Sam Eastland - Red Icon

Major Kirov had simply told him to head west along the Moscow highway. Narmandak had not left the Moscow city limits in over a year and he had never been west of Mozhaysk, only a few hours’ drive from the city.

By the end of that day, as the GAZ bumped along over the wide and unpaved road, Narmandak was further from his home than he had ever been before. The thought unnerved him, and he kept returning to that day when he had strayed from his home in the bare and rocky foothills of Altan Bulak, in search of that lost flock of sheep. He shared his shepherding duties with a dim-witted cousin named Batu. Under the shadow of a stone, Narmandak had fallen asleep in the heat of the day, while Batu stood guard. But Batu had also nodded off and, when they awoke, more than ten sheep were missing. Leaving Batu to guard the remainder of the flock, Narmandak followed their tracks to a stream, where he came across some men who were watering their horses and trying unsuccessfully to catch taimen, a breed of salmon native to Mongolia, with their bare hands in the shallow, fast-running water. By the time Narmandak found them, they were all completely soaked and had nothing to show for their efforts but fish scales stuck to their palms from the taimen which had slipped through their fingers. It turned out that they were Mongolian cavalry in the service of the Soviet Union, who had been sent into this wasteland to find volunteers for military service. Narmandak had not volunteered. In fact, as soon as the men had revealed the purpose of their mission, he had turned around and run the other way. But they soon caught up with him. They whipped him with a quirt, with chips of bones threaded on to the leather tassels. Then they tied him hand and foot, threw him over a saddle and returned to their barracks, a four-day journey away.

He wondered about those sheep. What had become of them? Had Batu searched for him when he failed to return? Had he seen the hoof-prints in the sand down by the stream and sounded the alarm? Did they think he had been carried off by demons? Why, in all the time since then, had they not come for him, or even sent word to ask if he was well?

These questions creaked and clattered in his mind, as when wind blows through the ice-covered branches of a tree and, as a result, he found it hard to concentrate upon the conversations of these two men, from which he hoped to learn their destination.

By the third day of driving, Narmandak was exhausted. Even though he had been given plenty of food and a place to sleep every night, the vast distances they covered across what was to him a flat and dreary landscape sapped all of his strength away.

On the morning of the fourth day, it rained and the going was slow, but by the afternoon the sun had come out, making the air heavy and soft. As they raced along the road towards the city of Shepetovka, Narmandak found himself mesmerised by the slate rooftops of the houses, which shone in the misty air, like scales scraped from a fish. This made him think of those taimen that the cavalrymen had been chasing through the stream that day and how, if they had been a little kinder to him, he could have shown them how to actually catch the fish. And it suddenly occurred to him why no one had come looking for him since his kidnapping by those horsemen. It was Batu. After all, it was his fault that the sheep got away and he would have done anything to avoid taking the blame. Instead of telling people what really happened, he probably spun some web of lies to make it seem as if he, Narmandak, had stolen the sheep and fled. It all seemed so clear to him now, and he swore that if he ever made it back to Altan Bulak . . .

Narmandak heard a rustling sound. Then he opened his eyes.

They were in the middle of a field. The GAZ had stalled out and it was perfectly quiet, except for the faint rustle of a breeze through the steppe grass.

He realised he had fallen asleep.

There was no ditch at the side of the road along this stretch of highway or they would have gone straight into it. Instead of that, the car had just veered off into the field, moving more and more slowly until the engine finally quit.

Glancing hesitantly in the rear-view mirror, the first thing he saw was Major Kirov, who lay snoozing with his head thrown back and mouth open. Narmandak breathed a sigh of relief, and wondered if he might even be able to get them back on to the road without his passengers being the wiser. But then, in the corner of the mirror, he noticed a shiny brown eye, with what appeared to be a glint of silver winking from the black depths of the pupil.

Inspector Pekkala was awake. ‘This road is long and dreary,’ he remarked.

Narmandak only nodded in reply.

‘Easy for a man to fall asleep while driving such a road,’ said Pekkala.

Narmandak let out a whistling sigh.

‘I’m guessing you’re not from around here,’ remarked the Inspector.

‘Altan Bulak,’ replied the driver. ‘In Mongolia.’

‘I know where it is,’ said Pekkala, ‘and I expect you miss the mountains.’

‘Who doesn’t miss the place which he calls home?’

Pekkala leaned forward and slapped him gently on the shoulder. ‘Until you leave it, though, you cannot really know where you come from.’

Narmandak had never thought of it that way before and suddenly the distance between himself and those bare foothills, and the familiar tinny jangling of sheep bells and the constant rolling thunder of the water coming out of the mountains did not seem so painfully far.

Narmandak switched on the engine and they drove back to the road.

Major Kirov knew nothing of this. He continued to nap, snuffling contentedly as the GAZ sped off towards Shepetovka.

The next morning, having spent the night in an unlocked cell at the police barracks, Narmandak’s eyes fluttered open and he was surprised to see, from the colour of sunlight through the barred window above his head, that it was already quite late in the morning. He pulled on his boots and walked down the corridor to the guardroom, expecting to find Major Kirov and the Inspector ready to depart. But all Narmandak found was a solitary policeman sitting at a desk, drinking tea from a green enamel mug.

‘Where are they?’ he asked.

‘Gone,’ replied the policeman.

‘Gone?’ gasped Narmandak.

‘Some time ago, in fact.’

Narmandak went to the door and looked out into the street. ‘Are they coming back?’ he asked.

‘Didn’t say anything about it,’ answered the policeman. ‘They left you something, though.’ With the heel of his boot, he shunted a crumpled brown paper bag across the desktop so that it was within Narmandak’s reach.

Narmandak opened the bag. Inside was a bar of chocolate, a packet of cigarettes and a set of transfer papers back to Altan Bulak.

Meanwhile, several hours’ drive to the west, Major Kirov sat behind the wheel. Unused to the pedals, he had crashed the gears several times, filling the air with the zipping, nerve-wrenching noise of metal cogs grinding together. ‘Why the hell did you send him to Mongolia?’ he demanded.

‘That’s where he lives,’ answered Pekkala.

‘He was our driver!’

‘But Mongolia is where he belongs. Besides, you’ll get the hang of it.’

Kirov crashed the gears again.

‘Eventually,’ added Pekkala.

Two days later, knowing they were close to their destination, Kirov pulled over at the outskirts of the village in order to consult his map. The quality of the roads had improved since they’d crossed the German border but all signposts had been ripped up, which made navigating complicated.

While Kirov unfolded the map, trying to find their location as the large, creased sheet of paper flapped like a banner in the breeze, Pekkala stood in the middle of the road, hands tucked behind his back, looking out across the deserted countryside. Neat wooden fences criss-crossed the fields, and farmsteads dotted the horizon, each one enclosed by high stone walls so that only the upper floors and rooftops were visible, in marked contrast to the thatched barns and whitewashed houses of the Russian farms.