Archive 17 ip-3

by Sam Eastland

  When he finally noticed Sedov, the man let out a cry. As he struggled to remove his rifle, he tripped and tumbled over backwards. Instead of scrambling to his feet again, he just lay there, panting clouds of vapor, overcome with exhaustion.

  “Gramotin?” croaked Sedov.

  Gramotin lifted his head. Frozen breath had turned his hair into a mane of frost. “Sedov? Is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Gone.”

  Gramotin clambered up until he was resting on his knees. “And they left you?”

  “I am wounded,” explained Sedov.

  From the trees above, water dripped from melting icicles, sprinkling like diamonds upon Gramotin’s head.

  “They shouldn’t have left you.” Gramotin’s voice rose with indignation. He limped over to Sedov and flopped down beside him.

  “A wolf licked my face,” remarked Sedov. “I thought it was a dream.”

  “A wolf?” Gramotin looked around nervously.

  “Where are the other guards?”

  Gramotin leaned over and spat. “There are no others. Only me. The rest all ran away.”

  “Cowards,” muttered Sedov.

  “Looks like we’ve both been let down.” Although Gramotin would never have admitted it, he was glad to have run into Sedov, as opposed to any of the others. Tarnowski either would have killed him by now or would have died trying and Lavrenov would be wheedling some deal to save his life. Pekkala, being a Finn, would probably have vanished like a ghost. But Sedov was not like those men. There had always been a certain gentleness about him, which Gramotin could not help admiring, even as he despised this fatal weakness in Sedov’s character. Men like Sedov did not usually last more than a few months in the camp. The ones who tended to live longest were men more like himself, who showed a minimum of compassion for those around them and who lied and cheated and stole. If they did not arrive at Borodok that way, they soon learned how to behave that way if they wanted to survive. Sedov had been the exception. Not only had Sedov endured, but he had never lost that fundamental goodness which he brought with him to the camp. It was not in Gramotin’s nature to tolerate goodness. At Borodok, it represented a useless appendage, like that of an animal doomed to extinction, and it was in Gramotin’s nature to attempt to beat it out of Sedov, year after year, with a relentless cruelty that astonished even himself.

  Sitting there beside this wounded man, who neither groveled for his life nor used up his last breath to kill another human being, Gramotin experienced remorse. This had never happened to him before and it immediately plunged him into a state of great confusion. He felt an overwhelming urge to perform some act of kindness, however small, to atone for all the suffering he had caused.

  Gramotin considered apologizing to Sedov, but the idea struck him as absurd. Then he toyed with the notion of abandoning his search for Pekkala and carrying Sedov back to the camp hospital. But this idea Gramotin also cast aside, knowing that even if Sedov did recover from his injury, which looked doubtful, he would be shot for attempting to escape.

  As Gramotin pondered this, he pulled a loaf of paika bread from his pocket, broke off a piece and pressed it into Sedov’s mouth. Then he bit off a slab for himself.

  For a while, there was no sound except the two men chewing on the stale bread.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” said Sedov.

  “I just did,” mumbled Gramotin, his mouth still full of bread.

  “A bigger favor.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I need you to shoot me.”

  Gramotin turned and stared at Sedov.

  “You’ve shot plenty of people before,” Sedov reasoned.

  “Not like this.” Hurriedly, Gramotin stood, leaning on his rifle as if it were a walking stick. “I have to go.”

  “What if the wolves come back?”

  For a moment, the permanent rage which had molded itself into the contours of Gramotin’s face completely vanished. Instead, he just looked terrified. From his pocket, he removed the gun he had taken off Klenovkin’s body. Tossing it into Sedov’s lap, he turned and quickly walked away. Although he knew that Sedov would not use that gun to harm him, it dawned on Gramotin that, if the positions had been reversed, he would have used whatever bullets remained in that pistol to shoot Sedov dead, wolves or no wolves. He would not have been able to help himself. This, too, was in his nature.

  Gramotin had not gone far when he heard the flat crack of a pistol back in the woods. He paused, wondering whether to go back and retrieve the gun. Remembering the wolves, he decided against it and pushed on.

  Three hours later, beside the Trans-Siberian Railroad, Gramotin found the Comitati encampment from the night before. They had not been gone long. Their fire was still smoking. Now that Gramotin had stopped moving, his sweat immediately began to cool. He could feel the warmth being stripped from his body, like layers peeled off an onion. Without a second thought, Gramotin threw himself down on the smoldering ground and lay there, fingers dug into the ashes, warming himself. Minutes passed. The heat fanned out across his ribs like a bird spreading its wings. Only when he could smell the wool of his coat beginning to singe did he finally get to his feet. He slapped the embers from his clothes and scrambled up the embankment to the track.

  The sight of these rails brought back to Gramotin memories of the Revolution, when he had fought first against the White Army of Admiral Kolchak, then against the Czech Legion, and finally against the Americans of the ill-fated Siberian Expeditionary Force. Of these three, it was the Czechs who had left him with the deepest mental scars. They had commandeered trains, fitted them with guns, blast shields, and battering rams, bestowed on them heroic names, then rode the tracks to Vladivostok, destroying everything in their path. Gramotin himself had taken part in an ambush against one of these armored convoys. Crouching with a dozen comrades in hastily dug foxholes, he had fired an entire machine-gun belt at a Czech locomotive, christened the ORLIK in large white letters painted on its front, and barely left a blemish on its steel hide. And then that train, without even bothering to slow down, had turned its guns upon the place where Gramotin was hiding with his men and chopped the earth to pieces. All Gramotin could do was cower in his hole and wait for the shooting to stop. It was over in less than a minute.

  For a while, the only sound was the groaning of the wounded.

  Then, to his horror, Gramotin heard a shriek of brakes in the distance. The metal beast reversed until it came level with the place where the Czechs had been ambushed.

  Seeing men jump down from the train, Gramotin grabbed the nearest body from among his bullet-riddled comrades and hid himself beneath the bloody corpse.

  With pistols in their hands, the Czechs searched among the dead, shooting the wounded and emptying their pockets of anything that caught their eye. Gramotin trembled uncontrollably as one man, wearing a heavy turtleneck sweater and a sleeveless leather jerkin which came down to his knees, pulled aside the body under which he had been hiding.

  Too terrified to run, Gramotin lay there with his face pressed against the earth, waiting for a bullet in the head.

  But the bullet never came.

  Ransacking the corpse, the Czech gathered up cigarettes, papers of identification, a compass, and a small linen bag containing shreds of dried salmon, but he did not touch Gramotin.

  There was no doubt in Gramotin’s mind that the man could see him breathing. He had no idea why his life had been spared. In years to come, this strange act of kindness so tormented Gramotin that there were times he wished he had been killed along with the rest.

  When the Czechs finally left, Gramotin walked among the bodies and discovered he was the only survivor.

  As evening fell on that day of the ambush, Gramotin glimpsed the smokelike shadows of wolves approaching through the forest. Climbing a tall pine tree, he clung to the prickly branches, sap gluing his hands to the bark, while the wolf pack feasted on
the dead.

  All night, the sound of powerful jaws crunching cartilage and bone echoed in Gramotin’s skull. When morning came, the wolves were gone, leaving behind an abattoir of human flesh.

  Three days later, Gramotin was picked up by a band of Cossacks patrolling the tracks, by which time he had become so deranged that they had no choice except to tie him up. The Cossacks slung him over a packhorse and, when they came to the nearest village, dumped him in the middle of the street and kept on riding. Rolling in the mud, Gramotin raged and spat until at last the villagers knocked him out with a wooden mallet. It was a week before the villagers dared to untie him and another week before he spoke in any language they, or even he, could understand.

  A thousand times since then, that Czech locomotive had ridden through his dreams. These days, even the sound of a train in the distance conjured from Gramotin’s mind horrors so vivid that he could not tell which ones were real and which ones his crippled brain had conjured into life.

  Standing on these tracks again filled Gramotin with such dread that it took all of his resolve not to turn tail and run back to camp.

  The Ostyaks had been here. Gramotin could see the hoof marks of their animals. But the sleds seemed to have gone off in more than one direction. Those who had headed west, back into Russia, were none of his concern. Pekkala and the Comitati would be heading towards China, and they were the ones he was after. Turning to the east, Gramotin set off walking down the tracks.

  As the plane made its way towards Siberia, Kirov stared at moonlight glimmering off the wings.

  What if I can’t find Pekkala? he wondered. What if I do find him but it’s too late and those bastards have killed him? What will happen to this country without the Emerald Eye? What will happen to me? Kirov’s fists clenched as he thought of what a poor student he had been. I could never keep up with Pekkala’s logic, he told himself. Things that made perfect sense to him were total mysteries to me. I must have been a constant disappointment. I should never have pestered him so much about those clothes he wears. Please let me find Pekkala, Kirov prayed to the outlawed gods. Please let me bring him home safe.

  This wandering through the labyrinth of his mind was interrupted by the voice of the pilot, exploding through the headset as if the words had been uttered by God. “What are you going to do when you reach Vladivostok?”

  “I will commandeer a train and make my way to Nikolsk.”

  “Nikolsk is west of Vladivostok,” said the pilot. “We will fly right over it on our way there.”

  “But the nearest landing field is at Vladivostok,” replied Kirov. “At least that’s what I was told.”

  “That is correct, Comrade Major. Nevertheless, you will lose valuable time.”

  “I am aware of that,” retorted Kirov irritably, “but unless you can set this thing down on the train tracks …”

  “No, that is impossible. The landing gear would break and there are telegraph wires running alongside the tracks.”

  “Then we have no choice except to head for Vladivostok!” Satisfied that they had now reached the end of this pointless conversation, Kirov let his gaze drift to the darkness below. Rivers, reflecting the moon, cut through the black like silver snakes. Far away, almost lost on the horizon, he glimpsed a tiny cluster of lights from some remote village, and they seemed so frail in that vast sea of ink that Kirov felt as if he had trespassed into a place where all that he held sacred counted for nothing anymore.

  “We might not have to land the plane.” The pilot’s words rang crackling and metallic through the headset.

  “What?”

  “Do you see those straps hanging down by your seat?”

  Barely able to move inside the cocoon of the sheepskin-lined flight suit, Kirov leaned forward and squinted into the seat well. “Yes, I see them.”

  “I must ask you to buckle them on.”

  “Why? What are they for?”

  “Your parachute,” replied the pilot, “for when you jump out of the plane.”

  Ten hours later, after two refueling stops, the plane banked lazily to circle the railway junction of Nikolsk at an altitude of seven hundred feet. Kirov slid back the rear section of the cockpit canopy. With the deliberate and clumsy movements of a child just learning to walk, he climbed out onto the wing, keeping a firm grip on the rim of the canopy.

  The pilot’s jaunty explanation of how to bail out of a moving aircraft had done nothing to inspire confidence in Kirov. “I can’t do this!” he shouted into the wind.

  “We have been over this a dozen times, Comrade Major. It’s just like I told you. Wait until I tip the plane and then let go.”

  “I don’t care what you told me. Don’t you dare tip this plane!”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Definitely not!”

  “Remember to count to five before you pull the rip cord!”

  It’s simple, Kirov told himself. You just have to let go. For a moment, he thought he could do it. Then, through watering eyes, he stared past the wing to the tiny junction below him. Around it, for as far as he could see, snow-covered woods fanned out in all directions. At that moment his courage failed him completely. “I’m getting back in!” he shouted.

  The words had not even left his mouth when the plane’s right wing dipped sharply and Kirov’s legs swept out from under him. For a second, his fingers maintained their grip on the cockpit rim. Then he tumbled howling into space. All around him were the roar of the plane’s motor and the rushing of the air. Without counting to five, or any other number, Kirov slapped his hand against his chest, gripped the red-painted oblong metal ring and pulled it as hard as he could.

  In a thunder of unraveling silk, the chute deployed.

  As the canopy came taut, Kirov experienced a jolt which seemed to dislodge every vertebra in his spine.

  Seconds later, he emerged into a strange and peaceful silence. Drifting through space, he had no sensation of falling.

  By now, the plane was no more than a speck against the eggshell sky, droning like a mosquito as it headed on towards its next refueling stop.

  A hundred feet below him, Kirov could see the rail yard of Nikolsk. There was only one building, with a tar-paper roof, a chimney in the middle, and rain barrels beneath each corner gutter. Next to it stood a jumbled heap of firewood almost as big as the building itself.

  The main track ran directly past the building. Opposite lay a siding, which curved in a long metal frown across a clearing littered with buckets, spare railroad ties, and stacks of extra rail. At one end sat an old engine, with sides reinforced by layers of riveted steel so that it resembled a giant sleeping tortoise. At the rear and on both sides of the train, gun turrets bulged like frogs’ eyes. Painted on it, in large white letters, was the name ORLIK. At first, the engine appeared to be nothing more than a relic, but then Kirov noticed that there was smoke coming from its stack. As he watched, a man climbed down from the engine and began to make his way across the siding.

  Kirov called to the person, who spun around, searching for the source of the noise. Kirov called once more, and only then did the man raise his head, staring in amazement up into the milky sky.

  Lulled by his dreamlike descent, Kirov was now startled to see treetops flashing past as the ground seemed to rise up to meet him. His foot touched the roof of the station house. With long, dancelike steps, he bounded over the shingles, finally coming to a halt only an arm’s length from the edge.

  Kirov gave a triumphant shout, only to be swept off the roof a second later when his chute billowed past him in the breeze.

  He came down hard on the ice-patched ground and lay there in a daze, the wind knocked out of him.

  A face, festooned with tufts of unkempt beard, appeared above him. “Who are you?” asked the man.

  At first, Kirov did not reply. He sat up and looked around. After so many hours in the air, he found the solidity of the earth beneath his aching rear end overwhelming.

  The man crouched down. Along with
a set of dirty overalls, he wore a thick fur vest with the hair turned out, giving him an appearance so primitive that Kirov wondered if he had fallen not only through space but also, perhaps, through time.

  “I saw the plane. Has it crashed?”

  “No. I jumped.”

  The man looked at his desolate surroundings, as if he might have missed something. “But why?”

  “I’ll explain everything,” replied Kirov. “Just let me get up first.”

  The man helped Kirov out of his parachute harness. Then the two of them gathered the chute and, not knowing what else to do with it, stuffed the silk in one of the empty rain barrels.

  “My name is Deryabin,” said the man as they made their way towards the station house.

  “Kirov. Major Kirov. Where are the others?”

  “What others?”

  “Is there no one else here?”

  “Let me put it this way, Comrade Major: You have just doubled the population for the entire district.”

  The station house was a one-room building, with bales of hay stacked three high around the outside walls for winter insulation. The shutters had been welded closed by snow whipped up from passing trains.

  The air inside the station house was rank and musty. To Kirov, it smelled like the locker room of the NKVD sports facility where he had done some of his basic training.

  A bunk stood at one end, its rope mattress sagging almost to the floor. Beside the stove, which dominated the center of the room, two chairs were set out, as if the man had been expecting company. The far wall of the house was completely hidden behind a barricade of canned goods, still in their cardboard cases, with their names-peas, meat, evaporated milk-accompanied by manufacture dates more than a decade old.

  The first thing Deryabin did when he entered the house was to empty his pockets onto a table beside the door. Fistfuls of what looked to Kirov like large fish scales were already heaped upon the bare wood. To these the man now added another pile. They jingled as he let them fall.