The Holy Thief (24 page)

“I hope you’ll forgive me if I say it makes me nervous, having you share the apartment with us. What if I were to say something in anger? Do you understand? I can see Natasha likes you, I don’t know how or why, perhaps because she helped you. But it makes me nervous. Having you around all the time, it’s like being watched.”

“I’m an investigator. I’m not a Chekist. I’m just a simple Militiaman.”

She laughed dryly. “You think the Militia don’t get involved in internal security? That it’s all handled by the Cheka? You must know that’s not the case.”

He did. He knew that a large proportion of the arrests under Article 58 were carried out by Militia officers, usually under the direction of the NKVD, but often independently. He was able to ignore it, more or less, sitting in his Petrovka Street ivory tower, dealing with murder and mayhem, and glad of it. But he was no longer surprised when witnesses to the crimes he investigated took the opportunity to denounce their neighbors, workmates and even family for political offenses. The citizens on the street knew better than he did that the Militia handled political matters, even if he’d clung to the belief that he worked on purely non-political crime. He nodded in agreement.

“I understand. But what can I do? I’m assigned to this apartment. If another becomes available, then I’ll move on. But you know how unlikely that is. I’ll try to keep to my room. Don’t worry—I’m not here to spy on you.”

She waved his words away. “That’s not what I meant either. You’re here now, and that’s that. I was just trying to explain—” she paused and considered him for a moment “—I was trying to explain my reserve.” She stood, holding out her hand to shake his. It seemed a very manly gesture. “I’m glad we spoke so frankly.”

He took her hand with a feeling of confusion. He really wasn’t sure what the conversation had meant, but he nodded his head in agreement.

“You should go to bed,” she said. “I’ll stay at home tomorrow to keep an eye on you.”

“Thank you.”

“Natasha will expect me to; you’re the stray dog she rescued from the rain. Would you like me to help you to your room?”

“I think I can manage.” He stood up from the chesterfield slowly, holding onto one of the chairs for support. He swayed for a moment, smiled at Valentina, and then made his way to the door to his bedroom with tentative steps.

“See? I’m fine.” He nodded a goodnight and then closed the door, leaning against it with his shoulder while his right hand felt for the round molding of the light switch. Finding it, he hesitated. Instead he walked to the window and looked across the lane. The shadow of a man was clearly distinguishable in the gateway opposite. A round fur hat and a long coat that could be leather, judging from the way it reflected the light from the streetlamp. Who was he? A Thief? A priest? A Chekist? A foreign spy? If the devil was still there tomorrow, he’d pull a little surprise on him, but tonight he would be lucky to make it over to the bed. He pulled the curtain shut and, without turning on the light or taking off his clothes, walked to the chair where they’d stretched out his overcoat to dry. His leather holster lay on the seat and he took the automatic out, checked the safety was on, slipped it under his pillow and then rolled himself into the blankets.

For a few moments he was aware of the sounds of the building—conversation from Valentina and Natasha’s room, someone walking around upstairs, the rush of water down a pipe—and then the room, the building and even Moscow itself spun away as sleep finally took hold of him.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Korolev slept like a dead man, as his mother would have said had she not been dead herself for fifteen years. He slept past five o’clock and then past six. He wasn’t woken by dawn squeezing itself round the edges of the curtain, and the cockerels calling to each other from street to street didn’t wake him either. He slept through the pack of dogs that chased a cart down the lane and even the crack of the driver’s whip as he tried to get rid of them. The factory whistles calling the workers to their shifts made no impression on his slumbering. For the first time in many years he slept past seven and then past eight. He didn’t even stir when Valentina Nikolaevna opened the door with great care and listened to his gentle snoring. She and Natasha watched him for a moment or two, Valentina told him later, and then decided to let him sleep on. If neither of them mentioned the strange affection that darkened their faces in the half-light, it might have been because they were unaware of it themselves. Or perhaps a man sleeping soundly can make a woman of any age maternal, if she’s so inclined. In fact, it was only when Babel looked in on him and, curious to see his reaction, shook him by the shoulder, that Korolev woke abruptly and, before his eyes had quite caught up with him, rewarded Babel with a close-up view of the business end of the automatic. Babel responded with a wide smile.

“It’s me, Alexei Dmitriyevich. Babel. Is that a Walther? May I have a look? Where’d you pick up a piece like this? I had one many years ago, but it’s long gone. Ah. 1917—a Model 7, they stopped making them at the end of the war, of course. The Germans, that is. An officer’s gun. Spoils of war?”

“A Pole.” And the flatness in his sleep-croaked voice pronounced a death sentence on the former owner, even to Korolev’s ears. Babel blinked and handed the gun quickly back, then looked at his hands as though the dead man’s blood might have transferred to them.

“Sleep well?” Babel asked, after a moment, looking over his shoulder to where an amused Valentina Nikolaevna leaned against the door.

Korolev put the automatic back under the pillow, yawned and ran a hand across his scalp. He saw the daylight in the doorway to the shared room.

“What time is it?”

“Nearly ten o’clock.”

Korolev looked at his watch. He held it to his ear to make sure it was still ticking and felt the glass cold against the sudden warmth of his cheek.

“I don’t normally sleep this late,” he said.

“Well, you don’t normally try to crack people’s heads open with your forehead, either. At least, I hope not.”

“Ah,” Valentina Nikolaevna said, putting disappointment, mockery and a tinge of reproach into the single syllable.

“It was self-defense,” Korolev said.

“You mean: ‘He started it,’ of course. Yes,” she said, shaking her head in wry disillusionment, “I’ve heard that excuse before.”

Korolev was tempted to throw the blankets over his head and pretend his guests weren’t there.

“Can a citizen not have any privacy any more? I support the Collective as much as anyone, but does it need to hold its meetings in my bedroom?”

Valentina Nikolaevna smiled at his discomfort and, touching her forehead in salute, let the door shut behind her. Korolev turned his attention to Babel.

“And you? Will you let me have five minutes to myself?”

“Of course,” Babel said, settling himself into the chair he’d pulled up beside the bed.

“Well?” Korolev demanded, after the writer showed no sign of leaving.

“Well what? Do you want to hear what I have to tell you or not?”

Korolev considered the question and then pointed to the window. “At least give me a minute to change into a clean shirt.”

“You’re shy? I was in the army as well, you know. There was no prudery on bath day in the Red Cavalry, believe me.”

“Look out at the street. Please, Isaac Emmanuilovich, I beg you.”

Babel grunted and stood up, before walking over to the window with a show of reluctance.

Korolev swung his feet down onto the bare floorboards. His vision took a while to catch up with the change of perspective and he breathed in deeply. He looked over at Babel, who was observing him with interest.

“You’ve gone quite gray, very suddenly. It’s an interesting thing to see. Really, just like that. And you were so red only moments ago.”

Korolev managed to wave a hand in the writer’s direction.

“I’m fine,” he said, without much conviction. “Just look out of the window, if you don’t mind.”

The damned writer would end up describing his flabby arse in
Novy Mir
if he wasn’t careful. And, anyway, a citizen
should
be entitled to a moment or two to himself, housing shortage or not. He reached out for the chair and pulled himself to a standing position, feeling the blood plummet to his toes. He rested for a moment and then took a couple of steps over to the wardrobe.

“You look even more unwell now; would you like me give you a hand?”

Korolev discovered that keeping the contents of his stomach where they belonged required all his concentration. Speaking was out of the question, as was even the tiny turn of the head necessary to give the irritating interloper a stare that would melt his spectacles to his damned nose. Instead he made do with a feeble flick of the hand, which he hoped conveyed his dismissal of the writer’s annoying interruptions adequately. With one final step he grabbed hold of the wardrobe with both hands and allowed his cheek to rest for a second or two against the smooth wood. The smell of varnish seemed to revive him and something resembling energy began to seep back up his body and give him hope that the danger of being sick had passed, for the moment at least. With a grunt, he pulled the jumper off over his head, undid the buttons on the trousers and allowed the clothes to form a pile at his ankles.

He took his last clean shirt, put his arms through the sleeves with a bit of difficulty and fastened a respectable number of buttons, then he pulled on a fresh pair of trousers by leaning against the wall and stepping into the legs one at a time. He slipped the braces over his shoulder.

“There, that’s better.”

“You’re meant to be looking out of the window.”

“I’m a writer—we’re interested in moments like this. How you walked, the color of your face, the way you put your shirt on. I’m making mental notes.”

Korolev tried to summon that spectacle-melting glare, but it seemed to be a harder task than he was capable of at that particular moment in time. Instead he sat down on the nearest chair.

“So what did you find out?”

“Not too much, I’m afraid. The fellow I spoke to knew Mironov’s name—but all he said was that he was Seventh Department and that asking questions about the Seventh Department wasn’t sensible these days.”

“The Seventh Department?”

“The former Foreign Department.”

“I see,” Korolev said. Everything he’d ever heard about the Foreign Department had been whispered. He knew that it was responsible for the Soviet Union’s intelligence operations overseas and had a reputation for ruthlessness and obsessive secrecy above and beyond even the NKVD’s high standards. Interesting, though. The Foreign Department loses a man in the same week as an American émigré shows up dead and half of Moscow is searching for an icon that might well be heading outside the State’s borders.

“There’s a purge coming, you know,” Babel said. “Not that that’s news. The Chekists are nervous as hell.”

“They removed Yagoda’s statue from Petrovka Street the other day. Smashed it in the process.”

“They say he’s to be arrested any day. In the meantime he sits in his office alone and the phone never rings. He walks like a ghost through the corridors of the Ministry and no one seems to see him. And this was the most feared man in Russia just weeks ago. When he falls, he’ll fall hard, and the Chekist factions are running round trying to make sure they don’t go down with him. Which brings me to Gregorin.”

“What did you find out about him?”

“Well, he’s not loved by the Georgians, that’s certain, despite being a Georgian himself. Half a Georgian, anyway—his father was Russian. There’s bad blood there. I’ve an idea he may have stepped on a few toes back in Tbilisi. And, of course, he was a protégé of Yagoda, which is no longer healthy. Still, Ezhov seems to like him, so he might be all right even if the Georgians do come out on top. And they probably will. Well, they’re close to Stalin, they sing the same songs. It seems likely they’ll win in the end.”

“He gave me the impression he was working directly for Ezhov, maybe even higher.”

“It could be, it could well be. But I got the feeling he’s not in a very good position at the moment, although not in immediate danger. He’s the same as everyone else, in other words.”

“More research for the drawer?”

“As you say—a very secret drawer.” Babel lifted himself off the windowsill on which he’d been sitting and stretched his arms. “I must do some writing before the exercise this afternoon. Who knows if I’ll be able to do anything after half an hour in a gas mask.”

“Better a mask than a lungful. I’ve seen men gassed and I hope never to see it again.”

“No, and I don’t think the Fascists will be dropping bouquets from their bombers if it comes to war. It’s as well to be prepared. I hear Stalin ordered the Metro stations to be dug as deep as they are because of air raids. Well, if we’re prepared for bombs—why not for gas?”

“Do you really think they’ll come?”

“They’re already on their way, my friend. We’re shooting at them in Madrid and they’re shooting back, and it won’t stop there.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Stalin sees it. He’s making sure we’re ready.”

“Yes,” Korolev agreed, thinking about the man of steel, who expected all others to be made of steel too.

Babel said his farewells and left, and for a moment Korolev felt every one of his forty-two years of age. The thought of another war, and the horror and the hardship it would bring, was like a weight pressing him down onto the mattress. It had been bad enough against the Germans and the Austrians: he could see the faces still of dead young men, each one of whom could so easily have been him. Thousands of them—millions by the end of the Great War, and then twice as many again in the Civil War, and it would be worse this time, with the new tanks and bombers, and machine guns that could kill an entire battalion in two minutes flat. He’d serve, of course, when it came to it. He knew his duty as well as the next man.

Perhaps he drifted off, because the next thing he knew Valentina Nikolaevna was standing in the doorway, the pale sun turning her hair golden as it streamed in through the open window. She looked as though she’d just stepped down from a cinema poster.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Not too bad. Better. I’m not used to lying around like this, but I think I can get up now.”

“Good, I’ll bring you some tea from the samovar. Your colleague Semionov is on his way over. And Colonel Gregorin called as well—he hopes you feel better soon.”

“Thank you,” he said, wondering how Gregorin felt about his puppet being off its strings.

“All you men need looking after from time to time. I don’t mind.” She smiled and turned to leave the room and, as the door shut behind her, he allowed himself to think about holding Valentina Nikolaevna in his arms. How small she would feel there, yet strong as well. Her hair would smell of flowers and her skin of fresh bread, he was sure of it.

The tea that she brought him was the turning point—he stood and walked to the window, pleased that the room and the floor were both holding steady underfoot. He crossed his arms and looked out at a blue sky empty of any cloud. Beneath the window a long line of Civil Defense handcarts was being pushed by gas-masked women in loose-fitting boiler suits and heavy rubber gloves. The handcarts seemed to be full of some kind of white powder. He wondered what the powder was—in his experience the best counter-measure against gas was to run as fast as you could; and gas masks weren’t much use against mustard gas, that much he did know. Whatever that stuff in the handcarts was, he hoped it worked.

His regiment had been in reserve when the Germans had dropped mustard-gas shells on the Russian trenches back in seventeen. At first the troops had thought the Germans were making a mistake—hundreds of shells crashing through the forest, splashing into mud, but no explosions. The only hint they’d had of the trouble they were in was a slight smell of garlic. A few hours later and blisters covered every inch of exposed skin. Not only exposed skin, though, the gas wormed its way through their uniforms to crotches, armpits, chests, stomachs—everywhere. Who knew how many had died? There’d been thousands of blind soldiers, begging aloud for help, wandering the battlefield. The Germans shot them like rats, and those were the lucky ones. His regiment had been sent to plug the gap, and maybe God had forgiven the few Prussians who fell into their hands, but they hadn’t.

The building shook as a squadron of bombers flew overhead, and one of them momentarily filled the sky above the lane—so low he could see the individual rivets on its open bomb doors. The glass rattled in the window frame and a dog ran howling for safety. The raw power of the airplane lifted Korolev’s spirits, even as it sent a shiver down to the soles of his feet. This time they would be prepared for anything the Fascists threw at them.