Authors: Robert Harris
He started to laugh.
'What's funny?'
'Nothing.' He glanced at O'Brian and tried to stop himself, but it was no good, there was something about the reporter's utter dejection that set him off again. His vision
was blurred by tears. '
I'm sorry,' he gasped. 'Sorry’
'Oh, go ahead, enjoy yourself,' said O'Brian, bitterly. 'This is my idea of a perfect fucking Friday. Drive eight hundred miles to some dump that looks like Pittsburgh after a nuclear strike to try to find Stalin's fucking girlfriend-'
He snorted and started to laugh as well.
'You know what we haven't done?' O'Brian managed to say after a while.
Kelso took a breath and swallowed. 'What?'
'We haven't been to the railway station and checked the radiation meter. . . We're probably. . . being. . . fucking... irradiated"
They roared. They cried. The Toyota rocked with it. The snow fell and the husky watched them, its head cocked in surprise.
O'BRIAN locked the car and they hurried through the snow, across the treacherous expanse of subsiding concrete, into the port authority building.
Kelso carried the satchel.
They were both still slightly shaky and the advertised ferry sailings - to Murmansk and the Groaning Islands - briefly set them off again.
The Groaning Islands?
'Oh come on, man. Stop it. We've got to do some work here.'
The building was bigger than it looked from the outside. On the ground floor there were shops - little kiosks selling clothes and toiletries - plus a cafe and a ticket booth. Downstairs, beneath banks of fluorescent lights, most of which had blown, was a gloomy underground market - stalls offering seeds, books, pirated cassettes, shoes, shampoo,
sausages and some immense, sturdy Russian brassi~res in black and beige: miracles of cantilevered engineering.
O'Brian bought a couple of maps, one of the city and the other of the region, then they both went back upstairs to the ticket office where Kelso, in return for offering a dollar bill to a suspicious man in a greasy uniform, was permitted a brief look at the Archangel telephone directory. The book was small, red-bound, with hard covers and it took him less than thirty seconds to establish that no Safanov or Safanova was listed.
'Now what?' said O'Brian.
'Food,' said Kelso.
The caf~ was an old-style stolovaya, a self-service workers' canteen, its floor wet and filthy with melted snow. There was a warm fug of strong tobacco. At the next door table a couple of German seamen were playing cards. Kelso had a big bowl of shchi- cabbage soup with a dollop of sour cream bobbing in its centre - black bread, a couple of hard-boiled eggs, and the effect of all this on his empty stomach was immediate. He began to feel almost euphoric. This was going to be all right, he thought. They were safe up here. Nobody could find them. And if they played it properly, they could be in and out in a day.
He tipped half a miniature of cognac into his instant coffee, looked at it, thought, Sod it, why not? and added the rest. He lit a cigarette and glanced around. The people up here appeared shabbier than they did in Moscow. They stared at foreign strangers. But when you attempted to meet their eyes they looked away.
O'Brian pushed his plate to one side. 'I've been thinking about this college, whatever it was - this "Maxim Gorky Academy". They'll have old records, right? And there was this
girl she knew - what was her name, the ugly kid?'
'Maria.'
'Maria. Right. Let's find her class yearbook and find Maria.'
Class yearbook? thought Kelso. Who did O'Brian think she was? The Maxim Gorky prom queen, 1950? But he was too full of goodwill to pick a fight. 'Or,' he said, diplomatically, 'or we could try the local Party. She was in KomsomOl, remember. They might still have the old files.'
'Okay. You're the expert. How d'we find 'em?'
'Easy. Give me the town plan.'
O'Brian pulled the map from his inside pocket and scraped his chair round until he was sitting next to Kelso. They spread out the city plan.
The bulk of Archangel was crammed into a wide headland, about four miles across, with ribbons of development running out along either bank of the Dvina.
Kelso put his finger on the map. 'There,' he said. 'That's where they are. Or were. On the ploshchad Lenina, in the biggest building on the square. That's where the bastards always were.
'And you think they'll help?'
'No. Not willingly. But if you can provide a little financial lubrication... It's worth a try, anyway.
On the map it looked like a five-minute walk.
'You're really getting into this, aren't you?' said O'Brian. He gave Kelso's arm an affectionate pat. 'We make a good team, you know that? We'll show 'em.' He folded away the map and put five roubles under his plate as a tip.
Kelso finished his coffee. The cognac gave him a warm glow. O'Brian really wasn't such a bad fellow, he thought. Sooner him than Adelman and the rest of those waxworks,
n
o doubt safely stowed in New York by now.
History wasn't made without taking risks, that much he knew. So maybe sometimes you had to take risks to write it, too?
O'Brian was right.
He would show them.
THEY WENT BACK out into the snow, past the Toyota and past the shuttered front of a decaying hospital: the Northern Basin Seamen's Policlinic. The wind was driving the snow inshore across the water, whining through the steel rigging of the boats on the wooden jetty, bending the stumpy trees that had been planted along the promenade to protect the buildings. The two men had to struggle to keep their feet.
A couple of the boats had sunk, and so had the wooden hut at the end of the jetty. Benches had been heaved by vandals over the railings into the river. There was graffiti on the walls: a Star of David, dripping blood, with a swastika daubed across it; SS flashes; KKK.
One thing was sure: there wouldn't be any Italian shoe boutiques up here.
They turned inland.
Every Russian town still had its statue of Lenin. Archangel's portrayed the Leader, fifteen yards high, rising out of a block of granite, his face determined, his overcoat flapping, a roll of papers in his outstretched hand. He looked as if he were trying to hail a taxi. The square that still carried his name was huge, and smooth with snow, and deserted; in one corner, a couple of tethered goats nibbled at a bush. Fronting it were a big museum, the city's central post office, and a huge office block with the hammer and sickle still attached to the balcony.
Kelso led the way towards it and they had almost made it when a sandy-coloured jeep with a searchlight mounted on its hood came round the corner: Interior Ministry troops, the
MVD. That sobered him up. He could be stopped at any minute, he realised, and forced to show his visa. The pale~ faces of the soldiers stared at them. He bowed his head and trotted up the steps, 0 Brian close behind him, as the jeep completed its cautious circuit of the square and passed out of sight.
THE communists had not been forced entirely from the
building; they had merely moved round to the back. Here I they maintained a small reception area presided over by a big, ~ middle-aged woman with a froth of dyed yellow hair. Beside i her, along the window sill, was a row of straggling spider
plants in old tin cans; opposite her, a big colour poster of Gennady Zyuganov, the Parry's pudding-faced candidate in the last presidential election.
She studied O'Brian's business card intently, turning it over, holding it to the light, as if she suspected forgery. Then she picked up the telephone and spoke quietly into the receiver.
Outside, through the double glass, the snow was beginning to pile in the courtyard. A clock ticked. Beside the door Kelso noticed a bundle of the latest issue of Aurora, tied up with string, awaiting distribution. The headline was a quote from the Interior Ministry's report to the president:
'VIOLENCE IS INEVITABLE'.
After a couple of minutes, a man appeared. He must have been about sixty - an odd-looking figure. His head was too small for his heavy torso, his features too small for his face. His name was Tsarev, he said, holding out a hand stained black with ink. Professor Tsarev. Deputy First Secretary of the Regional Committee.
Kelso asked if they could have a word.
-
Yes. Perhaps. That would be possible.
Now? In private?
Tsarev hesitated, then shrugged. 'Very well.' He led them down a dark corridor and into his office, a
little time warp from the Soviet days, with its pictures of Brezhnev and Andropov. Kelso reckoned he must have visited a score of offices like this over the years. Wood block floorings thick water pipes, a heavy radiator, a desk calendar, a big green Bakelite telephone, like something out of a 1950s science fiction movie, the smell of polish and stale air - every detail was familiar, right down to the model Sputnik and the clock in the shape of Zimbabwe left behind by some visiting Marxist delegation. On the shelf behind Tsarev's head were six copies of Mamantov's memoirs, I Still Believe.
'I see you have Vladimir Mamantov's book.' It was a stupid thing to say but Kelso couldn't help himself
Tsarev turned round, as if noticing them for the first time. 'Yes. Comrade Mamantov came to Archangel and campaigned for us, during the presidential elections. Why? Do you know him?'
'Yes. I know him.'
There was a silence. Kelso was aware of O'Brian looking at him, and of
Tsarev waiting for him to speak. Hesitantly, he began his rehearsed speech. First of all, he said, he and Mr O'Brian would like to thank Professor Tsarev for seeing them at such short notice. They were in Archangel for one day only, making a film about the residual strength of the Communist Party. They were visiting various towns in Russia. He was sorry they had not been in contact earlier to make a proper appointment, but they were working quickly -'And Comrade Mamantov sent you?' interrupted Tsarev.
'Comrade Mamantov sent you here?'
'I can truthfully s
ay we would not be. here without
Vladimir Mamantov.'
Tsarev began nodding. Well, this was a most excellent subject. This was a subject wilfully ignored in the west. How many people in the west knew, for example, that in the Duma elections, the communists had taken thirty per cent of the votes, and then, in 1996, in the presidential elections, forty per cent? Yes, they would be in power again soon. Sharing power to begin with, perhaps, but afterwards - who could say?
He became more animated.
Take the situation here in Archangel. They had millionaires, of course. Wonderful! Unfortunately, they also had organised crime, unemployment, AIDS, prostitution, drug addiction. We
re his visitors aware that life
expectancy and child-mortality in Russia had now reached African levels? Such progress! Such freedoms! Tsarev had been a professor of Marxist theory in Archangel for twenty years -the post was now abolished, naturally - so he had taught Marxism in a Marxist state, but it was only now, as they were literally tearing down Marx's statues, that he had come to appreciate the genius of the man's insight: that money robs the whole world, both the human world and nature, of their own proper value -'Ask him about the girl,' whispered O'Brian. 'We haven't
got time for all this bullshit. Ask h
i
m about Anna.'
Tsarev had halted in mid-speech and was looking from one man to the other.
'Professor Tsarev,' said Kelso, 'to illustrate our film we need to look at particular human stories -'
That was good. Yes. He understood. The human element.
There were many such stories in Archangel.
'Yes, I'm sure. But we have in mind one in particular. A girl. Now a woman in her sixties. She would be about the same age as you. Her unmarried
name was Safanova. Anna Mikhailo
vna Safanova. She was in the Komsomol.'
Tsarev stroked the end of his squat nose. The name, he said, after a moment's thought, was not familiar. This would have been some time ago, presumably?
Almost fifty years.'
Fifty years? It was not possible! Please! He would find them other persons -'But you must have records?'
- he would show them females who fought the fascists in the Great Patriotic War, Heroes of Socialist Labour, Holders of the Order of the Red Banner. Magnificent people -'Ask him how much he wants,' said O'Brian, not even
bothering to whisper now. He was pulling out his wallet. 'To look in his files. What's his price?'
'Your colleague,' said Tsarev, 'is not happy?'
'My colleague was wondering,' said Kelso, delicately, 'if it would be possible for you to undertake some research work for us. For which we would be happy to pay you - to pay the Party, that is-a fee...'
IT would not be easy, said Tsarev.
Kelso said he was sure it would not be. The membership of the Communist Party in the last years of the Soviet Union comprised seven per cent of the adult population. Apply those figures to Archangel and what did you get? Maybe 20,000 members in the city alone, and perhaps the same number again in the oblast. And to those figures you had to add the membership of Komsomol and of
all the other Party outfits. And then, if you included all the people who had been members over the past eighty years -the people who had died or dropped out, been shot, imprisoned, exiled, purged - you had to be looking at a really large number. A huge number. Still -Two hundred dollars was the sum they agreed on. Tsarev
insisted on providing a receipt. He locked the money into a battered cash box which he then locked in a drawer, and Kelso realised, with a curious sense of admiration, that Tsarev probably did intend to give the money to Party funds. He wouldn't keep it for himself: he was a true believer.