A Man Without Breath

Peshkov translated again, and uncertainly the Susanins both nodded a faint smile in my direction. But Peshkov remained contemptuous.

‘Take my word for it, boss,’ he said. ‘You have to speak roughly to these people or they won’t answer at all. The babulya is a real peasant, and the starik is a stupid bulbash who’s spent his whole life in fear of the Party. They’re still terrified the NKVD will come back – even after eighteen months of German occupation. As a matter of fact I’m a little surprised these two are still here. It goes without saying that if those mudaks ever do come back here these two will be Russian fertilizer. Know what I’m saying? Day one they’ll be shot just because they worked for you fellows. With all due respect to your colonel, about the only thing that’s kept them here are their beehives.’

‘Like Tolstoy, yes?’ Dyakov laughed loudly. ‘Still, it makes for a nice cup of tea, yes?’

‘Aren’t you afraid of what will happen if the NKVD comes back?’

Peshkov glanced at Dyakov and shrugged.

‘No sir,’ said Peshkov. ‘I don’t believe they are coming back.’

‘That is a matter of opinion,’ I said.

‘Me? I don’t have any beehives, boss.’ Dyakov grinned widely. ‘There’s nothing to keep Alok Dyakov here in Smolensk. No sir, when the shit starts coming up through the floor I’m going to Germany with the field marshal. If it was just being shot, I could live with that, if you know what I mean. But there’s plenty worse the NKVD can do to a man than put a tap in the back of your head. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.’

‘What was the NKVD doing here?’ I asked the two Russians. ‘Here? In this house.’

‘I don’t know sir,’ said Peshkov. ‘Frankly it was better never to ask such questions. To mind one’s own business.’

‘It’s a nice house. With a cinema. What do you think they were doing? Watching Battleship Potemkin? Alexander Nevsky? You must have some idea, Dyakov. What’s your opinion?’

‘You want me to guess? I guess they were here getting drunk on vodka and watching movies, yes.’

I nodded. ‘Thank you. Thank you for your help. I am very grateful to you both.’

‘I am glad to have been of assistance,’ said Peshkov.

It was hard to know which of them was lying – Peshkov, Dyakov, or the Susanins – but I knew someone was. I had the proof of that in my own trouser pocket. Even as I nodded and smiled at the Russians, I had my hand around the button I had found in Katyn Wood.

When I went outside on my own to think things over, Dyakov followed me.

‘Peshkov speaks good German,’ I said. ‘Where did he learn?’

‘At university. Peshkov’s a very clever man. But me I learned German at a place called Terezin, in Czechoslovakia. When I was a boy I was prisoner of the Austrian army in 1915. I like Austrians. But I like Germans more. Austrians are not very friendly. After the war I was a schoolteacher. Is why NKVD arrested me.’

‘They arrested you because you were a schoolteacher?’

Dyakov laughed loudly. ‘I teach German, sir. That is fine in 1940 when Stalin and Hitler are friends. But when Germany attacks Russia, then NKVD think I am enemy and arrest me.’

‘Did they arrest Peshkov, too?’

Dyakov shrugged. ‘No, sir. But he wasn’t teaching German, sir. Before the war I believe he worked at the electricity power station, sir. I believe he learned to do this job in Germany. With Siemens. Is very important job, so that could be why NKVD didn’t arrest him.’

‘Why isn’t Peshkov doing that job now?’

Dyakov grinned. ‘Because there’s no money to be made doing that. The Germans at Krasny Bor pay him very well, sir. Good money. Better than electricity worker. Besides there are Germans running electricity power station now. They don’t trust Russians to do this.’

‘And the hunting? Who taught you to hunt?’

‘My father was hunter, sir. He taught me to shoot.’ Dyakov grinned. ‘You see sir? I’ve had very good teachers. My father and the Austrians.’

CHAPTER 7

Friday, March 12th 1943

I awoke thinking I must be back in the trenches, because there was a strong smell of something horrible in my nostrils. The smell was like a dead rat only worse, and I spent the next ten minutes sniffing the air in various areas of my room in the castle before finally I decided that the source of the stink was underneath my own bed. And it was only when I went down on my hands and knees to look that I remembered the frozen leather boot I had tossed on the floor the previous morning; except that the boot and whatever was still in the boot was now frozen no longer.