Siberian Red

him back to duty with the Bureau of Special Operations, Pekkala had been living in the forest for nine years, longer than any other tree marker in the history of the gulag system.

Tucking Ryabov’s file into his coat
     
     
    Tucking Ryabov’s file into his coat, Pekkala turned to leave.
    ‘One more thing before you go.’
    Pekkala turned again. Reaching down beside his chair, Stalin picked up a small shopping bag and held it out towards Pekkala. ‘Your clothes for the journey.’
    Pekkala glanced inside and saw what at first appeared to be some dirty, pinkish-grey rags. He lifted out the flimsy pyjama-type shirt and recognised a standard prison-issue uniform. A shudder passed through him as he thought back to the last time he had worn garments like this.
    At that moment, the door opened and Poskrebyshev walked in. He advanced two paces, stopped and clicked his heels together. ‘Comrade Stalin, I beg to report that Poland has surrendered.’
    Stalin nodded and said nothing.
    ‘I also beg to inform you that the Katyn Operation has begun‚’ continued Poskrebyshev.
    Stalin’s only reply was an angry stare.
    ‘You asked me to tell you . . .’
    ‘Get out,’ said Stalin, quietly.
    Poskrebyshev’s heels smashed together once more, then he turned and left the room, closing the double doors behind him with a barely audible click of the lock.
    ‘The Katyn Operation?’ asked Pekkala.
    ‘It would have been better for you not to know,’ Stalin replied, ‘but since it is too late for that, let me answer your question with a question of my own. Suppose you were an officer in the Polish Army, that you had surrendered and been taken prisoner. Let us say you had been well treated. You had been housed. You had been fed.’
    ‘What is it you want to know, Comrade Stalin?’
    ‘Say I offer you a choice; either a place in the Red Army, or the opportunity to return home as a civilian.’
    ‘They will choose to go home,’ said Pekkala.
    ‘Yes,’ replied Stalin. ‘Most of them did.’
    ‘But they will never arrive, will they?’
    ‘No.’
    In his mind, Pekkala could see those officers, bundled in the mysterious brown of their Polish Army greatcoats, hands tied behind their backs with copper wire. One after the other, NKVD troopers shoved them to the edge of a huge pit dug into the orangey-brown soil of a forest in eastern Poland. With the barrels of their guns, the NKVD men tipped off the caps of their prisoners, sending them into the pit below. As each Polish officer was shot in the back of the head, he fell forward into the pit, on to the bodies of those who had been killed before.
    How many were there? Pekkala wondered. Hundreds? Thousands?
    By nightfall, the pit would be covered up.
    Within a few weeks, tiny shoots of grass would rise from the trampled soil.
    One thing Pekkala had learned, however. Nothing stays buried forever.
    ‘You have not answered my question,’ said Stalin. ‘I asked what you would do. Not they.’
    ‘I would realise I had no choice,’ replied Pekkala.
    With a scythe-like sweep of his hand, Stalin brushed aside Pekkala’s words. ‘But I did give them a choice!’
    ‘No, Comrade Stalin, you did not.’
    Stalin smiled. ‘That is why you have survived, and why those other men will not.’
    As soon as Pekkala had departed, Stalin pushed the intercom button. ‘Poskrebyshev!’
    ‘Yes, Comrade Stalin.’
    ‘All messages between Pekkala and Major Kirov are to be intercepted.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Whatever Pekkala has to say, I want to read it before Kirov does. I want no secrets kept from me.’
    ‘No, Comrade Stalin,’ said Poskrebyshev, and a fresh coat of sweat slicked his palms.
    The intercom button stayed on, whispering static into Stalin’s ears. ‘Is there anything else, Poskrebyshev?’
    ‘Why do you let Pekkala speak to you that way? So disrespectfully?’ Over the years, Poskrebyshev had advanced to the stage where he could occasionally express an unsolicited opinion to the Boss, although only in the most reverent of tones. But the way Pekkala talked to Stalin caused Poskrebyshev’s bowels to cramp. Even more amazing to him was the fact that Stalin let Pekkala get away with it. In asking such a question, Poskrebyshev was well aware that he had overstepped his bounds. If the answer to his question was a flood of obscenities from the next room, he knew he would have only himself to blame. Nevertheless he simply had to know.
    ‘The reason I endure his insolence,