Yuri and Ilya helped them climb up onto the flatbed. Sitting side by side were two big rectangles of marble, seven yards long, a yard deep and a yard high. Between the two slabs was a gap of around two feet wide, filled with straw. Yuri led them to the gap and invited them to lie down as close to the cab as possible. Once they were inside the gap, Ilya gave Jones three bottles of water, a sausage and a half-loaf of bread. Jones opened his satchel to put them inside and the tin of the film reel glinted in the gloom.
“What’s that?” asked Ilya.
“Nothing,” said Jones.
Ilya wished them good luck and watched them bed down between the two great slabs. Grandfather and son covered them with more straw, then they heard the squeak of a pulley and tackle, and a narrow square of rock fitting almost exactly the gap between the two long slabs was swung into place, blocking out what dim light they had enjoyed. Next they heard the clatter of wooden planks pressing down on the straw and their tomb was half-complete.
“Bloody hell,” whispered Jones, failing to suppress his fear.
“Don’t be a baby,” said Evgenia, her hand reaching out to stroke his face.
The engine started and the first part of the journey began. The truck crept along extraordinarily slowly, the lack of light rendering them blind but strangely heightening their other senses. They heard a trickle of water running through the ice-bound river. That would be the same river they had tramped through five days before. The truck slowed to a crawl and they heard the timbers of a wooden bridge creaking, the flowing water trilling softly underneath. It cleared the bridge, sped up a little, climbed a hill, the engine grunting against gravity; then it accelerated downhill, slowed down, and they entered what must have been the headquarters of the quarry. Out there, they could hear the sound of men’s voices. Someone laughed out loud, and a small engine, not a truck, coughed into life.
Then the small engine erupted with yet more noise and they heard the working of a winch. Suddenly the axles beneath them sunk an inch, two, and the whole frame of the truck groaned under the weight of the marble slabs being placed on top of them. Their tomb was complete.
They heard steps on the marble on top of them, someone unhooking ropes perhaps. Then, in every direction, more truck engines burbled into life, and their own slipped into gear, as if ready to be off.
Then, out of nowhere: the sound of a gunshot, the low rumble of a man’s voice as he issued a series of commands.
Even through the thick marble, Jones knew that voice. He would know it anywhere.
Lyushkov.
All of the truck engines were stilled. All of a sudden, every other sound was drowned out by the barking of dogs, some very close, some far away. Trapped in their marble cave in the dark, their panic grew as they could hear a dog, its paws pattering on the back of the truck. Lyushkov, his voice muffled by the marble, timber and straw, said something Jones could not decipher. Someone replied unenthusiastically. Lyushkov repeated his order.
“We will miss the barges if we off-load the marble from this truck, Comrade.”
“So be it,” Lyushkov’s voice.
“That will cost the Soviet Union seven million roubles, Comrade.” The unenthusiastic voice belonged to Ilya.
“I said, so be it.”
“Very well, comrade,” said Ilya.
Jones sensed steps, once more, on the marble on top of them. From up above, he heard the crane engine being coaxed into life, the sound of the winch working, the truck’s axles lifting, lifting…
Then there came a vicious snap, a whiplash of rope torn in two, the crane engine screaming, a heavy thunk as machinery hit the ground.
“For fuck’s sake!” shouted Ilya.
“Sorry Comrade,” yelled Yuri.
“I want to see what’s underneath this rock,” said Lyushkov.
“It’s not rock, Comrade,” said Ilya, “but the very finest marble, destined for Berlin. You can see it.”
“Good,” said Lyushkov.
“But you’re going to have to wait for delivery of a new crane.”
“How long will that take?”
“It will take time, Comrade.”
“What does that mean?”
“We have been promised one for seven years now. I can show you the paperwork to and fro.”
“I’ve been in this shithole for far too long,” snapped Lyushkov. “I’m needed back in Moscow urgently.”
“We can’t offload that truck without a crane. We’ve been waiting for a new crane for seven years. I can show you the-”
“Shut up about the fucking paperwork, you moron.” Lyushkov paused, seething. “All right, go on, send your precious marble to Berlin.”
“Thank you, Comrade.”
The truck engines roared into life once more, the marble started its long journey to the Reich – and, inside their tomb, Evgenia put a finger to Jones’ lips, then kissed him with a passion all the greater for having fooled the GPU.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was a pig of a journey, tortoise-slow, unbearably uncomfortable, with the constant jeopardy at the back of their minds that, if one truck spring snapped and the load capsized, they could in an instant be crushed to pulp. During the day it had not been entirely dark in their tomb, the serrated edges of the marble allowing a few smudges of light to penetrate – but, in the late afternoon, the smudges started to grey, then redden. The loss of light as night closed in made their jeopardy seem even more grim. Then, at last, the truck came to a stop and they heard the hooting of a river barge and the grinding and splintering of ice.
Steps on the marble above them, then a crane engine was fired up and they heard a man’s voice barking out a command: “Go!” Moments later, a winch was turning and the axles of the truck started to ease slowly upwards, one inch, two, as the marble cross-slabs were lifted off.
“Stop! That’s all we’re doing tonight” The voice was Yuri’s. “It’s dangerous to work with marble in the dark. We’ll do the rest at daybreak. Right, let’s go eat.”
He took so long that they feared they’d been forgotten; they were shivering, blue with cold, when they heard someone climb onto the top of the planks covering the two long slabs. One single plank was lifted and, suddenly, their eyes were entranced by starlight. Yuri climbed down, held a hand out and lifted first Evgenia, then Jones out of their tomb. Relaying the plank, Yuri led them along a rough track away from the river towards a clump of trees. Jones and Evgenia, their legs stiff from lack of use, stumbled and slipped on the icy ground.
“Where are we going?” asked Jones.
“Ssssh!”
In a rough clearing in the trees they could just make out a wooden shack. Yuri told them to stay where they were and disappeared within. A conversation, low and soft; then, as someone gave out a hacking cough, Yuri emerged and beckoned them into the shack. Inside sat a babushka sucking on a pipe, her weatherbeaten face half-illuminated by a candle, a tabby cat sitting on her lap, purring malevolently.
“This is the captain of the barge,” said Yuri.
She took one look at them and spat. “No,” she said and sucked on her pipe, puffing fresh life into its embers.
“Why no, Granma?” asked Evgenia.
“He stinks of foreign. Look at his glasses, the cut of his clothes, the weave of his coat. He’s not one of us. Stands out like a mile. And you, love, you’re obviously a lady of good family. ‘A former person’, that’s what the Reds call your kind these days. I can tell from the way you hold yourself, the length of your hair. A working woman wouldn’t have hair that long. They say you’re here to make a film, like Charlie Chaplin.”