Child 44 (3 page)

—Your brother is dead. He’s been taken for food. Do you understand? Just as you hunted that cat, someone was hunting you. Do you understand?

Andrei remained silent, staring at his mother’s tears. In truth, he didn’t understand. He watched at she stood up and left the house. Hearing his mother’s voice, he ran to the door.

Oksana was on her knees in the snow, staring up at the full moon.

—Please, God, give me back my son.

Only God could bring him home now. It wasn’t so much to ask. Did God have such a short memory? She’d risked her life to save his bell. All she wanted in return was her son, her reason to live.

Some of the neighbours appeared at their doors. They stared at Oksana. They listened to her cries. But there was nothing unusual about this kind of grief and people did not watch for long.

11 February 1953

The snowball thumped into the back of Jora’s head. Caught by surprise, snow exploded around his ears. Somewhere behind him he could hear his little brother laughing, laughing really loudly–proud of himself, proud of that shot even though it was a fluke, a one-off. Jora brushed the ice off his jacket collar but fragments had already snuck down his back. They were melting, sliding down his skin, leaving snail-trails of freezing water. He tugged his shirt out of his trousers, reaching his hand up as far as he could, scraping at the ice.

Unable to believe his older brother’s complacency–busy with his shirt instead of checking on his opponent–Arkady took his time, clumping together the snow, handful on top of handful. Too large and the snowball became a dud shot: difficult to throw, slow in the air and easy to dodge. That had been his mistake for a long time, making them too big. Instead of having a greater impact they could be swatted out of the air and more often than not they disintegrated of their own accord, falling apart and not even reaching his brother. He and Jora played in the snow a lot. Sometimes there were other children but most of the time it was just the two of them. The games would start casually, growing more and more competitive with each hit. Arkady never won in so far as anyone could be said to win. He was always overwhelmed by the speed and power of his brother’s throws. The games ended the same way: frustration, surrender, getting annoyed, or worse, crying and storming off. He hated that he was always the loser, and worse, he hated that he got so upset about it. The only reason he kept playing was because he was sure that today would be different, today he’d win. And today was that day. Here was his chance. He edged closer but not too close: he wanted the shot to count. Point-blank didn’t count.

Jora saw it coming: a glob of white arcing through the air, not too big, not too small, just like the kind he’d throw. There was nothing he could do. His hands were behind his back. He had to admit his little brother was learning fast.

The snowball struck the tip of his nose, breaking into his eyes, going up his nose, in his mouth. He stepped back, his face encrusted with white. It was a perfect shot–that was the end of the game. He’d been beaten by his little brother, a boy who wasn’t even five years old. Yet only now that he’d lost for the first time did he appreciate the importance of winning. His brother was laughing again–making a real show of it, like a snowball in the face was the funniest thing. Well, at least he never gloated like Arkady was doing now; he never laughed that much or squeezed that much satisfaction from his victories. His little brother was a bad loser and an even worse winner. The boy needed to be taught a lesson, cut down to size. He’d won one game, that was all: one fluky, insignificant game, one game out of a hundred: no–one out of a thousand. And now he was pretending that somehow they were even, or worse that he was better than him? Jora crouched down, digging through the snow, all the way to the icy ground below, collecting a handful of frozen mud and grit and stones.

Seeing his older brother making another snowball, Arkady turned and ran. This would be a revenge shot: put together with care and thrown with as much power as his brother could manage. He wasn’t going to be at the receiving end of one of those. If he ran he’d be safe. The shot, no matter how well made, no matter how accurate, could only travel so far in the air before it began to lose shape, fall apart. And even if it hit, after a certain distance they were harmless, barely worth throwing at all. If he ran, he could finish on a high. He didn’t want his victory overturned, tainted by a succession of quick hits from his brother. No: run and claim success. Finish the game now. He’d be able to enjoy the feeling until at least tomorrow when he’d probably lose again. But that was tomorrow. Today was victory.

He heard his brother shout his name. And he looked back, still running, smiling–sure that he was out of any effective range.

The impact was like a fist in his face. His head flicked round, his feet left the ground and for a second he was floating in the air. When his feet touched the ground again his legs collapsed under him, he fell, crumpled–too dazed to even put his hands out–crashing into the snow. For a moment he just lay there, unable to understand what had happened. There was grit, mud, spit and blood in his mouth. He tentatively pushed a mitten-covered fingertip between his lips. His teeth felt coarse like he’d been force-fed sand. There was a gap. A tooth had been knocked out. Beginning to cry, he spat into the snow, raking through the mess, looking for his missing tooth. For some reason that was all he could think about right now, that was all he cared about. He had to find his tooth. Where was it? But he couldn’t find it, not against the white of the snow. It was gone. And it wasn’t the pain, it was the anger, outrage at this injustice. Couldn’t he win one game? He’d won it fairly. Couldn’t his brother give him that?

Jora ran towards his brother. As soon as the clump of mud, grit, ice and stones had left his hand he’d regretted his decision. He’d shouted out his brother’s name, wanting him to duck, to avoid the shot. Instead, Arkady had turned around directly into the impact. Instead of helping him, it had seemed like a particularly malicious flourish. As he approached he saw blood on the snow and felt sick. He’d done this. He’d turned their game, a game he enjoyed as much as he enjoyed anything, into something terrible. Why couldn’t he have let his brother win? He would’ve won tomorrow and the day after and the day after. He felt ashamed.

Jora dropped to the snow, putting a hand on his little brother’s shoulder. Arkady shook it off, staring up with red, tear-filled eyes and a bloody mouth, looking like a savage animal. He didn’t say anything. His whole face was tight with anger. He got to his feet, a little unsteady.

—Arkady?

In reply his little brother just opened his mouth and cried out, making an animalistic sound. All Jora could see was a set of dirty teeth. Arkady turned around and ran away.

—Arkady, wait!

But Arkady didn’t wait–didn’t stop, didn’t want to hear his brother’s apology. He ran as fast as he could, his tongue searching for the newly made gap in his front teeth. Finding it, feeling the gum with the tip of his tongue, he hoped he’d never see his brother again.

14 February

Leo stared up at Apartment Block 18–a low-rise, squat slab of grey concrete. It was late afternoon, already dark. An entire working day had been lost to a task that was as unpleasant as it was unimportant. According to the militia incident report, a boy aged four years and ten months had been found dead on the railway lines. The boy had been playing on the tracks, at night, last night, and was caught by a passenger train; his body was cut up by the wheels. The driver of the 21.00 to Khabarovsk had communicated at his first stop that he’d caught a glimpse of someone or something on the tracks shortly after leaving Yaroslavskiy Vokzal station. Whether that train had actually hit the boy wasn’t yet established. Maybe the driver didn’t want to admit to hitting the child. But there was no need to press the issue: it was a tragic accident with no question of blame. The matter should’ve already been closed.

Ordinarily there was no reason Leo Stepanovich Demidov–an up-and-coming member of the
MGB
, the State Security force–would have become involved in this kind of incident. What was there for him to do? The loss of a son was heartbreaking for the family and relatives. But, bluntly, it was meaningless at a national level. Careless children, unless they were careless with their tongues, were not State Security concerns. However, this particular situation had become unexpectedly complicated. The parents’ grief had taken a peculiar form. It seems they were unable to accept that their son (Leo checked the report–committing the name Arkady Fyodorovich Andreev to memory) had been responsible for his own death. They’d been telling people that he’d been murdered. By whom–they had no idea. For what reason–they had no idea. How could such a thing even be possible–once again, they had no idea. Yet even without a logical, plausible argument they had an emotive power on their side. There was the very real possibility they were convincing other gullible people: neighbours, friends and strangers–whoever might listen.

To aggravate the situation further, the boy’s father, Fyodor Andreev, was himself a low-ranking member of the
MGB
and, as it happened, one of Leo’s subordinates. Aside from the fact that he should know better, he was bringing the
MGB
into disrepute by using the weight of his authority to give credibility to this unfeasible assertion. He’d crossed a line. He’d let his feelings cloud his judgement. Had the circumstances not been mitigating, Leo’s task here might well have been this man’s arrest. The whole thing was a mess. And Leo had been forced to take temporary leave from a sensitive, genuine assignment in order to straighten the matter out.

Not looking forward to the confrontation with Fyodor, Leo took his time walking up the stairs, contemplating how he had ended up here–policing people’s reactions. He’d never intended to join the State Security Department; the career had grown out of his military service. During the Great Patriotic War he’d been recruited for a special-forces unit–
OMSBON
, the Independent Motor-rifle Brigade for Special Tasks. The third and fourth battalions of this unit had been selected from the Central Institute of Physical Culture, where he’d been a student. Hand-picked for athleticism and physical prowess they were taken to a training camp at Mytishchi, just north of Moscow, where they were taught close combat, weapons training, low-altitude parachuting and the use of explosives. The camp belonged to the
NKVD
, as the secret police was known before State Security became the
MGB
. The battalions came under the direct authority of the
NKVD
, not the military, and the nature of their missions reflected this. Sent behind enemy lines, destroying infrastructure, collecting information, carrying out assassinations–they were clandestine raiders.

Leo had enjoyed the independence of his operations, although he was careful to keep that observation to himself. He liked the fact, or perhaps just the impression, that his fate had been in his hands. He’d flourished. As a result he’d been awarded the Order of Suvorov 2nd Class. His level-headedness, military success, good looks and above all his absolute and sincere belief in his country had resulted in him becoming a poster boy–quite literally–for the Soviet liberation of German-occupied territory. He and a gaggle of soldiers from a patchwork of divisions were photographed surrounding the burning wreck of a German panzer, guns in the air, victory on their faces, dead soldiers at their feet. In the background, smoke rose from smouldering villages. Destruction and death and triumphant smiles–Leo, with his good set of teeth and broad shoulders, was ushered to the front of the photograph. One week later the photograph had made the front page of
Pravda
and Leo was being congratulated by strangers, troops, civilians, people who’d wanted to shake his hand, embrace him, this symbol of victory.

After the war Leo had moved from
OMSBON
into the
NKVD
itself. That progression had seemed logical. He hadn’t asked any questions: it was a path lain down by his superiors and he’d walked it, head held high. His country could have asked anything of him and he would’ve readily agreed. He would’ve run Gulags in the Arctic tundra of the Kolyma region had they asked him. His only ambition was a general one: to serve his country, a country that had defeated Fascism, a country that provided free education and healthcare, that trumpeted the rights of the workers around the world, that paid his father–a munitions worker on an assembly line–a salary comparable to that of a fully qualified doctor. Although his own employment in the State Security force was frequently unpleasant he understood its necessity, the necessity of guarding their revolution from enemies both foreign and domestic, from those who sought to undermine it and those determined to see it fail. To this end Leo would lay down his life. To this end he’d lay down the lives of others.

None of this heroism or military training had any relevance today. Here was no enemy. This was a colleague, a friend, a grief-stricken father. And yet, even so, this was an
MGB
protocol and this father in mourning was the subject. Leo needed to tread carefully. He couldn’t allow himself to be swayed by the same feelings that were blinding Fyodor. This hysteria was putting a good family in danger. If left unchecked the groundless chatter about murder could grow like a weed, spreading through the community, unsettling people, making them question one of the fundamental pillars of their new society:

There is no crime.

Few people believed this absolutely. There were blemishes: this was a society still in transition, not perfect yet. As an
MGB
officer it was Leo’s duty to study the works of Lenin, in fact it was every citizen’s duty. He knew that social excesses–crime–would wither away as poverty and want disappeared. They hadn’t reached that plateau yet. Things were stolen, drunken disputes became violent: there were the
urki
–the criminal gangs. But people had to believe that they were moving towards a better state of existence. To call this murder, was to take a giant step backwards. Leo had been taught by his superior officer, his mentor Major Janusz Kuzmin, about the trials of 1937 where the accused had been briefed by Stalin that they had: