The men belonged to the Pomorske Cavalry Brigade and were on a routine patrol. The road on which they traveled snaked back and forth across the Polish-Russian border, but since it was the only road, and since the forest was so seldom visited except by woodcutters and soldiers patrolling the border, Soviet and Polish troops sometimes crossed paths in the Rusalka.
As the point rider moved around another bend in the road, he was lost in thoughts of how uneventful these patrols were and what a dreary place the Rusalka was and how unnaturally quiet it always seemed here.
Suddenly his horse reared up, very nearly throwing him. He struggled to stay in the saddle. Then he saw, blocking the path ahead of him, the huge, squat shape of a tank unlike any he had ever seen before. The barrel of its cannon pointed straight at him, and the opening at the end of the barrel seemed to glare like the eye of a cyclops. Its rotten-apple green paint made it seem as if the machine had sprouted from the dirt on which it stood.
As the other troopers came around the bend, both men and animals were startled. The clean lines of their riding formation broke apart. The lancers snapped commands and tugged at reins, trying to bring their mounts under control.
Awakened from its iron sleep, the tank engine gave a sudden, bestial roar. Two columns of bluish smoke belched from its twin exhaust pipes, rising like cobras into the damp air.
One of the Polish horses reared up on its hind legs. Its rider toppled off into the mud. The officer in charge of the troop, identifiable only by the fact that he wore a revolver on his belt, shouted at the man who had fallen. The trooper, his whole side painted with mud, scrambled back into the saddle.
The tank did not move, but its engine continued to bellow. All around the huge machine, the khaki-silted puddles trembled.
The lancers exchanged glances, unable to hide their fear.
One trooper unshouldered his rifle.
Seeing this, the officer spurred his horse towards the man, knocking the gun from his grasp.
Just when it seemed that the lancers were about to withdraw in confusion, the tank’s engine clattered and died.
The echo faded away through the trees. Except for the heavy breathing of the horses, silence returned to the forest. Then a hatch opened on the turret of the tank and a man climbed out. He wore the black leather double-breasted jacket of a Soviet tank officer. At first he gave no sign of realizing that the Poles were even there. As soon as he had cleared the turret hatch, he swung his legs to the side and clambered down to the ground. Only then did he acknowledge the presence of the horsemen. Awkwardly, he raised one hand in greeting.
The Poles looked at each other. They did not wave back.
“Tank bust!” said the tank officer, speaking in broken Polish. He threw up his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
In an instant, all fear vanished from the Polish lancers. Now they began to laugh and talk among themselves.
Two more soldiers emerged from the tank, one through the turret and another through a forward hatch which flopped open like the lazy blinking of an eyelid. The men who climbed out wore stone-gray overalls and padded cloth helmets. They glanced at the Poles, who were still laughing, then went around to the back of the tank. One man opened the engine compartment and the other looked inside.
The black-jacketed Soviet commander seemed unaffected by the laughter of the cavalrymen. He merely shrugged and said again, “Tank bust!”
The Polish officer gave a sharp command to his men, who immediately began to form up in their original columns. As soon as this had been done, the officer snapped his hand forward and the troop advanced. The two columns divided around the hulk of the tank, like the flow of water around a stone set in a stream.
The Poles could not hide their contempt for the broken machine. The point rider dipped the tip of his lance and dragged the blade along the metal hull, scraping up a curl of white paint from a large number 4 painted on its side.
The Soviets did nothing to stop them. Instead, they busied themselves with repairing the engine.
As the last Polish lancer rode by, he leaned in his saddle until he could have touched the tank commander. “Machine broken!” he mocked.
The Soviet officer nodded and grinned, but as soon as the horses had passed, the smile sheared off his face.
The two crewmen, who had been stooped over the engine compartment, both straightened and watched the swinging rear ends of the horses as they rounded the next bend in the road and disappeared.
“That’s right, Polack,” said one of the crewmen, in a voice barely above a whisper. “Laugh it up.”
“And we’ll laugh, too,” said the other, “when we are pissing on your Polish graves.”
The tank commander spun one finger in a circle; it was the signal for the engine to be started up again.
The crewmen nodded. They closed the engine cover and climbed back inside the tank.
Once more, the T-34 thundered to life and the machine jolted forward, gouging the road and kicking up a spray of mud as it rolled onward. When it came to an unmarked trail, the driver locked one of the tracks. The tank slewed sideways and then both tracks began to move again. The T-34 crashed into the undergrowth, splintering trees as it went. Soon it had vanished from sight and there was only the sound of its engine, fading into the distance.
IN A DARK, NARROW SIDE STREET TWO BLOCKS FROM THE KREMLIN, Pekkala inserted a long brass key into the lock of a battered door. The door was plated with iron which had once been painted a cheerful yellow, as if to lure in more sunlight than the few minutes a day when the sun shone directly overhead. Now most of the paint was gone and what remained had faded to the color of old varnish.
As Pekkala made his way up to the third floor, treading heavily upon the scuffed wooden stairs, his fingers trailed along the black metal bannister. The only light came from a single bulb, fringed with dusty cobwebs. In a dark corner, an old gray cat with matted fur lounged on a broken chair. Empty zinc coal buckets were stacked outside a doorway and coal dust glittered on the carpeting.
But at the third floor, everything changed. Here, the walls were freshly painted. A wooden coatrack stood at one end of the hallway, an umbrella hanging from one crooked peg. On the door, stenciled in black letters, was Pekkala’s name and under it, the word INVESTIGATOR. Beneath it, in smaller letters, was KIROV, ASSISTANT TO INSPECTOR PEKKALA.
Every time Pekkala reached the third floor, he silently gave thanks to his fastidious assistant.
There were times when, entering his office, Pekkala wondered if he had gotten lost and wandered instead into some strange arboretum. Plants sat on every surface—the sweet, musty smell of tomatoes, the sexually open mouths of orchid blossoms, the orange and purple beak-shaped bloom of the bird of paradise. The dust was swept daily from their leaves, the soil kept damp but not wet, showing marks where Kirov regularly pressed the earth down with his fingers, as if tucking an infant into bed.
The air felt heavy in here, as in a jungle, Pekkala thought, and seeing his desk almost hidden among the foliage, he had the impression that this was how his office might look if all humans suddenly vanished from the world and plants took over, swallowing the world of men.