Siberian Red

said.
    ‘Good! Now . . .’
    There was a sharp click. The line from Borodok went dead.
    ‘Poskrebyshev,’ said Stalin.
    Poskrebyshev held his breath and said nothing.
    ‘Poskrebyshev, I know you are listening.’
    Clumsily, Poskrebyshev snatched up the receiver and fumbled as he pressed it against his ear. ‘Yes, Comrade Stalin!’
    ‘Get me Major Kirov.’
    *
     
    Klenovkin lay on the floor of his study, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. Clutched in his fist was a pistol, smoke still leaking from the barrel. A spray of blood peppered the wall. Beneath it lay the back of Klenovkin’s skull, torn loose by the impact of the bullet and looking almost exactly like the handsome onyx ashtray on his desk, presented to him by Dalstroy for his fifteen years of loyal service.
    *
     
    As Pekkala walked around the clearing, the circulation slowly returned to his frozen legs and arms. At the edge of the trees, he came across some charred wooden beams. Next he kicked up some old glass jars, twisted by the fire which had consumed the cabin that once stood here.
    In that same moment, he realised that these were the ruins of his own cabin, where he had lived for years as a tree marker for the Borodok lumber operation.
    These melted shards of glass had once been part of a window in his cabin. Lacking other means, he had collected pickle jars left behind by the logging crews, stacked them on their sides with the mouths facing inward and then caulked the gaps with moss.
    He remembered seeing the northern lights through those makeshift panes of glass; the vast curtains of green and white and pink rippling like some sea creature in the blackness of the ocean’s depths.
    Where Sedov lay bleeding, Pekkala recalled lying in the shade to escape the summer heat, chewing the bitter, clover-shaped leaves of wood sorrel to slake his thirst, and how the beds of dried lichen would rustle beneath the weight of his body, with a sound like a toothless old man eating crackers.
    His eyes strayed to where his storage shed had been, constructed on poles above the ground to discourage mice from devouring his meagre supplies of pine nuts, sunflower seeds, and dried strips of a fish called grayling, which he sometimes caught in the streams that flowed through this valley.
    In the decade since he had been here last, a number of young trees had grown around the clearing. The skeletons of brambles lay like coils of barbed wire among the puffed and blackened logs which had been a part of his home. It had taken him weeks to clear this space, and it startled him to see how thoroughly the forest had reclaimed the ground. In a few more years, there would be little to show that this place had been the centre of Pekkala’s world, each tree and stone as known to him as the freckles constellated on his arms.
    On the other side of the clearing, Kolchak crouched down before Sedov. He scooped up some snow and touched it against Sedov’s lips.
    ‘I told you it wouldn’t be long before we were living like kings,’ whispered Sedov, ‘but I didn’t think I’d reach the Promised Land so soon.’
    Kolchak did not reply. Gently, he patted Sedov’s cheek, then stood and walked away.
    Tarnowski pulled him aside and, in an urgent whisper, said, ‘We can’t just leave him here.’
    ‘And we can’t take him with us,’ replied Kolchak. ‘He would only slow us down.’
    ‘The guards from the camp will find Sedov. You don’t know what they’ll do to him.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter what they do,’ Kolchak snapped. ‘By the time those men get here, Sedov will be dead.’
    The Ostyaks beckoned them back to the sledges.
    ‘We must leave,’ said one of them. ‘This is a bad place.’ He pointed to the ruins of Pekkala’s cabin. ‘A bad place,’ he repeated.
    The last Pekkala saw of Sedov, he was still sitting against the tree. His head had fallen forward, chin resting on his chest. Either he was sleeping, or else he was already dead.
    They did not stop again until they reached the tracks, arriving at the place where the main line of the Trans-Siberian branched off towards the Borodok railhead.
    Kolchak jumped down from his sledge. ‘Now let’s gather what belongs to us and get out of here.’
    Still carrying the rifle he had stolen from the camp, Tarnowski stood in the middle of the tracks. Nervously, he looked up and down the rails, which glowed like new lead in the dingy light. ‘It’s hard to say, Colonel.’
    Kolchak joined him on the tracks.