The Russian Affair

ELEVEN



Leonid hung up. For a long moment, he stood still, his back to the desk in the military guard post. The soft voice still sounded in his ears. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and therefore midnight in Moscow; if Anna let Petya stay up so late, the thing must mean a lot to her. Leonid thanked the sergeant for having notified him, buttoned his overcoat all the way up, and left the central barracks. The windstorm was so strong that it pressed him against the wooden hut’s exterior wall. Leonid pulled down his ear flaps and fastened them under his chin. Bent forward, holding his arms tightly to his sides, he struggled on. There was nobody else on the parade ground; most of the barracks had wooden planks across the windows, screwed into place to keep the gusts from bursting the glass panes.

Leonid shivered. In this weather, he was supposed to assemble a technical squad and see to the cutter that had gone aground with its cargo of scrap iron during the night. Here, at the southernmost point of Sakhalin Island, most ships anchored at a respectful distance from the coast, for the sea was treacherous. The Three Brothers, three jagged reefs thrusting up out of the water, became invisible in heavy seas. The coastline consisted of dark inlets whose rock formations had formerly been exploited for their coal beds. In the winter months, the sharp-edged forms were veiled by storms and snow flurries, and the cold temperatures burst the sewer pipes that emptied into the sea at this point. Waves as black as night broke over the decks of the patrol ships; that morning, they had been unable to sail because the cutter was blocking their passage.

“How did the boat even get into the prohibited area?” the major had asked Leonid at morning roll call.

“The southwest drift turned east overnight,” Leonid replied. “When the ship became disabled, the captain let it be driven into the bay and stranded so it wouldn’t sink in the open sea.”

“Check the ship’s papers, the nationalities of the sailors, and their Party membership, if any, and examine the bill of lading and the cargo,” the major had ordered. “I don’t want to be fooled by some damned Jap.”

“The cutter sailed from Vladivostok three days ago.”

“How do we know she didn’t make an intermediate stop in Japan? Pay close attention to the tachograph.” With this final instruction, Leonid was dismissed.

When he got close to the crews’ quarters, the one-story building, anchored to the ground with steel cables, protected him from the wind. Now able to walk upright, Leonid continued on. The major was well aware that the freighter, which had picked up its cargo of scrap iron along the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, was no spy ship. The reefs off Korsakov had brought many a vessel into distress, either because the ships lacked the necessary navigation equipment or because they were overloaded and could no longer be steered. By this time of year, it was possible that the sea a few hundred miles to the north would be unnavigable for a vessel without ice-breaking equipment, so the stop in Korsakov was to have been the last for the cutter with the scrap-iron cargo before her return journey; but the Three Brothers had seen to it that this would be the freighter’s last journey of all.

The technical section’s offices were located off to one side of the post. The advantage of this position was that the soldiers of the unit could guard their camp themselves. Had the guard detachment been under company command, it wouldn’t have been long before individual pieces of equipment started to appear on the black market. The disadvantage of the little cluster of huts was that they stood so close to the edge of the cliff; one false step or strong gust of wind, and one could vanish into the void. Leonid grasped the steel cord that served as a handrail and moved along it, hand over hand, taking care to avoid the slippery seaweed that the storm tide had washed up three hundred feet high.

The technical service considered itself an elite unit. Its personnel, exclusively seamen, had managed to acquire, piece by piece, the most modern equipment for their detachment. The fact that Leonid, the landlubber, was their commanding officer had to do with the death of Captain Ordzhonikidze, who’d fallen off the cliff during a risky operation; the search for his body had only recently been called off. The Korsakov military base was chronically understaffed, it hadn’t been possible to mobilize a specialist from any other garrison, and so Captain Leonid Nechayev had been transferred there, temporarily, it was said. Leonid knew that such temporary arrangements sometimes lasted until the soldier in question retired from the army.

The transfer to a unit that actually had a mission was a surprise and even an irritation to him. Monotony had been the most characteristic feature of his previous years of service. While many officers suffered from such a state of affairs, Leonid had found it to his liking. Not out of dullness or laziness, but because symmetry, equilibrium, fascinated him. Even though he didn’t think in terms of such comparisons, he experienced the daily repetition of life as a monkish activity and the barracks as the scene of a cloistered existence: the early morning siren, like a gigantic rooster; the men standing shoulder to shoulder and washing themselves; the indistinguishable, dull gray, badly shaved faces in the mirrors; the preapportioned breakfasts. The sausage rounds on each plate were as identical as the men who swallowed them. At morning roll call, officers stood on one side and men on the other, but these could not exist without those, and vice versa. There were indeed differences in the work—one man sat in the supply room, another was assigned to the paymaster or performed guard duty—but, strictly speaking, what did they do? They punched holes in papers and filed them away in pasteboard binders, or someone drew up lists, another checked them, and a third checked the checker. Lunch, dinner, latrine break one hour after each meal, Party indoctrination in the evening, close of duty, taps: The same sequence was followed today, as it would be tomorrow and the rest of the week, of the winter, of the year. Even the nightly booze-up brought the day to an end in friendly monotony; everyone drank his half-liter bottle, became mellow and jovial, spoke sentimentally, and fell onto his bunk in a daze. It pleased Leonid to see so many men, different in age, temperament, and nationality, welded together into a single cohort. Their thoughts and hopes—pay, women, leave, family—resembled one another like eggs in a basket. Everywhere outside of the army, results had to be achieved and plans carried out; jobs were specialized and required individual commitment. The Red Army defined itself through its steadfastness. Its task consisted in being monolithic, in raising the unchangeable to the level of a principle. Should the army one day give up this position, it would be all over with security, and, above all, with the security in people’s heads.

Leonid had never wished for challenging work. With his qualifications, he might possibly have joined the army engineers or become a pilot—but he didn’t want to. Leonid Nechayev was twenty-nine years old, athletic and fit in appearance, with test results that demonstrated his intelligence; he was popular with his men and considered an agreeable subaltern by his superiors. But there was one quality lacking in his personal inventory: ambition. He’d reached the rank of second lieutenant effortlessly and had been promoted to first lieutenant when his turn automatically came up. His captain’s commission, the single unforeseeable turning in his career, had brought him freedom and anxiety in equal measure.

He recalled his telephone conversation with Anna. He’d recognized from the beginning the potential for problems with such a woman, but all the same, recent events had surprised him. His Anna was proud, filled with the highest ideals, and she dreamed of accomplishing something that would benefit society. He hadn’t imagined that she’d cheat on him, but rather that she’d want to give her life a mission. Her father had probably laid those qualities in her cradle; to be the daughter of an important Soviet writer entailed obligations. When Leonid had first met Anna, she was already a house painter, but in his view, her profession had represented nothing more than an intermediate stage on the way to something else. He could imagine the sacrifice she’d made by giving up school after her mother’s death, but readiness to make sacrifices was also an essential part of her character; her important father must be enabled to go on living his poet’s life. Leonid prized books that dealt with interesting subjects; he was suspicious of poems. In Leonid’s eyes, someone who took weeks to get a couple of verses down on paper was a parasite.

As for the separation from Anna, Leonid was able to cope with it. Their relationship had never been particularly passionate. Of course, going so long without seeing Petya caused him pain—in fact, it was a source of deeper regret than he’d imagined himself capable of. For Leonid, his son’s welfare was more important than anything else. Now Petya was ill, seriously ill, and Leonid, six thousand miles away, felt helpless to do anything for the child. Taking early home leave was out of the question. His garrison was small, the number of officers limited, and the duty arduous. He and his comrades represented Russia’s last bulwark against the imperialistic world; just beyond them lay Japan.

The abyss was now so close that the sea-spray struck his face like a steady drizzle. The final feet had to be crossed without the help of the steel cord. He narrowed his eyes, wobbled forward, and entered the office of the technical unit like a shipwreck survivor. Except for the private first class on telephone duty, the office was empty; the rest of the men were in the workshop, preparing their mission.

“They’ll be ready soon,” said the private. His rolled-up shirt sleeves revealed a pair of powerful forearms.

“Before we begin the operation, we have to do a security check.” Leonid removed his coat, which was soaking wet, and took his foul-weather gear out of his locker.

“High tide’s in an hour,” the telephone man said. “After that, we won’t be able to do anything.”

“Major’s orders,” said the captain, his voice grating. “We start in ten minutes.” He went into his room. Formerly, he’d never had to speak sharply to his men; he’d been on good, even familiar, terms with them. These lads, however, were falcons, overqualified, ready for anything, and often bored by the endless, dark days, on which nothing happened. It was hard to keep them under control, especially since Leonid was their professional inferior. For these men, it was a joy to board a light boat and head into the breakers, but Leonid hated the entire process. Mostly, he held on tight to whatever he could while the others sat insouciantly on the sides of the boat. The spray blinded him, and he feared that one of the three-foot-high waves might sweep him into the sea.

He kicked off his boots, pulled the oilskin over his pants, and slipped into the black waterproof jacket that bore the insignia of his rank on its lapel. This little scrap of material gave him the power but not the qualifications to command. He sank down slowly onto a chair; the oilskin made an unpleasant sound. Outside Leonid’s window, the storm was howling with such force that rational thinking was scarcely possible. Nature burned a single thought into his brain: Sakhalin was an isle of madness. Before he left Moscow, he’d read Chekhov’s travel report, but the reality of the island was worse and could hardly be described in words. From January to March, cyclones blowing up from the Indian Ocean raged over Sakhalin. Between July and November was typhoon season; the last of those had caused more than a hundred million rubles’ worth of damage. Seaquakes regularly flooded the eastern portion of the island; because of the incessant tremors, large and small, no house with more than one story could be built without proper anchoring. The temperature often sank below minus sixty degrees Fahrenheit, and the men were frequently shut up inside their garrison for weeks because of snowstorms. After two sentries were snowed in and nearly starved in their guard post, subterranean passages between the barracks had been dug. Normally, the harbor wasn’t navigable at that time of year, and the patrol boats stayed in a cove protected by concrete walls. So far, it had been an unusually mild winter; it was already March, and still no avalanche had blocked the roads or severed energy connections. The technical unit helped earthquake victims, towed ships in distress, and set up new seismographs around the mud volcano’s crater in order to predict its next eruption more precisely.

While Leonid was looking forward with trepidation to the upcoming mission, he reflected that only a word, only a signature would have sufficed for him to be transferred to some other location in the Soviet Union, to some quiet one-horse town in the Russian provinces, say, where time would have passed gently, shortened by little amenities. Why hadn’t he taken that path?

The invitation had reached him through the mail. With mixed feelings, he’d gone across town to the Lubyanka and approached the ominous building from the side. In the square, the monument to Dzerzhinsky was shining in the sunlight, but even on that fine, bright day, the headquarters of the state security agency had looked gloomy and menacing to Leonid. Instead of being subjected to the usual stringent controls, he hadn’t had to wait so much as a minute before being shown directly into the Colonel’s office. Kamarovsky was sitting behind a metal desk. His uniform was made of fine wool, the epaulets embroidered with “gleaming gold thread,” for which officers had to pay out of their own pockets. His decorations included the Order of Lenin and two badges identifying him as a Hero of Socialist Labor. When Leonid entered the room, he’d wondered why the curtain was half closed on such a beautiful day before realizing that the Colonel preferred to sit in shadow while every visitor was obliged to stand in the light.

After the exchange of salutes, Kamarovsky had asked, “Are you familiar with this?” and pushed a book with colorful binding across the desk to the lieutenant. “Informative, enlightening, and entertaining, all at the same time.”

Secret Front was the book’s title, white letters on a red background, under them a sword, a yellow shield, and, in the center, a red star, the emblem of the Committee for State Security, or KGB. The author of the book was Semyon Tsvigun, whom Leonid knew by name as the Deputy Chairman of the Committee. Leonid asked, “What’s it about?”

“About the Soviet citizen’s need for vigilance against imperialist undermining.” Kamarovsky had pushed up his spectacles and massaged the bridge of his nose. “The bookstores can’t keep up with the demand for this volume. Keep it, Lieutenant.”

“Many thanks, Comrade Colonel.” As though wanting to take no chances on forgetting the book, Leonid placed it on the edge of the desk.

“Vigilance.” The Colonel offered him a seat. “An important quality in the service.”

Leonid was of one mind with the Colonel.

“So you want to leave Moscow?” Kamarovsky was holding a form that Leonid recognized as his own application for transfer.

“Temporarily,” he hastened to reply.

“What led you to request Minusinsk, of all places?” The Colonel’s finger ran along the lines of print.

“I’m interested in geology. The bituminous coal mined around Minusinsk is unusual and valuable, and the mining methods—”

Kamarovsky raised his hand. “You’re serving with the armored infantry. What do you care about mining?”

Minusinsk was said to be a pretty town with a mild climate, and the company stationed there had a reputation for informality. “I’ve read that soldiers are brought in to work the seams when there’s a personnel shortage in the mines,” Leonid replied. “That was my motivation.”

“Ah, I see.” The Colonel laid the paper aside. “I spoke earlier of vigilance. What would you say to an assignment in that field?”

Leonid made no reply. In itself, his transfer was a routine army matter, involving nothing of necessary interest to “competent organs.”

“Minusinsk is in an exposed position,” Kamarovsky said into the silence. “Any infiltration must be prevented. Our vigilance not only preserves the integrity of the regiment stationed there, but also thwarts industrial espionage in the mining areas. It’s important to identify anti-Soviet elements both among the soldiers and among the local civilian population. Such elements are troublemakers and enemies of the people.”

“What form would such an assignment take?” Leonid’s eyes fell on the book Secret Front. The title took on a new meaning.

“Your rank would entitle you to live in the quarters reserved for higher-ranking officers and to eat in their mess hall. That’s an important advantage. The assignment would also entail a flexible allocation of your duty time. And of course, your special field of activity would have a positive effect on your pay.”

“I mean the practical part of my work.” Tension made Leonid sit there stock-still with his knees pressed together.

“This intelligence work requires you to select an internal staff of collaborators, whose task it is to provide you with information. You draw the necessary conclusions, write up reports, and forward them to us.”

From the day when Anna revealed to him that she was working for the state security agency, it had been clear to Leonid that, sooner or later, he’d be drawn in, too. He didn’t condemn her, but he couldn’t forgive her for not having told him sooner.

“I’m grateful for the honor of having been taken into consideration,” he said formally. “However, I find ordinary regimental service sufficiently demanding. More difficult assignments would be beyond my capabilities at this time.”

“Ah, well, we don’t want to rush into anything,” Kamarovsky replied affably. “It’s an unexpected offer. I understand that. You should give it some thought and—of course—consult with your wife.” His smile was so insolent that it infuriated Leonid.

“Thank you, Comrade Colonel. I’ll think it over,” he said. When the Colonel nodded, Leonid rose to his feet, saluted, and made an about-face.

“Lieutenant.” Leonid, heading for the door, heard the voice behind him. “You’ve forgotten your book. I shall expect your answer in a week.”

Leonid had neither spoken to Anna about this conversation nor reported to the Colonel after the week had passed. He’d simply kept silent. His transfer to Sakhalin had come through a month later in the form of marching orders passed on to him without explanation. Leonid had never again heard from Colonel Kamarovsky.


There were sounds outside, and then men entered the building. Before the knock on his door, Leonid was on his feet, clad in his weather gear and ready to go. The first man to enter his office was Staff Sergeant Likhan Chevken, the alpha male among the men and the only Nivkh. As a member of one of the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin, he couldn’t become an officer in the Red Army, but he was the person best qualified to command Leonid’s frontier troops. Chevken had served in the company the longest; he was a soldier, mechanic, sailor, and medic, all in one person. He was familiar with all of Sakhalin’s natural phenomena and spoke all the dialects of the island. Chevken was short and round; his dexterity, tenacity, and fighting spirit were not immediately apparent. At the same time, he was the personification of gentleness, the only man in Leonid’s troop who didn’t make him feel that he wasn’t entitled to lead it. “So we’re doing the security check first?” Likhan Chevken asked in a tone that implied the existence of a better solution.

“What do you suggest?” Leonid asked.

“Maybe we could work in parallel,” the Nivkh replied. “Three men can inspect the cutter while the others prepare for the salvage operation.”

Leonid didn’t act as though he first had to ponder Chevken’s suggestion; the man was always right. The captain divided his men into groups and gave the order to move out.

The men left the barracks ten at a time, bracing themselves against the wind. It looked as though they were about to stagger straight to the edge of the abyss, but in reality, they were heading for the elevator that was hidden behind a rock overhang. The steel cables sang. The mounts for the guide rails had been driven into the stone a yard deep, yet Leonid got nervous every time he had to descend into the void that lay beneath the veils of sea-spray, fog, and drizzle. He stood as far to the rear of the elevator cage as he could, clinging to the grille. Before Chevken, the last to enter, stepped inside, he used a remote-control device to start the diesel motor, which was located in a bunker at the base of the elevator. The gears engaged with such a jolt that Leonid was afraid they were in free fall, but the metal cage slowly went into motion and slid down the face of the blackly gleaming cliff. When, after riding down in silence, they arrived at the bottom, the men dashed out into the storm and began running around busily. Since the elemental roar made speech impossible, they communicated with hand signals; like a bunch of deaf-mutes, Leonid thought, as he struggled toward the last of the three boats. He’d already been through the procedure: The first of the inflatable dinghies carried a load of steel cables, which would be transported to the site and made fast to the cutter; men from the second boat would mount balloons, which after being inflated by remote control would lift the grounded vessel’s cargo and hold it in equilibrium. Leonid would sit in the third boat, which served as a backup in case something happened to one of the other two. He felt for the weapon under his oilskin. In spite of the ice storm, a smile crossed his face; he wouldn’t be so careless a second time.

Having ascertained with relief that Likhan Chevken would steer his boat, Leonid helped drag it into the water. The sandy fairway had been artificially constructed; other than that, the only land feature far and wide was sheer rock. The breakers immediately buffeted the light boat, yanking it away from the land, but Chevken gripped a line, held it steady, and motioned to Leonid to jump in. Irritated by his own clumsiness, Leonid awkwardly took his place amidships and held on with both hands. Chevken and another man sprang nimbly into the boat, paddled like mad, and started the outboard motor as soon as they reached the proper depth. When Chevken set the dinghy on course, a mighty wave plunged under it, thrusting its nose perpendicularly into the air; but the wonder of those boats was that they always stayed on top of the water. For a few daredevil seconds, the dinghy balanced on the crest of the wave and then rushed down helter-skelter into the next black trough. Leonid tightened his stomach muscles—a vomiting skipper was out of the question. He hoped with all his heart that the first salvage attempt would be successful; otherwise, they would have to launch the crane ship, a nearly impossible undertaking in such a turbulent sea. Leonid knew his men. They’d work until they dropped to remove the obstruction from their harbor. In the worst case, the cutter would have to be blown up.

While Leonid was squinting against sleet and spray, Likhan Chevken, barefaced and open-eyed, drove the boat out of the cove. Already the leftmost of the Three Brothers was coming into sight; Chevken skillfully steered around the sharp-edged, jagged rocks. Beyond them, the scrap-iron cutter appeared, lying aslant like a rusty arrow thrust into the seabed. The other two dinghies were bobbing toward the freighter, but they yielded the right-of-way to the commander’s boat. Chevken fired off a flare, which was answered by a flashing signal from the cutter, inviting them to come aboard.

A rope was let down from the stern into the water. The storm lifted the rope and flung it against the ship’s side. Chevken cast out a boat-hook and maneuvered his vessel alongside the ship. Leonid peered into the raging sea-spray. The distance between their boat and the grounded ship looked immense; however, he stood up, grabbed the auxiliary rope, and swung one leg onto the rung; the other leg was still standing in the inflatable boat. Chevken called out, “Now!” and already the wave was upon them, driving the boat toward the open sea. Leonid made a false step, slammed against the ship’s rump, and sank up to his hips in the water. The icy cold robbed him of breath; he pulled himself up the rope ladder with both arms, found a rung, and started to clamber, uncomfortably aware that the arrival of a Soviet frontier patrol officer ought to have looked different.

It was a pretty good bet that the cutter was carrying not only scrap iron but smuggled goods; the reception its crew might give their rescuers would not necessarily be friendly. Leonid made sure that his men were close behind him, reached the lopsided railing, and pulled himself on board. In such weather, every formality was dispensed with; the ship’s mate led the way for Chevken to follow. Leonid wiggled his toes in his boots, which had taken on a quantity of ice water. The bulkhead leading to the wheelhouse opened, and a cold gust of wind blew the visitors inside.

The captain of the cutter was a bearded man with Kyrgyz eyes. “You’re bringing some shitty weather with you,” he said to Leonid by way of greeting.

“You’re in a restricted area,” said Leonid, disinclined to make small talk. “Your ship is blocking the entrance to the harbor,” he went on, as if he were telling the captain something he didn’t know.

“I radioed to say we’d sprung a leak.”

“The harbor entrance must be cleared as quickly as possible. We’re initiating a salvage operation.” Seeing only two others in the room, Leonid asked, “How many men do you have on board?”

“Fourteen, Captain.” The commander of the freighter put on a show of obsequiousness.

“Call them together,” Leonid ordered. By then, the third member of his group had also arrived. “I’m going to inspect the ship. Bill of lading and logbook, please,” he added, a little more courteously. “Tell your people to have their papers ready. Any foreign nationals?”

The captain shook his head. “All Soviet citizens.”

“Soviet citizen?” Leonid pointed to the helmsman, whose skin was almost black.

The mate answered for him. “He’s a Tuvan from the Yenisei valley.”

Leonid placed himself in front of the captain. “Open your cargo hold.”

“As you wish, Comrade.” The captain took some keys out of a metal box. “One bulkhead, however, is sealed.”

“According to your radio message, you’re carrying only scrap iron. Why the sealed bulkhead?”

“I couldn’t say. The stuff was brought on board and sealed as per the shipowner’s instructions.”

Leonid turned to Chevken and asked, “Do we have the Geiger counter with us?” The Nivkh nodded. Leonid then ordered the third man to begin salvage operations. The man took out a walkie-talkie. Leonid didn’t feel that he was under any threat from the crew, but the sealed bulkhead made him uneasy. It wasn’t unusual for shippers to enhance the market value of their freight with contraband. The captain of the cutter couldn’t have given much thought to the possibility that his ship would get into distress, and he would try to prevent the confiscation of his cargo. Leonid’s hand rested on his holster. Although he’d never had to use his service weapon while on a mission, the pistol was the object of his special care. The reason for his attention lay half a year in the past.


Shortly after Leonid’s duty on Sakhalin Island began, the garrison was struck by a severe earthquake. The tremors started after midnight. Jolted out of sleep, Captain Nechayev didn’t figure out at first what was happening. His iron bedstead was vibrating and the lamp above him swaying back and forth as though someone had given it a good push. Leonid turned on the light. Shadows flitted over the walls and the furniture. The quarters he was in had been built at ground level without any special anchoring. It was late summer, and the weather was pleasant; Leonid looked outside and saw soldiers in their underwear and others with their pajamas tucked into their boots. Wearing his uniform trousers and a pair of slippers, he left the building and watched from the parade ground as the trembling earth sent the wooden barracks into strange convulsions. Here a window burst into pieces, there a roof crown fell off or a wall collapsed outward, exposing the interior like rooms in a dollhouse: bunk beds, chairs, tables with liquor bottles rolling off of them. Leonid hurried to a briefing with the major, who ordered him to have his men fall in properly. Leonid, who hadn’t yet been assigned to the technical unit, passed the order to his sergeants. A few minutes later, the platoon under his command had fallen into line as directed. Leonid allowed the men some time to sort out their equipment, and while they were doing so, he realized that he’d forgotten his own military belt, complete with sidearm, in the barracks. He dashed back and found his leather belt and holster, but his service pistol was gone. Recently—only a few days ago—he’d taken it out to clean it, and so there was only one possibility: His pistol had been stolen. Leonid put on the rest of his uniform, including the empty holster. While he inspected his troops, he tried to determine from their faces which of them might be the thief. Officially acknowledging the theft was unthinkable; a soldier could be guilty of few faults worse than getting his service weapon stolen.

The next morning, while the cleanup was under way, Leonid spoke to the most senior of the sergeants and asked him how one could replace stolen pieces of equipment. “Buy them,” the fat man said. His face looked as though it were set in aspic. Leonid knew that the black market was illegal but tolerated, since officers, too, profited from it. Proceeds were distributed from top to bottom.

So what did the captain need, the sergeant wanted to know. Leonid named a hard-to-find sanitary article and was handed a piece of paper. The address written on it was in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the island’s chief city.

“People who aren’t in uniform get better prices,” the fat sergeant counseled him. “The man to talk to is Yevchuk.”

After going off duty, Leonid changed his clothes and took the bus to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Some men from his company, also on their way to town, inquired whether the captain was looking for a good time. For appearances’ sake, he asked them to recommend a nightclub.

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk was a town that had sprung up quickly, with the usual mixture of four-story apartment buildings and ground-level wooden houses. The administrative centers of the state oil and gas holding companies stood out like palaces in the cityscape. Leonid bought some smoked fish from a street vendor, and as he ate it, he was struck, as he’d been when he first arrived, by how many Koreans he saw, visible proof that Asians had decided to remain in the Soviet Union after Sakhalin was liberated from Japan.

The address the sergeant had given him wasn’t far from the train station. When Leonid got there, dusk was already falling. The building he was looking for took up the entire block and seemed, at least outwardly, to be a large store that sold seeds and fertilizer. Leonid looked around the official stockroom and said to the only clerk that he’d heard one could also buy spare parts for toilet facilities there.

“We’re about to close,” the man said gruffly, taking off his work smock.

“Is Yevchuk in the building?”

The clerk looked the visitor over, found him unobjectionable, and acknowledged that he himself was Yevchuk. “What do you need?”

At first, Leonid stuck to his story and inquired whether the store carried a certain kind of ball valve.

“Maybe so, maybe no,” said Yevchuk. Then he led Leonid into the real stockroom. “You have to look for it yourself.”

Leonid was ready for anything; nevertheless, the size of that warehouse amazed him. He saw displayed, on some five thousand square feet of floor space, all the basic necessities that were in such short supply elsewhere: dishes, housewares, canned goods, furniture, entire bathrooms, closets, even musical instruments. The largest section contained automobile parts. About twenty people were rummaging around in the items on the display tables; some customers clutched exhaust pipes or generators or dashboards in their arms. Yevchuk led Leonid to the toilet section, which wasn’t so well stocked—cracked toilet bowls, rusty pipe couplings. Relieved at being unable to find what he wasn’t looking for, Leonid casually asked what the weapons inventory was like.

“Who did you say recommended this place to you?”

The captain in civilian clothes named the sergeant and declared, in plain language, that he—Leonid—was looking for a good pistol.

“Don’t have any.”

Leonid had expected this response and indicated that he was prepared to pay a premium to anyone who could help him find what he wanted, but it was only when he pulled a small roll of ruble notes out of one trouser pocket and thrust them in the other that Yevchuk decided to take a chance. “In that case, we have to go down one floor.” He opened a door, made certain that nobody was following them, slipped in behind Leonid, and locked the door from the inside. Saying, “Our rifle selection is bigger,” Yevchuk turned on a light and presented the armory.

Leonid concealed his amazement. The weaponry on offer before him would have sufficed to arm an average-sized company: everything from assault rifles, sorted according to their year of manufacture, to component parts for light artillery pieces. The items displayed for sale were all in excellent condition, not damaged or substandard goods but modern equipment that was missing from the military’s inventories.

“Pistols are over there.”

Leonid went to the display table. After a brief glance, he knew his weapon wasn’t on it. “These seem positively antique,” he said, not looking at Yevchuk. “Don’t you have anything newer, anything that’s come in recently?”

“New acquisitions must be treated first.”

“Treated?”

“You don’t want to buy an item that can be traced.”

Leonid understood. “Ah, the serial number.”

“Our weapons have never had such a number,” Yevchuk said with a smile.

“I’m kind of in a hurry,” Leonid said, unrelenting. “What would it cost me to buy a pistol with a serial number?”

“We’ve never had such a case.” Yevchuk’s suspicions had immediately reappeared.

“Please do me this favor.” Leonid extracted his money roll, peeled off a bill, laid it next to a revolver, and turned away. When he looked at the table again, the banknote had disappeared.

“I’ll see what came in yesterday,” Yevchuk explained. “Wait here.”

He wasn’t gone five minutes before returning with a cloth bag that contained two weapons. Yevchuk placed them on the table for Leonid’s inspection. He recognized his pistol at once.

“This one’s an ornamental piece,” Yevchuk said. “It belonged to a colonel. You see the initials on the barrel? And that’s a one-aught-six, standard issue for the armored infantry. It’s got a good feel in the hand.”

Leonid’s pistol had been unloaded. He patiently let Yevchuk explain to him the workings of his own weapon, seemed to hesitate before his two choices, and asked about the price of the colonel’s pistol. Yevchuk named a sum that was unquestionably too high.

“In that case …” Leonid put the colonel’s gun aside. “I’ll take this one, then.”

Yevchuk offered a price break for the more expensive pistol, but Leonid didn’t waver. They haggled a while longer. In the end, Leonid bought his weapon for the equivalent of a month’s pay.

“We could still file off that number real quick,” Yevchuk offered. His customer thanked him but declined, asked if he could have the cloth bag for carrying the piece, and left the store as quickly as possible.

Relieved at having evaded disagreeable consequences, Leonid examined his surroundings. The streetlamps were just coming on. This part of town was quite lively, with people going in and out of the little bars around the train station. Leonid decided to take the late bus back to Korsakov, stuffed the cloth bag containing his recent purchase into an inside pocket, and strolled off into the evening. The soldiers he saw were wearing linen uniform jackets, which were a rarity on Sakhalin even in summer. A couple was having trouble with their motor scooter; to save face, the young man had his girlfriend sit on the scooter and started pushing both machine and girl up a hill.

Leonid felt like having a drink. He made sure the pistol was securely stowed away and stepped into a corner bar. It was furnished in the style of a yurt: Larch poles ribbed the ceiling, giving the impression of a tent; pelts and art objects adorned the walls; only the bare concrete floor broke the illusion. The waitress, who was wearing a yellow silk jacket, offered the guest a seat at a table already occupied by a family. Leonid wanted to sit by himself and said that he’d be glad to wait until one of the smaller tables was free. There was no bar, so he leaned against the wall and ordered vodka; then, sipping his drink, he looked around him.

Although it was a workday, people had dressed up for their restaurant visit. There seemed to be about as many Nivkhs as nonnatives of the island; at one table, for example, there was a Russian family, and some Koreans were sitting at the one behind it. An older man turned his daughter’s wheelchair around and pushed it toward the exit. Leonid signaled to the waitress that he’d take over their table, but just as he reached it, he collided with someone who’d had the same idea. It was a woman, and she was rubbing her shoulder.

“Forgive me, I didn’t see you.”

“I’ve been waiting longer than you.”

“Certainly.” He turned away.

“Is anybody with you?” Leonid shook his head. The woman pointed to the only other chair. “Well, then …”

She looked older than he and was wearing black trousers and a red jacket with darts that combined with her pinned-up hair to produce a somewhat insolent effect. He noticed the man’s wristwatch on her arm. They took their seats, and Leonid looked around for a menu. “There are only three dishes,” she said. She opened her jacket, revealing a collarless lab coat underneath. “Smoked fish, smoked meat, and smoked whale. Everything’s too highly seasoned, but it’s edible.”

“You come here often?” The pistol was pressing against his chest, but he didn’t trust himself to transfer the weapon inconspicuously to another pocket.

“When I have to eat fast. The hospital’s only a block away.”

“That’s where you work?” The lab coat wasn’t right for a nurse.

“Alas, it is.” She looked over at the waitress, who came smiling to their table. “The Number One,” the woman said.

“For me, too,” said Leonid, falling in with the company. “And tea.”

“How do you know what the Number One is?”

“Well, you surely didn’t order whale, did you? What do you do in the hospital?”

“I’m a butcher,” she answered, adding, when he stared at her in surprise, “under the circumstances, what I do can’t be called surgery.”

“You’re a surgeon?”

“A visiting surgeon. In a few months, I can go back home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Yakutia.”

“In eastern Siberia? And you’re looking forward to that?”

“It’s cold,” she said, “but our hospitals aren’t as prehistoric as the ones here.” She exchanged her knife and fork. “In Yakutsk, I work as a doctor should. Here I’m glad for a day when chickens don’t stray into the operating room.”

Their food arrived. When the woman tucked in hungrily, Leonid saw that she was left-handed. “You’re not from here,” she said.

“How can you tell?”

“You have the big-city look.”

He cast his eyes down. “What does the big-city look like?”

“It looks like you know better. About everything.” She chewed. “Moscow, Leningrad?”

“Moscow. You’re eating too fast.”

“I know, it’s not becoming.” She drank some tea. “I’m Galina Korff.”

He took his first bite. “An unusual name.”

“Believe it or not, my grandfather was the last governor-general of Sakhalin.”

“So how did you wind up in Siberia?”

“How, indeed. We had a revolution. After that, governors weren’t very popular.” She looked at her watch. “My whole family was exiled.”

“You were allowed to study at a university even though your grandfather was a counterrevolutionary?”

“Only a smug, arrogant Muscovite would ask such a question.” She wiped her mouth. “Incidentally, what you’re eating there is whale meat.” She stood up. “I have to get back.”

He put down his fork. “You perform operations at this hour?”

“The electricity’s more reliable at night.” She buttoned up her jacket. “During the day, the lights flicker constantly. Sometimes we have to run the heart-lung machine by hand.”

“You’re exaggerating, right?”

“Of course. What’s your name?”

“Leonid Nechayev.” He pushed his plate away. “Are you here every evening?”

“Why do you ask that? You want to flirt with me?”

He wiped his greasy mouth on the back of his hand. “What makes you think that?”

“You’re the type,” Galina said. “What do you do?”

Leonid noticed that the people at the next table were pricking up their ears. He reached the waitress before Galina did and paid the check. “If you permit me, I’ll walk along with you,” he said. They left the eating place together. It was a friendly night, and contrary to his usual custom, the captain felt lighthearted. “Which direction?” he asked.

Galina stood still and said, “First you have to tell me what you are.”

“I’m an army officer. Stationed in the south, in Korsakov.” He scrutinized her to see whether this admission put her off.

“You’re wearing a wedding ring, Leonid,” Galina said, and started walking up the hill. He remained at her side. With every step, the pistol beat against his chest.


Metallic noises indicated that the men outside were busy with the salvage equipment; a steel hawser was being secured to the cutter’s hull. Captain Nechayev’s hand was still on his weapon. He wanted to hold Galina Korff’s face in his memory, but try though he might, it faded. In his imagination, Galina’s features were replaced by Anna’s—her cheekbones, her nose. Galina’s lips were more scornful, her eyes more mysterious.

They went down the ship’s rope ladders. Leonid had Likhan Chevken go first; behind them, the third man in their team provided security for the inspection. They reached a bulkhead with a sign that read CARGO HOLD. NO SMOKING. Leonid wondered what could be flammable in there. Peering through the hatch, he saw that the storage space contained scrapped motors; diesel oil and gasoline formed shiny puddles. The last bulkhead was locked with steel wire and the room sealed with a leaden plate.

“According to your bill of lading, you’re carrying nothing but scrap metal,” Leonid said to the ship’s captain. “Why is this area locked up?”

“That’s how the shipowner wanted it.”

“I’m officially breaking this leaden seal.” Leonid told Chevken to approach; the Nivkh was holding a bolt cutter at the ready.

“Without my consent.”

“Your protest is duly noted.” Leonid gave Chevken a sign. One clip sufficed to sever the wire, and the sergeant opened the bulkhead.

“After you,” said Leonid to the captain. The latter made no move to turn on the lights. Leonid asked Chevken for a flashlight and stepped through the doorway. This hold smelled not of iron and oil but of wet newsprint. He switched on the overhead lights. Except for three pallets stacked with cardboard boxes, the room was empty.

“That’s all there is, Comrade,” said the captain, trying to play down the discovery.

“Open them.”

Chevken unclasped his knife and cut through the straps around one of the boxes. He pulled out an illustrated magazine and handed it to the captain. The magazine’s name wasn’t written in the Cyrillic alphabet; a girl lounged under the letters. A quick flip through the magazine left Leonid in no doubt as to its contents. He found a red and blue pennant on the back cover.

“From Denmark,” he said, as if that explained everything.

The ship’s captain reiterated his assertion that he’d had no knowledge of the content of those boxes and that they were the shipowner’s responsibility. Leonid chastised the captain for neglecting his oversight duties and called upon him to follow along voluntarily to the commander’s office; otherwise, Leonid said, he would have to place him under arrest. The contraband would be confiscated. In his secret heart, Leonid regretted not having brought more men with him; in the face of any genuine resistance, he and his team would be seriously outnumbered.

He heard the sound of footsteps on metal, and the officer who was directing the salvage appeared in the hold. Leonid was informed that the cutter had been tied up and made fast, and that the operation must begin at once. Leonid left a man behind to guard the contraband and, accompanied by the captain, left the bowels of the ship.

The sky had cleared, but the wind was blowing as hard as ever. The cutter was surrounded by inflated buoys, and his men were circling it in their rubber dinghies.

“We have to start! The tide’s lifting the ship!”

And in fact, with a harsh, grating sound, the cutter went into motion. Although she seemed at first even closer to capsizing, she quickly righted herself, and her dripping bow sprang out of the water. The dinghy drivers sped toward the cutter’s stern. Leonid saw one of them bellow into his walkie-talkie; three hundred feet away, somebody started the winch. Thick steel cables rose slowly through the sea-spray, winding around the hull from both sides, stiffening, and pulling taut. The cutter was shaken by tremors, there was a shrieking and roaring of metal, but nothing moved.

“Hold that tension!” shouted the man in the dinghy.

“Two more waves,” Chevken said to Leonid. “Look over there—the Brothers are already going under.”

In fact, only the noses of the black, ship-wrecking rocks could still be seen. The cutter settled down, the vibrations slowed and dwindled, and ropes and air cushions produced stability.

“Here she comes!” Leonid heard someone cry out. “She’s climbing, climbing …” The rubber dinghy drove off, made a loop, and approached the stern again. Many voices shouted, “There it is,” and at the same time, the dinghy driver steered his boat back around to avoid being rammed by the upward-lurching cutter.

Chevken came up to Leonid as he leaned on the railing. “We’re afloat.”

“Well done!” Leonid shouted before turning around. Just as he did so, the captain of the cutter tried to make his way to the helm stand. “Where do you think you’re going?” Leonid asked.

Chevken stood in Leonid’s way. “He has to take the helm,” the Nivkh explained in an undertone. “He can use the rudder to help us with the salvage.” The cutter was shaken by a jolt as the winch pulled her in the desired direction. “We still have to get through the Brothers without wrecking the ship.”

“Shall I start the engine?” the sea captain asked. He waited until Leonid took his hand off his weapon.

“Start it,” Leonid said. Then he turned to the rail and cursed the day when such a landlubber as he had been saddled with such a command.