Red Moth (3 page)

The Emka rolled beneath the archway of the Kremlin’s Spassky Gate‚ with its ornamental battlements and gold and black clock tower looming from the misty night. Arriving at a dead end on the far side of Ivanovsky Square‚ Kirov parked the car and turned to Pekkala.

‘I’ll wait here for you, Inspector.’

‘Get some sleep,’ replied Pekkala as he climbed out of the Emka. He made his way to an unmarked door, which was guarded by a soldier. As Pekkala approached, the soldier slammed his heels together with a sound that echoed around the high brick walls and gave the traditional greeting of ‘Good health to you, Comrade Pekkala!’

This was not only a greeting, but also a sign that he had been recognised by the soldier and did not need to present his identity book.

Unlike the glittering emerald which had guaranteed Pekkala’s authority during the time of the Tsar, his ranking in the Soviet State consisted of a single piece of paper contained within his pass book. This book was the size of a man’s outstretched hand, dull red in colour, with an outer cover made from fabric-covered cardboard in the manner of an old school text book. The Soviet State seal, cradled in its two bound sheaves of wheat, had been emblazoned on the front. Inside, in the top left-hand corner, a photograph of Pekkala had been attached with a heat seal, cracking the emulsion of the photograph. Beneath that, in pale bluish-green letters, were the letters NKVD and a second stamp indicating that Pekkala was on Special Assignment for the government. The particulars of his birth, his blood group and his State identification number filled up the right-hand page.

Most government pass books contained only those two pages, but in Pekkala’s, a third page had been inserted. Printed on canary-yellow paper with a red border around the edge, were the following words: 

Although this special insert was known officially as a Classified Operations Permit, it was more commonly referred to as a Shadow Pass. With it, a man could appear and disappear at will within the wilderness of regulations that controlled the State. Fewer than a dozen of these Shadow Passes were known to exist. Even within the ranks of the NKVD, most people had never seen one.

After passing through the unmarked door, he climbed a set of narrow stairs up to the second floor, emerging on to a long, wide corridor with tall ceilings. The floors were covered with a brownish-red carpeting, so that his footsteps made no sound. Tall doors lined the walls of this corridor on either side. By day, these doors would all be open and the hallway filled with people coming and going. But at this hour of the night, all the doors were closed as Pekkala walked towards a set of large double doors at the far end‚ beyond which lay Stalin’s reception room. It was a huge space, with eggshell-white walls and wooden slatted floors. In the centre of the room stood three desks. Only one was occupied, by a man wearing a collarless olive-green tunic in the same style as that worn by Stalin himself. The man stood as they entered. ‘Inspector.’

‘Poskrebychev.’

Advancing across the room to Stalin’s office, Poskrebychev knocked once and did not wait for a reply. He swung the door open, nodded for Pekkala to enter. As soon as Pekkala had walked into the room, Poskrebychev shut the door behind him.

Pekkala found himself in a large room with red velvet curtains and a red carpet which lined only the outer third of the floor. The centre was the same mosaic of wood as in the waiting room. The walls had been papered dark red, with caramel-coloured wooden dividers separating each panel. Hanging on these walls were portraits of Marx, Engels and Lenin, each one the same size and apparently done by the same artist.

Close to one wall stood Stalin’s desk, which had eight legs, two at each corner. On the desk lay several manila files, each one lying perfectly beside the other‚ as well as a leather briefcase which Pekkala had never seen before. Stalin’s chair had a wide back, padded with burgundy-coloured leather brass-tacked against the frame.

Apart from Stalin’s desk, and a table covered with a green cloth, the space was sparsely furnished. With the exception of a large eighteenth-century grandfather clock, made by the English clockmaker John Ellicott, which had been allowed to wind down and was silent now, the full yellow moon of its pendulum at rest behind the rippled glass window of its case.

The red curtains were drawn and the light in the room came from a three-bulbed fixture fitted to the ceiling. A thread of smoke rose from a cigarette which Stalin had recently stubbed out in a brass ashtray on his desk.

Stalin himself stood in the centre of the room, his back to Pekkala, staring at the wall.

It took Pekkala a moment to realise what Stalin was looking at.

Between the portraits of Lenin and Engels hung another painting, much smaller than the ones on either side of it.

‘Perhaps it would look better over there, Comrade Stalin.’

Stalin turned and squinted at Pekkala, his eyes red-rimmed with fatigue. ‘What did you say?’

‘Over there,’ repeated Pekkala, gesturing towards the blank wall behind Stalin’s desk.

‘Do you know what this is?’ demanded Stalin, aiming a finger at the painting.

Pekkala stepped forward and peered at the painting.  ‘A cecropia moth.’

Stalin shook his head in amazement. ‘How is it, Inspector,’ he began, ‘that you can neither feed nor barely dress yourself except in clothing so long out of fashion that people regularly mistake you for a ghost, and yet you can tell me the name of that insect?’

‘I used to see them around the house where I grew up,’ explained Pekkala. He remembered the long path through the woods to the place where his father, an undertaker in the town of Lappeenranta in eastern Finland, had built a crematory oven. Pekkala’s mother had once given him a sandwich and a thermos of hot milk to take to his father, who was working all night at the oven. Four bodies were to be cremated that night, which meant eight hours of tending the fire. Carrying a lantern, Pekkala had set out along the path, staring straight ahead, convinced that the pine trees on either side were closing in on him. Arriving at the oven, he found his father stripped to the waist and sitting on the stump of a log. At first, Pekkala had thought the man was reading a book, but then he realised that his father was just staring at his hands. Behind him, the crematory oven roared like distant thunder. The iron door to the oven was so hot it had begun to glow a poppy-red. Reaching up into the darkness, the tall chimney belched black smoke, which spread across the sky as if the smoke itself had spawned the night. Fluttering around his father’s head, Pekkala saw three moths, each one larger than a man’s palm. His father took no notice of them, even when one landed on his naked shoulder, which glistened with sweat from the heat of the oven. At last his father looked up from studying the wrinkles in his palm.

‘I see you’re not alone,’ said Pekkala.

His father smiled. Gently he slid his fingers beneath the moth which had landed on his shoulder and lifted it into the air. Then he blew on the insect, as if blowing out the flame on a candle, and set the insect fluttering once more about his head. ‘
Hyalophora cecropia
,’ he told Pekkala. ‘They are an ancient breed, unchanged for thousands of years.’

‘Why have they not changed?’ asked Pekkala.

‘Because they are already perfectly adapted to the world in which they live. These moths keep me company out here, and remind me of the many imperfections of the human race.’ 

Although it had been many years since then, Pekkala had never forgotten the distinctive pattern on their wings; the two eyes at each wing tip and the four reddish-white splashes and the scalloped line which trailed along the edges, its colours fading from reddish-brown to white like ink which had bled through soft paper. The painting was not an exact representation. The artist appeared to have taken liberties with colours and the symmetry of the design, but there was no mistaking the cecropia.

‘If you have brought me here to admire your painting, Comrade Stalin,’ said Pekkala, ‘I think you could have chosen someone better qualified.’

Stalin glared at him. ‘If all you had to offer me was your love of the finer things in life, I would have left you to rot in Siberia.’

‘Then why am I here, Comrade Stalin?’

‘You are here,’ Stalin explained, ‘because I believe that the value of this painting does not lie in its artistic merits. Two days ago a German scout plane got lost in the clouds and landed at an airfield behind our lines. Of the two men aboard, one was a Luftwaffe pilot and the other an officer in the SS. The SS man was carrying a briefcase that contained this painting. If he had been transporting money, or jewellery or gold, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But why would that officer be flying around with this painting in his briefcase?’

‘Did anybody ask them?’

‘They never had the chance. The SS man murdered the pilot and then took his own life. Given what he had just witnessed, the Red Army officer on the scene realised that the painting must be of some importance, so he handed it over to NKVD. They considered it worthless‚ but filed a report all the same. When news of this painting reached my office I ordered it to be sent here right away. There’s something about it‚ Pekkala. Something that troubles me. I just can’t figure out why. For that‚ I am relying on you.’ Stalin walked over to the painting, removed it from the wall and replaced it in the German officer’s briefcase in which the painting had been delivered to Stalin. He handed the briefcase to Pekkala. ‘Bring me some answers, Inspector.’

By the time Pekkala and Kirov departed from the Kremlin, it was growing light.

Pekkala studied the painting, which rested on his lap. His attention was drawn to the tree in which the moth was resting. The leafless branches looked gnarled and crooked, like those of a magnolia in winter. He didn’t know enough about moths to be certain whether they would be out in the winter, but he doubted it.

Turning the painting over, he noticed something written in pencil on the untreated back of the canvas.

‘What does it say?’ asked Kirov, glancing over as he manoeuvred the Emka out of the Kremlin gates.

‘Ost-u-baf-engel,’ replied Pekkala, carefully deciphering the unfamiliar syllables. ‘I assume it is German, although I’ve never seen the word before. “Ost” means “east”. “Engel” is the word for “angel”. The whole middle section makes no sense to me.’ Turning the painting over again, Pekkala brought his face close to the canvas, as if the delicate creature might whisper to him the meaning of its existence.

‘Where do we even begin?’ Kirov wondered aloud.

‘The Lubyanka,’ replied Pekkala.

‘The prison? Why would we be going there?’

‘To speak with a man who can tell us if this painting is worth anything at all.’

‘And if it isn’t?’

‘Then he will tell us why.’

‘What’s a man like this doing in prison?’

‘Paying the price for his genius.’

‘Look, Inspector,’ Kirov tried to reason with him. ‘What about the Museum of the Kremlin? The director is Fabian Golyakovsky, the most famous art curator in the whole country. Perhaps we should speak with him instead.’

For a moment, Pekkala considered Kirov’s suggestion. ‘Very well!’ he announced. ‘Turn us around, Kirov. The museum will be our first stop.’

‘But the museum isn’t open yet‚’ protested Kirov. ‘I don’t know what the hours are now that Moscow is on alert for air raids. We might have to make a special appointment . . .’

‘We’ll find a way in‚’ Pekkala told him. ‘I already know what I need in that museum. I don’t need an expert to tell me where it is. Now take us back to the Kremlin.’

‘Yes, Inspector,’ sighed Kirov. Then he jammed on the brakes and performed a sharp U-turn, tyres squealing as he cornered.

Although the Museum of the Kremlin was indeed closed at that hour, Fabian Golyakovsky himself came to see who was pounding on the doors.

Golyakovsky was a tall, stooped man with an unkempt mop of curly reddish hair. He wore a dark blue suit and a cream-coloured shirt with a rumpled collar and no tie.

‘Who on earth are you?’ demanded Golyakovsky. ‘Do you have any idea what time it is?’

Pekkala held up his Shadow Pass. ‘We need a few minutes of your time.’

Golyakovsky glanced at the text‚ his lips moving as he silently pronounced the words. ‘Very well‚’ he replied suspiciously. ‘Anything to oblige the Bureau of Special Operations‚ whom I had not realised until this moment were lovers of great art.’

‘Why are you here so early?’ asked Kirov.

‘I’ve been here all night,’ explained Golyakovsky as he stood back to let them enter, ‘cataloguing items which may soon have to be evacuated from the museum and transported to safety further east.’

Followed by a nervous Golyakovsky‚ Pekkala and Kirov strolled through the cold and musty-smelling halls and soon found themselves in a room whose walls were festooned with Russian icons.

With his hands clasped behind his back, Pekkala walked past the icons, studying each one intently.

‘Inspector, what does this moth painting have to do with ancient icons?’ Kirov asked in a low voice.

‘Nothing, as far as I know,’ replied Pekkala.

‘Then what are you looking for, Inspector?’

‘I will know it when I see it. Ah!’ Pekkala halted sharply in front of a small wooden panel on which had been painted the head and shoulders of a bearded, long-haired and angry-looking man. His skin was a greenish-yellow, as if illuminated by the light of a candle. The white background had been chipped in many places. ‘This one!’ he whispered, and proceeded to remove the icon from its hanging place.

‘Inspector!’ hissed Kirov. ‘You’re not supposed to touch them!’

‘Stop!’ shouted Golyakovsky, his voice echoing through the museum. ‘Are you out of your mind?’ He advanced upon Pekkala, waving his arms. ‘Have you no respect for the treasures of this country?’

It was Kirov who answered the question. ‘Believe me, Comrade Golyakovsky, he does not.’

By now, Golyakovsky had reached the place where the two men were standing. ‘Please.’ Golyakovsky reached out towards Pekkala, using a tone of voice reserved normally for people about to leap to their deaths from the tops of tall buildings or bridges. Gently, he removed the icon from Pekkala’s grasp. Golyakovsky cradled the panel in his arms, as if Pekkala had somehow awoken the man in the painting and now he meant to lull the angry Saviour back into his sleep of centuries. ‘Do you have any idea what this is?’

‘No,’ admitted Pekkala.

‘It is a priceless fourteenth-century icon from the Balkans, originally located in the Cathedral of the Assumption. It is known as
The Saviour of the Fiery Eye
. What could you possibly want with this?’

‘Major Kirov may be right about my regard for the treasures of Russia,’ replied Pekkala, ‘but I have seen what he has not, namely what becomes of those who covet them. I will soon require the help of someone whose knowledge of these works of art is matched only by his hatred of this country. I must persuade this man that there is still something sacred left in the world –’ Pekkala pointed at the icon – ‘and the face of that man may convince him.’

‘Couldn’t you just bring him here to see the icon?’ pleaded Golyakovsky. ‘I will give him a personal tour!’

‘I’m certain that he would like nothing more,’ replied Pekkala, ‘but the laws of Lubyanka don’t allow it.’

‘Lubyanka?’ whispered Golyakovsky.

‘No harm will come to it,’ Pekkala assured him. ‘In his hands, your icon will be safer than in any of the vaults of your museum.’