Robert Harris: Archangel

But there was nothing like that tonight. The wide road was empty and once they were across the river Rapava was able to let the big Yankee car have its head, the speedo flickering up to nearly 90, while Beria sat in the back as still as a rock. After twelve minutes, the city was behind them. After fifteen, at the end of the highway from Poklonnaya Gora, they slowed for the hidden turning. The tall white strips of the silver birches strobed in the headlights.

How quiet the forest was, how dark, how limitless - like a gently rustling sea. Rapava felt that it might stretch all the way to the Ukraine. A half-mile of track took them to the first perimeter fence where a red-and-white pole lay waist-high across the road. Two NKVD specials in capes and caps carrying sub-machine guns strolled out of the sentry box, saw Beria's stone face, saluted smartly and raised the barrier. The road curved for another hundred yards, past the hunched shadows of big shrubs, and then the Packard's powerful lights picked out the second fence, a fifteen foot high wall with gun-slits. Iron gates were swung open from the inside by unseen hands. And then the dacha.

Rapava had been expecting something unusual - he wasn't sure what - cars, men, uniforms, the bustle of a crisis. But the two-storey house was in darkness, save for one yellow lantern above the entrance. In this light, a figure waited - the unmistakable plump and dark-haired form of the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Georgiy Maksimilanovich Malenkov. And here was an odd thing, boy: he had taken off his shiny new shoes and had them wedged under one fat arm. Beria was out of the car almost before it had stopped and

in a flash he had Malenkov by the elbow and was listening to him, nodding, talking quietly, looking this way and that. Rapava heard him say, 'Moved him? Have you moved him?' And then Beria snapped his fingers in Rapava's direction, and Rapava realised he was being summoned to follow them inside.

Always before on his visits to the dacha he had either waited in the car for the Boss to emerge, or had gone to the guardhouse for a drink and a smoke with the other drivers. You have to understand that inside was forbidden territory. Nobody except the GenSec's staff and invited guests ever went inside. Now, moving into the hall, Rapava suddenly felt almost suffocated by panic - physically choked, as if someone had their hands around his windpipe.

Malenkov was walking ahead in his stockinged feet and even the Boss was on tiptoe, so Rapava played follow-my-leader and tried not to make a sound. Nobody else was about. The house seemed empty. The three of them crept down a passage, past an upright piano, and into a dining room with chairs for eight. The light was on. The curtains were drawn. There were some papers on the table, and a rack of Dunhill pipes. A wind-up gramophone was in one corner.

Above the fireplace was a blown up black and white photograph in a cheap wooden frame: the GenSec as a younger man, sitting in a garden somewhere on a sunny day with Comrade Lenin. At the far end of the room was a door. Malenkov turned to them and put a pudgy finger to his lips, then opened it very slowly. The old man closed his eyes and held out his empty glass for a refill. He sighed.

'You know, boy, people criticise Stalin, but you've got to say this for him: he lived like a worker. Not like Beria - he thought he was a prince. But Comrade Stalin's room was a plain man's room. You've got to say that for Stalin. He was always one of us.'

Caught in the draught of the opening door, a red candle flickered in the corner beneath a small icon of Lenin. The only other source of light was a shaded reading lamp on a desk. In the centre of the room was a large sofa that had been made up as a bed. A coarse brown army blanket trailed off it on to a tiger-skin rug. On the rug, on his back, breathing heavily and apparently asleep was a short, fat, elderly, ruddy-faced man in a dirty white vest and long woollen underpants. He had soiled himself. The room was hot and stank of human waste.

Malenkov put his podgy hand to his mouth and stayed close to the door. Beria went quickly over to the rug, unbuttoned his overcoat and fell to his knees. He put his hands on Stalin's forehead and pulled back both eyelids with his thumbs, revealing sightless, bloodshot yolks.

'Josef Vissarionovich,' he said softly, 'it's Lavrenty. Dear comrade, if you can hear me, move your eyes. Comrade?' Then to Malenkov, but all the while looking at Stalin: And you say he could have been like this for twenty hours?'

Behind his palm, Malenkov made a gagging sound. There were tears on his smooth cheeks.

'Dear comrade, move your eyes . . . Your eyes, dear comrade . . . Comrade? Ah, fuck it.' Beria pulled his hands away and stood up, wiping his fingers on his coat. 'It's a stroke right enough. He's meat. Where are Starostin and the boys? And Butusova?'

Malenkov was blubbing by now and Beria had to stand between him and the body - literally had to block his view to get his attention. He grasped Malenkov by the shoulders and began talking very quietly and very fast to him, as one would to a child - told him to forget Stalin, that Stalin was history, Stalin was meat, that the important thing was what they did next, that they had to stand together. Now: where were the boys? Were they still in the guard room? Malenkov nodded and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

'All right,' said Beria. 'This is what you do.'

Malenkov was to put on his shoes and go tell the guards that Comrade Stalin was sleeping, that he was drunk and why the fuck had he and Comrade Beria been dragged out of their beds for nothing? He was to tell them not to touch the telephone, and not to call any doctors. ('You listening, Georgiy?') Especially no doctors, because the GenSec thought all doctors were Jewish poisoners - remember? Now, - what was the time? Three? All right. At eight - no, better, seven-thirty - Malenkov was to start calling the leadership. He was to say that he and Beria wanted a full Politburo meeting here, at Blizhny, at nine. He was to say they were worried about Josef Vissarionovich's health and that a collective decision on treatment was necessary. Beria rubbed his hands.

'That should start them shitting themselves. Now let's get him up on the couch. You,' he said to Rapava. 'Get hold of his legs.'

The old man had been sinking deeper into his chair as he talked, his feet sprawled, his eyes shut, his voice a monotone. Suddenly he let out a long breath and hauled himself upright again. He looked around the hotel bedroom in a panic. 'Need to have a piss, boy. Gotta piss.'

'In there.'

He rose with a drunk's careful dignity. Through the flimsy wall, Kelso heard the sound of his urine drilling into the back of the toilet bowl. Fair enough, he thought. There was a lot to unload. He had been lubricating Rapava's memory for the best part of four hours by now: Baltika beer first, in the Ukraina's lobby bar, then Zubrovka in a cafe across the street, and finally single-malt Scotch in the cramped intimacy of his room. It was like playing a fish: playing a fish through a river of booze. He noticed the book of matches lying on the floor where Rapava had thrown it and he reached down and picked it up. On the back flap was the name of a bar or a nightclub - ROBOTNIK - and an address near the Dinamo Stadium. The lavatory flushed and Kelso quickly slipped the matches into his pocket, then Rapava reappeared, leaning against the door jamb, buttoning his flies.

'What's the time, boy?'

'Nearly one.

'Gotta go. They'll think I'm your fucking boyfriend.' Rapava made an obscene gesture with his hand. Kelso pretended to laugh. Sure, he'd call down for a taxi in a minute. Sure. But let's just finish this bottle first - he reached over for the Scotch and surreptitiously checked that the tape was still running - finish the bottle, comrade, and finish the story The old man scowled and looked at the floor. The story was finished already. There was nothing more to say. They got Stalin up on to the couch - so, what of it? Malenkov went off to talk to the guards. Rapava drove Beria home. Everyone knows the rest. A day or two later, Stalin was dead. And not long after that, Beria was dead. Malenkov - well, Malenkov hung around for years after his disgrace (Rapava saw him once, in the seventies, shuffling through the Arbat) but now even Malenkov was dead. Nadaraya, Sarsikov, Dumbadze, Starostin, Butusova - dead, dead. The Party was dead. The whole fucking country was dead, come to that.