As the shape of a skeleton became evident at his feet, Rudi probed the bottom of the hole with a metal rod attached to a wooden pole.
“Remember that you’re not only digging up bones, you’re digging up unexploded shells, mines, hand grenades, booby traps, Molotov cocktails. Before you dig anywhere, take the rod and feel around. You do it enough, you can tell what you hit, wood, metal or glass. Every year somebody gets a big surprise. Well, we’re provoking it, aren’t we? Provoking the past.”
Satisfied, Rudi exchanged the pole for a spade and shaved the walls of the hole for elbow room. The man was a human power shovel, Arkady thought. Rudi’s friend Misha arrived with a metal detector and began sweeping the field, but not before he pointed to cars and vans arriving on the dirt road. “Diggers.”
Rudi said, “That’s okay. They had to load up with shish kabobs and beer. We got here early and the early bird got the worm, right?”
“So to speak,” Arkady murmured.
“There’s enough to go around, all skeletonized and picked clean.” Rudi scooped dirt with a short spade. “Bodies in trenches, bunkers, outhouses, you never know where. The first one I ever saw was up in a tree. I was out skiing on my own. I guess the body got tangled in the branches and the birch grew and lifted it until the body could grin down from the sky. I was eight years old.”
Men and boys streamed through the gate onto the field like an army with portable tables and hampers of food, bed rolls and tents, metal detectors and guitars. Not everyone was in camos, but it was the best way to blend in.
Arkady said, “If they don’t find anything they’re going to be very disappointed. How do they know where to dig?”
“They follow Rudi,” his grandfather said.
“And how do you know?” Arkady asked Rudi.
Rudi freed a clavicle and chose an ice pick to work around a tea-colored rib cage. “I study old war plans, maps and combat reports. I ride around on my bike and I know what to look for. A lilac bush where a house once stood. Depressions where the earth settled. Anything out of place, such as pine trees in the middle of a wheat field. Trees were a favorite way to hide a mass grave. Besides, I can feel it.”
“How big is this grave?”
“Big. Before they ran, the fucking Germans killed a lot of prisoners. Anyway, the Diggers will scratch around, work up an appetite, build some campfires, get drunk and sing songs. Tomorrow is the big day, when they dig in the trees.”
“Why wait until tomorrow?”
“Television. It had to fit their schedule.”
“Is it Fritz?” Big Rudi stared down at the hole.
“Well, Granddad, there’s no ID, medals or shoulder bars.” Rudi knelt. The uniform was brown gauze that disintegrated in his hands. “He’s not from a tank crew. Too big. They’re short and broad-shouldered because they have to be small enough to fit in the tank and strong enough to open the hatch. Also, they tend to be fried to a crisp. So, who are you?” Rudi asked the bones directly. “Are you Fritz or Ivan? Do you have a picture of Helga or Ninochka?”
“Check him for foot wraps,” Big Rudi suggested.
Russian soldiers had wrapped cloth around their feet instead of wearing socks.
“No feet,” Rudi reported. “No legs. Cut off at the knees. Not a very neat job, either. Probably blown off and then trimmed. Poor bastard, to go through that in the middle of a battle. That’s what happened.”
“What you think?” Big Rudi asked Arkady.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Go ahead,” Rudi said. “You’re the investigator from Moscow.”
“I’m not a pathologist.”
“Don’t be scared. It won’t bite you.”
Arkady squatted by the edge of the hole.
“Well, a fairly young, fit man, a little less than two meters tall. Good nutrition. The ring finger of the left hand is missing, so I’m supposing that he was married and had a gold ring. As for the legs, I suspect they were taken for their boots.”
Rudi said, “You don’t have to take the legs off to get boots.”
“You do if they’re frozen. You have to warm up the boots at a campfire. Since you don’t want to drag a body around the camp, you saw off the lower legs and carry them. Especially if they’re leather boots made to order. So, I’d say he was a young, newly wed German officer who thought he would be home for Christmas. That’s just a guess.”
Rudi said, “What a shovelful of bullshit that is. From Moscow, too.”
“It probably is,” Arkady agreed. “Tip him over. Misha detected something.”
Rudi pulled on the rib cage. The earth gave reluctantly, but the skeleton rolled away from a metal spoon on a chain attached to the cervical vertebrae. On the chain was a black spoon with a swastika stamped on the handle. Rudi rubbed the spoon with a chamois cloth. Silver shone through. He snapped the neck with his hands, freed the chain and spoon and wrapped both in the cloth. He looked up at Arkady and said, “It’s still bullshit.”
Arkady took a break. He left the hole and walked into the field to try Major Agronsky on the cell phone, only to discover the obvious, that the countryside around Tver was on the fringe of cell coverage and he had to fight waves of static. He shouted his number into the phone a few times and gave up. The major had headed the army commendations panel and Arkady wanted to ask him one question, why were Captain Isakov and his Black Beret squad denied a single medal or promotion for their heroism at the Sunzha Bridge?
Clutching his hat, Big Rudi caught up. “I want to apologize for Rudi. He’s a good boy at heart.”
“There’s no reason to apologize. It is absolute bullshit, I’m sure. Professional bullshit, the best.”
“He was taken advantage of by some bike distributors in Moscow.”
“There you are.”
“He and the Diggers do good work. It’s still important who is who.”
Arkady understood. On Stalin’s orders any Russian soldier missing in action was presumed guilty of going over to the enemy. It didn’t matter whether he was last seen bleeding to death or charging a German tank, he was guilty of treason and his family was punished for associating with a traitor. Widows lost their rations, their jobs and sometimes their children. The family lived under a cloud for generations. Rehabilitation, even sixty years late, was better than nothing. Over the years, said Big Rudi, the Red Diggers had identified and sent home over a thousand Russian dead from the fields around Tver.
He asked Arkady, “How did you know about frozen boots?”
“I don’t know. It seemed a possibility.”
“This wasn’t the only case like that.” Big Rudi pulled his face in for a shrewd study of Arkady. “Rudi says you weren’t here in ’forty-one.”
“That’s right.”
“So it must have been your father. He told you about the boots.”
“He was never here.”
“He never said his name but I remembered him as soon as I saw you. He made a strong impression on me.”
Arkady did not want to get into an argument with an elderly veteran. Some people worshiped the General. Stalin praised his initiative and willingness to pour blood like a river.
“You wanted to talk about something,” Arkady said. This was his part of the bargain.
“The counterattack was so confusing. First we were on our knees and the next we were beating Fritz to his. It was a madhouse.”
“Fortunes were reversed.”
“That’s right. That’s straight to the point.”
Not exactly, Arkady thought. The old man seemed to be unburdening himself, but of what Arkady couldn’t tell. Big Rudi kept turning as he walked, as if getting his bearings, gazing at the sky one moment and the ground the next. In a distracted way, he said, “When Fritz stalled he froze. He was in his summer uniform; he wasn’t prepared for a Russian winter. His horses dropped dead. The engines of Fritz’s planes froze solid.” The old man
