Archangel

'What is ridiculous and stupid, Captain Rudakov?'

'You are an idiot to be here, you know that, Holly. It is unnecessary, it is a waste. You face fourteen years here… '

'I know the sentence of the court.'

'A man like you should not be here, you have no necessity to waste your life away here. The camp will destroy you, it destroys every man. You will be an animal when you leave here.'

'I am grateful for your concern, Captain Rudakov.'

'Are we to work together, Holly, or are we to fight?'

'I don't imagine us as colleagues.'

Rudakov drew deeply on his cigarette, let the smoke waft towards the chipboard ceiling.

'You like to be facetious, Holly. You are fond of playing with sarcasm. It is not a game that I like, it does not amuse m e… I asked whether we should work together or whether we should fight… it will be your decision, Holly. If we work together then, perhaps, you will be here for a few months, if we fight then you are here for fourteen yearsl'

'The coffee, Captain, it's foul.'

'If we work together then doors will open, the road will be clear to the airport. The flight to London, everything into place, co-operation will take you home, Michael – you don't mind if I call you by your name, and I am Yuri – it would never be known in London that you have helped us, you would go home with honour… '

'Don't they give a man in your position better coffee than this, Captain Rudakov?'

'In England you were a talented man. You have a good job, a good salary. You have no need to turn your back on that. You can return to your work, to your home, to your friends. In a few months you can be back. You do not belong here, Holly, not amongst these scum that you sleep with, not in those rags, not in a place like this camp. You understand me?'

'A child could understand you, Captain Rudakov.'

'You owe them nothing, those that trapped you, sent you here. You owe them no loyalty… you owe my country no enmity. My country has not harmed you. We do not deserve your hatred. Do you want to stay here or do you want to go home?''

Holly held the mug between his two hands, and his palms were warmed, and he looked into the murk of the liquid. He yearned to gulp down the coffee that remained, he craved to ask for more. He looked back at his interrogator.

'I'm sorry, I wasn't listening… you'll have to say that again

…'

Rudakov's body surged up over the table, his arm snatched at the collar of Holly's tunic, pulled him up from his chair. The fingers were clamped solid as if sewn into the material. Holly felt the spatter of Rudakov's breath.

'Don't play with me, Holly…'

Two heads a few inches apart. Two pairs of eyes caught in the action of battle. Holly saw the red glow at Rudakov's cheeks.

'Don't do that to me again, Captain Rudakov,' Holly said.

'A prisoner does not talk in that way to a camp officer…

I do what I like with any zek. You are just another zek.'

'Don't do it to me again.'

'You are forbidden to speak to an officer in that fashion.'

But Rudakov was subsiding back into his chair and his hand had loosened the grip at Holly's collar and he panted as if the slight movement had winded him. 'What would you do if I did that to you again?'

'When you are on the floor in the corner you will know what I have done, Captain Rudakov.'

Holly saw the anger rise, saw the clench of Rudakov's fists, saw his chair back away on its castors.

'Article 77 Section 1: striking or assaulting a member of camp administration, fifteen years to death. Remember that, Holly.'

The smoke hung in the air between them. Rudakov poured more coffee into Holly's mug. The game of persuasion did not come easily to the interrogator. He spoke like a man who uses an alien language. But the chair was sliding back towards the table, back to the closeness of conspiracy and friendship.

'Holly, it is stupid that we fight… we have everything to offer each other. You should not be here, Holly, this is a place for filth, for criminals. Within days of helping me you would be transferred back to the hospital wing of Vladimir, within a few months you would be home… think on it.

You do not have to survive the Dubrovlag, you do not have to survive anything. You can go home, if you co- operate…'

'Thank you for the coffee,' Holly said.

'Holly, listen to me, believe in me… you need me, you need my friendship… you do not have to be here. Help me, Michael Holly, help me and lean help you. Help me and you have the transfer. Help me and you have the flight home…'

The voice across the table tapped at Holly's mind. There was nothing for him to say. He thought of the latrine and the T-junction of a water-main pipe, and a hole that had been carved from the snow and frozen earth, and a screw top cover that was lagged at night, and a place that was in shadow from the arc lamps of the perimeter fences. He thought of a fighting field that was again simple, again anonymous.

'When you came to Moscow you carried a packet, a coded packet, that you were to pass to someone. Who gave you the packet, Holly? What was the agency in London, what was the name of the man who gave you that packet?

They were not very efficient, the people who prepared you in London. You can't say they were efficient, can you? The pick-up was not met. You placed the packet, you returned an hour later and because the packet had not been taken you retrieved it. Who instructed you? What were your fall-back orders? Was there another collection point, H o l l y…?'

Holly sweating, Holly who was not trained and who had laid the envelope given him by Alan Millet on the top of the wire rubbish basket beside the bench on the Lenin hills.

Holly coming back to the bench after an hour's walk that had taken him to the ski jump where the young people gathered to watch the first of the winter's athletes propel themselves into the dizzy air flows. Holly finding that his packet had not been taken, retrieving it, hurrying away, and frightened to look over his shoulder and check whether he was under surveillance. The first fear, the first knowledge that involvement was real and personal and far distanced from a glass of beer and a sandwich in a pub across the Thames.

'You had to know that you would be caught. Did they not tell you that you might be held? Do they think we are stupid? They misled you, for a year you have known that. It is a kindness to them to say that they misled you, Holly, you were their plaything. Was it a senior man who briefed you? I don't think so, I think it was a boy. Did your desk officer tell you who would collect the package…?'

Holly alone on the Underground, with an uncollected package. Surrounded by Muscovites, strap-hanging on a fast train that slid to its halts and was away again. Returning to the Rossiya and not daring to look at the men and women who stood and swayed beside him. it wouldn't even have been an important mission. They may have told you that it was, but it couldn't have been.

Would they have asked you, without training, without experience, to carry an important package? Hardly, Holly

All so fast, so dreamlike and simple, the arrest of Michael Holly. Standing at Reception at the Rossiya, asking if there had been any messages because the Ministry might. have telephoned to give timings for his meeting. One moment standing at Reception and then wafted, as if he were a feather fluttering, to the car on the kerb. Through the swing doors, and he had not registered what was happening to him until he was out into the late afternoon cold and the open doorway at the back of the car was yawning for him. God, he'd been frightened. Terrified. A locked car, a short journey of screaming tyres, a side entrance to the Lubyanka.

Nothing they could do now would be worse than the fear as the high gate fell like a guillotine behind him.

'You owe it to yourself to help us to help you. It is not betrayal, it is you who have been betrayed. You owe them nothing. I think that you know I speak the truth. What do you say, my friend?'