Child 44 (20 page)

The main streets around the State Duma had been packed so tight with people it was hard to breathe, moving forward with as little control as a rock caught in a rockslide. Leo had never let go of Raisa’s hand and although shoulders pressed into him from all sides he’d made sure they weren’t pulled apart. They’d quickly been separated from their guards. As they’d neared the Square the crowd contracted further. Feeling the squeeze, the mounting hysteria, Leo had decided enough. By chance, they’d been pushed to the edge of the crowd and he’d stepped into a doorway, helping Raisa out of the crowd. They’d sheltered there, watching as the streams of people continued past. It had been the right decision. Up ahead, people had been crushed to death.

In the chaos they could’ve attempted escape. They’d considered it, debated it, whispering to each other in that doorway. The guards accompanying them had been lost. Raisa had wanted to run. But running would’ve given the
MGB
all the reason they needed to execute them. And from a practical point of view they had no money, no friends and no place to hide. If they’d decided to run Leo’s parents would’ve been executed. They’d been lucky so far. Leo had staked their lives on braving it out.

The last of the passengers had finished boarding. The station master, seeing the uniforms clustered on the platform by the engine, was holding the departure for them. The train driver leant out of his cabin, trying to figure out what the problem was. Curious passengers were stealing glances out of windows at this young couple in some sort of trouble.

Leo could see a uniformed officer walking towards them. It was Vasili. Leo had been expecting him. He’d hardly miss the opportunity to gloat. Leo felt a flicker of anger but it was imperative he kept his emotions under control. There was, perhaps, a trap still to be set.

Raisa had never seen Vasili before but she’d heard Leo’s description of him.

A hero’s face, a henchman’s heart.

Even at a glance she could tell there was something not quite right about him. He was handsome, certainly, but he was smiling as though a smile had been invented to express nothing other than ill will. When he finally reached them she noticed his pleasure at Leo’s humiliation and his disappointment that it wasn’t greater.

Vasili widened his smile.

—I insisted that they wait, so I could say goodbye. And explain what has been decided for you. I wanted to do it personally, you understand?

He was enjoying himself. As much as this man appalled Leo it was stupid to risk angering him when they’d survived so much. In a voice barely audible he muttered:

—I appreciate that.

—You’ve been reassigned. It was impossible to keep you in the
MGB
with so many unanswered questions over your head. You’re going to join the militia. Not as a
syshchik
, not as a detective, but as the lowest entry position, an
uchastkovyy
. You’ll be the man who cleans the holding cells, the man who takes notes–the man who does as he’s told. You need to get used to taking orders if you’re to survive.

Leo understood Vasili’s disappointment. This punishment–employed exile in the local police force–was light. Considering the severity of the allegations they could’ve faced twenty-five-year terms mining gold in Kolyma, where temperatures were fifty below freezing and prisoners’ hands were deformed by frostbite and where the life expectancy was three months. They’d escaped not only with their lives but with their freedom. Leo didn’t imagine that Major Kuzmin had done it out of sentimentality. The truth was that he would’ve embarrassed himself by prosecuting his protégé. In a time of political instability it was far better, far shrewder to simply send him away under the guise of a relocation. Kuzmin didn’t want his judgement scrutinized; after all if Leo was a spy why had Kuzmin favoured him with promotions? No, those questions were awkward. It was easier and safer just to brush him under the corner of some rug. Understanding that any sign of relief would aggravate Vasili, Leo did his best to look crestfallen.

—I’ll do my duty wherever I’m needed.

Vasili stepped forward, pressing the tickets and paperwork into Leo’s hands. Leo took the documents and moved towards the train.

Raisa stepped up onto the carriage. As she did, Vasili called out.

—It must have been difficult to hear that your husband had followed you. And not just once, I’m sure he’d told you about that. He followed you twice. On the other occasion it wasn’t State business. He didn’t think you were a spy. He thought you were a slut. You must forgive him that. Everyone has their doubts. And you are pretty. Personally, I don’t think you’re worth giving up everything for. I suspect when your husband comes to realize what a shithole we’ve sent him to he’ll grow to hate you. Me, I would’ve kept the apartment and had you shot as a traitor. All I can suppose is that you must be some great fuck.

Raisa wondered at this man’s obsession with her husband. But she remained silent: a retort might cost them their lives. She took her suitcase and opened the carriage door.

Leo followed her, carefully not to turn around. There was a chance, if he saw Vasili’s smirk, that he might not be able to control himself.

Raisa stared out of the window. The train departed the station. There were no seats available and they were forced to stand, cramped together. Neither of them spoke for some time, watching the city roll past. Finally, Leo said:

—I’m sorry.

—I’m sure he was lying. He would’ve said anything to get under your skin.

—He was telling the truth. I had you followed. And it had nothing to do with my work. I thought…

—That I was sleeping with someone else?

—There was a time when you wouldn’t talk to me. You wouldn’t touch me. You wouldn’t sleep with me. We were strangers. And I couldn’t understand why.

—You can’t marry an
MGB
officer and not expect to be followed. But tell me, Leo, how could I be unfaithful? I’d be risking my life. We wouldn’t have argued about it. You’d just have me arrested.

—Is that what you think would happen?

—You remember my friend Zoya, you met her once, I think?

—Perhaps, I don’t know.

—Yes, that’s right–you never remember anyone’s name, do you? I wonder why? Is that how you’re able to sleep at night, by blanking events from your mind?

Raisa spoke quickly, calmly and with an intensity Leo hadn’t heard before. She continued:

—You did meet Zoya. Perhaps she didn’t register, but then she wasn’t very important in Party terms. She was given a twenty-year sentence. They arrested her as she stepped out of a church, accusing her of anti-Stalinist prayers. Prayers, Leo–they convicted her on the basis of prayers they hadn’t even heard. They arrested her on the basis of the thoughts in her head.

—Why didn’t you tell me? I might’ve helped.

Raisa shook her head. Leo asked:

—You think I denounced her?

—Would you even know? You can’t even remember who she is.

Leo was taken aback: he and his wife had never spoken like this before, never spoken about anything other than the household chores, polite conversation–they’d never raised their voices, never had an argument.

—Even if you didn’t denounce her, Leo, how could you have helped? When the men who arrested her were men like you–dedicated, devoted servants of the State? That night you didn’t come home. And I realized you were probably arresting someone else’s best friend, someone else’s parents, someone else’s children. Tell me, exactly how many people have you arrested? Do you have any idea? Say a number–fifty, two hundred, a thousand?

—I refused to give them you.

—They weren’t after me. They were after you. Arresting strangers, you were able to fool yourself that they might just be guilty. You could believe that what you were doing served some purpose. But that wasn’t enough for them. They wanted you to prove that you’d do whatever they asked even if you knew it in your heart to be wrong, even if you knew it to be meaningless. They wanted you to prove your blind obedience. I imagine wives are a useful test for that.

—Maybe you’re right, but we’re free of that now. Do you understand how lucky we are to even get this second chance? I want us to start a new life, as a family.

—Leo, it’s not as simple as that.

Raisa paused, studying her husband carefully, as though they were meeting for the first time.

—The night we ate dinner at your parents’ apartment I heard you talking through the front door. I was in the hallway. I heard the discussion about whether or not you should denounce me as a spy. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to die. So I went back down to the street and walked for a while, trying to collect my thoughts. I wondered–will he do it? Will he give me up? Your father made a convincing case.

—My father was scared.

—Three lives weighed against one? It’s hard to argue with those numbers. But what about three lives against two?

—You’re not pregnant?

—Would you have vouched for me if I wasn’t?

—And you waited until now before telling me?

—I was afraid you might change your mind.

This was their relationship: stripped bare. Leo felt unsteady. The train he was standing on, the people near him, the cases, his clothes, the city outside–none of it felt right now. He could trust none of it, not even the things he could see and touch and feel. Everything he’d believed in was a lie.

—Raisa, have you ever loved me?

A moment passed in silence, the question lingering like a bad smell, the two of them rocking with the motion of the train. Finally, instead of answering, Raisa knelt down and tied her shoelace.

15 March

Varlam Babinich was sitting cross-legged on a filthy concrete floor in the corner of an overcrowded dormitory, his back to the door, using his body to shield from view the objects arranged in front of him. He didn’t want the other boys to interfere as they had a tendency to if something caught their interest. He glanced around. The thirty or so boys in the room weren’t paying him any attention; most of them lay side by side on the eight piss-sodden beds they were forced to share. He watched two of them scratching the bug bites swelling up across each other’s backs. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to be pestered, he returned to the objects arranged in front of him, objects he’d collected over the years, all of them precious to him, including his most recent addition, stolen this morning–a four-month-old baby.

Varlam was dimly aware that by taking the baby he’d done something wrong and that if he was caught he’d be in trouble, more trouble than he’d ever been in before. He was also aware that the baby wasn’t happy. It was crying. He wasn’t particularly worried about the noise since no one was going to notice another screaming child. As it happened he was less interested in the baby itself than in the yellow blanket it was wrapped in. Proud of his new possession, he positioned the baby at the centrepiece of his collection, among a yellow tin, an old yellow shirt, a yellow-painted brick, a ripped portion of a poster with a yellow background, a yellow pencil and a book with a soft yellow paper cover. In the summer he added to this collection wild yellow flowers, which he picked from the forest. The flowers never lasted long and nothing made him sadder than watching their shades of yellow fade, the petals becoming lank and brown. He used to wonder:

Where does the yellow go?

He had no idea. But he hoped he’d go there too some day, maybe when he died. The colour yellow was more important to him than anything or anybody. Yellow was the reason he’d ended up here, in Voualsk’s
internat
, a State-run facility for children with mental deficiencies.

As a small boy he’d chased after the sun, certain that if he ran far enough he’d eventually catch up with it, snatch it from the sky and carry it home. He’d run for almost five hours before being caught and brought back, screaming in anger at his quest being cut short. His parents, who’d beaten him in the hope that it would straighten out his peculiarities, finally accepted that their methods weren’t working and handed him over to the State, which had adopted more or less the same methods. For his first two years in the
internat
he’d been chained to a bed frame, like a farm dog chained to a tree. However, he was a strong child, with broad shoulders and a stubborn determination. Over several months he’d managed to break the bed frame, pulling the chain loose and escaping. He’d ended up on the edge of town, chasing a yellow carriage of a moving train. Eventually he’d been returned to the
internat
suffering from exhaustion and dehydration. This time he’d been locked in a cupboard. But all that was a long time ago–the staff trusted him now he was seventeen years old and smart enough to understand that he couldn’t run far enough to reach the sun or indeed climb high enough to pick it out of the sky. Instead, he concentrated on finding yellow closer to home, such as this baby, which he’d stolen by reaching in through an open window. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry he might have tried to unwrap the blanket and leave the baby behind. But he’d panicked, afraid that he was going to get caught, and so he’d taken them both. Now, staring down at the screaming infant he noticed that the blanket made the baby’s skin appear faintly yellow. And he was glad that he’d stolen them both after all.

Outside two cars pulled up and six armed members of the Voualsk militia stepped out, led by General Nesterov, a middle-aged man with the broad, stocky build of a
kolkhoz
labourer. He gestured for his team to surround the premises while he and his deputy, a lieutenant, approached the entrance. Although the militia were not normally armed, today Nesterov had instructed his men to carry guns. They were to shoot to kill.

The administrative office was open: a radio playing on a low volume, a game of cards abandoned on the table, a reek of alcohol hanging in the air. There were no members of staff to be seen. Nesterov and his lieutenant moved forward, entering a corridor. The smell of alcohol gave way to the smell of faeces and sulphur. Sulphur was used to keep away bed bugs. The smell of faeces needed no explanation. There was shit on the floor and on the walls. The dormitories they passed were overrun with young children, maybe forty to a room, wearing nothing more than a dirty shirt or a pair of dirty shorts but never, it seemed, both. They were sprawled on their beds, three or four layered across a thin, filthy mattress. Many weren’t moving–staring up at the ceiling. Nesterov wondered if some of them were dead. It was difficult to tell. The children on their feet ran forward, trying to grab the guns, touching their uniforms, starved of adult interaction. The men were quickly encircled by clambering hands. Even though Nesterov had braced himself for terrible conditions he found it difficult to comprehend how things could have got this bad. He intended to bring it up with the director of the establishment. However, that was for another time.