Stalin’s Ghost

24

A steady drizzle could not dampen the spirits of the camp. Although digging was canceled for the rest of the day, no one was leaving because every crew had brought vodka and beer, sausage and bread, fatback and cheese. Besides, twenty remains had successfully been brought in for examination, enough for the pathologist to, once she was done, declare all the victims Russian.

In the visitors tent Arkady listened to Wiley praise Isakov.

“An officer who carries home his wounded men? This is exactly the image people respond to. That tape is being edited in the studio as we speak. It’s still only four in the afternoon. If the pathologist gets her act together, you’ll make two news cycles as the lead story.”

“What if the bodies aren’t Russian?” Isakov asked.

“They found Russian helmets.”

“What if they aren’t?”

Wiley glanced at Lydia, who was occupied signing autographs for admirers at the front of the tent. The cameraman named Yura was on a cell phone to Grisha’s wife.

“If they’re German?” Wiley dropped his voice. “Admittedly, it won’t be nearly as good, but the rescue of Grisha will still sell you.”

“Is that what I want to be, sold?”

“With all your heart and soul,” Pacheco said. “You crossed that river the day we were hired.”

“Nothing like this was mentioned then.”

“Nikolai, you’re suffering preelection nerves. Relax. This dig is going to put you over the top.”

“They’re right,” Urman said.

“We’re just lucky we brought two cameramen.” Pacheco raised a glass of brandy. “To Grisha.”

“Anyway,” Wiley said, “you needed something like this. Your numbers were starting to flatten out.”

“Maybe they should,” Isakov said. “What do I know about politics?”

“You don’t have to. You’ll be told what to do.”

“I will be informed?”

“That’s it.” Pacheco said. “It’s not a difficult job unless you make it one.”

“You’ll get plenty of advice,” said Wiley.

“And immunity, don’t forget,” Arkady said. “That has to be a plus.”

Yura finished his call. “So, you play chess?” he asked Zhenya.

Zhenya nodded.

“Why don’t we have a game while we wait? You can be white.”

“D four.”

“That’s it?”

“D four.”

Yura frowned. “Just a second. I thought you had a chessboard in your backpack.”

“Do you need one?” Zhenya asked.

Arkady took Zhenya for a stroll.

Despite the rain a good many Diggers tended portable grills. Camping was camping. In their tents crews sang wartime songs overflowing with vodka and nostalgia. A line formed at a laboratory carboy of grain alcohol decorated with slices of lemon. It was a bonding experience for fathers and sons.

“Yura was trying to be friendly,” Arkady said. “You could have played on the board.”

“It would have been a waste of time.”

“He might have surprised you. Grandmaster Platonov was here during the war playing the troops. He played anyone.”

“Like who?”

“Soldiers, officers. He said he had some good games.”

“With who?”

For Arkady Zhenya’s smirk was maddening.

“Anyone,” he ended feebly.

They bumped into Big Rudi walking with his ear cocked.

“Can you hear him coming?” he asked Arkady.

A distant cannonade rose and fell.

“I think that’s thunder,” Arkady said.

“Then where is the lightning?”

“It’s too far away to see.”

“Aha! In other words, you assume it.”

“I’m guessing,” Arkady admitted. “Wouldn’t you like to get out of the rain?”

“Granddad won’t go.” Rudi approached with a beer in hand. “He’s set in his mind. And he’s not the only one.”

Arkady looked down along the tents and saw other figures standing like sentries in the rain. He thought that between the patriotism and grain alcohol Stalin was bound to make an appearance.

There was a great bustle at the examination tent, where the presenter Lydia was suddenly illuminated by television lights. She was joined by an older woman with sharp eyes and a sardonic smile. Arkady recognized his real estate agent, Sofia Andreyeva. He remembered how she had admitted to being a doctor and warned him not to be her patient. She changed to a clean lab coat while the Diggers packed together around the tent, boys on father’s shoulders, cell phones set on video and held as high as a homecoming salute to heroes finally rescued from the grip of the earth! Let it rain. Every face was bright with zeal. Arkady joined Wiley and Pacheco at the back of the crowd. Zhenya found a chair to stand on. Urman cleared the way to the front for Isakov.

Wiley told Arkady, “At the end of most campaigns I ask myself what opportunity I missed. What could I have done that I didn’t do? But this is like breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. You should be happy too. Now that Nikolai has immunity he’s certainly going to lay off you.”

Arkady decided that Wiley was stupider than he looked.

“Can everyone hear me? Good. I am Doctor Sofia Andreyeva Poninski, pathologist emeritus at Tver Central Hospital. I was requested to attend this mass exhumation and offer an opinion as to the identity of bodies found. Not necessarily individually but as a group. I could carry out an examination in much greater detail in the morgue, but I am informed that you need a conclusion here and now. Very well.

“I examined twenty remains, more or less. I say ‘more or less’ because it is obvious many of the so-called bodies are a mix of bones from two or three or even four different skeletal remains. This, of course, is one of the hazards of amateurs’ attempting a task best left to forensic technicians. So, I can offer you only gross observations of mishandled remains.

“First, that all twenty pelvic bones I examined were male.

“Second, by the density of their bones and wear on teeth enamel, that their ages at the time of death ranged from approximately twenty to seventy years of age.

“Third, that by variations in bone density some were active and athletic, some sedentary.

“Fourth, that the skeletons as offered suffered no wounds apart from a single shot to the back of the head. It’s possible there were flesh wounds that did not involve trauma to the bones. The absence of trauma also indicates that the victims were not subjected to physical abuse. In twelve instances there are signs of charring of the cranium consistent with execution at contact or very short range, and also consistent with execution one victim at a time, rather than a writhing mass. Which indicates that the deceased were shot at one site and transported here. The location of the fatal shots-twelve degrees below the cranial equator, in other words, below and to the right of the back of the skull-was remarkably similar, suggesting the possibility that a single right-handed individual carried out the execution, although he no doubt had accomplices.

“Fifth, the victims’ teeth showed generally good care and no German amalgam fillings.

“Sixth, one skeleton wore a leg brace. I was able to remove rust from the maker’s plate, which gave an address in Warsaw. Other objects found in the accompanying soil included a silver locket, perhaps once secreted in a body cavity, that expressed romantic sentiments in Polish; a jeweler’s loupe engraved with the name of a stamp dealer in Krakow; a pillbox with a view of the Tatra Mountains, and Polish coins of the prewar era.

“In sum, not enough information is yet available for us to draw firm conclusions, but indications are that the victims were Polish nationals…”

Where there was nostalgia there was amnesia. People tended to forget that when Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland, Stalin took the precaution of executing twenty thousand Polish Army officers, police, professors, writers, doctors, anyone who might form a political or military opposition. At least half were killed in Tver. Buried beneath the trees was the cream of Polish society.

The Diggers exhibited deflation and confusion. This was not the outcome the men had expected, not the laurels for a mission accomplished, not the bonding they had planned. This was a definite fuckup. Someone had sent them to the wrong dig and Rudi Rudenko, the Black Digger, the so-called professional, had suddenly disappeared. If Big Rudi said he saw Stalin one more time someone was going to lay him out with a shovel.

Sofia Andreyeva drew herself up and asked, “Did you hear me in the back? Was it clear enough for you? The victims are Poles, killed and buried here on Stalin’s orders. Do you understand?”

The Digger crew leaders convened under an umbrella. Understand? They understood that she was a fucking, Polish whore of a doctor. They should have made sure and gotten a Russian. They also knew that it was no fun to camp in the rain. Kids sniffled in camos that had resisted rain all day and were now soaked through on a cold evening that was getting colder when a hot bath and pepper vodka was what the doctor ordered. Not this doctor. A Russian doctor. A thunderclap decided it. They were breaking camp.

In a flurry of flashlight beams the tents came down, crews rolled tarps up from the trenches, boys stuffed Wehrmacht helmets into pillow cases. Unwieldy items like metal detectors, coolers and grills were cursed as they were portered in the dark, and cursed a second time surrounded by milling vehicles attempting to reverse direction over the ruts of a one-lane dirt road. Thunder and the smoke of campfires lent an aspect of retreat under fire.

Yura backed up the television truck to the pathology tent. Lydia dove in and shook her hair. A Mercedes eased its way to Wiley and Pacheco.

“That’s it? You’re quitting?” Arkady asked.

Wiley said, “The son of a bitch said he was afraid of this. He knew something.”

“Who?”

“Detective Nikolai Isakov, our candidate. He said he’d been waiting years for this.”

“This what?”

“Something about his father. Believe me, it no longer matters.”

Pacheco said, “No one is going to put on the air what we just saw. A Russian atrocity? They’d hang us by our heels first.”

“Say good-bye to Nikolai for us,” Wiley said.

“We had fun,” said Pacheco. “If Stalin shows up, say hello for me.”

Zhenya’s wet hair was plastered to his forehead because he refused to pull up his hood no matter what Arkady said. Together, they helped Sofia Andreyeva put a skeleton in a body bag. She was laughing and crying at the same time.

“Did you see them run? Poof, the mighty encampment is gone. Stuffed into their cars with someone, I hope, feeling nauseous. What a shame. They came to glorify the past and the past serves up the wrong victim. Some days I curse God for letting me live so long, but today it was worth it. Everybody has a fantasy. Professor Golovanov dreams of a beautiful Frenchman. I dream of a Polish boy, a medical student.”

The rain fell heavier. Arkady was on the verge of shouting just to be heard.

“Do you have a ride back to the city?”

“I borrowed a car, thank you. I’m just going to sit here for a while with my compatriots. I have a camp chair. I have cigarettes. I even…” She allowed him a glimpse of a silver flask. “In case of a chill.”

“The road will be mud soon, don’t wait too long.”

“It will turn to snow. I much prefer snow; it has panache.”

“Where is Isakov?”

“I don’t know. His friend headed back to the fir trees for more bodies. He claims that there are Russian remains and that you didn’t dig deep enough or in the right place.”

Zhenya said, “I bet he’s right. Marat’s a soldier; he should know. I don’t see why we couldn’t help.”

Arkady said, “Stumbling around explosives in the dark is not a good idea.”

“If you’re afraid to get into the dig yourself, you could hold a flashlight for someone else. I have a flashlight in my backpack.”

“You’ve come prepared for anything.”

“Someone has to.”

“No. We’re going home. We’re going to Moscow tonight.”

It felt to Arkady as if it had been night for days. Nothing had worked out as expected. Instead of winning Eva he had lost her. And in Tver there was no way he could escape Marat and Isakov.

Zhenya said, “I’m going to Lake Brosno with Nikolai and then we’re going to Swan Lake.”

“Swan Lake? Like the ballet?”

Sofia Andreyeva said, “It’s a local myth, a haven that does not exist for swans that do not exist.”

“Swans, monsters, weeping virgins. And dragons.”

“I’m sorry, no dragons,” Sofia Andreyeva said.

“You said there were dragons when I took the apartment.”

“So you take your shoes off, yes. You walk on an old dragon softly.”

It took Arkady a moment. “It’s a rug.”

A shadow moved across the campground, levitating over paper wrappers and empty bottles left in the Diggers’ hasty departure. Closer, the figure became a black and shiny ghost that billowed and snapped in the rain. Arkady watched for Stalin’s bristling mustache, greatcoat, yellow eyes. Instead it was Big Rudi in a plastic bag with holes for his head and arms and his cap jammed on his head. Rudi followed with the sort of box flashlight a mechanic might set on a fender. The beam was off.

“Granddad is still looking for Stalin. He’s in his own world.”

Sofia Andreyeva allowed Big Rudi a sip of brandy using the cap of her flask as a cup. “I don’t want to see him in the morning on a slab.”

“Any vodka?” Big Rudi inquired.

“I think he’s back in our world.” She said to Rudi, “I noticed you when I was describing the remains. You stood out.”

“Thank you.” Rudi was flattered.

“You are a Black Digger, a professional.”

“Yes.”

“You dig to make money.”

“I’m a businessman, yes.”

“I wonder how much money would you demand to go into those trees tonight?”

“You couldn’t give me enough.”

“Why not?” Arkady asked. “Don’t you think the mines are harmless?”

“Every year a ‘harmless’ mine blows off someone’s leg.”

“But a professional like you would see the mine.”

“Maybe.”

Arkady looked to see Zhenya’s reaction, but the boy was gone. A flap at the back of the tent was untied.

“May I borrow your flashlight for a moment?”

Arkady stepped out into the rain, turned on the beam and did a 360-degree sweep of trenches, smoldering campfires, beer cans, mound of skulls, piles of soil. Zhenya was on the field at the edge of the beam’s reach, halfway to the trees. He had his hood up and in his black anorak he would have been invisible except for the reflective trim on his backpack. The reflection got weaker and weaker.

It occurred to Arkady that when he had so abruptly left Moscow for Tver, Zhenya may have felt abandoned. All the conversations on the phone about monsters may have been a boy hanging on for an invitation that was never issued. Arkady hadn’t even said when he was coming back. And when Zhenya came to Tver was he appreciated or treated like excess baggage? Valuable insights but a little late.

At night the pines were a solid wall rising from the field, and though the rain eased up the boughs dripped and with every step Arkady sank ankle-deep in damp needles. He followed winks of yellow light to a lamp set in the center of the stand, a clearing five meters across where Urman dug like a stoker while Zhenya sifted. The detective was stripped to the waist and looked like a muscular Buddha except for his shoulder holster and gun. He had already dug a fair-sized hole.

“Any luck?” Arkady asked.

“Not yet,” Urman said. “But things will go a lot faster now that I have a partner.”

Zhenya kept his face a blank. Arkady noticed Urman’s shirt and leather coat neatly folded on a tree root next to Zhenya’s backpack.

Arkady asked, “Zhenya, have you ever noticed how much a pine forest smells like a car freshener?”

Zhenya shrugged, not in a mood for humor.

Arkady asked Urman, “Where is your partner?”

“Nikolai is going to get the Americans back. I’ll dig up the right remains and we’ll tape for television.”

“The Americans are gone. In fact, so is Isakov.”

“He’ll be back and then he’ll get them back.”

“What do you think, Zhenya?”

“Like Marat says, if we find the right remains…”

Urman said, “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, Renko, there are a lot of bodies here. It’s a mass grave.”

A grave where the dead came up for air, Arkady thought. A skull, half-submerged, stared up from the dirt. In the glow of the lamp leg bones resembled candlesticks.

“It’s also a minefield,” Arkady said. “I don’t see a metal detector or a probe.”

“We don’t have time for all that. Anyway, there’s nothing left to blow here.”

“You just didn’t find it.”

“You’re trying to scare the kid.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t be here. I’ll stay. If you want, I’ll dig for you.”

“I’m going to give you a shovel to swing at my head?”

“Whatever you want, as long as Zhenya goes back.”

“He doesn’t want to go.”

Arkady lost patience. “There’s no reason to be afraid of me. Granted, you killed some people, but no one particularly cares about the murders except Ginsberg and me. He’s dead and I’m in Tver, which is much the same thing. Why the urgency?”

“The people we killed were terrorists,” Urman told Zhenya.

Arkady said, “You shot them in the back and in the head. You executed them. And the ones you killed in Moscow were your fellow Black Berets.”

Urman shook his head for Zhenya’s benefit. “Poor man, that bullet really did scramble his brains. Look, Renko, now the kid’s smiling.”

It was a sickly smile.

Arkady said, “Zhenya, don’t put on your backpack, just run.”

Urman stepped out of the hole. “Why should he run and leave his chess set? And what else? Why is the backpack so heavy?” Urman reached into it and pulled out the stripped frame and barrel of a handgun. “Your gun. He brought it for your protection but there never seemed the right moment. In fact, I think that moment has come and gone.” He dropped the pieces back in.

Arkady felt the conversation gain speed. Or maybe it was that they tossed their last few words aside like unplayed cards.

“Watch this.” Urman took some casual swings with the shovel, not so much to hit Arkady as to maneuver him to the lip of the hole.

“Run,” Arkady told Zhenya.

Urman launched the shovel at Arkady’s chest like a spear, but Arkady ducked as soon as Urman set his feet, and as the shovel sailed by Arkady rose with a butt to the chin that snapped back Urman’s head. “Hit first, keep hitting.” Not bad instructions. Arkady hit Urman in the windpipe and went on pounding him until Zhenya got in between and hung onto Arkady’s arm.

“Stop fighting!”

“Zhenya, let go.”

“No more fighting,” Zhenya said.

“No more fighting.” Urman had his gun out. “Not for you, old man. This is for Tanya.” Urman hit Arkady in the face with the flat of the shovel; Arkady sucked a tooth back in and felt blood drip from his chin.

“Now you’re even,” Zhenya said.

“Not yet.” Urman motioned with his gun for Arkady to get down on his knees. “Hands in back.” He handcuffed Arkady and kicked him facedown into the hole. “This is for me.” The shovel blade came down wide of its mark, however, and Arkady heard the sound of wrestling above. Urman said, “Now you want to attack me? You want to go with him, you little creep?”

A body fell on top of Arkady. Dirt followed and the scent of pines and the warmth of blood.

Urman said, “I’ll dig you up in a couple of hours, remove the cuffs and we’ll go find a nice bog for you and your friend. That’s the plan. Otherwise, you know what I hate? Long explanations. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Zhenya moaned but he didn’t sound conscious. He might not be until they were covered with dirt, Arkady thought. He twisted his head to breathe and gathered his knees under himself as best he could.

“Go ahead,” Urman said. “Squirm like a worm, but you’re still buried alive.”

Urman shoveled vigorously. He believed in a full spade; dirt fell in clumps.

“Not Zhenya, please,” said Arkady.

“Who’s going to miss him? I’m doing him a favor.”

Dirt showered Arkady’s head. When there was no more loose dirt Urman turned and dug new soil. Despite the dirt in his ear, Arkady heard thunder, a motorcycle winding toward the river road, and a mechanical click.

Urman stopped. He stared at three rusty pressure prongs that had been undisturbed in a bed of old needles until the last shovelful. He took a deep breath as the prongs and a canister the size of a coffee can popped out of the ground waist high, almost near enough to touch. It was packed with TNT, ball bearings, and scrap metal, and all he could say to sum up his life was “Fuck!”