John Sweeney - The Useful Idiot

“Yes,” she whispered. “I saw that too. I think they’re Old Believers. Maybe all of them are, the priest, Ilya, Yuri, Granma, the crew.”

“Old Believers?”

“They follow the old version of Russian orthodoxy, before the Reforms in the seventeenth century. The Bolsheviks hate them, more than the ordinary church, and they hate that with a passion. People say the Old Believers, they’re a bit touched, a cult.”

“But their priest looked after the children, and they’re hiding us.”

“In this time, being in a cult may not be the worst thing.”

“Ilya said they’d used this route before. Is it possible that they’ve smuggled other Old Believers out under the marble?”

“Maybe the ffwl is becoming wise,” she said and kissed him, once, twice.

The barge bumped heavily against the side of the lock. From somewhere up above, the sound of shouts and the barking of dogs reached their hiding place. Evgenia put her finger to his lips and the two of them lay side by side, shivering and afraid.

Then, suddenly, the engine and the bilge pump were cut and they heard the metal of the hull ring as heavy boots thundered down the ladder into the hold.

Two dogs barked, then fell quiet.

Jones and Evgenia held their breath as best they could. Outside their hiding place, the animals sniffed and whined, their paws pattering on the marble.

“Nothing but stone down here,” came Granma’s voice, a little bored.

“The dogs seem excited,” a man’s voice, surly.

“Maybe a big rat is teasing them.”

“We should lift this slab.”

“Good luck with that brother. It weighs ten tonnes. You need a dockyard crane to even try – and the All Soviet Marble Works will have your balls if you break off a single speck of their precious rock. The high-ups in Moscow love this stuff. Break the marble for a rat if you dare, but that’s on your head, not mine.”

A long pause, a decision being made. “Oh, all right mother, stop your nagging. Come on boys, it’s time for lunch.”

Boots on metal retreated, diminished – and, after that, there was only a silence that went on and on.

Eventually the engine throbbed onwards, south, towards the sea. But something was not right.

“The bilge pump. It’s not working.” The anxiety in Jones’ voice was raw, his whisper too loud. Evgenia gripped his hand tightly, “Sssh.”

But he was right. The level of the slop at their feet rose, first soaking the bearskin rug they were lying on, then wetting their backs through their clothes. Taking the tin case out of the film bag, Jones jammed it between his ribs and the marble.

In the darkness, Jones pressed his mouth against her ear.

“Evgenia, what shall we do if they capture us and one of us survives and the other doesn’t?”

For a time, she said nothing. Jones listened intently for any sound other than the the throb of the engine, the hiss of the river and the sloshing of the bilge water, still climbing by the inch.

“The Cheka will play games with us. They may let you go.”

“They could kill us both, at the drop of a hat.”

“If they have me, they won’t need to kill you. Before they shoot me, they will force me to write love letters to you, twenty letters for twenty years. So even in 1953 you will think that I am alive when I am long dead. I’ve told you about this. So you must promise me that, if they take me but let you go, you will hurry to the West and, the moment you are free, tell the world what the peasant said. ‘There is no bread.’ Promise me you will do that.”

“What if you’re still alive?”

“I will be dead within a week. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“I love you, Evgenia. I have never loved anyone more my whole life.” He squeezed her hand. “I shall love you until my dying day.”

The bilge level seemed to hold steady for a time – but then the barge hit some rough water and the slop sluiced over their faces. They held their breaths, praying for the water level to go down. But it did not. The slop rose above their ears and they lay with necks angled, arching their mouths to the stone as their precious pocket of air grew smaller and smaller.

One minute…

Ten minutes…

An hour…

Time was meaningless in here. Neither knew how long they had been down here in the dark before they heard Yuri’s light steps climbing down the ladder, his curses, the slosh of his boots in the bilges, the sound of the crowbar prising the wooden chocks free – and, at last, saw a faint glow-worm of light.

Evgenia squeezed out first. After she was through, Jones passed her the tin case and, taking one last breath, edged out from underneath the marble. As he stood up, coughing and spluttering, his lungs were heaving.

Soaked with the evil, oily water, Evgenia and Jones clambered up the ladder to see a cold and dismal sun sinking towards the horizon. What had happened to them was beyond words and they had none.

“I could kill Pyotr,” Jones said at length.

Stripping down, they washed off the foul water as best they could, then changed into new clothes Yuri had found for them while he tried to dry their boots on a radiator. At least the tin case had kept its seal intact.

Yuri disappeared, only to come back shortly. “Granma wants to see you in her cabin,” he said.

The tabby on Granma’s lap stopped purring the moment they entered. Her cabin was tiny: a cot where they both sat, a chair for her, and a chart of the river on a small wooden table, with photographs of Lenin and Stalin plastered across the bulkhead. The still occupied the rest of the space.

Nodding to Lenin and Stalin, she pressed her thumbs against the outer edges of the wooden panel where the two portraits hung. The two Bolsheviks swung back to reveal an icon of the Madonna and child. Kissing the icon, she muttered a prayer and crossed herself in the way of the Old Believers.

Then, leaning across to the still, she opened a tap and filled a jug with clear liquid, found three glasses and filled them each to the brim. They drank them all down in one. She poured three more shots.

“How long to Odessa?” asked Jones.

“In two days the sea. From there we hug the coast. Odessa, a week, maybe more, maybe less.”

“To Odessa then.” Jones made to down his glass but Granma’s tone stayed his hand.

“Never had dogs before.”

“Granma, you know we almost drowned back there. Drowned because Pyotr didn’t bother to fix the bilge pump. He could have killed us.”

Her blue eyes had a film of water over them, the mask of her face beginning to crack.

“What is it, Granma?” asked Evgenia.

“Your precious film. Tell me, what’s in it?”

“A dead man and a dead horse. A dead village. Orphans, dying, their tummies distended, like balloons.”

“Will it make any difference?”

“Yes, Granma, all the difference in the world. No-one outside the Soviet Union believes this famine is happening. This film will prove that our government is lying.”

“The Cheka?”

Up above, where Arkady was at the wheel, the barge horn blasted. Granma stood up, surveyed the empty river, gave the boy a lick with the rough edge of her tongue and returned to her cabin, returning to her silent self-absorption.

“You were saying,” prompted Evgenia, “the Cheka.”

Granma’s words came in a rush, tumbling out one after another. “At the very last moment, the Cheka ordered Pyotr to come with them. At that last dock. Son of a bitch, he drinks too much. He’ll talk, tell them everything, not just you but the others too. He’s my… my…”

Her shoulders heaved. Tears started to run down her cheeks. “He’s my only child. He’s a fool and a drunk but he’s all I have.”