two or three days? When Mischka opened his eyes, the sun stood on the horizon and colored the sky yellow-orange. He stood up and tried to remember. The beard and hair were stuck together by sweat. The clothes stank. The right arm hurt and was still stiff and swollen. His throat was dry and rough like sandpaper. Greedily he drank one of the water bottles. The liquid awakened his spirits. Nevertheless, he still felt as if a herd of reindeer had trampled him.

  Mischka sank back and breathed deeply. His body had won the battle against the snake venom. Really just his body? Or someone else? Gratefully he looked up through the leaves of the tree to the sky.

  He was full of life again. He felt an irrepressible joy rising up in him. But his laughter sounded like the cough of an asthma patient. Tears ran down his cheeks from the corner of his eye. He now knew he would see freedom, and the girl he loved!

  ◆◆◆

  A week later Mischka left his hiding place by canoe to paddle down the river. He doubted anybody would suspect him here now. With Simeon Jarew's clothes, which Anka had tailored for him, he would not be noticed by anyone who did not know him. Yet he was careful not to be negligent or reckless. He didn’t want to challenge his luck. Therefore he only drove down the river under the protection of darkness and hid himself in the shore bushes during the day.

  In the twilight of the third day he saw the lights of a larger city appear. Mischka steered the canoe to the shore, lifted it out of the water and pushed it under a dense bush. Then he rolled into his sleeping bag, well camouflaged. Tomorrow night ended his canoe trip and with it the life in the wilderness. He returned to civilization and wanted to use its possibilities for his further escape.

  Mischka remembered how Anka wanted to question him about it. But he had put his hand on her mouth and said, "It is better that you do not know my plans. Then you can't be harmed."

  Anka had nodded silently. She understood him. He would have liked to have told her about the two young people who had travelled by train from communist Prague to London several times to take part in rock concerts without being discovered at the border controls. Each time they had climbed through a hatch into the supply tunnel, which ran under the train roof. These hatches were in the train toilets. In the supply tunnel it was still warm even in winter because the heating pipes were there. Mischka wanted to imitate the teenagers. The supply tunnels were only inspected during repairs. So, he could travel undiscovered through Russia and accelerate his escape to the West.

  The next evening Mischka stowed his equipment back in the canoe. Only spears, arrows and bows and other bulky or treacherous objects had to be left behind. It was hard for him to just part with the hunting bow. It had helped him survive in the taiga. Even though the bow had lost much of its elasticity in the meantime, it was an important souvenir for Mischka. However it would attract too much public attention. With a feeling of regret he pushed it under the bush to the other equipment he had to leave behind for the same reasons.

  By nightfall he was on his way again. Around midnight he reached Salechard and continued paddling under the protection of the shadows until he believed himself at the height of the city Centre. He got off at an unlit mooring, pushed the canoe into the current, shouldered his backpack and made his way to the station. Anka and her father wouldn't need the canoe anymore after the KGB got their hands on them.

  The streets were empty. Mischka moved as if he were a late wanderer who was heading for his apartment. A drunken man staggered past him, babbled something of bad booze and disappeared into a front garden to urinate extensively.

  Anka had made him a sketch of the streets with which he could find his way around. The station was only a few miles away. But he had to cross some main roads, on which even at night time there were still cars and a few people on the road, probably also patrol cars of the militia. He didn't feel like meeting them.

  So, he fought his way through side streets and dark alleys, always ready to disappear into a niche, a garden or a house entrance, should danger emerge. The inner tension made him sweat, even when the night air was frosty.

  A car turned around the corner. Mischka could recognize the turned off blue light on the car roof in the light of a street lamp. He slipped into a side street and walked down the bumpy and potholed path with long steps. Suddenly he knew he was trapped if the militia car followed him. A dark wall blocked the way. He had run into a dead end.

  The car stopped at the entrance to the alley. Mischka felt the looks of the officials. Like a cat he slid towards the wall under the protection of the shadow of the houses. The car's engine howled. Then his headlights drilled into the darkness of the road.

  Mischka tried to escape them. Fear inspired his footsteps. He heard the car rumble down the alley through the potholes. He reached the wall and began to climb it. The earth suddenly trembled under his feet. A metallic sound filled the air, the sound of iron wheels running on rails. The wall was a railway embankment!

  He didn't pay attention to the thorns that ripped open his hands. He didn't feel the pain when he banged his knee. He was just thinking about getting himself to safety. The train seemed to be slowing down. Apparently it was heading for the station, which it could not cross at high speed.

  Mischka crossed the tracks, slipped down the railway embankment on the other side and began to stumble along a path that ran parallel to the tracks. The lights of a locomotive appeared. It was a freight train. Mischka stopped for a moment to take a breath. He was lucky. The many trailer of the freight train gave him a considerable lead to get rid of the militia if they continued his persecution. With quick steps he ran along the path.

  ◆◆◆

  When the two militia officers reached the railway embankment, the first wagons of the freight train thundered past. One of the men got out and lit the lane, houses and embankment with a flashlight. Then he shook his head and got back in the car.

  "Nothing to see, Comrade Pawlik, perhaps we were wrong. I'm sure that wasn't a burglar trying to get his prey to safety. You're probably already a little tired and seeing ghosts."

  "Maybe," hummed the man addressed. "Night patrol is also the stupidest job in the militia. Especially, when you had celebrated with your family the night before. While others cuddle up in warm blankets, we are supposed to ensure peace and order. I don't want to chase a phantom through this thicket of thorns either."

  "And if it wasn't a phantom, the guy's already up and away by the time the last car passes. Would you like one last sip, Comrade Pawlik?"

  "But not on duty and not when I'm at the wheel," the man joked, grabbed the bottle and emptied it.

  ◆◆◆

  The yellow light of the station lighting appeared above the roofs. It was so sparse that Mischka didn't have to be afraid of being seen. Protected by a barrack, he watched the tracks until he saw a row of passenger coaches on a track. Like a dark shadow he slid between the tracks and the railway carriages to these passenger coaches. In fact, the identification plate said ‘Moscow.’ Tomorrow morning the train would roll towards the capital, and with him!

  He looked around, opened the door of
the last passenger coach and slipped in. In the toilet he opened the hatch to the supply tunnel. Then he threw his luggage up, climbed the edge of the toilet and pulled himself up. Up in the supply tunnel it smelled of grease, metal and stale air.

  Mischka climbed down again, opened the toilet window a little bit and climbed back again. Then he rolled out his sleeping bag and made himself comfortable. When he got tired, he closed the hatch and wedged its bolt additionally. If someone wanted to climb into the supply tunnel, he wouldn't be able to surprise him. If he came from the other side, he still had plenty of time to disappear. He doubted, however, that one of the railway workers on the edge of civilization would check in here. A repair would be left, if at all possible, to the comrades at Moscow Central Station.

  A rude push woke him from his sleep. Mischka was startled, hit his head on the low roof of the passenger coach and cursed quietly. Slowly it dawned on him where he was. The locomotive had docked. The train would soon enter the station and the first passengers would board. He envied the people who could make themselves comfortable on the seat cushions. But here under the roof of the wagon it was still better to travel than to have to cross the Urals on foot. Winter was just around the corner and would lay a white carpet over the landscape within the next few days.

  Steps echoed through the wagon. Doors were opened and closed. The conductor probably checked all the compartments again. Mischka held his breath when the man briefly opened the toilet door. He felt the conductor's gaze as if his eyes could penetrate the ceiling.

  Had his shoes left a trace of dirt on the toilet lid, a treacherous sign of his presence? Mischka breathed a sigh of relief as the man closed the door again and grumbled something into his beard. Obviously, he hadn't seen anything.

  A few minutes later the train started moving and entered the station. Feet trampled through the passage below him. Pieces of luggage were dragged over the ground and thrown into the baggage net. Mischka heard the muffled voices of the passengers. He couldn't understand them, and that reassured him. If he didn't hear them, they wouldn't hear him either if he made more noise than necessary. When the train rolled out of the station, these worries would also disappear. The shaking and rolling of the wagons drowned out any other sound.

  Calmly Mischka rolled back into his sleeping bag and closed his eyes. The heat that flowed through the heating pipes soon afterwards made him tired again. A short time later he slept deeply and soundly.

  Over the next few days, he lost his sense of time. During the day, sparse light fell through the ventilation slits of the roof, but the even "tak-tak-tok" of the wheels lulled him in. When he had to go to the toilet, he would first listen for someone coming down the aisle. If he heard nothing suspicious, he climbed down through the hatch and locked the door, so he could treat himself to a little body care.

  Only once had the situation become critical when a man hammered against the door and ordered him to hurry. But after Mischka had yelled back that he had diarrhea and there was no chance that he would come out within the next twenty minutes, the man had trotted off and visited the toilet in another wagon.

  Every time the brakes squeaked and the train stopped in a station, Mischka listened hard to the announcement on the platform. It was often omitted, perhaps because the station was too insignificant or because the comrade on duty did not feel like telling the passengers where they were.

  It was already night when Mischka heard the name of a station that made him wide awake. The next station was Kotlas. That's where he had to get off and change trains. After the locomotive started again, he changed his clothes and packed his things together. Then he waited in the utmost tension. It was quiet in the passenger coach under him. Most of the travelers were certainly lying crooked on their seats in deep sleep, their hand luggage firmly clamped under their arms.

  The train braked and then rolled at low speed over bumpy tracks and switches. Mischka opened the hatch, climbed down and locked the toilet door. Then he fetched his luggage and closed the supply channel again with the hatch cover. Afterwards he checked his appearance. With the professor's clothes, he wouldn't stand out in Kotlas.

  The wheels screeched when the brakes pulled. One last jolt and the train stopped. Mischka opened the toilet door and stepped into the corridor. A handful of travelers got out of the wagon. Mischka followed them and stepped on the platform.

  The border

  It was already dark when Mischka got off the train. Around him, people with travel suitcases and bags hurried down the platform or waited to board the train. The clock of the station showed ten past eleven. Snowflakes whirled through the sparse neon light of the platforms and covered the grey concrete floor like powdered sugar.

  Mischka shouldered his luggage and walked calmly to the exit of the station. He was one of the many travelers who were now heading for their apartment, their friends or relatives, or a cheap place to stay. In a few minutes he would disappear into the darkness of the streets.

  "Hello Mischka!"

  He forced himself not to look for the caller.

  "Hey, Mischka, don't you remember me?"

  It went through him hot and cold. He knew the voice. From the corner of his eye, he saw a young man running towards him. Yes, it was Aljoscha, his fellow student from Moscow. Mischka felt his heartbeat begin to pound in his veins. Still, he went on like he wasn't meant to. He could not under any circumstances betray himself, however much it hurt him.

  Aljoscha! He wouldn't have believed he'd see him again. Probably he had visited his parents and was now on his way back to university.

  Mischka accelerated his steps and strove for the exit. Abruptly the young man stopped, shook his head and turned around, "I can already see ghosts," he said in a low voice, so that all those standing around could hear him. Then he joined the queue of those waiting at the train door.

  A soldier came down the platform. He took a searching look at Aljoscha and rushed to the exit.

  ◆◆◆

  "What's up?" Juri Wdowetschenko barked into the handset. "A call from Kotlas, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel." As always, the voice of his secretary sounded a little frightened and disturbed. "One of our men wants to speak you urgently."

  "What's the man in Kotlas doing?"

  "He's on home leave."

  "All right, put him through!"

  A voice came forward. "This is Lukash Brjanew. I just saw Michail Wulff."

  "Michail Wulff?" Wdowetschenko jumped up. His chair tipped backwards and rumbled to the ground. "Say that again."

  "I just saw the escaped convict Michail Wulff."

  "Where?"

  "Here, in Kotlas, at the station. He got off the Salechard train and is now walking down the main street."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I'm sure! I won't forget this guy. I can still feel the bump on my head today."

  "Man, get in pursuit. And call in the militia instead of making long phone calls!"

  “I’m on it, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel. It snowed a little here. So, Wulff leaves clear traces. He can't get away from me."

  "Well, then, hurry up! Bring me this Wulff, dead or alive. But don't let him get away!"

  The man on the other end of the line hung up.

  What a stupid nut! Wdowetschenko thought.

  Instead of arresting the refugee, Brjanew first had to call him. He hit the desk with his flat hand. Inability and lack of initiative wherever you look, and Lieutenant Litschenko had let Wulff escape. Right in front of him, he had boarded a train at Salechard and had left for the West without being noticed. The man was as good as dead. For the next few years he would be living his miserable existence in northeastern Siberia. That was for sure. Litschenko's career in the USSR army was over. Once and for all!

  Wdowetschenko reached for the telephone receiver. "Lisa, connect me to the KGB in Kotlas. It's urgent! Wulff was seen there at the station. If we want to catch him this time, we have to make full use of all the possibilities. I don't think Brjanew can do it alone."
<
br />   Wdowetschenko was now sure that the exploding tank truck had not been a coincidence. The autopsy of the corpse had revealed that the driver had died of a heart attack days before. Someone had hoisted him behind the wheel and set the truck on fire. No doubt it had been an attack on the camp, perhaps even on his life! After Michail Wulff showed up at Salechard, he could count on five fingers of his hand who had committed this attack.

  Again and again this son of a bitch had escaped his pursuers. Somehow this was fishy. It was as if everything had conspired against him, Juri Wdowetschenko. Now Wulff was on his way west. He probably would try to escape across the border to Poland, Hungary or Finland. If he didn't set all the machinery in motion to catch that man again, his head would be put on the block! After all, he had the final responsibility.

  Juri Wdowetschenko's jaw muscles tensed. He had to rush the entire KGB on Wulff's trail by making him the most important secret agent who was not allowed to escape west by any means. He could no longer rely on Litschenko and Chrapow.

  ◆◆◆

  After he left the station, Mischka turned from the main street into an alley and ran on through side streets. His feet left treacherous traces. Even a child could follow them.

  Suddenly he felt like he wasn't alone. His instinct, sharpened in the wilderness, told him he was being followed. He looked around. There was nothing to see. The street was illuminated only sparsely by the dull light of a lantern. Again and again he stopped unexpectedly and listened. No doubt about it! Someone was following him. The steps were clear to hear. Now his pursuer also stopped. Mischka continued his way, suddenly bent down and fiddled at his shoelaces. He looked back for a moment. A man disappeared in the shadow of a house.

  Mischka thought feverishly. He had no idea who his pursuer was. It couldn't be Aljoscha. He wouldn't sneak up on him. Perhaps it was one of the criminals who did not officially exist in the Soviet Union and who were therefore free to pursue their shady deals relatively unhindered. Some of the men disappeared and some of the murders committed by criminals were attributed to state security. But no one dared to talk about it. Nobody wanted to mess with the KGB and the Russian Mafia. Mischka decided to go to a busier street, even though he wasn't afraid of a mugger.