The Forest of Souls

by Carla Banks

  And now, after decades of inaction, their governments were trying to make amends. Memories from half a century before were taxed; photographs of men, young and in uniform, were compared with pictures of aging exiles. And the fingers of accusation began to point.

  Juris Ziverts lived in a small semi in Blackburn. He had welcomed Jake, ushering him into the front room of his house, a room with a patterned carpet, blown vinyl wallpaper and bric-a-brac on the narrow mantelpiece above the electric fire. There was a fuchsia on the coffee table, its frilled petals looking oddly exotic in the resolutely suburban home. Jake, looking for a neutral topic to break the ice, said, ‘That’s a beautiful plant.’

  The old man’s face, heavily bearded, was hawkish, but it lit up at Jake’s words. ‘You like flowers? I too. Since I retired, I spend my days in my greenhouse.’ He poured tea for Jake, his hands trembling slightly. ‘I am so glad you have come, Mr Denbigh. There has been a mistake. I’m sure it will all be sorted out…’ He was trying to make light of it, but his tense face and trembling hands told their own story.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’ Jake had come to the house with no strong views about Ziverts one way or the other, but he was prepared to listen.

  ‘It is…’ Ziverts’ voice wavered, then came back stronger. ‘I am Latvian, Mr Denbigh. I was a refugee after the war. My family died, so I came here. I am a teacher. Of maths. I married. I worked in Manchester for forty years, then I retired.’ He hesitated and cleared his throat. ‘When I arrive,’ he continued, ‘my English was not good. My name–it was very strange to the people here. They called me George. It was easier, and they meant no harm. So I became George Ziverts.’

  Jake nodded. It wasn’t unusual for Eastern Europeans to change their names. He knew a Kazimierz who had changed his name to Carl and a Zbigniew who had become John. ‘And then…?’

  ‘I fought in the war,’ Ziverts said suddenly.

  Jake kept his tone casual. ‘The German Army?’

  ‘No. Never. But many of us…I…fought on the side of the Nazis when they drove the Russians out. The Soviets were brutal oppressors–we were glad to oppose them. But I was not a Nazi,’ he said. ‘We had welcomed in a monster to drive out a monster, and we paid the price. I was never a Nazi.’

  Jake listened as he told his story. It was an ugly one, as were so many that came from that time, that place. The investigators claimed to have evidence that the man who was known in Blackburn as George Ziverts was in fact Juka Zivertus, former commander of one of the death squads in Belarus. Zivertus had organized the rounding up of hundreds of civilians, women and children, and had had them machine-gunned by the side of their graves.

  ‘Never!’ Ziverts said, his distress making his voice stumble over the words. ‘I never did such things. I never knew such things were happening. I fought the Soviets. I killed young men like myself. We have all had to live with that. I am not this man, this Zivertus, but how can I prove it? My family is dead. My friends are dead. They refuse to believe my papers. I don’t know what to do.’

  Jake thought about this now, as he finished his cigarette, turning the photograph of Marek Lange round and round in his fingers. Had he believed then that Juris Ziverts was innocent? He couldn’t remember. He’d thought the case against him was thin to the point of unprovable, and he’d found Ziverts an unconvincing candidate for a war criminal. Perpetrators of such crimes–those who organized or authorized them–tended towards an unapologetic arrogance. They were in no hurry to admit culpability, but neither did they see themselves as having done anything wrong. Ziverts’ distressed bewilderment–and his horror at the accusation levelled against him–was not the response of a guilty man. The problem was that there was almost no way to prove guilt or innocence after all these years.

  He’d told Ziverts that the whole matter was academic. The police had no convincing proof and little chance of getting any. ‘Don’t worry,’ he’d reassured the old man. There was no story for him and he hadn’t planned on returning–which was a mistake, as it turned out. But Zivert’s story had first aroused his interest in Belarus.

  Jake felt oddly reluctant to return home and finish off his article with the contribution from Marek Lange. He stared into the distance, remembering how Lange’s face had frozen into blankness. The old man had held the photograph, and he’d said…Jake relaxed and let the memory form. He was in the room. It was chilly and the light was dim. Lange was motionless, staring at the picture. Everyone is afraid. Fear makes people…made me…I should not have done it. The bear at the gate…I was there. I was there. And the little one…And then in Russian: I should know. I did know. It is wrong.

  I should not have done it. Done what? What should he have known, and what did he know? What had the photograph brought so shockingly to Lange’s mind? And then Faith Lange had arrived and got her grandfather off the hook. But before she came in, the old man had said something else. Minsk. It was in Minsk.

  Ghost fingers touched his spine.

  He had decided what he was going to do. He left the rest of his coffee and walked down the narrow steps to the street. A train clattered over the bridge above him, making the iron sing. He was going to pay a visit to Sophia Yevanova.

  6

  The sign on the door said ANTONI YEVANOV, DIRECTOR. Faith took a deep breath. She had never met Yevanov on a one-to-one basis before and would have liked a bit more preparation for this meeting. She’d prefer not to feel rushed and harassed, her mind still picking over the events of the morning. Yevanov had a reputation for impatience and for swift, sharp judgement.

  She glanced at her reflection in the glass over a picture. She looked a bit windblown. Her hand moved automatically to smooth her hair–but she was aware of Trish’s eyes on her, and suppressed the impulse. She knocked on the door, waited for an acknowledgement, then pushed it open.

  The room was spacious and airy. White walls reflected the light from a south-facing window that looked out across the campus, a stunted arcadia in a cityscape of concrete, stone and glass. It was deserted apart from a group of students hurrying out of the driving rain.

  ‘Dr Lange.’ Antoni Yevanov was coming across the room to greet her. He was tall–well over six foot, and she had to look up at him as he shook her hand. His face was thin, with arched eyebrows and the characteristic high cheekbones of the Slav. She knew that he must be in his fifties, but despite the few threads of grey in his dark hair, he looked younger.

  He ushered her towards the desk, and pulled out a chair for her. ‘Please sit down.’ His movements were quick and vigorous. The room felt cool to her, but he was in his shirtsleeves and his tie was loosened. She noticed the jacket of his suit slung over the back of his chair, and was enough Katya’s daughter to observe the drape of good cloth and fine tailoring.

  As she sat down, she took a moment to absorb her surroundings. The wall behind his desk was lined with bookshelves. A map of Europe patterned in reds and greens hung opposite the window. Faith recognized it–it had been the cover of his most recent book.

  There were papers spread across the surface of the desk, and the computer monitor was flickering. He also had a laptop in front of him, on which he’d apparently been working before she arrived. A whiteboard beside his desk was covered with lists of ongoing projects.

  He waited until she was sitting down, then took a seat in the leather chair behind the desk. ‘Dr Lange,’ he said again, then with a brief smile, ‘Faith. I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to talk before. I realize that your own research is being delayed while you settle in, and I’d like to get things moving there. The software you developed when you were at Oxford gets a very favourable mention in The Journal of Statistics. I have some thoughts about the ways in which you plan to move forward with this that I’d like to discuss with you another time. I am delighted that you are joining us. Now, how are you settling in?’

  ‘Very well,’ she said.

  He asked her about the work the people on her team were doing. She
’d spent her first week making sure she was familiar with all the ongoing projects, and was able to bring him up to date.

  He nodded when she’d finished, then said, ‘And Helen? Helen Kovacs?’

  Faith had been hoping to skip over the topic of Helen until they had had a chance to talk. ‘She’s working on her paper. We have a meeting arranged to talk about it.’

  His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘I have some concerns about it,’ he said. ‘Especially as she didn’t make it to our meeting this morning.’

  ‘You had a meeting with Helen?’ Helen hadn’t mentioned a meeting with Yevanov. ‘I’d arranged to see her this morning.’

  He frowned. ‘She didn’t make it to your meeting either?’

  ‘No. She left a message with Trish that she might be held up.’ It was a poor defence at best, and Yevanov didn’t look pleased. She wondered what was going on. There were issues here of which she was unaware.

  She remembered Trish’s waspish remark earlier when she was on the phone to Yevanov: ‘She isn’t here. Again.’ Helen was letting herself drift into deep water. The academic world was cut-throat. There would be very little slack allowed to anyone who wasn’t putting in 100 per cent, no matter what kinds of personal problems they might be dealing with.

  He was speaking again, and she made herself concentrate. ‘The Bonn conference is a particularly important one. I have made time to attend it myself, and it is essential that any contribution we make from the Centre is of an appropriate standard. I need to confirm the status of the paper with the organizers. I understood that the research stage was complete, and it was simply a matter of writing this up.’

  ‘That’s my understanding.’

  ‘So what is the significance of the material from the Litkin Archive?’

  ‘The…what?’ Faith had no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘The Litkin Archive,’ he said again.

  She felt completely wrong-footed. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’

  He ran his finger along the line of his jaw, frowning. ‘I was hoping you could enlighten me. The archive is a bequest from a Russian collector, Gennady Litkin. It consists mostly of wartime papers from what became the USSR, but there is some material relating to this country. It’s a fascinating resource, but completely undocumented. The Centre controls access, and I only found out this morning that Helen had formally applied to look at some papers. It is my responsibility and, normally, these applications come to me, but I’ve been away, so I don’t know what she had in mind.’ He picked up a form from his in-tray and studied it. ‘Does the Ruabon Coal Company mean anything to you?’

  Faith shook her head. ‘I’m positive Helen’s research was complete. She wanted to discuss her writing schedule with me.’ She might as well clear this with Yevanov now. ‘I was going to get a few of her teaching hours covered to help her catch up.’

  He nodded, as if he agreed with this. ‘But the archive?’

  ‘I think she must have been looking for some additional data.’

  He raised his eyebrows as he studied the paper in his hand. ‘Possibly.’ He didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘Or maybe it was research for something else,’ she said. ‘Her PhD was on the decline of the coal industry. She was preparing it for publication.’

  He was still reading the form. ‘No. She wouldn’t have got permission for unauthorized research. There are legal problems over the ownership and, until the papers are properly archived, access to the collection is closely controlled.’ He ran his fingers through his hair and tugged it in frustration. ‘I explained all of this…’ He tossed the form back on to the desk in exasperation.

  His phone rang. He excused himself and picked it up. ‘Yevanov…Yes, I am aware of that…As soon as she arrives, please…’

  She glanced at his bookshelves while he was talking. He had books on international law, books on the recent Balkan wars, books on Rwanda, books on Iraq. She saw a copy of Mein Kampf and heavy tomes on the Nuremberg trials. He also had, incongruously, some collections of fairy stories and folk tales, including the Russian collection that Grandpapa used to read to her. She went across to the shelves for a closer look.

  Russian Fairy Tales. Faded gold lettering on green binding. She heard the phone being put down, and turned. He smiled when he saw the book in her hands. ‘You think this is an odd thing for an historian to have?’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘They’re part of history, in a way. They’re beautiful stories.’

  ‘They are. And they are very old, probably the oldest records we have.’ She gave him the book and he turned it over in his hands, a faint smile on his face. ‘Not many people are familiar with them these days.’

  ‘I grew up with them,’ she said.

  He looked across at her in surprise. ‘So did I.’ He flicked through the pages. ‘“Once upon a time, deep in the dark forest where the bears roamed and the wolves hunted, there lived an evil witch…”’ He raised an eyebrow and looked at the line of books on the shelf behind him: The Nuremberg Trials; The Fall of Srebrenica; Inside Al-Qaeda. ‘It’s a simple explanation, but I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever come up with anything better.’ He smiled. ‘It’s unusual to find someone who knows of these. We have something in common.’ He held the book out to her.

  She took it and turned the pages, scanning the familiar titles: The Snow Child, Havroshechka, The Firebird. ‘My grandfather used to read them to me.’

  ‘Your grandfather is Russian?’

  ‘Polish. He was a refugee.’

  ‘Then it’s interesting he read you those stories. There is little love lost between the Poles and the Russians. But we have something else in common. My mother is also a refugee, though she didn’t get out until after the war. Those were dreadful times.’

  ‘Is she…?’…still alive, Faith wanted to ask, but didn’t know how to word her query.

  ‘Her health is poor. She’s lived in this city for many years, but now she needs caring for–something she does not admit.’ His smile was rueful. Then he looked at her, and his face was cool and professional again. ‘Don’t worry about the meeting this afternoon,’ he said. ‘Helen’s problem will wait for a different occasion. I’m aware of her situation–I’ll do what I can. Once again–I’m delighted you have joined our team.’

  He stood up as she moved to leave, giving a slight bow. ‘Make an appointment to see me…’ he looked quickly at the board ‘…in a couple of weeks and we can talk about your work.’ He held the door open for her. She was aware of Trish watching her as she left the office.

  As soon as she was in the corridor she tried Helen’s mobile, but the phone was switched off. There was nothing she could do for now. She felt exhausted, as though she’d just run a few miles, but at least her encounter with Yevanov seemed to have gone well. It was odd that he had collections of the same stories that Grandpapa used to read to her when she was small. She had grown up with stories–Grandpapa reading to her during quiet evenings, the long walks together when he told her stories about his childhood: the house that Great-Grandpapa built, the orchard, the trains in the forest, the witch in the wood…

  The Red Train

  This is the story of how the trains came to the forest.

  It was spring, and there were men in the forest, strangers. The sound of axes rang through the air as they cut the trees. They were clearing the land for the railway, Stanislau said. Marek took Eva along the paths to watch as the men worked, watching the tree they were cutting as it swayed and rustled, its branches whispering as it fell until it crashed down to the forest floor. And the men would shout to each other, and the chains would clank as the horses pulled away the tree that had fallen.

  Eva would watch and listen. The tree seemed to struggle as the axes bit into its trunk, and then the sigh as it fell was sad, and the leaves of the other trees would rustle in agitation as the fallen one was dragged away. Sometimes the men would call to the children, and they would run back to the house in the clearing.

&n
bsp; When the trees had gone, the rails came, long tracks that wound their way through the forest. And the men who built the rails built a bridge that crossed the river–much bigger than the wooden bridge where Stanislau led the horse carrying the orchard fruit to market.

  Then the trains came, huge metal engines pulling wagon after wagon after wagon. The wagons were made of wood, apart from the wheels which were iron and sped along the track, making sparks fly up into the air. And the train carried a fire in its heart to make it go, and the fireman shovelled in the fuel and the train moved, sometimes slowly as if the engine was tired of pulling the long line of trucks, sometimes flying along through the forests, the smoke from the engine trailing behind it.

  First, there was the sound of the whistle, then the smoke through the trees and the line would start to sing as the train came nearer and nearer and then burst along the track. Da da dah, da da dah, Marek would sing the song of the train. West to east and east to west, the trains ran night and day.

  Eva loved the trains. Before she was old enough to walk the woods on her own, she would dawdle behind her brother, carefully, infuriatingly, holding him back from the things he wanted to do, until he became distracted and she could slip through the undergrowth and into the shadows and make her way through the trees with their shivering fronds that hung down and ran their fingers across her face and tangled in her hair.

  She knew the times and the places. She would come to the clearings, the places where the trees had been cut and the ground built up with stones to carry the iron rails. And she would crouch by the line with her fingers on the rail, waiting. And then the iron would begin to hum beneath her fingers, before her ears could hear it, and she would leave her fingers there a bit longer and a bit longer, daring herself, then she would move back to the edge of the trees, waiting as the iron sang. And she would hear the beat of the engine, and sometimes the wail of its horn, and then it would be there, on top of her, in a rush of power and steam and smoke, and she would smell the burning cinders and see the men as they powered the engine, and sometimes they would see her crouched among the trees, and they would sound the horn and wave and laugh, and she would wave back, and then the train was gone, and Marek was calling with frantic anger from the forest behind her: ‘Eva! Eva!’