“Hello?”
“It’s Zhenya. I came on the train. I’m here.”
23
The Russian dead sometimes carried plastic cylinders with a scroll of paper bearing a name, rank and blood type, but, otherwise, nature had digested everything but bones and identity was a matter of conjecture. Likely Russian skulls were stacked up in the trenches and German remains piled in a central heap.
Trophies of the first day were as reverently displayed as holy relics. Tables were covered with the flotsam of war: brass cartridges, machine gun belts, aluminum canteens, encrusted bayonets, mess tins, lieutenant’s bars, a crushed bugle and half-sized, withered rifles.
Zhenya lugged a backpack heavy with a chessboard, clothes and rubber boots for wading in Lake Brosno. Arkady had brought him only because there was no alternative. Put Zhenya on a train to Moscow and he’d be on the next train back to Tver. So far Zhenya seemed to consider the dig a worthy detour, lingering at each display with fascination, the monster in Lake Brosno temporarily out of mind. He inserted a finger through a bullet hole in a helmet and stole a glance at Arkady.
Crews digging since the day before exposed a network of bunkers two meters deep and fifty meters long, taking care to keep remains whole and not detach feet or fingers. Two skeletons were found in an embrace, one with a dagger, the other with a bayonet. A tent with the front canvas rolled up was being readied for pathological examination.
All of this was preliminary to opening the ground beneath the pines, marked off-limits by a red tape on stakes 30 meters from the camp. The general mood was one of solemn excitement, and enough snow fell to add an auspicious sparkle to the day.
Big Rudi tugged at Arkady’s sleeve. The old man had polished his medals and donned a moth-nibbled army fore-and-aft cap in honor of the occasion.
“My grandson Rudi told them where to look, but they won’t put him on television.”
“It’s all horseshit.” Rudi appeared at Arkady’s other side. The biker’s fashion note was a bulletproof vest. “They’re amateurs and they resent a professional.”
“I thought you were a Red Digger.”
“Do I look like the sort of fuckless wonder who’s going to dig up dead bodies for free? If they want to play around mines, let them.”
“You don’t like mines.”
“They’re so…I can’t even find the word for it.”
“Perverse,” said Arkady.
“Yeah, that’s the word. Or mind-fucking. A landmine is just as happy disabling you as killing you. Happier. When you see your pal blow up and come down screaming without a leg, you don’t check for tripwires. You rush in to help and trip more mines and disable more men. You can’t outrun it either.” Rudy hitched up his armor and shirt to show his back, an expanse of mixed colors.
“The German spoon you found?”
“On the Internet, thank you.”
“Have you seen Stalin?” Big Rudi asked Zhenya.
“The one that skinheads talk about? I thought he was dead.”
Big Rudi patted Zhenya on the head. “He was. Now he’s back.”
Nikolai Isakov wore camos with the tiger head emblem and the red star shoulder patch of the Red Diggers. He didn’t give a speech so much as share stories of battles won and lost. In the war against terror sacrifices had to be made. But sacrifices by whom?
“Has Mother Russia abandoned her children? Or have we been led astray by a superrich elite so devoid of spiritual values that it would steal the coins off the eyes of our dead heroes? The men whose remains lie on the fields around us answered with their lives the order ‘Not one step back!’ The question is, who will stand fast for Russia now?”
Every word was taped by the television crew that had been at the chess tournament. Arkady remembered the name of the young, upbeat presenter was Lydia something. Bits of that day were filling in, although he still remembered nothing about being shot. With her raincoat and undimmed smile Lydia put Arkady in mind of a doll wrapped in cellophane. Zhenya was transfixed by a charred and twisted chessboard and pieces made of tin. There was no sign of Eva.
A visitors’ tent with brandy, cheese cubes and pistachios was set up for the television people. Pacheco waved Arkady and Zhenya in.
“It’s a hell of a combination, Stalin’s spectral visit and a new Nazi atrocity. You don’t get those opportunities every day,” Pacheco said. He and Wiley were outfitted in camos but marked by their white, unsullied hands.
“Do you mind?” Arkady speared cheese with a toothpick from a glass.
“Go ahead.”
“Thanks.” Arkady introduced Zhenya and filled his hand with cheese.
Wiley said, “We have a bit of a coup, an election eve news event that will feature Detective Isakov. We may have a genuine upset here. Isakov may be the real thing.”
“Well, he is the only candidate endorsed by both the living and the dead. I doubt you can do better than that,” Arkady said. “There are a few loose ends, though, a homicide here and there.”
Wiley said, “Those suspicions seem to be limited to you. Anyway, an image of strength is not a problem. Weakness is a problem. A mass grave is a perfect example of what happens when a threat is ignored.”
“And good television?”
“He’s catching on,” Pacheco said.
Arkady looked around. “Where is Urman?”
“Who knows?” Pacheco said. “Urman is like a genie. I think he hides in a magic lamp.”
Wiley said, “He’s impulsive. He might be a liability down the line.”
They were thinking ahead, Arkady thought. Isakov really had a chance.
“Time to cut the cake,” Pacheco said.
All work came to a halt as Diggers with metal detectors crossed the field to the pine trees. The men moved at the pace of mushroom hunters and Arkady heard one mutter over and over, “If treasure be hidden here, make the Devil give it back without shaming myself who am a servant of God. If treasure be hidden…” Wherever their gauges spiked or earphones squawked, the men planted a red plastic flag on a wire.
Zhenya wormed his way through the Diggers to Arkady and showed him the tin chess set.
Arkady said, “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to put that back.”
“Nikolai said I could keep it.”
Zhenya pointed to Isakov, who was watching them in return.
“Do you know him?” Arkady asked.
“He’s Eva’s friend from Moscow. Nikolai’s famous. He’s my friend too.”
Isakov acknowledged Zhenya with a wave and the boy swelled. The detective was growing into his role of a media hero. Lydia and a camera moved in for an interview.
“What do you expect to find here?” she asked Isakov.
“We will find Russian prisoners of war who were slaughtered by their German captors at the onset of the great counteroffensive of December ’forty-one.”
“Will the spirit of Josef Stalin then walk the land?”
“That’s not for me to say. What will walk the land is a spirit of patriotism. The heroes brutally murdered and buried here symbolize the sacrifice of millions of Russians.”
By the time the Diggers with minesweepers emerged from the trees they had no red flags left. One man balanced on his shoulder a long-nosed skull that looked like driftwood.
