it was meant to fly up to the heavens.
‘I don’t know much about them,’ he said, conscious of a certain skittishness in his lower stomach.
‘Oh, you don’t need to worry. She’s a beauty, I fly this route seven or eight times a year. She’s always on time, more or less.’
The fur hat slapped the aircraft’s flank appreciatively as if it were a trusted charger, and its thin metal skin responded with a wobbly boom.
‘She has a top speed of nearly two hundred kilometres an hour – can you imagine? And she’ll take us all the way to Kursk in one go. We’ll be in Odessa in the early afternoon if the wind is behind us and they refuel quickly. There are sometimes delays, of course.’ The man shrugged his shoulders and Korolev nodded his understanding. There were often delays, but even the possibility of being in Odessa within seven hours was astonishing. It had taken him nearly a month to get back from Odessa when he’d been discharged from the army in ’twenty-two, and that must be more or less the same distance. He put a gloved hand to one of the struts and pulled – it seemed sturdy.
‘It doesn’t look like much,’ Korolev said. ‘I mean – to go so fast and up so high.’
‘She’s reliable,’ the hat said firmly. ‘The new planes may be quicker and bigger, but this one’s never let us down. Am I right, Antonina Vladimirovna?’
‘You are indeed, Comrade Belakovsky.’ The young mechanic smiled – white teeth flashing in the light from a lantern. It occurred to Korolev that the girl was perhaps too young for such a responsible job.
‘You should make a film about her,’ she continued.
Belakovsky laughed, revealing a pock-marked nose and a scrubby salt and pepper moustache that nestled under widely spaced nostrils. Korolev thought he recognized the fellow from a newspaper, or perhaps a newsreel, and held out his hand in greeting.
‘Korolev,’ Korolev said. ‘Alexei Dmitriyevich. Moscow CID.’
‘Nice to meet you, Comrade Korolev. Belakovsky, Igor Zakharovich. And what takes you to Odessa?’ Korolev was considering how to respond when a officious-looking woman in a thick padded coat came out of the terminal building.
‘Comrade Belakovsky? Comrade Korolev? We must weigh you now.’ She waved them towards the doorway.
‘The plane can only carry so much weight, Korolev,’ Belakovsky explained, seeing his surprise.
Sure enough, inside the terminal a pilot in a long leather flying coat was standing on some scales with a canvas postal bag in one hand and a half-smoked papirosa in the other.
‘One hundred and six kilos,’ said the female clerk, writing it into a ledger. ‘You’re putting on weight, Anton Ivanovich.’
‘It’s the post,’ the pilot answered gruffly, sucking on the paper tube of the cigarette, and Korolev was sure his voice was slurred. He certainly looked the worse for wear. At least his colleague, a younger fellow with a clean shirt poking out from his fur collar, had bothered to put a razor to his chin. Unless, of course, he didn’t yet have to shave – it was possible, he supposed. The boy was very young – but surely there would be exams and so on. They wouldn’t let just anyone fly such a valuable piece of machinery, would they?
The passengers lined up and Korolev saw that he was in privileged company. A short, round-chested officer with a general’s insignia on his collar and a cluster of medals visible underneath his open greatcoat was next in line. Belakovsky took Korolev’s arm.
‘Comrade Korolev, you must meet Stepan Pavlovich. You’ll have read his articles in Izvestia. Lomatkin – the journalist? Comrade Lomatkin, this is Korolev from Petrovka Street. A detective, I’m guessing.’
Korolev shook the hand of a thin young man, handsome in a bookish sort of way, who looked slightly nervous. Perhaps it was his first time flying as well.
The next fellow on the scales had Party cadre written all over him – a pale ascetic-looking fellow in a long brown coat that looked even more military than the general’s. He stood unsmiling, a small leather suitcase in his hand.
‘Seventy-five kilos, Comrade Bagraev,’ the weigher said. ‘Captain Korolev, please.’
Korolev walked over and took his turn on the scales, sucking in his breath. He hadn’t had time to pack anything more than his arrest bag but, still, he wasn’t a small man.
‘Ninety-one kilos,’ the clerk said, and Korolev could see the Party bigwig’s disapproval as he stepped down. It didn’t seem to matter that Korolev was a good four inches taller than him, the fellow clearly had him marked down as some sort of speculator, well fed on contraband butter.
‘What happens if there’s too much weight?’ Korolev asked Lomatkin in a quiet voice, so as not to be overheard by the disapproving Bagraev.
‘At this time of year they have to be careful with ice building up on the wings.’
Korolev looked out through the nearest window at the aeroplane and imagined it caked with ice.
‘What happens then?’ he asked and Lomatkin shrugged in a manner that left Korolev in no doubt that too much ice wasn’t a recipe for a long life.
When all the passengers had been weighed and their names checked off, the younger pilot and the clerk examined the ledger and the latter flicked balls back and forth on an abacus. Their faces were grave and Korolev felt every one of his ninety-one kilos, bag included.
‘Captain Korolev?’ a voice asked. He looked round to see blue eyes in a pale pudgy face only a few centimetres away from his own. Korolev nodded and the man held out a thick envelope.
‘Goldberg. Colonel Rodinov sent me with a package for you. To read on the plane. Please sign this receipt.’
Korolev signed with the pen the Chekist handed him and accepted the offering, feeling its weight, thinking someone must have worked like a dog to get it ready.
‘Captain Korolev, would you come forward please?’ the weighing clerk asked and he caught the tail of a smug glance from the Party bigwig, but Goldberg, assessing the situation in an instant, walked across to the clerk and whispered in her ear. The clerk asked a question, her face seeming to lose a little colour, and the Chekist nodded.
‘Excuse me, Captain Korolev, I made a mistake,’ the clerk said, her voice uncertain, and looked down at the list again. ‘Comrade Bagraev, please – could I ask you come to the desk?’
The Party boss shot Korolev a look of irritation and walked brusquely over to the clerk, his whole demeanour expressing impatience.
‘What is the meaning of this? I’m due in Kursk this afternoon on Party business of the highest importance-’ Bagraev began, but his protest was interrupted by Goldberg tugging his sleeve. Bagraev looked at him in annoyance but stopped speaking. Goldberg leant in close and whispered once again. It was interesting to Korolev to see how quickly the irritation disappeared. Bagraev’s mouth opened as though to speak and hung there for a moment, making him look like a beached fish. He darted a look at Korolev, nodded sharply to the Chekist, then turned to walk out of the building without another word.
Goldberg came back. ‘Is there anything else I can assist with?’
‘No,’ Korolev said, conscious that everyone in the building was looking at him. ‘You’ve been more than helpful already, Comrade.’
‘A pleasure,’ Goldberg said in his quiet voice. ‘You’ll be met by Major Mushkin at the airport. The colonel asked me to tell you that he expects to hear from you this evening – the major will arrange the call. Enjoy the flight.’ He touched a finger to his hat in salute and turned to leave.
Outside the fog still lingered as the passengers walked across the packed snow towards the aeroplane. At first Korolev thought the bone-shuddering noise came from the Kalinin’s single engine, but then, through the mist, dark shadows came in a line from the left, accelerating as their propellers struggled to lift them into the sky. The roar of engines felt solid – as though someone were pushing at his chest – and even Korolev recognized that the fuselages belonged to bombers. They came past, one after the other, a chain of fat black silhouettes, their propellers creating a snowstorm that forced Korolev to look through squinted eyes.
‘Come on, Comrade,’ someone shouted in his ear, and pushed him towards the plane. ‘The imperialists will think twice about attacking us now we have bombers.’
It was the young pilot, and Korolev nodded, knowing what terrible weapons such planes could carry, and followed the boy up the steps to the cramped cabin. The pilot turned and gave him a blanket from a pile.
