'A good decision.'
'Last night I wrote a draft of what would have been an interim report, but I've consigned it to my safe. If the interrogation is as successful as I hope, then the interim report will become irrelevant.'
'I wish you luck with your interrogation.'
Rudakov looked around him. He was aware of the rampant disappointment of those who had overheard him.
'Thank you for your encouragement, Commandant.'
Rudakov offered his hand, Kypov accepted. The Commandant cuffed the Political Officer on the shoulder, the Political Officer smiled at the Commandant. There had been a public quarrel, there was now a public friendship.
But the Commandant knew who had won.
A draft report snuggled in the safe of the Captain of K G B, a report that would tell of gross interference by the camp Commandant in the legitimate investigations of Yuri Rudakov, a report that if it went to Lubyanka and headquarters would spring the trap of removal and premature retirement.
He felt the straps around him that would confine for all time his independence from his Political Officer. if you will excuse me, Commandant.'
'Of course… I hope you are correct in your forecast… about the snow…'
Rudakov turned his back on the vulture eyes and hurried out of the Mess. Those bastards would still be rotting in the camp long after Yuri Rudakov had returned to Moscow or been posted to Washington or had taken a trusted place in Berlin. Rudakov was temporary, Rudakov was going through, Rudakov was on his way and the Dubrovlag was a diversion on that journey. Rudakov was singled out for something better than the zek scum of a Correctional Labour Colony. Yet his ride out of the reach of Barashevo's claws was not certain. Michael Holly was the means.
He needed the confession of the Englishman. He needed his back to climb over.
He walked past the lines of prisoners drawn up for the roll-call. He saw the passive faces, the worn uniforms salvaged by shades of patchwork. He trod a path where the pack snow merged with the ochre dirt of the compound's sand. He went along the high wire and the high wooden wall and through the vague shadow of a watch-tower. He came to the main gate where two sentries stood with machine-pistols slung across their chests. He saw the dogs that waited beside their handlers ready to escort the prison column from the compound to the Factory zone. And he wondered. Was there not another way? That the camps had been filled by the purges of the Thirties was now explained by the Stalinist cult of personality. That the camps had been filled in the years after the Great Patriotic War was explained by the power of Lavrenti Beria, now executed. That the camps had been filled in the latter days of Krushchev had been explained by the incompetence of that First Secretary. But why were the camps still filled? Why, under the benevolence of Brezhnev, had they not found another way? It was a brief thought, and he trembled because it had shadowed across his mind.
They said a million men and women were held in the camps.
He shook the aberration from his head, and the wind whipped at him, the gusts caught at him, and through his greatcoat he shivered.
He had not known that thought before.
Rudakov took Michael Holly from the work cell of the SHIzo block and escorted him back to his office. He saw the way the man limped, the way he had tucked his wrist between the buttons of his tunic for support, the spectacular bruises. As they went past the zeks there was a growl of reaction to the hobbling, bowed prisoner.
Holly scraped a smile to his face.
It hurt to lift his free arm, but he managed a half-wave.
He saw Chernayev and Poshekhonov, thought he could recognize Feldstein in the back lines. He heard the few shouts of support that merged with the yelled orders for quiet and the calling of the names.
He had found friends.
It required a beating on the floor of the SHIzo cell to find friends, it took a mug of coffee thrown into the face of authority to discover comrades. And when he went back to his cell in the evening Mikk Laas would be waiting.
He followed Rudakov into the Administration building and he closed the door of Rudakov's office behind them. He saw the stain of coffee on the wall beyond the swing chair.
'Sit down.'
'I'd just as soon stand, thank you.'
Holly recognized the strength that had been given him by the boot and the truncheon. He would not have believed it before. Mikk Laas had explained. What can they do now?, he had said.
'Sit down, Holly… please… '
Every action, every word, should be divided into the zones of victory and defeat. The Political Officer had used the word 'please', that was victory. There could be no defeat in accepting the chair.
He saw the half-smile at Rudakov's mouth.
'Should I offer you coffee?'
'I don't need coffee.'
'Would you like something to eat?'
'I don't need anything to eat.'
'What happened yesterday, I had no involvement…'
'Should that matter to me?'
'It was on the initiative of the Commandant.'
'It doesn't concern me.'
'You have to make a choice, Holly. There is the way you are heading, there is the way that I am offering. Perhaps you don't know that the choice exists, so I will make it very clear to you. The way you are heading will keep you here for fourteen years, the way that will trundle you between the SHIzo block and Hut z. There is also the opportunity for commonsense, the opportunity of the flight home to London. The choice is clear. The choice would be clear to a child.. . '
The pain came in swingeing bursts to Holly's body. Rich, live pain and in its wake were the memories of the flailing boot and the falling truncheon. He thought of Mikk Laas from whom they had not yet stamped the heritage of Estonia, of a woman who cried in solitary and did not believe that she was heard. He thought of Feldstein who had passed on a samizdat paper, of Adimov whose wife was dying of a cancer ravage, of Chernayev and Poshekhonov who had befriended him.
'If I don't go back to the work cell I won't be able to complete my output norm,' Holly said flatly.
'I have protected you, Michael. For what you did to me in here I could have put you before a court-under Article 77- 1 of the Criminal Code you could have had another fifteen years. Can't you see what I am doing for you?'
'What happened to your investigation team?'
'They found a man, they have left… You have to think of your life. You have to think of your future. I cannot protect you for ever
…'
'Which man did they find?'
'A maniac from Hut 4, half-mad anyway, used to work at the Water Authority in Moscow… it's irrelevant… I am protecting you now. I cannot go on doing that. Are you asking me to abandon you? Are you listening to me, Holly…?'
'What will happen to this man?'
Rudakov shrugged.
'We have a penalty for murder, it does not concern you
… Think of your parents, they are old, in the twilight of their lives. They have one son only. They will die without ever seeing that son again. They will die in an agony of unhappiness. That is not my fault, Michael. That is not the fault of the Soviet people. It is in your hands to make those old people happy, Michael. You think that I am very crude, that I play to the emotions. The crudest argument is the best.'
Holly hung his head.
