Archangel (36 page)

'And the baby?'

The baby lived. A boy.

THE arrangements were all made by Comrade Mekhlis.

It was the least he could do, he told them. He felt responsible.

It was Mekhlis who provided the doctor - an academician, no less, the country's leading expert, flown up specially from
Moscow - and Mekhlis who arranged the adoption. The Safanovs would have reared the child themselves, willingly -they asked to do so: they begged - but Mekhlis had a paper, signed by Anna, in which she said that if anything happened to her, she wanted the baby to be adopted. She named some relatives of the father, a couple named Chizhikov.

'Chizhikov?' said Kelso. 'You're sure of that name?'

Certain.

They never even saw the baby. They weren't allowed inside the hospital.

Now she was willing to accept all this, because Vavara Safanova believed in the discipline of the Party. She still did. She would believe in it until the day she died. The Party was her god, and sometimes, like a god, the Party moved in a mysterious way.

But Mikhail Safanov no longer accepted the doctrine of infallibility. He was set on finding these Chizhikovs, whatever Mekhlis said, and he still had enough friends in the regional Party to help him do it. And that was how he discovered that the Chizhikovs were not fancy Moscow folk at all - which was what he had expected - but were northerners, like them, and had gone to live in a village in the forest outside Archangel. The whisper in the town was that Chizhikov was not their real name. That they were NKVD.

By this time it was winter and there was nothing Mikhail could do. And then one morning in early spring, while he was still looking out each day for the first signs of a thaw, they woke to solemn music on the radio and the news that Comrade Stalin was dead.

She had wept, and he had, too. Did that surprise him? Oh, they had howled and clutched at one another! They had cried in a way they never had before, not even for Anna. The whole
of Archangel
was in grief. She could still remember the day of the funeral. The long silence, broken by a thirty-gun salute. The echo of the gunfire had rolled across the Dvina like a distant storm in the forest.

Two months later, in May, when the ice had gone, Mikhail had filled a backpack and had set off to find his grandson.

She had known nothing good could come of it.

One day passed, then two, then three. He was a fit man, strong and healthy - he was only forty-five.

On the fifth day some fishermen had found his body, about thirty versts upstream, rushing along in the yellow meltwater that was pouring out of the forest, not far from Novodvinsk.

Kel
so unfolded O'Brian's map and laid it out on the table. She put on her spectacles and hunted up and down the blue line of the Dvina, her good eye held very close.

There, she said, after a while, and pointed. That was the place where her husband's body had been found. A wild spot! There were wolves here in the forest, and lynx and bear. In some places the trees were too dense for a man to move. In others, there were swamps that could eat you in a minute. And here and there the grey weathered bones of the old kulak
settlements
. Almost all of the kulaks had perished, of course. There was not much of a living to be scratched in such a place.

Mikhail knew the forest as well as any man. He had been roaming the taiga since he was a child.

It had been a heart attack, according to the militia. That was what they said. Maybe he had been trying to fill his water bottle? He had fallen into the cold yellow water and the shock had stopped his heart.

She had buried him in the Kuznecheskoye Cemetery, next to Anna.

'And what,' said Kelso, conscious again of O'Brian Just' behind them, filming them now with his wretched miniature camera, 'what was the name of the village where your husband said the Chizhikovs lived?'

Ah! This was crazy! How could she be expected to remember that? It was so long ago - nearly fifty years.

She brought her face down close to the map again.

Here somewhere - she placed a wavering finger on a spot just north of the river - somewhere around here: a place too small to be worth recording. Too small to have a name, even.

She had never tried to find it herself?

Oh no.

She looked at Kelso in horror.

Nothing good could come of it. Not then. And not now.

THE BIG CAR braked hard and swerved off the south Moscow highway into the Zhukovsky military airbase shortly before noon, Feliks Suvorin hanging grimly to the strap in the rear. Beyond the checkpoint, a jeep waited. It pulled away as the barrier rose, its tail lights flashing, and they followed it around the side of the terminal building, through a wire fence and on to the concrete apron.

A small grey aircraft, as requested - six-seater, prop-driven
- was being fuelled by a tanker. Beyond the plane was a line of dark green army helicopters with drooping rotors; parked next to it, a big ZiL limousine.

Well, well, thought Suvorin. Some things still work round here.

He stuffed his notes into his briefcase and darted through the wind and rain towards the limousine where Arsenyev's driver was already opening the rear door.

'And?' said Arsenyev from the warmth of the interior.

'And,' said Suvorin, sliding along the seat to join him, 'it's not what we thought it was. And thank you for fixing the plane.'

'Wait in the other car,' said Arsenyev to his chauffeur.

'Yes, colonel.'

'What's not as who thought it was?' said Arsenyev, when the door was shut. 'Good morning, by the way.

'Good morning, Yuri Semonovich. The notebook. Everybody's always believed it was Stalin's. Actually it turns out to have been a journal kept by a girl servant of Stalin's, Anna Mikhailovna Safanova. He had her brought down
from Archangel to work for him in the summer of'51, about eighteen months before he died.'

Arsenyev blinked at him.

'And that's it? That's what Beria stole?'

'That's it. That and some p
apers about her, apparently.' '
Arsenyev stared at Suvorin for a second or two, then
started laughing. He shook his head with relief. 'Go flick
your mother! The old bastard w
as screwing his maid? Is that
what he was up to?'

Apparently.'

'That is priceless. That is brilliant!' Arsenyev punched the
seat in front of him. 'Oh, let me be there! Let me be there to ~ see Mamantov's
face when he finds out his grea
t Stalin
testament is nothing more than a maid's account of getting screwed by the mighty Vozhd" He glanced at Suvorin, his fat cheeks flushed with mirth, diamonds glistening in his eyes.

'What's the matter, Feliks? Don't tell me you can't see the funny side?' He stopped laughing. 'What's the matter? You are sure this is true, aren't you?'

'Pretty well sure, colonel, yes. This is all according to the woman we picked up last night, Zinaida Rapava. She read the notebook yesterday afternoon - her father left it hidden for her. I can't think that she would invent such
a story. It defies imagination.-

'Right, right. So cheer up, eh? And where's this notebook now?'

'Well, that's the first complication.' Suvorin spoke hesitantly. It seemed such a shame to spoil the old fellow's mood. 'That's why I needed to talk to you. It seems she showed it to the historian, Kelso. According to her, he's taken it with him.'

'With him?'

'To Archangel. He's trying to find the woman who wrote it, this Anna Safanova.'

Arsenyev tugged nervously at his thick neck. 'When did he leave?'

'Yesterday afternoon. Four or five. She can't remember
exactly
.

'How?'

'Driving.'

'Driving? That's all right. You'll catch him easily. By the time you land, you'll only be a few hours behind him. He's a rat in a trap up there.'

'Unfortunately, it's not just him. He's got a journalist with him. O'Brian. You know him? That correspondent with the satellite television station.

'Ah.' Arsenyev stuck out his lower lip and pulled at his neck some more. After a while he said, 'But even so, the chances of this woman still being alive are small. And if she is - well, so, so, it's no disaster. Let them write their books and make their fucking news reports. I can't see Stalin entrusting his maid with a message for future generations. Can you?'

'Well, this is my worry -'His maid? Come on, Feliks! He was a Georgian, after all,
and an old one at that. Women were good for only three things, as far as Comrade Stalin was concerned. Cooking, cleaning and having kids. He -' Arsenyev stopped. 'No -,

'It's insane,' said Suvorin, holding up his hand. 'I know that. I've been telling myself all the way over that it's crazy. But then, he was crazy. And he was a Georgian. Think about it. Why would he go to so much trouble to check out one girl? He had her medical records, apparently. And he wanted her checked for congenital abnormalities. Also, why would
he keep her diary in his safe? And then there's more, you see -'More?' Arsenyev was no longer punching the front seat.

He was clutching it for support.

'According to Zinaida, there are references in the girl's journal to Trofim Lysenko. You know: "the inheritability of acquired characteristics" and all that rubbish. And apparently he also goes on about how useless his own children are, and how "the soul of Russia is in the north".'

'Stop it, Feliks. This is too much.'

'And then there's Mamantov. I've never understood why Mamantov should have taken such an insane risk - to murder Rapava, and in such a way. Why? This is what I tried to say to you yesterday: what could Stalin possibly have written that could have any effect upon Russia nearly fifty years later? But if Mamantov knew - had heard some rumour years ago, maybe, from some of the old timers at the Lubyanka - that Stalin might deliberately have left behind an heir -,

'An heir?'

- well, that would explain everything, wouldn't it? He'd take the risk for that. Let's face it, Yuri, Mamantoy's just about sick enough to - oh, I don't know -' he tried to think of something utterly absurd ' - to run Stalin's son for the Presidency or something. He does have haifa billion roubles, after all. .

'Wait a minute,' said Arsenyev. 'Let me think about this.' He looked across the airfield to the line of helicopters. Suvorin could see a muscle like a fish hook twitching deep in his fleshy jaw. 'And we still have no idea where Mamantov is?'

'He could be anywhere.'

'Archangel?'

'It's a possibility. It must be. If Zinaida Rapava had the brains to find Kelso at the airport, why not Mamantov? He could have been tailing them for twenty-four hours. They're not professionals; he is. I'm worried, Yuri. They'd never know a thing until he made his hit.'

Arsenyev groaned.

'You got a phone?'

'Sure.' Suvorin dug in his pocket and produced it.

'Secure?'

'Supposedly.'

'Call my office for me, will you?'

Suvorin began punching in the number. Arsenyev said, 'Where's the Rapava girl?'

'I got Bunin to take her back home. I've fixed up a guard, for her own protection. She's not in a good state.'

'You saw this, I suppose?' Arsenyev pulled a copy of the latest Aurora out of the seat pocket. Suvorin saw the headline:

'VIOLENCE IS INEVITABLE'.

'I heard it on the news.

'Well, you can imagine how pleasantly that~ gone down -''Here,' said Suvorin, giving him the phone. 'It's ringing.'

'Sergo?' said Arsenyev. 'It's me. Listen. Can you patch me through to the President's office . . . ? That's it. Use the second number.' He put his hand over the mouthpiece. 'You'd better go. No. Wait. Tell me what you need.'

Suvorin spread his hands. He barely knew where to begin. 'I could do with the militia or someone up in Archangel to check out every Safanov or Safanova and have the job finished by the time I arrive. That would be a start. I'll need a couple of men to meet me at the airfield. Transport I'll need. And some place to stay.

'It's done. Go carefully, Feliks. I hope -, But Suvorin never
did discover what the colonel hoped, because Arsenyev suddenly held up a warning finger. 'Yes . . . Yes, I'm ready.' He took a breath and forced a smile; if he could have stood up and saluted, he would have done so. 'And good day to you, Boris Nikolaevich -'

Suvorin climbed quietly out of the car.

The tanker had been unhooked from the little aircraft and the hose was being wound up. There were rainbows of oil in the puddles beneath the wings. Close up, the dented, rust-streaked Tupolev looked even older than he expected. Forty, at least. Older than he was, in fact. Holy Mother, what a bucket!

A couple of ground crew watched him without curiosity.

'Where's the pilot?'