The Beast in the Red Forest (12 page)

Having reached the safe house, Pekkala stopped next to an opening in the wall which had been camouflaged with the tattered remains of a German army blanket. He pushed aside the frozen wool and ducked inside, followed by Kirov a moment later.

They found themselves in what had once been a root cellar. The air was still and damp.

After climbing a ladder, they emerged on to the ground floor of the house. It was dark until Pekkala lit a match and then a soft glow spread around the room, revealing a table in the centre, surrounded by an assortment of dilapidated chairs. Against the walls, Kirov saw a crumpled heap of discarded clothes which the former occupants had used for bedding. Some were made from the dull field grey of German army cloth, others from the strange pinkish brown of Russian uniforms and one, which had either been riddled with bullets or else chewed by rats, Kirov couldn’t tell which, bore buttons crested with the double-headed eagle of the Tsar. He could almost hear the lice scuttling along the seams. The place smelled of sweat and tobacco, and the exhausted air felt heavy in their lungs.

Pekkala found an oil lamp resting on the windowsill. He lit the wick and carried the lamp over to the table.

Kirov looked around the dingy room. ‘You call this the best place in town?’

‘You’re welcome to find someplace else.’

There was no arguing with that. ‘And you think we will be safe here?’ he asked.

‘We used this as a hideout during the entire occupation. Every building on this street was searched at one time or another, but this one they left alone.’

‘But why?’

‘The owners died of typhus.’

‘Typhus!’ exclaimed Kirov. ‘We should get out of here immediately!’

‘Relax,’ Pekkala told him. ‘This house has saved more lives than it has taken.’ He picked a coat off the pile and spread it on the floor. Then lay down on it and pulled another coat on top of him. ‘Now get some sleep. Tomorrow you will meet the Barabanschikovs.’

Reluctantly, Kirov sat down with his back against the wall. In spite of the cold, he set his heel against the pile of dirty clothes and pushed them all away.

For a while, he sat there, hugging his ribs and listening to the storm howl down the chimney. He felt pain where the bullet had gone in, as if some small, persistent creature was gnawing its way through the scar. Leaning over to the lamp, he doused the light. Blackness crowded in around him. ‘I suppose there is nothing to eat?’ he asked.

He received no reply. Pekkala was already asleep.

Just before dawn, Pekkala awoke with a start. He sat up and looked around. The first grey slivers of dawn showed through cracks in the boarded-up windows.

On the bare floorboards beside him, Kirov lay curled in a ball and shivering in his dreams.

Rising to his feet, Pekkala picked up one of the coats and draped it over Kirov. Then he climbed down into the root cellar, pushed aside the blanket and stepped out into the ditch which had been dug along the edge of the house.

His first breath was like pepper in his lungs.

It had snowed in the night. Even the ruins looked clean.

Through eyes bloodshot with fatigue, Pekkala stared over the edge of the ditch, past the jungle of white-dusted grass to the alley where he had almost lost his life the year before.

Pekkala had lived among the partisans for several months before he made his first visit to Rovno, in order to rendezvous with Barabanschikov at the safe house. He had nearly made it there when he accidentally turned down the wrong side street and found himself in an alleyway which was blocked off by a pile of broken furniture. As Pekkala paused, trying to get his bearings, a man appeared from behind the makeshift barricade. From his black uniform with its silver buttons and a soft cap with shiny patent leather brim, Pekkala knew he was a member of the Ukrainian Nationalist Police. This paramilitary group consisted of Russian collaborators, tasked by their German masters with rounding up anyone who posed a threat to the German occupation. They had a reputation for summary brutality, particularly against those suspected of being partisans.

‘Stop!’ shouted the man. He wore round glasses, balanced on a long, thin nose. Beard stubble made a blue haze under his pasty skin. To Pekkala, he looked a like a big, pink rat. ‘Papers!’ he barked as he advanced upon Pekkala, one empty hand held out and the other one gripping a revolver.

Pekkala thought about running, but he knew he’d never make it to the end of the alleyway before the rat man gunned him down. On the orders of Barabanschikov, Pekkala did not carry a gun of his own. There was no possibility of shooting his way out of police custody and the mere possession of a gun was grounds for immediate execution. The only thing Pekkala carried was an old switchblade, its dull iron blade stamped with the maker’s mark of Geck in Brussels, and the stag-horn grips worn almost smooth from years of use. It had been old even when Pekkala spotted it one Sunday afternoon laid out on a table in the market across from his office in Moscow, along with a leather cigar case, a wallet made from crocodile and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses; the mute companions of some traveller’s life now finished with his journey. Tucked deep in his pocket, with the policeman’s revolver only inches from Pekkala’s forehead, the knife was useless to him now.

With no choice but to play the role which Barabanschikov had taught him as a cover, Pekkala pulled a crumpled identity book from the top right pocket of his shirt. The paper was soggy from the rain. The book was real, but it had been altered to fit Pekkala’s physical description. Knowing that the alterations wouldn’t pass close scrutiny, Pekkala struggled to keep his hands from shaking as he held out the book to the policeman.

The man plucked the book from Pekkala’s hand and opened it. ‘Name?’

‘Franko,’ replied Pekkala. ‘Oleksandr Franko.’

‘It says here you are a leather tanner.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Show me your hands.’

Pekkala held them out, palms up.

The rat man tilted his head back, peering out from under the brim of his hat. ‘My uncle was a tanner and his hands were always stained.’

‘The tannery is closed.’

‘And you’re from Rovno?’

‘No. From Zoborol.’

‘Well, as it happens, so am I.’ The policeman brought his gun closer, until the barrel nudged against Pekkala’s cheek. ‘I know everyone in that village, but I don’t know you, Oleksandr Franko.’

Slowly, Pekkala raised his hands, suddenly conscious of his appearance – the hand-carved toggles on his coat and the dirty, twisted strings which fastened them, the wooden-soled shoes fixed to their leather tops with carpeting nails, the knees of his trousers patched with sacking cloth. Dishevelled though Pekkala was, he looked no different from most people in this town, for whom the war had cut off all vestiges of the life which they had once taken for granted.

The man nodded towards the barricade. ‘Go on.’

Pekkala squeezed past a broken chest of drawers and, a few minutes later, found himself in the front hall of a small municipal station which had been taken over by the Nationalist Police.

Sitting at a desk was an officer, his grizzled, unwashed hair piled up like ashes on his head. He demanded Pekkala’s identity book, glanced at it and slapped it shut. ‘Put him in the cell.’

‘But there’s no room,’ the rat man protested.

‘Then cut parts off until he fits,’ growled the officer, ‘and when you get back, I want you to take this identity book over to the German garrison and have Krug check it over.’

‘It isn’t right, I can tell you,’ said the rat man. ‘I mean, it’s real but . . .’

A withering stare from the officer choked the words off in his throat. ‘Just do what I tell you to do.’

The rat man grabbed Pekkala by the collar of his coat and, without searching him, led his prisoner down a corridor to a cell already so crowded that those in the middle had to stand. Fear clawed up his spine as he recalled the convict train on which he had travelled to the gulag of Borodok. He thought of the convicts who had died on their feet, their eyes cataracted with frost. The walls seemed to ripple with the faces of the dead and he heard again the sound of wheels clacking over the tracks.

A woman crouched against the concrete wall made a space for Pekkala. In the glare of a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, Pekkala saw lice, tiny and translucent, scuttling across her scalp.

An hour later, footsteps sounded in the corridor and the rat-faced man appeared, swinging a wooden truncheon by its leather cord. He swung open the barred metal door.

Instinctively, the people in the room lowered their eyes. But one man, standing near the front, was not fast enough.

The rat man raised his truncheon and brought it down on the top of the prisoner’s skull.

The prisoner’s legs buckled as if a trap door had opened beneath his feet. He fell face down and blood began to spread across the floor, reflecting the light of a single bulb, which blazed in its wire cage on the ceiling. The occupants of the cell shuffled back from the creeping red tide, the heels of their shoes clicking dryly over the concrete.

The policeman stepped over to Pekkala. Ignoring the puddle of blood, he tracked red footprints across the floor. ‘Krug doesn’t like the look of your pass book. He said it had been altered, which I could have explained to him myself. Instead of that, I had to go all the way down the street to the German garrison and show them my own damned identity book so that I could get inside the building and be told what I already know!’

‘Rusak!’ shouted a voice from down at the end of the corridor. ‘Bring him here!’

Now Rusak took Pekkala by the arm and hauled him out into the corridor. He marched Pekkala past an empty cell where two policemen, stripped down to their shirts and with black braces stretched over their shoulders,  sat cleaning their revolvers using handkerchiefs dipped in an ashtray filled with gun oil.

In the front hallway, the ash-haired officer was standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets, looking up at the rain which had just begun to fall. ‘Who are you?’ he asked Pekkala, without bothering to turn around.

Pekkala did not reply.

‘That’s what I thought,’ whispered the officer, as he stepped aside to let them pass.

Rusak pushed Pekkala ahead of him.

Pekkala gasped in a lungful of clean air as he staggered into the street. ‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked.

‘To a bigger cell,’ Rusak answered. ‘That other place is too crowded. That’s all. It’s nothing to worry about.’

It was those last few words which made Pekkala realise that everything he had just heard was lies. Now his heart pulsed in his throat. His breathing came shallow and fast.

Rusak walked him across the street and down an alley between two rows of buildings. The alleyway was bordered by high brick walls on either side. Coal dust lined the path, glittering in the damp air.

Rusak walked behind him, splashing through puddles in the alley.

Shivering as if he were cold, Pekkala put his hands in his trouser pockets. In his right hand, he took hold of the switchblade.

‘Chilly today, isn’t it?’ asked Rusak. ‘Well, don’t you worry, pal. You’ll soon be warm again.’

As Rusak spoke, Pekkala heard the unmistakable rustle of a pistol being drawn from its holster. In that moment, Pekkala stopped thinking. He pulled the knife out of his pocket, pressed the round metal button on the side, releasing the blade, and swung his arm around.

Rusak had no time to react. The knife struck him on the side of the head and the blade vanished into his temple. The rat man’s face showed only mild astonishment. His right eye filled with blood. He dropped the revolver, took one step forward and then fell into Pekkala’s arms.

Pekkala laid him down. Then he set his boot on Rusak’s neck, pulled out the blade and wiped it on the dead man’s coat. For a moment, Pekkala waited, watching and listening. Satisfied that they were alone, he folded the blade shut and returned the knife to his pocket.

He took hold of Rusak by the collar of his tunic and dragged him down the alley. Rusak's boots laid a trail though the glittering black coal dust. Ten paces further on, Pekkala came to a place where the brick wall was recessed, forming a space like a room with three sides and no roof. Judging from stains on the brick, the space had once been used to store garbage ready for collection. Now it was filled with half a dozen bodies, some soldiers and some civilians. They had all been shot in the back of the head and piled on top of each other. Their faces were shattered, the corpses wet from the rain.

Pekkala dumped Rusak on the pile. Then he took a few steps backwards, as if expecting Rusak to rise from the dead, before he turned and ran.

At the safe house, he met up with Barabanschikov. It turned out that the partisan leader had also been stopped at a police roadblock on the other side of town, but had managed to talk his way out of it.

‘You ran into the wrong people, that’s all,’ said Barabanschikov. ‘It was just bad luck that you were arrested.’

‘Maybe so,’ replied Pekkala, ‘but I’ll need more than luck to survive.’ From that day on, he carried the shotgun in his coat.