The Lost Forest

by John Francis Kinsella

  Chapter 46

  RUSSIA

  Many stories recount the dangers for travellers in modern Russia, and most of them contain at least some truth, Ennis had been warned, Moscow was a dangerous city and some people seem to attract more problems than others though if you avoided looking for trouble there should not be too many problems.

  “The Gais are everywhere on the road, if they have the chance the will try to racket you,” Alexis Vyacheslav said nodding at the large American Ford station at the entrance to a tunnel. Ennis looked through the dirt splattered windows of the car, he deciphered the Cyrillic making out the word ‘Militia’, he wondering where all the traffic came from, police in imported American Fords and the unbelievable number of cars, buses and trucks that poured out choking pollution generated by poorly refined Russian oil. They were stuck in an endless jam of traffic that inched its way towards Tverskya. A dozen years earlier the same avenue would have been almost deserted.

  Behind the glittering facade of the Kremlin or the Hermitage the country was in a phase of mutation towards a society modelled on a savage form of capitalism that was creating new classes of desperate poor alongside a growing number of noveaux riche.

  One of Moscow’s best known tourist attractions was Red Square but it is also the home to Palaeontological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow at Profsoyuznaya st., 123. said to be the world’s largest palaeontological institutes.

  As part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, it had more palaeontologists under one roof than any other institution in the world and housed collections from all over the former Soviet Union and the rest of the world. The Institute’s researchers studied everything from the origin of life to Mongolian dinosaurs.

  “Our problem has been that since the end of the Soviet Union the institute has had its budget reduced to a point that we have become totally impoverished. Fortunately we can now travel and are free to make agreements with organisations that have money like the University of California’s Museum of Palaeontology.”

  Ennis nodded he could see the walls of the Kremlin at the end of Tverskaya and they would soon be arriving at the Institute.

  “We have a long term cooperation agreement with the University which means we can set up mutual visits, student exchanges and cooperate on projects.”

  They left the car in an underground car park and taking a lift emerged into a smart modern shopping centre where an escalator brought them up to the exit facing Red Square.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Vyacheslav pointing to a red brick building the seemed to be built into the Kremlin’s walls. ‘The Museum of Palaeontology, it’s run by the Institute, you will see it has some fine public exhibits, a pity that they’re barely known outside of Moscow. There’s almost every type of fossil organism imaginable, especially Mongolian dinosaurs, and Precambrian fossils.’

  Alexis had met him at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport, it was the grey Russian style he remembered from the past now dressed-up with bright advertising panels and duty free shops. Alexis spoke excellent English and informed Ennis that he would travel with him during his stay in the Russian Federation, guiding him through the maze of institutions that made up the Russian Academy of Science.

  As they had made they’re way into Moscow, Ennis witnessed the changes close-up. Alexis had pointed towards a wooded area, “That’s where the nouveaux riches live, new villas that cost more than a house in London.” Ennis had observed them from the plane as it had descended towards Moscow, very large houses surrounded by trees, and what surprised him was there were not just one or two but whole swathes of them.

  When they reached the suburbs Alexis stopped to fill up at a new service station adjoined to a restaurant and hotel, where inspecting the menu he saw that the breakfast cost fifteen dollars, probably more than the monthly salary of the waitress.

  Ennis waited in the lobby whilst Alexis went to the men’s room. He explored his surroundings glancing into the bar of the hotel and was surprised to see seated in one corner several girls who appeared to be dressed for an evening out. It took several moments to realise that they were waiting for customers, on a nearby table were their pimps in a cloud of cigarette smoke drinking cognac.

  There was a grim looking open air market next to the gas station babushkas standing on the muddy ground sold farm produce as younger people stood before dismal displays of factory products and second hand car parts.

  Petrol was cheap for those who could afford it, though the traffic had increased exponentially, slowly modern service stations were replacing the run down or makeshift filling stations with their lines of cars patiently waiting their turn in a country overflowing with oil.

  They arrived at the Presnja Marco Polo Hotel, situated a couple of blocks off Tverskaya, on Spiridonovsky. He had checked it out on Internet to avoid any unpleasant surprises and discovered that it was a first class hotel, though smaller than some of the larger and well known establishments.

  As he checked in Alexis recounted a little of the Presnja’s history. The hotel had been built in 1904 by a British architect, who had also designed the Metropol Hotel. It had been a residence for British expatriates in Moscow working as specialists or in service. The British had often organised parties and art exhibitions for Russian avant-garde artists who lived nearby. The founder of the Russian Fine Arts Museum, Ivan Tzvetaev, had lived nearby, and often visited the house with his daughter, who became a famous poet.

  When the Bolsheviks evicted the British, it was transformed into a residence for Soviet scholars and scientists, after WWII it had been transformed into a VIP hotel for high ranking Communist Party members and apparatchiks. After 1990 at the end of the Perestroika period it was transformed into a first class modern hotel

  After the formalities had been completed Alexis then took his leave informing Ennis that he would be back pick him up at eleven thirty for lunch and then visit the Ministry.

  Whatever the history Ennis found the hotel to be very comfortable and discrete. But he was more interested by the Moscow that awaited him outside and as soon as his bags arrived in the room he left the hotel to explore the surroundings. On Tverskaya he discovered fast food eating houses punctuated by more expensive restaurants mixed with fashionable boutiques, their windows decorated with the latest designer clothes. The prices on the menus displayed outside the restaurants compared with those of Paris or London, a government employee’s monthly salary.

  He crossed the avenue by the underground passage that led to the Moscow Metro where vendors that lined the tunnels tried to supplement their miserable pensions by selling a bottle of vodka or cigarettes to those in a hurry or too late to buy from the shops. The rich Muscovites built extravagantly houses not only in the suburbs in wooded privacy but also luxurious new apartments blocks guarded by overfed giants in full view of the nearby grim apartment blocks dating from the Soviet era.

  Alexis met him punctually at his hotel. First they would taken lunch and then make a visit to the Ministry to complete the paperwork necessary for his visit, the Institutes were still state controlled and the formality were unavoidable. They lunched at a smart Italian restaurant that Alexis had chosen on Stari Arbat. A violinist provided exquisite background music, earning no more than a few dollars; in the past he had probably been the member of a philharmonic orchestra that had toured the world.

  On Stari Arbat new hotels were springing up at every street corner quickly transforming what had been a typical tourist street market for souvenirs into what was to be an up-market shopping area. The poorer vendors would soon be ejected, making way for more attractive stalls not only for tourists but also the privileged young Russians of the new middle and consumer class seeking the latest fashions that went with their cars and mobile phones.

  The poor lived in wretched autarchy planting potatoes in their small gardens raising chickens and rabbits if the were lucky. They would not die of hunger but life had been reduced to a miserable existence without hope of change. They baked
their own bread and distilled samogon a home made Vodka.

  Ennis could not help remembering a few days before his departure from Paris the weather had been cold, very cold, outside of his local bank agency, the Credit Lyonais, an obstreperous old man sat in a doorway and in spite of the cold was naked to the waist next to his dog. He was filthy; his beard slightly red was in contrast to his white body. It grimly reminded him that a junction had been reached between communism and capitalism.

  The next morning he walked to the Museum, at first he had difficulty to convince Alexis that he did not need picking up; he wanted to see Moscow a little closer. “Then I will walk with you!” There was no way to escape Alexis. Ennis agreed and was met the next morning at eight-thirty and after a coffee made their way with the hurrying crowd along Ulitsa Tverskaya towards the Kremlin. At the end of the avenue they took the lugubrious subway under Okhotny Ryad along with the crowds of Muscovites, Ennis with his hands dipped deep into his pockets to avoid the gangs of pickpockets that targeted unsuspecting foreigners and tourists. They exited into the bright sunlight his shoes crunching over the fresh snow; he was facing the arch that led into Red Square, passing the equestrian statue of Marshall Zhukov on his right hand side, hero of WWII. The State Historical Museum stood at the northern end of Red Square, in a late nineteenth century dark redbrick building decorated with ornate turrets, pinnacles and saw-tooth cornices.

  The public entrance to the museum was opposite the ornate Russian Orthodox church of Saint Barnabas. They entered a on other side of the building, where the offices of the Department of Anthropology were situated on the second floor, up a dismal, dusty, Russian stairway.

  Alexis made Ennis welcome with hot tea and biscuits, he was very open and sociable obviously suited to his role not only as an anthropologist but also the museum’s head of externally relations, notably with foreign institutions and visiting scientists.

  ‘So once we have recovered from our morning sport we shall start with a short visit to our museum,” he said laughing at the discomfort of Ennis, who was evidently not used to walking on ice covered pavements and hardened snow. “Then we’ll go to lunch. It’ll give us the time to talk about your program if that’s alright with you?’

  ‘Fine, I’ve never had the opportunity to visit the museum.’

  ‘Good.’

  He led Ennis down to a door that opened into the public area. ‘Our museum was built in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as you can see the interior is decorated in rich style of that period. There are some beautiful murals and carvings,’ he pointed to the ceiling paintings, ‘and there are all the Russian Czars, excluding the present one,’ he said with a laugh.

  ‘Here the visitor can see the history of Russia from its earliest Neanderthal beginnings, which is what interests you.’

  ‘Yes, as you know from our correspondence I am interested in the Caucuses, where there has been some interesting discoveries.’

  ‘Ah yes! The Caucuses. Today the most interesting part is on the southern side, in Georgia and Azerbaijan.’

  ‘Yes but Russian specialists have a lot of information on the earlier expeditions.’

  ‘Yes, you are referring to the time of the Soviet Union, before Georgia and Azerbaijan became independent.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you interested in Homo erectus or the legends of wild men?’ he said laughing. ‘We are very interested by your discoveries in Borneo, but we also have our tales of wild men, abominable snowmen and Bigfoots.’

  Ennis remained silent.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t mean to offend your work. Of course most of our anthropologists give little credence to such stories and when we heard the news of a Sarawak man over the grape vine we were frankly very sceptical.’

  ‘Yes I suppose that’s normal.’

  ‘There’s been a lot of recent talk in the popular press of the so-called Almasti, the primitive men who are said to resemble Neanderthals. I must admit that we have records of sightings over the last two centuries in a region that runs from the Caucasus, through the Pamir Mountains, the Altai Mountains and into Inner Mongolia.’

  ‘What’s your opinion?’

  ‘Well there are still regular reports of sightings of these creatures. Certain scientists have reported seeing them. There is an anecdote of an incident in 1917, when the Red Army was pursuing White Russian forces through the Pamir Mountains and soldiers shot an Almas as it was coming out of a cave.’

  ‘Was the body recovered?’

  ‘No but there was a vivid description that said it’s ‘eyes were dark and the teeth were large and even and shaped like human teeth. The forehead was slanting and the eyebrows were very powerful. The protruding jawbones made the face resemble the Mongol type of face. The nose was very flat ...the lower jaws were very massive’. Some say that the Almasti were the survivors of Neanderthals.’

  ‘Is it possible?’

  ‘Frankly, I doubt it … but you never know. There’s a report of a more recent sighting given to the British archaeologist Dr Myra Shackley, a professor of archaeology at Leicester University, by Dmitri Bayanov, of the Darwin Museum in Moscow.’

  Alexis looked at his watch and Ennis realising it was lunch time suggested the Metropol Hotel a short walk from the museum, quickly adding that it was he who was inviting.

  Over lunch Alexis pulled out a photocopy.

  ‘Look John, here’s an account of our Yeti.’

  Ennis read the paper:

  Continuing our chase, we caught up with what was left of the exhausted gang, who had stopped for a rest at a place where the glacier was split apart by a stone cliff. The upper tongue of the glacier hung from the cliff in which there was a crevice or cave. We surrounded the gang and took up a position above where they were resting. A machine-gun was placed in position. When we threw the first grenade, a man (a Russian officer) ran out onto the glacier and started shouting that the shooter would make the ice cave in and that everyone would be buried. When we demanded that they surrender he asked for time to talk it over with the other bandits, and went back into the cave. Soon after we heard an ominous hissing as the ice began to move. At almost the same moment we heard shots, and not knowing what they meant decided that it was the beginning of an assault.

  Pieces of snow and ice started falling down from the cliff, gradually burying the entrance to the cave. When it was nearly buried three men managed to escape, and the rest were buried under the debris. Our shots killed two of the bandits and seriously wounded the third. When we reached him, he showed us the spot where the body of a Russian officer was buried and we dug it out. The wounded man turned out to be an Uzbek tea-house owner from Samarkand.

  We questioned him and he gave us the following information. While the bandits were discussing out order to surrender, some hairy man-like creatures, howling inarticulately, appeared in the cave through the crevice (which possibly led upwards from he cave). There were several of them and they had sticks in their hands. The bandits tried to shoot their way through. One of the bandits was killed by the creatures with the sticks. Our narrator received a blow from a stick on his shoulder, and rushed to the cave entrance with one of the monsters hard on his heels. It ran out of the cave after him, but he shot it and it was buried under the snow.

  To check up on this strange story we made him show us the exact spot and cleared the show away. We recovered the body all right. It had three bullet wounds. Not far off we found a stick made of very hard wood, though it cannot be stated for certain that it belonged to the creature. At first glance I thought the body was that of an ape. It was covered with hair all over. But I knew there were no apes in the Pamirs. Also, the body itself looked very much like that of a man. We tried pulling the hair, to see if it was just a hide used for disguise, but found that it was the creature’s own natural hair. We turned the body over several times on its back and its front, and measured it. Our doctor made a long and thorough inspection of the body, and it was clear that it was not a h
uman being.

  The body belonged to a male creature 165-170cm tall, elderly or even old, judging by the greyish colour of the hair in several places. The chest was covered with brownish hair and the belly with greyish hair. The hair was longer but sparser on the chest and close-cropped and thick on the belly. In general the hair was very thick, without any under fur. There was least hair on the buttocks, from which fact our doctor deduced that the creature sat like a human being. There was most hair on the hips. The knees were completely bare of hair and had callous growths on them. The whole foot including the sole was quite hairless and was covered by hard brown skin. The hair got thinner near the hand, and the palms had none at all but only callous skin.

  The colour of the face was dark, and the creature had neither beard nor moustache. The temples were bald and the back of the head was covered by thick, matted hair. The dead creature lay with its eyes open and its teeth bared. The eyes were dark and the teeth were large and even and shaped like human teeth. The forehead was slanting and the eyebrows were very powerful. The protruding jawbones made the face resemble the Mongol type of face. The nose was flat, with a deeply sunk bridge. The ears were hairless and looked a little more pointed than a human being’s with a longer lobe. The lower jaw was very massive.

  The creature had a very powerful chest and well developed muscles. We didn’t find any important anatomical difference between it and man. The genitalia were like man’s. The arms were of normal length, the hands were slightly wider and the feet much wider and shorter than man’s.’

  ‘Interesting n’est pas?’

  ‘Yes, evidence of the possibility that strange men have existed until recent times.’

  Alexis laughed, ‘So you believe it?’

  ‘I have an open mind, I’m not at all convinced by so-called Yetis and monsters but….’

  ‘Drink up John We should be going back to organise our visit to Saint Petersburg.’

  They walked back to back to the hotel along Tverskaya.

  ‘By the way John, have you ever been to the Nightflight?’

  ‘No?’

  That evening they ate at the nearby Sheraton and Alexis proposed a visit to show Ennis Moscow’s nightlife.

  ‘We can start at the Nightflight, it’s a very popular discotheque.’

  ‘I’m not really into discotheques.’

  ‘It’s reputed to have the most beautiful and available girls in Russia.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ennis perking up interest.

  ‘It been opened since Gorbachev’s time.’

  ‘We can go there for a drink if you like.’

  ‘Why not!’

  Alexis called his driver instructing to wait as they would not be needing him for an hour or so. It was a short walk to the Monaco, a casino. Outside guards watched over the Cherokees, Mercedes and even Rolls Royce’s, double parked their drivers at the ready stood waiting in the snow. Champagne flowed for the nouveau riches crowded around the roulette and black jack tables, oilmen from Tartarstan, Bashkiristan or Tiouman, surrounded by extraordinarily attractive girls, threw their chips onto the roulette table as though they were old roubles.

  ‘You see here John some of them will spend in an evenings gambling up to fifty thousand dollars without batting an eyelid,” said Alexis. “The Monaco like all other casinos is doing what the government cannot do, they transfer the wealth from one group of mafiosa to another letting it trickle down to the poorer people, chauffeurs, body guards, restaurants, clubs, construction....’

  The bouncers looked like thugs from an American TV series checking the new arrivals through a metal detector then body searching them for fire arms. To one side a stout hard faced communist style matron checked the girls for knives, stun guns and mace.

  On a small stage an attractive and scantly dressed blonde gyrated in an erotic dance to the indifferent gamblers and drinkers, she was not without a certain style thought Ennis. She seemed sad in a Slavic kind of way and very beautiful, an image of the strange attraction of the new Moscow.

  Outside on the evening streets the Muscovites were not that different from those in many western cities. The younger men wore leather jackets and jeans though the girls were more feminine than their western counterparts wearing skirts and high heel shoes that seemed inadequate for the snow covered pavements and overdressed for everyday use. The older people tended to be shabby and old fashioned wearing belted raincoats and rubber boots.

  The snow that covered streets was dirty mixed with the dust that seemed ever present in the city. The facades of the buildings on the large avenues were presentable but that morning as he walked from the Marco Polo he had observed the state of the inner courtyards, the pot holes in the uneven paving full of frozen water, snow covered piles of rubble, leaking water had turned to ice leaving stalactites hanging from the walls and guttering. Electrical wires hung unevenly, making it impossible to tell to know which was in service or abandoned. Broken pipework hung menacingly from the walls. There was a general state of advanced decay, especially present in the government buildings whose maintenance budgets were non-existent. The broken yellow plaster uncovered the uneven red brickwork of the walls. Ennis had observed in the corridors of the Museum the rotten window frames and the glass panes covered with decades of dust and grime, the paint flaking off the doors and the cheap wood panelling that dated back to the glorious days of central planning.

  Any visitor could not help noticing that Muscovites seemed to carry a briefcase or plastic bag, as they went about their daily tasks wearing an air of despondency though some visibly struggled to keep up a semblance of pride, the pride they once as belonging to the world’s greatest modern empire. A great many had given up hope, their only goal was to fulfil the daily struggle of making ends meet for the survival of their families. The Russian people had already forgotten the euphoria and promise of their leaders Gorbatchev, Yeltsin and now Poutine and to the older the Brezhnev era seemed like a long lost golden age when life had been worth living.

  At the Night Flight a couple of blocks further along Tverskaya they made their way past another gang of tough looking security guards into the foyer where a couple of stunning girls were leaving their heavy coats at the cloakroom. Once inside and having adjusted his vision to the low lighting Ennis saw that the girls outnumber the men by at least five to one.

  They were immediately targeted by a dozen eyes daring them to look back. Ennis had never before seen in his life such a concentration of beautiful girls in one spot. The only disappointment was that they were probably all after his wallet.

  ‘If you don’t like it here we can go to a casino, the Karusel is just down the road.’

  Ennis decided to risk the temptation and ordered drinks pretending to keep his eyes off the girls who on the contrary did everything to draw his attention. The waiter placed the drinks before them and slide the bill to Ennis who glancing at it nearly choked.

  ‘Christ this is expensive.’

  ‘If it were cheap we’d have the place full of rabble.’

  That was evident.

  ‘So here’s to the New Russia,’ laughed Alexis.

  ‘Are they expensive?’ asked Ennis.

  ‘It depends, if there’s a lot of clients it can be expensive, a thousand for the night.’

  Ennis took a slug of his drink.

  “But when the demand is weak, like tonight, a couple of hundred will do.”

  ‘Most of them have good education and a few have day jobs, secretaries and the like. The problem is that life is incredibly expensive and to make ends meet they end up here.’

  ‘You’re right on one point, it’s the right place to make ends meet.’

  A girl came over and spoke to Alexis in Russian, she obviously knew him.

  ‘John this is Marina, she works in the Natural History Museum, she has a degree in anthropology.’

  Ennis half smiled not willing to believe that an anthropologist could be found in such a place wondering with the noise of the music if
he had heard it right.

  She sat down next to him and another girl appeared sitting next to Alexis.

  ‘Yes what Alexis said is true. I come here from time to time, maybe I’ll find a rich husband,’ she smiled looking directly at Ennis and waiting for his reaction.

  He took a sip of his drink as her intoxicating perfume wafted over him.

  ‘Why don’t we go and have a drink at the Europa. It’s quieter there,’ said Alexis.

  Ennis nodded and Alexis pulled out his mobile calling his driver to meet them at the Nightflight exit as Ennis settled the bill. He then stood up and Ennis followed him with Marina hanging onto his arm. The driver brought the car up in an instant, obviously trained to be ready, to wait all night or a just short moment.

  In the car Ennis found himself between the two girls, the other whose name he had not caught. Ten minutes later they pulled up at the entrance of the Hotel Metropol.

  They made their way to the bar and Alexis ordered Champagne. He told him the hotel had been built at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth century by William Walcott, who was born in Russia, his father English and mother Russian. Alexis told him it had been the scene of many historic events; Lenin had made speeches there from a balcony overlooking the Metropol Restaurant with its extraordinarily beautiful stained glass ceiling. It had also been the venue of the 1918-19 meetings of the Central Committee of the Russian Republic.

  ‘So called enemies of the people were shot in the cellar here,’ he told Ennis. ‘Cheers!’ Alexis lifted his glass in a toast to the two girls.

  ‘A lot of famous people stayed here but one of the stangest was Lee Harvey Oswald.’

  ‘The man who assassinated Kennedy?’

  ‘Yes, in 1959, he wanted to become a Soviet citizen … strange no?’

  Outside the luxurious splendour of the Metropol life for every day Muscovites had become a grim struggle, only the television gave them momentary relief from the endless winter. Restaurants and theatres had become exorbitantly expensive, and the cultural activities that Soviet citizens had always taken for granted became fewer as budgets evaporated as prices rose beyond the reach of the average income. They somehow survived with an unhealthy diet of bread, potatoes and sausage washed down by tea and vodka.

  He picked his car up from the parking at Charles de Gaulle and headed into Paris, the traffic was light, he called Biarritz to let the house keeper know he had returned and would be arriving for the Easter weekend late the following day.

  It was towards nine-thirty when he arrived at the apartment. It was as he had left it, he seemed to be less and less at home with just the occasional passage. He decided spend some time the next day putting a semblance of order into his personal affairs as he saw the disorder and papers lying around on the bureau and the half empty bags from his last trip lying on the floor.

  The next morning he called Air France to book his flight to Biarritz and then from Bordeaux Rabat in Morocco on the following Tuesday morning. He then showered and prepared his affairs and drove to the gallery where he had little difficulty finding a parking spot. The school holidays had started and it took barely fifteen minutes to reach the gallery in the light traffic, it was almost like being a tourist.

  The gallery was quiet to the rest of France in the run up to Easter, just Marie-Helene and an assistant. On his desk he found a message from Pierre Ros asking him to call him, it was his Paris number, and it was marked highly urgent. He immediately called Ros who informed him that Driss had been arrested in Casablanca!

  There had been a crack down on corruption following a political scandal and an investigation had been ordered on all his business dealings. Ennis wanted to know what the implications were for them, if the Ministry had been involved or if the research contracts had been affected.

  In Morocco construction companies had been sprouting like mushrooms and there was nothing very solid behind their respectable facades. Driss’s family had established a hotel development with the Waffa, an important long established Moroccan bank, though it was not rated as a triple A. According to Ros it seemed that Driss had used his position as to set up some shaky guaranties. The CNRS had order Ros back to Paris to keep him and the company clear of any involvement.

  He asked Pierre Ros about what would happen to Driss. ‘I’m afraid that is a question a lot of people will be asking, my honest opinion is that we won’t see him for a long time to come if the past is any reference. You don’t embarrass the King in Morocco!’