Red Moth

Walking up a flight

Walking up a flight of concrete steps to the entrance of Moscow School No. 554, Pekkala caught the dry sweet smell of chalk dust wafting from one of the open windows on the ground floor. As he entered the three-storey building through the metal-fronted double doors, the reek of disinfectant raked across his senses. Layered upon this was the odour of boiled food, sweat and damp wool, awaking in Pekkala memories of his own schooldays in Finland.

He found himself in a long corridor with doors on either side stretching down the length of either wall. In its structure, the space was not unlike the halls of Lubyanka, but that place had been governed by silence. Here‚ it was the opposite. Pekkala made his way down the corridor, hearing the booming voices of teachers behind the closed doors of their classrooms, the tack and swish of chalk on blackboards and the occasional grinding squeak as a chair scudded back across the floor.

The walls between the classroom doors were covered with posters showing Lenin and Stalin, always seen from below, always looking off to the side. The posters had various slogans, such as ‘Motherland is calling!’ and ‘Red Army soldier, save us!’ One had an illustration of a line of soldiers standing to attention, in which only the knee-length boots were visible. Beside these boots the soldiers held their long Mosin-Nagant guns, butt plates on the ground. The top half of the poster was taken up with the slogan, ‘Rifles To Your Legs!’

At last, guided by the smell of tobacco smoke and the sound of quiet laughter, he arrived at the place he had been looking for.

Sprawled upon a tired-looking couch in the faculty lounge, a teacher was reading that day’s edition of Izvestia. His jacket lay bunched under his head as a pillow and all but the top button of his waistcoat had been undone.

In another corner of the room, a teacher sat at a small table, correcting papers with short vicious swipes of his pen. A freshly lit cigarette wobbled between his lips as he passed his muttered judgements on the work.

‘I am looking for Professor Shulepov,’ said Pekkala.

The teacher let his newspaper settle against his chest and glanced at the visitor. ‘Two doors down and on the left,’ he said.

‘Be careful, though,’ remarked the other teacher, without looking up from his papers. ‘This is the time Shulepov takes his rest, and waking him before he’s ready can be downright dangerous.’

More than you know, thought Pekkala, as he thanked them and proceeded down the hall.

A moment later, he located the room. The door was closed and a blind had been drawn in front of the glass window which looked from the classroom out into the hall. Opening the door as quietly as he could, Pekkala stepped inside.

A man in a grey wool jacket with wooden cuff buttons sat at his desk, asleep, head resting on his folded arms.

Pekkala recognised Kovalevsky’s curly hair, although the great mop he had sported back in his days of training had thinned to a wispy mass as faint as mare’s tail clouds.

He looked around the classroom, at nubs of chalk in the tray beneath the board, the battered chairs and floorboards scuffed to splinters underneath the desks.

Kovalevsky sighed in his sleep, oblivious to the happy shrieks of children in the playground just outside.

‘Professor?’ asked Pekkala, in a soft voice. He wondered if his old friend would even remember him after so many years.

Kovalevsky stirred but his head remained down on the desk.

‘Professor Shulepov?’

Kovalevsky groaned. His fingers uncurled as he stretched his hand. Slowly he sat up, blinking to clear his vision. ‘Is it time already?’ He squinted at Pekkala. ‘Oh, my word,’ he muttered as he reached for his glasses. ‘Did I forget a parent-teacher conference?’

‘No, Professor,’ said Pekkala. ‘I wondered if I could have a word?’

Struggling to revive himself, Kovalevsky rubbed his face, fingertips sliding up beneath the lenses of his spectacles as he massaged his eyelids. ‘Of course. Would you mind closing the door?’

‘Certainly,’ replied Pekkala. As he turned, he heard the dry squeak of a desk drawer being opened. Then he heard a faint metal click, which he recognised immediately as the hammer being drawn back on a gun. Pekkala paused, hand on the worn brass door knob. ‘That isn’t necessary, Valeri,’ he said quietly.

‘Shut up and close the door,’ replied Kovalevsky.

Pekkala did as he was told. Making sure that Kovalevsky could see his hands were empty, Pekkala slowly turned around. He expected to find himself staring down the barrel of a pistol, but was surprised to see instead that the gun in Kovalevsky’s hand, a Browning Model 1910, was pressed against the man’s own skull.

‘Are they out there now, Pekkala?’ A layer of sweat greased Kovalevsky’s forehead. ‘For God’s sake, don’t let them shoot me in front of the children.’

‘No one has come to hurt you, Valeri.’

‘Do you know what it’s like, Pekkala, to wake up each day amazed to find yourself still breathing?’

‘Believe it or not, yes I do.’

‘Then you would know why I am sceptical of your assurances.’

‘Either shoot me,’ said Pekkala, ‘or put down the gun and give me a chance to convince you.’

Kovalevsky hesitated. Then he tucked the gun into the pocket of his coat. ‘If you haven’t come to kill me, then what are you doing here?’

‘I need your help.’

Kovalevsky laughed scornfully. ‘Are you speaking to Professor Shulepov or to the last of Myednikov’s men?’

‘I think you already know the answer to that.’

Kovalevsky walked over to the window of the classroom and looked down at the playground, where a group of students were playing with a half-inflated soccer ball. ‘I teach history now. I’m no longer in the business of making it. What could I possibly do for you?’

‘I need you to get me through the German lines.’

‘Will you be coming back again?’

‘Yes.’

‘Alone?’

‘No. Four people, including you on the way out, and five on the journey home.’

‘This fifth person,’ asked Kovalevsky, ‘will he or she come willingly?’

‘He will not.’

At that moment, there was a gentle knocking on the door. A child’s voice murmured through the keyhole. ‘Professor! It’s time to wake up!’

‘Enter‚’ called Kovalevsky.

A ginger-haired boy walked in. Immediately, his hazel-coloured eyes fixed on Pekkala.

Kovalevsky nodded with approval. ‘Right on time, Zev, as usual.’

The boy smiled and straightened up. ‘Thank you, Professor Shulepov!’

‘Before you tell the others to come in,’ said the professor, ‘tell me how you are doing in your new home. Are you getting enough to eat? Did they give you a comfortable bed?’

‘Yes, Professor. I am settling in.’

‘You have made some new friends?’

‘Yes, Professor. Some.’

Kovalevsky rested his hand on the top of the boy’s head. ‘Very good. Now go out and tell the others it is time.’

The boy smiled back at him, then spun smartly on his heel and left the room.

‘He’s in an orphanage,’ explained Kovalevsky.

Pekkala remembered what Stalin had said about the boy whose parents had been shipped to the gulag at Mamlin-Three.

A moment later, the rest of the class filed into the room. As they took their seats, each one glanced cautiously at Pekkala.

‘This is an old friend of mine,’ said Kovalevsky, laying his hand upon Pekkala’s shoulder. ‘His name is Inspector Pekkala. Long ago, and still today, he is known as the Emerald Eye.’

‘Why do they call you that?’ asked the boy called Zev.

‘Because of this,’ replied Pekkala, lifting his lapel to reveal the gold badge. The emerald glinted in the pale light of the classroom.

A sound, somewhere between a moan and a sigh, went up from the students, as if they had just watched a firework explode into stars in the distance.

‘I know you!’ exclaimed a boy at the back excitedly tapping together the wooden-soled toes of his shoes. ‘My father says you are a shadow of the past.’

Pekkala smiled nervously. ‘I think what he means is that I am a holder of a Shadow Pass.’

‘No,’ replied the boy. ‘That isn’t what he said.’

‘Ah.’ Pekkala nodded and looked around the room.

‘Where are you from?’ asked a girl with the red scarf of the Comintern.

‘I am originally from Finland,’ replied Pekkala, glad to be changing the subject.

‘Can you do magic? All the Finns can do magic.’

‘I may know a card trick or two,’ Pekkala told her, casting a desperate glance at Kovalevsky.

‘The Inspector was just leaving!’ announced Kovalevsky.

‘Yes!’ agreed Pekkala. ‘Yes I was.’

Kovalevsky ushered him into the hall.

‘If you want my advice, Pekkala, the safest and the simplest thing to do would be to kill this man, rather than try to bring him back, and then to get out of the country as quickly as you can. That way, you have at least a reasonable chance of reaching home again.’

‘I must bring him back alive.’

‘Then the odds are against you, old friend.’

‘Never mind the odds,’ said Pekkala. ‘Can you help me?’

‘I can try,’ replied Kovalevsky. ‘Let’s talk about it over dinner this evening at the Cafe Tilsit. That is your favourite place, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Pekkala replied in confusion, ‘but how. .?’

He was interrupted by a loud and jarring bell which clanged in the hallway, indicating that the next lesson had begun.

‘Six o’clock!’ Kovalevsky stepped back inside his classroom. ‘Make sure you are punctual,’ he said with a smile as he began to close the door. ‘Teachers don’t like to be kept waiting.’