John Sweeney - The Useful Idiot

Then, out of nowhere: the sound of a gunshot, the low rumble of a man’s voice as he issued a series of commands.

Even through the thick marble, Jones knew that voice. He would know it anywhere.

Lyushkov.

All of the truck engines were stilled. All of a sudden, every other sound was drowned out by the barking of dogs, some very close, some far away. Trapped in their marble cave in the dark, their panic grew as they could hear a dog, its paws pattering on the back of the truck. Lyushkov, his voice muffled by the marble, timber and straw, said something Jones could not decipher. Someone replied unenthusiastically. Lyushkov repeated his order.

“We will miss the barges if we off-load the marble from this truck, Comrade.”

“So be it,” Lyushkov’s voice.

“That will cost the Soviet Union seven million roubles, Comrade.” The unenthusiastic voice belonged to Ilya.

“I said, so be it.”

“Very well, comrade,” said Ilya.

Jones sensed steps, once more, on the marble on top of them. From up above, he heard the crane engine being coaxed into life, the sound of the winch working, the truck’s axles lifting, lifting…

Then there came a vicious snap, a whiplash of rope torn in two, the crane engine screaming, a heavy thunk as machinery hit the ground.

“For fuck’s sake!” shouted Ilya.

“Sorry Comrade,” yelled Yuri.

“I want to see what’s underneath this rock,” said Lyushkov.

“It’s not rock, Comrade,” said Ilya, “but the very finest marble, destined for Berlin. You can see it.”

“Good,” said Lyushkov.

“But you’re going to have to wait for delivery of a new crane.”

“How long will that take?”

“It will take time, Comrade.”

“What does that mean?”

“We have been promised one for seven years now. I can show you the paperwork to and fro.”

“I’ve been in this shithole for far too long,” snapped Lyushkov. “I’m needed back in Moscow urgently.”

“We can’t offload that truck without a crane. We’ve been waiting for a new crane for seven years. I can show you the-”

“Shut up about the fucking paperwork, you moron.” Lyushkov paused, seething. “All right, go on, send your precious marble to Berlin.”

“Thank you, Comrade.”

The truck engines roared into life once more, the marble started its long journey to the Reich – and, inside their tomb, Evgenia put a finger to Jones’ lips, then kissed him with a passion all the greater for having fooled the GPU.

It was a pig of a journey, tortoise-slow, unbearably uncomfortable, with the constant jeopardy at the back of their minds that, if one truck spring snapped and the load capsized, they could in an instant be crushed to pulp. During the day it had not been entirely dark in their tomb, the serrated edges of the marble allowing a few smudges of light to penetrate – but, in the late afternoon, the smudges started to grey, then redden. The loss of light as night closed in made their jeopardy seem even more grim. Then, at last, the truck came to a stop and they heard the hooting of a river barge and the grinding and splintering of ice.

Steps on the marble above them, then a crane engine was fired up and they heard a man’s voice barking out a command: “Go!” Moments later, a winch was turning and the axles of the truck started to ease slowly upwards, one inch, two, as the marble cross-slabs were lifted off.

“Stop! That’s all we’re doing tonight” The voice was Yuri’s. “It’s dangerous to work with marble in the dark. We’ll do the rest at daybreak. Right, let’s go eat.”

He took so long that they feared they’d been forgotten; they were shivering, blue with cold, when they heard someone climb onto the top of the planks covering the two long slabs. One single plank was lifted and, suddenly, their eyes were entranced by starlight. Yuri climbed down, held a hand out and lifted first Evgenia, then Jones out of their tomb. Relaying the plank, Yuri led them along a rough track away from the river towards a clump of trees. Jones and Evgenia, their legs stiff from lack of use, stumbled and slipped on the icy ground.

“Where are we going?” asked Jones.

“Ssssh!”

In a rough clearing in the trees they could just make out a wooden shack. Yuri told them to stay where they were and disappeared within. A conversation, low and soft; then, as someone gave out a hacking cough, Yuri emerged and beckoned them into the shack. Inside sat a babushka sucking on a pipe, her weatherbeaten face half-illuminated by a candle, a tabby cat sitting on her lap, purring malevolently.

“This is the captain of the barge,” said Yuri.

She took one look at them and spat. “No,” she said and sucked on her pipe, puffing fresh life into its embers.

“Why no, Granma?” asked Evgenia.

“He stinks of foreign. Look at his glasses, the cut of his clothes, the weave of his coat. He’s not one of us. Stands out like a mile. And you, love, you’re obviously a lady of good family. ‘A former person’, that’s what the Reds call your kind these days. I can tell from the way you hold yourself, the length of your hair. A working woman wouldn’t have hair that long. They say you’re here to make a film, like Charlie Chaplin.”

“Not like Charlin Chaplin,” said Evgenia. “Who told you about the film?”

“Word travels in these parts. You asked one of the villagers whether you could film here.”

Yuri stood behind them, silent.

Evgenia glanced at Jones. He nodded, then Evgenia tried her best. “We are making a film. But it’s about the hunger, the children starving, the dead villages. We need to get the film out, to tell the world what’s happening. We have the proof on film. That’s why, Granma. That’s why we need to hide on your barge, to get out.”

“The train would be faster.”

“They’re hunting for us. If we take the train…”

A sound came from the woods outside – something, perhaps an animal, bustling through the undergrowth. The cat stopped purring, its ears pricking up. The old woman listened intently. Then the cat stretched itself, licked a paw and started purring again. Granma sucked on her pipe and came to her decision.

“The hat? That’s a giveaway, right there. His glasses? They have to go. His clothes, too. I can give him some good working men’s clothes. And, you, my lady, you’ve got to look like a man. So the hair? It’s got to be cut. Your fine clothes, you’ve got to throw them away. I’ve got a boiler suit that will fit you. When a barge comes along, or we’re close to the bank or going through a town, you’ve got to hide, right down in the bilges, in the muck. Aye, both of your faces are bloody white, too. You need to look brown, common, like me.”

“Thank you Granma,” said Evgenia, “thank you with all our hearts.” She translated the deal to Jones.

When he learnt that he could not wear his spectacles, he said: “Without them, I am blind.”

“Tough,” said Evgenia.

The old woman found some scissors and went to work on Evgenia’s hair, great long tresses falling to the ground. Throughout it all, Evgenia wore a steely smile. Yuri disappeared for a time and came back with two sets of clothes, two pairs of boots. None of it was clean. From a jar, the old woman gave them each a dollop of molasses to make their faces less lily-white. When the transformation was finished, they looked into a mirror and saw two rough necks.

While the old woman headed off to the barge, to warn her crew, Evgenia, Yuri and Jones waited in the shack. Ten minutes later, they hurried through the dark, the eastern sky beginning to redden, heading towards a black hulk that lay in the ice-edged river. At the barge’s stern, they could see a red dot, someone smoking a pipe. They waited in silence until the red dot was extinguished, then they hurried across a narrow, spindly gangplank and down a wooden ladder into the bowels of the ship. Down here, slabs of marble lay flat on a lattice of wooden railways sleepers. Yuri took out a hammer from a toolbox and headed for the largest slab and crawled underneath the overhang. In the gloom, all of the sleepers looked solid and immobile but with the hammer he knocked a wooden chock to one side to gain entry, opening up an access hole not much bigger than eighteen inches square. Jones had to wriggle sideways to get in. Rough wooden planks had been laid on a metal trellis above the bilges, the filthy oily water sucking and weeping beneath them. The gap between the planks and the bottom of the marble was but twelve inches.