Siberian Red

kilometres around the camp.
    At the time of the foundation of Borodok and its sister camp, Mamlin 3, on the other side of the valley of Krasnagolyana, an uneasy truce had been established between these nomads and the gulag authorities. The valley would belong to the gulags, and the taiga – that maze of rivers, forests and tundra which made up so much of Siberia – would remain off limits. The camp’s perimeter fence had been built as much to keep the Ostyaks out as to keep the prisoners in.
    The Ostyaks butchered any convict found upon the taiga. The corpse was then delivered to the camp. Pekkala had heard rumours of bodies returned only after their palms and cheeks had been cut away and eaten.
    So violent were these Ostyaks in tracking down those who sought to trespass on their land, and so difficult was the terrain, that during Pekkala’s years as a convict‚ not a single successful escape had ever been recorded in the history of the two camps.
    On their visits to Borodok, the Ostyaks traded with the guards, exchanging the pelts of ermine, mink and arctic fox for tobacco. As a result, some men wore greatcoats lined with furs more precious than anything that ever trimmed the robes of kings and queens.
    Occasionally, in winter, a time when his work as a tree marker would bring him to the outer fringes of the valley, Pekkala had seen the Ostyaks slaloming between the trees on sledges whose iron runners hissed like snakes across the snow. Other times, they seemed to be invisible, and all he heard were the clicking hooves of the lightning-antlered caribou which hauled their sleds, and the sinister metallic chant of harness bells.
    Up close, Pekkala had only ever seen them once.
    Halfway through his first year as a tree marker, two men appeared one day outside his cabin. They were on their way to Borodok with a sledge carrying some men who had escaped from the camp. Whether the Ostyaks had killed them or simply found their frozen bodies out on the taiga, Pekkala could not tell. The rigid naked corpses lay heaped upon the sledge‚ seeming to claw the air like men snatched from their lives in the midst of grand-mal seizures.
    At first, Pekkala thought these Ostyaks meant to add him to their pile of dead, but all they did was stare at him in silence. Then they turned abruptly and continued their journey.
    They never came near him again.
    ‘Those heathens are more useful to me than any of the guards in this camp‚’ continued Klenovkin. ‘Over the years, there have been many escape attempts from Borodok, but no one has ever got past the Ostyaks, for one very simple reason‚ I pay them. In bread. In salt. In bullets. I reward them well for every corpse they bring me.’
    ‘But couldn’t Ryabov have bribed them?’
    Klenovkin laughed. ‘With what? The Ostyaks may be savages, but they are also crafty businessmen. They deliberately miscount those bodies they bring me, hoping I am too genteel to stand out in the cold and count the dead. Then, when I catch them in their deception, they grin like imbeciles, throw up their hands and act like schoolchildren. They have no respect for Soviet authority. As far as the Ostyaks are concerned, the only difference between me and the frozen bodies they bring in is that I have something to trade, and those dead men did not. Otherwise, they would never set foot in the Valley of Krasnagolyana, because they say those woods are haunted.’
    ‘By what?’
    Klenovkin smiled. ‘By you, Inspector! Back in the days when you lived out in the forest, they came to believe that you were some kind of monster. And who can blame them? What was it the loggers used to call you – the man with bloody hands? After Stalin recalled you to Moscow, I had a hard time convincing the Ostyaks that you had actually gone. They still believe your spirit haunts this valley. I told you, Inspector, they are a primitive and vicious people.’
    ‘They are just trying to make sense of the things we have brought to their world,’ said Pekkala, ‘and when I see men with their throats cut like the one lying in front of me, I have trouble making sense of it myself.’
    ‘But you will make sense of it‚’ Klenovkin replied. ‘That’s why Stalin gave you the job.’
    ‘I may not be able to complete the task alone,’ said Pekkala. ‘I will need to keep in touch with my colleague in Moscow.’
    ‘Of course. That has all been arranged. I have placed you in a job which will allow us to meet on a regular basis