William Ryan - The Twelfth Department

“Well, Yuri—your dad’s all right for a Ment. Straight and reliable—can’t ask much more.”

“Yes,” Yuri said, raising himself to stand. He held out his hand and Goldstein took it, shaking it firmly.

“The winter’s over,” Korolev said, nodding toward the other kids. “Not planning to move on?”

Goldstein smiled and Korolev noticed he’d lost one of his front teeth since the last time they’d met. He’d also picked up a raw-looking scar on his left cheek.

“We’ll go soon enough,” Goldstein said, “but some things can’t be rushed.”

Korolev sensed there was some secret irony in what the boy was saying but, whatever it might be, it wasn’t his business. He was on holiday.

Goldstein lifted the cigarette he’d given him to his mouth and Korolev lit it for him. Korolev turned to Yuri and offered him the packet as well. It seemed only fair.

“I’ll be honest with you, Yuri—they taste like old boots soaked in petrol and they make you smell like a crematorium. But, if you want one, you can have it. There’s no need to tell your mother, though.”

Yuri and Goldstein exchanged a glance and Korolev could have sworn some sort of challenge was made and accepted. The result was that Yuri picked out a cigarette, Korolev held up his lighter, and the next moment his son was doing his best not to cough up his lungs. Korolev cursed and patted his back, immediately regretting having given him the damned cigarette, while Goldstein dropped his tough facade enough to giggle. Korolev scowled at him.

“You weren’t lying about the taste,” Yuri said, spitting on the grass. Korolev leaned forward to take back the cigarette—but Yuri took a step back, taking another puff on it, this time managing to do so without coughing. He made a wry face. “But it just takes getting used to.”

“Come on,” Goldstein said, smiling widely and putting an arm around Yuri’s shoulder. “Come and meet the guys. Don’t worry, Comrade Captain—they’ll behave themselves. I’ll make sure of it.”

Korolev watched his son walk down to the river with Goldstein then sat down once again underneath the tree. Well, that had been interesting. He felt a glow of pride in the way the boy had behaved. Good for him. He found himself smiling fondly and all seemed well with the world—for the moment, at least. The day was hot, but not too humid. The sun was shining and the people nearby were happy and laughing. He thought about opening the book he’d brought with him and then found his eyes were closing whether he liked it or not—and his thoughts slowly spiraled toward something that seemed like oblivion.

How long he slept he couldn’t tell—and when he woke he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t still dreaming because the first people he saw were the two men from the train station, standing in among the far trees, half hidden by branches. They were talking together in a serious manner. And it wasn’t him they were looking at—but Yuri.

Korolev took Yuri back to the dacha shortly afterward—he didn’t feel safe down by the river after he’d seen the men. At first he was sorely tempted to head straight back to Moscow—but when he thought about it, he realized that wasn’t the sensible thing to do. If he was being watched, then running back to Bolshoi Nikolo-Vorobinsky might be seen as an admission of guilt—even if he’d no idea what it was he could be guilty of. And anyway—if those men were State Security there was nowhere he’d be safe. The thing to do was not panic.

Lipski, meanwhile, had found them some eggs, two fish that were still cold from the ice they’d been packed in, a small bag of potatoes, half a watermelon, and a piece of butter. It was enough, with what he’d brought from Moscow, for a good lunch—though Yuri only picked at it, his gaze drifting to the open window from time to time. Korolev wondered if he’d seen the men as well.

“Aren’t you hungry?” he asked, after several minutes during which neither of them spoke.

“No,” Yuri said. “I think I’ll just go upstairs and read for a while—is that all right?”

“Of course—your brain is a stomach too, you know. Except you have to feed it with books.”

Korolev thought about that for a moment—not sure if he’d expressed himself remotely well. Yuri glanced up at him, looking a little confused.

“What I meant to say was—” Korolev began.

“I know,” Yuri said. “Don’t worry, Papa. I like books. I read as much as I can.”

“That’s good, very good.”

When Yuri left the room, Korolev waited a moment or two before reaching across the table for the boy’s plate. He’d learned early in life that you never knew for sure when you might be able to eat again.

He’d barely finished the last mouthful when the phone rang, much louder than he’d been expecting—it was as if there were a fire engine in the room with him. He picked the receiver up carefully, a part of him wanting to let it ring and not answer it at all. He’d tried to get through to Zhenia again when they’d come back to the house and this must be the operator calling back.

“Hello?”

“Your call to Zagorsk. The line’s clear—I can put you through now.”

“Thank you.”

He listened to the phone ringing at Zhenia’s end. Once, twice, five times. The phone was in the communal hallway and sometimes it took awhile for someone to answer. After all, answering might mean climbing four flights to find the person the call was intended for—no fun in the middle of a hot summer. Eight times now.

“Hello?”

A man’s voice, elderly would be his guess—and annoyed at having been the one to answer, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“I’m calling for Citizeness Koroleva. Apartment 3 on the second floor.”

“Koroleva, you say?”

The voice sounded half-amused.

“That’s the one.”

“She won’t be answering phones today, I don’t think. No, my guess is she won’t be answering phones for a while.”

The man chuckled and before Korolev had a chance to question him, there came the click of the phone being hung up.

Korolev stood there, listening to the monotone hum of the empty line in his ear. He heard a floorboard creak behind him and turned to find Yuri standing in the doorway, his face pale. Korolev smiled.

“I see,” he said, speaking into the phone. “Well, I’ll call back tomorrow then. Can you tell her Alexei called? Thanks.”

He hung the receiver back onto the phone and shrugged.

“She’s out, it seems. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

Yuri nodded and Korolev listened to his footsteps retreating back up the stairs to the first floor.

It might be nothing—some people made dark humor from other people’s misfortune these days. And the whole house would know Chekists had come to visit, that was certain. It could just be a neighbor who wanted to make a call of his own or someone who couldn’t be bothered to go and find her. It was unnerving—but it was probably nothing unusual. Neighbors were like that sometimes. He should just remain calm—that was the sensible thing to do.

Later they searched for mushrooms in the woods around the dacha and turned it into a game. Yuri was soon scampering around, his eyes roaming the ground in front of him and his nose pointing forward as if he might sniff their quarry out.

“Yuri,” Korolev had said, in what he hoped was an offhand way, “if I should suddenly be called away, do you think you could remember how to get back to Moscow—to the apartment?”

Yuri, whose feet had been making their careful way across the sunshine-dappled forest floor, looked up at the question.

“You think you might be called away?”