Archangel

by Gerald Seymour

  This week Irina Morozova painted the faces. Twin pink blobs on the cheeks, coy black eyelashes, a petite ruby mouth. Down the line another woman would paint the yellow of the headscarf, another the red and blue and gold of the traditional peasant dress. The tourists beavering for presents in the hotel stores in Moscow or Leningrad would never know that a doll so full of life came from the work bench of a young girl with a pale face and hollowed eyes.

  Irina Morozova's fingers were quick. She was a pianist, though she had not seen a piano for twenty-seven months.

  She was of minor concert standard and had not known an audience's applause since her arrest. She could meet the daily norm. She could satisfy her supervisor.

  The thunder of the rotor-blades distracted her. A huge beast with black and dun-coloured camouflage stripes on its hull hovered beside the window of the Factory above the perimeter fence. The roof staggered under the force of the downblast. She saw the crew man at the opened door, the microphone at his mouth as he talked the pilot to the ground.

  She had heard the siren in the night, but she had not spoken of it to any of the other women in their small dormitory hut. She was the 'intellectual', and that was a dreaded label in a criminal compound. The prostitutes and thieves of the dormitory were vicious towards any that claimed a superiority over them. She might have won a protector, but she had kicked her boot at the cow's finger grope and earned herself three nights in the SHIzo. And she had no friends because the bitches were fast to sneer at an Article 58 'intellectual'.

  'Why is the helicopter here?'

  There were times when she could not help herself, when she could not survive the isolation wall around her.

  'The Commandant didn't tell me.' The woman who painted the headscarves cackled in laughter.

  'I heard the siren, there were lorries arriving early this morning, now a helicopter . . . '

  'Go and ask the Commandant, darling, she'll tell you, a clever bitch like you.'

  Article 5 8 - a typed letter to the United Nations Commission of Human Rights in Switzerland. She had been an idiot to have believed that the letter would ever reach its destination. A complaint on the persecution of the Tartar minority, and she not even a Tartar. A four-year sentence - an exemplary penalty the judge had described it. The dissemination of Anti-Soviet propaganda, the spreading of lies about her country. Her letter had travelled no further than Lubyanka.

  'Has there been an escape?'

  'Well, it's not Brezhnev come to kiss us goodnight . . .

  'Course there's been a fucking escape. Out of Zone x. One of the 'barons' and an Englishman as well. Wish the bas--

  tards had managed it in here . . . Not- that you'd be interested, would you, darling?'

  'An Englishman . . . ?'

  'Some bastard spy . . . good looking stud. We'd have hidden him well enough.' She laughed again and her breath whistled in the gap where two upper teeth were missing.

  Morozova's fingers trembled on the narrow stem of the brush. The helicopter's engine was a diminishing whine, slipping below the fence. She dipped her brush in the paint pot. She took again in her hand the wooden shell of the doll.

  She remembered a man who had stood tall amongst those around him while the women waited for the column to pass between the Factory and Zone i. She had seen a name that was strange in its lettering. The man had stared at her. Of all the women it was she at whom he had stared.

  There was another memory, a memory of a shout through the wall of a SHIzo cell. A different accent, an accent that was as strange as the lettering of a name.

  'Don't please them with your tears,' the man had shouted through the bricks of the cell wall. She had not cried since.

  The Englishman was running, the man who had called to her through the cell wall, the man who had picked her from a crowd as she had watched the zeks go by.

  God keep you safe.

  God. Something from her childhood that the Elementary School and the Pioneer Corps and the Academy of Music had never painted over. A shadow that stayed with her.

  She could not recall the letters on his tunic. She did not know his name. She only knew that a helicopter had come to join the men who hunted him.

  The senior official of the Ministry of the Interior picked his nose as he waited in the ante-room outside the office of the Procurator. He wondered how long he must wait before he was permitted to enter the sanctum and display the latest of the telex messages to have come from Saransk concerning events at ZhKh 385/3/1.

  He was adept at his work, this senior official. When he had been ushered into the Procurator's presence and sat humbly on the edge of his chair, he was ready with his denunciation.

  'You will remember, Procurator, that this is not the first incident involving Camp 3 at Barashevo this year. Within the last month we have had the fire, as yet unexplained, that burned down the Commandant's office. We have had the dysentery epidemic that claimed the life of a guard and hospitalized seventeen others. Now we have an escape. I should draw your attention, Procurator, to the identity of one of those who is missing. Michael Holly, an Englishman serving a fifteen-year sentence for espionage against the State. He was a Red Stripe prisoner and yet he was able to acquire wire-cutters and cut through two wire fences, and scale a wall, right underneath a watch-tower. Already I have had Lubyanka on the telephone, they describe this man as a prisoner of maximum importance. I think you will agree, Procurator, that the matter is a disgrace . . .'

  'Who is the Commandant at Camp 3 ?'

  'Major Vasily Kypov, formerly paratroop.'

  'How is my diary next week?'

  'You are in Moscow - routine.'

  'Make the travel arrangements.'

  The train had spurred them on, driven them forward with fresh hope.

  When they had heard its approach, slow in the dawn light, they had been staggering along the path of chip-stones and snow-covered sleepers. They had plunged together into the snow at the side of the line and tried to arrange their sheets across their backs. It was an old steam engine, pulling a crocodile line of goods wagons and belching black smoke, forcing the snow from the line with an angled fender. The train lumbered past them, scattering soot over their bodies.

  Holly had seen the value of the train. He had seen the way it had scoured the track of surplus snow, tossed it on one side, and spilled down a debris of coke and dirt. The dogs would have a hard time of it, a hard time following the scent now that the train had passed. Desperately tired, he had dragged Adimov up from the snow, on down the track. It was a chance that must be taken. Adimov had cursed him, and Holly's grip on his tunic had tightened. They had gone on together, two grey shadows on the embankment of the track.

  They had walked another hour after dawn and then they had seen the farm hut a few yards from the line.

  While Adimov wrenched at the door, Holly smoothed their snowprints flat.

  A windowless hut, with a floor-covering of wet hay. A palace to two fugitives.

  They sank to the rough floor.

  They eyed each other.

  One thing to be friends when the momentum of escape drove them forward. Another matter when they were alone, isolated inside four tin walls. Almost a shyness between them. Holly knew why. Adimov had the food and Adimov had never shared his food with any zek in the camp.

  'We have to eat, Adimov,' Holly said.

  The bastard wants me sleeping, Holly thought. On my back and cold and out, and then he'll stuff the bloody food down his throat.

  'We're going to share the food, Adimov. Crumb for crumb we're going to share it.'

  'I don't need you . . . not now.'

  'Get the food out.'

  Both men on their knees now and the brightness of anger in their faces. Bitter, locked eyes.

  'I gave you the cutters, you took me through the wire -

  that's where it ended.'

  it ends when I say. Get the food and share it.'

  On their knees because they had walked all night and neither had the s
inew to stand. Ready to fight over half a loaf of hard black bread, and a cube of cheese, and a pinched paper filled with sugar.

  Adimov reached between the buttons of his tunic.

  'You want the food, you get the food ..

  Holly remembered the blade, steel sharp against the blanket of a bunk in Hut i. He lurched forward, swung his weight against Adimov. Had to go fast. Find the wrist, hold it. One blow, one harsh stroke. The glaze was in Adimov's eyes. Beaten, destroyed by one punch. Holly reached inside Adimov's tunic, took the handle of the knife and the plastic bag of food. He crawled to the door, pushed it a few inches open and threw the knife as far as his strength allowed. The snow still fell, the hiding-place would be covered, lost until the spring thaw.

  The cheese could wait, and the sugar too. They would be needed on the second day and the third. He would break into the bread alone. He tore off a quarter of half a loaf and then divided that quarter. He crawled across the floor of the hut towards Adimov and the man shrank away from him until he was against the wall and could go no further. Holly put an arm around Adimov's shoulder.

  'Together we have a chance, alone we are beaten. Eat, Adimov.'

  When the old zek had closed the door Yuri Rudakov tore open the gummed-down envelope. He read the words, written in a strong decisive hand, with a growing astonishment.

  Captain Rudakov,

  You have a man accused of the poisoning of the barracks water supply. He is not guilty of that offence. 'I alone was responsible. On the question of my escape 'I want you to know that Adimov was not the instigator of the attempt. Again I take full responsibility. With this knowledge I hope you will take the appropriate actions.

  Sincerely,

  Michael Holly.

  Chapter 17

  They lay together, two grey bundles of quilted rags, and the cold burrowed against their bones.

  Holly remembered when he had taken Adimov for that first time to the perimeter path and talked of escape. To get through the wire had then been the summit of their aspirations. Bloody daft, bloody idiot thought... To get through the wire was nothing. To get away and clear, that was everything. And they lay on the floor of a farmer's hut a few short kilometres from the camp, soaked and frozen, they were starved close to exhaustion. What had he been thinking of when he had taken Adimov to the perimeter path?

  There had been no plan. Only the blazing anxiety to get clear of the camp because he had consigned a man to the condemned cells of Yavas and, if Michael Holly could break out, and leave a pathetic note for Rudakov to read, then he could in some way scrub his conscience clean. Escape was an absolution, a few fleeting hours of the hair shirt and the whip. Holly had thought that escape would purge him of the responsibility for the man who would be shot at Yavas.

  Bloody naive. Escape should have been a symphony of electric excitement, it should have been a dream of fresh flowers and spring time. Escape was a body draped in wet clothes, without heat, without food, without hope . . .

  Without hope, Holly?

  237

 

  Lying on the floor of the hut he believed that he knew why men bent the knee and turned the cheek in the camp.

  They had managed nothing, nothing that was worthwhile. They had exchanged one prison for another. He almost yearned for the bunk in Hut 2, he almost wished to hear the dragging of the main gate shut behind him. God, Holly, bloody beaten, and not out of the bloody place eighteen hours. Is that all you're worth? Eighteen bloody hours . . . And this was only the beginning, only the first short footstep. Barely out of sight of the camp, barely beyond the range of the lights set above the high wooden fence, a thousand miles to travel.

  'We have to have a fire, Holly .. .'

  A fire meant smoke, and smoke meant a trail, and a trail meant capture.

  'No.'

  'We have to warm ourselves. We have to dry our clothes.'

  if you want a fire then you walk back along the track to Barashevo. All the way to Barashevo and the fire in Hut 2.

  That's where the bloody fire is.'

  Holly listened to his own words, heard their spite. He was not willing to mitigate it.

  'Why did you come out?'

  They would have to walk through the night. They must be alert for the blocks and cordons. Out beyond the short snow horizon an army would be mobilized. They had to sleep through the day's hours, they had to rest. God, he wished that he had come alone. Adimov had said that they no longer needed each other. But they were bound together, bound by a chain of dependence.

  'Because to stay there is to be defeated. To accept their rule is to be beaten.'

  'That's shit.'

  'No one has shown you another colour, Adimov, you only know the colour of the Dubrovlag. If you stay there you make it easy for them.'

  There was a laugh from Adimov that veered to hysteria.

  'The camps are a part of us, a part of Russia. Can we beat that? Adimov and Holly can run away from Camp 3, and that helps to beat the camps. That's shit, Holly.'

  'We have to do it for ourselves . . . '

  He remembered the hut of the Commandant that had burned. He remembered the reinforcement platoon that had come to replace the guards taken to the hospital beds. He remembered the wail of the siren at his back. We have to do it for ourselves. And each hour of the day, each day of the year a million men rotted in the camps, and a million men had not found the way to win . . . Christ, what an arrogance, Holly. What a conceit. A million men do not fight, and yet to Holly the answer of combat is crystal clear.

  if they take you back . . . ?'

  it will still have been worth it.'

  'We split at Gorki. I go to Moscow.'

  'When we get to Gorki I decide where I go.'

  'We have to have a fire.'

  'No.'

  Adimov sighed, slumped back again to the floor. 'You'll kill us without a fire.'

  'No.'

  For a long time Yuri Rudakov had sat in his office pondering the letter. The single sheet of paper was locked away now, secure in the inner drawer of his safe. He had shouted at his Orderly that he wanted to be left alone.

  The dilemma tore at the peace of his mind.

  Outside his window was the howl of a helicopter landing.

  Impossible to think with the battering noise of the engine piercing the window of his room. He must go home, back to Elena. His head shook slowly, imperceptibly.

  Was the innocence of a zek a question that should absorb him? Had innocence ever played a part in determining punishment?

  He was in a pit, a dark and stinking hole. His hands could not reach the rim of the sides. If the letter were suppressed a man who was innocent would die. If he admitted to the letter then the bright career of Captain Yuri Rudakov was a mess of broken china on the floor. This was how Holly had repaid him. The bastard should have been grateful. Bastard, Holly .. .

  He walked out of the office and to his jeep. They were loading a searchlight through the open doorway of the helicopter. They would fly through the night. There would be no refuge from the dogs and searchers and helicopters.

  They would have him back. And when he was returned, with his wrists manacled, then the letter written by Michael Holly would be snug in the safe. He surged away in his jeep and drove recklessly over the ice-covered road to his bungalow.

  Inside the living-room of his home he opened his soul to Elena. Never before had he felt such desperation and uncertainty. He stood with his back to the log fire, and she sat pretty and blonde and clean in her chair. He talked of the letter and of a man in the condemned cell at Yavas. He talked of the prize that had been so nearly gained should Michael Holly have broken in interrogation. He talked of the disgrace of failure that would shower on him.

  'You must not interfere with the man at Yavas,' Elena said quietly, and her cheeks were smooth and rosy from the fire's heat.

  'Then an innocent man dies.'

  She laughed shrilly. 'And he would be the first?'

  Rudakov knelt bes
ide her chair, and his arms were around her neck, and his head was hard against her breast, and through the thin wool of her jersey she felt the panting of his breathing. Neither looked up, nor broke away from each other, as the helicopter shuddered away over the roof of their bungalow to resume its search.

  There were nail holes in the tin walls of the hut, and through them Adimov could see that the light outside was failing.

  Holly was in deep sleep, his mouth at peace and his forehead unlined. He lay on his side and his body was curled tight, knees against his chest. Adimov stayed very still for a full minute watching the pull and give of Holly's breathing.

  When he was satisfied he crawled across the floor of the hut to the doorway and eased his shoulder against it to open it a few centimetres.

  The snow had stopped. There was a misted haze over the smoothed white ground. Away to his left were the dim outlines of the telegraph poles beside the railway.

  Even from the cab of a train a driver would only have a scant impression of the smoke, it would merge in the coming darkness. Better if there had been a hole in the roof through which the smoke could escape because then he could have prepared his fire inside the hut. No hole, and therefore he must make his fire in the doorway. He worked in a scrabbling haste. He pushed what dry hay he could find into a small central heap, and his groping hands found lengths of old planking. He took his matches from his pocket and silently praised himself for having remembered to wrap them in plastic. Five matches only. He lit the first, nestled it against the hay, watched it spark, felt the heave of the wind, watched it splutter, watched it die. Adimov swore. He lit the second and it was a poor match which flamed for a moment and then was gone before he had hidden it in the hay. The third match was alive now and Adimov gazed at the brightness of its flame and tucked it into the hole he had fashioned, and slid strands of hay across it, and cupped his hands to protect the flicker of light from the wind, and blew softly with his mouth.

  He built his fire, and when it had caught he stood up and, above the short flames, he held his sheet high so that the smoke bounced against it and was directed through the doorway. He felt the heat against his legs and when the first of the wood embers were alight he nudged his boot against the fire and pushed the centre of the burning further into the doorway, and added more wood. Only a portion of the smoke now peeled back into the hut. Adimov dropped again to the ground and dragged at his boots that were wet solid and difficult to bend from his feet, and he stripped off his socks, and placed the boots close to the fire and his socks over them.