“Hood the prisoner. You, wait with him until the major comes.”
Some kind of small sack was put over his head. It stank of vomit and something worse which took him a moment to identify. Then he had it-rotting flesh. For a moment he was back among the broken, decomposing bodies scattered along a recaptured trench somewhere in the Ukraine. He gripped the arms of the chair and tried to breathe through his mouth. Korolev started to count, anything to distract himself. At first all he could hear was his own breathing and he felt like screaming or trying to throw the hood off but he knew he’d just be beaten for his troubles. He forced himself to concentrate on the counting. Seventy-five, seventy-six. He’d reached four hundred and sixty-two by the time the door opened.
“You may go. You’ve been told that you are never to discuss the prisoner, under any circumstances, not even with the other guards or your superiors. Please confirm you understand, and commit to fulfill this duty to the State.”
“Confirmed, Comrade,” the guard replied.
“He is secure?”
“Yes.”
“That will be all. This corridor is to be sealed until further instructions are given.”
The guard took care shutting the door, so that all Korolev heard was a quiet click, footsteps receding and then another door, far away, shutting with a metallic clang, and finally nothing except the sound of pages being turned.
“You know why you’re here, prisoner?” The voice was quiet, putting a small emphasis on the word “prisoner,” which succeeded in conveying resigned disappointment.
“I haven’t committed any crime.”
“Everyone has committed a crime, prisoner.” The voice sounded bored. “It’s only a question of discovering which one. Would you like me to take off the hood?”
“Of course I would.”
“Well then, perhaps you could tell me what you were doing lying unconscious in the apartment of a known proponent of the Orthodox cult.” There was that rustle of papers again.
“I was making inquiries with regard to a criminal case, in the course of which I was attacked.”
“What case is this?”
“A series of murders. One of which was the murder of Citizeness Kuznetsova, also known as Mary Smithson, an American nun. I’ve been working under the direction of Staff Colonel Gregorin of the NKVD.”
He could hear the interrogator approach him and braced himself for a blow, but instead he felt hands pulling at the hood and then the stark light of the interrogation room flooded in.
“It’s not very pleasant, the hood.” The interrogator said, his disinterested voice coming from behind Korolev. Korolev knew better than to turn to look. “Deliberately so, of course. It’s often as effective as more traditional methods. You know how it goes, being an investigator-a brutal interrogation is exhausting. It leaves some people in as bad a state as the prisoner. But the hood works well.” The interrogator sounded as if he were speaking to himself.
“I don’t beat confessions out of prisoners. I find such measures counter-productive.”
A hand patted Korolev’s shoulder-it wasn’t clear whether in approval or sympathy.
“Now, who do you say assaulted you?” The voice had moved to Korolev’s left. It was disconcerting, having no one to look at. But then it was probably deliberately so.
“I didn’t see him. He hit me from behind. Why am I being held, Comrade? I’ve done nothing wrong.”
There was silence while the interrogator walked to the desk and then turned. With a shock, Korolev recognized him. It was the man from the football game. His watery blue eyes looked tired and his face seemed grayer than Korolev remembered, but it was definitely him, and now in the uniform of an NKVD major. He smiled when he saw he’d been recognized; a small upward spasm of the lips; the smile of a man unaccustomed to the act.
“Yes, a strange coincidence,” the major agreed. “I was surprised to see you at the game.”
“You knew who I was?”
The major considered the question and then shook his head as if deciding it couldn’t be answered safely.
“To business. Prisoner, we’re here to determine the extent of your involvement in a conspiracy concerning the theft of State property. The priority of the investigation at this stage is directed at recovering the property in question.” He paused for a moment and then added, almost as an afterthought. “The extent of your guilt will be determined at a later stage. But your cooperation will be considered a mitigating factor.”
“A conspiracy? I’ve been involved in no such conspiracy and no such theft,” Korolev said, feeling anger boiling up inside him. The major considered him for a moment and then nodded toward the file. He displayed no emotion except, perhaps, melancholy. He spoke like an accountant might speak about a factory’s output of shoes; calmly, with the remorseless weight of facts to back his words.
“Let me put it this way,” he said, quiet to the point that Korolev, with his damaged ear, had to lean forward to hear him. “You can tell me what I want to know freely, or I’ll break you like a frozen branch. And then you’ll tell me all I want to know anyway. And then you will be shot, your ex-wife will be sent to the Zone and your son will end up begging on trams. Your friends will also suffer.” He looked at his notes for a moment. “Popov, Semionov, Chestnova, Yasimov, Babel, Koltsova…” In a flat voice, he recorded the names of friends, family and acquaintances, his voice becoming quieter and quieter. When he slapped the file down on the table, the sudden sound seemed as loud as the guard’s punch.
“Do I need to go on?” Anger burned in his eyes for an instant and then his voice returned to a whisper. “There are fifty names there; you must know how this works. They’ll be arrested and imprisoned, and then their families and friends will suffer, and so on and so on. It will be a ripple across Moscow, one by one by one. Hundreds of people. All because you didn’t cooperate. What advice do you think they would give you, were they here beside you? Would they tell you to keep quiet? To defy the State? To fly your little flag of selfish honor from your besieged individualist castle of sand. Be sensible, prisoner. In fact, be merciful. Their lives are in your hands.”
The major shook his head and it seemed to Korolev that the light caught a glint of moisture in his defeated eyes. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. Hercegovina Flor. The cigarettes from the snowy football pitch where Tesak had been found. The major lit one and then walked over and put it into Korolev’s mouth. Korolev inhaled and watched the major light another. Korolev nodded to the empty stenographer’s desk, speaking from the corner of his mouth.
“No typist? This isn’t an official investigation, is it?”
The major sighed. “Come on, Captain. I ask questions, you answer. This isn’t a conversation. Do I have to beat that into your thick skull? Cooperate, Korolev, for your own sake. You will in the end, believe me.”
It was the first time since he’d found himself in the prison that he’d been addressed by his name or rank. It felt almost intimate, and the half-smile the major gave him opened a chink that Korolev aimed for, almost without thinking.
“With electricity? Like you did to Kuznetsova?” It wasn’t exactly a shot in the dark, but the words surprised Korolev almost as much as they seemed to surprise the major. Of course, it was a possibility-here was a man threatening to torture him who knew him by sight, in front of an empty stenographer’s desk, with a packet of Hercegovina Flor on the table beside him-but yet the major reminded Korolev more of a priest than a psychopath.
However, any doubts vanished when the blood seeped away from the major’s face. Korolev watched him in fascination; he looked like a hunted animal. Eventually he seemed to control himself and began to speak in a furious whisper, two red spots appearing on his blanched cheeks.