Ice Road, page 16
Leonid Vasilyevich knows he could also have been that man if someone – who was it? – had not betrayed him. Drumming. They will also drown him out. Louder are the footsteps closing on his door. Leonid Vasilyevich should act. Make a last stand as Zhelyabov would have done if he’d had the time. As Charlotte Corday would have done. He should grab a weapon. A knife. A gun. He thinks. He must act. Now. He turns.
And hears not the banging on his door but the continuation of those running feet. Going up. It can’t be and yet it is. They’re after someone else. A shout and they increase their pace. Feet stamping on the stairwell. Where are they going? He stands, expectant, and sees another vision: the executioner’s rope breaking, the body falling, limp but not in that ultimate limpness from which there can be no return and a voice, callous, ordering: ‘String ’em up again.’ He feels that he will swoon. He closes his eyes and feels the darkness descend.
‘Leonid Vasilyevich.’
It’s Milda. What’s she doing on the floor, scrabbling about? She’s on her hands and knees: she’s collecting up shards of china. His cup. He must have dropped his cup. He hauls himself upright and, standing, looks down at her.
‘Get up.’ His voice harsh. ‘I’ll do it.’ It’s always harsh these days.
‘I don’t mind.’ She smiles. She always smiles as well.
‘I said get up.’
She’s up. But not still. What’s she doing now? Why’s she reaching into the pocket of her coat?
‘I brought you this.’ She holds out a package. It is greasy and it stinks of fat.
Food. ‘Did you steal it?’
‘No. I . . .’
‘I won’t have you stealing.’
‘I didn’t steal it. It’s from my lunch.’
‘I don’t want your food.’
She holds it out. Her hand. So small and still so white with cold. That hand he used to cherish, he has learned to despise for what it does, so innocent, outstretched. Pleading.
‘Put it away.’
She keeps the hand level.
He grabs the package.
‘The food’s cold, Leonid. Let me warm it.’
‘I told you.’ Ripping off the paper. ‘I don’t need your food.’ Cold dumplings; is that all she thinks he’s worth? He stuffs them in his mouth.
She’s looking. Always looking. He wolfs the dumplings down, chewing furiously. He could vomit with the taste of them. He does not want her food. Or her concern.
‘Where are the boys?’
‘They’re with Mother. I’ll fetch them later.’
The way she looks at him. He hates her for it, for that expression on her dumpling face not of fear, which he could bear, but something worse. Pity.
How could he have expected anything else? How could he have hoped that anybody, any woman, could love a cripple? And yet he did. Before. When he was a somebody. A Party employee. Did they know how much they were taking away when they gave him back his membership but not his job?
Well, if they didn’t know, then they soon will. Since those drumming footsteps weren’t for him, he has a second chance. He will seize it: he’ll show her and all the rest. Oh yes: it will happen. He’ll make sure of it. The drums they used to drown out Zhelyabov didn’t work. As for Zhelyabov, so for Leonid Vasilyevich Nikolaev. One day he, too, will be remembered not for the job he lost but for the sacrifice he made.
‘He got his comeuppance then,’ he hears. Startled, he looks down.
She’s on the bloody floor again. What’s she doing? Oh. The stove. She’s lighting it. He says:
‘I’ll do that.’
She shrugs as she chatters on: ‘I knew they’d get him.’
‘Get who?’
‘That no-good upstairs. He beat her once too often.’ Oh. So that’s who the militia were after.
‘Didn’t you hear?’
Does she think he’s deaf as well as crippled? ‘Of course I heard. I was here, wasn’t I?’
‘Yes, Leonid,’ she says meekly. ‘You were here.’
Sometimes he wants to hit her, not for what she says, but for the way she accepts the things he says to her. And listen to her prattling on:
‘About time too. I was saying as much to Tatyana Grigoryevna. If that man’s not careful, I said to Tanya, he’ll end up killing her.’
Gossip, that’s all it is, about a man she doesn’t know and a woman she doesn’t even like. She’s the same as all the rest: while their beliefs are annihilated, they absorb themselves in tittle-tattle.
‘He was never sober, not when I saw him. I told Tanya. I said, Tanya, something ugly is bound to happen.’
That’s all she cares about: some minor domestic incident. Meanwhile, their country will be ruined unless he acts.
‘What do you think they’ll do to him?’
He knows what they will do to him. Oh yes, he knows.
‘Leonid?’
‘What is it?’
‘What will they do to him?’
‘To who?’
‘The man upstairs.’
What does he care about the man upstairs? He grabs his coat. ‘I’m going out,’ he says. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he only says it after he has already gone.
Kirov
Sometimes, when I have the time, I think about the way my life has changed and what I, Ira, have become. I wouldn’t have before. Then I never thought, I just was. Even now I ration myself. One thing I learned in the days following the sinking: too much thinking brings despair. But I sometimes let myself think about the distance that I’ve come. I don’t mean to the Arctic and back, I mean how far I’ve come in life.
It’s the deep of night. I am awake and will be until day’s dawning. It’s my job, occasional night relief, hired to sit at this table in this kitchen in Kamennoostrovsky Prospect. No ordinary kitchen this: it’s in the apartment belonging to Sergei Mironovich, member of the Central Committee, and leader of Leningrad. Our hero, that same one: Kirov.
I like it here. I like the quiet. The cleanliness. The loneliness.
I was recommended for this privilege, probably by that man, Boris Aleksandrovich, who had already changed by life, first by sending me on the Chelyuskin, and then by finding me a job with his friend Anton Antonovich. Boris Aleksandrovich hasn’t actually told me that he was the one who had also suggested me for this job, but I know it must have been him. That’s the way things work in his circles. Like an echo: first one person mentions your name and then another takes it up, and soon you are well known enough to end up on a special list where you find yourself asked to do all kinds of things that draw you closer to the centre of power. If only, in my case, to its kitchens.
I’m only called upon to do this work every now and then. Which suits me. Full-time would have been too solitary: although I like some quiet, I had more than enough isolation in the Arctic. These days I like to get about, something I manage well. I have a number of different jobs. I continue to clean at the Smolny (I don’t think I’ll ever give that up), I keep house for Anton Antonovich, and, on top of that, I come here when needs be. When the permanent staff are off.
The work’s light. The apartment is already cleaned and dark when I’m let in up the stairs and through the back door. I always come here late at night, and it’s always very quiet. That’s almost the best part. The rest of Leningrad is bursting but here everything is restrained. No neighbours breathing heavily through makeshift walls, no drunken rows, no tipsy fights outside. They’ve even immobilised the loudspeakers in the street (he practically writes the bulletins, he doesn’t need to hear them). It makes a change, I can tell you, and I appreciate the quiet – I have done ever since my time on board.
There’s not much for me to do: just stay alert in case I’m called upon. Sergei Mironovich is an important man, and a man also of irregular habits. Sometimes he sleeps through the night, but mostly he does not. He’s in so much daytime demand, I guess, that the loneliest hours are the only times he has left in which to read, smoke and generally pace about, which is mostly what he seems to do. And all this activity often makes him peckish. That’s where I come in. I provide the food and drink should he ring for me.
Tonight, so far, I’ve not been needed. I think he’s sleeping. I hope he is. He’s not been looking good of late: he’s not been very well.
I’m glad I’m not important. I couldn’t take the strain. Our leaders are all so busy: the speeches they have to give, the travelling, the meetings, the decisions and the telephone calls. From the outside it may look easy; not so close up.
There are things I’ve seen here, I’d never have guessed at. Take the speeches. Sergei Mironovich is an orator, that’s well known: didn’t we all hear, on the radio, how the delegates cheered his closing words at the Congress? I’ve also heard him talk in person, and seen for myself how well he stirs a crowd. Watching him, you would think it all comes naturally, that he speaks without a note. I certainly used to think so; everybody does. But these days I know better. He thinks before he speaks (unless he’s drunk, of course, which is another matter). I have seen him, hard at work, planning exactly what he’ll say and I have seen how, after he’s given a speech, his work goes on. Many times in the Smolny I’ve seen him standing by his stenographer (he leaves his door open: he can’t bear to be confined) as she types out what he says. He’s a stickler, changing a word here, a phrase there, checking each full stop before Pravda can print the thing.
How tiring to have to issue so many words and then rein them in. And Kirov’s showing the strain. When first I came across him (by which I mean when he first passed me while I was cleaning in the corridor), he was vigorous. Sure of himself, an outdoor type who liked nothing better than to hunt or climb mountains. A real daredevil, he even pilots his own aeroplane, when they let him. But now something’s wrong. He’s lost his zest, and so, it seems, has his wife, Marya Lvovna, who spends more time in sanatoriums than she ever does at home. She’s in one, her third this month, at the moment.
A problem in their marriage? No – in my opinion, it’s not the marriage, it’s the calls.
He has five telephones on his desk – two ordinary ones, one direct line to the Smolny, one Red Star for conferences, and the one that causes most of the trouble – the hot line to the Kremlin. The calls he gets on that: they dog him day and night. In fact this shift has only been restful because the telephone has been still. I hope it will continue so – let the poor man sleep.
It’s been so quiet, in fact, I’m safe to leave the kitchen. Not for the outside (I’d wake the guards and they can be touchy when roused) but for the rest of the apartment. I sit in the kitchen if he’s up (it wouldn’t do to get in his way) but if he’s not, if he’s safely tucked up in bed, I like to walk about. It does no harm and, besides, I reckon that if you can survive the Arctic and better yourself in the process, then it’s worth taking the occasional risk.
I don’t go anywhere I shouldn’t, or look in private places. I just wander around and look. That’s what I’ve always liked to do: I like to look.
They keep a light on in the hall, so it’s easy to find my way. I have a route I mostly stick to. Out of the kitchen, past the new refrigerator they brought all the way from America, and down the hall to my left, his special room.
No politics here. Something better: an aquarium. I like to stand in front of it, watching mirror carp weave their way around as if they’re really going somewhere. They calm me down, and then, when I’ve had enough, I do a quick inspection of the rest of the room. There’s a billiard table – Chinese – and, in pride of place, the things that don’t much interest me but which Sergei Mironovich himself values – his work bench with his tools. He’s a practical man: he likes to make things and to fix them too. Even though tools do nothing for me, I admire Sergei Mironovich for his hobby (I’m not the only one. It’s what gives him his popularity – the fact he’s so down to earth). Would have been a workman in another life, I guess, if, that is, he believed in another life.
After the workroom, I double back on myself, making my way down the corridor and left again into the living room.
His books. I love the sight of them. So many, so neatly packed. He’s a big reader. He has book cabinets all the way up to the ceiling, and he also keeps bringing more from the Smolny. He reads them, secretly it looks to me, when things are really bad.
I don’t get much time for reading but I like to keep in practice. Now I walk along the shelves, reading off the names. I don’t pick up the books (I think he’d notice, I’m sure somebody else would) but even so, I can admire them, can’t I?
Makes me feel good to be close to so much knowledge. Having never had books around me, now I’m surrounded, what with this job and with what I have at my new home, Anton Antonovich himself being a keen reader. Although these books can seem more attractive since they’re not mine to dust.
I look at the books and then I do the thing I really like to do. I slip off my slippers. My socks as well.
I walk forward and soon I am standing on it. It’s warm no matter what the weather. And soft. Luxurious. I look down. Even in the semi-darkness it shines out white – this polar bear pelt he uses as a rug.
We presented it to him (not me, of course, the collective we, our expedition), and every time I’m here, I like to pay my tribute. Don’t ask me why. I’m not moved by those other dead things, eagles, foxes, pheasants, and all manner of other birds, framed and glassed-in trophies of Kirov’s shooting expeditions that adorn the walls. In my view, there’s something boastful about all that stuffed, dead meat. But for me, the pelt is different. Its power reduced, it’s so small, and so unthreatening, compared to the fury of the animal in the wild, but it pleases me. I love to touch it. It reminds me of that other time which I sometimes believe I dreamed up.
I stand on the rug and try to bring it back. But there’s nowhere like the Arctic for nothingness. That’s what I most remember. That landscape in black and white. That solitude. Nothing to hear, nothing to smell, nothing to do. Strange how hard it seemed then, how tempting now.
I may have changed, though, especially in my circumstances, but longing for that time that nearly killed me will never do. Off the rug.
It’s late. I yawn. I go over to the window. I often do this, just to stand. That’s all. I like the view of the gardens opposite.
I think about my new life. Not about my ex-husband who weaves his drunken way into our apartment every now and then to insult me. I don’t waste time on him. The person I most often find myself thinking about is that man: Anton Antonovich.
Is it love? Not likely. Even if Anton Antonovich were on the hunt for love, I would hardly be the woman to supply it. But I have been known to slip into his bed. Why not? He’s gentle and he’s grateful (and I have needs as well) and we both make sure that what happens there, between the sheets, stays there. Easy come; easy go. No more than that.
Although, if I was going to be really truthful, one of the reasons for my occasional sex with Anton Antonovich is to annoy the child.
It’s not as if I have anything big against Anya. She’s hard, but so what? Life has been hard to her. In truth, I admire her spirit. She’s fierce that one, a true survivor; she’ll go far and she deserves to. But knowing this doesn’t stop me from wanting to annoy her.
It’s not the way she looks at me, with those narrowed eyes of hers, that stern impatience, as if she were the adult and I the child. That kind of witchcraft might work on a sensitive soul like Anton Antonovich, but not on me. What I most detest is not the way she looks at him, but the way he looks at her.
There’s so much gentleness in his regard and so much longing. He’s an innocent, without a clue as to how someone like Anya will despise him for his need of her. That’s why I give him my body: to shift the balance and to toughen him up as well. Another example, you might say, of my political education on the Chelyuskin paying off: ‘from him according to his ability, to him according to his needs’.
That thought makes me want to laugh.
But wait. Was that a movement in the dark? Can’t be: it’s far too late. I press my nose against the cold window. I love the cold (my husband says that the Arctic froze my blood and I will never warm it up again). I could be out there now, but not anybody else, surely not?
Down in the street the lamps are dimly lit, blearing yellow in the darkness. It’s snowing, thick flakes curling down, and the streets are virgin white, no tracks even. It’s all empty and all very quiet. Nobody there.
I shouldn’t be here in this room. I might get caught.
The telephone’s ringing. Pealing loud. I should have known it would: not a night has passed recently when it hasn’t rung. Ring ring. On and on. It’s not one of the links to the Smolny or any of the other lines (Sergei Mironovich’s temper is enough to ensure they stay mute at night) but the vertushka: the special telephone. Which means it’s never going to stop, not until it has been answered. For this telephone is connected to our leader’s chambers. Our highest leader in the land. Our boss – Kirov’s boss – Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin himself – and he expects an answer.
No need to call Sergei Mironovich. He’s already up. I hear the bedroom door wrenched open. I step back. My slippers. Mustn’t leave them here. I grab them up, socks and all, before beating a fast retreat.
Not a moment too soon. Kirov’s out of the bedroom. He finds it hard to sleep and hard to wake as well. I can hear him make his stumbling way in the direction of the ringing telephone. I know it would be better if I could have been in the kitchen when he picks up, but I also know I won’t manage it. He’s too close: he’ll hear me. No choice. I stop. Now I must make sure not to move again, until this is over.
‘Hello?’ I hear his voice, thick with sleep.
I still my breathing.
A pause. ‘No, Koba.’
It is his Stalin then . . .
‘. . . not dreaming. But, yes, I was asleep.’
Another pause, this one much longer, and at its end what comes out of Sergei Mironovich’s voice box is a strange rumbling. Like a winding of his chest, a closing of his throat. A laugh, I guess, even though it sounds more like a death rattle. Which is understandable, when you’re pulled from your deepest sleep to listen to a joke.
