The Ice Curtain

by Robin White

  “He called it an accident.”

  Chuchin snorted. “The only accident was that the miners didn’t burn the fucking city to the ground. They were sick of working without pay, so they stole a Belaz. Maybe they were going to drive it to Moscow. Who knows? Someone had the idea of going to the plant. They ran over a gas pipe. There was a spark. Boom.”

  “Why would anyone stay in Mirny and work for nothing?”

  “He said it wasn’t possible to leave. They’d lose their accounts.”

  “What accounts?”

  “Kristall pays half their salaries with veskels. The other half is in dollars they deposit overseas. Or so they say. If a miner leaves, all he gets to keep are the veskels. The miners who aren’t miners? They get paid in dollars. It’s why they can afford these.” He held up the Marlboros. “Everyone else gets a little envelope every month saying how rich he is. Every fucking miner is worth forty, fifty thousand dollars. Except he can’t spend it. It drove Vadim’s wife crazy. She didn’t bother with a divorce. She just left. That’s when he started crying and handed the keys over. He wanted to join her, but he couldn’t. He said he wasn’t brave enough.”

  It was another pyramid scheme. Stay and work for promises or leave penniless. Nowek sat back in the seat as the dusty road unfurled. Were the dollars even real? Even if they were, he doubted they’d ever find a way into the hands of a miner. No. The miners here weren’t just unpaid. They were prisoners. Not of barbed wire or ice. But of their own hope.

  Chuchin’s leather coat was zippered to the neck, as though winter never left his bones, which, in a way, was true. He glanced at Nowek and said, “You have that look. You’re thinking.”

  “Boyko said their quota was twenty thousand tons of ore a day. A Belaz can carry one hundred tons. That’s two hundred trips from the pit to the ore plant.”

  “I haven’t seen three trucks on the road.”

  “So how are they making quota?”

  “They’re not.”

  “Then how could the cartel in London buy four million carats of gem diamond from Kristall? If they aren’t coming from the pit, where are they coming from?”

  Chuchin paused. “The other mine?”

  Nowek looked back at Mirny Deep’s tower. White vapor streamed from the top. A cloud, a ribbon drawn out by the wind, then gone.

  Could Kristall pull it off? Nowek knew it was common practice to keep as much of your business off the books as possible. That’s why every businessman, from factory chief to the owner of the corner liquor kiosk, put on paper only what he was willing to have confiscated by the tax police. But Kristall wasn’t a corner liquor kiosk. It wasn’t a factory. It was the source of a quarter of the world’s gem diamonds. Could Kristall run an entire mine off the books? Could they just decide to cut Moscow out of the deal entirely, and make their own way in the diamond world? With the cartel?

  The van left a trail of rising dust, a gritty plume that flattened in the wind. They bumped up onto the paved road to Mirny. It was made in typical Soviet fashion: huge precast slabs of concrete dropped like oversize dominoes onto the ground. The permafrost shifted beneath them, sagging, melting, buckling the panels into an obstacle course.

  Nowek sat back.

  “We try to ignore Moscow.”

  “That look.” Chuchin scowled. “You’re thinking again.”

  “Have you ever heard of a Potemkin village, Chuchin?”

  “I don’t like travel.”

  “This was in 1787. Prince Potemkin was governor of Crimea and Empress Catherine was coming on an inspection tour.”

  “Like you.”

  “Things were a mess.”

  “Like now.”

  “Potemkin couldn’t let her find out, so he built a false-front village so she could see how wonderful everything was. Houses, stores, well-dressed peasants. Bread baking in the ovens.”

  “What are you saying? Mirny is one of these Potemkin villages?”

  “No,” said Nowek. “That the open pit might be a Potemkin mine. Only here it’s backward. They send the gems to Irkutsk and the junk to Moscow, and if anyone comes here to look . . .”

  “They can say From this mine? What diamonds?”

  “Sure,” said Nowek. “Meanwhile the good diamonds are sold. Those overseas accounts get bigger.”

  “Who do they belong to?”

  Nowek didn’t have to think long. “When I find that out, we’ll know who murdered Volsky.”

  “If you ask me, Volsky would have figured this out.”

  “Probably.”

  “And they stopped him. Why do you think you’ll do better?”

  “Volsky marched into a minefield. We’ll take it step by step.”

  “When it comes to mines, one step is all it takes.”

  They entered a district of raw, ten-story concrete apartment flats that blocked the view to the mine. Piers elevated them above the permafrost. The unpainted concrete walls were streaked in red rust and grime, the corners gnawed by wind, chipped by cold.

  Chuchin said, “You’re right. Nothing much has changed in Mirny. It reminds me of a story.”

  “No stories, Chuchin.”

  Chuchin was unimpeded. “Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev are riding the train together to the future when the tracks suddenly stop. They hit the brakes and scratch their heads. Lenin says, Organize the villagers to cut wood for ties! The steelworkers will forge tracks! The rail crews will hammer it into the ground! Shoulder to shoulder, we’ll roll on to true communism!”

  Chuchin’s eyebrows curved down, tricky and sinister, his accent syrupy Georgian. “Stalin says, It’s the engineers’ fault. Arrest them and shoot them. Who needs tracks? We’ll run the train across their bodies. He’s about to give the order when Brezhnev interferes. Comrades! I have an even better idea. We’ll pull the shades down and pretend we’re moving. But then Gorbachev says, Who needs rails? We’ll just call the train a bus, drive ahead, and see what happens.

  “The train moves. It’s almost off the end when Yeltsin jumps out of the woods with a bottle and says, Stop! Forget the future! Everyone! Back to the past!”

  “And so?”

  “That’s Mirny,” said Chuchin. “You don’t need a nose to smell it.”

  “I’m surprised you can still smell anything.”

  “Pah.”

  The administrative center of town was built around an open square that looked both ceremonial and ominous. A place for parades and executions. In its center, what else? A black, heroic bust of Lenin almost two stories high. It was surrounded by a grizzled fringe of park, all stunted trees and gap-toothed fences. To the right was the mayor’s office and the militia station. To the left was a small hotel, the Zarnitsa. The name meant first light of dawn. At the back of the square was Kristall’s apparat, its headquarters.

  Chuchin slowed as they approached the statue. The ground at its base was studded with broken vodka bottles. Executed in smooth black stone, Lenin glared down at the few people hurrying by. His forehead was bizarrely pronounced, as though ready to burst and spread the seeds of revolution across fallow land.

  Chuchin lit a new cigarette from the smoldering tip of the old, then flicked the stub out the window.

  Nowek asked, “Do you ever wonder what your lungs look like?”

  “Never.” Chuchin pulled into a reserved parking spot at Kristall’s front door. The apparat was modest for a diamond company. Plain concrete stairs beneath a projecting concrete awning. A simple revolving glass door at the top. All the windows were covered by heavy steel security screens. “So.” He killed the engine.

  Nowek paused, looking at the shabby building.

  “You have that look again,” said Chuchin.

  “How could someone here know where Galena was staying in America?”

  “They couldn’t.”

  “So who sent her those diamonds?”

  “Someone bigger. Some Moscow shit like Petrov.”

  “Maybe.” Nowek slid open the side door and g
ot out. “I shouldn’t be long. Find a quiet place for me to call Moscow. If Levin is still there, he has to know what happened to Sherbakov.”

  The revolving door swept Nowek into an air-lock entry guarded by men wearing the old uniform of the KGB. They sat in glass booths, their hands poised, waiting for Nowek’s papers.

  Nowek gave them up and was allowed to pass.

  Kristall’s apparat was two buildings masquerading as one. The bleached, broken exterior blended with Mirny depressingly well. Inside, the lobby looked and felt more European, less Russian. It was orderly, with only a hint of the normal Russian odors of cigarettes, boiled cabbage, and sweat. It took a lot of effort to establish the illusion of order. It took even more to keep Russian smells at bay. Squint, and it might be Berlin.

  The vaulted atrium was filled with light. A cascading waterfall of crystals hung from the skylight beams, catching the light and flashing in imitation of a diamond’s fire. In the center, a fountain splashed over wet, blue rocks. Not just any rocks, but kimberlite ore, the native rock of diamond.

  Nowek walked over to a glass display case.

  Inside it, bathed in spotlights, big rough crystals sparkled against black velvet. They couldn’t be real, not sitting behind just a thin sheet of glass.

  The stones had names. The Larisa Popugayeva was the biggest at a full 336 carats, followed by the Pushkin at 320 carats. Next the Star of Yakutia, the diamond Boyko said was found in a rubble pile, at 304 carats. There was even a Twenty-Sixth Party Congress stone. It was a lumpy, egg-shaped chunk with a crack up one side. Someone had a sense of humor, though back then he’d probably been shot for it.

  “Delegate Nowek!”

  He turned. Larisa Arkova was hurrying in his direction, long legs striding, feet kicking forward, awkward in her heels. Her neck was flushed. She swept a loose strand of hair off her forehead. “I’m sorry to be late. There was an accident at the pit.”

  “The Sib-Auto engineer.”

  “He wasn’t from Sib-Auto. Director Kirillin called Irkutsk to inform the company. They had no one on today’s flight.”

  Nowek was surprised. That she knew. That she was willing to say. “Perhaps this is not the best time to meet with the mine director.”

  “No, please. It’s all been arranged. We can wait for him in his office. Would you follow me?” She turned away and began walking to the stairs, her heels making that familiar, determined rhythm, one that allowed for no disagreement, no indecision, no alternative.

  The elevators each had a sign that read, NE RABOTAYET. Not working. Finally a detail amidst the cool, uncluttered lobby that made Nowek feel like he was still in Russia.

  “I understand you were once a geologist,” she said as she paused at the foot of the stairs. “So instead of the usual information about our mine, I prepared some notes on the history of the diamond industry. I think history can be helpful in understanding the future.”

  “Do you really believe that, Miss Arkova?”

  “Sure. Don’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer before starting upstairs. “The first diamond pipe was mined in an open pasture at Colesberg Kopje, South Africa. That was in 1871.”

  “It makes you wonder. The deserts of Africa and Australia. Northwest Canada. Siberia,” he said. “Why do diamonds show up in such places? Why not New York? Paris? Why not Minsk?”

  “I’m sure you would know,” she said, unwilling to be drawn too far from her script. “The first South African pit was divided into approximately five hundred claims, each ten meters square with narrow borders used as access roads. As the claims went deeper, the roads became less dependable. Kimberlite is not well suited to bearing heavy traffic or loads. The roads collapsed. Mine claims were buried.”

  “But no miners?”

  “Loss of life is expected under unregulated conditions.”

  “The pit here is safer?”

  “The period of individual claims was marked by irrational development. When Cecil Rhodes acquired all the holdings in 1889, those problems vanished. The company he formed was named for the farmer who owned the original pasture. De Beers.”

  Their slow ascent seemed carefully timed. He felt obligated to throw her timing off. “Have you ever met someone from the cartel?”

  “An Oppenheimer. The young one. Nicky. They call him the Cuban because he wears a bushy beard. To be honest, he seemed unhappy.”

  “All that wealth must be a great responsibility.”

  “I suppose he was unhappy in his own way.” Her steps came fractionally faster, as though to make up for lost time.

  “You like Chekhov?”

  “You mean Tolstoy. Happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Or am I wrong?” She knew she was right and dared him to deny it.

  He didn’t. Couldn’t. “What keeps you in Mirny? The bracing winters? You’re a skier? A student of permafrost construction?”

  “My husband was hired by Kristall.”

  “So it was love.”

  “He’s been in Angola for the last three years.”

  “So much for love. My daughter once said she would do anything to get out of Russia. I told her it wasn’t so easy. She did it anyway.”

  That stopped her. Her expression opened slightly. “How?”

  “A student visa. She’s in America.”

  “But how was it arranged? You have to be sponsored.”

  “She was. I have an American friend. Her name is Anna.”

  Larisa seemed honestly excited, as though Nowek had gone shopping for soap powder and discovered a cache of chocolates hidden behind the box. “Maybe she would sponsor you, too.”

  “She offered,” said Nowek. “I turned her down.”

  Larisa stood by a closed door. She knocked on it, then took hold of the knob. “So much for love,” she said with a smile, and opened it.

  Chapter 19

  The Mine Director

  “Director Kirillin? I’m Gregori—”

  “I know your name.” Kirillin had a telephone pressed to his ear. His hand covered the mouthpiece. “Now I’m learning who you are. Give me a moment. I wouldn’t want to miss anything.”

  His name might be Russian but the mine director looked like a Korean businessman, dressed in a silver-gray suit, white shirt, and striped tie. In his mid-forties, the native Yakut had nut-brown skin, a black helmet of hair streaked with silver, and the compact, muscular frame of a boxer. With his telephone, his brace of pens, Kirillin could have stepped out of the pages of To the Diamond Frontier!

  Nowek looked for a place to sit. No chairs. Apparently, Kirillin wasn’t fond of long meetings.

  There was a bookshelf with volumes so neatly arrayed you knew they hadn’t been touched in years. There wasn’t a hint of anything personal, anything that suggested a world beyond the immediate grasp of the mine director. A map of the Mirny pit occupied one wall. A polished silver hard hat hung from a peg. Next to it, an overcoat smeared with grease. A window framed a view of drab concrete walls. A snowflake tumbled by.

  “That’s the general view of the situation,” said Kirillin. He glanced up at Nowek. “When can I see a copy of the decree?”

  Nowek thought, There are two kinds of meetings in Russia. The first, when something is actually expected to happen. There will be a table covered in green baize, one glass for water that no one will touch, one for syrupy sweet soft drinks for sipping, and a small tumbler for endless congratulatory rounds of iced vodka.

  Then there is this kind of meeting.

  “Tomorrow is soon enough,” said Kirillin. “We have weather coming in. Yes. I know. It’s Mirny. Pakah.” Kirillin hung up and pushed back from his desk like a man finishing a meal. “You were with Boyko a long time.”

  “Like you, I didn’t want to miss a thing.”

  A quick flash of anger radiated from the mine boss, then vanished. Kirillin pressed a buzzer on his phone and said, “Bring in a chair for Delegate Nowek.”

  Outside, the snowflakes fell li
ke fat confetti dumped from an upper-story window. “It’s snowing.”

  “It can snow any month of the year in Mirny. You found Boyko informative?”

  “Not especially. But I found him reliable.”

  Kirillin turned slightly, as though trying to catch a faint sound with a bad ear. “Reliable?”

  “Like DRAGA 1,” Nowek explained. “He told me how long it’s been at work.”

  “Decades.”

  “And how the American machine broke days after it arrived.”

  “He said the Caterpillar broke?”

  “It didn’t?”

  “It was sabotaged. You want to know why? There was an instrument on it, a kind of a clock that measured the hours of operation. You couldn’t run it four hours and get paid for eight, so Boyko’s men made sure it didn’t run at all. That’s how reliable he is.”

  “Well, he didn’t go into details.”

  “Allow me to,” said Kirillin. He nodded at the phone. “That was Moscow. Nobody seems to know why you were appointed to be the new Delegate. Or what you’re doing here, for that matter.”

  “I was appointed by President Yeltsin to take Delegate Volsky’s place. I’m here to fulfill his obligations.”

  “The Kremlin Chief of Staff doesn’t know your name.”

  The Kremlin Chief of Staff was the former mayor of Mirny. Why had Nowek not remembered that until now? “The Kremlin can be a complicated place.”

  “I’d also like to hear how a man the Moscow militia charged with murder manages to become Siberian Delegate.”

  “Moscow is a complicated place, too.”

  Kirillin eyed Nowek with the look of a man seeing a natural enemy. “Mirny isn’t so complicated. Here, you are trusted or not. I don’t trust you. There were two serious breaches in security today. One was your fault, and the other one might be, too.”

  “What breaches?”

  “A man with false documents arrived on the—”

  Two shy knocks came from the door, as though someone was worried it was booby-trapped, as though it might explode.

  “Come!”

  Larisa brought another chair in, slid it to Nowek, smiled, glanced at Kirillin, then left without saying a word.