Archangel

Chapter 13

All the officers of the Zone had gathered in the Mess for breakfast. Only the young and unmarried would normally have taken their first meal in the Mess; those who had bungalows and quarters in the village would have eaten away. But word of last night's cat fight between Commandant and Political Officer had spread with speed from man to man. They must both appear at breakfast in the Mess, not to show would be to admit humiliation. And every man who had the rank to gain access to the Mess had made it his business to play the part of witness. Not every day that a Major of paratroops was raging drunk and personally supervising the beating of prisoners – not every'day that a Captain of KGB felt secure enough in his position to abuse his senior in the full hearing of company.

The Deputy Commander, the Adjutant, the guards' platoon commanders, the supervisory officers of the warders, the officer in charge of camp maintenance, the officer who oversaw camp provisions and factory materials, they were all there. They waited in a strung-out line around the central table on which was stacked bread and cereal and the coffee-pot on its candle heater.

Major Vasily Kypov strode through the door. No fool, this man. He could recognize the craving for drama. He nodded brusquely to the four corners, and seemed to curl his lip as if in disappointment that one man was not yet present.

He poured his coffee, elbowed away the steward who tried to offer him a cereal bowl. He wore his best uniform and the medal ribbons blinked in the dull room. Dressed as for a parade. There was a defiance about the old goat, the Deputy Commander thought, something that was not pretty but assuredly brave. Kypov held the centre ground and watched the door.

Captain Yuri Rudakov came into the Mess before his Commandant had drained that first cup of coffee. A great silence about him as he eased the door shut. Something blatant about the watchers now. They devoured him. Rudakov had taken to his uniform, and his boots were cleaned and his cap was worn jauntily. Rudakov ignored the food, took only coffee. He hesitated for a moment inside the circle beside the table, then seemed to stiffen and walked straight towards Vasily Kypov. Collectively the watchers bit at their breath, craned to listen.

'Good morning, Commandant… I think we'll be spared more snow today… '

'I didn't hear the radio… we can do without snow.'

They spoke with a brittle politeness. Two men who share the same lover and have met at a party.

'I have my uniform back from the cleaners.' Rudakov smiled thinly.

'Put the charge on expenses… ' Kypov felt he had m? de a joke, that the ice wall would soon crack.

'This once I will do t h a t… it won't be stained again.'

'Of course.'

'I was working late last night.'

'After… after you came into the Mess?'

'Yes. I was drafting a report of my interrogation of Michael Holly. I was going to send the report, now I have decided not to.'

'No?'

'I have decided that there should be no interim report. I 185 will submit a report to Moscow when the interrogation is completed.'

'I am sure you have made the right decision.' The relief sighed in Kypov's mouth.

'I hope so,' Rudakov said quietly, in Moscow they put great store on this interrogation.'

'A good decision.'

'Last night I wrote a draft of what would have been an interim report, but I've consigned it to my safe. If the interrogation is as successful as I hope, then the interim report will become irrelevant.'

'I wish you luck with your interrogation.'

Rudakov looked around him. He was aware of the rampant disappointment of those who had overheard him.

'Thank you for your encouragement, Commandant.'

Rudakov offered his hand, Kypov accepted. The Commandant cuffed the Political Officer on the shoulder, the Political Officer smiled at the Commandant. There had been a public quarrel, there was now a public friendship.

But the Commandant knew who had won.

A draft report snuggled in the safe of the Captain of K G B, a report that would tell of gross interference by the camp Commandant in the legitimate investigations of Yuri Rudakov, a report that if it went to Lubyanka and headquarters would spring the trap of removal and premature retirement.

He felt the straps around him that would confine for all time his independence from his Political Officer. if you will excuse me, Commandant.'

'Of course… I hope you are correct in your forecast… about the snow…'

Rudakov turned his back on the vulture eyes and hurried out of the Mess. Those bastards would still be rotting in the camp long after Yuri Rudakov had returned to Moscow or been posted to Washington or had taken a trusted place in Berlin. Rudakov was temporary, Rudakov was going through, Rudakov was on his way and the Dubrovlag was a diversion on that journey. Rudakov was singled out for something better than the zek scum of a Correctional Labour Colony. Yet his ride out of the reach of Barashevo's claws was not certain. Michael Holly was the means.

He needed the confession of the Englishman. He needed his back to climb over.

He walked past the lines of prisoners drawn up for the roll-call. He saw the passive faces, the worn uniforms salvaged by shades of patchwork. He trod a path where the pack snow merged with the ochre dirt of the compound's sand. He went along the high wire and the high wooden wall and through the vague shadow of a watch-tower. He came to the main gate where two sentries stood with machine-pistols slung across their chests. He saw the dogs that waited beside their handlers ready to escort the prison column from the compound to the Factory zone. And he wondered. Was there not another way? That the camps had been filled by the purges of the Thirties was now explained by the Stalinist cult of personality. That the camps had been filled in the years after the Great Patriotic War was explained by the power of Lavrenti Beria, now executed. That the camps had been filled in the latter days of Krushchev had been explained by the incompetence of that First Secretary. But why were the camps still filled? Why, under the benevolence of Brezhnev, had they not found another way? It was a brief thought, and he trembled because it had shadowed across his mind.

They said a million men and women were held in the camps.

He shook the aberration from his head, and the wind whipped at him, the gusts caught at him, and through his greatcoat he shivered.

He had not known that thought before.

Rudakov took Michael Holly from the work cell of the SHIzo block and escorted him back to his office. He saw the way the man limped, the way he had tucked his wrist between the buttons of his tunic for support, the spectacular bruises. As they went past the zeks there was a growl of reaction to the hobbling, bowed prisoner.

Holly scraped a smile to his face.

It hurt to lift his free arm, but he managed a half-wave.

He saw Chernayev and Poshekhonov, thought he could recognize Feldstein in the back lines. He heard the few shouts of support that merged with the yelled orders for quiet and the calling of the names.

He had found friends.

It required a beating on the floor of the SHIzo cell to find friends, it took a mug of coffee thrown into the face of authority to discover comrades. And when he went back to his cell in the evening Mikk Laas would be waiting.

He followed Rudakov into the Administration building and he closed the door of Rudakov's office behind them. He saw the stain of coffee on the wall beyond the swing chair.

'Sit down.'

'I'd just as soon stand, thank you.'

Holly recognized the strength that had been given him by the boot and the truncheon. He would not have believed it before. Mikk Laas had explained. What can they do now?, he had said.

'Sit down, Holly… please… '

Every action, every word, should be divided into the zones of victory and defeat. The Political Officer had used the word 'please', that was victory. There could be no defeat in accepting the chair.

He saw the half-smile at Rudakov's mouth.

'Should I offer you coffee?'

'I don't need coffee.'

'Would you like something to eat?'

'I don't need anything to eat.'

'What happened yesterday, I had no involvement…'

'Should that matter to me?'

'It was on the initiative of the Commandant.'

'It doesn't concern me.'

'You have to make a choice, Holly. There is the way you are heading, there is the way that I am offering. Perhaps you don't know that the choice exists, so I will make it very clear to you. The way you are heading will keep you here for fourteen years, the way that will trundle you between the SHIzo block and Hut z. There is also the opportunity for commonsense, the opportunity of the flight home to London. The choice is clear. The choice would be clear to a child.. . '

The pain came in swingeing bursts to Holly's body. Rich, live pain and in its wake were the memories of the flailing boot and the falling truncheon. He thought of Mikk Laas from whom they had not yet stamped the heritage of Estonia, of a woman who cried in solitary and did not believe that she was heard. He thought of Feldstein who had passed on a samizdat paper, of Adimov whose wife was dying of a cancer ravage, of Chernayev and Poshekhonov who had befriended him.

'If I don't go back to the work cell I won't be able to complete my output norm,' Holly said flatly.

'I have protected you, Michael. For what you did to me in here I could have put you before a court-under Article 77- 1 of the Criminal Code you could have had another fifteen years. Can't you see what I am doing for you?'

'What happened to your investigation team?'

'They found a man, they have left… You have to think of your life. You have to think of your future. I cannot protect you for ever

…'

'Which man did they find?'

'A maniac from Hut 4, half-mad anyway, used to work at the Water Authority in Moscow… it's irrelevant… I am protecting you now. I cannot go on doing that. Are you asking me to abandon you? Are you listening to me, Holly…?'

'What will happen to this man?'

Rudakov shrugged.

'We have a penalty for murder, it does not concern you

… Think of your parents, they are old, in the twilight of their lives. They have one son only. They will die without ever seeing that son again. They will die in an agony of unhappiness. That is not my fault, Michael. That is not the fault of the Soviet people. It is in your hands to make those old people happy, Michael. You think that I am very crude, that I play to the emotions. The crudest argument is the best.'

Holly hung his head.

He had condemned a man to die. He had consigned an elderly couple living in a London suburb to a dotage of misery. For what?

To indulge an ideal? The ideal of Michael Holly scattered casualties across the length of the compound, across the breadth of a terraced house.

When he looked up he saw the triumph large in Rudakov's face. He knew of nothing to say. Michael Holly had thought he was brave, and his bravery was paid for with another man's life, with his parents' misery. The strength ran from him, the resolve leaked away. Another man's life, his parents misery. His head was deep in his hands, hidden.

'Captain Rudakov…'

'You are going to be sensible, Michael?'

'Give me time.'

'Get it over, Michael. Finish it now.'

'Give me a few days. You will find I am not a fool. You will have something to send to Moscow.'

'Each day you wait is a wasted day.'

Rudakov beamed over the table, made a dramatic gesture by pulling from a drawer a sheet of blank paper, took his pen from his tunic pocket.

'I have to prepare myself.'

'A few days only.'

'Thank you.' Holly seemed to brighten, as if a great decision had been taken. 'I want to go back to the work cell.

If I do not go now I will not complete my output norm.'

Rudakov shook his head, a tinge of sadness had gathered.

He saw the wreckage of a human being. At that moment the sight gave him no pleasure. He could take no pride in the destruction of a proud man. The collapse had been faster than he would have believed possible. He was vindicated.

The pentothal drugs, the torture electrodes, the beatings, they were not the only way. His approach had been correct, even humane.. .

Holly forced himself up from the chair. He staggered towards the door, and waited for the Orderly to answer Rudakov's call and come to escort him back to the SHIzo block.

They had ravished the supper, raped the soup and bread.

They were left now with a windy ache in the belly, a warmth in the throat, the knowledge that if they were quiet they would not be disturbed for the night hours. No crying from the cell through the wall, no response to Holly's tapping.

But the girl had been an interlude, an interruption. The business of that evening, and each evening that followed, devolved from the experience bank of Mikk Laas.

Mikk Laas on the concrete floor beside Michael Holly and whispering at his ear.

'You can't tunnel out of here, not in winter with twenty degrees below and permafrost. You see that? And it's no better a prospect in the summer. It's the matter of the water table – it's high here. There's a top level of sand and under that runs the water. Anywhere in the camp if you dig a hole more than four feet deep you will have standing water. Then they have another small sophistication – they are very thorough people, never forget that, Michael Holly-beyond the wooden fence there is in summer a ploughed strip, they harrow it to show footprints. Between the wooden fence and the ploughed strip they have dug into the ground a line of concrete blocks. The blocks are a metre square and a few centimetres thick. They have dug them down into the earth so that if it were possible to cope with the water table and to have a tunnel running under the fence then the weight of the blocks would collapse the workings. Years ago we worked to place the blocks in position, I know their weight, it took two of us to move each one. .. Even if you could disperse the earth, if you had the strength to manage the digging, if you could find the collaborators that you could trust, you still would not succeed by tunnelling. Forget a tunnel.'

Mikk Laas with his bony body pressed against Holly, searching his memory for precedent.

'There is a way that relies on conspiracy, but it is always dangerous to involve others, because then the chance of the

"stoolies" hearing is widened. Back in Camp 19, ten years ago, perhaps eleven, there was a snowstorm as the men were to be marched back from the Factory to the living zone. Two men stayed in the Factory and when their names were shouted for the roll-call others claimed their names. The two men had lifted the floor of the Factory and sheltered underneath and they had smeared the boards with oiled cloths. They knew they would be missed, but they needed those few hours for the trail to grow cold. They knew that the dogs would be loosed to search through the living zone and the Factory, but they hoped that the cloths would have dulled their scent to the dogs. It was a Friday when they went under the boards, and they hoped that by the Sunday the heat would have gone and with the work place not in use they might find a place on the wire to climb and run. I said the guards were thorough, Michael Holly… They were shot on the Factory wire.'

Mikk Laas would sometimes shake his old stubble-crested head at Michael Holly, as if there was a futility in all he said.

'There have been those who have tried to smash their way out through a broken fence. A lorry will come in, to deliver coal, materials, anything… the men will attempt to seize the lorry and drive it at the fence. Not the gate, because the gate is reinforced. .. They will set the lorry in gear and hide on the floor of the cab and hope the machine-gun spray misses them. To me that plan is useless. Even if you break the fence and clear the compound you have woken all hell and its jackals. They will come after you with jeeps, you have aroused them. It is a way that has been tried and it is hopeless.'

Mikk Laas with his spindle fingers holding tight to Michael Holly's hand.

'To have any chance the man must go as soon as darkness falls. He must use the whole night of darkness to get clear of the camp. If he goes in summer then he has a short night. If he goes in winter he has a long night, but the snow track also. That is the choice. There is another thing, Holly.

Should you leave the camp, should you get a kilometre clear, ten kilometres, a hundred kilometres, what have you achieved then? Where has that taken you?'

The last night, the last night of fifteen for Michael Holly in the SHIzo cell. He wondered whether he would ever again see the old Estonian.

'You would go for the wire, Mikk Laas?'

'If a man is careless for his life… yes, I would go for the wire.' in the early evening?'

'Just before six in winter, before the guard change.'

'Wire-cutters?'

'You would need an accomplice. There are some zeks who would have the power to get cutters from a guard…

You would need a "baron".'

'And outside the wire?'

'You should not ask me. In thirty years I have not been outside the wire or the transport convoy.' it is better with an accomplice?'

'You cannot do without a friend. You are blind outside the fence.'

'Mikk, Mikk Laas… you were a partisan…?' Holly's head was buried in his hands, and his fingers were white as they pressed down on his skull.

'I was a partisan, or a terrorist, or a freedom-fighter… '

'You hit German barracks, Soviet convoys?'

'And we ran and we hid… sometimes we attacked, not often.. . I am not proud, Michael Holly, I do not have to pretend. Mostly we ran and we hid.'

'When you attacked what followed your action?'

'Reprisals.' Mikk Laas grated the word in hatred, spat it from his tongue.

'When you attacked you knew that reprisals would follow?'

'We knew.'

'They shot people in reprisal because of what you had done?'

'Some they shot, some they transported.'

'You knew what would happen? Each time you planned an attack you knew what would happen?'

'We knew. Whether it was the Nazi or the Soviet column that we hit, the result would be the same.'

'And when you knew that, how then could you justify your attack?'

'Why do you ask?' There was a fear in Mikk Laas's voice.

'How could you justify your attack?' Holly hissed the question.

'We agonized… '

'How did you justify it?'

Mikk Laas looked around him as if for escape, but there was none, and the breath from the young Englishman played across his old cheeks, and his wrists were caught hard. He hesitated, then the answer flowed in the torrent of a cleaned drain.

'We thought we were right. We believed we were the guardians of something that was honour and courage. We told ourselves that even reprisal killings and transportation could not justify our inaction. It was an evil thing that we fought. That is not an easy word to use – "evil" – but we felt from the depths of our hearts that if a man is confronted by evil then he must fight against it. We thought this was the only way, that without this there could be no freedom, not ever. We decided that some had to die, some who had not chosen our course, in order that one day there might be a freedom.'

'And now, what do you think now?'

Mikk Laas sighed, and his body seemed to shrivel.

'I think now that those men and women who were shot in reprisal for an action of mine died for nothing.'

'You're wrong.'

'I am not young. I have been here thirty years… '

Holly shook him to silence. Holly's fists were buried in Mikk Laas's tunic. With all his strength he shook an old man's words from his lips.

'When you were a fighter you were right, now that you are old you are wrong!'

Like a wounded rat Mikk Laas scuffled his way to the corner of the cell. His voice was a high whine. 'When I was young I knew certainty. I know that certainty no longer.'

They slept separately that night, using the full width of the SHIzo cell. The gap of concrete flooring was not bridged and both were cold in their shallow sleep.

Early in the morning, before the start of the working day, Holly was escorted back to the living zone. He was in time to join the breakfast queue, and then take his place in the ranks for roll-call, and afterwards go back to his bench and lathe in the Factory. Chernayev, Poshekhonov and Feldstein all tried to begin a conversation with Holly, but they were rebuffed. He would speak to no man until the evening.

When it was dark Holly asked Adimov to come from the hut with him. Two huddled figures on the perimeter path.

'Your wife is dying. They will not let you go to her. I will give you the chance to see her before she dies. We will go out of here together. We go out this week.'

When they returned to Hut z, there were those who saw the gleam of tears on Adimov's cheeks.