Kelso couldn't move. He couldn't speak. It was O'Brian who took the first step. He glanced at the Russian, touched himself on his chest, gestured at the table, and received in return a nod of approval. Tentatively, he reached out to pick up the photograph. Kelso could see what he was thinking:
the likeness was indeed striking. Not exact, of course - no man ever looks exactly like his father - but there was something there, no doubt about it, even with the younger man's beard and straggling hair. Something in the cast of the eyes and the bone structure, perhaps, or in the play of the expression: a kind of ponderous agility, a genetic shadow that was beyond the skills of any actor.
The Russian grinned again at O'Brian. He picked up his knife and pointed at the photograph, then mimed hacking at his beard. Yes?
For a moment, Kelso wasn't sure what he meant, but O'Brian did. O'Brian knew at once.
Yes. He nodded vigorously. Oh, yes. Yes, please. The Russian promptly scythed away a great swathe of coarse black facial hair and held it out, with childish pleasure, for their inspection. He repeated the stroke, again and again, and there was something shocking about the way he did this, in the casual manipulation of the razor-edged knife - this side, that, and then the throat - in the careless self-mutilation of it. There is nothing, thought Kelso, with a flash of certainty, there is no act of violence this man is not capable of The Russian reached behind his head and grabbed his hair into a thick ponytail and sliced it off as close to the roots as he could. Then he crossed the cabin in a couple of strides, opened the door of the iron stove, and flung the mass of hair on to the burning wood where it flared for an instant before shriveling to dust and smoke.
'Bloody hell,' whispered Kelso. He watched, disbelieving, as O'Brian began opening the camera case. 'Oh no. Not that. You can't be serious.'
'I can.'
'But he's mad.'
'So are half the people we put on television.' O'Brian pushed a new cassette into the side of the camera and smiled as it clicked home. 'Showtime.'
Behind him, the Russian had his head bent over the bowl of hot water steaming on the stove. He had stripped to a dirty yellow vest and had lathered his face with something. The rasp of the knife-blade on his bristle made Kelso's own flesh ache.
'Look at him,' said Kelso. 'He probably doesn't even know what television is.'
'Fine by me.
'God.' Kelso closed his eyes.
The Russian turned towards them, wiping himself on his' shirt. His face was blotchy, beaded with pinheads of blood, but he had left himself a heavy moustache, as black and oily as a crow's wings, and the transformation was stunning. Here stood the Stalin of the 1 920s: Stalin in his prime, an animal force. What was it Lenin had predicted? 'This Georgian will serve us a peppery stew.'
He tucked his hair under the marshal's cap. He slipped on the tunic. A little loose around the front, perhaps, but otherwise a perfect fit. He buttoned it and strutted up and down the room a couple of times, his right hand cirnling modestly in an imperial wave.
He picked up a volume of the Collected Works, opened it at random, glanced at the page and handed it to Kelso.
Then he smiled, held up a finger, coughed into his hand, cleared his throat and began to speak. And he was good. Kelso could tell that straight away. He was not merely word perfect. He was better than that. He must have studied the recordings, hour after hour, year after year since childhood. He had the familiar, flat, remorseless delivery; the brutal, incantatory beat. He had the expression of heavy sarcasm, the dark humour, the strength, the hate.
'This Trotsky-Bultharin bunch of spies, murderers and wreckers,' he began slowly, 'who kow-towed to the foreign world, who were possessed by a slavish instinct to grovel before every foreign bigwig, and who were ready to enter his employ as a spy -' his voice began to rise '- this handful of people who did not understand that the humblest Soviet citizen, being free from the fetters of capital, stands head and shoulders above any high-placed foreign bzgwz~ whose neck
the yoke of capitalist slavery -, and now he was shouting - who needs this miserable band of venal slaves, of what value can they be to the people, and whom can they demoralise?
He glared around, defying any of them - Kelso with the open book, O'Brian with the camera to his eye, the table, the stove, the skulls - any one of them to dare to answer him back.
He straightened~ thrusting out his chin.
'In 1937 Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich and other fiends were sentenced to be shot. After that, the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. were held. In these elections, 98.6 per cent of the total vote was cast for the Soviet power!
'At the beginning of 1938 Rosengoltz, Rykov, Bukharin and other fiends were sentenced to be shot. After that, the elections to the Supreme Soviets of the Union Republics were held. In these elections 99.4 per cent of the total vote was cast for the Soviet power! Where are the symptoms of demoralisation, we would like to know?'
He placed his fist on his heart.
'Such was the inglorious end of the opponents of the line of our Party, who finished up as enemies of the people!'
'Stormy applause,' read Kelso. 'All the delegates rise and cheer the speaker. Shouts of 'Hurrahfor Comrade Stalin!" "Long live Comrade Stalin!" 'Hurrah for the Central Committee of our Party!"'
The Russian swayed before the rhythm of the dead crowd. He could hear the roars, the stamping feet, the cheers. He nodded modestly. He smiled. He applauded in return. The Imaginary tumult rang around the narrow cabin and rolled out across the snowy clearing to split the silent trees.
FELIKS SUVORIN'S AIRCRAFT dropped through the base of low cloud and banked to starboard, following the line of the White Sea coast.
A stain of rust appeared in the snowy wilderness and spread, and he began to make out details. Drooping cranes, empty submarine pens, derelict construction sheds Severodvinsk, it must be - Brezhnev's big nuclear junkyard, just along the coast from Archangel, where they built the subs in the 1 970s that were supposed to bring ,,-the imperialists to their knees.
He stared down at it as he fastened his seatbelt. Some mafia middlemen had been sniffing around up here, about a year ago, trying to buy a warhead for the Iraqis. He remembered the case. Chechens in the taiga! Unbelievable! And yet they would manage it one day, he thought. There was too much spare hardware, too little supervision, too much money chasing it. The law of supply and demand would mate with the law of averages and they would get something, sometime.
The wingflaps shuddered. There was a whine of cables. They descended further, yawing and pitching through the snowstorm. Severodvinsk slid away. He could see grey discs of freezing water, flat blank swampland, white-capped trees and more trees, running away forever. What could live down there? Nothing, surely? No one. They were at the edge of the earth.
The old plane trundled on for another ten minutes, barely fifty yards above the forest ceiling, and then ahead Suvorin saw a pattern of lights in the snow.
It was a military airfield, secluded in the trees, with a snow plough parked at the edge of the apron. The runway had just been cleared but already a thin white skin was beginning to form again. They came in low to take a look then lifted once more, the engine straining, and turned to make a final approach. As they did so~ Suvorin had a tilting glimpse of Archangel - of distant, shadowy tower blocks and filthy chimneys - and then in they came, bouncing off the runway, once, twice, before settling, turning, the propellers conjuring miniature blizzards from the snow.