The mess steward without bidding brought him a brandy and a glass of beer to chase it.
Michael Holly and Mikk Laas sat on the floor with their backs against the far wall from the door.
Beyond the wall the woman cried, in fear and isolation.
Mikk Laas had said that it was always harder for the women. Long into the night, while the woman wept in a cell that backed onto theirs, Mikk Laas talked of escape and Michael Holly listened. Holly bled the experience of the old man.
'… The escaper is not a man who is loved in the camp.
Each time that he attempts the breakout, whether he succeeds or fails, he makes the life harder for those who have not been involved. On the morning of a breakout the camp is consumed with excitement, everyone waits to discover his fate – then the penalties come. For that reason when the escaper returns he has no friends. He is a sullen man, the escaper. Between each attempt he is haunted by the fear of failure. He prowls looking for a weakness in their defences, in their wire. When he smiles, it is because he believes that he has found again the hole through which he will crawl. The desire to escape becomes obsessional. He thinks of nothing except the height of the wire, the pattern of the guard changes, the thoroughness of the counting and the checking, the identity of the 'stoolies'. If it is not an obsession he has no chance of success. There was one of our people who was an escaper – Georgi Pavlovich Tenno – he tried to break out of Lubyanka as soon as he was arrested, then from Lefortovo when waiting for the trial, then from the Stolypin as he was taken to the East, then from the lorry that took him from the station to the camp. .. every attempt failed. It was said that he marvelled at the thoroughness of the guards' procedure. He was intelligent, an officer, yet he failed. There is another kind of escaper, a suicide. He knows that he will not break clear of them, that they will catch him and kill him. In the philosophy of the camp that is honourable. There are some – not the suicides – who will try to recruit a fellow prisoner, others who swear that the escaper must be alone. There is no right answer. If there are two men perhaps they can feed from each other, give each other strength. But there is a saying in the camps – only fools help other people. Occasionally, very occasionally, there has been a mass escape, all out and everyone out.
Once, in the Stalin time when the camps bulged, a whole compound went; they walked in a snow storm over the drift that covered the wire
… I am tired, Michael Holly, you have four more days with me. In that time I will tell you what I know, all that I know… '
Behind the wall a woman still cried.
'Thank you, Mikk Laas.'
'You listen well, Michael Holly.'
'I have the best of teachers.'
Holly rubbed the back of his hand in affection across the Estonian's jaw.
'And you have hope, and that woman believes she has nothing.'
'Have you ever cried, Mikk Laas?'
'Only when no one could hear me.'
'What could you say to her?'
'That they should not hear you cry. If they hear you then they are satisfied.'
Holly struggled to his feet. It was the first time that he had stood since the warders had brought him back to his cell from the workshop and stiffness bit in his knees and hip.
There was weakness in his legs, and he pushed himself up with a hand that rested on Mikk Laas's shoulder. When he was upright he leaned on his hands and felt the damp of the walls.
'Don't cry,' Holly shouted. His voice boomed around.
'Don't show them you are afraid. Don't please them with your tears.'
Silence.
It was as if Holly was alone in the punishment block. He sank down to his knees, and in front of his eyes were the scratches and messages of zeks who had gone before him.
'What is your name?' Holly called.
A small voice, the cry of a bird carried on the wind from past the line of a hill top.
'My name is Morozova…'
Holly heard the advance of the warder along the corridor.
There would be an eye at the spy hole. He rolled onto his side and remembered a small face trapped between the swathe of a scarf and the peak of a cap.
He did not hear the crying again that night, and when he called in the morning he was not answered.
Chapter 13
All the officers of the Zone had gathered in the Mess for breakfast. Only the young and unmarried would normally have taken their first meal in the Mess; those who had bungalows and quarters in the village would have eaten away. But word of last night's cat fight between Commandant and Political Officer had spread with speed from man to man. They must both appear at breakfast in the Mess, not to show would be to admit humiliation. And every man who had the rank to gain access to the Mess had made it his business to play the part of witness. Not every day that a Major of paratroops was raging drunk and personally supervising the beating of prisoners – not every'day that a Captain of KGB felt secure enough in his position to abuse his senior in the full hearing of company.
The Deputy Commander, the Adjutant, the guards' platoon commanders, the supervisory officers of the warders, the officer in charge of camp maintenance, the officer who oversaw camp provisions and factory materials, they were all there. They waited in a strung-out line around the central table on which was stacked bread and cereal and the coffee-pot on its candle heater.
Major Vasily Kypov strode through the door. No fool, this man. He could recognize the craving for drama. He nodded brusquely to the four corners, and seemed to curl his lip as if in disappointment that one man was not yet present.
He poured his coffee, elbowed away the steward who tried to offer him a cereal bowl. He wore his best uniform and the medal ribbons blinked in the dull room. Dressed as for a parade. There was a defiance about the old goat, the Deputy Commander thought, something that was not pretty but assuredly brave. Kypov held the centre ground and watched the door.
Captain Yuri Rudakov came into the Mess before his Commandant had drained that first cup of coffee. A great silence about him as he eased the door shut. Something blatant about the watchers now. They devoured him. Rudakov had taken to his uniform, and his boots were cleaned and his cap was worn jauntily. Rudakov ignored the food, took only coffee. He hesitated for a moment inside the circle beside the table, then seemed to stiffen and walked straight towards Vasily Kypov. Collectively the watchers bit at their breath, craned to listen.
'Good morning, Commandant… I think we'll be spared more snow today… '
'I didn't hear the radio… we can do without snow.'
They spoke with a brittle politeness. Two men who share the same lover and have met at a party.
'I have my uniform back from the cleaners.' Rudakov smiled thinly.
'Put the charge on expenses… ' Kypov felt he had m? de a joke, that the ice wall would soon crack.
'This once I will do t h a t… it won't be stained again.'
'Of course.'
'I was working late last night.'
'After… after you came into the Mess?'
'Yes. I was drafting a report of my interrogation of Michael Holly. I was going to send the report, now I have decided not to.'
'No?'
'I have decided that there should be no interim report. I 185 will submit a report to Moscow when the interrogation is completed.'
'I am sure you have made the right decision.' The relief sighed in Kypov's mouth.
'I hope so,' Rudakov said quietly, in Moscow they put great store on this interrogation.'
