Alex had hoped to be going to a football match with his uncle that afternoon, and ended up in a crate with his mother. He prayed to whatever gods there were that his uncle would be safe. He assumed that Polyakov had been found by now. Was he even trying to have the ship turned around? He’d told his uncle to start a rumour that his friend Vladimir had helped him to escape, which he hoped would end his chances of joining the KGB. He began to think about what he’d left behind. Not a lot, he concluded. But he would have liked to know the result of the match between Zenit F.C. and Torpedo Moscow, and wondered if he ever would.
He eventually drifted into a half sleep, but was woken by the sound of the hold door crashing open, followed by what sounded like someone tapping on the side of a nearby crate. He clenched his fist again and thumped the side of his prison cell, shouting, ‘We’re in here!’ This time his mother didn’t try to stop him.
Moments later he could hear two, or was it three, voices, grateful they were speaking a language he recognized. He waited impatiently, and when the lid of the crate was finally torn off, he saw three men towering over him.
‘You can get out now,’ said one of them in Russian.
Alex stood up, and helped his mother as she slowly unwound her stiff body. He took her hand as she stepped gingerly out of the crate. He then grabbed her small suitcase and his lunch box before climbing out to join her.
The three deckhands, dressed in navy blue, oil-stained overalls, were peering into the crate to make sure their promised reward was in place.
‘You both come with me,’ said one of them, while the other two began to remove the cases of vodka. Alex and Elena obediently followed the man who’d given the order, as he dodged in between several other crates until they reached a ladder attached to the side of the hold. Alex looked up to see the open sky beckoning him, and began to believe for the first time that they just might be safe. He followed the deckhand slowly up the ladder, the suitcase in one hand, while his mother tucked his lunch box under her arm.
Alex stepped out onto the deck, and took a deep breath of fresh sea air. He stared back in the direction of Leningrad, which looked like a tiny village melting in the early evening sun.
‘Don’t hang about,’ barked the sailor, as his two mates hurried past, each carrying a case of vodka. ‘Cook doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’ He led them across the deck and down a spiral staircase into the bowels of the ship. Alex and Elena were quite giddy by the time they reached the lower deck, where their guide stood in front of a door displaying the faded words ‘Mr Strelnikov, Head Chef’.
The sailor pulled open the heavy door, revealing the smallest kitchen Elena had ever seen. They stepped inside, to be greeted by a giant of a man dressed in a grubby white jacket that had several buttons missing, and blue striped trousers that looked as if they’d recently been slept in. He was already unscrewing the top off a bottle of vodka. He took a swig before saying in a gruff voice, ‘Your brother told me you’re a good cook. You’d better be, or you’ll both be thrown overboard and then you’ll have to swim home, where I expect you’ll find quite a few people waiting on the dockside to welcome you back.’
Elena would have laughed, but she wasn’t sure the cook didn’t mean it. After taking another swig, he turned his attention to Alex. ‘And what’s the point of you?’ he demanded.
‘He’s a trained waiter,’ said Elena, before Alex could reply.
‘We don’t need one of them,’ said the chef. ‘He can wash the dishes and peel the potatoes. As long as he doesn’t open his mouth, I might even let him have one or two scraps at the end of the day.’ Alex was about to protest when the cook added, ‘Of course, if that doesn’t suit you, your worship, you can always work in the engine room and spend the rest of your life hurling coal into a blazing furnace. I’ll leave the choice to you.’ The words ‘the rest of your life’ had a haunting conviction about them. ‘Show them where they’ll be sleeping, Karl. Just make sure they’re back in time to help me prepare dinner.’
The sailor nodded, and led them out of the galley, back up the narrow staircase and onto the deck. He didn’t stop walking until he reached a lone lifeboat swinging in the breeze.
‘This is the royal suite,’ he said, with no suggestion of irony. ‘If you don’t like it, you can always sleep on deck.’
Elena looked back in the direction of her homeland, which had almost disappeared from sight. She found herself already missing the meagre comforts of their tiny flat in the Khrushchyovka. Her thoughts were interrupted by Karl barking, ‘Don’t keep cook waiting, or we’ll all live to regret it.’
*
Most chefs occasionally taste their food, while others sample each dish, but it soon became clear to Elena that the ship’s cook preferred to devour whole portions between swigs of vodka. She was surprised that the officers, let alone the rest of the crew, were ever fed.
The kitchen, which Elena would quickly learn to refer to as the galley, was so small that it was almost impossible not to bump into someone or something if you moved in any direction, and so hot that she was soaked in sweat within moments of putting on a not very white jacket that didn’t fit.
Strelnikov was a man of few words, and those he uttered were usually prefaced by a single adjective. He looked fifty, but Elena suspected he was only about forty. He must have weighed over 300 pounds, and had clearly spent a considerable portion of his wages on tattoos. Elena watched as he stood over a vast stove inspecting his handiwork while his assistant, a tiny Chinese man of indeterminate age, squatted, head bowed, in the far corner, endlessly peeling potatoes.
‘You,’ barked the chef, having already forgotten Alex’s name, ‘will assist Mr Ling, while you,’ he said, pointing at Elena, ‘will prepare the soup. We’ll soon find out if you’re as good as your brother claims.’
Elena began checking the ingredients. Some of the scraps had clearly been scraped off the plates of previous meals. There was also the odd bone of an animal that she couldn’t immediately identify floating in a greasy pan, but she did her best to salvage what little meat was left on them. She dropped what remained into the bin, which only brought a frown to Strelnikov’s face, as he wasn’t in the habit of throwing anything away.
‘Some of the deckhands consider bones a luxury,’ he said.
‘Only dogs consider bones a luxury,’ mumbled Elena.
‘And sea dogs,’ snapped Strelnikov.
Strelnikov focused on preparing the dish of the day, which Elena later discovered was the dish of every day: fish and chips. Three fish at a time were being fried in a vast, round, burnt pan, while Mr Ling expertly sliced each potato the moment Alex had finished peeling it. Elena noticed that only three soup bowls and three dinner plates of different sizes had been laid out on the countertop, although there had to be at least twenty crew on board. Strelnikov interrupted his frying to sample the soup, and as he didn’t comment, Elena assumed she had passed her first test. He then ladled a large portion into each of the three soup bowls, which Mr Ling placed on a tray, before taking them off to the officers’ mess. As he opened the door, Elena saw a long queue of morose-looking figures, billycans in hand, waiting to be served.
‘Only one ladle each,’ grunted Strelnikov, as the first deckhand held up his billycan.
Elena carried out his orders, and tried not to show that she was appalled when Strelnikov dropped a fried fish into the same billycans as the soup. Only one member of the crew greeted her with a warm smile, and even said ‘thank you’, in her native tongue.
Once she’d completed the task, twenty-three men in all, the cook returned to the stove and began to fry the largest three pieces of fish, one by one, before tipping them onto the officers’ plates. Mr Ling selected only the thinnest chips to accompany them, then placed the plates on his tray before leaving the galley once again.