They said a million men and women were held in the camps.
He shook the aberration from his head, and the wind whipped at him, the gusts caught at him, and through his greatcoat he shivered.
He had not known that thought before.
Rudakov took Michael Holly from the work cell of the SHIzo block and escorted him back to his office. He saw the way the man limped, the way he had tucked his wrist between the buttons of his tunic for support, the spectacular bruises. As they went past the zeks there was a growl of reaction to the hobbling, bowed prisoner.
Holly scraped a smile to his face.
It hurt to lift his free arm, but he managed a half-wave.
He saw Chernayev and Poshekhonov, thought he could recognize Feldstein in the back lines. He heard the few shouts of support that merged with the yelled orders for quiet and the calling of the names.
He had found friends.
It required a beating on the floor of the SHIzo cell to find friends, it took a mug of coffee thrown into the face of authority to discover comrades. And when he went back to his cell in the evening Mikk Laas would be waiting.
He followed Rudakov into the Administration building and he closed the door of Rudakov's office behind them. He saw the stain of coffee on the wall beyond the swing chair.
'Sit down.'
'I'd just as soon stand, thank you.'
Holly recognized the strength that had been given him by the boot and the truncheon. He would not have believed it before. Mikk Laas had explained. What can they do now?, he had said.
'Sit down, Holly… please… '
Every action, every word, should be divided into the zones of victory and defeat. The Political Officer had used the word 'please', that was victory. There could be no defeat in accepting the chair.
He saw the half-smile at Rudakov's mouth.
'Should I offer you coffee?'
'I don't need coffee.'
'Would you like something to eat?'
'I don't need anything to eat.'
'What happened yesterday, I had no involvement…'
'Should that matter to me?'
'It was on the initiative of the Commandant.'
'It doesn't concern me.'
'You have to make a choice, Holly. There is the way you are heading, there is the way that I am offering. Perhaps you don't know that the choice exists, so I will make it very clear to you. The way you are heading will keep you here for fourteen years, the way that will trundle you between the SHIzo block and Hut z. There is also the opportunity for commonsense, the opportunity of the flight home to London. The choice is clear. The choice would be clear to a child.. . '
The pain came in swingeing bursts to Holly's body. Rich, live pain and in its wake were the memories of the flailing boot and the falling truncheon. He thought of Mikk Laas from whom they had not yet stamped the heritage of Estonia, of a woman who cried in solitary and did not believe that she was heard. He thought of Feldstein who had passed on a samizdat paper, of Adimov whose wife was dying of a cancer ravage, of Chernayev and Poshekhonov who had befriended him.
'If I don't go back to the work cell I won't be able to complete my output norm,' Holly said flatly.
'I have protected you, Michael. For what you did to me in here I could have put you before a court-under Article 77- 1 of the Criminal Code you could have had another fifteen years. Can't you see what I am doing for you?'
'What happened to your investigation team?'
'They found a man, they have left… You have to think of your life. You have to think of your future. I cannot protect you for ever
…'
'Which man did they find?'
'A maniac from Hut 4, half-mad anyway, used to work at the Water Authority in Moscow… it's irrelevant… I am protecting you now. I cannot go on doing that. Are you asking me to abandon you? Are you listening to me, Holly…?'
'What will happen to this man?'
Rudakov shrugged.
'We have a penalty for murder, it does not concern you
… Think of your parents, they are old, in the twilight of their lives. They have one son only. They will die without ever seeing that son again. They will die in an agony of unhappiness. That is not my fault, Michael. That is not the fault of the Soviet people. It is in your hands to make those old people happy, Michael. You think that I am very crude, that I play to the emotions. The crudest argument is the best.'
Holly hung his head.
He had condemned a man to die. He had consigned an elderly couple living in a London suburb to a dotage of misery. For what?
To indulge an ideal? The ideal of Michael Holly scattered casualties across the length of the compound, across the breadth of a terraced house.
When he looked up he saw the triumph large in Rudakov's face. He knew of nothing to say. Michael Holly had thought he was brave, and his bravery was paid for with another man's life, with his parents' misery. The strength ran from him, the resolve leaked away. Another man's life, his parents misery. His head was deep in his hands, hidden.
'Captain Rudakov…'
'You are going to be sensible, Michael?'
'Give me time.'
'Get it over, Michael. Finish it now.'
'Give me a few days. You will find I am not a fool. You will have something to send to Moscow.'
'Each day you wait is a wasted day.'
Rudakov beamed over the table, made a dramatic gesture by pulling from a drawer a sheet of blank paper, took his pen from his tunic pocket.
'I have to prepare myself.'
'A few days only.'
'Thank you.' Holly seemed to brighten, as if a great decision had been taken. 'I want to go back to the work cell.
If I do not go now I will not complete my output norm.'
Rudakov shook his head, a tinge of sadness had gathered.
He saw the wreckage of a human being. At that moment the sight gave him no pleasure. He could take no pride in the destruction of a proud man. The collapse had been faster than he would have believed possible. He was vindicated.
The pentothal drugs, the torture electrodes, the beatings, they were not the only way. His approach had been correct, even humane.. .
Holly forced himself up from the chair. He staggered towards the door, and waited for the Orderly to answer Rudakov's call and come to escort him back to the SHIzo block.
They had ravished the supper, raped the soup and bread.
They were left now with a windy ache in the belly, a warmth in the throat, the knowledge that if they were quiet they would not be disturbed for the night hours. No crying from the cell through the wall, no response to Holly's tapping.
But the girl had been an interlude, an interruption. The business of that evening, and each evening that followed, devolved from the experience bank of Mikk Laas.
Mikk Laas on the concrete floor beside Michael Holly and whispering at his ear.
'You can't tunnel out of here, not in winter with twenty degrees below and permafrost. You see that? And it's no better a prospect in the summer. It's the matter of the water table – it's high here. There's a top level of sand and under that runs the water. Anywhere in the camp if you dig a hole more than four feet deep you will have standing water. Then they have another small sophistication – they are very thorough people, never forget that, Michael Holly-beyond the wooden fence there is in summer a ploughed strip, they harrow it to show footprints. Between the wooden fence and the ploughed strip they have dug into the ground a line of concrete blocks. The blocks are a metre square and a few centimetres thick. They have dug them down into the earth so that if it were possible to cope with the water table and to have a tunnel running under the fence then the weight of the blocks would collapse the workings. Years ago we worked to place the blocks in position, I know their weight, it took two of us to move each one. .. Even if you could disperse the earth, if you had the strength to manage the digging, if you could find the collaborators that you could trust, you still would not succeed by tunnelling. Forget a tunnel.'