The Last Train to Kazan. Stephen Miller

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      By the time Ryzhkov made it to the holding rooms, they seemed to know all about him, and he guessed that the lieutenant must have sent word ahead by field telephone. He was separated from the rest, locked to a bench, then unlocked and given over to an officer who appraised him with a slight smile, and, with two other warders, walked him down to the cells.

      The first cell they’d tried was already occupied, so they put him in a larger room, meant for four, but now seemingly dedicated to Ryzhkov alone. His manacles were unlocked and a few minutes later they brought him some bread and kvass. While he ate, the officer came back and watched him.

      ‘You say you’re a Frenchman?’ The Czech’s French was accented but understandable. The cadence was like a schoolboy’s. Maybe he just wanted to practise.

      ‘I’m Russian. I was Okhrana, then I was in France through the war.’

      ‘Ahh…with the Legion?’

      Ryzhkov shrugged and nodded. ‘I work for the French now,’ Ryzhkov said.

      ‘Well, we all work for the French. They are in command, after all. Or at least that is the latest fiction.’ The Czech smiled, and looked down the corridor for a moment. ‘The Conte should be in soon. He’ll see you, but you’d better have the right answers, mon ami,’ the officer said, and drew a finger across his throat. ‘If you’re the real thing we’ll find out. If you’re lying…well, tell them in hell that I was a charitable man, eh?’ The officer stooped and slid a pair of cigars through the bars and set a box of matches on top of them. ‘Just don’t start any fires.’

      ‘Thank you. I’ll be careful.’

      Ryzhkov finished his food, and used the toilet in the corner. Went over and picked up the cigars, and had just taken off his shoes and collapsed on the lowest of the iron beds when the guards were back again.

      They were measuring him now, watching an ex-Okhrana brought low; the kind of man they’d all heard about come into their world at last. He didn’t look like so much, not so tough, they would be thinking. Look at how things had come round! Here he was, finally in the cell he and his kind had always deserved; even someone working for the Whites would think about the Okhrana like that, the legends of their brutality had been so notorious.

      The two guards stood silently while he extended his arms to be locked together, then, supporting him on each side, they conveyed him back upstairs. They used a passage that was narrow, originally intended for servants in the distant past before one of the Tsars had had appropriated the building for a courthouse and jail to house the enemies of the state that had evolved in the dark mines far below.

      Everything so far had been a prelude. Dramatic enough, but only bluff and process, and maybe he had been lucky enough to push his execution a little further into the future. His real worry was that, in exchange for his life, what could he give them? In Moscow he had asked Zezulin about it, because it was almost certain to come up.

      ‘Yes, yes, yes, but if you give something to them, Pyotr, what will you do after that? You give it, then it’s gone, then you’re nothing. Besides, things are changing daily. No one is predicting the future. That’s for fools. You want to give them something? What? Strategy, tactics? Names of agents and traitors? How did you come by all that? No, no. You’re running away. You’re terrified. You don’t have time to put together a nice present for the Czech counter-intelligence. You’re scared and in a big hurry. You can tell them the whole truth if you want, if you think they’ll believe you, but just do your job for me at the same time. Try to act like you mean it. Do you think you can manage that?’

      So he had nothing.

      An area had been carved out of the offices upstairs; it looked like the kind of room a school headmaster might have as an office. There was a furnace in the corner, and in the ‘beautiful’ corner opposite a collection of empty shelves with holes in the plaster where the icons had been stripped away by the Bolsheviks and not yet restored by the new government.

      A sergeant supervised the seating of their prize; a few minutes later he heard voices, and an officer came in. The guards left, closing the door behind them. Ryzhkov nodded, and said ‘Good afternoon,’ although it was still morning.

      The door opened and a secretary came in. ‘All right, tell us your story,’ the secretary translated. Then the questioning began, and curiously it relaxed him.

      ‘Tell him,’ he said to the secretary, ‘I’m only trying to get out of here. I was working for the French in Moscow, the Reds caught me, I was released for a few hours and I ran. I had papers but I destroyed them. I’ll tell you everything I know, but it’s not much…’ It went on and on, and he told it flatly with as much dignity as he could muster. The more he talked, the more it sounded like blather. Even the secretary was looking at him with a smirk. At the end there was a silence and he tried to pick it up by telling them about his recruitment by the Deuxième Bureau and his work in Paris, but sitting there looking at them he realized how absurd it all sounded.

      The officer sniffed, shook his head, flicked the remains of his cigarette out of the window and looked out on the courtyard below. On the breeze in the warm summer day were the sounds of military commands, the clashing of rifles being stacked on the cobbles, the sounds of gulls being startled from under the eaves, angry at the intruders.

      ‘Come here,’ the officer said in passable Russian, and Ryzhkov got to his feet and shuffled over to the window. Across the courtyard a wide gallows was being set up. It looked like something standard, from a kit. Struts and braces that a section of men could load on the back of a lorry and screw together as needed.

      ‘This is civilization now,’ the officer said. His voice was quiet. Purring. The accent unusual. ‘This is what we have come to,’ he said, looking around at Ryzhkov. They were about the same age, he realized, but the officer was immaculate – his moustache flecked with grey, the eyebrows dark and even, the eyes light blue and steady, the complexion a little darker, with golden tones rather than pink. A smile. ‘So, you have been telling us the truth today, signor?’

      ‘Yes, Excellency.’ Ryzhkov almost reflexively bowed as he said it.

      ‘Well, you’ve certainly had a very turbulent time. It’s quite a story. Worked for the Okhrana? Ran away to France? Fought like a tiger, and now you’re here. “Released for a few hours,” did you say?’

      Ryzhkov nodded and a ‘Yes, Excellency’ escaped his lips like a whisper.

      ‘You’d better tell me if you’re lying, yes? It’s so much better if you tell me now, much better instead of me finding out later that you’ve been untruthful, eh?’

      ‘It’s all the truth, I swear it.’

      ‘Swear?’ the man said, almost laughing. ‘“Swear to God”, eh? It’s all true and you want to live? Live a long and happy life, work, have children, a little home. And maybe do something, something useful here in town…’ The officer gestured and simultaneously there was a metallic clang as the workers outside tested the gallows trap. The gulls took off again, a chorus of shrieks echoing in the courtyard, wheeling overhead. There were the dim sounds of laughter, the men congratulating themselves on a job well done.

      ‘Well, maybe you’re just hungry, or maybe you’re truly a French agent. I’m checking on that part of your tale right now, but since you want to be helpful and you have no choice I suppose I can put you to work, now that you understand the circumstances.’ The officer turned, looked out at the gallows and then lifted СКАЧАТЬ