The Yermakov Transfer

by Derek Lambert

  Harry Bridges said: “Now it’s my turn. What are you doing on the train, Comrade Pavlov?”

  “Then you do know me.”

  “By reputation. The finest mathematical brain in the Soviet Union. A living computer.”

  “I’m honoured.”

  Bridges paused before asking: “So what brings you on the Trans. Siberian. Just your work?”

  Pavlov hesitated. “You’ve had your ear to the ground, Mr. Bridges. I congratulate you.”

  “I don’t know what the hell you mean.”

  “You are referring to my wife and myself?”

  “I wasn’t,” Bridges said. “But I’ll buy it.”

  Pavlov looked confused. “About my wife and myself. Don’t tell me, Mr. Bridges, that a man like yourself who attends two Moscow cocktail parties a night didn’t know that the greatest mathematical brain in the Soviet Union and his wife, a Heroine of the Soviet Union, had parted? That our marriage, as you say in America, was on the rocks?” He smiled bleakly. “An apt description for a geologist?”

  “I didn’t know,” Bridges said.

  “You surprise me. I should have thought it was the sort of gossip that would appeal to the bourgeois capitalist press.”

  “It’s not that important,” Bridges said.

  “It would have appealed to me,” Libby Chandler said. “I love gossip.” No one smiled and she decided to keep her mouth shut.

  “In that case I can tell you the main reason for my journey across Siberia. I’m going to be re-united with my wife.”

  Libby put her hand on his arm. “I’m glad,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Pavlov said stiffly. “Now I must return to my compartment. I’ve got work to do.” He made his way through the dining car, holding on to chairs as the carriage bounced slightly, an intense, hawkish man with a face which might have contained humour if things had been different.

  The door at the opposite end of the car opened and the first Siberian diners came in. Four of them – two bearded men in faded-blue shirts and trousers, peaked caps and fur boots. The women wore black shawls, thick skirts and darned woollen jumpers. They were ageless, with brown skin tight on expressionless faces, eyes the colour of ice beneath a blue sky.

  They went up to the glass-cabinet, beside the abacus and cash-register, pointing at the cigarettes, preserves, sweets, bottles of Russian champagne and Georgian brandy.

  One of them asked the girl in the paper tiara for a bottle of vodka. She shook her head. The man swore a pungent, Siberian oath.

  “Why no vodka?” Libby asked Bridges.

  “Because it’s cheap and might lead to undignified behaviour in front of foreigners. They figure that people who can afford the brandy and champagne know how to hold their liquor.” He stood up. “Come on – let’s go and see how the other half live.”

  * * *

  The other half lived in hard-class dormitories with fifty-seven bunks arranged in tiers. They made communities of them with samovars steaming in the aisle, babies taking their feed at the breast, blankets spread with meals of black bread, cheese and vodka smuggled on to the train from the steppes. The floor was sprinkled with the husks of sunflower seeds and pine-nut shells and a couple of ropes dripping with clothes were strung across the aisle.

  “Which do you prefer?” Bridges asked, “soft class or this?”

  “I shouldn’t think it’s changed in fifty years,” Libby Chandler replied, ignoring the question.

  “Probably not. But it’s still an improvement on the 8.30 commuter to Charing Cross or Pennsylvania. Or the New York subway,” he added. “At least you don’t get mugged here.”

  In the centre of the aisle a group of men had gathered round two chess-players. One was young and sharp; the other was in his sixties with a wise, ravaged face.

  Bridges spoke to a man wearing striped flannel pyjamas with war medals pinned on his chest.

  “Who’s winning?” Libby asked.

  “The young guy. It seems that the old fellow was once the champion of Perm. A grandmaster or a master. Apparently he once played Botvinnik and beat him. It must have been one of Botvinnik’s off days. But the old boy must have been good.”

  “And he isn’t any more?”

  “He got old. He started to drink. Now he’s trying to prove something.” Like Yermakov, Bridges thought. “Just one win. He’s played seven games on the train and lost them all.”

  “How terrible for him,” Libby said. There were tears in her eyes and she brushed them away irritably. “I hope he wins. Couldn’t the young one throw the game?”

  “He’d know,” Bridges said. “And that would be worse for him, wouldn’t it?”

  “I suppose so. If only he’d stop drinking.”

  The old man took a swig from a bottle of vodka and moved his queen. The spectators sighed.

  “I’m afraid he’s going to lose this one,” Bridges said.

  The sleek young man made a quick move. The former champion said something and they set up the pieces again.

  “He lost,” Bridges said. The train was slowing down. “We’re coming into Shalia. Let’s go back and see if the Intourist lady has strangled Mr. Wagstaff yet.”

  “I wonder what her name is?” Libby said.

  “Larissa. It has to be.”

  Punctually at 11.31 the Trans-Siberian slid into the platform at Shalia.

  * * *

  But it wasn’t until five hours later, when the train was waiting at Sverdlovsk 1,818 kilometres from Moscow, that another imponderable in Viktor Pavlov’s scheme of things occurred and a man was shot.

  From the railway Sverdlovsk looks a dreary place. A city of one million inhabitants contained in a cocoon of railway tracks and wire drooping, like abandoned fairy lights, from pylons. It is like Baltimore from the highway or Stockport from anywhere. It is a coal and steel metropolis and it seems to have assumed industrial drabness to distract memory from the blood-letting in the cellar of a modest house on July 17, 1918.

  In this cellar (although it has subsequently been disputed) Tsar Nicholas II, victim of events and an assumption of divine right, was murdered with his wife and family.

  But history didn’t allow Sverdlovsk – or Ekaterinburg as it was once called – to escape the limelight. In May, 1960, the U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was brought down by a ground-to-air missile.

  The rocket battery was commanded by a Jew, Lieutenant Feldman.

  No tourists are allowed to alight at Sverlovsk.

  Boris Demurin took over the controls as the locomotive nosed into the station. “Are we on time?” he asked the Ukranian.

  “Of course,” the Ukranian replied indulgently.

  “Good,” Demurin said. “We don’t want anything to go wrong. I remember …”

  “Just remember the brakes,” the Ukranian said.

  The train stopped. It was due to leave in eighteen minutes.

  As at the previous stops, the K.G.B. alighted before the wheels had stopped. The embarking passengers were lined up for questioning. Among those who alighted was Semenov the Policeman. He waited at a bookstall flipping through copies of the London Morning Star and the Paris L’Humanite while the secret police went about their work. He noted that the representative of the Zealots, the Peasant, was fifth in line.

  The two examining K.G.B. officers took their time with him. Then one of them waved to the window where Razin stood watching. Razin hurried over. He examined the papers while the Peasant, wearing a peaked cap and blue denims, protested. One of the officers snapped at him and he shut up.

  Semenov saw Razin point to a waiting-room taken over by the militia and local K.G.B.

  The Peasant hesitated, turned and headed for the waiting-room with Razin behind him. Semenov followed at a discreet distance.

  At the entrance to the waiting-room he heard Razin say: “Get him into the car. We don’t want any trouble here.”

  Semenov sauntered through the booking hall to the outside of the station where a black Chaik
a, the limousine used by the Kremlin, was ticking over.

  The Peasant decided to make a run for it as he emerged from the station.

  He wrenched himself free from his captors and ran towards Semenov. The K.G.B. men drew pistols but the Peasant was ducking and weaving between startled pedestrians.

  Semenov heard Razin shout: “Don’t kill him.”

  As the Peasant approached Semenov he veered away. Semenov didn’t know whether he recognised him. But he knew what he would prefer if he were in the Peasant’s place: a bullet through the heart rather than interrogation by the K.G.B.

  Semenov remembered: They always talk. No matter how tough, they always talk. A lot of nonsense was written about man’s resilience to torture. An electric current through the testicles and they talked.

  “Stop him,” someone shouted; maybe Razin.

  Semenov took his pistol from his shoulder holster. As he did so he heard the thick, phlegmy thud of a pistol equipped with a silencer. The Peasant ran on and the K.G.B. officer aimed again; but the Peasant was behind a line of Moskvich’s and Volgas. But he was still in Semenov’s line of fire.

  Militia were running in all directions, boots thudding on the ground. Men, women and children lay on the ground terrified.

  The Peasant slipped on the frosty ground. The militia were gaining. Semenov took careful aim and fired. The Peasant reared up, spun round staring at Semenov – in gratitude or disbelief? – and fell to the ground.

  Razin pushed the body with his foot. “Good shooting,” he said to Semenov. “But he won’t talk to us now.”

  “I didn’t mean to kill him,” Semenov said.

  “No?” Razin rubbed his chin. “But I was led to understand that you were a crack shot.” He pointed to the body. “Take it to the mortuary. Check him out and call me at Novosibirsk tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch. “Time to be off.” He took Semenov’s arm. “Come, Comrade, you and I must have a talk.”

  * * *

  For once the Trans-Siberian pulled out of Sverdlovsk two minutes early at 14.16. No more passengers were allowed on board to spread alarm. Eye-witnesses at the station were told that the Peasant was a rapist trying to escape to Khabarovsk; they were advised not to talk about the incident; the local offices of Izvestia, Pravda and Tass were instructed not to report it.

  Viktor Pavlov didn’t hear about the killing until they reached Tiumen. He was standing on the platform buying a paper cone of red currants, deep-frozen from the summer, from one of the girls patrolling the waiting train with buckets of baked potatoes, pies and fruit.

  He was joined by Semenov who bought some currants and, as he turned to go back to the train, said, lips hardly moving: “The Peasant’s dead.”

  Pavlov went on munching, a trickle of juice like blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. He tossed the cone on the platform and headed back to his carriage. The girl selling the currants called after him. He turned to see her pointing at the cone. She scowled, scolded him, and threw the cone into a refuse basket.

  Pavlov went to the dining car and ordered himself a brandy. This was the fourth imponderable. Eliminating the presence of the Tartar general and his wife which was inconsequential, they were the agent arrested at Moscow’s Far Eastern station, the K.G.B. man taking the bunk below him, Colonel Razin on the train, the death of the Peasant. How many more? He drank some brandy, feeling it burn his stomach, and fed the plan through the computer that was his brain. The grey cells received the messages, assimilated them and came back with the answer: Success with the reservation – only three imponderables left.

  He watched a forest of silver birch, ghostly in the evening light, flit past the window. The death of the Peasant had been the worst set-back. It was he who had known the exact location of the Kalashnikov semi-automatic assault rifles – a version of the Soviet Army’s AK-47’s – the grenades and the sub-machine guns. Now, with the death of the Peasant, he had to work on Variation 1. How to find out the location of the weapons. Simple: he would have to get a message from Novosibirsk to one of the Zealots in Irkutsk.

  Pavlov relaxed a little and ordered another brandy. This morning’s encounter with Colonel Razin hadn’t been too bad.

  A table had been reserved for them. Razin sat down, ordered a coffee and said: “You’re a Jew, aren’t you, Comrade Pavlov?”

  Pavlov had been expecting it. The K.G.B., and the N.K.V.D. before them, must have checked him out exhaustively back to his birth in the devastated city of Leningrad. But there was no positive check on his mother. He had always known that the K.G.B. knew he was a mongrel; but they were only certain of some Jewish blood on his father’s side.

  Pavlov said, as he always said, “Do you want to see my papers?”

  “No need, Comrade Pavlov. I know perfectly well what’s on them.”

  “Why do you ask then? You know I’ve got a strain of Jewish blood. So have millions of Soviet citizens.”

  Razin’s brown eyes were gentle as he agreed. “Perhaps even myself if I checked back far enough.” He reached across the table and touched Pavlov’s arm. “Don’t be alarmed, I was only making conversation. It’s pleasant to see a familiar face on the train. It relieves the tension a little. I have a terrible responsibility,” he confided. “You must forgive me if I seemed … abrupt.” He offered Pavlov a pack of American cigarettes obtained on the diplomatic circuit, but Pavlov refused. “A bad habit. Undoubtedly injurious to health. But it soothes the nerves in positions like this.”

  “You don’t look nervous,” Pavlov said, studying Razin’s big features, the deep cleft in the chin where the razor had missed a few bristles.

  Razin shrugged. “I’ve nothing against the Jews,” he said. “They constitute some of the finest brains in the Soviet Union. Too many, perhaps. That’s why we have to put certain obstacles in their way in the schools and universities otherwise they’d grab all the places. Wasn’t it Madame Furtseva, the Minister of Culture, who, when asked to comment on the situation, replied, ‘It would do no harm if there was one Jewish miner for every Jewish student.’”

  “I thought Krushchev said it. Anyway it’s highly complimentary to the Jews.”

  “Indeed.” Razin inhaled deeply; he smoked a cigarette with great deliberation, as he did everything. He went on: “Look at you, Comrade Pavlov. The greatest mathematical brain in Russia today. And that’s only with a thin strain of Jewish blood. What would you be like if you were totally Jewish? You’re a genius now so there’s only one logical answer.” He paused. “You’d be a madman.”

  The waitress, a dark-skinned Georgian with glossy hair tied in braids, hovered nervously near the table. She felt the undercurrent of power and she was frightened to go too near to it.

  Razin beckoned her over; she approached as if she were stepping over an electric cable. “More coffee,” he said. He favoured her with his gentle smile and his big head turned as she walked away. “Attractive, eh? A good figure. But her backside’s a bit on the small side. We Russians like a good rump.”

  “I’m a Russian,” Pavlov reminded him. “You seem to forget.”

  “Ah, yes.” Razin leaned forward waiting for the hard sugar to melt in his coffee. “If only they were all like you.” He prodded at the lump of Cuban sugar with his teaspoon. “The majority are, of course. They’re good Russians and they want to stay here. And why not? There are fantastic opportunities in the Soviet Union.” He pointed out of the window, past a village of gingerbread houses with blue and yellow jig-saw eaves, past the pine and birch and larch to the steppes. “Siberia,” Razin said. “It could supply the world with coal for 2,000 years and still have some left over. It could release enough diamonds to make them as valueless as pebbles on the beach.”

  Razin conquered the sugar. “No,” he continued, “the majority of Jews have the right idea. It’s the minority that causes the trouble. The trouble-makers the world hears about. The Zionists.” He spat out the word. “I have nothing against Jews” – Pavlov thought he was over-emphatic – “I have
no time for Zionists. They’re traitors,” he finished, his eyes searching Pavlov’s face.

  Pavlov said: “I agree.” The lie didn’t trouble him because with this man, as associate of the butcher Beria, it was merely a defensive weapon; it only hurt when he had to deny his heritage to another Jew, to Gopnik.

  “One thing puzzles me,” Razin said, sawing at the cleft in his chin with his forefinger. “How did you get authority at such a high level to travel on this particular train?” He waved aside Pavlov’s explanation. “I know about your wife, I know about your work. But it seems remarkable to me that a man of known Jewish origins should have been allowed to travel on the same train as Comrade Yermakov.”

  Pavlov said: “Perhaps you didn’t know, Comrade Colonel, that Comrade Yermakov has made it known that he wants to meet my wife in Khabarovsk. Publicly. A great opportunity for glamorous publicity. The photographers have already been warned. Can’t you see the photographs now? The flower of Siberian womanhood and the might of the Soviet Union with garlands round their necks?” Beauty and the beast, he thought.

  “I hadn’t heard about it,” Razin said. “I suppose I should have. Someone slipped up.”

  Pavlov felt sorry for the official who had slipped up.

  “So you see,” Pavlov went on, “it was considered important that I should be on the train. Apparently my wife was unwilling to participate if I wasn’t there.”

  “I see,” Razin said thoughtfully. He stared out of the window still fingering the cleft in his chin, his brown eyes troubled.

  * * *

  One foreigner on board the train did know about the shooting at Sverdlovsk. He was Harry Bridges and, with his special pass, he had been wandering around the back of the station when he saw a man in peasant dress wrench himself away from two plainclothes police and run towards a line of parked cars. He also saw another man in plainclothes with a white face and a scar at the corner of his mouth draw a pistol.

  The man with the scar seemed to hesitate, even though he was patently K.G.B. Then he raised the pistol and gunned down the man in peasant clothes. The peasant spun round and, or so it seemed to Harry Bridges, looked at the man with the scar with recognition as he fell dying. Bridge’s professional eye switched back to his killer. Fleetingly, there seemed to be an expression of anguish on his pale face.