The Secret Speech (19 page)

Zoya squinted at the daylight that seemed as bright as if she was only a hand’s length away from the surface of the sun. Like a subterranean ghoul caught outside its lair, she turned her back on the sky. Her eyes adjusting, the surroundings slowly came into focus. She was standing on a dirt track. In front of her, on the shoulder, were tiny white flowers, spread unevenly like splashes of spilled milk. Looking up, she saw woodland. Deprived of stimuli, her eyes behaved like a desiccated sponge dropped into water, widening, expanding-absorbing every drop of color before her.

Remembering her captors, she turned around. There were two of them-a squat man with thick arms and a thick neck, an oversized muscular torso. Everything about him was stout and squashed, as though he’d been grown in a box too small. In contrast, standing beside him was a boy, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old, her age. He was lean and sinewy. His eyes were sly. He regarded her with open disdain, as if she were beneath him, as if he were an adult and she was nothing but a little girl. She disliked him intensely.

The squat man gestured at the trees:

– Walk. Stretch your legs. Fraera doesn’t want you getting weak.

She’d heard that name before- Fraera -catching fragments of conversations when the vory were drunk and boisterous. Fraera was their leader. Zoya had met with her only once. She’d swept into her cell. She hadn’t introduced herself. She didn’t need to. Power hung around her like a robe. While Zoya hadn’t been afraid of the other thuggish men, whose strength could be measured by the thickness of their arms, she had been afraid of this woman. Fraera had studied her with cool calculation, a master craftsman examining the intricacies of a second-rate watch. Though it had been an opportunity to ask the question- what are your plans for me?- Zoya had been unable to speak, stupefied into silence. Fraera had spent no more than a minute in the cell before leaving, having not said a word.

Free to walk, Zoya stepped off the dirt track, entering the woods, her toes sinking into the damp soil and vegetation. Maybe they’d kill her as she walked toward the trees. Maybe the guns were already raised. She glanced back. The man was smoking. The boy was following her every move. Misunderstanding her glance, he called out:

– Run and I’ll catch you.

She prickled at his superior attitude. He shouldn’t be so sure of himself. If there was one thing she could do, it was run.

Twenty paces into the forest, she stopped, pressing her hand against a tree trunk, eager for sensations different from the monotony of cool, damp bricks. Despite being watched she quickly lost her self-consciousness and crouched down, squeezing a fistful of earth. Trickles of dirty water ran down the sides of her hand. As a child brought up on the kolkhoz, she’d worked alongside her parents. From time to time, tending the fields, her father would bend down and take a handful of soil, rubbing it through his fingers, breaking up clods, squeezing the earth as she was squeezing it now. She’d never asked him why. What did it tell him? Or was it just habit? She regretted not finding out. She regretted many things, every wasted second, sulking and playing silly games and not listening when he wanted to talk and misbehaving and causing her parents to lose their tempers. Now they were gone and she would never speak to them again.

Zoya unclenched her fist, hastily brushing the soil off. She didn’t want to remember anymore. If she couldn’t see the point of life, she could certainly see the point of death. Death would mean the end of all these sad memories, the end of regrets. Death would feel less empty than life. She was sure of it. She stood up. These woods were too much like the woods in Kimov, near the kolkhoz. Better the monotony of cool, damp bricks-they reminded her of nothing. She was ready to go.

Zoya turned back to the truck. She jumped, startled to find the squat muscular man standing directly behind her. She hadn’t heard him approach. Looking down at her, he grinned, revealing a mostly toothless smile. He’d tossed a cigarette aside and she watched where it landed, smoldering on the damp ground. He’d already taken off his coat. Now he rolled up his shirtsleeves:

– Fraera’s orders were for you to get some exercise. And you haven’t had any.

He reached out, touching the top of her shirt, running his finger over her face as though wiping away a tear. His nails were coarse, bitten down. He lowered his voice:

– We’re not tamed, like you. We’re not polite, like you. If we want, we take.

Zoya struggled to maintain her brave facade, stepping away as he stepped forward.

– Taking is what we do best. Submission is what young girls do best. You might call it rape. I call it… exercise.

Fear was what this man desired-fear and domination. She would give him nothing:

– If you touch me, I’ll kick you. If you pin me down, I’ll scratch your eyes. If you break my fingers, I’ll bite your face.

The man laughed out loud:

– And how will you do that, little girl, if I knock you unconscious first?

Every step Zoya took, he matched, his wide body caging her, until she was pressed against a tree, unable to move any farther. Out of sight, her hands patted the tree trunk, searching for something she could use to defend herself. Breaking off a small branch, she rubbed her fingertip over the end. It would have to do. She looked to the boy. He was idling near the truck. Following the direction of her glance, the man turned to the boy:

– She thinks you’re going to save her!

Zoya swung the stick with all her strength, smashing the jagged end into his face. She expected blood. But the stick merely broke apart, crumbling in her hand. Blinking in surprise, the man stared at her hand, at the remains of the stick, and, realizing what had happened, he laughed.

Zoya sprang forward. The man lunged at her. She ducked out of reach. Heading in the direction of the truck, running as fast as she could, she sensed the man was close behind. Surely the boy would cut her off, but she couldn’t see him. Grabbing the door to the driver’s cabin, she opened it and threw herself inside. Her pursuer was only meters away, no longer smiling. Taking hold of the handle, she slammed the door shut just as he crashed against it. She pushed down the lock, hoping he didn’t have the keys. He didn’t-they were in the ignition. Scrambling across to the driver’s seat, she turned the key. The engine spluttered into life.

With only a vague idea of what to do she took hold of the gearshift, scratching it forward-the sound of metal scraping. Nothing seemed to happen. The man had taken off his shirt, wrapping it round his fist: he swung his arm back, shattering the side window, showering the cabin with glass. Unable to reach the gas pedal, Zoya slid off the seat, pressing her foot down, revving the engine. The truck rolled forward as the man opened the door, leaning across the passenger seat. She sank down as far as she could. He grabbed her hair, pulling her up. She cried out, scratching his hands.

Inexplicably, he let go.

Zoya fell back to the floor of the cabin, crouching, breathing fast. The engine chugged. The truck was no longer moving. The man was gone. The door was open. She cautiously stood up, glancing over the passenger seat. She could hear the man. He was swearing. Peering further forward, she saw him lying on the ground.

Confused, Zoya noticed the boy standing close by. There was a knife in the boy’s hand. The blade was smeared with blood. The man was clutching the back of his ankle. It was bleeding heavily: his fingers were red. The boy stared at her, saying nothing. Unable to stand, the man snatched at the boy’s legs. The boy sidestepped out of reach. The man tried to stand, quickly falling, rolling onto his back. The tendons in the back of his ankle had been sliced. His left foot hung uselessly. His face scrunched up, he shouted out terrible threats. Yet he was unable to implement any of them, limping along the ground, a peculiar sight-lethal yet pathetic at the same time.

Ignoring the man entirely, the boy turned to Zoya:

– Get out of the truck.

Zoya stepped out of the cabin, keeping her distance from the injured man. He was using his shirt to bind his foot, tying it around his ankle. The boy wiped the blade of his knife and it seemed to disappear into the folds of his clothes. Keeping one eye on the man, Zoya said:

– Thank you.

The boy frowned:

– Had Fraera ordered me to kill you, I would’ve.

She waited before asking:

– What is your name?

He hesitated, unsure whether or not to answer. Finally he mumbled:

– Malysh.

Zoya repeated the name:

– Malysh.

Zoya peered down at the injured man and then at the truck. She’d driven it off the track. The man pounded the ground, crying out:

– Wait till the others hear what you’ve done. They’ll kill you!

Zoya looked at the boy, concern passing across her face:

– Is that true?

Malysh considered:

– That’s not your problem. We’re going to walk back. If you try and run, I’ll slit your throat. If you let go of my hand, just to pick your nose…

Pleased that, at last, she knew the identity of her secret admirer, Zoya finished his sentence:

– You’ll slit my throat?

Malysh cocked his head to the side, regarding her with suspicionno doubt wondering if she was mocking him. To put him at ease, Zoya reached out and took hold of his hand.

The steps and stairways were the only solid structures offering elevation from the floodwater and were consequently crowded with prisoners, squeezed together, perched like crows on a power line. Those less lucky were huddled on the wreckage of collapsed bunks-broken planks piled high to create a makeshift timber island surrounded by lapping, icy water. The bodies of those who’d died had been pushed away and were bobbing on the surface. Leo was one of the privileged few high above the water, on the steel steps that led up to the bullet-ridden and cloth-stuffed hatch.

Once the holes in the hatch had been plugged, Leo had been forced to keep the coal engine burning, his chest and face roasted by the fire while his legs, knee-deep in water, went numb with cold-his body sliced into opposite sensations. Shaking with exhaustion, barely able to lift the shovel, he’d worked without help. The other convicts had sat in the damp darkness like cave creatures, motionless and dumb. Facing a lifetime of hard labor, why add another day? If the engine died and the ship ceased to move, drifting in the open sea, that was an issue the guards needed to address. They could shovel their own coal. These men weren’t about to help in their transportation to prison. Leo didn’t have the energy to convince them of the dangers of doing nothing. He knew that if the guards were forced to descend into the hold, after the attempted uprising, they’d shoot indiscriminately as a method of control.

Alone, he’d continued for as long as he could. Not until he’d dropped an entire load, the shovel slipping from his hands, did another man emerge from the gloom to take his place. Leo had mumbled inaudible thanks, climbing the steps-the prisoners making space for him-and slumping at the very top. If it could be called sleeping, he’d slept, shivering and delirious with thirst and hunger.

Leo opened his eyes. There were people on deck. He could hear footsteps overhead. The ship had come to a stop. Trying to move, he found his body was stiff-his limbs calcified into a fetal shape. He stretched his fingers, then his neck: joints cracking in quick succession. The hatch was thrown open. Leo looked up, squinting at the bright light. The sky seemed as dazzling as molten metal. His eyes adjusting slowly, he accepted that it was, in fact, a dull gray.

Guards appeared around him: machine guns pointing down. One man shouted, addressing the hold:

– Try anything and we’ll scuttle the ship with you all locked in. We’ll drown the lot of you.

The convicts could barely move, let alone mount a serious challenge to their authority. There was no gratitude that they’d kept the engine running, no appreciation that they’d saved the ship, just the muzzle of a machine gun. A different voice called out:

– On deck! Now!

Leo recognized the voice. It was Timur. The sound of his friend revived him. Moving slowly, he sat upright. Like a creaky wood puppet he stood, yanked up by its strings, climbing from the steps to the deck.

The battered steamer was listing, askew in the water. The gun turret was gone. All that remained of it were threads of twisted steel jutting out. It was hard to imagine that the sea, now still and smooth and calm, could have been so ferocious. Making only the briefest eye contact with Timur, Leo observed his friend’s face, the dark lines under his eyes. The storm had been grueling for him too. They’d have to compare stories at a later date.

Moving past, Leo made his way to the edge of the deck, pressing his hands against the rail and taking his first look at the port of Magadan, gateway to the most remote of regions, a part of his country that he was both intimately connected with and a stranger to at the same time. He’d never been here before yet he’d sent hundreds of men and women here. He hadn’t allocated them to any particular Gulag, that hadn’t been his responsibility. But it was inevitable that many had ended up on board this boat, or one like it, shuffling forward in single file, as he was now, ready for processing.

Considering the region’s notoriety he’d expected more obvious and sinister drama in the landscape. But the port, developed some twenty years ago, was small and hushed. Wood shacks mingled with the occasional angular concrete municipal building, the sides of which were decorated with slogans and propaganda, an awkward glimpse of color in an otherwise muted palette. Beyond the port, in the distance, lay a network of Gulags spread among the folds of snow-tipped hills. The hills, gentle near the coast, grew in size farther inland, their vast curved tops merging with the clouds. Tranquil and menacing in equal measure, it was a terrain that made no allowances for frailty, smoothing weakness off its arctic-blasted slopes.