Archangel

by Gerald Seymour

  'What will happen to this man?'

  Rudakov shrugged.

  'We have a penalty for murder, it does not concern you

  . . . Think of your parents, they are old, in the twilight of their lives. They have one son only. They will die without ever seeing that son again. They will die in an agony of unhappiness. That is not my fault, Michael. That is not the fault of the Soviet people. It is in your hands to make those old people happy, Michael. You think that I am very crude, that I play to the emotions. The crudest argument is the best.'

  Holly hung his head.

  He had condemned a man to die. He had consigned an elderly couple living in a London suburb to a dotage of misery. For what?

  To indulge an ideal? The ideal of Michael Holly scattered casualties across the length of the compound, across the breadth of a terraced house.

  When he looked up he saw the triumph large in Rudakov's face. He knew of nothing to say. Michael Holly had thought he was brave, and his bravery was paid for with another man's life, with his parents' misery. The strength ran from him, the resolve leaked away. Another man's life, his parents misery. His head was deep in his hands, hidden.

  'Captain Rudakov . . .'

  'You are going to be sensible, Michael?'

  'Give me time.'

  'Get it over, Michael. Finish it now.'

  'Give me a few days. You will find I am not a fool. You will have something to send to Moscow.'

  'Each day you wait is a wasted day.'

  Rudakov beamed over the table, made a dramatic gesture by pulling from a drawer a sheet of blank paper, took his pen from his tunic pocket.

  'I have to prepare myself.'

  'A few days only.'

  'Thank you.' Holly seemed to brighten, as if a great decision had been taken. 'I want to go back to the work cell.

  If I do not go now I will not complete my output norm.'

  Rudakov shook his head, a tinge of sadness had gathered.

  He saw the wreckage of a human being. At that moment the sight gave him no pleasure. He could take no pride in the destruction of a proud man. The collapse had been faster than he would have believed possible. He was vindicated.

  The pentothal drugs, the torture electrodes, the beatings, they were not the only way. His approach had been correct, even humane . . .

  Holly forced himself up from the chair. He staggered towards the door, and waited for the Orderly to answer Rudakov's call and come to escort him back to the SHIzo block.

  They had ravished the supper, raped the soup and bread.

  They were left now with a windy ache in the belly, a warmth in the throat, the knowledge that if they were quiet they would not be disturbed for the night hours. No crying from the cell through the wall, no response to Holly's tapping.

  But the girl had been an interlude, an interruption. The business of that evening, and each evening that followed, devolved from the experience bank of Mikk Laas.

  Mikk Laas on the concrete floor beside Michael Holly and whispering at his ear.

  'You can't tunnel out of here, not in winter with twenty degrees below and permafrost. You see that? And it's no better a prospect in the summer. It's the matter of the water table - it's high here. There's a top level of sand and under that runs the water. Anywhere in the camp if you dig a hole more than four feet deep you will have standing water. Then they have another small sophistication - they are very thorough people, never forget that, Michael Holly-beyond the wooden fence there is in summer a ploughed strip, they harrow it to show footprints. Between the wooden fence and the ploughed strip they have dug into the ground a line of concrete blocks. The blocks are a metre square and a few centimetres thick. They have dug them down into the earth so that if it were possible to cope with the water table and to have a tunnel running under the fence then the weight of the blocks would collapse the workings. Years ago we worked to place the blocks in position, I know their weight, it took two of us to move each one . .. Even if you could disperse the earth, if you had the strength to manage the digging, if you could find the collaborators that you could trust, you still would not succeed by tunnelling. Forget a tunnel.'

  Mikk Laas with his bony body pressed against Holly, searching his memory for precedent.

  'There is a way that relies on conspiracy, but it is always dangerous to involve others, because then the chance of the

  "stoolies" hearing is widened. Back in Camp 19, ten years ago, perhaps eleven, there was a snowstorm as the men were to be marched back from the Factory to the living zone. Two men stayed in the Factory and when their names were shouted for the roll-call others claimed their names. The two men had lifted the floor of the Factory and sheltered underneath and they had smeared the boards with oiled cloths. They knew they would be missed, but they needed those few hours for the trail to grow cold. They knew that the dogs would be loosed to search through the living zone and the Factory, but they hoped that the cloths would have dulled their scent to the dogs. It was a Friday when they went under the boards, and they hoped that by the Sunday the heat would have gone and with the work place not in use they might find a place on the wire to climb and run. I said the guards were thorough, Michael Holly . .. They were shot on the Factory wire.'

  Mikk Laas would sometimes shake his old stubble-crested head at Michael Holly, as if there was a futility in all he said.

  'There have been those who have tried to smash their way out through a broken fence. A lorry will come in, to deliver coal, materials, anything . . . the men will attempt to seize the lorry and drive it at the fence. Not the gate, because the gate is reinforced. .. They will set the lorry in gear and hide on the floor of the cab and hope the machine-gun spray misses them. To me that plan is useless. Even if you break the fence and clear the compound you have woken all hell and its jackals. They will come after you with jeeps, you have aroused them. It is a way that has been tried and it is hopeless.'

  Mikk Laas with his spindle fingers holding tight to Michael Holly's hand.

  'To have any chance the man must go as soon as darkness falls. He must use the whole night of darkness to get clear of the camp. If he goes in summer then he has a short night. If he goes in winter he has a long night, but the snow track also. That is the choice. There is another thing, Holly.

  Should you leave the camp, should you get a kilometre clear, ten kilometres, a hundred kilometres, what have you achieved then? Where has that taken you?'

  The last night, the last night of fifteen for Michael Holly in the SHIzo cell. He wondered whether he would ever again see the old Estonian.

  'You would go for the wire, Mikk Laas?'

  'If a man is careless for his life .. . yes, I would go for the wire.'

  in the early evening?'

  'Just before six in winter, before the guard change.'

  'Wire-cutters?'

  'You would need an accomplice. There are some zeks who would have the power to get cutters from a guard .. .

  You would need a "baron".'

  'And outside the wire?'

  'You should not ask me. In thirty years I have not been outside the wire or the transport convoy.'

  it is better with an accomplice?'

  'You cannot do without a friend. You are blind outside the fence.'

  'Mikk, Mikk Laas . . . you were a partisan .. . ?' Holly's head was buried in his hands, and his fingers were white as they pressed down on his skull.

  'I was a partisan, or a terrorist, or a freedom-fighter . . . '

  'You hit German barracks, Soviet convoys?'

  'And we ran and we hid . . . sometimes we attacked, not often . . . I am not proud, Michael Holly, I do not have to pretend. Mostly we ran and we hid.'

  'When you attacked what followed your action?'

  'Reprisals.' Mikk Laas grated the word in hatred, spat it from his tongue.

  'When you attacked you knew that reprisals would follow?'

  'We knew.'

  'They shot people in reprisal because of what you had done?'


  'Some they shot, some they transported.'

  'You knew what would happen? Each time you planned an attack you knew what would happen?'

  'We knew. Whether it was the Nazi or the Soviet column that we hit, the result would be the same.'

  'And when you knew that, how then could you justify your attack?'

  'Why do you ask?' There was a fear in Mikk Laas's voice.

  'How could you justify your attack?' Holly hissed the question.

  'We agonized . . . '

  'How did you justify it?'

  Mikk Laas looked around him as if for escape, but there was none, and the breath from the young Englishman played across his old cheeks, and his wrists were caught hard. He hesitated, then the answer flowed in the torrent of a cleaned drain.

  'We thought we were right. We believed we were the guardians of something that was honour and courage. We told ourselves that even reprisal killings and transportation could not justify our inaction. It was an evil thing that we fought. That is not an easy word to use — "evil" — but we felt from the depths of our hearts that if a man is confronted by evil then he must fight against it. We thought this was the only way, that without this there could be no freedom, not ever. We decided that some had to die, some who had not chosen our course, in order that one day there might be a freedom.'

  'And now, what do you think now?'

  Mikk Laas sighed, and his body seemed to shrivel.

  'I think now that those men and women who were shot in reprisal for an action of mine died for nothing.'

  'You're wrong.'

  'I am not young. I have been here thirty years . . . '

  Holly shook him to silence. Holly's fists were buried in Mikk Laas's tunic. With all his strength he shook an old man's words from his lips.

  'When you were a fighter you were right, now that you are old you are wrong!'

  Like a wounded rat Mikk Laas scuffled his way to the corner of the cell. His voice was a high whine. 'When I was young I knew certainty. I know that certainty no longer.'

  They slept separately that night, using the full width of the SHIzo cell. The gap of concrete flooring was not bridged and both were cold in their shallow sleep.

  Early in the morning, before the start of the working day, Holly was escorted back to the living zone. He was in time to join the breakfast queue, and then take his place in the ranks for roll-call, and afterwards go back to his bench and lathe in the Factory. Chernayev, Poshekhonov and Feldstein all tried to begin a conversation with Holly, but they were rebuffed. He would speak to no man until the evening.

  When it was dark Holly asked Adimov to come from the hut with him. Two huddled figures on the perimeter path.

  'Your wife is dying. They will not let you go to her. I will give you the chance to see her before she dies. We will go out of here together. We go out this week.'

  When they returned to Hut z, there were those who saw the gleam of tears on Adimov's cheeks.

  Chapter 14

  In all the years that Adimov had been at Barashevo no man had ever offered him the hand clasp of friendship.

  Authority in plenty, friendship in minimum, for the killer of a woman on Moscow's Kutuzovsky Prospekt. From his first days in ZhKh 385/3/1 he had fought to maintain that authority. Knife-fights, beatings, humiliations all played their part in winning for him a pedestal position that left him respected yet friendless.

  In the Kitchen Adimov would never be the man who went short. In the Factory Adimov would never be the man who operated the dangerous lathe. In Hut z Adimov would never be the man who must hide and guard his possessions. Like a new stag that disputes the territory of an old antlered stud he had overthrown the former 'baron' of the hut. They still reminded him of the fight, those who wished to settle close at his side in the evenings and breathe the words they thought he wished to hear. They reminded him of the circling combat in the aisle between the lines of bunk beds when he had wrested supremacy from their former master.

  A lungeing swaying fight when the men of the hut had stayed back on their mattresses with their eyes locked to the brightness of two steel blades. A wordless fight that soared to an instant climax when the silver of steel was blood-

  darkened. The old 'baron' was now in Hut 4, a morose figure stripped of influence.

  No man had ever come to Adimov with a proposition of partnership. No man had ever come to Adimov as an equal.

  When he twisted his mind back over the months and years that he had been a prisoner in the camp he could not recollect any moment when he had entertained the thought of escape. He would have reckoned escape to be the final idiot fling of the suicide. He had thought only of making himself supreme over all others within the confines of the camp.

  But a new man had come to their hut, a man who was indifferent to the power wielded by Adimov.

  The power of the 'baron' had been eroded by that very indifference. The new man had drawn weakness from Adimov's strength, sapped his very authority. He had asked the new man to write a letter for him when no other zek in the hut could be allowed to learn that Adimov was illiterate. A new man had placed Adimov in his debt. No other prisoner in the camp could boast that he was the creditor to Adimov.

  The suspicion had succumbed to confusion. The confusion had been beaten back by the very confidence of Michael Holly . ..

  And Adimov would again be with his woman.

  She was a blowsy creature, an untidy, tyre-fat woman who was warm and kindly to Adimov. In all his life she was the only person that he had loved. He thought of her on her back in the bed of the tiny room that he had shared with her.

  He thought of the disease that ran through her stomach. Of course they would be watching the flat, but he could come at night. If he could see her just once, hold her, whisper some happiness into the ear of his woman who was dying.

  That bugger, the Englishman, he didn't ask for much.

  Wire-cutters and food and two white sheets, and three days to find them.

  The 'baron' had influence. The 'baron' was the puppeteer who could tug the strings.

  There was a guard, a creeping, curved-shouldered youth, with more than one year served in the M VD detachment of the camp who could be owned, manipulated by Adimov. It was the power of the 'baron' that he knew the flaws of the mighty and the lowly of the camp. There was a guard who brought sugar and chocolate to a trustie of Internal Order because the man was from the same suburb of Murmansk, a guard who in the innocence of his first weeks at the camp had compromised himself for all the time of his conscripted service. That guard would supply the wire-cutters.

  There was a zek who worked on the duty rota in the Kitchen and who was behind with his tobacco payments to the 'baron', a bent willow of a man who could be persuaded to provide a package of bread and parboiled potato.

  There was a boy who had come with a pale, tear-ridden face to his 'baron' to ask for protection, a boy with slim hips and cropped blond hair who would pay every rouble and kopeck that he earned in the workshop for the privilege of sheltering under the strong arm of Adimov. There were two old bastards who wanted the kid, neither would dare to touch him while he was under the guardianship of Adimov.

  The boy worked in the Laundry where camp uniforms and blankets were washed, and also the sheets from the garrison's barracks.

  Adimov could supply wire-cutters, a supply of food, two white sheets.

  He spoke to the guard who stood beside the gate of the compound, and the hissed threat of exposure was sufficient to silence his stuttered hesitation.

  He spoke to the Kitchen hand at morning exercise on the perimeter path in the half-light, and twisted his arm painfully up into the valley of his back.

  He spoke to the Laundry worker as they were marched to the Factory, and the boy imagined his trousers being ripped down from his waist and the hands of an old man on his skin, and he nodded in dumb acquiescence.

  Adimov could provide as Holly had asked, for the coming Sunday.

  Morning rol
l-call.

  A frost gathering on the noses and eyebrows of the zeks in their ranks. The checking of names. Rudakov stood beside Kypov, at his shoulder. Michael Holly was always in the rear rank for roll-call, and always Rudakov could see him.

  There was a stature that put him above the other men in the forward ranks.

  'Holly . . . ' The bark of the sergeant who held the clip board and the pencil.

  'Present . . .' The reply drifting over the heads from the back.

  Another name, another answering call. Rudakov walked towards the sergeant.

  'Get Holly here.' Rudakov said.

  The flow of the sergeant was broken.

  'Holly to the front. To the Political Officer. Ignatiev . . . '

  'Present. . .'

  Holly moved from his place in the rear line. He skirted the end of the rank and came slowly forward. Perhaps, Rudakov thought, there was ah insolence about the way the prisoner approached. Not deliberately delaying, not hurrying.

  'Isayev . . .'

  'Present. . . '

  Rudakov watched him come, noted that his tunic for all its padding hung looser now on the Englishman's body than when he had first come to the camp. And all the time that Holly walked, Rudakov could see that his eyes were on him.

  That was the difference with this man. Any other would have dipped his head, avoided the boldness of the close gaze.

  ivasyuk . . .'

  'Present. . .'

  Rudakov permitted Holly to come near to him and when he stopped, only a couple of metres short, then Rudakov stepped forward. He spoke quietly.

  'You are ready?'

  'Very soon . . .' There was a distance in Holly's voice.

  'When?' The bite of impatience frolm Rudakov.

  'Next week . . . '

  'When next week?'

  'On Monday, Comrade Captain.'

  Rudakov looked into Holly's face, tried to read a message of defeat and was confronted only with a lacklustre mask.