Two hours later, and well the worse for wear, I find myself sitting across from the young apprentice, who, his tongue loosened by wine, has been spelling out to me his scheme to open his own workshop once the term of his apprenticeship has been served. Old Master Yakov is asleep at the head of the big trestle table, head slumped against the table top and snoring loudly. He is not alone. Those that are not sleeping are drunk. There will be no more work today. But these are Russians and this is how life is for them. If there is a reason to celebrate they will grab it with both hands – yes, and drink it dry.
I look around me, then look back at young Alexander, realising that for the last five minutes I haven’t heard a word. Yet on whim I reach across and, with a tender smile, say, ‘Alexander, you can come work for me when your apprenticeship is served. I will build you a workshop.’
The expression on his face is priceless. He is at the same time dumbfounded and overjoyed.
‘What?’ he says. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said I will build you a workshop. When I am home from Moscow. But you must do right by Master Arkadevich. He has been good to you, and you must not be ungrateful.’
‘No, no, but …’ Suddenly he reaches out and, grasping my left hand, kisses the ring on my finger – my wedding ring – and swears he will not let me down. The young man is crying now, tears of happiness that, I confess, move me deeply, such that when Ernst returns from the midden, he finds the pair of us sitting there, face to face across the table, tears streaming down our cheeks.
‘Otto?’
I look to Ernst and laugh. ‘Oh, it’s okay, Ernst. We’re fine. We really are fine.’
Yet I wake in the night, wondering what’s happening to me. Am I becoming like them? Is living here among them changing me?
I sit up in the darkness, then reach across and undo one of the shutters, letting in the moonlight. In its pale glow, I turn and look at Katerina, lying there asleep beside me, and realise that I have never been so happy in my life. All my life I have travelled in time and space, doing my duty by the
volk
and never once wishing to settle. But now …
Katerina stirs, then wakes. ‘Otto?’ she asks sleepily. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ I say.
She gives a small, sleepy laugh. ‘You were very drunk again.’
‘I know.’ But now I am feeling very sober. ‘Everything’s ready,’ I say. ‘We’re going to leave the day after tomorrow.’
She is suddenly wide awake. Sitting up, she stares into my face. ‘But I thought …’
She thought she’d have another week, that’s what she thought.
I reach out and take her hand. ‘There’s no reason to delay. The sled is ready and all the goods are packed. We’ve provisions and the weather’s good.’ I hesitate, then say, ‘I thought we’d spend tomorrow saying our farewells, then set off at dawn the next day.’
I can see that she is suddenly fearful. For a time she’s quiet; then, sighing, she nods. ‘All right, but Otto …’
‘Yes?’
‘Promise me you’ll do something for me on the journey. Promise me you’ll teach me German.’
It is July the fifteenth, St Vladimir’s day, named after Prince Vladimir Sviatislav, son of the first Grand Prince of the Rus’; the same who took an army to Constantinople and came back with the Byzantine Emperor Basil’s sister Anna as his bride; he who, returning home to Kiev, tore down the graven images of the six gods – of Stribog, the god of the sky, Dazhd’bog, the god of light, Mokosh, goddess of nature, Hors, the sun god, Simargl, god of fertility, and Perun, the old Norse god of thunder and war – and set a great cross in their place, leading the people of Kiev – all fifty thousand of them – down into the waters of the River Dnieper, there to be baptised in the faith of Christ.
Long ago that was, yet I remember it well, for I was there, standing waist-deep in the river beside the Grand Prince as, one by one, he submerged his people, drawing the sign of the cross upon each brow and washing away their sins as that long hot summer afternoon wore on.
On another summer’s day two hundred and fifty years later, I lie back, my darling Katerina beside me as our boat slowly crosses Lake Ilmen, the shorelines to either side of us lost in distance, the oars of the boatmen pulling strongly against the northward current.
Behind us, the sled is packed upon a cart, secured with chains and padlocked, the only key secreted on my person. Though its loss would not be a total disaster, it would make things hard for us, and so I take cautious measures.
As well I might, for we venture now into lawless regions.
There is a secret compartment beneath the floor of the cart, accessible from beneath, wherein I’ve stored certain items of importance. As for the cart itself, a thick tarpaulin – not of this age – covers the load, strapped tightly so that no thieving fingers can get in.
Katerina is wearing a large straw hat and a summer dress, like a peasant girl, and from time to time I catch one or another of the men staring at her. But I make no issue of it. These are good men; as good as one might find in a wilderness town like Novgorod, and the
tysiatskii
’s pass carries weight with them. They might dream of having her, but they know better than to act on the desire. Besides, there is the prospect of a handsome bonus if I return safely, so they row hard and keep their thoughts to themselves, even if their eyes sometimes stray.
For the past half hour I have been writing in my journal, but now Katerina interrupts me, asking me to run through things just one more time, so that she has it clear in her mind.
I take out the hand-drawn map, then turn, pointing north across the great lake towards the distant mountains. ‘Look,’ I say. ‘See the clouds gathering already. In eight, maybe nine weeks the rainy season will begin. We must be in Gzhatsk before then.’
I draw a line on the map with my right forefinger, tracing it from where the River Lovat begins, on the south shore of Lake Ilmen, down through Velikie Luki to the tiny village of Zajkava.
I say village, but it is little more than a trading post. A wooden jetty and a cluster of small wooden buildings built for the river trade. There we leave our friends, the boatmen, and travel south-west overland some twenty miles to Velizh, another trading post, but this time on the River Mezha.
Katerina listens attentively. She is keen to be no burden but to be an equal partner on this venture. If I am hurt, she tells me, then she will get me home.
I like that, even if it’s unnecessary. Because if I am badly hurt, then someone from Four-Oh will come and get me, and Time will be changed so that no hurt has been done. Nor will any burden be placed on Katerina’s memory, for with that change her recollection of everything will also be erased.
But she doesn’t know that. As far as she’s concerned, I’m Otto, a German trader from her own century, and that is
all
I am.
I put the map away, then lie back, stretching out, totally relaxed for the first time in weeks, and after a while she lies down next to me, her head resting on my chest, her eyes closed, dozing in the warm sunlight. It’s a pleasant way to spend time: the sound of the oars, the rush of the water going by the hull of the twelve-man
ushkui
, the call of birds high in the clear blue sky above us. After a while, the boatmen begin to sing and I hear – and feel – Katerina humming the tune to herself.
And so we sail on, as the afternoon becomes evening. The sun slowly sinks beneath the trees far to our right as we sit there, watching the land draw closer.
It’s a beautiful evening, the thin wisps of cloud on the horizon painted crimson by the setting sun, and as we row into the river’s mouth, I have a sense of the enormity of Time, of the weight of the long centuries surrounding us, and I want to say something to her, only I can’t. She must never know.
The land here is unspoiled, the virgin forest stretching away unchecked to either side, and as the last trace of sunlight disappears, so the night rushes in, the sky dark suddenly, the stars burning above us.
Katerina snuggles close as I put my arm around her and begin to tell her about the stars – the truth this time, not some romantic myth – and after a while she stares at me, astonished, then laughs.
‘You’re making it up, Otto! Teasing me!’
‘No,’ I say, then let her have it her own way. Maybe she is not ready for that yet. Maybe …
Her kiss surprises me. Reminds me where I am and when.
Home
, I think. For wherever she is, is home.
Shaposhnikov, the captain, moors the boat at a turn in the river and, leaving us on-board, takes his men ashore. From where we lie in the darkness we can see their campfire burning brightly, throwing up cinders into the night, and hear, in the stillness, the deep, low murmur of their voices. For a while I hesitate, wondering if any of them have perhaps crept back, to hide in the dark nearby and watch us, but it’s no good, the warmth of her naked body beside me on the fur-lined pallet makes me forget myself and, after a long and pleasant while, I come to myself again as if from the depths of dream, the stillness of the night much more intense than before.
I frown, then realise that the boatmen have fallen silent, listening to us.
Imagining
us. Beneath me, Katerina stirs and softly laughs.
‘Do you think they heard us, Otto?’ she whispers.
Her pupils reflect the stars. So beautiful, her eyes. Like mirrors into the cosmos itself. I smile and touch my lips to hers. My flesh is still within her, is still hard despite all her best attempts to blunt its ardour.
‘Maybe,’ I whisper back, moving slowly against her, making her catch her breath. ‘But you know what?’
‘What?’
‘I don’t care.’
She is moving now, pushing herself up against me to meet each slow, deliberate thrust. She giggles. ‘You were very noisy, Otto.’
‘Noisy?
Me
? What about
you
?’
She answers with a kiss and, in a while, the voices round the fire take up again, even as my love and I begin again, the warm Russian darkness surrounding us, without and within, timeless and eternal.
We make good time. At midday on the tenth day we come to Velikie Luki, the small town nestling into the trees on a bend in the river. There was a Rus’ fort here a century ago, but it fell into ruin, its log walls rotting away. Then, thirty years back, Mstislav Mstislavich, Prince then of Novgorod, strengthened its defences against the Lithuanian threat, making it his principal garrison in the south. Since then, however, it has fallen into disrepair once more. It’s a ramshackle place, and every last one of its inhabitants, young and old, come out to stare at us as we tie up at the jetty.
Katerina, particularly, gets their attention. She has changed her style from peasant girl to boatman, borrowing the clothes of one of the men and even taking a turn at the oar for a while. The crew are in love with her, with that fierce protective love elder brothers have for younger sisters. A mere ten days in and I do believe they would die for her, were they asked to. As it is, they eye the natives of this town suspiciously – the young men especially so – with warning glances as if to ward off any possibility of trouble.
We go ashore, meeting Grikov, the town’s head man, in his ‘house’ – a glorified hut with two rooms rather than one – and I do a little trading, and drink a little of his awful wine and, because these seem good people, trustworthy people, I offer to pay for a feast, and the whole town – all three hundred – are soon to be found carousing deep in drink, their faces greasy with fat. Roast bear, someone tells me, as well as wolf, alongside the more recognisable lamb and dog.
As evening falls, the party continues, and one of the locals brings out a fiddle and starts up a tune, and soon there’s a crowd of villagers dancing in the firelight beside the dark-flowing river, and after a while Katerina joins in, lifting her hands above her head as she dances, in the Russian fashion, and twirling about, clapping with the rhythm, and there is laughter and singing and later – much later – we return to the boat as the last of the villagers straggle home.
And it’s as she snuggles against me on the furs that she tells me how happy she is and how glad she is she has come with me, and how very, very much she loves me. But when I turn to answer her, she is already asleep, her beautiful face against my shoulder, her soft breath on my neck.
I am tired, but sleep does not come easily. And there’s a reason for it. For you see, I remember the last time I came to Velikie Luki, in 1942. It was a very different place then, much bigger and uglier, though no less ramshackle. The river still flowed through it, but it was a dirty, grimy place and there was a sheen of oil on the water, and the scum of detergent from the massive industrial complex three miles north of the town.
I was there with Dr Walther Stahlecker and sixty of his men from
Einsatzgrupen A
, posing as a war correspondent for the
Volkischer Beobachter
. Not that any words I could write about what Stahlecker was doing in the
Reichskommisariat Ostland
, as it was then known, would ever be published, but because the man was keen to show me – in a boastful kind of way – what he was up to there. Stahlecker smiled a lot, as if he really enjoyed his work, but those days I spent in Lithuania and the Smolensk region had the feel of a nightmare. Stahlecker had almost a thousand men under his command, trained SS killers who had no interest in fighting a war but in mopping up behind the lines after the regular soldiers, the
Wehrmacht
, had fought their way through. They were after Jews and Romanies and known communists, and in Velikie Luki they found almost four hundred.
The memory of what happened – of what I was witness to that day just south of the town – returns to haunt me now, troubling me much more than usual. There was nothing I could do, of course, nothing but watch and keep my silence. These things have happened throughout history, and there is little we can do to change that, but sometimes, just sometimes, it worries me. Sometimes Albrecht Burckel’s words, spoken to me in another time, another place, come back to haunt me: