Aron clenches his fist. ‘Shut your mouth,’ he snarls. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Vlad is beginning to take over.
‘You don’t know what I’m talking about?’ the farmer says. ‘Well, perhaps Polynov would want to know.’
He is still smiling beneath his moustache, so Vlad takes a step forward and punches him right on his hairy upper lip.
Unfortunately, it isn’t a very hard blow; he is too tired. The farmer merely shakes it off, then he measures up to Vlad and punches him back, almost as ineffectually.
They circle around one another. It is a pathetic fight, like a stumbling dance in the mud, but it attracts a crowd, and soon a ring of yelling prisoners forms around them.
In the end, a guard steps in and separates them.
It is over. Vlad’s chest is aching from a hard blow with an elbow, and he has managed to graze the farmer’s cheek.
The guard calls over a colleague, and Vlad and his opponent are taken away to see Polynov.
Polynov is the king of the camp.
It is a strange feeling, being led into his office. It has a well-scrubbed wooden floor; there is a small collection of wine in a cupboard on the wall and there is even a rug.
Commandant Polynov looks like a fat toad sitting on his throne, which is a rickety wooden chair. On the desk in front of him is a half-empty glass of vodka and an old army revolver. Hanging on the wall are two framed portraits, one of Jagoda, the chief of the secret police, and one of the president, Josef Stalin. In his mind’s eye, Aron sees Stalin, the great leader, with a blade of grass in his mouth.
‘What’s happened?’ Polynov asks, sighing over the trail of mud the prisoners are leaving on his floor. ‘Why were you fighting? Haven’t we broken you yet?’
‘Comrade Commandant,’ the farmer says, pointing to Vlad. ‘He started it.’
‘That’s not true,’ Vlad responds. ‘The Kulaks just love fighting, everyone knows that.’
‘Shut up, you little bastard!’ the farmer yells.
The commandant plays with the revolver as he listens wearily to the prisoners’ bickering. ‘Enough,’ he mutters.
Polynov gets to his feet, suddenly stone-cold sober. His gaze bores first through Vlad, then the farmer. He places the gun on the desk in front of the two prisoners. ‘Sort this out among yourselves.’
Vlad stares at the cracked wooden butt of the revolver. He doesn’t really know what the commandant wants.
But the farmer understands and wipes the blood from his cheek.
‘Comrade Commandant,’ he says in an authoritative tone of voice. ‘I have important information which I feel I must pass on to you.’ He points to Aron. ‘This prisoner is not what he claims—’
At that moment, Vlad picks up the revolver. It seems to fit perfectly in his hand. The farmer must be stopped, whatever he is thinking of saying about Aron, so he places the barrel of the gun on his fellow prisoner’s chest and pulls the trigger.
A sudden recoil through his hand, a loud bang, and the farmer is lying on the rug, twitching like a rag doll, staring up at the ceiling.
Vlad takes aim and fires again, but the only sound is a dry click.
Polynov reaches out and takes the revolver. ‘There was only one bullet.’
He nods, and the guard steps forward with his rifle, aims it at the farmer’s chest and fires.
The world stops.
‘... Ukrainian?’
Aron turns his head. The commandant has asked a question.
‘So you’re Ukrainian?’
Aron takes a deep breath and straightens up, almost standing to attention. He is calm now; he allows Vladimir Jegerov to come forward.
‘I am a Russian Ukrainian, herr Commandant. My father came from Stalingrad and my mother from Kiev, but they are no longer with us.’
‘Why are you here?’
Vlad answers without hesitation. ‘I hid a loaf of bread for my little sister to eat, herr Commandant. She lived for another week because of that loaf.’
‘So you stole bread from the state? And they didn’t shoot you?’
‘They sent me here, herr Commandant,’ Vlad says. ‘I have five months left to serve.’
‘Good,’ says Polynov. ‘You can certainly shoot.’
Vlad grows even taller as the commandant continues. ‘We have too many idiots among the guards. Untrained drunks. They keep on missing when they fire.’
‘I don’t drink,’ Vlad says.
The commandant glances at his bottle of vodka, then he bellows, ‘Jakov!’
The head of the guards enters the room, and Polynov points to Vlad. ‘A new recruit for you.’
Jakov steps forward. He is short but sticks his nose in the air just centimetres from Vlad’s chin. ‘Your first order, Comrade.’ He jerks his head towards the farmer’s body. ‘Fetch a couple of prisoners. Bury him after dark.’
Polynov goes over to a cupboard and takes something out. ‘This is a Winchester that the Tsar’s bandits had stashed away... It’s old, but it works. Wear it over your shoulder so that everyone can see it. If you lose it, you’re back on hard labour.’
Vlad does not lose the rifle. He has been a Swedish prisoner in the camp; now he is a Soviet guard and can feel the weapon straightening his spine.
There are many advantages to his new role — on the very first day, he is allowed to collect five kilos of potatoes, but he does not have permission to leave the camp. However, he can move around more freely, and he has an important task to carry out.
The following evening, he is on guard duty, patrolling the fence, and he arranges to meet Grisha by the furthest huts. Grisha creeps along in the shadows behind the buildings; Vlad stands and waits just a few metres from the fence.
But Grisha is wary. He won’t come out into the light, so Vlad takes something out of his pocket. It is a paper bag, rustling in his hand. ‘Dried apricots and fresh tobacco,’ he says quietly.
At last Grisha steps forward. He takes the bag, slips it inside his jacket. Fruit and tobacco are hard currency, but he still seems disappointed. ‘Is that all?’
Vlad shakes his head. ‘I’ve hidden the money over there.’ He nods towards a dark spot further along. ‘Five hundred roubles... If you promise to keep quiet about me, it’s yours.’
Grisha looks at him. A guard earns about eight roubles a day; five hundred is a fortune.
But he still has doubts.
‘What about the dogs?’
Vlad smiles. ‘Can you see any dogs? They’re over by the main gate tonight.’
Grisha is still standing behind the hut, undecided.
Vlad has had enough; he shrugs wearily. ‘Please yourself... I’ll take the money if you don’t want it.’
And he sets off along the fence. He is holding his breath, watching for a movement out of the corner of his eye.
And there it is.
Grisha is old, but he moves fast. He rushes past Vlad, heading for the fence post where the money is supposed to be.
When he is two steps away from the fence, Vlad raises the rifle to his shoulder.
‘Prisoner trying to escape!’ he shouts.
Then he aims at Grisha’s back and fires. Once, twice.
It’s like shooting a seal.
Other guards come running, but Vlad has aimed well. All they can do is prod at the body, then return to their own posts.
Grisha will be left there by the fence for a few days, as a warning.
Lisa
It took forty-eight hours of a sky-high temperature, an unbearable stench and a distinct shortage of toilet paper in the caravan but, eventually, Lisa began to feel better. Slightly better, anyway. After throwing up in the VIP room, she had somehow managed to drag herself back to the caravan, where she had collapsed into bed and spent all night vomiting helplessly. The gastroenteritis turned her into a five-year-old, a five-year-old with a temperature, dizzy and confused.