Stephen Burke - The Reluctant Contact

Suddenly there was silence, and Yuri looked up to see that the children had been tasked to work on a problem on their own. Seizing this opportunity, he quickly packed up his things and walked to the front of the classroom.

‘Are you finding everything all right in here?’ he asked her.

Even though she was not actually doing anything at that moment, Anya looked displeased at being addressed directly, in a way she would have to respond to.

‘Everything is fine,’ she said.

‘No problems?’ he asked.

‘If there is a problem, I’m sure someone will call you. I already said, everything is fine.’

He smiled. Her expression didn’t change.

‘Yes, yes you did.’

He nodded once and walked out with the feeling that his knuckles had just been rapped, like a schoolboy. A long bleak season of solitude appeared to be stretching out in front of him. There would be no more boats until March. Pyramiden had reached its full winter complement of women. He could of course, set his sights lower, but he was not in the mood for that right now. He wondered if there were any good books in the library that he had not already read.

Since Yuri had returned at the beginning of October, the hours of sunlight had been getting gradually shorter until one day, towards the end of the month, the sun did not rise at all. It would stay that way for another 111 days exactly. For a few more weeks there would be several hours of twilight each day, when there would still be a perceptible light just below the horizon at sunrise and sunset. Then that too would be gone and all would be given over to darkness. It was a surreal time for everyone. Yuri had experienced it eleven times before, but the fresh arrival of endless night still had a tendency to push him closer to the edge of sanity. Each day ran into the next, and the next, with no visible difference. Time seemed to have frozen at the moment when night was at its darkest and light should have begun its return. Wearing a watch became both pointless and essential. He expected that for the miners, the tunnel rats, it must be business as usual, since they rarely saw the sun anyway.

The weather changed too. Without the sun, the cold became something sinister. A foe to be battled.

Two days after the sun went into hiding, Yuri ran into Catherine outside the swimming pool. She had another gleeful expression on her face.

‘You see?’ she said.

‘See what?’ he asked.

She waved at the darkness surrounding them, and the starry sky above. ‘Space. Now my study can really begin.’

‘Ah,’ he agreed. ‘So it can.’

‘You’re on my list to interview,’ she said. ‘I’ll be tracking you down one of these days.’

As she walked away, he was pleased that his first impression of her had been incorrect. She was not such a ditzy cosmonaut after all. As the wind began to whip up around him, he gazed up at the Milky Way, which was as clear as though he were looking through a telescope. He felt a sudden chill. Not from the cold. It was the thought that Catherine’s theory might come true and that busts of Lenin might one day find their way up to those stars too.

After doing thirty lengths of the pool, Yuri made his way to the canteen in the Cultural Palace. He was late and there were no other diners left, but the kitchen staff managed to rustle up a hot meal for him from the leftovers. A clear fish soup to start, followed by minced pork dumplings with sour cream. The chandeliers had been switched off, and the only illumination came from the fluorescent kitchen lights. It was peaceful having the place to himself. A tsar alone in his grand dining hall. But it didn’t last.

Timur walked up the staircase and stopped before reaching the top. He nodded for Yuri to come down to him. Yuri hesitated. A private word with a KGB agent was never desirable; but this one seemed unavoidable. He put down his knife and fork and walked down to the first stairwell, to where Timur had retreated.

‘How long have you been in here?’ Timur asked.

‘I just got here,’ Yuri said. ‘Now my dinner is getting cold. Why do you ask?’

‘Do you know what Semyon was doing this evening?’

‘Yes, I do actually,’ replied Yuri. ‘The mine reported a problem with the air ventilation. I sent him down to fix it.’

‘Why didn’t you do it yourself?’

Yuri decided not to admit that he didn’t like it down there. It offered too much of a ripe excuse for demoting a mine’s chief maintenance engineer.

‘I was busy,’ he said. ‘And it seemed like a minor problem. Semyon’s well able to handle stuff like that on his own. What’s he gone and done?’

Timur paused before answering. ‘The job wasn’t so simple, as it happens. He’s dead.’

THE WHEELS ON the cable car squeaked in regular rhythm as it pulled Yuri and Timur up the mountainside. The steel tracks were enclosed in a wooden tunnel, which was the only thing preventing their faces being lashed by the icy wind. This was the second death in the space of a month of someone Yuri had known. News of the Latvian’s death had come as a shock, but he knew he was not going to shed any tears for Semyon. Still, he had been Yuri’s assistant, and therefore his responsibility, at least to some degree.

Yuri glanced over at his travelling companion, who was staring at him. He wasn’t crying either. Although Yuri couldn’t remember Timur ever showing any kind of emotion. When he had relayed the news about Semyon, he had done so as though it were an inconvenience.

‘Looks like your job is safe then,’ said Timur. ‘Competition out of the way.’

Yuri didn’t answer.

‘I know you sabotaged the heating system, just like he said,’ continued Timur. ‘That was smart.’

Yuri looked away and remained silent. The KGB man tapped his fingers on the side of the metal cable car, to the rhythm of some unknown tune. Yuri had come across many officials like Timur in his time. From experience, he knew it was best not to deflate their illusion that they were the smartest guys in the room. When men like him were feeling confident, they were less dangerous.

The broad, hulking figure of Igor, the mine foreman, gradually came into view at the top of the tunnel. Even from here, Yuri could see that the big man was shaken. Igor was six foot four and as wide as a house. A rampant beard covered half his face, and he was wrapped in the great black overcoat he always wore. The man had not done any actual digging in years. Yet, he was in charge of everything that happened up here. Igor nodded as they climbed out of the cable car, and stroked his beard.

‘This way,’ he said, and led them into the tunnel.

Yuri took a last deep breath at the mouth of the shaft, but regretted it immediately as the cold mountain air stabbed his lungs. Then he joined the others.

They followed the mine’s strip lighting through a bewildering maze of tunnels. To Yuri, every black shaft looked the same as the last. At least Igor seemed to know where he was going. They passed a few miners, who gave them that peculiar, silent nod of condolence usually reserved for family members at a funeral service. Yuri had gotten those looks from his brother’s neighbours the previous month, and receiving them again so soon was disconcerting. On this occasion, Yuri was not a relative, or a friend, and so deserved no sympathy.

After turning another corner, Igor stopped without warning and Yuri banged into his back. Igor stood and waited for his two visitors to start the conversation. The light in this tunnel was dimmer than in the main channel. Yuri looked around but could not see Semyon.

‘Where is he?’ he asked.

Igor pointed to a tarpaulin on the ground that may have been white once, but had now taken on the same coal-stained hue as the rest of this underground world. Resting beside the tarpaulin was a bashed ventilation unit and a small pile of rubble. Yuri looked at the roof above them. It appeared intact.