Dyavol. How appropriate the man’s nickname was. The gleam in his eye when he had pulled the trigger was the Devil’s own. He had seen it in her eye when she had made her choice and gone to him, as if the gleam was what drew them together.
In all conscience, Kozodavlev had nothing to reproach himself with. Indeed, had he not long ago successfully argued away the very existence of conscience, at least as something pertaining to a man such as himself?
All that was true enough. What was also true was that he had come back to the Winter Canal and was now scanning the surface of the water as if he expected to receive from it some kind of. .
At last the word came to him. Absolution.
Kozodavlev was suddenly aware that he was not alone. His thoughts had been so isolating that he had failed to register even the group of young sailors who were running boisterously along the embankment towards the far end of the canal. But now their sharp, joyful cries spiralling in the clear spring air drew him out of his reverie.
As they ran and yelped, they shed their clothes.
One by one, whooping and goading each other wildly, the now naked sailors clambered onto the balustrade and threw themselves howling into the water. Eventually only one man was left, clinging hesitantly to the wrong side of the balustrade, laughing and shaking his head defiantly in the face of his companions’ jeers.
And then even he let go.
Kozodavlev felt the apprehension tighten inside him as he watched this sailor disappear beneath the ice-capped water. He had a bad feeling about the boy — for he was little more than a boy. The chances were, he couldn’t swim, which was why he had been so reluctant to take the plunge. Kozodavlev hoped that the other sailors would look out for him. If the boy drowned, it would be a tragedy. Such a death — an unnecessary death — was unpardonable.
If they must die, let them die for a reason. For the cause.
Thus Kozodavlev reassured himself that he was not a monster.
Then, at last the boy re-emerged, and Kozodavlev saw that he could swim as well as his fellows, despite being somewhat slighter in build. His reluctance perhaps had been feigned, or it was simply the prospect of the icy shock that had put him off.
There was something about this sailor’s face that attracted Kozodavlev’s attention. Broad-nosed and narrow-eyed, he was from peasant stock, undoubtedly, but his expression was intelligent, and therefore vulnerable. To think — to think deeply and honestly and freely — was to make yourself vulnerable. It involved cutting yourself loose from the security of received ideas and laying yourself open to new ones. It was an unsettling activity. Eventually, if one persevered, it led to greater strength. But first there was a period of uncertainty and anxiety to endure, from which some never emerged. They would spend their whole lives in a state of crippling doubt, cowering beneath a shell of cynicism.
Hence the wariness behind the young sailor’s hesitancy. The quick darting glance of his eyes was questioning and slightly remote. He was less spontaneous, less natural. Happiest when he was swimming away from the ugly braying of his fellows. But still, not wholly content alone. Always he would come back to the group, to make himself again the butt of their stupid jokes.
He was a potential revolutionary, judged Kozodavlev. They needed young peasants like this, who could think for themselves — up to a point, it always had to be up to a point — and then take the word back to their villages. Loyalty to the cause is always stronger when the individual believes he has come to his convictions himself.
The young sailor executed an untidy but efficient duck dive, his two pale legs splayed as they kicked against the air.
Kozodavlev’s apprehension returned. But this time he was not anxious about the swimmer’s abilities.
It was there, just there, where the boy was diving that. .
The boy’s head broke the surface of the river, pushing aside two bobbing slabs of ice with a fierce shake of denial. A circle of spray shot out from his drenched hair. Immediately, he began shouting and gesticulating urgently to his comrades, his finger repeatedly stabbing downwards towards the bottom of the canal.
Kozodavlev bit down on his thumbnail, finally severing it, so sharply that the clash of his incisors scratched the enamel.
He took a step back from the balustrade but did not move away.
The nail fragment caught in the back of his throat, setting him coughing. Eventually, he was able to spit out the nail.
Kozodavlev now watched in horror as the mood of the other sailors changed gradually from hilarity to confusion, and then to a kind of hyper-alert tension. With varying levels of skill, they duck-dived beneath the broken ice.
The moment seemed longer than humanly possible: all the sailors gone from sight, the canal unnaturally quiet in their absence. If Kozodavlev was going to run, now would be the time to do it.
Then, one by one, they broke the surface, with huge, life-swallowing gasps, their lungs strained to the edge of endurance. The young boy who had caught Kozodavlev’s eye was the last to emerge, his skin now turning blue with the cold.
Now, almost immediately, there was something else there with them, another presence, or almost a presence, not quite. A smooth, black, glistening mound nudged aside the suddenly agitated chunks of ice.
The sailors shouted excitedly amongst themselves. Then one of them, Kozodavlev’s boy in fact, noticed Kozodavlev on the embankment watching them. Treading water, he waved his hands and called out to Kozodavlev.
‘Hey, you! Mister! Find a policeman, will you? Or the City Guard.’
Kozodavlev frowned, as if he couldn’t understand Russian, or had never heard it spoken with a Volga accent.
‘What’s the matter with you? Get the police, for Christ’s sake!’
‘The police?’ Kozodavlev’s voice had never sounded more false to his ears.
‘There’s a dead body here. It was tied to some rocks. We got it free. Someone must have dumped it in the canal. Before the water froze over.’
‘A dead body, you say? Are you sure? My goodness, a dead body! Who would have thought it? And with all the fires last night.’
Now all the sailors were watching Kozodavlev, their faces dumbfounded. ‘He’s some kind of. . madman,’ pronounced one of them, a man with an unruly moustache that stuck out at right angles before him.
‘Who is it?’ said Kozodavlev, brightly. Even he knew it was a stupid thing to say, possibly the most stupid thing he could have said in the circumstances.
‘Who is it?’ exploded the sailor with the bristling moustache. ‘How the fuck should we know?’
‘Turn him over, I mean,’ answered Kozodavlev. ‘Let’s have a look at his face.’ The truth was, he was simply incapable of tearing himself away from that spot until he knew for sure.
The sailors exchanged consultative glances and decided, wordlessly, that there was some merit in the suggestion, even if it had come from a madman.
They clustered around the low cylindrical form that barely broke the surface of the water.
Like flies, thought Kozodavlev. Around the proverbial.
The slabs of ice seemed to shun the alien matter in their midst. Kozodavlev could now see it was the back of a frock coat, taut and filled with bloated mass.
At a signal from the sailor with the bristling moustache, the men gripped and heaved. It was clear they were used to working together. Kozodavlev felt a momentary pang of envy, the envy of the intellectual for the common man, always excluded. At the same time, he envied them their co-operative ease. What he could do with such men, if only he could recruit them to the cause!