“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?”