The Beast in the Red Forest(28)

Pekkala smiled and handed Zolkin his pass book.

Zolkin opened it and read the text inside. You are Inspector Pekkala?' He raised his head and stared.

Yes, he is,' Kirov answered with another sigh of annoyance, and, unfortunately, you will find, if you read that little yellow piece of paper in his pass book, that he most definitely has the authority required to transfer you to Moscow.'

Zolkin squinted at the Classified Operations Permit. Slowly, he read out part of what it said. May pass into restricted areas and may requisition equipment of all types, including weapons and vehicles . . .'

And drivers, too,' Pekkala added cheerfully.

Congratulations,' Kirov growled at the sergeant. It seems that you will soon be on your way to Moscow.'

The sergeant's mouth hung open for a moment. Then he reached out and clasped Kirov's hand in both of his. After nearly dislocating the major's wrist, Zolkin turned his attention to Pekkala and, grasping the Inspector's hand, gave him the same bone-jarring treatment. When do we leave?' he asked.

As soon as we have solved these murders,' answered Pekkala.

In the meantime,' added Kirov, Commander Chaplinsky has appointed you to be our driver. That is, if you have still have a vehicle which runs.'

We are working on that now,' said Zolkin. The Jeep should be fixed by tomorrow, as long as you don't mind a few chips to the paint.'

We are staying at a house not far from here,' said Pekkala. He gave Zolkin the directions. As soon as you are ready, come and find us.'

Very good, Comrade Major.' Zolkin clicked his heels and set off towards the mechanics, buttoning up his jacket as he went.</ol>
 
 

 

Now that they were alone, Kirov turned to Pekkala. A chauffeur?' he asked.

I've always wanted one,' Pekkala replied smugly.

But you don't even sleep in a bed!' shouted Kirov.

Their conversation was interrupted by a long, low rumble in the distance.

It's early in the year for thunder,' remarked Kirov, glancing up at the sky.

That is not thunder,' said Pekkala. That's artillery.'





(Postmark: Vladivostock. May 10th, 1938)


To:

Mrs Frances Harper

Hague Rd,

Monkton, Indiana, USA


Dear Sister,

I must be brief. Last year, Bill got arrested by the Russian police. I don't know why. They just took him away and I haven't seen or heard from him since. Then, last month, I was also arrested. The Russian authorities charged me with carrying 6 American Dollars, which I did have but I needed them in order to pay for replacement passports for Peter, Rachel and me. We needed those passports because all of our papers were taken from us when we first arrived in Russia. They promised to give everything back but never did. The American Embassy would only take dollars, not Soviet money, but the Russians consider it a crime to own dollars, so they sentenced me to 10 years of hard labour. They also handed out sentences for the kids. Even little Rachel! But at least we are all together and, God willing, we will stay that way. There are hundreds of us here at this holding camp in Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. We have crossed almost half the length of Russia to get here and conditions are very bad. It is very cold and we have not had a proper meal in weeks. We are waiting to board a cargo ship, which will take us on a six-day journey across the Sea of Okhotsk to the Kolyma Peninsula, where we will begin our years of penal servitude in the city of Magadan. The stories they tell about Kolyma make me wonder how long the children and I can possibly last. One of the other prisoners told me that, at the Sturmovoi gold mine, where many of us will be put to work, the life expectancy is less than one month. Frances, I beg of you, do what you can for us. Write to the State Department in Washington. Go there yourself if you have to. But you must act quickly. We are leaving now. I have paid one of the guards to mail this letter and I pray that it will reach you soon.

Your sister, Betty Jean.


Intercepted and withheld by Censor, District Office 338 NKVD, Vladivostok





After dropping the girl off at her grandmother's house, Malashenko did not return immediately to the safe house, as he had promised Pekkala he would do.

Instead, he made his way alone into the forest east of Rovno. Following trails used only by himself and wild dogs, Malashenko arrived at an old hunter's cabin. The cabin stood at the edge of a muddy path once used by wood cutters but abandoned since the outbreak of the war. Three kilometres to the north, the path connected with the main road running out of Rovno, but it wasn't even on the maps.

Before the war, the cabin had been the home of a gamekeeper named Pitoniak. The building had been well-constructed, with an overhanging roof, earth piled up waist deep around the logs which formed the walls, as well as a floor tiled with interlocking pieces of slate. The cabin's inner walls had been insulated with old newspaper shellacked in place, and a potbellied stove kept it warm in wintertime.

Pitoniak had built the cabin with his own hands and the few people who knew of its existence, besides Pitoniak himself, had been killed off in the opening days of the German invasion. After the Germans took over in Rovno, he had simply continued with his duties, expecting at any moment to be relieved of his post by the occupying government. Instead, to Pitoniak's astonishment, he continued to receive a monthly pay cheque, as well as his fuel and salt allotment, as if nothing had ever happened. For a while, it seemed as if Pitoniak's luck might last throughout the war.

But it ran out one dreary February morning, when he encountered a small group of former Red Army soldiers who had escaped from German captivity and were now living in the forest. Their weapons had been fashioned in the manner of their ancestors, from sharpened stones and fire-hardened sticks and the gnarled fists of tree roots wrestled out of the black earth.

Pitoniak had been patrolling in a desolate valley, where he knew a pack of wild boar spent the winter. To get there and back was a full day's walk from his cabin, but he was curious to see if the boar had produced any offspring that year. Pitoniak had set out before sunrise and arrived at the edge of the valley just before noon.

It was here that he ran into the soldiers.

There were only three of them and they were lost. They had been wandering in circles for days. Pitoniak gave them what little food he had brought with him  –  a small loaf of dense chumatsky bread, made from rye and wheat flour, and a fist-sized piece of soloyna bacon.

He offered to lead the men back to his cabin, and to put them in touch with a partisan Atrad under the command of Andrei Barabanschikov, which had begun forming in a remote area to the south of his cabin.

The soldiers agreed at once, and Pitoniak led them from the valley where they would soon have perished without his help.

Arriving at the cabin, Pitoniak built a fire in the potbellied stove.

The men stood by, hands held out towards the heat-hazed iron, faces blotched white with the beginnings of frostbite. They spat on the stove plates, watching their saliva crack and roll around like tiny fizzing pearls before it disappeared. When their clothing warmed, the men began to scratch themselves as dozens of cold-numbed lice came back to life.

Taking pity on these men, Pitoniak fed them sapkhulis tsveni stew made from deer kidneys, dill pickles and potatoes, which he had made for himself before he set out for the valley.

The soldiers wept with thanks.

After they had eaten, they sat naked by the stove, running candle flames up and down the seams of their shirts and trousers. The fires spat as lice eggs exploded in the heat.

When this was done, the soldiers bathed in an old wooden barrel filled with rainwater which stood behind his cabin.

As Pitoniak watched them set aside the filthy remnants of their uniforms and step out of their boots on to pale, trench-rotted feet, Pitoniak wondered if the Barabanschikovs would even take them in  –  three more mouths to feed and the men half dead as they were.

He was not the only one to have these thoughts.

That night, as the men lay sleeping, one of the soldiers rose to his feet, took up Pitoniak's gun and shot the gamekeeper where he lay in his bunk. Then he turned the gun upon the other two men, killing them as well.

The name of this man was Vadim Ivanovich Malashenko.

After burying the bodies in a shallow grave, Malashenko made himself at home in the cabin. Over the next month, he steadily ate his way through Pitoniak's food supply.

When Malashenko's strength had finally returned, he set off in search of the Barabanschikov Atrad and it was not long before their paths crossed in the Red Forest.

Seeing that this former soldier had a gun and was not on his last legs, like so many others who had come to them, the Barabanschikovs accepted Malashenko into their ranks.

He had been with them ever since.

Malashenko never mentioned the cabin to the other partisans, but sometimes he went back there on his own. In the evenings, he would sit by the fire, staring at the newspapers on the walls. The shellac had aged with time, forming a yellowy glaze over the pages. The papers dated back to the 1920s and although Malashenko couldn't read, the thousands of unfamiliar words transformed into a thing of beauty separate from their hidden meanings.</ol>
 
 

 

By the end of 1942, Malashenko had become convinced that the days of the Barabanschikov Atrad were numbered, along with all the other partisans in the region. Hidden among the trees, he had seen the SS death squads at work  –  trenches dug in the sandy soil and truckload after truckload of civilians, partisans and captured Red Army prisoners arriving at the place of execution. Stripped naked, they filed into the pits, huddled and obedient, where they were dispatched by men wearing leather aprons and carrying revolvers. It was the acceptance of their fate which haunted him, even more than the killings, of which he had already seen more than one man could properly encompass in his mind.