'We knew. Whether it was the Nazi or the Soviet column that we hit, the result would be the same.'
'And when you knew that, how then could you justify your attack?'
'Why do you ask?' There was a fear in Mikk Laas's voice.
'How could you justify your attack?' Holly hissed the question.
'We agonized… '
'How did you justify it?'
Mikk Laas looked around him as if for escape, but there was none, and the breath from the young Englishman played across his old cheeks, and his wrists were caught hard. He hesitated, then the answer flowed in the torrent of a cleaned drain.
'We thought we were right. We believed we were the guardians of something that was honour and courage. We told ourselves that even reprisal killings and transportation could not justify our inaction. It was an evil thing that we fought. That is not an easy word to use – 'evil' – but we felt from the depths of our hearts that if a man is confronted by evil then he must fight against it. We thought this was the only way, that without this there could be no freedom, not ever. We decided that some had to die, some who had not chosen our course, in order that one day there might be a freedom.'
'And now, what do you think now?'
Mikk Laas sighed, and his body seemed to shrivel.
'I think now that those men and women who were shot in reprisal for an action of mine died for nothing.'
'You're wrong.'
'I am not young. I have been here thirty years… '
Holly shook him to silence. Holly's fists were buried in Mikk Laas's tunic. With all his strength he shook an old man's words from his lips.
'When you were a fighter you were right, now that you are old you are wrong!'
Like a wounded rat Mikk Laas scuffled his way to the corner of the cell. His voice was a high whine. 'When I was young I knew certainty. I know that certainty no longer.'
They slept separately that night, using the full width of the SHIzo cell. The gap of concrete flooring was not bridged and both were cold in their shallow sleep.
Early in the morning, before the start of the working day, Holly was escorted back to the living zone. He was in time to join the breakfast queue, and then take his place in the ranks for roll-call, and afterwards go back to his bench and lathe in the Factory. Chernayev, Poshekhonov and Feldstein all tried to begin a conversation with Holly, but they were rebuffed. He would speak to no man until the evening.
When it was dark Holly asked Adimov to come from the hut with him. Two huddled figures on the perimeter path.
'Your wife is dying. They will not let you go to her. I will give you the chance to see her before she dies. We will go out of here together. We go out this week.'
When they returned to Hut z, there were those who saw the gleam of tears on Adimov's cheeks.
Chapter 14
In all the years that Adimov had been at Barashevo no man had ever offered him the hand clasp of friendship.
Authority in plenty, friendship in minimum, for the killer of a woman on Moscow's Kutuzovsky Prospekt. From his first days in ZhKh 385/3/1 he had fought to maintain that authority. Knife-fights, beatings, humiliations all played their part in winning for him a pedestal position that left him respected yet friendless.
In the Kitchen Adimov would never be the man who went short. In the Factory Adimov would never be the man who operated the dangerous lathe. In Hut z Adimov would never be the man who must hide and guard his possessions. Like a new stag that disputes the territory of an old antlered stud he had overthrown the former 'baron' of the hut. They still reminded him of the fight, those who wished to settle close at his side in the evenings and breathe the words they thought he wished to hear. They reminded him of the circling combat in the aisle between the lines of bunk beds when he had wrested supremacy from their former master.
A lungeing swaying fight when the men of the hut had stayed back on their mattresses with their eyes locked to the brightness of two steel blades. A wordless fight that soared to an instant climax when the silver of steel was blood darkened. The old 'baron' was now in Hut 4, a morose figure stripped of influence.
No man had ever come to Adimov with a proposition of partnership. No man had ever come to Adimov as an equal.
When he twisted his mind back over the months and years that he had been a prisoner in the camp he could not recollect any moment when he had entertained the thought of escape. He would have reckoned escape to be the final idiot fling of the suicide. He had thought only of making himself supreme over all others within the confines of the camp.
But a new man had come to their hut, a man who was indifferent to the power wielded by Adimov.
The power of the 'baron' had been eroded by that very indifference. The new man had drawn weakness from Adimov's strength, sapped his very authority. He had asked the new man to write a letter for him when no other zek in the hut could be allowed to learn that Adimov was illiterate. A new man had placed Adimov in his debt. No other prisoner in the camp could boast that he was the creditor to Adimov.
The suspicion had succumbed to confusion. The confusion had been beaten back by the very confidence of Michael Holly…
And Adimov would again be with his woman.
She was a blowsy creature, an untidy, tyre-fat woman who was warm and kindly to Adimov. In all his life she was the only person that he had loved. He thought of her on her back in the bed of the tiny room that he had shared with her.
He thought of the disease that ran through her stomach. Of course they would be watching the flat, but he could come at night. If he could see her just once, hold her, whisper some happiness into the ear of his woman who was dying.
That bugger, the Englishman, he didn't ask for much.
Wire-cutters and food and two white sheets, and three days to find them.
The 'baron' had influence. The 'baron' was the puppeteer who could tug the strings.
There was a guard, a creeping, curved-shouldered youth, with more than one year served in the M VD detachment of the camp who could be owned, manipulated by Adimov. It was the power of the 'baron' that he knew the flaws of the mighty and the lowly of the camp. There was a guard who brought sugar and chocolate to a trustie of Internal Order because the man was from the same suburb of Murmansk, a guard who in the innocence of his first weeks at the camp had compromised himself for all the time of his conscripted service. That guard would supply the wire-cutters.
There was a zek who worked on the duty rota in the Kitchen and who was behind with his tobacco payments to the 'baron', a bent willow of a man who could be persuaded to provide a package of bread and parboiled potato.
There was a boy who had come with a pale, tear-ridden face to his 'baron' to ask for protection, a boy with slim hips and cropped blond hair who would pay every rouble and kopeck that he earned in the workshop for the privilege of sheltering under the strong arm of Adimov. There were two old bastards who wanted the kid, neither would dare to touch him while he was under the guardianship of Adimov.
The boy worked in the Laundry where camp uniforms and blankets were washed, and also the sheets from the garrison's barracks.
Adimov could supply wire-cutters, a supply of food, two white sheets.
He spoke to the guard who stood beside the gate of the compound, and the hissed threat of exposure was sufficient to silence his stuttered hesitation.
He spoke to the Kitchen hand at morning exercise on the perimeter path in the half-light, and twisted his arm painfully up into the valley of his back.
