She had wept, and he had, too. Did that surprise him? Oh, they had howled and clutched at one another! They had cried in a way they never had before, not even for Anna. The whole of Archangel was in grief. She could still remember the day of the funeral. The long silence, broken by a thirty-gun salute. The echo of the gunfire had rolled across the Dvina like a distant storm in the forest.
Two months later, in May, when the ice had gone, Mikhail had filled a backpack and had set off to find his grandson.
She had known nothing good could come of it.
One day passed, then two, then three. He was a fit man, strong and healthy - he was only forty-five.
On the fifth day some fishermen had found his body, about thirty versts upstream, rushing along in the yellow meltwater that was pouring out of the forest, not far from Novodvinsk.
Kelso unfolded O'Brian's map and laid it out on the table. She put on her spectacles and hunted up and down the blue line of the Dvina, her good eye held very close.
There, she said, after a while, and pointed. That was the place where her husband's body had been found. A wild spot! There were wolves here in the forest, and lynx and bear. In some places the trees were too dense for a man to move. In others, there were swamps that could eat you in a minute. And here and there the grey weathered bones of the old kulak settlements. Almost all of the kulaks had perished, of course. There was not much of a living to be scratched in such a place.
Mikhail knew the forest as well as any man. He had been roaming the taiga since he was a child.
It had been a heart attack, according to the militia. That was what they said. Maybe he had been trying to fill his water bottle? He had fallen into the cold yellow water and the shock had stopped his heart.
She had buried him in the Kuznecheskoye Cemetery, next to Anna.
'And what,' said Kelso, conscious again of O'Brian Just' behind them, filming them now with his wretched miniature camera, 'what was the name of the village where your husband said the Chizhikovs lived?'
Ah! This was crazy! How could she be expected to remember that? It was so long ago - nearly fifty years.
She brought her face down close to the map again.
Here somewhere - she placed a wavering finger on a spot just north of the river - somewhere around here: a place too small to be worth recording. Too small to have a name, even.
She had never tried to find it herself?
Oh no.
She looked at Kelso in horror.
Nothing good could come of it. Not then. And not now.
THE BIG CAR braked hard and swerved off the south Moscow highway into the Zhukovsky military airbase shortly before noon, Feliks Suvorin hanging grimly to the strap in the rear. Beyond the checkpoint, a jeep waited. It pulled away as the barrier rose, its tail lights flashing, and they followed it around the side of the terminal building, through a wire fence and on to the concrete apron.
A small grey aircraft, as requested - six-seater, prop-driven - was being fuelled by a tanker. Beyond the plane was a line of dark green army helicopters with drooping rotors; parked next to it, a big ZiL limousine.
Well, well, thought Suvorin. Some things still work round here.
He stuffed his notes into his briefcase and darted through the wind and rain towards the limousine where Arsenyev's driver was already opening the rear door.
'And?' said Arsenyev from the warmth of the interior.
'And,' said Suvorin, sliding along the seat to join him, 'it's not what we thought it was. And thank you for fixing the plane.'
'Wait in the other car,' said Arsenyev to his chauffeur.
'Yes, colonel.'
'What's not as who thought it was?' said Arsenyev, when the door was shut. 'Good morning, by the way.
'Good morning, Yuri Semonovich. The notebook. Everybody's always believed it was Stalin's. Actually it turns out to have been a journal kept by a girl servant of Stalin's, Anna Mikhailovna Safanova. He had her brought down from Archangel to work for him in the summer of'51, about eighteen months before he died.'
Arsenyev blinked at him.
'And that's it? That's what Beria stole?'
'That's it. That and some papers about her, apparently.' ' Arsenyev stared at Suvorin for a second or two, then started laughing. He shook his head with relief. 'Go flick your mother! The old bastard was screwing his maid? Is that what he was up to?'
Apparently.'
'That is priceless. That is brilliant!' Arsenyev punched the seat in front of him. 'Oh, let me be there! Let me be there to ~ see Mamantov's face when he finds out his great Stalin testament is nothing more than a maid's account of getting screwed by the mighty Vozhd" He glanced at Suvorin, his fat cheeks flushed with mirth, diamonds glistening in his eyes.
'What's the matter, Feliks? Don't tell me you can't see the funny side?' He stopped laughing. 'What's the matter? You are sure this is true, aren't you?'
'Pretty well sure, colonel, yes. This is all according to the woman we picked up last night, Zinaida Rapava. She read the notebook yesterday afternoon - her father left it hidden for her. I can't think that she would invent such a story. It defies imagination.-
'Right, right. So cheer up, eh? And where's this notebook now?'
'Well, that's the first complication.' Suvorin spoke hesitantly. It seemed such a shame to spoil the old fellow's mood. 'That's why I needed to talk to you. It seems she showed it to the historian, Kelso. According to her, he's taken it with him.'
'With him?'
'To Archangel. He's trying to find the woman who wrote it, this Anna Safanova.'
Arsenyev tugged nervously at his thick neck. 'When did he leave?'
'Yesterday afternoon. Four or five. She can't remember exactly.
'How?'
'Driving.'
'Driving? That's all right. You'll catch him easily. By the time you land, you'll only be a few hours behind him. He's a rat in a trap up there.'
'Unfortunately, it's not just him. He's got a journalist with him. O'Brian. You know him? That correspondent with the satellite television station.
'Ah.' Arsenyev stuck out his lower lip and pulled at his neck some more. After a while he said, 'But even so, the chances of this woman still being alive are small. And if she is - well, so, so, it's no disaster. Let them write their books and make their fucking news reports. I can't see Stalin entrusting his maid with a message for future generations. Can you?'
'Well, this is my worry -'His maid? Come on, Feliks! He was a Georgian, after all, and an old one at that. Women were good for only three things, as far as Comrade Stalin was concerned. Cooking, cleaning and having kids. He -' Arsenyev stopped. 'No -,
'It's insane,' said Suvorin, holding up his hand. 'I know that. I've been telling myself all the way over that it's crazy. But then, he was crazy. And he was a Georgian. Think about it. Why would he go to so much trouble to check out one girl? He had her medical records, apparently. And he wanted her checked for congenital abnormalities. Also, why would he keep her diary in his safe? And then there's more, you see -'More?' Arsenyev was no longer punching the front seat.
He was clutching it for support.
'According to Zinaida, there are references in the girl's journal to Trofim Lysenko. You know: "the inheritability of acquired characteristics" and all that rubbish. And apparently he also goes on about how useless his own children are, and how "the soul of Russia is in the north".'
'Stop it, Feliks. This is too much.'
'And then there's Mamantov. I've never understood why Mamantov should have taken such an insane risk - to murder Rapava, and in such a way. Why? This is what I tried to say to you yesterday: what could Stalin possibly have written that could have any effect upon Russia nearly fifty years later? But if Mamantov knew - had heard some rumour years ago, maybe, from some of the old timers at the Lubyanka - that Stalin might deliberately have left behind an heir -,