The Secret Speech (16 page)

Had Fraera’s demand-the release of her husband-come before her murders, it might have been achievable. The penal system was in upheaval following Khrushchev’s speech. Regarding Lazar’s twenty-five-year sentence, Leo could have applied for a special dispensation, a dismissal or an early parole. The complication would have been Khrushchev’s renewed antireligious campaign. However, after the murders there was no chance of negotiating for Lazar’s release. No deal would be struck. Fraera was a terrorist, to be hunted down and killed irrespective of whether or not Zoya had been taken hostage. Fraera’s gang had been classified as a counterrevolutionary cell. To make matters worse, she’d made no attempt to curtail her bloodlust. In the days directly after Zoya’s kidnapping Fraera’s men had murdered several officials-men and women who’d served under Stalin. Some had been tortured as they’d tortured others. Faced with a reflection of their own crimes, the upper echelons of power were terrified. They were demanding the execution of every member of Fraera’s cell and every man and woman who aided them.

Fortunately Leo’s boss, Frol Panin, was an ambitious man. Despite the KGB and the militia launching the largest manhunt Moscow had ever seen, they’d found no trace of Fraera and her gang. Clamorous calls for their capture were answered with failure. The press reported nothing of these events, opting for celebrations of industrial statistics on the days after the most shocking of executions, as if these numbers might dampen the rumors sweeping the streets. Officials were moving their families out of the city. A surge in holiday requests had been submitted. The situation was intolerable. Coveting the glory of being the one who snared Fraera, the mantle of a heroic monster slayer, Panin saw Lazar as bait. Since they couldn’t arrange for him to be released through normal channels, without admitting the State could be held to ransom, the only option was to break him out. Panin had hinted that their project had powerful supporters and was proceeding with the tacit consent of those in charge.

Lazar was a convict in the Kolyma region, Gulag 57. Escape was considered impossible. No one had ever succeeded. Security at many of the Gulags was little more than their location: there was no means of surviving outside the compound. The chances of traversing the vast and unforgiving terrain on foot were negligible. If Lazar went missing he would be declared dead. With Panin’s help, it was a simple matter to get into the Gulag, fabricating the necessary paperwork, positioning Leo as a prisoner. Getting out, however, would not be so easy.

Vibrations raced through the hull. The ship’s bow veered to the side. Leo sat bolt upright. They’d hit ice.

Genrikh rushed forward, peering over the side. A sunken mass of ice slowly passed by, its pinnacle no larger than a car, the majority of its bulk underwater appearing as a vast dark blue shadow. The hull appeared intact. There was no shouting from the prisoners down below. No water was leaking in. Feeling sweat under his reindeer fur, he signaled to the captain that the danger had passed.

In the first voyages of the year the bow occasionally knocked against remnants of the ice mass, collisions that made an ominous noise against the aging hull. In the past these collisions used to terrify Genrikh. The Stary Bolshevik was a sickly vessel: no good for trade or commerce, suitable only for convicts-barely able to cut a path through water let alone brush aside ice. Built for a speed of eleven knots, the coal-fired steamer never managed much above eight, puffing like a lame mule. Over the years the smoke coming from the single funnel, located toward the stern, had turned darker and thicker, the vessel moved slower while the creaking had become louder. Yet despite the ship’s worsening health Genrikh had gradually lost his fear of the sea. He could sleep through storms and hold down meals even when plates and cutlery clattered from side to side. It wasn’t that he’d grown brave. Another more pressing fear had taken its place-a fear of his fellow guards.

On his first voyage he’d made a mistake that he’d never been able to put right, one that his comrades had never forgiven. During Stalin’s reign the guards frequently colluded with the urki -the career criminals. The guards would organize a transfer of one or two female prisoners into the male hold. Sometimes the women’s cooperation was bought with false promises of food. Sometimes they were drugged. Sometimes they were dragged, fighting and screaming and shouting. It depended on the tastes of the urki, many of whom enjoyed snuffing out a fight as much as sex. Payment for this transaction was information on the politicals-convicts sentenced for crimes against the State. Reports of things said, conversations overheard, information that the guards could translate into valuable written denunciations when the ship reached land. As a small bonus the guards took final turns with the unconscious women, consummating an allegiance as old as the Gulag system itself. Genrikh had politely declined to join in. He hadn’t threatened to report them or shown any disapproval. He’d merely smiled and said:

Not for me.

Words that he’d come to regret more bitterly than anything he’d ever done. From that moment he’d been shunned. He’d thought it would last a week. It had lasted seven years. At times, trapped on board, surrounded by ocean, he’d been mad with loneliness. Not every guard joined in the rapes all of the time, but every guard joined in some of the time. However, he was never offered the chance to put good his mistake. The initial insult stood uncorrected since it didn’t express a preference such as: he didn’t feel like it today but a gut reaction: this is wrong. On occasion, pacing the deck at night, longing for someone to talk to, he’d turned to see the other guards gathered away from him. In the darkness all he could make out were their smoldering cigarettes, red butts glowering at him like hate-filled eyes.

He’d stopped worrying that the sea might0 swallow this ship or that ice might rip the hull. His fear had been that one night he’d fall asleep only to wake, his arms and feet held fast by the other guards, dragged, as those women were dragged, fighting, screaming, thrown over the side, falling into the black, freezing ocean where he would splash helplessly for a minute or two, watching the lights of the ship grow smaller and smaller.

For the first time in seven years those fears no longer troubled him. The entire guard contingent of the ship had been replaced. Perhaps their removal had something to do with the reforms sweeping the camps. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter: they were gone, all of them, except for him. He’d been left behind, excluded from their change in fortune. For once, exclusion suited him just fine. He found himself among a new group of guards none of whom hated him, none of whom knew anything about him. He was a stranger again. Anonymity felt wonderful, as if he’d been miraculously cured of a terminal sickness. Presented with an opportunity to start afresh, he intended to do everything in his power to make sure he was part of the team.

He turned to see one of the new guards smoking on the other side of the deck, staring at the dusk skyline, no doubt brought outside by the noise of the collision. A tall, broad-shouldered man in his late thirties, he had the poise of a leader. The man-Iakov Messing-had said very little during the journey. He’d volunteered no information about himself and Genrikh still had no idea if Iakov was staying aboard the ship or whether he was merely en route to another camp. Tough with the prisoners, reticent with the other guards, a brilliant card player and physically strong, there was little doubt that if a new group were going to form, as it had done on the last ship, it would form with Iakov at its center.

Genrikh crossed the deck, greeting Iakov with a nod of his head and gesturing at his pack of cheap cigarettes.

– May I?

Iakov offered the pack and a lighter. Nervous, Genrikh took a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled deeply. The smoke was coarse on his throat. He smoked infrequently and tried his best to pretend that he was enjoying the experience, sharing a mutual pleasure. It was imperative he made a good impression. However, he had nothing to say. Iakov had almost finished his cigarette. He’d soon be going back inside. The opportunity might not arise again, the two of them alone-this was the time to speak.

– It’s been a quiet voyage.

Iakov said nothing. Genrikh flicked ash at the sea, continuing:

– This your first time? On board, I mean? I know it’s your first time on board this ship, but I was wondering if, maybe, you’ve… been on other ships. Like this.

Iakov answered with a question:

– How long have you been on board?

Genrikh smiled, relieved to have solicited a response:

– Seven years. And things have changed. I don’t know if they’ve changed for the better. These voyages used to be something…

– How so?

– You know… all kinds of… good times. You know what I mean? Genrikh smiled to underscore the oblique innuendo. Iakov’s face was impassive:

– No. What do you mean?

Genrikh was forced to explain. He lowered his voice, whispering, trying to coax Iakov into his conspiracy:

– Normally, around day two or three, the guards – The guards? You’re a guard.

A careless slip: he’d implied he was outside the group and now he was being asked whether that was the case. He clarified:

– I mean me, us. We.

Emphasizing the word- we- and then saying it again for good measure.

– We talk to the urki, to see if they’re willing to make us an offer, a list of names, a list of the politicals, someone who’d said something stupid. We ask what they’d want in return for this information: alcohol, tobacco… women.

– Women?

– You heard of “taking the train”?

– Remind me.

– The line of men who take their turn, with the female convicts. I was always the last carriage, so to speak. You know, of the train of men, who took their turn.

He laughed:

– Last was better than nothing, that’s what I say.

He paused, looking out at sea, hands on his hips, longing to scrutinize Iakov’s reaction. He repeated, nervously:

– Better than nothing.

Squinting in the dim dusk light, Timur Nesterov studied the face of this young man as he boasted about his history of rape. The man wanted to be patted on the back, congratulated and assured that those times were the good times. Timur’s cover as a prison guard, as officer Iakov Messing, depended upon remaining invisible. He couldn’t stand out. He couldn’t kick up a fuss. He was not here to judge this man or to avenge those women. Yet it was difficult not to imagine his wife as a convict aboard this ship. In the past she’d come very close to being arrested. She was beautiful and she would’ve ended up at the mercy of this young man’s desire.

Timur tossed the cigarette into the sea, moving indoors. He was almost at the tower door when the guard called out after him:

– Thanks for the smoke!

Timur stopped, wondering at this muddle of manners and flippant savagery. To his eye, Genrikh was more like a child than a man. Just as a child might try to impress an adult, the young officer pointed up to the sky:

– Going to be a storm.

Night was closing, and in the distance flashes of lightning silhouetted black clouds-clouds shaped like the knuckles of a giant fist.

Lying on his back in the darkness, Leo listened to the heavy rain pummeling the deck. The ship had begun to roll and pitch, lumbering from side to side. He traced the vessel in his mind, picturing how it might hold in a storm. Stubby, like a gigantic steel thumb, it was wide and slow and stable. The only section-aside from the steam funnel-that rose above deck was the tower where the guards and crew quarters were located. Leo took reassurance from the vessel’s age: it must have survived many storms in its lifetime.

His bunk shook as a wave thumped the side, breaking over the deck-a sloshing noise that carried with it a visual imprint-the deck briefly merging with the sea. Leo sat up. The storm was growing. He was forced to grip the sides of the bunk as the ship lurched violently. Prisoners began crying out as they were shaken off the bunks, cries echoing around the darkness. It had become a disadvantage to be so high. The wooden frame was unstable. The structure wasn’t secured to the hull. The bunks might fall, tipping their occupants to the floor. Leo was about to climb down when a hand grabbed his face.

With the wind and the waves, the commotion, he hadn’t heard anyone approach. The man’s breath smelled like decay. His voice was gruff:

– Who are you?

Sounding authoritative, he was almost certainly a gang leader. Leo was sure the man wasn’t alone: his men must be nearby, on the other bunks, to the sides, underneath. It was impossible to fight: he couldn’t see the man he was fighting.

– My name is The man cut him off:

– I’m not interested in your name. I want to know who you are. Why are you here, among us? You’re not a vory. Not a man like me. Maybe you’re a political. But then, I see you doing sit-ups, I see you exercising and I know you’re not a political. They hide in the corner and cry like babies about never seeing their families again. You’re something else. Makes me nervous, not knowing what’s in a person’s heart. I don’t mind if it’s murder and stealing, I don’t even mind if it’s hymns and prayers and goodness, I just like to know. So, I say again, who are you?

The man seemed entirely indifferent to the fact that the ship was now being tossed like a toy by the storm. The entire bunk was rocking: the only thing keeping it fixed was the weight of the people on it. Prisoners were jumping to the floor, scrambling over each other. Leo tried to reason with the man:

– How about we talk when this storm’s over?

– Why? There something you need to do?

– I need to get off this bunk.

– You feel that?

The tip of a knife touched Leo’s stomach.

Abruptly, the ship lifted up, a movement so sudden and powerful it felt as though the hand of a sea-god were underneath them, pushing them out of the ocean and racing them toward the sky. As suddenly the movement stopped, the velocity vaporized, the watery hand turning to spray, and the Stary Bolshevik fell, plunging straight down.