Russian Roulette

МОСКВА – MOSCOW

Kazansky Station. Moscow.

It is hard to remember my feelings as the train drew near to its final destination. On the one hand, I was elated. I had made it. I had travelled six hundred miles, leaving the police and all my other problems behind me. But what of this new world in which I was about to find myself? The train would stop. The doors would open. And what then?

Through the windows I had already seen apartment blocks, one after another, that must have been home to tens of thousands of people. How could they live like that, so many of them, piled up on top of each other? Then there were the churches and their golden domes, ten times the size of poor St Nicholas. The factories billowing smoke into a sky that was cloudless, sunless, a single sheet of grey. But all of these were dwarfed by the skyscrapers with their spires and glittering needles, thousands of windows, millions of bricks, rising up as if from some crazy dream. Of course I had been shown pictures of them at school. I knew they had been built by Stalin back in the 1940s and 1950s. But seeing them for myself was different. Somehow I was shocked that they did actually exist and that they really were here, scattered around the city, watching over it.

I had been fortunate on the train. There was an empty compartment right at the back with a bunk bed that folded down. That was where I slept – not on the bunk but underneath it on the floor, out of sight of the ticket collectors. The strange thing was that I managed to sleep at all, but then I suppose I was exhausted. I woke up once or twice in the night and listened to the train rumbling through the darkness and I could almost feel the memories slipping away… Estrov, Leo, my parents, my school. I knew that by the time I arrived in Moscow, I would be little more than an empty shell, a fourteen-year-old boy with no past and perhaps no future. There was even a small part of me that wished I hadn’t escaped from the police. At least, that way, I wouldn’t have to make any decisions. I wouldn’t be on my own.

One name stayed with me, turning over and over in my head. Misha Dementyev. He worked in the biology department of Moscow State University and my mother had insisted that he would look after me. Surely it wouldn’t be so hard to find him. The worst of my troubles might already be over. That was what I tried to tell myself.

The station was jammed. I had never seen so many people in one place. As I stepped down from the train, I found myself on a platform that seemed to stretch on for ever, with passengers milling about everywhere, carrying suitcases, packages, bundles of clothes, some of them chewing on sandwiches, others emptying their hip-flasks. Everyone was tired and grimy. There were policemen too but I didn’t think they were looking for me. I had taken off the porter’s cap and jacket and abandoned the suitcases. Once again I was wearing my Young Pioneers outfit, although I thought of getting rid of that too. It was quite warm in Moscow. The air felt heavy and smelt of oil and smoke.

I allowed myself to be swept along, following the crowd through a vast ticket hall, larger than any room I had ever seen, and out into the street. I found myself standing on the edge of a square. Again, it was the size that struck me first. To my eyes, this one single space was as big as the whole of Kirsk. It had lanes of traffic and cars, buses, trams roaring past in every direction. Traffic – the very notion of a traffic jam – was a new experience for me and I was overwhelmed by the noise and the stench of the exhaust fumes. Even today it sometimes surprises me that people are willing to put up with it. The cars were every colour imaginable. I had seen official Chaikas and Ladas but it was as if these vehicles had driven here from every country in the world. Grey taxis with chessboard patterns on their hoods dodged in and out of the different lines. Subways had been built for pedestrians, which was just as well. Trying to cross on the surface would have been suicide.

There were three separate railway stations in the square, each one trying to outdo the other with soaring pillars, archways and towers. Travellers were arriving from different parts of Russia and as soon as they emerged they were greeted by all sorts of food stalls, mainly run by wrinkled old women in white aprons and hats. In fact people were selling everything… meat, vegetables, Chinese jeans and padded jackets, electrical goods, their own furniture. Some of them must have come off the train for no other reason. Nobody had any money. This was where you had to start.

My own needs were simple and immediate. I was dizzy with hunger. I headed to the nearest food stall and started with a small pie filled with cabbage and meat. I followed it with a currant bun – we called them kalerikas and they were specially made to fill you up. Then I bought a drink from a machine that squirted syrup and fizzy water into a glass. It still wasn’t enough. I had another and then a raspberry ice cream that I bought for seven kopecks. The lady beamed at me as she handed it over… as if she knew it was something special. I remember the taste of it to this day.

It was as I finished the last spoonful that I realized I was being watched. There was a boy of about seventeen or eighteen leaning against a lamp-post, examining me. He was the same height as me but more thickly set with muddy eyes and long, very straight, almost colourless hair. He would have been handsome but at some time his nose had been broken and it had set unevenly, giving his whole face an unnatural slant. He was wearing a black leather jacket which was much too big for him, the sleeves rolled back so that they wouldn’t cover his hands. Perhaps he had stolen it. Nobody was coming anywhere near him. Even the travellers seemed to avoid him. From the way he was standing there, you would think he owned the pavement and perhaps half the city. I quite liked that, the way he had nothing but pretended otherwise.

As I gazed around me, I realized that there were quite a lot of children outside Kazansky station, most of them huddling together in groups close to the entrance without daring to go inside. These children looked much less well off than the boy in the leather jacket; emaciated with pale skin and hollow eyes. Some of them were trying to beg from the arriving passengers but they were doing it half-heartedly, as if they were nervous of being seen. I saw a couple of tiny boys who couldn’t have been more than ten years old, homeless and half starved. I felt ashamed. What would they have been thinking as they watched me gorge myself? I was tempted to go over and give them a few kopecks but before I could move, the older boy suddenly walked forward and stood in front of me. There was something about his manner that unnerved me. He seemed to be smiling at some private joke. Did he know who I was, where I had come from? I got the feeing that he knew everything about me, even though we had never met.

“Hello, soldier,” he said. He was referring, of course, to my Young Pioneers outfit. “Where have you come from?”

“From Kirsk,” I said.

“Never heard of it. Nice place?”

“It’s all right.”

“First time in Moscow?”

“No. I’ve been here before.”

I had a feeling he knew straight away that I was lying, like the policemen in Kirsk. But he just smiled in that odd way of his. “You got somewhere to stay?”

“I have a friend…”

“It’s good to have a friend. We all need friends.” He looked around the square. “But I don’t see anyone.”

“He’s not here.”

It reminded me of my first day at senior school. I was trying to sound confident but I was completely defenceless and he knew it. He examined me more closely, weighing up various possibilities, then suddenly he straightened up and stretched out a hand. “Relax, soldier,” he said. “I don’t want to give you any hassle. I’m Dimitry. You can call me Dima.”

I took his hand. I couldn’t really refuse it. “I’m Yasha,” I said.

We shook.

“Welcome to Moscow,” he said. “Welcome back, I should say. So when were you last here?”

“It was a while ago,” I said. I knew that the more I spoke, the more I would give away. “It was with my parents,” I added.

“But this time you’re on your own.”

“Yes.”

The single word hung in the air.

It was hard to make out what Dima had in mind. On the one hand he seemed friendly enough, but on the other, I could sense him unravelling me. It was that broken nose of his. It made it very difficult to read his face. “This person I’m supposed to be meeting…” I said. “He’s a friend of my parents. He works at the University of Moscow. I don’t suppose you know how to get there?”

“The university? It’s a long way from this part of town but it’s quite easy. You can take the Metro.” His hand slipped over my shoulder. Before I knew it, we were walking together. “The entrance is over here. There’s a direct line that runs all the way there. The station you want is called Universitet. Do you have any money?”

“Not much,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter. The Metro’s cheap. In fact, I’ll tell you what…” He reached out and a coin appeared at his fingertips as if he had plucked it out of the air. “Here’s five kopecks. It’s all you need. And don’t worry about paying me back. Always happy to help someone new to town.”

We had arrived at a staircase leading underground and to my surprise he began to walk down with me. Was he going to come the whole way? His hand was still on my shoulder and as we went he was telling me about the journey.

“Nine stops, maybe ten. Just stay on the train and you’ll be there in no time…”

As he spoke, a set of swing doors opened in front of us and two more boys appeared, coming up the steps. They were about the same age as Dima, one dark, the other fair. I expected them to move aside – but they didn’t. They barged into me and for a moment I was sandwiched between them with Dima still behind to me. I thought they were going to attack me but they were gone as suddenly as they’d arrived.

“Watch out!” Dima shouted. He twisted round and called out after them. “Why don’t you look where you’re going?” He turned back to me. “That’s how people are in this city. Always in a hurry and to hell with everyone else.”

The boys had gone and we said no more about it. Dima took me as far as the barriers. “Good luck, soldier,” he said. “I hope you find who you’re looking for.”

We shook hands again.

“Remember – Universitet.” With a cheerful wave, he ambled away, leaving me on my own. I walked forward and stopped in front of the escalator.

I had never seen anything like it. Stairs that moved, that carried people up and down in an endless stream. They seemed to go on and on, and I couldn’t believe that the railway lines had been laid so deep. Cautiously, I stepped onto it and found myself clinging onto the handrail, being carried down as if into the bowels of the earth. At the very bottom, there was a uniformed woman in a glass box. Her job was simply to watch the passengers, to make sure that nobody tripped over and hurt themselves. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to work here all day, buried underground, never seeing the sun.

The Moscow Metro was famous all over Russia. It had been built by workers from every part of the country and famous artists had been brought in to decorate it. Each station was spectacular in its own way. This one had gold-coloured pillars, a mosaic floor and glass spheres hanging from the ceiling blazing with light. To the thousands of passengers who used it, it was nothing – simply a way of getting around – but I was amazed. A train came roaring out of the tunnel almost immediately. I got on and a moment later the doors slammed shut. With a jolt, the train moved off.

I took a spare seat – and it was as I sat down that I knew that something was wrong. I reached back and patted my trouser pocket. It was empty. I had been robbed. All my money had gone apart from a few coins. I played back what had happened and realized that I had been set up from the start. Dima had seen me paying for the food. He knew I had cash. Somehow he must have signalled to the two other boys and sent them into the station through another entrance. He’d kept me talking just long enough and then he’d led me down the steps and straight into their arms. It was a professional job and one they had probably done a hundred times before. My anger was as black as the tunnel we’d plunged into. I had lost more than seventy rubles! My parents had saved that money. They had thought it would save me. But I had stupidly, blindly allowed it to be taken away from me. What a fool I was! I didn’t deserve to survive.

But sitting there, being swept along beneath the city, I decided that perhaps it didn’t matter after all. Even as the train was carrying me forward, I could put it all behind me. I was going to meet Misha Dementyev and he would look after me. I didn’t actually need the money any more. Looking back now, I would say that this was one of the first valuable lessons I learnt, and one that would be useful in my future line of work. Sometimes things go wrong. It is inevitable. But it is a mistake to waste time and energy worrying about events that you cannot influence. Once they have happened, let them go.

What was I expecting the university to be like? In my mind, I had seen a single building like my school, only bigger. But instead, when I came out of the station, I found a city within the city, an entire neighbourhood devoted to learning. It was much more spacious and elegant than anything I had so far seen of Moscow. There were boulevards and parks, special buses to carry the students in and out, lawns and fountains, and not one building but dozens of them, evenly spaced, each one in its own domain. It was all dominated by one of Stalin’s skyscrapers, and as I stood in front of it I saw how it had been designed to make you feel tiny, to remind you of the power and the majesty of the state. Standing in front of the steps that led to the front doors – hidden behind a row of columns – I felt like the world’s worst sinner about to enter a church. But at the same time, the building had a magnetic attraction. I had no idea where the biology department was. But this was the heart of the university. I would find Misha Dementyev here. I climbed the steps and went in.

The inside of the building didn’t seem to fit what I had seen outside. It was like stepping into a submarine or a ship with no windows, no views. The ceilings were low. It was too warm. Corridors led to more corridors. Doors opened onto other doors. Staircases sprouted in every direction. Students marched past me on all sides, carrying their books and their backpacks, and I forced myself to keep moving, knowing that if I stopped and looked lost it would be a sure way to get noticed. It seemed to me that if there was an administrative area, an office with the names of all the people working at the university, it would be somewhere close to the entrance. Surely the university wouldn’t want casual visitors to plunge too far into the building or to take one of the lifts up to the fortieth or fiftieth floor? I tried a door. It was locked. The next one opened into a toilet. Next to it there was a bare room, occupied by a cleaner with a mop and a cigarette.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“The administration office.”

She looked at me balefully. “That way. On the left. Room 1117.”

The corridor went on for about a hundred metres but the door marked 1117 was only halfway down. I knocked and went in.

There were two more women sitting at desks which were far too small for the typewriters, piles of paper, files and ashtrays that covered them. One of the women was plugged into an old-fashioned telephone system, the sort with wires looping everywhere, but she glanced up as I came in.

“Yes?” she demanded.

“Can you help me?” I asked. “I’m looking for someone.”

“You need the student office. That’s room 1301.”

“I’m not looking for a student. I need to speak to a professor. His name is Misha Dementyev.”

“Room 2425 – the twenty-fourth floor. Take the lift at the end of the corridor.”

I felt a surge of relief. He was here! He was in his office! At that moment, I saw the end of my journey and the start of a new life. This man had known my parents. Now he would help me.

I took the lift to the twenty-fourth floor, sharing it with different groups of students who all looked purposefully grubby and dishevelled. I had been in a lift before and this old-fashioned steel box, which shuddered and stopped at least a dozen times, had none of the wonders of the escalator on the Metro. Finally I arrived at the floor I wanted. I stepped out and followed a cream-coloured corridor that, like the ground floor, had no windows. At least the offices were clearly labelled and I found the one I wanted right at the corner. The door was open as I approached and I heard a man speaking on the telephone.

“Yes, of course, Mr Sharkovsky,” he was saying. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

I knocked on the door.

“Come in!”

I entered a small, cluttered room with a single, square window looking out over the main avenue and the steps that had first brought me into the building. There must have been five or six hundred books there, not just lined up along the shelves but stacked up on the floor and every available surface. They were fighting for space with a whole range of laboratory equipment, different-sized flasks, two microscopes, scales, Bunsen burners, and boxes that looked like miniature ovens or fridges. Most unnerving of all, a complete human skeleton stood in a frame in one corner as if it were here to guard all this paraphernalia while its owner was away.

The man was sitting at his desk. He had just put down the phone as I came in. My first impression was that he was about the same age as my father, with thick black hair that only emphasized the round bald patch in the middle of his head. The skin here was stretched tight and polished, reflecting the ceiling light. He had a heavy beard and moustache, and as he examined me from behind a pair of glasses, I saw small, anxious eyes blinking at me as if he had never seen a boy before – or had certainly never allowed one into his office.

Actually, I was wrong about this. He was nervous because he knew who I was. He spoke my name immediately. “Yasha?”

“Are you Mr Dementyev?” I asked.

“Professor Dementyev,” he replied. “Please, come in. Close the door. Does anyone know you’re here?”

“I asked in the administration room downstairs,” I said.

“You spoke to Anna?” I had no idea what the woman’s name was. He didn’t let me reply. “That’s a great pity. It would have been much better if you had telephoned me before you came. How did you get here?”

“I came by train. My parents-”

“I know what has happened in Estrov.” He was agitated. Suddenly there were beads of sweat on the crown of his head. I could see them glistening. “You cannot stay here, Yasha,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “My parents said you’d look after me!”

“And I will! Of course I will!” He tried to smile at me but he was full of nervous energy and he was allowing his different thought processes to tumble over each other. “Sit down, Yasha, please!” He pointed to a chair. “I’m sorry but you’ve taken me completely by surprise. Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Can I get you something?” Before I could answer, he snatched up the telephone again. “There’s somebody I know,” he explained to me. “He’s a friend. He can help you. I’m going to ask him to come.”

He dialled a number and as I sat down facing him, uncomfortably close to the skeleton, he spoke quickly into the receiver.

“It’s Dementyev. The boy is here. Yes… here at the university.” He paused while the person at the other end spoke to him. “We haven’t had a chance to speak yet. I thought I should let you know at once.” He was answering a question I hadn’t heard. “He seems all right. Unharmed, yes. We’ll wait for you here.”

He put the phone down and it seemed to me that he was suddenly less agitated than he had been when I had arrived – as if he had done what was expected of him. For some reason, I was feeling uneasy. By the look of it, Professor Dementyev wasn’t pleased to see me. I was a danger to him. This was my parents’ closest friend but I was beginning to wonder how much that friendship was worth.

“How did you know who I was?” I asked.

“I’ve been expecting you, ever since I heard about what happened. And I recognized you, Yasha. You look very much like your mother. I saw the two of you together a few times when you were very young. You won’t remember me. It was before your parents left Moscow.”

“Why did they leave? What happened? You worked with them.”

“I worked with your father. Yes.”

“Do you know that he’s dead?”

“I didn’t know for certain. I’m sorry to hear it. He and I were friends.”

“So tell me-”

“Are you sure I can’t get you something?”

I had eaten and drunk everything I needed at Kazansky Station. What I really wanted was to be away from here. I have to say that I was disappointed by Misha Dementyev. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting, but maybe he could have been more affectionate, like a long-lost uncle or something? He hadn’t even come out from behind his desk.

“What happened?” I asked again. “Why was my father sent to work in Estrov?”

“I can’t go through all that now.” He was flustered again. “Later…”

“Please, Professor Dementyev!”

“All right. All right.” He looked at me as if he was wondering if he could trust me. Then he began. “Your father was a genius. He and I worked here together in this department. We were young students; idealists, excited. We were researching endospores… and one in particular. Anthrax. I don’t suppose you know very much about that.”

“I know about anthrax,” I said.

“We thought we could change the world… your father especially. He was looking at ways to prevent the infection of sheep and cattle. But there was an accident. Working in the laboratory together, we created a form of anthrax that was much faster and deadlier than anything anyone had ever known. It had no cure. Antibiotics were useless against it.”

“It was a weapon?”

“That wasn’t our intention. That wasn’t what we wanted. But – yes. It was the perfect biological weapon. And of course the government found out about it. Everything that happens in this place they know about. It was true then. It’s true now. They heard about our work here and they came to us and ordered us to develop it for military use.” Dementyev took out a handkerchief and used it to polish the lenses of his glasses. He put them back on. “Your father refused. It was the last thing he wanted. So they started to put the pressure on. They threatened him. And that was when he did something incredibly brave… or incredibly stupid. He went to a journalist and tried to get the story into the newspapers.

“He was arrested at once. I was here, in the laboratory, when they marched him away. They arrested your mother too.”

“How old was I?” I asked.

“You were two. And – I’m sorry, Yasha – they used you to get at your parents. That was how they worked. It was very simple. If your parents didn’t do what they were told, they would never see you again. What choice did they have? They were sent to Estrov, to work in the factory. They were forced to produce the new anthrax. That was the deal. Stay silent. And live.”

So everything – my parents’ life or their non-life as prisoners in a remote village, the little house, the boredom and the poverty – had been for me. I wasn’t sure how that made me feel. Was I to blame for everything that had happened? Was I the one who had destroyed their lives?

“Yasha…” Dementyev stood up and came over to me. He was much taller than I had expected now that he was on his feet. He loomed over me. “Were you inoculated?” he asked.

I nodded. “My parents were shot at when they escaped. But they stole a syringe. They injected me.”

“I knew your father had been working on an antidote. Thank God! But I guessed it the moment I saw you. Otherwise you would have been dead a long time ago.”

“My best friend died,” I said.

“I’m so sorry. Anton and Eva – your parents – were my friends too.”

We fell silent. He was still standing there, one hand on the back of my chair.

“What will happen to me?” I asked.

“You don’t need to worry any more, Yasha. You’ll be well looked after.”

“Who was that you called?”

“It was a friend. Someone we can trust. He’ll be here very soon.”

There was something wrong. Things that he’d told me just didn’t add up. I was about to speak when I heard the sound of sirens, police cars approaching, still far away but drawing nearer. And I knew instantly that there was no friend, that Dementyev had called them. It wasn’t detective work. I could have asked him why my parents had been sent to live in Estrov while he had been allowed to stay here. I could have played back the conversation he’d had on the telephone, how he had referred to me simply as “the boy”. Not Yasha. Not Anton’s son. The people at the other end knew who I was because they’d been expecting me to show up, waiting for me. I could have worked it out but I didn’t need to. I saw it all in his eyes.

“Why?” I asked.

He didn’t even try to deny it. “I’m sorry, Yasha,” he said. “But nobody can know. We have to keep it secret.”

We. The factory managers. The helicopter pilots. The militia. The government. And Dementyev. They were all in it together.

I scrabbled to my feet – or tried to. But Dementyev was ahead of me. He pounced down, his hands on my shoulders, using his weight to pin me to the seat. For a moment his face was close to mine, the eyes staring at me through the thick lenses.

“There’s nowhere you can go!” he hissed. “I promise you… they won’t treat you badly.”

“They’ll kill me!” I shouted back. “They killed everyone!”

“I’ll talk to them. They’ll take you somewhere safe…”

Yes. I saw it already. A prison or a mental asylum, somewhere I’d never be seen again.

I couldn’t move. Dementyev was too strong for me. And the police cars were getting closer. We were twenty-four floors up but I could hear the sirens cutting through the air. And then I had an idea. I forced myself to relax.

“You can’t do this!” I exclaimed. “My father gave me something for you. He said it was very valuable. He said if I gave it to you, you’d have to help me.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. It’s in a bag. It’s in my pocket!”

“Show me.”

He let go of one of my shoulders… but only one of them. I still couldn’t wrench myself free. I was sitting down. He was standing over me and he was twice my size.

“Take it out,” he said.

The police must have turned into the main university drive. I heard car doors slam shut.

Using my one free arm, I drew out the black bag that my mother had given me. At least Dima and his friends hadn’t stolen it when they took my money. I placed it on the desk. And it worked just as I’d hoped. Dementyev still didn’t let go of me but his grip loosened as he reached out and opened the bag. I saw his face change as he tipped out the contents.

“What…?” he began.

I jerked myself free, throwing the chair backwards. As it toppled over, I managed to get to my feet. Dementyev swung round but he was too late to stop me lashing out with my fist. I knocked the glasses off his face. He fell back against the desk but then recovered and seized hold of me again. I needed a weapon and there was only one that I could see. I reached out and grabbed the arm of the skeleton, wrenching it free from the shoulder. The hand and the wrist dangled down but I hung onto the upper bone – the humerus – and used it as a club, smashing it against Dementyev’s head again and again until, with a howl, he fell back. I twisted away. Dementyev had crumpled over the desk. There was blood streaming down his face.

“It’s too late…” he stammered. “You won’t get away.”

I snatched back the jewellery and tumbled out of the office. There was nobody outside. Surely someone must have heard what had happened? I didn’t want to know. I ran to the lift. It was already on the way up and it took me a few seconds to work out that the police were almost certainly inside, travelling towards me. And I might have been caught standing there, waiting for them! I continued down the corridor and found a fire exit – leading to twenty-four flights of stairs. I didn’t stop until I reached the bottom and it was only then that I realized I was still carrying the skeleton’s arm. I found a dustbin, picked up some loose papers and dropped the arm in.

As I walked down the steps at the front door, I saw three police cars parked there with their lights flashing. I pretended to be immersed in the papers I had taken. If there were any policemen outside, I would look like one more of the countless students coming in and out.

But nobody stopped me. I hurried back to the station with just one thought in my head. I was alone in Moscow with no money.