But Mushkin looked neither left nor right, driving through the village as though it didn’t exist until, on reaching a large concrete block which announced the Odessa Regional Agricultural College in foot-high letters, he turned off the main road onto a gravel drive. The drive continued into woodland, the first Korolev had seen since he’d landed, and after a minute or so it reached the remains of a small church, burnt out long before.
‘The family that owned the estate were buried here,’ Mushkin said, stopping the car and indicating a small graveyard that had suffered as much as the church. ‘When the Revolution arrived the peasants dug up their graves and scattered their bones over the steppe. Then they burnt the church down with the priest inside it.’
Korolev kept his face expressionless – he’d heard of worse things happening during the Civil War, and seen things as bad. But he was surprised by the priest. In fact he’d risk a fair amount of money that it wasn’t the villagers who’d burnt their priest alive. Korolev glanced at Mushkin and something in his expression, the way he looked at the church, made him wonder if Mushkin himself hadn’t had something to do with the atrocity. After a few moments of contemplation, Mushkin put the car back into gear and they drove for another hundred metres or so to where the woods opened up and a series of newly built concrete buildings appeared – dormitories, what looked like a gymnasium, classrooms, lecture halls and several large barns. Finally the drive led to a large house built from ochre-coloured stone, three storeys high and standing in the middle of winter-stripped gardens.
It wasn’t a palace as such, but a substantial residence all the same. It didn’t look Russian, with its small turrets at each corner and its arched windows, more like a building from North Africa. To the left of the house stood what must have been the stable block, the courtyard of which contained a number of trailers, a bus and a truck, as well as an odd assortment of equipment, some of which was covered with tarpaulins bearing the stencilled logo ‘Ukrainfilm’.
Mushkin stopped the car in front of the ornate entrance to the house. ‘The local Militia will be arriving soon,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘You’re not here in an official capacity, but as Babel’s friend. We’ll be asking your opinion, seeing as you’re here – by complete coincidence.’
‘So I was informed.’
‘I’m informing you again,’ Mushkin said as he pulled himself out of the car. He glanced round at Korolev once, then walked towards the stable yard, his hands deep in his pockets.
Korolev stayed where he was for a moment, looking around him. Apart from Mushkin’s departing figure there was no one to be seen. Perhaps Korolev was a little tired, and Mushkin’s story about the family graves and the burning priest too fresh in his mind, but he had a sudden image of the porch’s black-and-white tiled floor slicked with blood. For a moment the image was so vivid that he couldn’t breathe.
Shocked, Korolev sat there, not sure what else to do but open up the packet of cigarettes he had in his pocket, extract one with some difficulty, his fingers rattling a nervous tattoo on the cardboard box, and put it in his mouth. He lit it, wondering if he was cracking up, and feeling so worn that he almost didn’t care. Tiredness was all this was, he reassured himself for the second time in twenty-four hours – the previous day’s arrest, the Chekist knocking on the door, the Lubianka waiting room, the plane journey, Mushkin. Things like that took it out of a man. He sighed and coughed as he inhaled, savouring the spread of nicotine through his body.
When the bang on the driver’s door came, the surprise lifted Korolev out of his seat so high his head touched the roof.
‘What the hell?’ he shouted, adrenalin shuddering though his body like electricity and his hand instinctively going for his shoulder holster.
‘Sorry, Comrade.’ The smiling face of a small blond boy with a red Pioneer’s scarf round his neck was looking in at him through the window, nose flat against the glass. And the strangest thing was that he was the spitting image of Korolev’s son Yuri, so much so that Korolev wondered whether he were having another hallucination until he saw the small differences, the slightly darker blue of the eyes, the perfect teeth where Yuri’s were a little crooked. But the likeness was uncanny and it was with some difficulty that he pulled himself together.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, and the question came out a little more gruffly than he’d intended.
‘Pavel.’
‘And do you usually go around scaring the living daylights out of honest citizens, Pavel? And you a Pioneer as well.’ Which, again, wasn’t how he’d intended to speak to the boy and when the boy’s smile was replaced with a grave expression he felt a parent’s guilt.
‘I’m sorry, Comrade,’ the boy began, but Korolev shook his head.
‘Don’t be, Pavel. It’s me should be apologizing – you caught me by surprise, that’s all. Off with you now – we’ll meet again, I’m sure, and start from the beginning again.’
The boy’s smile reappeared and he saluted before disappearing round the corner at a gallop. Korolev hauled himself out of the car, suddenly determined to deal with this affair quickly so he could take what was left of the two weeks to go and see the real Yuri in Zagorsk. He could be there in two days with a bit of luck and Rodinov’s help with the journey. Yes, that’s what he’d do, he thought to himself, and prayed the girl had indeed killed herself.
He walked into the domed porch, glancing up for a moment at the curved sky-blue roof on which silver stars twinkled, then tried the front doors, which were locked. No one answered when he pulled at a metal chain that rang a distant bell, and there was no one to be seen in the entrance hall when he looked through one of the small windows.
A cobbled path circled the house and Korolev followed it, listening for any sign of human activity and hearing none, only the sound of the wind pushing its way through the garden’s trees, and on the opposite side of the building he found a long balustraded terrace that overlooked a frozen lake, ice embracing the withered reeds around its shore. The house was even more impressive from this angle and in front of the terrace there was a large fountain, ice cascading from the mouths of cherubs into a deep, shell-shaped basin, a good twenty feet in diameter. Korolev imagined the Orlovs eating on the terrace in the heat of an August evening, perhaps under an awning, dressed in their summer whites, the windows of the conservatory that ran the length of the house open to let in the slight summer breeze, the fountain’s water tinkling beneath them, unaware that their days were numbered
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps. A tall elderly woman with a straight back and almost military bearing appeared round the corner of the house in the company of Major Mushkin. They were talking quietly, the old woman stabbing the path with a walking stick for emphasis as she marched along. She had a thin, angular face and her grey hair had slipped out from under a worn fur hat, before curling round the upturned collar of her greatcoat. If the walking stick was needed, Korolev decided, it wasn’t for reasons of speed, as she was maintaining a brisk pace, albeit with a stiff, awkward gait.
He coughed and they looked up, coming to a halt, Mushkin’s eyes cold, while the woman seemed to study him as if he were a potential problem that needed brisk and efficient resolution. He raised his hand in greeting.
‘This is Korolev, Mother.’
‘I see,’ she said. ‘If you want the film people, they’re off somewhere. Ask Andreychuk – he’ll be inside. Good morning to you, Comrade Korolev.’
She made to move on, but stopped as Korolev opened his mouth to speak.
‘Well?’ she asked, allowing her stern voice to become a little gentler, making Korolev feel as though he were a child. ‘What is it?’