'What happened to the man who tried to get out on the train?'
Igor's milky eye was on me again. 'I'll tell you. Like I say, he bribed the guard so he wasn't down as missing. Then he got a civvy coat from somewhere and walked down to the gates with a whole bunch of official-looking papers in his hand. All the rolls had reported every man present in his hut so they let the train come in. Well this character Nyazov was going up and down handing out these papers – I saw one of them afterwards, they was just copies of a new daily routine order he'd filched from the orderly room.' He kicked his pine shavings together and dumped them into the bin. 'Then the train got up steam and started rolling, and you know what this character did? He knew it'd be stupid to just climb on board, so he waited till he thought no one was looking and made a dive underneath. Idea was, I reckon, to hang on to the struts and find space enough to wedge himself in for the ride.'
He'd stopped work again for a minute, and the guard gave him a shout. 'Get a move on, then!'
'Fuck yourself,' Igor said under his breath, and struck down again with the huge blade to make a perfect slice. 'But he came unstuck, poor old Nyazov, couldn't hang on for more than a couple o' minutes, lost his grip. They heard him scream, one o' the guards told me afterwards, when he went down under the wheels. They brought the two halves of his body back into camp, shoved 'em in a box and took 'em out there to the graveyard. Next morning at general roll call we got all the details from the commandant, told us to take it as a warning of what happens when people try and escape. Of course he'd been out of his bloody mind, Nyazov, because it was November and even if he'd managed to hang on under that train for more than a few miles he'd have been found some fine day stiff as a bloody icicle, still there. Those trains go seventy mile an hour, so what d'you think the wind-chill factor is when the temperature's fifty below for a start? Out of his bloody mind.' The big blade bit, sliced and came away, leaving a perfect taper. 'You want to know the only way to get out of Gulanka? It's easy, and there's some who's done it. Get yourself a bit of rope and sling it over a beam and kick the box away.'
'Okay, this is a sword hand. Palm flat, fingers tight together, thumb in line with the first finger, not tucked in, or you'll diminish the muscle tension.'
He watched me, Alex, his eyes intent in the dim light. We were in the wash house, the last to leave. Smell of soap, urine, tobacco smoke, the night smell, the morning smell.
'You right-handed?'
'Yeah.'
'Okay, the strike's like this and the usual target's the neck. It's to stun, if you hit the carotid artery right. That's here. You'll only kill if you use terrific force at that point – the sword hand's not normally used for killing. You cold?'
'Bit.'
He was always cold; most of it was fear. 'Swing your arms, but keep watching. This is the hammer fist. You can use it for a downward block or target the head with it, or the elbow or the groin or the knee, depending on the situation. The trouble with the sword hand and the hammer fist is that you need to pull back first to get the momentum, and that takes a lot of time, at least two seconds, and if your opponent's quick he'll get in first. But don't underestimate them as weapons – they can do significant damage.'
A wind was rising from the north, from the Arctic, coming over the top of the massif and curving down across the camp, rustling paper, rattling the doors. Another blizzard, Igor had told us, last night had been nothing.
'Getting warmer?'
'Bit.'
'Keep swinging. This is the half-fist, and it doesn't look like much but it's used mainly for killing. It's effective because the knuckles make a blade and you can drive the strike from the hip without having to waste time pulling back first – you're in there before your opponent knows it. Stop swinging a minute and try it. No, fingers tight, really tight, lots of tension at the instant when you go in, thumb tucked against the first fingertip – no, tight, that's it. You can practise the hand set whenever you get the chance, last thing at night in bed's a good time. Train the muscles – they're not used to it.'
'The hand set?'
'The shape you form with it. This is the hand set for the half-fist we're forming now. Okay, but tighter than that, tighter. Right, now this is the killing area, the best target for the half-fist, takes two seconds to kill once you're good enough. But if you mean to kill, don't pull the strike, go for it. And try and make sure you've got witnesses who can say it was in self-defence.'
'That would kill Gradov?' His young eyes were awed.
The man with the hare lip. 'Once your muscles are up to strength, yes. But that's going to take you a few months, a whole lot of secret training.'
On a slow breath: 'Gradov.'
'Anyone. But look, you don't have to kill people to make them understand you're not just a pushover. Cool them down with a strike or two and leave them to think about it.'
Snowflakes were mottling the black window pane, and the wind began keening under the door.
'Will you show me -'
'Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But you can start practising right away, in bed. Get those muscles into condition, that's half the battle.' I put an arm round him. 'How long have you been taking this kind of thing, Alex?'
'This kind of – oh. Two years. Ever since I got here.'
'Well look, I know it's tough to say, but give it another two months, maybe three. The most dangerous thing you can do is to start hitting back before you've got the strength and the moves down right – they'll stop you in your tracks and things'll be even worse for you. Now come on, before we freeze to death in here.'
Later, after midnight when the main floodlights were switched off, I left the hut and made my way between the snow-banks, taking my time, taking an hour, more, watching for the sentries as they sheltered under the eaves, finding detours to avoid them and to avoid the marker lights as the new snow whirled past my face on the strengthening wind. Then I reached the target building.
It was a standard cylinder lock and I pushed the key in, my own version made out of a sardine-can opener bent at right angles and flattened at one end, felt for the tumblers, testing their resistance, finding the right pressure, turning the key and forcing them back and turning the handle next, cracking open the door.
Because there was one thing I had to do, primordially, despite the guards and the sentries and the machine-gun posts and the wire and the wolves.
Keep Balalaika running.
19: FLASHLIGHT
Behind the counter the so-called orderly room was a mess, box files made of cardboard at all angles across the floor and piled up the wall, three empty vodka bottles still where they'd been dropped among the cigarette cartons, five or six pairs of snow boots crowded near the door at the rear with a thick rawhide whip lying across them, the tip of its lash frayed from long use and the bone handle worn to an ivory brilliance, teasing the nerves unpleasantly.