One of them said, “And my uncle’s nephew by marriage, he is a fisherman. You know that a fishing boat, a small one, came into Kirkenes two or three days ago and had sailed from the British islands of Shetland, and in Kirkenes the crew had used an agent to buy up all the red king crabs they could get their hands on, and they paid well over the usual price for them. Where did they take the load? They sailed for Murmansk, would go from Kirkenes and east into Russian water, then past Vayda-Guba and on past Zubovka, and so to Murmansk. There was apparently a problem with their own catches of this crab and the boat went to fulfil an order from smart restaurants. Why was it a boat that came all the way across from Britain? It is very confusing…”
She took the order, made no comment. She disappointed them. Remembered the tang of the sea in her mouth and nostrils, and the freshness of the wind on her face, and – as sharp as if it had been in the previous hour – each line and movement of his face. Could see him as he had been before, when she had teased with her eyes and never spoken, and how it had been when he had clung to her as the killing had started in the village and then she had broken the silence and said that one of the women was her sister; saw him as he had been in the small Norwegian port, his face thinner and more drawn, and his eyes tired and almost a shake in his hand. She had held it and had sensed his fear. The people with him had said she would encourage him in his mission, but all he had to do was identify. Would he kill the officer? ‘Absolutely not.’ Would he help to kill the officer? ‘I just do my job.’ She had snorted contempt at him, had whipped him with her voice and had known stress enveloped him. She had bullied, had dismissed him, and felt belittled and the anger was gone.
She wondered if he were out and back over the border, if a killing had been done; thought if the work were finished then the woman from the Consulate would have told her. She wondered if he were still there, was a free man or trapped. As if she had forgotten the officer, remembered only Gaz. She put the order on the counter, went to clear another table.
It would be, for Jasha, an act of faith.
From his toolbox he took an old pair of pliers. He had drunk a mug of tea which he thought would calm him and stay any shake of his hand. He had fed the dog, but the animal was aware of crisis and had merely toyed with the food in its bowl. His money box was on the table and his military identity card, and the dog’s leash: he believed that would be an invitation to anyone who came to the cabin and found it deserted, to pocket the money, take the leash and the dog. It was his fall-back. His narrow single bed was spread with a coverlet, and his dishes and pans were washed and on the board beside the sink, and… he could hear the moaning.
The figure from history that Jasha revered most was the Red Army commander, Georgi Zhukov. The creature from the wild that he respected most was the brown bear with one foot already a stump and now a fencer’s staple wedged deep in it.
Jasha had heard of men who claimed a relationship with a bear, and they likely lied or had inherited one freed from a circus. He left the rifle, the Dragunov with the telescopic sight attached, on the shelf. He did not think he could play two games and have a fall-back position. He would go to the bear, would help it if his intervention were allowed, but he would not rush back to grab the weapon if the fury of the creature, in its pain, were turned on him. There was an old German song that he had learned before going to Afghanistan; it had been almost a dissident crime to whistle it: Lili Marlene. Jasha removed his shirt and vest, folded them and placed them on the table. The song comforted him. He murmured it, tapped his dog’s head, felt it shiver, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He went out of his cabin, the pliers in his hand.
The bear did not move. It held its leg upright, keeping the whine deep in its throat. Jasha whistled his song between his teeth. He thought the first few seconds would be critical. He walked slowly, deliberately towards the bear. He saw the bear’s head tilt towards him. Everything in the animal’s psyche would tell him that Jasha posed a threat by coming close. He should show no fear, should come with a smile and the soothing sounds of the German anthem on his lips, should show the pliers and allow Zhukov to realise that he had no weapon with him. He was within a metre of the bear.
The arch of the staple could be clearly seen. Zhukov could have swiped him and broken Jasha’s vertebrae, could have slashed him with his claws. He assumed that if it wanted to knock him down he would see only a blur of movement before he was struck. Jasha had not witnessed the wounds on a man that a bear’s claws would inflict but he had seen a moose that had strayed too close to a female with a cub: great railway tracks of blood and the thick hide ripped apart. He watched the bear’s eyes and saw a dullness and looked at his teeth, the mouth wide enough to take his head inside, bite it clean off.
Who would care if the bear killed him? Who would remember him after all the years he had lived in the tundra? Jasha was beside the bear. The last steps were at tortoise speed, his eyes always on the bear’s, and there was a moment when he almost flinched because the animal showed its teeth. Jasha did not stop. His life was either within seconds of ending, or… Enough messing. He reached forward and locked the tips of the pliers on to the arch of the staple. It was big and rusty and caked in mud. One more deep breath. He pulled, and was flung back. Had used strength but the grip had failed. He would try again. The bear watched him and his front leg stayed upright and Jasha saw his teeth again… a mad thought, perhaps, but he wondered, had he chickened out and abandoned the job, whether the bear would come after him, whatever the pain… He felt himself committed. Raising the level of his voice, singing all the words in German that he knew, he came back close to Zhukov. He fastened the pliers on the staple, squeezed the handles so that his fist was near cracking and put his elbow across the bear’s chest to gain better traction, and heaved. Nothing moved. He sang louder, full-throated:
Wenn sich die spaeten Nebel drehn,
Werd’ ich bei der Lanterne steh’n
Used every necessary muscle… felt the staple move, and saw it emerge, blood with it.
Wie einst Lili Marlene, wir einst Lili Marlene.
The bear watched him, its breath rancid in Jasha’s face. He eased his body away. He should not hurry. He was glad that what he had done had not been seen, as if it were a private moment between the two of them and he must not show fear. He walked away, unable to loosen his grip on the pliers. Walked steadily as if nothing special had happened.
He went back through the cabin door and the pliers fell from his hand, and the staple clattered free and he felt his head spinning and his legs crumbling, and he fell to the floor.
The harbour launch had left them. The fishing boat sailed alone.
The skipper studied his charts and used satnav and could only hope that the choice of location was indeed a section of the inlet’s coast that was not under the highest levels of surveillance. They were beyond the Northern Fleet headquarters at Severomorsk but were short of the submariners’ garrison city of Vidyaevo. It was a simple plan. All the best plans were. He believed that complicated procedures were generally unsatisfactory, prone to failure. It was the last throw. They had waited and had dared to hope that they would see him at the outer gate, flitting in the shadows, and would then be chatting up the security while the stranger came with his bogus papers, and was waved through. There was an emptiness among them and the bottle of scotch was on the table below. It was what they called a back-stop.