Kolymsky Heights (20 page)

The church was not locked and he followed her inside. In the blackness a tiny point of red wavered above the altar. She led the way there, groping along the aisle. ‘There are candles somewhere.’

He heard a rattling. ‘Here. And they make a charge. Put a few coins in the box. I have no money.’

He lit the candle with his lighter and searched his pockets. ‘All I have –’ he peered, ‘ – a note.’

‘They won’t complain,’ she said dryly, and took the note off him. ‘Incense,’ she said, sniffing. ‘That’s what they spend money on! Well now, Nikolai Dmitrievich, I have an apology to make to you.’

‘An apology? For what?’

‘An attitude you might have found – incorrect. Perhaps unfriendly, even racialist. Do not mistake my mother’s attitude for my own. There is no trace of racialism in me.
Quite the contrary. I have profound respect for all the peoples of the north. The fact is, I was not sure who you were − even if you were a Chukchee at all.’

He stared at her.

‘What else could I be?’

‘Well, you could have been something else. You know we have few strangers here, a security area. But a few weeks ago we did have one, in Green Cape. A Korean seaman, very ill; I took him off his ship to Tchersky hospital. I thought you resembled him.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘You have a seaman in hospital, and think I –’

‘He isn’t. He recovered and went away, to Murmansk, to rejoin his ship. But there were certain things about you – your accent, for instance. It didn’t sound to me Chukchee … In short, it’s why I brought you here. These people would know, of course, and I trust them.’

He flashed his smile. ‘Well, I hope Viktoria Eremevina’s guarantee is good enough. I don’t remember my birth personally, but she was there!’

‘Yes, I know. But understand my grounds. Even now the people here say you have some other accent – maybe a little like Evenk. It’s what I thought myself, and it puzzled me.’

‘Well, my friends are Evenk, it’s true. And my own language – I mainly lost it in Novosibirsk. Without even speaking Russian properly. I’m a mess, I know.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, a little more warmly. ‘But I wanted this opportunity to apologise, and to tell you not to be alarmed if the police question you.’

‘The police?’

‘As the medical officer for the district I must report any stranger I cannot vouch for absolutely. But there’s nothing to worry about. They will simply check over your background –’ She frowned at his expression. ‘Is there something you have not told me?’

He was silent, staring into the candle.

‘Nikolai Dmitrievich,’ she said, ‘speak in confidence. know there are people here who don’t want their affairs looked at too closely. Particularly drivers. Matters to do with women, things of that nature … It’s why they’re here. I don’t report such things.
Is
there something?’

‘Well, in confidence … There is. A woman, yes.’

‘Then have no fear. The police won’t tell her – they don’t bother with that.’

He was silent some moments longer.

‘Can I trust you further?’ he said softly.

‘If it’s not of a criminal nature, of course.’

‘It’s not criminal,’ he said. ‘But I’m not Khodyan. All that I’ve said of my life – the broken background, Novosibirsk – all that is true. Yet I’m not Khodyan. In Novosibirsk I knew Khodyan.
His
father was the schoolteacher. We were friends, and we became drivers together. But he was unsettled and went back north, to Magadan. Then this year – this summer, just a few months ago – we met again, at Batumi on the Black Sea. He wanted to stay there, and lose his identity. An affair of the heart, a girl he wished to marry. And he already had a wife and children! So, we exchanged papers. It was crazy, I know – although at the time it seemed a joke! But that’s it, and I can’t have the police searching through papers.’

She stared at him. ‘But this is a lunatic thing,’ she said. ‘If they had to investigate you for any reason – a driving accident, anything – they would soon discover the truth.’

‘How?’

‘I’m not a policeman. But fingerprints?’

‘What fingerprints? I have done nothing wrong, ever.’

‘And Khodyan?’

‘The same. I would swear to it.’

‘Then what have you to fear from an investigation, either as Khodyan or – whoever you are?’

He lowered his eyes.

‘Well. There is still something else, something very upsetting. Khodyan drowned. He drowned there at Batumi,
a tragic accident. And he is buried there. Under my name! It upset me deeply. The authorities informed my parents – that I was dead. And also – also this other woman I mentioned to you. What was I to do? I couldn’t go back to Novosibirsk. I was dead! Or to Magadan – where Khodyan was known? Also I couldn’t stay at Batumi. He was known there too, Khodyan. And I had his papers. So in the end … Ponomarenko, who knew all this – the three of us had teamed up together – Ponomarenko said I should come up here for a bit, take his apartment, his job, until I’d sorted myself out. And that is the whole truth, I swear to you!’

She looked at him a long time in the candlelight.

‘Well, you made a good impression on your comrades, at any rate. As well as here. But this is an insane thing you did!’

‘Yes. I’m a fool. I think I have always been a fool,’ he said sadly. ‘But not bad! If I could convince you of that, Tatiana Petrovna!’

She pursed her lips and moved down the aisle with the candle.

‘You will not submit me for police investigation?’

She blew the candle out and set it on a bench and opened the door. ‘I must think about this.’

‘You know I am not a bad man!’

‘Look, Nikolai Dmit – What do I call you now, anyway?’

‘Kolya?’ he said, smiling anxiously.

‘All right, Kolya. I have a responsible function here, a trusted one. People trust me.’

‘Then trust
me
. You know me now. You have examined me – every part of me,’ he said, smiling more widely. ‘Tell me … do I have a murmur?’

‘No.’ Her own faint smile came on. They crunched down the path together. ‘I had to restrict your movements, in order to – Well, never mind. But it’s true you are very tired and need a few days off. Hand that form in on Monday. And we’ll leave early tomorrow. No church!’

‘Thank you. I know I can do with a rest.’

‘And while having it – your eagerness for the collective. It was the Evenks you wanted there, wasn’t it?’

‘They have always been my friends.’

‘A secretive man.’ Her smile remained. ‘And I can understand why now. But I was right to have my suspicions.’

‘I hope you didn’t mention them to anyone else?’

‘Of course not. I rely on my own judgment.’

‘Yes. I see why it is so respected. May I mention how much I admire you, Tatiana Petrovna – your thoroughness, your observation … among other things?’

She glanced at him swiftly. ‘You can mention that I observed five bunches of flowers – if asked. You will be asked. But thank you, anyway … Kolya.’

They went into the house, and he was asked, and mentioned the flowers, and they took tea with the old lady and went to bed.

And then all that was over, and only the events of tomorrow remained.

It was a long time since he had done anything of the kind. But he had gentled her, he had disarmed her; she would give no trouble. And she had told nobody.

He undressed and got into bed. There was still the question of Murmansk, whether inquiries had come from there. He would ask her. Also whether she had written into his record the ban on long-distance driving. She had been writing something, not only the sick-note. He would ask that, too.

And the letter to the collective. Had she written it? Not that he any longer needed a letter. They knew him now in this place, Panarovka. He would come up for her funeral, perhaps … They would take him to the collective, he would meet the Evenks; go out with them to the herds, see this headman Innokenty.

Yes, it was shaping up.

He blew the light out and lay back. He had better do the driving himself tomorrow. He could stop where he wanted then, and do what he had to …

He had a sudden image of the Little Ghost river winding in the moonlight. He would need a spot to overturn the car afterwards; a broken neck had to be explained. He thought it over for some minutes and then stopped and eased himself down in the featherbed. There were plenty of spots, and there would be no problems. Yet he slept badly.

They were out at nine, still in the dark, despite ructions from the mother. ‘No, I am too busy this time,’ Komarova told her impatiently, and handed out perfunctory kisses. He received one himself from Viktoria, and shook hands with the old lady.

‘Let me drive,’ he said, at the car. ‘I am quite relaxed today.’

‘No, I don’t like to be driven. And get in quickly. She will send Viktoria out on some nonsense. Anything to delay me!’

He got in, and the reliable little bastard started immediately. Well, some other way …

She took off down to the river, and drove carefully on to it. ‘It’s even more slippery this morning – last night’s low temperature.’

This was true. In the headlights the river ice had a greasy sheen. He knew he had only about twenty minutes on it, twenty-five at the most, if she drove slowly.

‘Drive slowly,’ he said. ‘There were many sharp bends I noticed on the way in.’

‘I know them. And I trust myself more at the wheel than you. Your hands are shaking.’

‘Perhaps I am tireder than I thought.’

‘You are. You need your rest.’

‘Well, sometimes the patient isn’t the best judge.’

‘He never is. The drivers try and fool me – particularly after sick bay, when they want the long-distance jobs.’

‘Yes. Did you write it in my record – that I can’t drive long distances any more?’

‘I did. But I can change my mind,’ she said, the slight smile appearing.

Yes, but you won’t, he said silently. They had gone a
kilometre. He decided to give it another eight, perhaps nine; halfway between the village and the Kolyma. He kept his eye on the clock.

‘Are you watching my speed?’

‘No. I didn’t know I was doing it. A habit of the job.’

‘Of the “boats”?’ She smiled again.

‘Yes. The boats … This seaman you mentioned, the Korean. You thought I looked like a
Korean
?’

‘Just a look. He had more hair than you.’ She glanced at him, still smiling. ‘A head of hair. With a pigtail, and a moustache. A very angry man.’

‘What was the matter with him?’

‘We thought yellow fever. But it wasn’t.’

‘Why was he angry?’

‘Frustration, mainly. He had almost no Russian. He kept shouting in Korean, bits of Japanese. We thought he wanted to go to Japan – he’d come from there. But it was Murmansk he wanted, and his ship.’

‘So he went there and sailed away?’

‘Yes. I suppose so. He went, anyway.’

‘And you heard nothing more?’

‘No.’ She steered carefully round a bend. ‘Not yet. They’ll acknowledge receipt in time. I discharge a patient from my district, they accept him in theirs. You can’t board a ship after a fever without a proper discharge; which they have first to accept. We get it with Russian sailors sometimes. They’re always slow with the paperwork, Murmansk.’

So something would come. Well, somebody else would deal with it. Two kilometres to go, he saw.

‘Can I smoke?’ he said.

‘You know I don’t permit smoking while I drive.’

‘Then stop for a minute. We’ll both have one.’

‘Don’t be silly, Kolya. You can wait.’

‘It’s true my hands are shaking. Look. A cigarette will pull me together. It confused me, that village. I was quite confused.’

‘So many Chukchees?’

‘Yes. And perhaps – your attitude.’ She had a scarf round her neck. It wouldn’t be in the way. An elbow crooked round the head, a hand at the base of the neck. ‘Stop a while and we’ll talk about it.’

‘I’ll drive, you talk,’ she said dryly.

He took his cigarettes out and opened the packet.

She glanced at him swiftly. ‘Put them away, Kolya. I told you!’

‘Stop the car,’ he said.

‘Don’t talk to me in that way!’ she said angrily.

‘Stop the car.’

‘What do you –’

He got a foot up and kicked both hers off the pedals, at the same time wrenching the wheel. The car slewed and hit the bank and he pulled on the handbrake, still fighting her for the wheel, and managed to steer it round, and again, two complete circles, before it bounced again off the bank, and slowed to a long slithering halt, aslant the track.

Her mouth was open, her face chalky in the reflected light of the headlamps.

‘What are you –’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘No, don’t!
Don’t
!’

He had an arm round her neck, could feel her breath.

‘It’s me! Understand! Kolya – it’s me you want! You’ve come here for me. For Rogachev – don’t you understand?
Rogachev
!’

Her head was crooked in his elbow, and he relaxed it slightly, staring at her. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I
know
who you are! I landed you from the ship. I waited for you! Idiot – fool! Let me go!’

He let her go and they stared at each other. Her mouth, her whole jaw was shaking, eyes still glassy with fright. ‘Were you going to kill me?’

‘Yes.’

They still stared at each other.

‘Where are the cigarettes?’ she said.

He found them under his feet, the packet crumpled. He found two whole ones, and lit them, one for him, and one for her.

Her ankle was bruised and swollen where he had kicked it. They sat in the dark room and he watched as she bound a compress on the swelling. They had barely spoken since reaching the house.

He poured himself another vodka. ‘For you?’ he said.

‘No. It’s too early. One is enough.’

It still was early. It wasn’t yet eleven.

The house was a wooden one, like her mother’s, on the outskirts of Tchersky. It was crazily lopsided, a veteran of many thaws; but it stood alone, was not overlooked, had a large shed alongside. The bobik was now in the shed. He had noted all this and was now turning it over in his mind, together with all the other matters revolving there.

She finished binding the ankle and sat back with her own drink. The eyes were still somewhat glassy but now from the vodka, perhaps. She was palely controlled, watching him.

‘Why did you wait so long?’ he asked at last.

‘To see how you managed here. If you were capable.’

‘Did I manage?’

‘Yes. Well enough.’

‘Then why Panarovka, the inquisition?’

She took a sip of vodka. ‘To see what story you’d produce if it came to a police investigation. Also how you’d be with genuine Chukchees … You were very lucky.’

‘You also.’

She nodded, looking into her glass.

‘You planned to kill me before we left here, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your story in the church, about Khodyan, Ponomarenko – were you given all that or did you make it up?’

‘I made it up.’

‘Glib. As well as lucky. All right, put a drop more in here … So where is Khodyan?’

‘I don’t know.’ He poured into her glass, and into his own. ‘I don’t know where his papers came from, either. But the background came from Ponomarenko.’

‘Ponomarenko is in Batumi?’

‘Maybe. He’s somewhere. They have evidence against him of drug-dealing – a capital offence, a long term at the least. He’s under control.’

‘Why Ponomarenko?’

‘It happened to be Ponomarenko. Many drivers go to the Black Sea for the summer. Ponomarenko was
not
lucky.’

‘What did he have to do – provide his apartment, all the details of his life here?’

‘That, yes.’

‘Including his relations with Lydia Yakovlevna?’

‘No. Those I found out for myself.’

‘Did you also find out she had gonorrhoea?’

He drank, poker-faced.

‘Eighteen months ago,’ she said, ‘I had to send that girl to Tchersky hospital. She had concealed her condition, and it had become serious. I couldn’t have
you
going into hospital again. Every mark on your body is detailed there. Which is why I examined you. Stay away from the girl. She’s promiscuous.’

The vodka had brought faint colour to her cheeks, and the eyes gleamed more brightly now.

Again he made no comment.

‘So what plans have you for getting to Tcherny Vodi?’

‘Obviously the Evenks – first a visit to the collective, and then the herds. They have a headman there, Innokenty. He chooses the people to go to Tcherny Vodi. A stinking head comes down and makes out the passes for them.’

She stared at him. ‘Passes, stinking heads, Innokenty … Did you know all this before you came?’

‘No. I discovered it here.’

‘And this is why you wanted a letter to the collective?’

He smiled faintly. ‘I also discovered,’ he said, ‘that I didn’t need it. They take their pelts there from Panarovka. I would have gone with them.’

‘You were going again to Panarovka?’

‘For your funeral.’

Her mouth dropped open, and something flickered momentarily behind her eyes.

She drank some vodka.

‘Well,’ she said presently. ‘You don’t need that plan.
I
go out to the herds, every six or eight weeks. In a helicopter. You’ll come with me.’

‘Is this Rogachev’s idea?’

‘No. Mine. It’s true you’ll need the cooperation of the Evenks. Which I see from your performance you have a good chance of getting.’ She finished her drink quickly. ‘He hasn’t told me any detailed plan yet.’

‘Does he know I’m here now?’

‘Yes. He knows.’

‘When did you see him?’

Her thin smile showed for a moment.

‘The last time? I should think – thirty years ago.’

Thirty years ago, she said, Rogachev had stayed in this house. He had been a fellow prisoner with her father years before in the camp at Panarovka. When it had closed down he had gone back to Moscow, while her father had remained here. Panarovka couldn’t be lived in at that time – the Chukchees were still dismantling the camp and turning it into houses – and her father had made this place his surgery. Her mother had come up from Leningrad, and here she herself had been born.

At the time Nizhniye Kresty (Tchersky’s old name) had
been very rough, very primitive; detested, abominated, by her mother. Many released prisoners were still roaming, a proper medical service not yet established, nowhere for visitors to stay. And Rogachev had travelled up on a visit, in connection with some scientific mission, and had stayed with his old friend Dr Komarov.

‘And soon became
my
adored friend! There I was, a little girl of six, without any friends, and this delightful man – I remember he insisted they take me along when they paid a visit once to Panarovka, to have a look at it again, see how it was getting on. It was very old, much older than the bigger camps along the Kolyma. Old from Tsarist days – old, old, with its church. Is this too complicated for you?’ she said, at his thoughtful expression.

He was pouring himself more vodka, and the thoughtfulness arose from his growing awareness that Medical Officer Komarova was getting drunk.

‘No. I’m following,’ he said.

‘Then pour me one, too.’

‘Tatiana Petrovna, there are important –’

‘Tanya will do.’

‘Important matters here. Is it wise for you to drink so early?’

‘It isn’t wise. But is it every day one faces one’s murderer? And discusses the subsequent funeral. My God – in cold blood!’

‘You aren’t facing your murderer. There was no murder.’

‘Through my presence of mind! And your Russian has improved. Who
are
you?’

‘Tatiana – Tanya. Questions will be asked about me later. Isn’t it better that you don’t have the answers?’

‘All right.’ She drank a little, watching him. Her eyes were now very bright, the flush in her cheeks accentuating the pallor. She lit herself a cigarette and sat back with it in her mouth. She looked different again – longer, lankier, the injured foot stretched out on a stool, the
drawn-back hair no longer unremarkable but now severely elegant.

He looked away from her, around the dark room.

‘You think this a strange place for me to live?’

‘Perhaps I would have expected a modern apartment.’

‘I married into a modern apartment.’

‘It didn’t suit you?’ he said, after a pause.

‘Neither the apartment nor the little swine I married. A cardiologist, from the hospital. Now making his fortune in Moscow. Private clinics, rich crooks. His speciality was the heart but he had no heart. Far less a soul,’ she added, nodding. ‘No children, thank God. Do you have children?’

‘No … You were speaking of your own childhood.’

‘Correct. Well then, Rogachev stayed here three months, to my great delight – a playful man, good with children – and I was desolate when he left.’

‘Did he come in connection with the research station?’

She shook her head. ‘He couldn’t have known anything about it then. Nobody did. It was thought to be some kind of weather place. No, he had some low-temperature experiments going on, he went out with the trappers. Then he’d come back and we would play. He was full of little games. I was Tanya-Panya, and he Misha-Bisha – our secret names.’

‘Misha-Bisha?’ Rogachev’s name was
Efraim
– Efraim Moisevich.

‘Misha the
bear
. He was a burly man. Just funny names. He gave people names.’

‘Yes.’ He remembered them. ‘Then what?’ he said.

‘Then he went away. And later so did we, to Panarovka. My father retained this house; he was helping them set up the medical service here … Anyway, there I was at Panarovka, apart from school and medical studies. And later I became a paramedic – all leading us to the point.’ She took a sip of vodka. ‘Which was when I became medical officer of this district a couple of years ago, and he asked me to help him – Rogachev did.’

‘You said you’d never seen him again.’

‘I haven’t. A note, unsigned. Just greetings from Misha-Bisha to Tanya-Panya.’

‘He sent you it?’

‘Through an Evenk. In an envelope.’

‘Where?’

‘There. At Tcherny Vodi. They have a surgery. I provide the medical supplies. It’s in my district.’

‘You go
into
the place?’

‘To deliver the supplies. And to treat patients – the Evenks and the security staff. The scientists have their own doctor, also on the staff. I’ve never seen him. I receive a list of what he wants and I supply it.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Porter said, slowly working this out ‘If an Evenk gave you the message –
they
see Rogachev?’

‘
An
Evenk does. Rogachev’s body servant. The job’s hereditary. That is, his father had it before him, and so on with all the previous heads.’

‘The manservant gave you the message?’

‘No, I’ve never seen him, either. But he’s allowed to meet the other Evenks, to discuss family affairs. He’s totally trusted. He wouldn’t discuss anything else – even if he knew anything. He just does what he’s told.’

‘And he was told to get this message to you.’

‘Yes. It seems Rogachev had heard there was a new medical officer – the daughter of Dr Komarov. That first note was just to check it was truly me. Later he told me what he wanted.’

He got up and walked about the room. In a recess beside the stove an icon was on the wall. The stove was cold, the house now electrically heated, very stuffy, very warm. Books were everywhere, on shelves, tables. He couldn’t make out the titles in the dark.

‘What did he want?’ he said.

‘He said he had discovered something of great value, which they were preventing him from publishing.’

‘Did he say what it was?’

‘No.’

‘Or what they’re doing up there?’

‘Not that either. Except I know now that it involves dangerous substances. They had an accident a few months ago, and the results of it contaminated the lake. Their filtration plant was out of action for some days and we had to send them drinking water. A few scientists flew in and made a great fuss checking out the area. But the wind was the other way and there were no effects here.’

‘Were the Evenks affected?’

She shook her head. ‘It was at night and they were in their dormitory. They were locked in all next day, too. There’d been a fire and fumes were still in the air outside. It was some kind of explosion … You know about it, of course,’ she said.

He made no comment on this.

‘How did he think you could help him?’

‘Stepan Maximovich – that’s the servant – had to get some cigarettes to me. You know all this, too.’

‘And what did you have to do with them?’

‘A Japanese ship had been coming here for the past couple of years. Some of the Evenks work as dockers during the summer, and they’d told Stepan Maximovich that one of the sailors had been asking for drugs. It was a joke – the Evenks had no access to drugs. But he passed it on to Rogachev, a piece of gossip. This was the first Misha-Bisha heard of the ship and it gave him his idea.’

‘Which was what?’

She sighed. ‘For me to board the ship, of course, when it came. And contact the drug-taker.’

‘The Evenks pointed him out to you?’

‘Of course not. They know nothing of this. I saw it in the man’s eyes. I was taking the crew one at a time in a cabin set aside for me. The man was on heroin. I offered him a derivative, rather less dangerous, if he would do something for
me. I explained what it was and told him I would give him more, when he came round again. The ship was coming twice in a season – in early June and in September.‘

’In Japanese you were explaining all this?’

‘In my bit of English. Enough for a hungry addict … Is this some kind of interrogation?’

He shrugged.

‘What reason did you give for examining the crew?’

‘That I was tightening up health requirements. The ship had come from tropical parts, it was due to take on fish after unloading. And you are now making me very tired. And also hungry. In the kitchen you will find salt fish, and some bread and sour cream. Also a tray.’

She hobbled on a stick when she had to and for the rest of the day sat with her leg up. The day was very overcast, and the windows of the old house small; but by three o’clock it was night anyway, and he had gone round switching on lamps and drawing curtains. She watched him doing it.

‘You’re a long fellow,’ she said, ‘for a Chukchee. But you’re not a Chukchee. Or an Evenk. Or anything I know. You’re
of
the north, of course?’

‘You identified my instep,’ he said.

She smiled coldly. ‘Also very careful. Well, how far have your automotive works gone?’

He had told her some details of the bobik – having decided he needed her shed – and now he told her a few more.

‘You plan to leave here in this machine?’

‘If necessary. An alternative exit,’ he said.

‘Some more formal exit is planned for you, of course.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Do you want to tell me it?’

‘No.’

‘All right.’ But she remained staring at him. ‘So where are you building this vehicle?’

‘You don’t need to know that either.’

She lit herself a cigarette. ‘Too much smoking. But this is hardly normal.’ I’ll have another drink, too.’

She had it on the sofa, her leg more comfortable there, and she gave him more information on the herds. They discussed the matter until supper, which he also assembled and brought from the kitchen; together with a coffee jug and two mugs.

‘Well, quite the housekeeper,’ she said.