Archangel

by Robert Harris

  Outside, through the double glass, the snow was beginning to pile in the courtyard. A clock ticked. Beside the door Kelso noticed a bundle of the latest issue of Aurora, tied up with string, awaiting distribution. The headline was a quote from the Interior Ministry’s report to the president: ‘VIOLENCE IS INEVITABLE’.

  After a couple of minutes, a man appeared. He must have been about sixty – an odd-looking figure. His head was too small for his heavy torso, his features too small for his face. His name was Tsarev, he said, holding out a hand stained black with ink. Professor Tsarev. Deputy First Secretary of the Regional Committee.

  Kelso asked if they could have a word.

  Yes. Perhaps. That would be possible.

  Now? In private?

  Tsarev hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Very well.’

  He led them down a dark corridor and into his office, a little time warp from the Soviet days, with its pictures of Brezhnev and Andropov. Kelso reckoned he must have visited a score of offices like this over the years. Wood block flooring, thick water pipes, a heavy radiator, a desk calendar, a big green Bakelite telephone, like something out of a 1950s science fiction movie, the smell of polish and stale air – every detail was familiar, right down to the model Sputnik and the clock in the shape of Zimbabwe left behind by some visiting Marxist delegation. On the shelf behind Tsarev’s head were six copies of Mamantov’s memoirs, I Still Believe.

  ‘I see you have Vladimir Mamantov’s book.’ It was a stupid thing to say but Kelso couldn’t help himself.

  Tsarev turned round, as if noticing them for the first time. ‘Yes. Comrade Mamantov came to Archangel and campaigned for us, during the presidential elections. Why? Do you know him?’

  ‘Yes. I know him.’

  There was a silence. Kelso was aware of O’Brian looking at him, and of Tsarev waiting for him to speak. Hesitantly, he began his rehearsed speech. First of all, he said, he and Mr O’Brian would like to thank Professor Tsarev for seeing them at such short notice. They were in Archangel for one day only, making a film about the residual strength of the Communist Party. They were visiting various towns in Russia. He was sorry they had not been in contact earlier to make a proper appointment, but they were working quickly –

  ‘And Comrade Mamantov sent you?’ interrupted Tsarev. ‘Comrade Mamantov sent you here?’

  ‘I can truthfully say we would not be here without Vladimir Mamantov.’

  Tsarev began nodding. Well, this was a most excellent subject. This was a subject wilfully ignored in the west. How many people in the west knew, for example, that in the Duma elections, the communists had taken thirty per cent of the votes, and then, in 1996, in the presidential elections, forty per cent? Yes, they would be in power again soon. Sharing power to begin with, perhaps, but afterwards – who could say?

  He became more animated.

  Take the situation here in Archangel. They had millionaires, of course. Wonderful! Unfortunately, they also had organised crime, unemployment, AIDS, prostitution, drug addiction. Were his visitors aware that life expectancy and child-mortality in Russia had now reached African levels? Such progress! Such freedoms! Tsarev had been a professor of Marxist theory in Archangel for twenty years – the post was now abolished, naturally – so he had taught Marxism in a Marxist state, but it was only now, as they were literally tearing down Marx’s statues, that he had come to appreciate the genius of the man’s insight: that money robs the whole world, both the human world and nature, of their own proper value –

  ‘Ask him about the girl,’ whispered O’Brian. ‘We haven’t got time for all this bullshit. Ask him about Anna.’

  Tsarev had halted in mid-speech and was looking from one man to the other.

  ‘Professor Tsarev,’ said Kelso, ‘to illustrate our film we need to look at particular human stories –’

  That was good. Yes. He understood. The human element There were many such stories in Archangel.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. But we have in mind one in particular. A girl. Now a woman in her sixties. She would be about the same age as you. Her unmarried name was Safanova. Anna Mikhailovna Safanova. She was in the Komsomol.’

  Tsarev stroked the end of his squat nose. The name, he said, after a moment’s thought, was not familiar. This would have been some time ago, presumably?

  ‘Almost fifty years.’

  Fifty years? It was not possible! Please! He would find them other persons –

  ‘But you must have records?’

  – he would show them females who fought the fascists in the Great Patriotic War, Heroes of Socialist Labour, Holders of the Order of the Red Banner. Magnificent people –

  ‘Ask him how much he wants,’ said O’Brian, not even bothering to whisper now. He was pulling out his wallet. ‘To look in his files. What’s his price?’

  ‘Your colleague,’ said Tsarev, ‘is not happy?’

  ‘My colleague was wondering,’ said Kelso, delicately, ‘if it would be possible for you to undertake some research work for us. For which we would be happy to pay you – to pay the Party, that is – a fee …’

  IT would not be easy, said Tsarev.

  Kelso said he was sure it would not be.

  The membership of the Communist Party in the last years of the Soviet Union comprised seven per cent of the adult population. Apply those figures to Archangel and what did you get? Maybe 20,000 members in the city alone, and perhaps the same number again in the oblast. And to those figures you had to add the membership of Komsomol and of all the other Party outfits. And then, if you included all the people who had been members over the past eighty years – the people who had died or dropped out, been shot, imprisoned, exiled, purged – you had to be looking at a really large number. A huge number. Still –

  Two hundred dollars was the sum they agreed on. Tsarev insisted on providing a receipt. He locked the money into a battered cash box which he then locked in a drawer, and Kelso realised, with a curious sense of admiration, that Tsarev probably did intend to give the money to Party funds. He wouldn’t keep it for himself: he was a true believer.

  The Russian conducted them back along the passage and into reception. The woman with the dyed blonde hair was watering her tinned plants. Aurora still proclaimed that violence was inevitable. Zyuganov’s fat smile remained in place. Tsarev collected a key from a metal cupboard and they followed him down two flights of stairs into the basement. A big, blast-proof iron door, studded with bolts, thickly painted a battleship grey, swung open to show a cellar, lined with wooden shelving, piled with files.

  Tsarev put on a pair of heavy-framed spectacles and began pulling down dusty folders of documents while Kelso looked around with wonder. This was not a storeroom, he thought. This was a catacomb, a necropolis. Busts of Lenin, and of Marx and Engels, crowded the shelves like perfect clones. There were boxes of photographs of forgotten Party apparatchiks and stacked canvases of socialist realism, depicting bosomy peasant girls and worker-heroes with granite muscles. There were sacks of decorations, diplomas, membership cards, leaflets, pamphlets, books. And then there were the flags – little red flags for children to wave, and swirling crimson banners for the likes of Anna Safanova to parade with.

  It was as if a great world religion had been suddenly obliged to strip its temples and hide everything underground – to preserve its texts and icons out of sight, in the hope of better times, the Second Coming –

  The Komsomol lists for 1950 and 1951 were missing.

  ‘What?’

  Kelso wheeled round to find Tsarev frowning over a pair of folders, one in either hand.

  It was most curious, Tsarev was saying. This would need to be investigated further. They could see for themselves – he held out the files for their inspection – the lists were here for 1949 and here, also, for 1952. But in neither of those years was there an Anna Safanova listed.

  ‘She was too young in forty-nine,’ said Kelso, ‘she wouldn’t have qualified.’ And by 1952 God alone knew what might have happened t
o her. ‘When were they removed?’

  ‘April, fifty-two,’ said Tsarev, frowning. ‘There’s a note. “To be transferred to the archives of the Central Committee, Moscow.”’

  ‘Is there a signature?’

  Tsarev showed it him: ‘“A. N. Poskrebyshev.”’

  O’Brian said, ‘Who’s Poskrebyshev?’

  Kelso knew. And so, he could see, did Tsarev.

  ‘General Poskrebyshev,’ said Kelso, ‘was Stalin’s private secretary.’

  ‘So,’ said Tsarev, a little too quickly, ‘a mystery.’ He began putting the files back up on the shelf. Even after fifty years and all that had happened the signature of Stalin’s secretary was still enough to unsettle a man of the right age. His hands shook. One of the folders slipped through his fingers and flopped to the floor. Pages spilled. ‘Leave it, please. I’ll attend to it.’ But Kelso was already on his knees, gathering the loose sheets.

  ‘There is one other thing you could do for us,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think so –’

  ‘We believe that Anna Safanova’s parents were probably both Party members.’

  It was impossible, said Tsarev. He couldn’t let them look. Those records were confidential.

  ‘But you could look for us –’

  No. He didn’t think so.

  He held out his inky hand for the missing pages and suddenly O’Brian was beside him, bending, and pressing into his outstretched palm another two hundred dollars.

  ‘It really would help us very much,’ said Kelso, desperately waving O’Brian away and nodding to emphasise each word, ‘help us very much with our film, if you could look them up.’

  But Tsarev ignored him. He was staring at the two one-hundred dollar bills, and the face of Benjamin Franklin, shrewd and appraising, gazed back up at him.

  ‘There isn’t anything, is there,’ he said slowly, ‘that you people don’t think you can buy with money?’

  ‘No insult was intended,’ said Kelso. He gave O’Brian a murderous look.

  ‘Yeah,’ muttered O’Brian, ‘no offence.’

  ‘You buy our industries. You buy our missiles. You try to buy our archives –’

  His fingers contracted around the notes, screwing them tight, then he let the money fall.

  ‘Keep your money. To hell with you and your money.’

  He turned and bent his head, busied himself with putting all the records in the proper order. There was silence save for the rustling of dried paper.

  Well done, mouthed Kelso at O’Brian. Congratulations –

  A minute passed.

  And then, unexpectedly, Tsarev spoke. ‘What did you say their names were?’ he said, without looking round. ‘The parents?’

  ‘Mikhail,’ said Kelso quickly, ‘and –’ And, hell, what was the mother called? He tried to remember the NKVD report. Vera? Varushka? No, Vavara, that was it. ‘Mikhail and Vavara Safanova.’

  Tsarev hesitated. He turned to look at them, an expression on his narrow face that mingled dignity with contempt. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘Don’t touch anything.’

  He disappeared to another part of the storeroom. They could hear him moving around.

  O’Brian said, ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I think,’ said Kelso, ‘I think it’s called making a point. He’s gone to see if there are any records on Anna’s parents. And no bloody thanks to you. Didn’t I tell you: leave the talking to me?’

  ‘Well, it worked didn’t it?’ O’Brian stooped and picked up the crumpled dollars, smoothed them out and replaced them in his wallet. ‘Jesus, what a boneyard.’ He picked up a nearby head of Lenin. ‘Alas, poor Yorick …’ He stopped. He couldn’t remember the rest of the quotation. ‘Here you go, professor. Have a souvenir.’ He tossed the bust to Kelso, who caught it and quickly set it down.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. His good mood had gone. He was sick of O’Brian, but it wasn’t only that. There was something else – something about the atmosphere down here. He couldn’t define it exactly.

  O’Brian sneered. ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘I don’t know. “God is not mocked.”’

  ‘And neither is Comrade Lenin? Is that it? Poor old Fluke. You know what? I think you’re beginning to lose it.’

  Kelso would have told him to go to hell, but Tsarev was on his way back, carrying another file and now he was looking triumphant.

  Here was a subject who would be suitable for their filming. Here was a woman who had never been bought – he glared at O’Brian – a person who was a lesson to them all. Vavara Safanova had joined the Communist Party in 1935 and had stayed with it, through good times and bad. She had a list of citations bestowed by the Archangel Central Committee that took up half a page. Oh yes: here was the indomitable spirit of socialism that could never be conquered!

  Kelso smiled at him. ‘When did she die?’

  Ah! That was the thing. She hadn’t died.

  ‘Vavara Safanova?’ repeated Kelso. He couldn’t believe it. He exchanged a look with O’Brian. ‘Anna Safanova’s mother? Still alive?’

  Still alive last month, said Tsarev. Still alive at eighty-five! It was written here. They could take a look. More than sixty years a faithful member – she had just paid her Party dues.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  IT WAS MORNING in Moscow.

  Suvorin was in the back of the car with Zinaida Rapava. Militia liaison was sitting up front with the driver. The doors were locked. The Volga was wedged in the stream of sluggish traffic on the road heading south towards Lytkarino.

  The militia man was complaining. They should have come in a different car – to force their way through this lot needed revolving lights and sound effects.

  And who do you think you are? thought Suvorin. The President?

  Zinaida’s eyes looked bruised and puffy from lack of sleep. She wore a raincoat over her dress and her knees were turned towards the door, putting as much seat leather as she could between herself and Suvorin. He wondered if she knew where they were going. He doubted it. She seemed to have gone off somewhere into the heart of herself and barely to be aware of what was happening.

  Where was Kelso? What was in the notebook? The same two questions, over and over, first at her place, then upstairs in the front office that the SVR maintained in downtown Moscow – the place where visiting western journalists were entertained by the Service’s smiling, Americanized public relations officer. (See, gentlemen, how democratic we are! Now what can we do to help?) No coffee for her and no cigarettes, either, once she had smoked the last of her own. Write a statement, Zinaida, then we tear it up and we write it again, and again, as the clock drags on till nine, which is when Suvorin can play his ace.

  She was as stubborn as her father.

  In the old days, in the Lubyanka, they had operated a system called The Conveyer Belt: the suspect was passed between three investigators working eight-hour shifts in rotation. And after thirty-six hours without sleep most people would sign anything, incriminate anyone. But Suvorin didn’t have back-up and he didn’t have thirty-six hours. He yawned. His eyes seemed full of grit. He guessed he was as tired as she was.

  His mobile telephone rang.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  It was Netto.

  ‘Good morning, Vissari. What do you have?’

  A couple of things, said Netto. One: the house in Vspolnyi Street. He had established that it belonged to a medium-sized property company called Moskprop, who were trying to let it for $15,000 a month. No takers so far.

  ‘At that price? I’m not surprised.’

  Two: it looked as though something had been dug up in the garden in the past couple of days. There was loose soil in one spot to a depth of five feet, and forensics reported traces of ferrous oxide in the earth. Something had been rusting away down there for years.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No. Nothing on Mamantov. He’s evaporated. And the colonel’s agitated. He’s been asking for you.’

  �
��Did you tell him where I was?’

  ‘No, lieutenant.’

  ‘Good man.’ Suvorin rang off. Zinaida was watching him.

  ‘You know what I think?’ said Suvorin, ‘I think your old papa went and dug up that toolbox just before he died. And then I think he gave it to you. And then I reckon you gave it to Kelso.’

  It was only a theory, but he thought he saw something flicker in her eyes before she turned away.

  ‘You see,’ he said, ‘we will get there in the end. And we’ll get there without you, if necessary. It’s just going to take us more time, that’s all.’

  He settled back in his seat.

  Wherever Kelso was, he thought, the notebook would be. And wherever the notebook was, Vladimir Mamantov would be as well – if not now, then very soon. So the answer to one question – where was Kelso? – would provide the solution to all three problems.

  He glanced at Zinaida. Her eyes were closed.

  And she knew it, he was sure of it.

  It was so infuriatingly simple.

  He wondered if Kelso had any idea how physically close Mamantov might be to him at that moment, and how much danger he was in. But of course he wouldn’t, would he? He was a westerner. He would think he was immune.

  The journey dragged on.

  ‘THAT’S it,’ said the militia man, pointing a thick forefinger. ‘Up there, on the right.’

  It looked a grim place in the rain, a warehouse of dull red brick, with small windows set behind the usual cobweb of iron bars. There was no nameplate beside the dingy entrance.

  ‘Let’s drive round the back,’ suggested Suvorin. ‘See if you can park.’

  They swung right and right again, through open wooden gates, into an asphalt courtyard glistening in the wet. There was an old green ambulance with its windows painted out parked in one corner, next to a large black van. Big drums of corrugated metal were piled with white plastic sacks, tied with tape and stamped SURGICAL WASTE in red letters. Some had toppled off and split open, or been torn open by dogs, more like. Sodden, bloodied linen soaked up the rain.