by Sam Eastland
A wall of splintery wooden crates lined the back of the freezer. The crates were filled with bottles, each one marked with a yellow paper triangle, indicating Soviet army–issue vodka.
On the floor, behind the barricade of vodka crates, lay a dirty brown tarpaulin.
“There he is,” said Klenovkin.
Pekkala knelt down. Pulling aside the brittle cloth, he stared at the man whose death had brought him to Siberia.
Ryabov’s skin had turned a purplish gray. A dark redness filled the lips and nostrils and the dead man’s open eyes had sunk back into his skull. His open mouth revealed a set of teeth rotted by years of neglect.
Ryabov’s throat had been cut back to his spine, as if the murderer had wanted not simply to kill him but had attempted to remove his head as well.
The huge amount of blood which had flowed from Ryabov’s severed jugular had formed a black and brittle crust over the dead man’s chest.
At least it had been quick, Pekkala noted. From a wound like that, Ryabov would have bled out in less than thirty seconds.
The hands of the dead man had been wrapped in strips of rag, a common practice among prisoners to protect against the cold. Pekkala peeled back the layers of filthy cloth. It was not easy. Ice had bonded the strips so solidly together that Pekkala’s fingernails tore as he prised away the layers. At last the skin was exposed, revealing the image of a pine tree which had been crudely etched on the tops of Ryabov’s hands using a razor blade and soot.
“The mark of the Comitati,” observed Klenovkin.
Pekkala set his fingertips against the edges of the wound in the dead man’s neck. The skin was curved back on itself, a sign that the blade used to kill Ryabov had been extremely sharp.
Now Pekkala turned his attention to the man’s clothes. The padded coat and trousers had been washed so many times that the original black color had been bleached to the same dirty white shade as the snow which piled up on street corners in Moscow at the end of winter. The buttons had been replaced with pieces of wood hand-carved into toggles, and there were many repairs in the cloth, each one meticulously stitched with whatever fabric had been available. Searching the pockets of Ryabov’s jacket, Pekkala found nothing but black crumbs of Machorka tobacco, the only kind available to Gulag prisoners. It was made from the stems as well as the leaves of the plant and produced a thick, eye-stinging cloud that could be inhaled only by the most desperate and hardened smoker.
“Where was the body found?” Pekkala asked.
“At the entrance to the mine. I discovered it myself when I went there to speak with him.”
“Why were you there and not in your office?”
“When he first came to me, saying he knew where to find Colonel Kolchak, I told Ryabov I didn’t believe it. Kolchak is dead, I told him. But he insisted he had proof that the colonel was still alive, and he was so convincing that I thought I should at least hear what he had to say.”
“And what did Ryabov want in exchange for this information?”
“He didn’t say. He refused to talk in my office, because he didn’t want to risk being overheard, so we set up the meeting for that night in one of the mine tunnels. It’s not difficult for the prisoners to sneak out of their barracks at night. The entrance to the mine shaft is not guarded and the tunnels are not patrolled at night. We had set a time, just after midnight. By the time I got there, Ryabov had already been killed.”
“I was told you’d found the murder weapon.”
Without removing his hands from the warmth of his pockets, Klenovkin nodded towards an object lying on a nearby crate.
Pekkala saw it now—a crude homemade stiletto, whose finger-length blade had been fashioned from a piece of iron railing. The handle was a split piece of white birch, into which the railing had been inserted and string wrapped tightly around the wood to hold it in place. The tight coils of string were coated with a lacquer of dried blood. “This was made by a prisoner,” said Pekkala.
“It was lying right next to the body,” explained Klenovkin. “There’s no doubt this was the murder weapon.”
Pekkala said nothing, but he knew that the weapon which had killed Ryabov was no prison-made contraption. One glance at the blade told him that.
Prison knives were fashioned to be small, so that they could be easily concealed. He had seen lethal weapons constructed from pieces of tin can no larger than a thumbnail and fitted into the handle of a toothbrush. The weapon Klenovkin claimed he had found beside the body was a type used for stabbing, not cutting.
The blade which had cleaved apart Ryabov’s throat was wide and sharp enough to sever the jugular with one stroke. This was evident in the clean edge of the wound, showing that the killer had not required multiple strokes of the blade to accomplish his task.
“It proves the Comitati were involved,” continued Klenovkin.
“And how have you reached that conclusion?”
Only now did Klenovkin remove a hand from its fur-lined cocoon. One finger uncurled towards the dead man. “The Comitati did this, because no one else would have dared to lay a hand on Ryabov.”
“But why do you think they were the ones who murdered him?”
“I have considered this, Inspector, and there is only one possible answer. I first assumed that he was trying to secure the release of his men along with himself. What else is there to bargain for? But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became. Ryabov had no intention of escaping with the others. The only freedom Ryabov desired was for himself. He had finally seen the Comitati for what they really are—a clan of painted madmen clinging to a prophecy which becomes more and more improbable with every passing year. Ryabov had at last reached the correct conclusion—that unless he did something to help himself, he would die here in the camp.”
“Why do you think he would come to you now, after all these years of silence?”
“I believe their tight-knit group had been whittled away until those few who remained had finally begun to crack. Ryabov was prepared to abandon their old loyalties. The others were not. If you want to find the man who killed Ryabov, you need look no further than the men he used to call his comrades.”
After closing up the freezer, the two men walked out of the kitchen.
Under the glare of the camp’s perimeter lights, sheets of newly formed ice glistened in the compound yard. Beyond the tall stockade fence, the sawtooth line of pine trees stood out against the velvet blue night sky.
“If he was so desperate to escape,” asked Pekkala, “then why did he not simply attempt to leave on his own? He had learned to survive here in the camp. He could have found a way out and then, surely, he could have endured conditions in the forest long enough to make it across the border into China, which is less than a hundred kilometers from here.”
“The answer to that, Inspector, is the same as why you never escaped, in spite of the fact that you lived beyond the gates of this camp, with no guards to oversee your every move. Even if Ryabov could have made it through the forest on his own, he would never have gotten past the Ostyaks.”
“Do you mean to say they are still out there?” Pekkala asked Klenovkin. “I thought you would have driven them away by now.”
“On the contrary,” remarked the commandant. “They are more powerful than ever.”
Beyond the gates of Borodok lay the country of the Ostyaks, a nomadic Asiatic tribe whose territory extended for hundreds of kilometers around the camp.
At the time of the foundation of Borodok and its sister camp, Mamlin-3, on the other side of the Valley of Krasnagolyana, an uneasy truce had been established between these nomads and the Gulag authorities. The valley would belong to the Gulags and the taiga—that maze of rivers, forests, and tundra which made up so much of Siberia—would remain off limits. The camp’s perimeter fence had been built as much to keep the Ostyaks out as to keep the prisoners in.
The Ostyaks butchered any convict found upon the taiga. The corpse was then delivered to the camp. Pekkal
a had heard rumors of bodies returned only after their palms and cheeks had been cut away and eaten.
So violent were these Ostyaks in tracking down those who sought to trespass on their land, and so difficult was the terrain, that, during Pekkala’s years as a convict, not a single successful escape had ever been recorded.
On their visits to Borodok, the Ostyaks traded with the guards, exchanging the pelts of ermine, mink, and arctic fox for tobacco. As a result, some men wore greatcoats lined with furs more precious than anything which ever trimmed the robes of kings and queens.
Occasionally, in winter, a time when his work as a tree-marker would bring him to the outer fringes of the valley, Pekkala had seen the Ostyaks slaloming between the trees on sleds whose iron runners hissed like snakes across the snow. Other times, they seemed to be invisible, and all he heard was the clicking hooves of the lightning-antlered caribou which hauled their sleds and the sinister metallic chant of harness bells.
Up close, Pekkala had only once ever seen them.
Halfway through his first year as a tree-marker, two men appeared one day outside his cabin. They were on their way to Borodok with a sled carrying some men who had escaped from the camp. Whether the Ostyaks had killed them or simply found their frozen bodies out on the taiga, Pekkala could not tell. The rigid, naked corpses lay heaped upon the sled, seeming to claw the air like men snatched from their lives in the midst of grand mal seizures.
At first Pekkala thought these Ostyaks meant to add him to their pile of dead, but all they did was stare at him in silence. Then they turned abruptly and continued their journey.
They never came near him again.
“Those heathens are more useful to me than any of the guards in this camp,” continued Klenovkin. “Over the years, there have been many escape attempts from Borodok, but no one has ever gotten past the Ostyaks, for one very simple reason: I pay them. In bread. In salt. In bullets. I reward them well for every corpse they bring me.”
“But couldn’t Ryabov have bribed them?”
Klenovkin laughed. “With what? The Ostyaks may be savages, but they are also crafty businessmen. They deliberately miscount those bodies they bring me, hoping I am too genteel to stand out in the cold and count the dead. Then, when I catch them in their deception, they grin like imbeciles, throw up their hands, and act like schoolchildren. They have no respect for Soviet authority. As far as the Ostyaks are concerned, the only difference between me and the frozen bodies they bring in is that I have something to trade and those dead men did not. Otherwise, they would never set foot in the Valley of Krasnagolyana, because they say those woods are haunted.”
“By what?”
Klenovkin smiled. “By you, Inspector! Back in the days when you lived out in the forest, they came to believe that you were some kind of monster. And who can blame them? What was it the loggers used to call you—the man with bloody hands? After Stalin recalled you to Moscow, I had a hard time convincing the Ostyaks that you had actually gone. They still believe your spirit haunts this valley. I told you, Inspector, they are a primitive and vicious people.”
“They are just trying to make sense of the things we have brought to their world,” said Pekkala, “and when I see men with their throats cut like the one lying in front of me, I have trouble making sense of it myself.”
“But you will make sense of it,” Klenovkin replied. “That’s why Stalin gave you the job.”
“I may not be able to complete this task alone,” said Pekkala. “I will need to keep in touch with my colleague in Moscow.”
“Of course. That has all been arranged. I have placed you in a job which will allow us to meet on a regular basis without arousing the suspicion of the inmates.”
“What job is that?”
“You will be working in the kitchen. From now on, you will bring me my breakfast each morning. At that time we can discuss any developments in your investigation.”
“I am to be your servant?”
“Try to set aside your dignity, Pekkala—at least if you want to stay alive. And remember to keep your mouth shut when you’re around the head cook,” added Klenovkin. “His name is Melekov and he is the worst gossip at Borodok. Whatever you say to him will find its way into the ears of every convict in this camp.”
By now, the first eel-green glimmer of dawn showed in the sky.
“Good luck, Inspector,” said Klenovkin, as he turned to leave. “Good luck, for both our sakes.”
BACK IN MOSCOW, Kirov woke with a start.
He had fallen asleep at his desk. Blearily, he stared at the earthenware pots arranged upon the windowsills. His plants—herbs and cherry tomatoes and a beloved kumquat tree—dappled the darkness with their leaves.
Groaning as he rose to his feet, Kirov stepped over to the wall and flipped on the lights. Then he strolled around the room, hands in pockets, while the last veils of sleep were lifted from his mind. He paused to admire Pekkala’s desk, on which the file belonging to the dead captain Ryabov was neatly flanked by pens, a ruler, and a pencil sharpener. It did not usually look so tidy. Normally, the arrangement of Pekkala’s possessions seemed to follow some path of logic known only to himself. And yet somehow, in defiance of reason, Pekkala always seemed to know where everything was. Unlike Kirov, Pekkala never had to hunt about for his keys, or his wallet or his gun.
The day before, in a moment of fastidiousness, Kirov had tidied Pekkala’s desk. Now it looked smart. Efficient. And completely wrong. Kirov wished he hadn’t touched anything, and he looked forward to the day when Pekkala would return and rearrange everything to its naturally shambolic state.
Kirov wondered how long it would be before Pekkala sent a telegram, asking for assistance. He hoped it would be soon. Ever since the inspector had gone away, Kirov’s life had become a dreary procession of paperwork, solitary meals, and doubts about his own abilities to function in the absence of Pekkala.
Kirov sat down in Pekkala’s chair. Like a mischievous schoolboy sitting at the teacher’s place, he knew he was trespassing but, also like a mischievous schoolboy, he did it anyway. Then he stared at the phone on Pekkala’s desk. “Ring, damn you,” he said.
THE INTERCOM CLICKED ON.
“Poskrebyshev!”
“Yes, Comrade Stalin.”
“Any word from Pekkala?”
“Nothing yet, Comrade Stalin.”
“Are you certain that all transmissions have been intercepted?”
“Comrade Stalin, there have been no transmissions between Kirov and Major Pekkala.”
“Doesn’t that seem strange to you, Poskrebyshev?”
“I am sure he will communicate with Major Kirov when he has something to report. He only just arrived at the camp.”
“I may have been wrong to put my faith in him.”
“In Pekkala? Surely not …”
Without another word, the intercom clicked off.
There is that tone again, thought Poskrebyshev. What can be worrying him? A sense of foreboding clouded Poskrebyshev’s mind. This was not the first time he had witnessed Stalin’s moods as they began to swing erratically. In the past, bouts of good humor would be suddenly and inexplicably replaced by fury, frustration, and paranoia. And the results had always been deadly. In 1936, when Stalin had become convinced that officers in the Soviet army were about to overthrow him, he had initiated a policy of arrests and executions which wiped out most of the officer corps, leaving the Red Army virtually stripped of its High Command. These purges, which had begun before and continued long after Stalin’s attack on the army, caused a death toll that ran into the hundreds of thousands.
Nervously, he glanced towards Stalin’s office. A storm is brewing, Poskrebyshev decided, and when it hits, it’s going to come right through those doors.
THE SUN HAD JUST RISEN above the tree line as the new prisoners of Borodok assembled in the compound to receive their work assignments.
Some convicts were assigned to logging operations, but most, including Savus
hkin, went directly to work in the mines which harvested crystals of Siberian Red, as well as the radium used to illuminate the hands of military watches, compasses, and aircraft dials.
As Klenovkin had promised, Pekkala found himself detailed to the camp kitchen, which had, until that moment, been run entirely by one man. His name was Melekov. He had short gray hair and skin as pale as a plucked chicken.
There was no time for introductions. Pekkala went immediately to work handing out breakfast rations to men who had lined up outside the kitchen window. Each received one fist-sized loaf of bread known as a paika and a cup of black tea, served from one of three huge metal tubs. The cups were chained to these tubs, so the men had to drink the tea quickly before handing the mug to the next in line.
In spite of the cold outside, the kitchen grew so hot from the bread oven that Melekov stripped down to his shorts and a filthy undershirt. In this unofficial uniform, together with a pair of army boots which were missing their laces, he stamped about the kitchen barking orders.
“Rejoice!” commanded Melekov. “Rejoice that you are working here with me. I control the food, and food is the currency of Borodok. The value of everything which can be bought or sold is measured in those rations of bread you are handing out. And the source of all rations”—he jabbed a thumb against his chest—“is me!”
As these words filtered into his brain, Pekkala stood in the kitchen doorway, reaching mechanically into burlap sacks containing paika rations and pressing the loaves into the workers’ outstretched hands. He had to look carefully at those hands, because Melekov had instructed him to give two rations of paika to the three remaining Comitati, all of whom were identifiable by the pine trees tattooed on their hands.
“Those men are dangerous,” Melekov explained, leaning over Pekkala’s shoulder. “Do not speak to them. Do not even look at them.”
“But there are only three of these men in the whole camp. Why is everyone so afraid of them?”
“Let me explain it this way,” replied Melekov. “If you beat a man to the ground in order to teach him a lesson and all he does is get back on his feet and keep on fighting, what does that tell you about this man?”
