The Secret Speech

them before the week was out.

One final loose end had been the Minlag camp commander, who’d come seeking a life with Fraera, as they’d dreamed, and to collect his share of her profits:

Here’s your share.

A knife dragged up through his stomach, it hadn’t been fair — she owed him her life. It had taken him a little less than an hour to die, wriggling on the floor, wondering how he’d been so wrong. Up until the moment the blade tip had entered his stomach he’d been sure that she loved him.

* * *

THE ROOM WAS HEAVY WITH ANTICIPATION. Fraera raised her hand:

— We do not follow ordinary vory laws. You once had nothing. You could not feed yourselves. I saved you when the law said I should let you die. When you have fallen sick, I have provided you with medicine. When you are well, I have provided you with opium and drink. My only demand has been obedience. That is our only law. In this regard, Likhoi has failed me.

No one moved. Their eyes flicked from side to side, each man trying to figure out what the next man was thinking. Leaning on his crutch, Likhoi’s mouth twisted into a snarl:

— Let us kill the bitch! Let us be governed by a man! Not some woman who thinks fucking is a crime.

Fraera stepped closer to Likhoi:

— Who would run this new gang, you, Likhoi? You who once licked my boot for a crust of bread? You are governed by impulse, and made stupid by them. You would lead a gang to ruin.

Likhoi turned to the men:

— Let us make her our whore. Let us live like men!

Fraera could have stepped forward and slashed Likhoi’s throat, ending his challenge. Understanding that she needed to win this argument by consent, she countered with the statement:

— He has insulted me.

It was now up to her vory to decide.

No one did anything. Then, a hand grabbed Likhoi and another— his crutch was kicked away. Pushed to the ground, his clothes were ripped from him. Naked, he was pinned down: one man crouched on each arm and leg. The remaining men turned to the stove, taking a red-hot coal from the fire. Fraera looked down at Likhoi.

— You are no longer one of us.

The coal was pressed against his tattoos, the skin bubbling. His skin would be rendered blank, disfigured so no new tattoos could take their place. According to practice, he should then be let go, exiled. But Fraera — who knew the pull of vengeance too well — would make sure his injuries left him no chance of survival. She glanced at Malysh, communicating her desire. He drew his knife, flicking open the blade. He would cut the tattoos off.

* * *

IN HER CELL ZOYA GRIPPED THE BARS, listening to the screams as they echoed through the corridor. Her heart beating fast, she concentrated on the sounds. They were the screams of a man, not a young boy. She felt relief.

KOLYMA FIFTY KILOMETERS NORTH

OF THE PORT OF MAGADAN

SEVEN KILOMETERS SOUTH OF GULAG 57

9 APRIL

THEY WERE STANDING SIDE BY SIDE, staring at the next man’s shoulder, rocking with the motion of the freight truck. Although there was no guard stopping them from sitting down, there were no benches and the floor was so cold that they’d taken a collective decision to stand, shuffling to keep warm, like a captured herd of animals. Leo occupied a space closest to the tarpaulin sheet. It had come loose, rendering the compartment’s temperature subzero but offering, by way of exchange, a partial view of the landscape as the material flapped open. The convoy was climbing into the mountains following the Kolyma highway — a surface that unrolled meekly across the landscape as though conscious it was trespassing across a wilderness. In the convoy, there were three trucks in total. Not even a car bothered to follow behind to make sure prisoners didn’t jump down and try to escape. There was nowhere to escape to.

Abruptly the highway steepened, the rear of the truck tilting down, angled toward the snow-covered valley to such an acute degree that Leo was forced to grip the steel frame, the other prisoners pressing against him as they slid down. Unable to make the climb, the truck remained stationary, teetering and ready to roll back. The handbrake was yanked up. The engine stopped. The guards unlocked the back, spilling the prisoners onto the road:

— Walk!

The first two trucks had managed to climb over the crest of the hill, disappearing from view. The remaining truck — without the weight of the prisoners — started its engine and accelerated up the hill. Left behind, the convicts trundled, huffing like old men, the guards at the back, guns ready. Set against the terrain, the guards’ swagger seemed slight and absurd — an insect strutting. Observing them through a convict’s eyes, Leo marveled at how different the guards believed themselves to be — men marshaling cattle. He wanted to say, just to see their surprise:

I am one of you.

The idea caught him short. Was he one of them? Smug with power, stupefied by State-allocated importance: he was certain that he had been.

At the crest the highway flattened out. Leo paused, catching his breath, surveying the landscape before him. Blasted by cold air, his eyes watering, he was confronted by the surface of a moon — a sprawling plateau as wide as a city, smoothed with ice and permafrost, pock-marked with craters. The lonely highway sliced an uncertain diagonal, heading toward a mountain larger than any they’d encountered so far: rising out of the plateau like a monstrous camel’s hump. Somewhere at the base was Gulag 57.

As the convicts climbed back into the truck, Leo glanced at the other two vehicles. He had to face up to the fact that Timur wasn’t in the convoy. There was no chance that his friend would’ve gotten into one of those vehicles without making contact with him, even if it was nothing more than a glance across a crowd. Leo hadn’t seen him since yesterday, passing him on the deck of the Stary Bolshevik. After that he’d been shepherded into the transit camp at Magadan where he’d been deloused, inspected by a doctor who’d declared him fully fit, assigned to TFT, tyazoly fezichesky trud, heavy labor, no limitations placed on work duties. Duly processed, he’d waited in one of the large tents erected for the arrivals, the smell of canvas reminding him of makeshift medical facilities during the Great Patriotic War, hundreds of beds crammed together. They’d agreed to find each other that night. Timur hadn’t appeared. Leo had reassured himself with various explanations: there had been some delay and they’d find each other in the morning. It was too risky to ask after him — aside from jeopardizing their cover, Leo might be mistaken for an informer. Unable to sleep, he’d risen early, expecting to see his friend. When they’d been loaded into the trucks, Leo had held back. Comforting explanations for Timur’s absence had become harder to concoct.

Leo was about to meet Lazar for the first time in seven years. Their first encounter, the moment they laid eyes on each other, was perhaps the most dangerous moment in the entire plan. There could be no question of Lazar’s hatred being eroded by time. If he didn’t try and kill Leo outright, he’d announce that Leo was a Chekist, an interrogator, a man responsible for the incarceration of hundreds of innocent men and women. How long could he survive surrounded by those who had been tortured and interrogated? This was why Timur’s presence was essential. They’d predicted a violent reunion. More than that, they’d factored it into their calculations. As a guard