his breakfast.” He nodded towards a tray which had been covered by a dish towel.
Pekkala went over to pick it up.
“Wait!” Melekov shouted.
Pekkala froze in his tracks.
Melekov stabbed a piece of goat meat with his butcher knife and raised it to his lips. With cruel precision, his pasty white tongue slithered out. Goat blood trickled down his wrists.
Pekkala watched in pleading silence.
Just before the meat disappeared into Melekov’s mouth, he gave the blade a sudden flick, which sent the little cube flying across the room. It bounced off Pekkala’s forehead, falling to the dirty concrete floor. With a speed that surprised even himself, Pekkala dropped to his knees. Snatching up the meat, he swallowed it without chewing. By the time the gristly knot of flesh had made its way down his throat, his eyes were watering. “Thank you,” he managed to whisper.
Carrying the tray, Pekkala walked across the compound. Inside Klenovkin’s office, he laid the breakfast tray before the commandant.
“There is only so much I can do for you!” Klenovkin barked at him. “If you will insist on breaking the rules of this camp and getting yourself thrown into solitary-”
Pekkala didn’t let him finish. “I need to send a telegram to Moscow.”
Klenovkin snatched up a piece of paper and one of his needle-sharp pencils, then slid them both across the desk. “Get on with it,” he muttered.
Pekkala scribbled out a message-
FIND MISSING CONTENTS OF RYABOV FILE STOP SEARCH ARCHIVE 17 STOP PEKKALA
He handed the paper to Klenovkin. “This must go out straightaway.”
Klenovkin took the piece of paper and stared at it. “But why is this even necessary? I told you the Comitati were responsible. As far as I’m concerned, the only reason you’re here is to pick out which one of them did it. Now, what I suggest you do is arrest them all and be done with it. The only telegram you should be sending to Moscow is to announce that the case has been closed.”
“I do not share your certainty, Commandant.”
“But they are the only ones who stand to benefit from Ryabov’s death!”
“On the contrary. You have made no secret of your hatred for these men. What better way to be rid of them than to kill one man and blame the others for his murder? In a single act you could sweep all of them away.”
Klenovkin smashed his fist down on the table. “I will not stand to be accused!”
As if propelled by some invisible current of air, the pencil Pekkala had been using began to roll.
Both of them watched it gathering speed until it tipped off the end of the desk and fell with a rattle to the floor.
Deliberately, Pekkala bent down, picked up the pencil, and placed it back where it had been before. “I have not accused you of anything. I am merely showing you that the situation is more complicated than you imagine. I am beginning to think that the reason for his death might lie outside this camp.”
“And you hope to find the answer in this Archive 17?”
“With your permission, Camp Commandant.”
“Very well,” he replied gruffly. “I will allow it to go through.”
When Pekkala had gone, Klenovkin sank back into his chair. His heart was beating so quickly that he felt as if he were being rhythmically punched in the throat.
Sergeant Gramotin poked his head around the door. “I heard shouting. Is everything all right, Commandant? Has that prisoner been causing any trouble?”
Klenovkin grunted. “
“I can take care of that, Commandant.”
Klenovkin sighed and shook his head. “Patience, Gramotin. The bastard is protected. At least, he is for now.”
Returning to the kitchen, Pekkala set to work delivering the thin vegetable broth known as
The soup was carried in buckets which fastened with a wooden lid and a toggle on a piece of string; Pekkala hauled the buckets on a cart made out of rough planks. Its wheels yawed on gap-toothed hubs. A horse that used to pull the kitchen cart had died of exhaustion one week before Pekkala arrived at the camp. Without another animal to take its place, Pekkala strapped himself into the leather harness and struggled across the compound, his sweat mixing with the sweat of the horse whose bones had long since been sucked hollow by the camp inmates.
Arriving at the entrance to the mine, Pekkala called into the darkness and listened to his voice shout back to him. Then he waited, hypnotized by the tiny swaying flames of lanterns along the tunnel wall.
“A message!” Poskrebyshev burst into Stalin’s office, brandishing a telegram. “A message from Borodok!”
Stalin held out his hand. “Give it to me.” He snatched the telegram from Poskrebyshev, placed it carefully on the desk in front of him, and stared at the piece of paper. “Archive 17,” he muttered.
“What exactly is in Archive 17, Comrade Stalin?”
“Old files, misplaced files, files out of order, files incomplete. Archive 17 is the graveyard of Soviet bureaucracy. The question is what does Pekkala hope to find there?”
“He is looking for the file on a man named Ryabov,” said Poskrebyshev, trying to be helpful.
“I know what he is looking for!” Stalin shouted. “I mean what does he hope to find on Ryabov, assuming anything can be located. The question was rhetorical. Do you know what ‘rhetorical’ means, Poskrebyshev?”
Poskrebyshev did not answer directly, in case that question might also have been rhetorical. He continued to puzzle over Stalin’s fixation with this dead prisoner. The discovery that Kolchak might still be alive seemed to have disrupted the order of Stalin’s universe in ways that even the outbreak of war had not achieved. It was as if Stalin had remained locked in a private war with the Tsar, even though Nicholas II had been dead for years. He would not rest until every last vestige of that defunct civilization had been trampled into dust. Of the old guard, only Pekkala had escaped Stalin’s wrath, but for how much longer, Poskrebyshev did not dare to guess, as long as this case remained unsolved.
There was a thunderous knocking on the door of Kirov’s office.
Kirov stood up from his desk and strode across the room. Opening the door, he found himself looking at a corporal of the NKVD, smartly dressed in an olive tunic, deep blue trousers, and black boots. The man’s cap was tucked under his left arm. He saluted and held out a brown envelope. “Telegram for you, Major.”
“All right,” said Kirov, taking the envelope and haphazardly returning the salute.
“Have you taken over from Inspector Pekkala, Comrade Major?” asked the corporal.
“Of course not!” replied Kirov. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s just that you’re wearing his coat.”
Kirov glanced at his sleeve and then down at his chest, as if he could not figure out how he had come to be wearing Pekkala’s overcoat. He had only tried it on to see how it felt, just for a minute, to see if it was comfortable. Kirov had often made fun of this coat, along with every other piece of Pekkala’s clothing. None of it was remotely in style, not surprising since Pekkala bought his clothes from a place just down the road called Linsky’s. Its shop window boasted mannequins with mismatched limbs, lopsided, grassy wigs, and haughty stares which seemed to follow people in the street. Kirov had known people who not only wouldn’t shop there but crossed the road rather than catch the eye of one of Linsky’s mannequins.
Linsky’s prided itself on the durability of its clothing. The sign above the door read THE LAST SUIT YOU’LL EVER NEED. This was an unfortunate choice of words, since Linsky’s was best known for providing clothes for bodies at funeral viewings. “Linsky’s!” Kirov used to announce with mock solemnity, before adding the slogan, “Clothes for Dead People!”
But when he actually tried on the coat, Kirov could not help admiring its construction. The tightly woven wool was so thick it seemed almost bulletproof. The pockets had been lined with moleskin for warmth and there were
