‘What kind of proof?’ said Maksim. ‘Proof of what?’
‘Later,’ said Lom. ‘Say there was such proof, what would you do with it? How could it be used? Do you have the means? Are you prepared for this?’
Maksim thought for a moment.
‘It’s good, is it?’ he said. ‘This proof? It’s something dangerous? Something big?’
‘Yes. It would be explosive. It would make Rizhin’s position impossible. Everyone would turn against him. Everyone. He’d be finished. He would fall.’
Maksim’s eyes gleamed.
‘That would be a great thing indeed,’ he said. Then he frowned. ‘But no. We couldn’t use it. We wouldn’t have a chance. We haven’t the means. We are too few.’
‘We know journalists,’ said Konnie. ‘The newspapers—’
‘The papers wouldn’t print it,’ said Maksim. ‘Never.’
‘The Archipelago then. We have friends at the embassy.’
‘If it came from the Archipelago, who would believe it? It would be dismissed as propaganda and lies.’
‘Then wouldn’t you need…?’ Konnie began and trailed off.
‘Yes?’ said Lom.
‘Someone in the government. Someone big, with power and influence, who isn’t afraid of Rizhin. Someone who could step in and push him out.’
‘They’re all Rizhin’s creatures,’ said Maksim. ‘They’re all terrified of him, and anyway whoever ousted Rizhin would be just as bad, or worse.’
‘All of them?’ said Lom. ‘Is there no one?’
‘Well.’ Konnie paused. ‘There’s Kistler. You hear things about him. There are rumours. He has connections… Kistler could be worth a try. Maksim?’
‘Maybe,’ said Maksim. ‘Maybe Kistler. Possibly. He’s stronger than the others. He has an independent view–sometimes, apparently.’
‘Do you have a link to this Kistler?’ said Lom. ‘Are you in communication with him?’
‘No,’ said Konnie. ‘Nothing that firm, but there is talk about him. Like I said, you hear things.’
‘How would I reach him?’
‘I’m not sure about this,’ said Maksim. ‘I wouldn’t trust Kistler more than any of the others. But… we have the address of his house. We have all of them. We know where they live.’
‘Give it to me, please,’ said Lom. ‘I’ll go and see what this Kistler has to say.’
He was flying blind. Throwing stones at random, hoping to hit something. But he didn’t know another way.
‘Like I said, it’s just a rumour,’ said Konnie. ‘A feeling. You shouldn’t place any weight on what I say.’
‘It’s the best lead I’ve got,’ said Lom. ‘The only one.’
‘Do you have this proof, then?’ said Maksim as Lom and Elena were leaving. ‘Really?’
‘No,’ said Lom. ‘Not yet. But tomorrow, I hope so. I should have it on Wednesday.’
Maksim looked puzzled. ‘But today is Wednesday,’ he said.
‘Is it?’ said Lom. ‘Is it?’
The clocks tell you something, but not the time.
9
Rizhin had not yet appointed a successor at the Agriculture Ministry for the unfortunate Vladi Broch, killed by the assassin’s bullet meant for another, so Broch’s deputy, an assiduous man named Varagan, was summoned in his place to the weekly meeting of the Central Committee.
For Varagan this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. His chance to step out from the shadows and demonstrate his quality. Poor Varagan. A man of prodigious administrative capacity and earnest zeal, he had profoundly mistaken his purpose, having got it firmly (and regrettably) fixed in his head that it was his job as Under-Secretary for Food Production to identify and address the causes of growing starvation in the eastern oblasts of the New Vlast.
When Rizhin called on him to speak, he rose and hooked his wire spectacles behind his ears, cleared his throat nervously and began to introduce his report. He was a freshly washed sheep among wolves.
‘Everywhere the population shows the demographic impact of war,’ he began. ‘Six hundred men for every thousand women, and worse among those of working age. The rebuilding of our factories proceeds far too slowly. Water, electricity and sewerage everywhere are in an abysmal condition. Above all the prices for agricultural producers are ruinously low, though the prices in shops still rise—’
Rizhin raised a hand to interrupt. ‘Is it not your own ministry, Varagan, that fixes these prices?’
‘Precisely, sir. I have recommendations which I will come to. I am sketching the background first. The rural populace has fled to the cities. They eat dogs and horses and the bark of trees. In many of our towns we see black-marketeering. Gangsterism. Bribery. The rule of this committee in such places is nominal at best.’
Rizhin sat back in his chair, doodling wolf heads as he listened with half-closed eyes.
‘Steady, Varagan,’ said Kistler quietly. ‘Remember where you are.’
But Rizhin waved Varagan on. ‘Let the man speak,’ he said. ‘Let us hear what he has to say.’
The committee looked on in silence as Varagan methodically ploughed his furrow.
‘Grain is exported to the Archipelago even as our own people starve,’ he said. ‘Our errors are compounded by poor harvests. Famine is widespread and growing. Deaths are to be counted in hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, and—’
‘But surely,’ said Rizhin, raising his eyelids and looking round the table, fixing them one by one with a stony gaze, ‘this is not right? Did not our old friend Broch tell us just the other week that this talk of famine was a fairy tale? Am I not right, colleagues? He said so often. And you are telling us now, Varagan, that Vladi Broch’s reports were false?’
Varagan looked suddenly sick, as if he had been punched in the stomach.
‘I…’ he began. ‘I…’
‘Who drafted Vladi’s reports for him?’ said Rizhin. ‘Who produced those false statistics?’ He made a show of riffling back through old papers in his folder. ‘Come, Varagan, I want the name.’
Poor Varagan was shaking visibly now. He was beginning to understand what he had done. The pit he had dug for himself with his own honest shovel. His face was blood-red. His mouth opened and shut soundlessly. Kistler wondered if he might collapse.
Varagan snatched at a glass of water and drank it down.
‘But people are dying,’ he said, struggling to speak. Mouth dry, voice catching. ‘I have ideas for saving them. I have drawn up a programme…’
‘And yet,’ said Rizhin, ‘week after week we have had reports to the precise contrary. Tables of figures. I have them here.’ He lifted a file from his pile. ‘Figures from the Secretariat of Food Production. Signed by your own hand, Secretary Varagan. How do you account for this? How do you explain?’
‘I…’ said Varagan again, eyes wide in panic, and snapped his mouth shut.
Rizhin threw the file down on the table.
‘There is no famine in the New Vlast,’ he said. ‘It is impossible. What there is, is pilfering and theft. Corrupt individualism! Starvation is the ploy of reactionary and deviationist elements. Our enemies hate our work so much they let their families die. The distended belly of a child is a sign of resistance. It is good news. It confirms we are on the right track that our opponents grow so desperate.’
‘Yes,’ whispered Varagan, casting desperately around the table for support, but no one caught his eye. ‘Of course. I see clearly now. I have misinterpreted the data. I have made a mistake. An honest mistake.’
Rizhin was suddenly trembling with anger.
‘Mistake?’ he said. ‘Oh no, I think not. This is a power play, Varagan. Transparent viciousness. You wriggle now, oh yes, you squirm. That is always the way of it with men like you. First you come here and throw accusations at your own dead boss, yes, and at others around this table, honest hard-working fellows, and now you row backwards. I know your type, my friend. You are ambitious! You would rise! You ache for preferment, and you cover your tracks. You are at fault and blame everyone but yourself. Well I see now that there is someone to blame, and it is you.’