Private Moscow

Chapter 70

What should have been a five-hour drive became ten. The bad weather turned a 250-mile straight line into a crooked route of road closures and diversions. We shared the driving, and I took the dawn shift after a few hours’ bad sleep on the back seat. We’d passed Rybinsk and were traveling through the ancient pine forests of Yaroslavl, along a deserted single-lane road. Dinara was asleep on the back seat, and Leonid was dozing next to me. The truck’s heater filled the cabin with warm air, but just looking at the huge icy drifts that had been carved by snow plows was enough to make me shiver. They were so cold, their edges were tinged a toothpaste blue and the air seemed to shimmer around them.

Halfway between Rybinsk and Volkovo, we passed the wreckage of an accident. Two overturned, burned-out cars lay at the edge of the vast pine forest, their scorched rusting shells half covered in snow, suggesting the accident had happened months ago. I wondered whether anyone had survived. Even if they’d lived through the crash, what chance did they have in such hostile conditions, so far from help?

The sun had risen by the time I drove into Volkovo, and the town was just starting to wake up. Less than a mile in diameter, Volkovo straddled an inlet that branched off the enormous Rybinsk Reservoir, which lay to our west, concealed by thick forest. The town was made up of a couple of hundred homes and a handful of businesses. Most of the wooden houses had been constructed on spacious lots and many of them were in a state of disrepair. Volkovo reminded me of an Alpine village without the money.

Every building was capped with a thick layer of snow, which had turned to ice in the freezing temperatures. The tracks and driveways that lay off the main road were lost beneath deep drifts, and the parking bays that lined the street were populated by hillocks of snow, each of which marked a buried car.

Agafiya had told us the bar had been on route P104, the main drag that ran through the heart of town, and I followed the directions given by my phone’s GPS to the location. I slowed and turned right into a yard in front of a square white single-story building. Leonid and Dinara stirred when I brought the car to a halt near the bright green front door.

Leonid yawned and stretched, and as I looked past him, I saw the bar was gone. Judging by the contents of the misty windows that flanked the entrance, the place was now a bakery.

“This is it,” I told the others.

“Wait here,” Leonid said, before getting out.

The blast of cold air countered the soporific effects of the heater and revived me after the long drive. I looked around the deserted town and tried to picture Karl Parker here. He simply didn’t fit, and the more I thought about it, the more I found myself drawn to Justine’s suggestion that the photograph might be fake.

“What would an American be doing out here?” Dinara asked. “Even Russians don’t come here. At least not willingly.”

“It must be nice in summer,” I observed, and she replied with a snort of derision.

Leonid emerged from the bakery with a fully laden plastic bag.

“Breakfast,” he said, signaling the bounty of bread and pastries as he jumped in the car.

“I’m not hungry,” I responded.

“Any kalach?” Dinara asked.

Leonid nodded and ferreted in the bag for a hooped bun, which he handed her.

“Head up the street and make the next left toward the water-front,” he said, before taking a bite from a glazed pastry. “The bar closed ten years ago, but the owner still lives in town.”

Ten minutes later, we were in the living room of a small wooden house that overlooked the frozen inlet. Nikita Garin, the bemused former owner of the Novoko Bar, was in the kitchen and Dinara, Leonid and I sat on frayed green corduroy couches and exchanged furtive glances. They’d fast-talked our way into the house, but the gray-haired, puffy-faced ex-barkeep hadn’t needed too much convincing. I counted six cats, a para-keet and three dogs, and got the sense this was a man in desperate need of company.

The old instincts of a host hadn’t died and Nikita emerged from the kitchen with a pot of tea and four glasses. He sat next to me in his pajamas and a threadbare dressing gown, and spoke to Dinara and Leonid as he poured the tea. His English was limited to “hello” and “OK,” which is what he said when he handed me a glass of milky sweet tea.

“Show him the picture,” Dinara advised me.

I produced the photograph Agafiya had taken in the Novoko Bar and showed it to Nikita.

The old barman smiled and started talking.

“He says he remembers them. Well, the one in the middle, at least,” Dinara translated as Nikita pointed to Ernie Fisher. “He would always come to the bar and try to impress Agafiya. He would hang around trying to get her to go on a date.”

“Where was he from?” I asked. “Was he local?”

Dinara translated, and Nikita shook his head.

“No, not local. Not really,” Dinara said. “Apparently Ernest Fisher got very drunk one night and Nikita had to drive him home. He took him to the gatehouse of Boltino, an army base six kilometers north of here.”

My stomach lurched as my worst fears about my friend gained substance.

Dinara continued. “Boltino Army Base was shut down in 2002, but before then it was a key strategic installation. One of the most restricted places in all of Russia.”