— So you want to walk into the centre of the village, as if we were family, and greet them?
— That’s exactly what we’re going to do.
Side by side, they walked into the centre of the village as if they were returning from work, as if they had a right to be here. Men and women and children gathered around them, surrounding them. Their houses were made of mud and wood. Their farm equipment was forty years out of date. All they had to do was turn them over to the State and they’d be richly rewarded. How could they refuse? These people had nothing.
Encircled by hostile faces, Raisa spoke up.
— We’re prisoners. We’ve escaped from the train transporting us to the Kolyma region, where we would’ve died. We’re now being hunted. We need your help. We ask for this help not for ourselves. Eventually we’ll be caught and killed. We’ve accepted that. But before we die there is one task we have to perform. Please let us explain why we need your help. If you don’t like what we tell you, then you should have nothing to do with us.
A man stepped forward, in his mid-forties, an air of self-importance about him.
— As chairman of this kolkhoz, it is my duty to point out that it would be in our best interests to turn them over.
Raisa glanced at the other villagers. Had she been wrong? Had the State already infiltrated these villages, planted their own spies and informers in the management system? A man’s voice called out.
— And what would you do with the reward, hand that over to the State too?
There was laughter. The chairman went red, embarrassed. Relieved, Raisa realized this man was a comic figure, a puppet. He wasn’t the real authority. From the back of the crowd an elderly woman spoke out:
— Feed them.
As though an oracle had spoken, the debate was over.
They were led into the largest house. In the main room, where food was prepared, they were seated and given cups of water. A fire was stoked. All the while their audience grew until the entire house was crowded. Children filled the spaces in between the adults’ legs, staring at Leo and Raisa as children might stare in a zoo. Fresh bread, still warm, was brought from another house. They ate with their wet clothes steaming in front of the fire. When a man apologized for not being able to offer them a new set of clothes, Leo merely nodded, disorientated by their generosity. He could offer them a story; that was it. Finishing his bread and water, he stood up.
Raisa watched the men, women and children as they listened to Leo. He began with the murder of Arkady, the young boy in Moscow, a murder he’d been ordered to cover up. He spoke of his shame at having told the boy’s family that it was an accident. He went on to explain why he was expelled from the MGB, sent to Voualsk. He explained his amazement when he’d found another child had been murdered in almost exactly the same way. The audience gasped, as though he was performing some magic trick, when they were told that these murders were being committed across their entire country. Some parents ushered their children out of the house as Leo warned them of what he was about to describe.
Even before Leo had finished his story his audience had formed ideas as to who could’ve been responsible. None of them supposed these murders were the work of a man with a job, a man with a family. The men in the audience found it hard to believe that this killer couldn’t be immediately identified. All of them were certain they’d know he was a monster just by looking him in the eyes. Glancing around the room, Leo realized their perspective on the world had been shaken. He apologized for introducing them to the reality of this killer’s existence. In an effort to reassure them he outlined the murderer’s movements along the railways, through the major towns. He killed as part of his routine; a routine wouldn’t bring him into villages like this.
Even with these assurances, Raisa wondered whether or not these people would any longer be so trusting and welcoming. Would they feed a stranger? Or from now on would they fear that strangers were hiding some evil they couldn’t see? The price of this story was the audience’s innocence. It wasn’t that they hadn’t seen brutality and death. But they’d never imagined that the murder of a child could give pleasure.
It was dark outside and Leo had been speaking for some time, well over an hour. He was nearing the end of his story when a child ran into the house.
— I saw lights on the northern hills. There are trucks. They’re coming this way.
Everyone got to their feet. Reading the faces of those around him Leo knew that there was no chance these trucks could be anything other than the State. He asked:
— How long do we have?
Asking that question, he’d already grouped himself with them, presumed a connection when in fact there was none. They could quite easily surrender them and claim their reward. Yet it appeared as if he was the only one in the room even contemplating such an idea. Even the chairman had surrendered to the collective decision to aid them.
Some of the adults hurried out of the house, perhaps to see for themselves. Those remaining quizzed the boy.
— Which hill?
— How many trucks?
— How long ago?
There were three trucks, three sets of headlights. The boy had seen them from the edge of his father’s farm. They were coming from the north, several kilometres away. They’d be here in minutes.
There was nowhere to hide in these houses. The villagers had no belongings, no furniture to speak of. And the search would be thorough, brutally so. If there was a hiding place it would be found. Leo knew how much pride was at stake for the guards. Raisa took hold of his arms:
— We can run. They’ll have to search the village first. If they pretend we were never here, we can get ahead, maybe hide in the countryside. It’s dark.
Leo shook his head. Feeling his stomach tense, his thoughts were thrown back to Anatoly Brodsky. This is what he must have felt when he’d turned around to see Leo on the crest of the hill, when he’d realized that the net had closed around him. Leo remembered how that man had paused, staring for a moment, unable to do anything other than contemplate that he’d been caught. On that day he’d run. But there was no way to outrun these guards. They were rested, equipped to hunt — long-range rifles, telescopic sights, flares to light up the sky and dogs to pick up suspicious trails.
Leo turned to the young boy who’d seen the trucks.
— I need your help.
Same Day
Nervous, his hands shaking, the boy crouched in the middle of the road in almost complete darkness, a small bag of grain spilled before him. He could hear the trucks approaching, the tyres kicking up dirt: they were only a couple of hundred metres away, coming fast. He closed his eyes, hoping they’d see him. Was it possible they were going too fast to stop in time? There was a screech of brakes. He opened his eyes, turning his head, caught in the beam of powerful headlights. He raised his arms. The trucks lurched to a stop, the metal bumper almost touching the boy’s face. The door to the front cabin opened. A soldier called out.
— What the fuck are you doing?
— My bag split.
— Get off the road!
— My father will kill me if I don’t collect it all.
— I’ll kill you if you don’t move.
The boy wasn’t sure what to do. He continued picking at the grains. He heard a metallic click: was that the sound of a gun? He’d never seen a gun: he had no idea what they sounded like. Panicking, he continued picking at the grains, putting them in the bag. They wouldn’t shoot him: he was just a boy picking up his father’s grain. Then he remembered the stranger’s story: children were being killed all the time. Maybe these men were the same. He grabbed as much grain as he could, picked up the bag and ran back towards the village. The trucks followed him, chasing him, beeping their horns, getting him to run faster. He could hear soldiers laughing. He’d never run so fast in his life.