Kolymsky Heights

33

Her ankle was bruised and swollen where he had kicked it. They sat in the dark room and he watched as she bound a compress on the swelling. They had barely spoken since reaching the house.

He poured himself another vodka. ‘For you?’ he said.

‘No. It’s too early. One is enough.’

It still was early. It wasn’t yet eleven.

The house was a wooden one, like her mother’s, on the outskirts of Tchersky. It was crazily lopsided, a veteran of many thaws; but it stood alone, was not overlooked, had a large shed alongside. The bobik was now in the shed. He had noted all this and was now turning it over in his mind, together with all the other matters revolving there.

She finished binding the ankle and sat back with her own drink. The eyes were still somewhat glassy but now from the vodka, perhaps. She was palely controlled, watching him.

‘Why did you wait so long?’ he asked at last.

‘To see how you managed here. If you were capable.’

‘Did I manage?’

‘Yes. Well enough.’

‘Then why Panarovka, the inquisition?’

She took a sip of vodka. ‘To see what story you’d produce if it came to a police investigation. Also how you’d be with genuine Chukchees … You were very lucky.’

‘You also.’

She nodded, looking into her glass.

‘You planned to kill me before we left here, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your story in the church, about Khodyan, Ponomarenko — were you given all that or did you make it up?’

‘I made it up.’

‘Glib. As well as lucky. All right, put a drop more in here … So where is Khodyan?’

‘I don’t know.’ He poured into her glass, and into his own. ‘I don’t know where his papers came from, either. But the background came from Ponomarenko.’

‘Ponomarenko is in Batumi?’

‘Maybe. He’s somewhere. They have evidence against him of drug-dealing — a capital offence, a long term at the least. He’s under control.’

‘Why Ponomarenko?’

‘It happened to be Ponomarenko. Many drivers go to the Black Sea for the summer. Ponomarenko was not lucky.’

‘What did he have to do — provide his apartment, all the details of his life here?’

‘That, yes.’

‘Including his relations with Lydia Yakovlevna?’

‘No. Those I found out for myself.’

‘Did you also find out she had gonorrhoea?’

He drank, poker-faced.

‘Eighteen months ago,’ she said, ‘I had to send that girl to Tchersky hospital. She had concealed her condition, and it had become serious. I couldn’t have you going into hospital again. Every mark on your body is detailed there. Which is why I examined you. Stay away from the girl. She’s promiscuous.’

The vodka had brought faint colour to her cheeks, and the eyes gleamed more brightly now.

Again he made no comment.

‘So what plans have you for getting to Tcherny Vodi?’

‘Obviously the Evenks — first a visit to the collective, and then the herds. They have a headman there, Innokenty. He chooses the people to go to Tcherny Vodi. A stinking head comes down and makes out the passes for them.’

She stared at him. ‘Passes, stinking heads, Innokenty … Did you know all this before you came?’

‘No. I discovered it here.’

‘And this is why you wanted a letter to the collective?’

He smiled faintly. ‘I also discovered,’ he said, ‘that I didn’t need it. They take their pelts there from Panarovka. I would have gone with them.’

‘You were going again to Panarovka?’

‘For your funeral.’

Her mouth dropped open, and something flickered momentarily behind her eyes.

She drank some vodka.

‘Well,’ she said presently. ‘You don’t need that plan. I go out to the herds, every six or eight weeks. In a helicopter. You’ll come with me.’

‘Is this Rogachev’s idea?’

‘No. Mine. It’s true you’ll need the cooperation of the Evenks. Which I see from your performance you have a good chance of getting.’ She finished her drink quickly. ‘He hasn’t told me any detailed plan yet.’

‘Does he know I’m here now?’

‘Yes. He knows.’

‘When did you see him?’

Her thin smile showed for a moment.

‘The last time? I should think — thirty years ago.’

Thirty years ago, she said, Rogachev had stayed in this house. He had been a fellow prisoner with her father years before in the camp at Panarovka. When it had closed down he had gone back to Moscow, while her father had remained here. Panarovka couldn’t be lived in at that time — the Chukchees were still dismantling the camp and turning it into houses — and her father had made this place his surgery. Her mother had come up from Leningrad, and here she herself had been born.

At the time Nizhniye Kresty (Tchersky’s old name) had been very rough, very primitive; detested, abominated, by her mother. Many released prisoners were still roaming, a proper medical service not yet established, nowhere for visitors to stay. And Rogachev had travelled up on a visit, in connection with some scientific mission, and had stayed with his old friend Dr Komarov.

‘And soon became my adored friend! There I was, a little girl of six, without any friends, and this delightful man — I remember he insisted they take me along when they paid a visit once to Panarovka, to have a look at it again, see how it was getting on. It was very old, much older than the bigger camps along the Kolyma. Old from Tsarist days — old, old, with its church. Is this too complicated for you?’ she said, at his thoughtful expression.

He was pouring himself more vodka, and the thoughtfulness arose from his growing awareness that Medical Officer Komarova was getting drunk.

‘No. I’m following,’ he said.

‘Then pour me one, too.’

‘Tatiana Petrovna, there are important —’

‘Tanya will do.’

‘Important matters here. Is it wise for you to drink so early?’

‘It isn’t wise. But is it every day one faces one’s murderer? And discusses the subsequent funeral. My God — in cold blood!’

‘You aren’t facing your murderer. There was no murder.’

‘Through my presence of mind! And your Russian has improved. Who are you?’

‘Tatiana — Tanya. Questions will be asked about me later. Isn’t it better that you don’t have the answers?’

‘All right.’ She drank a little, watching him. Her eyes were now very bright, the flush in her cheeks accentuating the pallor. She lit herself a cigarette and sat back with it in her mouth. She looked different again — longer, lankier, the injured foot stretched out on a stool, the drawn-back hair no longer unremarkable but now severely elegant.

He looked away from her, around the dark room.

‘You think this a strange place for me to live?’

‘Perhaps I would have expected a modern apartment.’

‘I married into a modern apartment.’

‘It didn’t suit you?’ he said, after a pause.

‘Neither the apartment nor the little swine I married. A cardiologist, from the hospital. Now making his fortune in Moscow. Private clinics, rich crooks. His speciality was the heart but he had no heart. Far less a soul,’ she added, nodding. ‘No children, thank God. Do you have children?’

‘No … You were speaking of your own childhood.’

‘Correct. Well then, Rogachev stayed here three months, to my great delight — a playful man, good with children — and I was desolate when he left.’

‘Did he come in connection with the research station?’

She shook her head. ‘He couldn’t have known anything about it then. Nobody did. It was thought to be some kind of weather place. No, he had some low-temperature experiments going on, he went out with the trappers. Then he’d come back and we would play. He was full of little games. I was Tanya-Panya, and he Misha-Bisha — our secret names.’

‘Misha-Bisha?’ Rogachev’s name was Efraim — Efraim Moisevich.

‘Misha the bear. He was a burly man. Just funny names. He gave people names.’

‘Yes.’ He remembered them. ‘Then what?’ he said.

‘Then he went away. And later so did we, to Panarovka. My father retained this house; he was helping them set up the medical service here … Anyway, there I was at Panarovka, apart from school and medical studies. And later I became a paramedic — all leading us to the point.’ She took a sip of vodka. ‘Which was when I became medical officer of this district a couple of years ago, and he asked me to help him — Rogachev did.’

‘You said you’d never seen him again.’

‘I haven’t. A note, unsigned. Just greetings from Misha-Bisha to Tanya-Panya.’

‘He sent you it?’

‘Through an Evenk. In an envelope.’

‘Where?’

‘There. At Tcherny Vodi. They have a surgery. I provide the medical supplies. It’s in my district.’

‘You go into the place?’

‘To deliver the supplies. And to treat patients — the Evenks and the security staff. The scientists have their own doctor, also on the staff. I’ve never seen him. I receive a list of what he wants and I supply it.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Porter said, slowly working this out ‘If an Evenk gave you the message — they see Rogachev?’

‘An Evenk does. Rogachev’s body servant. The job’s hereditary. That is, his father had it before him, and so on with all the previous heads.’

‘The manservant gave you the message?’

‘No, I’ve never seen him, either. But he’s allowed to meet the other Evenks, to discuss family affairs. He’s totally trusted. He wouldn’t discuss anything else — even if he knew anything. He just does what he’s told.’

‘And he was told to get this message to you.’

‘Yes. It seems Rogachev had heard there was a new medical officer — the daughter of Dr Komarov. That first note was just to check it was truly me. Later he told me what he wanted.’

He got up and walked about the room. In a recess beside the stove an icon was on the wall. The stove was cold, the house now electrically heated, very stuffy, very warm. Books were everywhere, on shelves, tables. He couldn’t make out the titles in the dark.

‘What did he want?’ he said.

‘He said he had discovered something of great value, which they were preventing him from publishing.’

‘Did he say what it was?’

‘No.’

‘Or what they’re doing up there?’

‘Not that either. Except I know now that it involves dangerous substances. They had an accident a few months ago, and the results of it contaminated the lake. Their filtration plant was out of action for some days and we had to send them drinking water. A few scientists flew in and made a great fuss checking out the area. But the wind was the other way and there were no effects here.’

‘Were the Evenks affected?’

She shook her head. ‘It was at night and they were in their dormitory. They were locked in all next day, too. There’d been a fire and fumes were still in the air outside. It was some kind of explosion … You know about it, of course,’ she said.

He made no comment on this.

‘How did he think you could help him?’

‘Stepan Maximovich — that’s the servant — had to get some cigarettes to me. You know all this, too.’

‘And what did you have to do with them?’

‘A Japanese ship had been coming here for the past couple of years. Some of the Evenks work as dockers during the summer, and they’d told Stepan Maximovich that one of the sailors had been asking for drugs. It was a joke — the Evenks had no access to drugs. But he passed it on to Rogachev, a piece of gossip. This was the first Misha-Bisha heard of the ship and it gave him his idea.’

‘Which was what?’

She sighed. ‘For me to board the ship, of course, when it came. And contact the drug-taker.’

‘The Evenks pointed him out to you?’

‘Of course not. They know nothing of this. I saw it in the man’s eyes. I was taking the crew one at a time in a cabin set aside for me. The man was on heroin. I offered him a derivative, rather less dangerous, if he would do something for me. I explained what it was and told him I would give him more, when he came round again. The ship was coming twice in a season — in early June and in September.‘

’In Japanese you were explaining all this?’

‘In my bit of English. Enough for a hungry addict … Is this some kind of interrogation?’

He shrugged.

‘What reason did you give for examining the crew?’

‘That I was tightening up health requirements. The ship had come from tropical parts, it was due to take on fish after unloading. And you are now making me very tired. And also hungry. In the kitchen you will find salt fish, and some bread and sour cream. Also a tray.’

She hobbled on a stick when she had to and for the rest of the day sat with her leg up. The day was very overcast, and the windows of the old house small; but by three o’clock it was night anyway, and he had gone round switching on lamps and drawing curtains. She watched him doing it.

‘You’re a long fellow,’ she said, ‘for a Chukchee. But you’re not a Chukchee. Or an Evenk. Or anything I know. You’re of the north, of course?’

‘You identified my instep,’ he said.

She smiled coldly. ‘Also very careful. Well, how far have your automotive works gone?’

He had told her some details of the bobik — having decided he needed her shed — and now he told her a few more.

‘You plan to leave here in this machine?’

‘If necessary. An alternative exit,’ he said.

‘Some more formal exit is planned for you, of course.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Do you want to tell me it?’

‘No.’

‘All right.’ But she remained staring at him. ‘So where are you building this vehicle?’

‘You don’t need to know that either.’

She lit herself a cigarette. ‘Too much smoking. But this is hardly normal.’ I’ll have another drink, too.’

She had it on the sofa, her leg more comfortable there, and she gave him more information on the herds. They discussed the matter until supper, which he also assembled and brought from the kitchen; together with a coffee jug and two mugs.

‘Well, quite the housekeeper,’ she said.

‘Practice. Do you have help here?’

‘Yes. A Yakut woman comes in twice a week.’

‘Does she go into the shed?’

‘No.’ She stared at him. ‘You’re the most cunning man, I think, that I’ve ever met. That’s where you’ll keep the motor parts, is it?’

‘A few things, yes.’ He got on with his meal, and she got on with hers, glancing curiously at him.

She told him the layout of the research station and he listened closely.

‘So where’s your consulting room?’

‘In the guards’ quarters. The Evenks come there.’

‘Is that the only place you have contact with them?’

‘Well, they have to unload the car and load it again.’

‘What with?’

‘Various supplies. Big distilled water jars. They use a lot of it there, laboratory work. It’s not worth flying in, and we produce it in Tchersky anyway. Various oilier drums and containers. I take the empties back.’

‘Where do they keep this stuff?’

‘In a storage shed, near the airstrip.’

‘Is that where you park?’

‘No, I’m not allowed there. I go to the commandant’s office. And they bring along a sled, or a tractor. It depends how much there is.’

‘Do you supervise this operation?’

‘The security people do. They have to check everything that goes in or out. Were you thinking I might smuggle you out?’

‘Well … What if somebody’s ill?’

‘They’d be flown out. And not to Tchersky. No contact is allowed with Tchersky. And nobody goes in or out without an escort anyway.’

He drank his coffee, musing.

‘So how do I get out?’ he said.

‘The same way you get in?’

‘And stay there a month?’

‘That would complicate matters in Green Cape, wouldn’t it?’ She nodded. ‘Well, you’re not thinking so badly. Go and bring the cognac. Maybe you’ll do better.’

He went and got the cognac, puzzled. She had drunk a lot today, but it had not noticeably affected her judgment or the authority of her manner. Evidently he was being subjected to some other test, a probe of his reactions. She had done it before, in the church. She was taking risks, of course, for herself, for Rogachev.

He turned with the cognac, and saw she had shifted position on the sofa.

‘Come and sit here,’ she said. ‘I’m tired of shouting.’

He sat slowly, and carefully poured.

‘Your hands are long,’ she said. ‘Also your femur.’ She examined the femur. She examined it all the way up, and unzipped him and slipped a hand in.

He gazed at her.

‘What’s this?’ he said.

‘Are you surprised?’

‘You have examined me once already.’

‘Now you can examine me.’

With her other arm she pulled his head down and kissed him. It was quite an affectionate kiss, and she was smiling as she drew back and looked into his face. ‘Long fellow,’ she said, ‘today you tried to kill me, and I could be dead. But I am not dead, and nor are you, and this is my house. You attract me. I am accustomed to getting what I want. And it’s something to celebrate, after all — being alive. You can take me to bed now.’

She was not as well found as Lydia Yakovlevna; lankier, less yielding. But she was lithe, controlled, and quite used, as she said, to getting what she wanted. She was also very much more genuine, arching without histrionics when her moment came, and he arched at the same time, and afterwards she kissed his face and stroked it.

‘Yes, worth celebrating,’ she said. ‘And altogether satisfactory. But now there’s work to do.’

They got up and did it for some hours: planning how he could get into and also out of the place he had come around the world to reach. Before midnight they had agreed the first steps, and these were detailed steps.

34

On Monday he took his sick-note to the administration block, and immediately afterwards went to see Vassili in his store room.

‘You didn’t come Friday,’ Vassili said.

‘They gave me a medical. I’ll take the stuff at lunch time, Vassili. And, listen, I need a bobik for a week.’

‘A week?’

‘They laid me off, at the medical. They say I’m tired and need a week’s rest.’

Vassili looked him over. ‘Well, you’re looking shagged,’ he said. ‘That’s your Evenk girl, is it? What use are you going to be to her if you’re worn out?’

‘Never mind — I need a bobik.’

‘So go and ask Liova.’

‘If I’m off work I’m not entitled … Vassili, put in a word for me.’

The old Yakut chuckled silently. ‘All right But let him take a look at you himself. He’ll see what a wreck you are. You don’t need to mention anything.’

He grunted and went to find the Light Vehicles chief.

‘Well,’ Liova said, staring at him, ‘you need a rest, it’s obvious. You’ve been working hard.’

‘I don’t. But it’s what they said. I’m sorry.’

‘Kolya — take it easy, now. You’re a good lad.’

At lunch time he went back to the depot and found Vassili alone, eating from his pot.

‘You got your bobik,’ the Yakut told him, chewing. ‘And Liova said shove one into her for him, too. I never saw him laugh so much. You want to take the axles now?’

He took the axles and he also took the manual, to see how to put the thing together. And in an hour and a quarter was at Anyuysk,

He took the made track fast and was soon off it and on to the tributary. The days were now shorter, barely two hours; this one grey, clear, very cold; a still life, set in ice. It was a week now since he’d been here. He found the overhanging bushes and got out and inspected the cave with a torch. All as he had left it. He drove the bobik in with the lights on, kept the engine running, and unloaded the axle assemblies. Then he stood back and looked around. Spacious enough, but no room for two bobiks. When he started assembly, the other one would have to stand outside.

He became aware of another problem. For the assembly he was going to need light. Not light from the delivery bobik — that was out of the question; even from the air it might be seen. And not just torchlight. Proper lighting. He needed a generator, and some wiring rigged, and a tarpaulin or sheet for the entrance. Well, it could be done.

The ice box was chilling him to the bone and he got back in the bobik and sat with the heat on, leafing through the greasy manual. The first job: bolt the chassis together. And get it on wheels. Then what? He studied the drawings and the exploded diagrams. Steering assembly, brakes, transmission, clutch. Hours of fiddling in the deep freeze. He would need a heater, too.

It was dark outside now, and he reversed out and drove back along the tributary. He drove slowly with only side lights until he came to the made track and Anyuysk, and then put on speed. The plan called for him to go home now.

Anna Antonovna heard him enter the apartment, and shortly afterwards was tapping on the door herself. He had given the old lady her own key but she was discreet in using it.

‘Well, I tidied you in here,’ she said. ‘But what happened this weekend? You said you wouldn’t be working.’

‘No, I was with friends.’

‘Here, or in Tchersky?’

‘Neither. At Novokolymsk.’ This was the story they had agreed. ‘I’ve got a week off so I thought I’d pay them a visit — with a bobik I borrowed. I’ll be running out there again,’ he told her, grinning.

‘Ah, you found the natives at the collective, did you?’

‘Sure. And they can sleep me. I only looked in to pick up a few clothes.’

‘What, you’re going back now?’

‘For a few days.’

‘Well, I know who won’t be pleased at that,’ Anna Antonovna said; but the old cat face was smiling as she left.

She would be passing on this interesting item to the young lady in the supermarket. All as planned. Everybody had to know. He took a shower and sat in one of Ponomarenko’s bathrobes, with a vodka.

There was no phone in the apartment, and he didn’t want to use the public one below. He waited until he could hear no traffic and then dressed and packed a bag and left. At Tchersky the lights were on behind her curtains, and he turned into the driveway. She had given him a set of keys and he parked the bobik with hers in the shed and locked it again. Then he let himself into the house.

35

The house of Dr Komarov had stood a hundred years — a long time for a simple one of wood, but the wood was good. It had seen out Tsar Alexander III and Tsar Nicolas II, and also the entire communist régime. Though tilted sharply in two directions, it still looked good for many years to come, for now it was rooted firmly in the permafrost.

Now but not always. In 1893 when the cellar had held prisoners of Alexander III they had lit a fire in it to try to stay alive. This had thawed the permafrost, and occasioned the first tilt. The second was Dr Komarov’s. In an onslaught on the bugs and lice that infested the place he had treated every centimetre of it with a chemical solution; and to make sure of remaining larvae had boiled them with a steam hose. He had steamed out the cellar too, and in the summer of 1959 the house had lurched slowly forward.

The timbers had stood up well to this and the house would not now lurch any more. His daughter Tatiana had seen to that. Her first act had been to drive piles into the permafrost, pinning the structure in its present position, and then to isolate the cellar with half a metre of insulating material — floor, walls and roof. A trapdoor enabled it still to be used as a storeroom, and it provided quite a capacious one. Here Porter found the kerosene stove and the generator — the latter a neat job from Japan, not much needed in the past few years as Tchersky’s power supply had improved.

He tried them both. The stove needed a new wick but was otherwise quite serviceable, and the generator started at once.

For the time being he left them there.

In the next three days he ran parts down to the cave. With Vassili’s agreement he picked them up at eight in the morning, using the back door of the storeroom to avoid going through the garage, and returned at lunch time for the second load. He went back to the house right away then, for Komarova had told him not to absent himself for long. The plan for getting him to the herds depended on the weather, and for this he had to be ready at short notice.

Now he knew far more about her.

She had been divorced six years and had not looked for other relationships. Had there been any? Of course — brief ones, she was human, what did he think? But just hospital people: doctors who came on two-or three-year contracts and then left, for Moscow, Petersburg, God knew where. She couldn’t leave, at least not yet. Her mother was a trial, but still her mother. Later maybe. But where else would she find such wide responsibilities and such work?

She loved the work, and she loved the country — the native people better than the Europeans. So she kept her distance, and was considered aloof; yes, she knew it. But better that than join a white elite and patronise the natives. Her father had never patronised them, and neither had Rogachev, and she had loved them for it. They were not treated equally — he must have seen it for himself. Plenty of extras for Europeans in these northern parts, but natives excluded, even in such matters as drink. She got them drink, and why not? It was a hard country. Yes, she was in some ways detached here, in some ways out of place. But she would be out of place in a town.

So what would do for her?

She didn’t know what would do. Her work would do!

She had scrupulously avoided asking him anything further about himself; so on the second night, trusting her suddenly, he told her.

She sat up in bed and looked at him.

‘An American Indian!’

‘Canadian.’

‘Not the Porter — Dr Johnny Porter?’

‘Well, that’s my name.’

She stared at him in amazement. Then she got out of bed and ran into the next room and returned with his Comparisons in a Russian translation.

‘This is yours?’

‘Yes.’

‘You mean, you’re not a — not just an agent? So what are you doing here?’

‘Well.’ He hesitated. But then he told the lot. The meeting with Rogachev in Oxford. The strangeness of his own life at the time — a widower, at twenty-three.

‘She’d only been nineteen herself — a little thing, very pretty — long black hair, pony tail down to here.’

‘An Indian girl?’

‘Oh, sure. Minnehaha, Laughing Water — doe-eyed Bride of Hiawatha. Name was Trisha, actually. She didn’t have doe eyes.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘She skipped out to catch a bus at lunch time. The bus caught her. Somebody said she probably hadn’t heard it.’

‘She hadn’t seen it?’

‘Being blind, no.’

‘Oh.’

‘She could hear a pin drop — in the next room!’

‘You mean-’

‘Ah, hell, who knows what I mean? I was seeing plots everywhere. Politics. All a long time ago … I guess she missed the kerb and slipped. Anyway, Rogachev told me to quit brooding. An amazing guy — I’d never met anyone like him. A polymath, interested in everything. In blindness too … We were discussing congenital things — turned out his wife had molecular degeneration, both eyes. He was depressed as hell really, under all the cheerfulness. But he said brooding was no good for me. There was something for me to do in this world, and he’d help me any way he could. Which he did actually.’

He was silent a moment.

‘See, earlier on I’d been trying to get to Chukotka, a security part you couldn’t get to. It was to research the Inuit there, Eskimos. And he got me permission, and I went. I didn’t use the stuff at the time, and I heard nothing from him directly. And later on I discovered why. He’d been in an accident, lost his wife, was in all sorts of trouble. Yet he’d done that for me — he’d meant what he said. So when they showed up with these messages … ’

‘But to disrupt your life in this way! To take on such dangers —’

‘I’ve disrupted it before, and lived rough before — he knew that. He knew I could do it — that I was the only one with any chance of doing it. And that I would if only I saw what he’d −’

He decided to skip what Rogachev had written.

No more sit in darkness nor like the blind stumble at …

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I did.’

‘Good God!’ She was still clutching the book she’d brought in. ‘Well, you’d do,’ she said. She lay on top of him. ‘My God, you’d do!’

On the Thursday he took the engine.

There were now only three days left of his week off. It meant taking the block and tackle, too, and also the lighting.

‘Lighting wire? What do you want with lighting wire? Vassili asked.

‘I might need some. Give me twenty metres. Also eight sockets and light bulbs.’

‘This is a lot of favours,’ Vassili said. He measured off the flex. ‘When are you going to do some for me?’

‘What do you want?’

‘She is talking stroganina again.’

‘Okay. I’ll get a run to Ambarchik next week.’

Vassili took a careful look out of the back door of the storeroom, and together they manhandled the engine in its harness out to the bobik. ‘You’re coming back lunch time?’

‘No. This is a lot of engine,’ he said, rubbing his back; he had carried the greater part of it.

‘I told you. See the block is secure before you lift it. Don’t skip any screws. There’ll be no other engine.’

‘I’ll be careful.’

He went back to the house and picked up the generator and set off on the river to Anyuysk. By half past ten he was at the cave and he drove straight in, with his headlights on. He had already had a trial on the roof of the bobik and the position gave him enough room. Now he knelt on it and got to work.

There were eight holes in the securing bracket. He held it against the roof and lightly bored the eight placer marks with the battery drill. Then he laid the bracket aside and drilled the full depth. He went seven centimetres into the granite, and got through three drills and two sets of batteries. Then he plugged the holes and screwed the bracket home and swung hard on the tackle. All secure.

He took a rest then, and had some coffee, while figuring out the lighting. This was a finicky job, but child’s play after the heavy overhead boring. Only shallow holes needed, and short plugs for the hooks. He spaced out two on the roof and two along each of the three walls. Then he paid out the wire and draped it loosely from the hooks. The twenty metres didn’t give anything to spare, and he still had to cut it to connect the light sockets.

His fingers were numb and he fiddled with this job in the bobik with the heater on. He spliced in the sockets, attached the terminal plugs for the generator, and got out and hung the circuit. Then he went round screwing in the bulbs, got back in the bobik and gave himself a vodka. It was after two o’clock and he was very tired. He was tiring too easily, too much running about. He lit a cigarette and read through the scrappy leaflet that came with the generator. It had worked in the house but here, only twelve volts needed, he could blow the whole damn array.

He got out and checked the controls again. Then he made sure the output switch was off, and started up. The thing coughed into life and chugged solidly away. He let it run for a minute, then switched the output on. The bulbs lit up like a Christmas tree, and stayed lit. Okay. The engine now.

He switched the bobik’s lights off, reversed out, turned on the frozen river and backed in again. The light was well spread. He opened the rear of the car and hooked up the engine. They had bedded it on a felt pad in its lifting harness, and he hauled on the tackle chains and saw the pad begin to shift as the engine moved. The pad slid out and fell to the ground and the engine swung loose. He kept it hanging and guided it clear of the car and lowered it slowly to the ground.

Done.

He took the bobik outside and went back in for a final look. There was a lot of stuff now; almost everything. Tomorrow he’d pick up the remainder, take it to the house, sleep all day. At night back to the cave and start the assembly. He would work the whole night through.

He switched the generator off and drove back. He felt unsure of himself suddenly.

Something had changed. He didn’t know what. But all his life he had respected these feelings. He went over in his mind what it might be. Nothing. Yet something had changed.

He drove slowly, and it was six o’clock before he reached the house. There he learned something had changed. Tomorrow there would be no cave, but the herds. For now the time had come. Tomorrow night, if everything worked, he would be with Innokenty, the man who sent people to the research station.

He was unsure about this, too. The story they had concocted seemed now utterly childish. Earlier it had not seemed childish. Now it seemed childish. It was too late to think of another though, so they worked over it, far into the night; all the time his lowering feeling persisting.

He had no idea, still, what was expected of him at Tcherny Vodi, what activities went on there.

In China at this time they had no idea even of Tcherny Vodi’s existence. But they were aware of some activities. A very strange one had come to light.

36

The military commission met in Beijing: before them the reports on the test missiles — the missiles of October and of November.

The October missile had gone off course six minutes into its flight, so that the new guidance system had not operated. This system switched on only in the last kilometres of flight. A visual device then compared what it read below with a pre-stored computer image, correcting course and trajectory until the two images matched exactly. But so far off course, nothing had matched. A fault of the missile, not its terminal vision.

The second vehicle was of an older type, but with a totally reliable flight record. And it had been reliable. It had flown to Lop Nor, anyway, and hit it, but so wide of the mark that, again, the visual system had obviously not switched on.

However, it had switched on. It had reported itself switched on. And then it had switched off.

Between these two missiles, mere was an important difference. The one arriving at Lop Nor had been conventionally wired, all its networks connected by electrical cable. The other was optically wired; with fibre. The commission knew the reason for this, so their experts wasted no time — going immediately to the main problem.

Both missiles had been interfered with in flight.

The first had suffered interference after six minutes, when its signals had ceased. It had then been executing a fractional turn to the west; and it had stuck in this turn which by burn-out had taken it due south to Lanchow.

The second missile had reported an unidentifiable buzz, but it had reached Lop Nor. It had reached it with its video switched

off. Shortly before it had reported the video switched on.

The experts pointed to an obvious conclusion.

The missile diverted from its course was optically wired.

The missile not diverted was not optically wired, but its optical system had switched off. The interference was optical.

On this they offered two further comments.

The first was that they knew of no scientific explanation for such interference; and the second that it could only have come from an altitude much higher than the missiles.

At an altitude a quarter of the way to the moon, two satellites were at present in stationary orbit over China. They were electronic intelligence (ELINT) stations, one of them American and the other Russian. The American had been launched from Vandenberg Air Force base in California, and the Russian from Tyuratam in central Asia.

The experts’ recommendation was that Vandenberg and Tyuratam be targeted, urgently, for anything that could shed light on this development. This was possible for agents were available at both centres, and already much was known of events in these important vicinities.

Of events in the unimportant vicinity of Tchersky nothing was known.

37

Tchersky airport, so late in the season, had extended itself on to the river ice. A dozen or so fixed-wing planes of Polar Aviation were parked there, and also a huddle of helicopters, large and small.

Medical Officer Komarova and her Chukchee assistant boarded a small one, already warming up for them, and took off at once, heading south-east. The day was dark and grey, ominous with gusts and waiting snow. A blizzard was expected within hours.

The pilot chided Komarova on the fact as they rose above the town. ‘Couldn’t you have made it earlier? I still have to get you back.’

‘A rush of work all morning. I won’t stay long.’

‘You say that, but always you stay hours. What is it with those natives there? … Who’s this one?’

‘An employee of the transport company.’ They had taken care to let the pilot see the Chukchee driving the bobik and carrying the two heavy bags from it to the helicopter; Komarova herself was hobbling on a stick. ‘Pay attention to your own duties,’ she added coldly. ‘Just fly.’

The pilot grunted and flew, and Porter marvelled at the sternness of this creature who had last night so riotously straddled and caressed him.

They didn’t have to fly long, barely fifty minutes. But darkness was gathering fast as they spotted the weird cloud on the ground. The spectral shape rolled and tumbled there, shot through with silver — the breath of reindeer, an immense herd, crystallised in the air. They came down low over it, the pilot peering in all directions before he found the group of tents that housed the Evenk herders. He had to hover almost on top of them before deerskin-clad figures came peering out, running and waving. Then he put the helicopter down, and kept the rotors turning.

‘Aren’t you coming out?’ Komarova called, at the door.

‘No, I’ll keep her running. It’s cold out there and the wind is high — they couldn’t hear me.’ He was having to shout, listening to a weather report on his radio. ‘Remember — I don’t spend nights with a tribe of Evenks!’

‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

Outside several women were among the huddle of Evenks, and they bear-hugged the medical officer, gazing curiously at her Chukchee assistant. The wind was indeed high and howling, all the ground below knee level shirting with flying snow and ice. They were hustled into a tent — a leather one, Porter saw, and double-skinned. Its entrance flaps opened into a heat-lock vestibule, and beyond it more flaps led to the circular living space, a big room, six or seven metres across, entirely carpeted with bushy reindeer robes. A sheet-metal stove roared in the middle of it, standing in a large tray piled with logs and cooking pots.

The heavy canvas bags were speedily taken off him and their contents greeted with approval. The bottles had been wrapped in cloth to prevent clinking, and one of vodka was opened immediately.

‘No — no time for that!’ Komarova said. ‘The pilot has to get off. What complaints are here? How’s everybody?’

The complaints were the normal ones: sprains, sores, inflamed eyes. But one of the women was pregnant, and Komarova took time examining her behind a screen. She examined others there too, and he kept careful check of the time, calling it out to her. It was after three o’clock, now totally dark and less than two hours before the predicted blizzard. The plan needed the pilot to be able to take off, and his radio could still ground him.

‘All right, I’m coming,’ she called back, and presently was hurrying out. ‘But Evdokia, you’re coming with me. I want you checked in hospital. And Igor, too. That back looks a disc problem. And more vitamins are needed here — too many sores. I’ll send supplies tomorrow. And the instructions with them. There’s no time now, no time!’ And out they went, struggling against the wind to the helicopter: the pregnant woman, the man with the bad back, Medical Officer Komarova, and her assistant from the transport company.

‘What’s this?’ the pilot shouted, as they clambered aboard. ‘How many of you?’

‘Just two patients and us.’

‘What, two patients and you? Two patients and you two make four. With me five. The machine carries four!’

‘You’ve carried five before.’

‘In high winds, with a blizzard coming? No way. One of them stays.’

‘These patients have to be in hospital!’

‘Then let him stay!’

Which he did, after some angry words.

So far, so good.

The childish story, still to come, was another matter.

Innokenty he had spotted immediately. The headman had sat smoking his pipe on the carpet while the medical examinations were carried out.

‘I never heard anyone speak the Evenk tongue so,’ the old man said, ‘not any stranger. How does it come about?’

Porter told him, and he told them all, over a venison dinner and ample drink, how it came about. He told of his childhood in Chukotka, of the schoolteacher father, of Novosibirsk and the Evenk friends he had met. How in the big town he had almost forgotten his own tongue, but his Evenk friends, true souls, had not forgotten theirs, and of how it had almost become his. Of his hankering for the north, and his driving experiences ever since. They were charmed by him, and charmed also at his interest in their own lives. Every aspect interested him, and they gladly answered all questions.

No, they didn’t remain in the one place; that was plainly impossible with such a large herd, over two thousand beasts. The reindeer grazed the moss under the ice. They grazed it and were moved on every few days. No problems. A small party dismantled the tents and carried them ahead and re-erected them. The same with firewood: every week or so a party would go south to a great woodstack nearer the timber line and collect it. Sure, on sleds, you harnessed up a couple of reindeer; wonderful beasts. They carried you, clothed you, fed you. Better than beef. And cheaper to produce than beef, and fetching better prices! Yes, everywhere, all over Russia, and Japan too, and God knew where else. The collective did all that.

He didn’t know the collective? Novokolymsk. All that work was done there, the carcase-handling, packing, despatch, accounts. They went back there themselves regularly. A big helicopter came and transferred them. One party went back, another party came out. The schoolchildren stayed at the collective, of course; only came out to the herds for holidays. No, not everybody returned regularly; Innokenty didn’t, and many of the older folk also. They preferred the wandering life, didn’t feel the need for television, videos, parties. All that was for the younger ones. But a good life for everybody, a natural one, full of variety.

Indeed, he said, indeed it was. And he’d heard they also found time to fit in work at the docks in the summer. How did they fit all that in?

How did they fit it in? They could fit anything in. They were free. They did what they wanted. And it wasn’t the only thing they fitted in. They also worked regularly at a science station up in the hills.

Ah yes! He knew about that. Had actually met a couple of them when he’d freighted a load to the guard post there a few weeks ago. He explained the situation, to their very great interest Which Evenks were they? Well, he hadn’t caught their names, but from his description it was generally agreed who they must be — and what a pity they weren’t here to greet him. They wouldn’t be down for a week yet. Yes, the same system, one party came back and another went up to replace them.

Truly an interesting life, he said, admiringly. And he regretted not having picked up any science himself. They’d had a scientific training, had they, the people who went up there?

This occasioned a great deal of laughter, and also another round of drinks.

You wouldn’t call it science, old Innokenty said, smiling. Just honest work — cleaning, laundry, cooking, maintenance. And the heating, and such things. Scores of people had to be looked after up there, a big government station, scientists, guards — yes, stinking heads. You didn’t have much to do with them. And they had nothing to do with Tchersky or Green Cape. All their supplies came from far away, thousands of kilometres. Which the Evenks offloaded and shifted, too. But not to the people below, of course. All the science happened below, and nobody was ever allowed there.

‘Only my Stepanka!’ exclaimed a very old lady, smoking her pipe and nodding.

‘Of course Stepanka. But nobody else.’

‘Who’s Stepanka?’ asked the Chukchee.

‘Her son. Stepan Maximovich. He looks after the boss of the place — took over his father’s job when he died. It’s in their family. He lives there. And he has a wife, not old, but beyond child-bearing age so they let him take her. For his natural needs,’ Innokenty said, winking.

‘Ah. Aren’t there any other women there?’

‘No, none.’

‘So what do the rest of them do for — you know?’

More laughter. Well, with the guards there was no problem. They were shifted regularly — in fact a new crew would be on next week. As for the scientists, a party of them went out, every couple of months — to opera houses, concert halls, things of that kind. They got private boxes, and various stinking heads had to go with them. But Stepanka thought they were given a ration of the other as well, it was only right.

Oh, they got to see Stepanka, did they?

Of course they got to see him. Stepanka had to know how his family was getting on — and all his people! And they were trusted. They were the only outsiders trusted. They wouldn’t trust any white workers in there. Or Yukagir or Chukchees, for that matter. No offence to Chukchees, it was just a different way of life in these parts. And the Yukagir could never keep to timetables. They were out scouting their traplines all winter. Go and find them! No, the Evenks with their regular herds were the only ones the authorities took. And they took them from the herds, not the collective. Took them and brought them back to the herds, so they shouldn’t contact anybody in between. That was the way of it with stinking heads.

Well, a fascinating life, he said. But where was the opera house in Tchersky they’d mentioned, or the concert hall? He hadn’t found these places yet.

More laughter — hilarious laughter, everyone rolling on the carpet — and also more drinks.

Tchersky! An opera house in Tchersky! Oh, no! Not that, Kolya! No opera houses in Tchersky. God knew where the opera houses were — maybe as far as Novosibirsk. They flew them out in a big plane! In Novosibirsk they had opera houses now, and theatres, everything. Well, they must have had them when he was there last.

Ah, when he was there last, he said, and grew solemn. (The moment had come now and he braced himself.) The vodka had flowed very freely all evening and a tear now stood in his eye. When he was in Novosibirsk last!

What, Kolya? What? Unhappy memories?

Yes, unhappy. A person had to keep them to himself.

Why to himself? It helped a person to speak.

No. He wouldn’t burden them with unhappy stories.

What burden? With friends? Take a drink, Kolya. Speak.

He took a drink. Well then, he said, and wiped his eyes. Well … In Novosibirsk he had left a most tragic case. A white girl. Dying. He had met the family in his early tearabout days there. The father had worked at an institute outside the town; Akademgorodok — Science City. He had done odd jobs for the family, a fine family, just the three of them, father, mother, daughter.

And then evil things had happened. The mother, still a young woman, had taken ill and died. And a grandmother had come to look after the girl — just eight or nine years old at the time. This was twenty years ago. Until one day, out of nowhere, another disaster. The father too had gone — not dead, just gone, disappeared. A letter saying urgent government business and he would be in touch. But he had not been in touch. Not from that day to this, not a single word — nothing.

What nothing? Innokenty said. How could they live on nothing?

Money wasn’t a problem, Kolya said. Money came, regularly, from the ministry that had employed him. It was just — no word from him, no idea what had happened.

The ministry couldn’t tell them what had happened?

The grandmother tried. She tried everybody, the ministry, the place where he’d worked, his colleagues. Nothing.

So then what?

So then time passed, he went back to Chukotka, got a driving job. And the girl wrote from time to time. Told him the grandmother had died. Until suddenly, this year, a few months ago, she wrote again, very urgently. Could he come and see her at once? Which as it happened he could. The driving season had just ended, it was June, he was going to the Black Sea. So he went to Novosibirsk first, and saw her. And was shocked by what he saw. The girl was desparately ill, wasting away — the same disease as her mother, and the same age, twenty-nine. And the doctors said nothing could be done for her.

Well he couldn’t accept that, wouldn’t believe it. On the Black Sea they had other doctors, different cures. So he had taken her there, gone to top specialists, paid them privately. But the same story: nothing to be done. And the Black Sea was too hot for her, so he had taken her back to Novosibirsk. And there they had stayed, and had wept together …

Until, he said, wiping his eyes again, one day she had asked him to do something for her, one last thing.

When she first knew of her illness, she had gone herself to Akademgorodok — the place her father had worked. Had pleaded with them, pestered them, gone from office to office. And in a certain room, where records were kept, had overheard officials whispering together about a place in the Kolymsky region. And dimly from her childhood she remembered her father had also spoken of this place. A mysterious kind of place, a weather station, from which he had received reports, also spoken of in whispers. And from this she had got it into her head that it was the explanation of his disappearance. He was in this mysterious place. He was not allowed to write!

And this was what she wanted of him — to take a letter to her father, begging one last word and his blessing before she died. She knew Kolya drove about in the north. To her, Chukotka, the Kolymsky region, were all the same. They knew nothing of the north down there, none of them. So, for a dying girl, what else could he do? He had come up to Tchersky and taken a job with the transport company and looked for this weather station. Of course he knew now there wasn’t such a place … But yes, that was the reason Novosibirsk had sad memories for him.

Wait a minute! Innokenty said. He had been staring hard at him. Twenty years ago you say this man disappeared?

Twenty years ago.

But twenty years ago there was a weather station here — our science place up in the hills!

You don’t say so! Kolya said.

I do say so, Innokenty said. That’s what they said then. And there has never been any other weather station in the region.

God above — you mean I’ve actually found it? Kolya said.

God has found it! Stepanka’s old mother said. She had thrown her pipe down and was weeping. He has led you to it! My Stepanka will take this letter for you. He’ll see her father gets it.

It’s a miracle! Kolya said. I can’t believe it! Only tell me when it can be done!

In just a week, Innokenty told him. When the helicopter brings the others down, the new party will take the letter up.

And the reply — when would I get it?

Four weeks later, when they come down again.

Ah God! Too late! Kolya said, bitterly. She’ll never last that time. In two weeks I have to leave. To be at her deathbed.

Then what’s to be done?

They had another drink while thinking what was to be done.

Nobody could think what was to be done.

Was it possible, Kolya said at last, his face creased up as he puzzled the matter out, was it possible for them to get him up there somehow?

Well, Innokenty said. Possible, yes. He could go up as a member of a party. The stinking heads didn’t know one from another. But what was to be gained? He would still have to stay there four weeks. They didn’t bring them down again for four weeks.

And if he was changed?

Changed?

Kolya tried working this one out, too, his face again very creased. He worked it out once, and he worked it out twice, and by the second time tears had turned to laughter and even the old lady was rolling on the floor with her pipe.

Oh God, yes! Oh God, why not — if it could be done? Comfort for a dying girl — and in such a way — from people who were free and did what they wanted!

All night the blizzard raged and he drowsed by the stove, disturbed occasionally as men stumbled out to re-tether the leaders keeping the herd together. But in the morning the weather was clear and the helicopter came with the vitamins, and he went back with it; the Evenks waving boisterously up at him as he rose in the sky. ‘We’ll meet again,’ they had told him, winking. Oh yes! Yes, indeed they would!

So that part too was over.

And now there remained only the last.

38

After his week’s rest Kolya Khodyan signed on for work again at the Tchersky Transport Company. And he returned the bobik.

The story of his supposed Evenk girl had passed around, he saw, for he was greeted everywhere with hilarity.

‘Had your rest cure, Kolya? Found something nice and comfortable to rest on?’

He smiled sheepishly, and took all this.

From Yura, the Kama truck chief, there was no hilarity. The plan called for him to go and see the little man anyway; but that same morning he was sent for.

He decided to walk the half kilometre to the hangar.

‘What’s this, Kolya?’ Yura furiously demanded. ‘What? I put you down for a long haul. And this note comes back: “No long distances — struck off”. What the hell! What’s happening here? What?’

He assumed his sullen expression.

‘My skin is what! They no like it. Say bad heart.’

‘Who says bad heart?’

‘At the medical. They make me do medical. Look at my papers, say no good — bad heart. Is all lies, those papers! Nothing wrong with my heart. Is my skin!’

‘Wait a minute. What trouble with your heart?’

‘I have a fever as a kid — is nothing! Some doctor in Anadyr says later maybe I get bad heart. I don’t get a bad heart. Nobody says so, nobody in Chukotka! Here they say it! Not my heart. My skin, eh — Chukchee skin. No good!’

The heavy-truck chief breathed loudly through his nostrils.

‘We’ll soon see about that!’ he said.

He picked up the phone and called Bukarovsky.

Kolya lit himself a cigarette and waited. Nothing would be coming out of Bukarovsky. All the road manager could ask for was an urgent hospital check. Which Komarova would hold up for two weeks. In two weeks he would no longer be here.

He listened to the shouting match, and the phone slammed down. ‘Okay, all fixed! He’s getting you a hospital check — urgent. Komarova will arrange it herself. You’ll have the long hauls, I promise!’

‘Did I ask for them? Did I ask anything? Is my skin!’

‘Kolya, come on! It’s a fuck-up with your papers. Everywhere there are fuck-ups! You’re wanted here. Everybody wants you!’ He came and put his arm round the Chukchee and squeezed him. ‘And didn’t I hear you’ve got a little bit somewhere who also wants you? Somewhere out at a collective? Eh? Eh?’

‘Is my business,’ the Chukchee said, sullenly.

‘Sure it is, Kolya. Sure. Shagging your ears off, you dog. What? Tearing down there every night in a bobik!’

‘Yes, one thing more,’ he said. ‘No bobik. I come in, give up bobik. No-good driver, no bobik. I have to walk here now.’

‘What!’ Yura reached for the phone again. ‘Liova? Liova, what’s this −’

More minutes of shouting before the phone slammed down.

‘You’ve got a bobik. He said you never even asked him.’

‘Why ask? If I’m no good? No favours.’

‘Kolya, Kolya.’ The little man squeezed him again. ‘Nobody says that. You’re the best! Don’t get so hot. Okay, for a few days you do short runs, until your check-up. After that, I promise you — Bilibino, Baranikha, Pevek, everywhere! Go on, off now. And someone will run you back. My drivers don’t walk!’

So that was settled: his medical condition established, hospital check-up in motion, a bobik once more at his disposal, and short runs a certainty.

He started on them at once.

He managed a trip to Ambarchik in the week and brought back a fish for Vassili, and also one run each to Provodnoye and Anyuysk. He carried the rest of the car on them.

The same week he started the night assembly.

‘She is making stroganina,’ Vassili told him on Friday. ‘You want to come tomorrow?’

‘Vassili, what I am getting is better than stroganina.’

‘Sure. I told her. Your eyes are hanging out.’

‘It’s not the only thing.’

‘I believe you. You’re overdoing it. She says you need oil and if you can’t come she’ll send you stroganina.’

‘I’ll be very glad. Also for the oil.’

‘So what work did you manage with the bobik?’

‘A bit, not much.’

‘You’ll find the underside can be a bastard. Unless you have a pit. Everything fits from below.’

‘I expect I’ll find it.’

He found the underside a tremendous bastard. He took sacking and a bit of carpet with him but still his back froze as he lay under the chassis.

As Vassili had said, the thing was a toy, but an unbelievably heavy toy, clumsy, rugged, all of it unexpectedly difficult. He had brought the block and tackle just for the engine. He found he was using it for everything.

To fit the front suspension the completed frame, immediately fast-frozen to the ground, had to be lifted. The block and tackle lifted it. To fit the other end he had to attach wheels to the front, drag the thing out like a wheelbarrow, and turn and back in again, to get the rear in position. The block and tackle lifted that, too. He was improvising all the time, and swearing all the time; yet everything fitted — laboriously, painfully; but locking together like a meccano set.

He slept all day Saturday and Sunday and worked through both nights, muffled to the eyebrows, the kerosene stove pushing out feeble warmth. But when he drove back Monday morning the chassis was on wheels, the steering in, the transmission ready, even the exhaust loosely attached.

‘Look, you can’t continue like this,’ she told him. It was five in the morning. She was in a dressing gown, having heard him come in. ‘You can’t finish it before you go up, anyway. In two or three days you will be going up. Even today I could be given a date. And you need to be thoroughly rested for it.’

‘Yes,’ he said, dully. He was truly desperately tired.

‘Today you won’t accept all jobs. They’ll understand — your medical coming up … this Evenk girl. And stay near the depot. My office could phone in at any time.’

He fell into bed and slept like a log for two hours, until she woke him with coffee. Then they left together, still in the dark, Komarova scouting the street before signalling him out in his bobik.

The call did not come that day, but the next. It came when he was out on a local run, and he returned to find Liova signalling him over.

‘Kolya, you want a light number with the medical centre?’

‘What is it?’

‘They need somebody tomorrow morning — a three-day job. Komarova has a sprained ankle and can’t drive out of town. She has a few trips, maybe including the collective. And since you know the place,’ he said, grinning, ‘it’s yours if you want it.’

‘Okay, I don’t mind,’ he said.

He went to his own apartment after work, to pick up his ID and some clothing out of the wardrobe. He had worn very little of it; had been in the apartment very little the past few days.

He was taking a shower when Anna Antonovna looked in, and when he came out she was still waiting, ready for a chat. And within ten minutes of her departure Lydia Yakovlevna also looked in, alerted by the old lady, he had no doubt. The girl was furiously resentful.

He had someone at the collective, didn’t he? Everyone was saying he had a girl there. It was very insulting for her. People knew she was his girl now; she was braving Alexei’s future wrath, risking her reputation. And for what — for him to go with a filthy little Evenk whore? Come on, the truth now. He had an Evenk girl, didn’t he?

Not an Evenk girl, he said. Just Evenk friends. They were good people. He had always had Evenk friends.

Oh, yes? And Chukchee ones, too? He had been seen! Going off with high and mighty Komarova, to that Chukchee place. And what had that haughty bitch said about her? Had she been spreading any lies?

What lies? Nothing. Why should she? Everyone knew what a lovely person Lydia Yakovlevna was. Everyone spoke well of her, of her charm, her warmth, as he did himself.

Oh, did he? Well, let him prove it. He was a different person since he’d come back from Bilibino with all that money. Go on, let him spend some of it, a good meal, she’d dress up for the occasion, and they’d share a full night together.

Ah, that he couldn’t; he was tired, had to start early in the morning. He was driving for Komarova the next three days. His knowledge of native languages was useful to her. She mustn’t see anything wrong in that. Green Cape was full of gossip, she knew it. After the three days, then they’d get together again.

The girl reluctantly went and he mused over what she had said. It was true the place was full of gossip. Anna Antonovna had told him plenty of it. But nothing about Komarova had come up. Would she have told him if it had? Maybe he had been seen near the house … He decided not to go back tonight. He went below and made a guarded call from the public phone in the hall. Then he gave himself a couple of drinks and some food from the fridge, and watched television.

There was a talk show on television and he saw again the jolly little man in reindeer boots — the deputy mayor of the town, he now knew, a token Yakut — and remembered where he had seen him first. The flickering tapes, rainy Prince George …

Suddenly he could not eat the food. The events of tomorrow rose up in his throat.

At Prince George he should have backed out. At any time since he could have backed out: at the camp, in Japan, on the ship, even here with the Evenks. But tomorrow he couldn’t back out. Once started then, he had to continue. And it would end — he knew it suddenly, could recollect a distant voice warning — it would end in tears.

One call now, then, and cancel?

He poured himself another drink.

No. To hell! To come so far, and give up? Something for him to do in. the world — Rogachev had told him long ago. See it through to the end. He tossed the drink back and went to bed.

39

He was up early in the morning, and was early at the medical centre, in one of Ponomarenko’s jazzy lumber jackets.

There he helped load up, in the packing bay at the rear.

The distilled-water jars were jammed tightly into heavy crates, and the packers normally loaded them last to hold the lighter materials in position: the crates went fifty kilos apiece.

The man who would now be driving the bobik had other views on this. It would make them tail-heavy, he said, and the route was very slippery this season. The track up to the guard post was bad enough — he had hauled a load there not long before — and the stinking heads had said the farther slope was even worse. For that final leg stability up front was needed: the big crates ought to go in first.

The packers bowed to his superior knowledge and they were amicably completing the job when Medical Officer Komarova showed up, leaning on her stick.

‘Ah. A driver for me today. Good.’

The bobik’s doors were closed and they were off, and soon on the river. It was still dark.

‘What problems last night?’ she said.

Her face was very pale, he saw, and stiff.

‘Nothing serious.’ He explained them.

‘That little tart. I can have her in trouble any time. Concealing a sexual disease is a serious offence. Still, you were right not to come. You’ve brought your papers?’

‘Everything.’ His particulars had been telexed to the research station and would be waiting at the guard post.

They left: the river and entered the creek, and he drove a few kilometres along it and stopped.

She wound a scarf around her head and chin and put her fur cap back on, while he shrugged into Khodyan’s balaclava. It was a Finnish one, decorated with ski figures; and he topped it with the opulent mink hat.

‘All right?’ he said.

‘Yes. Very becoming.’ But her voice was dry and tight.

He drove on again, and presently the red flag for the turnoff ramp came into view in the headlights.

‘Switch on the circuit radio,’ he said.

She switched it on and got the familiar crackling voices.

‘I’m not sure I can go through with this,’ she said.

He wasn’t sure himself. He didn’t answer, turning up the ramp.

The logs had been gritted again, he saw, and on top the two men were waiting again. Not the same two, for, as the Evenks had said, the security staff had changed over; but a pair almost identical. Bundled-up figures, ear flaps down, breath standing in the air, automatic weapons slung. A military jeep stood by the guard post.

The men saluted the medical officer, and one of them, a sergeant, bent in to the window.

‘A hard morning, Doctor. No trouble getting here?’

‘No.’ She licked her lips. ‘Do you want me out?’

‘No, stay where you are. You’ve got a bad leg, I hear. Just your papers. He can come out. What’s the name — Khodyan?’ He was checking his own sheet, but spared a look at the fancy headgear and the lumber jacket.

‘Khodyan.’ He managed to crack his face into a smile. He got out; produced his papers; had them checked; waited while Komarova’s papers were also checked.

‘How’s the track up there today?’ she said, her voice forced.

‘Not so bad. There’s four-wheel drive on this?’ the man asked the Chukchee.

‘Sure, four-wheel.’

‘Follow me. In first gear. Open the back now, I’ll check it out.’

The rear doors were opened and the sergeant checked off the goods crammed inside. ‘Okay, close her,’ he said, and walked off to the military jeep.

‘How long you staying there, Doctor?’ The remaining man was beating gloved hands in the frigid air. He had just opened the gates barring the upward track. A harsh wind was sweeping from the mountain.

‘No time. There’s been — an emergency call.’ The radio was still crackling out. ‘I’ll be down almost at once.’

‘Thank God for that!’

‘Stay in the hut — this wind isn’t good for you.’

‘I don’t need telling!’

‘Okay, let’s go!’ The sergeant had backed the jeep and was signalling them, and the small convoy set off.

They exchanged a quick glance, but he said nothing. The path up was a sunken road, ploughed into the slope and zigzagged to keep the gradient manageable. It was still very steep, and they ground slowly up in first gear.

In just over a kilometre the top of the dome came suddenly into view, pinkish floodlight reflecting off it. He recognised it at once from the photographs. And after the dome, the whole camp, laid out on the plateau; two, three hundred metres of low buildings, spread out, enclosed by tall chain-link fencing, all floodlit.

Just as they reached the gates he identified the storage sheds too, and the generator housings, and the landing strip. The jeep halted at the gates, which opened, admitting them to a pen and another guard post, where they were stopped again.

Here papers were once more checked; both sets of gates, those behind them and those in front, kept shut. Then they were motioned on, the jeep leading the way. It stopped at a squat concrete building, until a couple of uniformed men emerged; and then left, the sergeant waving them to remain.

‘This is it,’ she said. Her voice was barely a croak. ‘Open the door for me.’

‘Remember your words. And that you’re in a hurry.’

He ran round to the door; and she emerged stiffly, poking with her stick.

‘What’s this, Medical Officer?’ The first uniformed figure was a major, very smart in his fur hat and shoulder boards. ‘They say you’ve hurt yourself.’

‘A sprain, nothing. It doesn’t interfere with my work. Apart from this wretched driving,’ she said irritably. ‘I can’t stay, I’m afraid — an urgent case on my radio. A wasted journey, except for these stores. Have them unloaded at once, if you please. Open the back,’ she ordered the Chukchee.

He ran round to do so, and the officer looked in.

‘Yes. I heard it was a fair load. The tractor’s called for — here, it’s coming. You’ll step inside for refreshment?’

‘Not — just for the moment. I’ll see them started first. I don’t want any dawdling here. Be so good as to look out the medical indent for me, Major. I’ll look at it on the way down. And I’ll join you inside very shortly. Come on, now, hurry it along!’ she called to the approaching tractor.

An Evenk was driving the tractor, and another one was in the small flat car that it was pulling. Porter recognised them both — they had been with the herds: the changeover had taken place.

As the major withdrew inside, his subordinate took over, and supervised the unloading.

‘Now, men, make fast work!’ he urged the Evenks. ‘The medical officer has to get off on a case.’

‘You won’t be seeing us today, Doctor?’ one of the Evenks asked. Maddeningly, both Evenks were grinning at her broadly.

‘Not today. I’ll have to come back. Careful with those cartons,’ she said severely. ‘There are bottles inside.’

‘What case you on, Doctor, what’s the urgency?’

‘Never mind the case! Just look what you’re doing. And don’t throw, now — carry them!’

The driver was pulling the light goods out of the back and tossing them to his mate for stacking on the flat car.

‘Only two pairs of hands, Doctor,’ the man complained. ‘And if we’re to hurry it up —’

‘Shall I get a few extra hands?’ the guard asked her.

‘No, no, they can manage perfectly well. Just see they do it properly. Look, they’re stacking too high, everything will tumble. See it’s re-done-’ she looked at her watch ‘ — and the crates have still to go on!’

The guard hurried to supervise the restacking, and the Evenk at the bobik hurried to haul out the crates. The crates, having been stowed well up front in the van, required him to jump inside to get them; and to assist him the Chukchee jumped in with him. Once inside he swiftly removed his mink hat, balaclava and lumber jacket; and just as swiftly the Evenk removed his own upper gear. The Evenks were clad in deerskin jackets, fur-side in; their crude caps worn flaps-down. In no time they had swapped over.

‘Quick, take my papers!’ Porter said. ‘You’ll need them to get out.’

‘Papers? Where the devil should I put —’

The man had still found no place to put the papers when the guard, at the flat car, noticed the Chukchee in the bobik.

‘Hey! You there — come out!’

The two men looked round at him.

‘You, in the fur hat, come out at once! You’re not allowed!’

The man now in the fur hat came slowly out, shaking his head at the medical officer, and the guard walked suspiciously over.

‘Now, officer,’ Komarova said, swallowing. She had observed the shake. ‘Those crates are very heavy. One man can’t handle them on his own.’

‘Well, he can’t handle them. You know that, Doctor. No outsider handles anything here.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said, but remained staring at him. ‘This — it’s your first trip here? I don’t remember examining you before.’

‘No, first time, Doctor.’

‘Put your tongue out.’

‘My tongue?’ The man bemusedly extended it.

‘Yes. Slight soreness. And some nausea, too, I expect.’ All the guards had slight soreness and some nausea the first few days. ‘Let me see your eyes.’ She helped herself to them, pulling down a lower lid and getting him to gaze skywards while she did so; at the same time noting that papers had changed hands behind her and were now secreted. ‘It’s the altitude. Not so good for your heart, I’m afraid. I’ll take a look at you later. For now, carry on. And get the men moving.’

This the man did, at speed, but still in a state of abstraction over his heart.

‘You’re coming back when, Doctor?’ he anxiously asked.

‘Not today. And tomorrow’s out of the question. It will be the day after. Ah — and I have a message for you!’ she called to the Evenks. ‘Tell Stepan Maximovich his grandchild will be premature, perhaps with complications. Let him choose names without delay, for a boy or a girl.’

‘Wonderful! We’ll celebrate. But they keep us dry as a bone here, Doctor! Can’t you bring us up a drop?’

‘No, I can’t. Tell him to write the names down, and I’ll take them when I come. You shouldn’t be drinking up here,’ she told them sternly.

‘Doctor,’ the guard said. He was earnestly staring at her. ‘Is there anything I shouldn’t be doing here?’

‘Yes. Try not to sleep on your back. Or the left side. Use the right.’

‘The right,’ he said.

‘And call the jeep for me now. I won’t be long with the major.’ She glanced at her watch again. ‘A sick woman is waiting down there! See the sergeant is here in the jeep. And I’ll be out in two minutes.’

And in two minutes she was; with the medical sheets and a flurried major. The sergeant was there in the jeep. The Chukchee was there in the bobik. And the small convoy was off once more; through two sets of opened gates and down the icy path to the guard post. There the two certified visitors — checked down below, checked on top, and now checked out — were saluted off the premises; security one hundred per cent. The guards saw them safely down the ramp, and removed it. And the medical officer was back in the creek again, with her driver. It was the first time the man had seen it.

Up on top, his replacement was also seeing things for the first time. He had accompanied the tractor back to the storage sheds, receiving many winks from the Evenks working there while the guards slowly patrolled. Now he was helping transport another load, to the supply bay.

The supply bay was at the rear of the complex, and as they neared the boundary fence he suddenly saw what he’d come for. Beyond the perimeter, a lake. A great basin of it, now iced, but with machinery of some kind mounted, evidently at work to keep a section of the floodlit water open. The water that it kept open was black, inky black. Reached at last. It was here: Dark waters. Tcherny Vodi.

40

Major Militsky, the camp commandant of Tcherny Vodi, was a rosy young man, not quite thirty years old, but risen fast in his profession. His present job he greatly disliked. Twice before he had been rotated to it, and each time he had disliked it. But this time he disliked it the most. It was his first time here in winter; and for an ambitious security man in winter Tcherny Vodi was an insult. The place was impregnably secure.

In summer some problems could arise. All supplies had to come by air then, and strict routines were needed to prevent contacts between the Evenks and the aircrews — vetted crews, naturally, but given to stretching their limbs and loitering in the fine mountain air.

In winter there wasn’t even that. The crews that arrived went right to the heated crewroom and stayed there. And not so many did arrive. For in winter deliveries could also come by land; and they did, to the lower guard post, for later collection by the camp’s own vehicles. An excellent system — no contact possible between the truck drivers and the camp.

With the Facility, of course, no contact was possible at any time. It was perched 1200 metres up a mountain. It was built actually into the mountain; with the camp securely on top of it.

The camp occupied Levels One and Two of the plateau: Level One for the guards’ barracks, the major’s suite, and all other visible structures. And Level Two for services: the kitchen, bakery, laundry, boilers, workshop, and Evenk quarters. Underneath all that, on Levels Three and Four, was the Facility, but about this the major knew nothing. The Facility ran itself, through a body called the Buro.

Major Militsky had never visited the Buro, and was not permitted to do so, but three channels of communication existed with it. These were the internal postal system, a telephone, and a teleprinter. The printer was the most regular in use, and messages chattered to and fro on it several times a day. The post, in the form of a deed box that went up and down in a lift, was for papers requiring signature (the Administrator’s or, more rarely, the Director’s hieroglyph) and was also quite regular.

The telephone was not regular at all.

The telephone was a hotline, for emergency use only.

No emergencies had so far arisen in the major’s tours of duty and he had not had to use it. He greatly hoped he wouldn’t have to do so now, though an emergency showed signs of developing. To nip it in the bud, without any panic on the hotline, would need fast action from him on the teleprinter. And some of the clearest explanations in the world to the swine at the other end.

The swine at the other end was a colonel of security, the Administrator of the Buro, who had proved a great pain to the major. On more than one occasion he had reported adversely on the major’s competence. Aspects of the present situation could easily provoke him again; but there was no help for it.

The matter was so ridiculous he didn’t even know how to explain it. He jotted down a few notes for himself. But even with the notes it was difficult.

It concerned the naming of a baby. The baby, not yet born, was about to be born, prematurely. When born it would be the grandchild of Stepan Maximovich, the Director’s manservant. Tribal custom among the Evenks required the grandfather to choose a name for the baby.

The visiting schedule for Stepan Maximovich entitled him to one visit per rotation of Evenks. And he had already had it, two days ago. Because of the baby the Evenks were now demanding a further visit; in fact two. This was because he would need to consult his wife in between. It might even be necessary for him to have a third visit, in case he changed his mind. Grandfathers often changed their minds. If this one changed his it could easily take them into tomorrow. It couldn’t be after tomorrow, because the day after tomorrow Medical Officer Komarova …

The major tugged at his collar. Rough going.

… because the day after tomorrow Medical Officer Komarova, who had herself informed them of the imminent baby (brief details of visit), would be coming to the camp again. The Evenks were insistent that by then the baby’s name had to be known. Evenk belief was that a dead baby, even more than a live one, had to have a name in order that God …

Well, skip God. The colonel would have views on God. But how then to …

What they had to understand down there was that Evenks were free workers, not conscripts. Could withhold their labour. They were asking that matters be brought to personal attention of Director. Great importance of avoiding Situations. Camp commandant was holding a guard escort available. Speedy approval requested for immediate visit by Stepan Maximovich.

Well, it was untidy. But it was all there.

The major tapped out the message and waited, in some trepidation, for the reply.

In twenty minutes the teleprinter started chattering back.

He read it, amazed.

‘To be congratulated on his tactful … ’ He read it again, goggle-eyed; very far from expecting that.

The Evenks, in their dormitory, had expected nothing less. They had stopped work and assembled there, having informed the major that they would remain until Stepan Maximovich arrived; which he did within minutes of the major conveying best wishes.

Down the corridor came two guards, Stepan Maximovich between them, and halted at the dormitory.

‘Stepanka!’ They jumped about him and wrung his hand and slapped his back and continued doing so until the two guards, grinning, left the natives to it and departed outside the door.

The Evenks carefully closed the door.

‘By God!’ Stepanka said. He was a merry little fellow, one eye half closed in a permanent wink. ‘I’ve started believing it myself. Is that girl of mine so premature?’

‘A little premature — Komarova confirmed it today. But Kolya here says there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Worry? Why would I worry? All g of my grandchildren were premature. Forward children!’ Stepanka said proudly.

‘And not one named by you, you old bastard! Did you bring up something to drink, at least?’

‘Not now … But Kolya! I’m glad to know you, Kolya.’ The old Evenk shook hands most warmly. ‘They told me about you, and this poor girl. And I told the Chief the whole story. He knows the father — has him working down there. I don’t know these people myself, you understand. But the Chiefs spoken to him, and he expects the letter. You’ve got it with you?’

‘It’s here,’ Kolya said, and took it reverently out of his waist band. It was in a lavender envelope, folded in two, and he smelt it first and put it to his lips before handing it over.

The old Evenk was greatly touched by the gesture. ‘Kolya, I see right away,’ he said, ‘you’re a good fellow. And you’ll certainly get your reward — in this world or the next. I’ll bring you the reply and you’ll take it to the girl. But tell me — how did the switchover go?’

They told him how the switchover had gone, and soon all of them were slapping backs again in another burst of hilarity.

It went on so long that the guards, thumping on the door, called out that they were on escort duty only until lunch time, and to hurry it up. And Stepanka announced he was ready, and left; this time winking with both eyes.

He was back before time, at four; for they had expected him at night. And this time he was not cheerful, but serious, even mystified.

He had brought an envelope with him, concealed in his felt boots, and when the guards had left he produced it. It was not from the father, he said. It was for Kolya’s eyes alone. He was to see that only Kolya read it.

The Chukchee separated himself and opened the envelope.

A single short note was inside, and he read it twice. Then he looked at Stepanka with his mouth open.

‘You know what’s here?’ he said.

‘The father wants to see you himself.’

‘But how is it possible for —’

‘I don’t know how. It tells you how. The Chief wrote it. You are to read it until you understand it, and then tell me either yes or no, and burn it. This is all he told me.’

The Chukchee muttered to himself, ‘What should I do?’

He saw that all the Evenks were staring at him.

‘Kolya, is it a dangerous thing?’ one of them asked.

‘I don’t know … Maybe.’

‘Then listen, you’ve done enough. You came to bring a letter and to get one. Why does the father want to see you?’

Kolya looked at the note again.

‘ “He does nothing but weep”,’ he read out. There was nothing about weeping in the note. ‘I don’t know … I’ve come so far,’ he said.

‘Well, whatever you decide,’ Stepanka told him, ‘decide now, and burn it.’ He was looking round at the door. Two of the Evenks were standing against the spy hole of the door.

‘Well.’ He licked his lips. ‘Say yes. Tell him yes,’ he said, and flicked his lighter and burnt the note, and then he burnt the envelope too.

The main corridor of Level Two was under constant patrol during the day, and all doors had to be kept open: this was to prevent smoking in the service rooms, and also drinking, for illicit drink had been known to turn up in the stores. At night the patrols were reduced to two an hour, and although all doors were now bolted each one was methodically checked. An ingenious Evenk had once hidden in a workshop and had managed to introduce industrial alcohol into the dormitory.

At 10.55 Kolya Khodyan slipped out of his bunk in the locked dormitory. He was fully dressed, even to his deerskin hat. The room was faintly aglow with the blue lighting that burned all night — a convenience for the guards checking the spy hole. He quickly pulled on the felt boots worn in the dormitory, and padded softly to the washroom; and before closing the door looked round once to the watching Evenks and raised a hand.

The washroom had an exterior door to the corridor, for the use of the Evenks during the day. The guards had already passed — they had heard them try the door — but he did nothing, waiting as instructed, listening for the scrape of the bolt. He counted out the full five minutes on his watch, but there was no sound from the bolt. Had the job already been done? He tried the handle and gently pulled the door. It opened easily.

He took a look out, up and down the long length of the corridor; brightly lit, totally empty. The ceiling was studded with smoke alarms, and the walls with bulkhead lighting. At the far end he could see the barrier with an illuminated sign of some kind over it. Just round the corner there, at the locked entrance to Level Three, was a guard post, and he could hear a faint rumble of laughter from the sentry detail. The shorter length of corridor, to the right, contained only the laundry, and ended in a blank wall with a bulkhead light in it.

He waited a few seconds more, watching the guards’ end. Nothing, no movement, not even a shadow. He stepped out into the corridor, closed the door behind him, quietly bolted it top and bottom, and turned to the right. This was what the note had told him to do. It was all it had told him. Obviously it had to be the laundry, there was nothing else there. The laundry had big double doors but no bolts, only a keyhole; locked. He ran his hands over both doors, and lightly tapped, not knowing what else to do, before noticing that the end wall of the corridor had suddenly opened. The thing had swung inwards, about a foot, and he hurried swiftly to it and slid himself inside.

As soon as he was in, in darkness, the wall closed again and a torchlight came on. Stepanka was standing there. Stepanka wasn’t looking at him, but at a periscope. The periscope was looking along the corridor, evidently through the bulkhead lamp on the other side of the wall. Kolya looked himself, and saw the whole well-lighted length of it, deserted, everything securely locked. Stepanka was looking frightened when he turned to him, and he had a hand to his lips. He fiddled with the knob of a combination lock, checking it with a piece of paper in his hand, and then beckoned him to follow, waving the torch.

They were in a small room, a cement room — walls, floor, ceiling, all of cement; bare, windowless.

Stepanka opened a door and they stepped on to a landing — also cement, unfinished, very stark and cold, with a descending flight of stairs ahead; and he closed the door behind them and let out a breath.

‘By God!’ he said. ‘I never was here before! I never saw this.’ He was holding his heart. ‘Come, Kolya.’

He kept the light pointing downwards at the stairs, two steep flights of them, and they came to the bottom and a short corridor ending in a blank wall. A rail was set in the wall, and Stepanka pressed it and pushed the wall in, and a slant of light came out. He hurried Kolya inside, immediately pushing the wall to. The combination knob inside was hidden in a decorative grille, and he hastily reset it, studying the paper.

Kolya was studying the room.

It was a most spectacular room.

It was at least seventy feet long, at least twenty high; chandeliered, galleried, and with a library set all round the gallery. It was full of works of art. There were paintings on the walls − magnificent paintings, of all periods: Gauguin, Picasso, Rembrandt, Mondrian. The room was full of colour. And sculptures. And flowering shrubs and trees — trees in great tubs on castors, evidently for moving in and out. The chandeliers were not lit but they sparkled softly in the light of lamps spaced out on small tables along the walls. There was a long coffee table — a great slab of black basalt — with comfortable couches around it, and club chairs.

Stepanka saw him staring all about and at the ceiling.

‘It’s two levels high here,’ he said. ‘Level Three and Four, both. This is his library, he sleeps the night sometimes … I find him here. Now Kolya!’ He was holding his heart again. ‘You stay here. I have to go and tell him. He will get the father for you. I can’t do it myself.’

He went through a door, leaving it very slightly ajar. And presently there was the sound of tapping on another door and Stepanka’s voice speaking softly in Russian. And then silence; and Kolya waited in it, looking about the room.

At each end was a spiral staircase to the gallery; and in a shadowy corner a huge television set and a globe and a drinks trolley. Also a cage. Something moved in the cage, and he walked slowly towards it; but the cage was only a lift, and it was his own image moving there in the mirror that backed it, and he turned sharply round to the door again listening.

Another door had closed somewhere and he heard a click as it was locked. And then an odd whining sound, and the door nudged open and a wheelchair drove smoothly in.

‘Well!’ Rogachev said. His hand was outstretched, a great smile on his face. ‘I have waited for you, my friend. I have waited so eagerly.’