Robert Harris: Archangel

'But there's more to your story, surely,' said Kelso. 'Please sit down Papu Gerasimovich, and let us finish the bottle.'

He spoke politely and hesitantly, for he sensed that the anaesthetic of alcohol and vanity might be wearing off, and that Rapava, on coming round, might suddenly realise he was talking far too much. He felt another spasm of irritation. Christ, they were always so bloody difficult, these old NKVD men - difficult and maybe even still dangerous. Kelso was a historian, in his middle forties, thirty years younger than Papu Rapava. But he was out of condition - to be truthful, he had never really been in condition - and he wouldn't have fancied his chances if the old man turned rough. Rapava, after all, was a survivor of the Arctic Circle camps. He wouldn't have forgotten how to hurt someone - hurt someone very quickly, guessed Kelso, and probably very badly. He filled Rapava's glass, topped up his own, and forced himself to keep on talking.

'I mean, here you are, twenty-five years old, in the General Secretary's bedroom. You couldn't get any closer to the centre than that - that was the inner sanctum, that was sacred So what was Beria up to, taking you in there?'

'You deaf, boy? I said. He needed me to move the body.'

'But why you? Why not one of Stalin's regular guards? It was they who'd found him, after all, and alerted Malenkov in the first place. Or why didn't Beria take one of his more senior boys out to Blizhny? Why did he specifically take you?' Rapava was swaying, staring now at the glass of scotch, and afterwards Kelso decided that the whole night really turned upon this one thing: that Rapava needed another drink, and he needed it at that precise instant, and he needed these two things in combination more than he needed to leave. He came back and sat down heavily, drained the glass in one, then held it out to be filled again.

'Papu Rapava,' continued Kelso, pouring another three fingers of scotch. 'Nephew of Avksenty Rapava, Beria's oldest crony in the Georgian NKVD. Younger than the others on the staff A new boy in the city. Maybe a little more naive than the rest? Am I right? Precisely the sort of eager young fellow the Boss might have looked at and thought: yes, I could use him, I could use Rapava's boy, he would keep a secret.'

The silence lengthened and deepened until it was almost tangible, as if someone had come into the room and joined them. Rapava's head began to rock from side to side, then he leaned forward and clasped the back of his scrawny neck with his hands, staring at the worn carpet. His grey hair was cropped close to his skull. An old, puckered scar ran from his crown almost to his temple. It looked as if it had been stitched up by a blind man using string. And those fingers: blackened yellow tips and not a nail on one of them.

'Turn off your machine, boy,' he said, quietly. He nodded towards the table. 'Turn it off. Now take out the tape - that's it - and leave it where I can see it.

Comrade Stalin was only a short man - five foot four - but he was heavy. Holy Mother, he was heavy! It was as if he wasn't made of fat and bone, but of some denser stuff. They dragged him across the wooden floor, his head lolling and banging on the polished blocks, and then they had to lever him up, legs first. Rapava noticed - couldn't help noticing, as they were almost in his face - that the second and third toes of the GenSec's left foot were webbed - the Devil's mark -and when the others weren't looking, he crossed himself.

'Now, young comrade,' said Beria, when Malenkov had gone 'do you like standing on the ground, or would you prefer to be under it?'

At first, Rapava couldn't believe he had heard properly. That was when he knew his life would never be the same again, and that he'd be lucky to survive this night. He whispered~ 'I like standing on it, Boss.'

'Good lad.' Beria made a pincer of his thumb and forefinger. 'We need to find a key. About so big. Looks like the sort of key you might use to wind a clock. He keeps it on a brass ring with a piece of string attached. Check his clothes.'

The familiar grey tunic was hanging off the back of a chair. Grey pants were neatly folded over it. Beside them was a pair of high black cavalry boots, their heels built up an inch or so. Rapava's limbs moved jerkily. What kind of dream was this? The Father and Teacher of the Soviet People, the Inspirer and Organiser of the Victory of Communism, the Leader of All Progressive Humanity, with half his iron brain destroyed, lying filthy on the sofa, while the two of them went through his room like a pair of thieves? Nevertheless, he did as he was ordered and started on the tunic while Beria attacked the desk with an old Chekist's skill - pulling out drawers, upending them, scavenging through their contents, sweeping back the detritus and replacing them on their runners. There was nothing in the tunic and nothing in the trousers, either, apart from a soiled handkerchief, brittle with dried phlegm. By now, Rapava's eyes had grown used to the gloom, and he was better able to see his surroundings. On one wall was a large Chinese print of a tiger. On another -and this was the strangest thing of all - Stalin had stuck up photographs of children. Toddlers, mostly. Not proper prints, but pictures roughly torn out of magazines and newspapers. There must have been a couple of dozen of them.

Anything?'

'No, Boss.'

'Try the couch.'

They had put Stalin on his back, with his hands folded on his paunch, and you'd have thought the old fellow was merely asleep. His breathing was heavy. He was almost snoring. Close up, he didn't look much like his pictures. His face was mottled red and fleshy, pitted with shallow cratered scars. His moustache and eyebrows were whitish grey. You could see his scalp through his thin hair. Rapava leaned over him - ah! the smell: it was as if he were already rotting - and slid his hand down into the gap between the cushions and the sofa's back. He worked his fingers all the way down, leaning left towards the GenSec's feet then moving right again, up towards the head until, at last, the tip of his forefinger touched something hard and he had to stretch to retrieve it, his arm pressing gently against Stalin's chest. And the an awful thing: the most horrible, terrible thing. As he withdrew the key and called in a whisper to the Boss, the GenSec gave a grunt and his eyes jerked open - an animal's yellow eyes, full of rage and fear. Even Beria faltered when he saw them. No other part of the body moved, but a kind of straining growl came from the throat. Hesitantly, Beria came closer and peered down at him, then passed his hand in front of Stalin's eyes. That seemed to give him an idea. He took the key from Rapava and let it dangle at the end of its cord a few inches above Stalin's face. The yellow eyes locked on to it at once, and followed it, never left it, through all the points of the compass. Beria, smiling now, let it circle slowly for at least half a minute, then abruptly snatched it away and caught it in his palm. He closed his fingers around it and offered his clenched fist to Stalin. Such a sound, boy! More animal than human! It pursued Rapava out of that room and along the passage and down all the years, from that night to this.

The bottle of Scotch was drained and Kelso was on his knees now before the mini-bar like a priest before his altar. He wondered how his hosts at the historical symposium would feel when they got the bar bill, but that was less important right now than the task of keeping the old man fuelled and talking. He pulled out handfuls of miniatures - vodka, more scotch, gin, brandy, something German made of cherries -and cradled them across the room to the table. As he sat down and released them a couple of bottles rolled on to the floor but Rapava paid them no heed. He wasn't an old man in the Ukraina any more; he was back in fifty-three - a frightened twenty-five-year-old at the wheel of a dark green Packard, the highway to Moscow shining white in the headlights before him, Lavrenty Beria rocklike in the rear.