Kobylov gave him his hairdresser’s smile and he sat back, lit a Belomorkanal cigarette and gave it to Benya before lighting his own. Benya watched the Bull inhale his slowly, closing his eyes under black eyebrows, thick as grubs, and blowing the blue smoke into Benya’s face. A long silence. Then suddenly he banged his fist on the table. Benya jumped.
‘You have fucked up an intelligence operation sanctioned at the highest fucking level by the Instantsiya. Yes, the Instantsiya! The highest! You’re not in line for redemption, Prisoner Golden. Your recruitment into the Shtrafbat was against regulations. We’re investigating this and if you survive this conversation, you’ll be returned to the gold mines of Madyak-7.’
Benya felt cold suddenly. Cold and sick. ‘Oh God,’ he groaned.
‘But you won’t even get that far. Your death penalty is hereby reinstated owing to your treasonable actions on the Don steppe. Prepare yourself, Prisoner Golden, for the Eight Grammes, you and your three donkey-fucking villagers!’
Benya bent double, sure he was going to vomit. How could this have happened? He was going to die!
But Kobylov was still speaking. ‘Wait! Pinch yourself! You’re still alive and I’m still talking to you. What does that signify?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t understand.’ Benya was shivering, red specks whirling behind his eyes.
Kobylov spoke very quietly now: ‘Every word I tell you is secret, you understand. You were not meant to kill Kapto. He was one of our agents, trained for months for this task. You were not meant to reclaim the maps. They are the creation of our counter-intelligence services.’
‘But Kapto was a traitor,’ Benya protested. ‘He was in the Camps with me. He looked after me but I learned later he was an invert. There was a little girl…’
‘A child? No surprise there. He was in the Gulags for child rape and murder.’
‘But he was a paediatrician…’
‘A doctor?’ Kobylov grinned. ‘No, no, he was never a doctor. He studied to be a vet, but he didn’t even qualify to treat dogs. The doctoring was all lies. But he had connections to Mandryka and nationalist White elements which made him perfect.’
‘Perfect? You used scum like that to work for you?’
‘Scum like Kapto? Yes, and scum like you too, Golden. He was ours. Ours! And you wiped him out! I’ve been down here for ten days waiting for news of this and then you turn up thinking you’ve done us a favour and we’re going to pat you on the head. Do you understand, prisoner?’
‘I am beginning to…’ Now Benya thought about it, what were the chances of Kapto turning up with his maps in the same sector as Mandryka? It was not a coincidence. Perhaps the entire Shtrafbat charge had been devised just to get him there; eight hundred Shtrafniki sacrificed for this mission. And he had ruined it. ‘Oh God!’ he groaned again.
‘Do you know what Lavrenti Pavlovich said? He said: “If you find the man who fucked up this operation, beat him to a pulp until his eyes pop from his head. Punch him so hard he swallows his own teeth.”’
Benya was shaking.
Kobylov paused. ‘But here’s the thing. It’s now five oh five p.m. You left Kapto and Manteuffel dead at around ten thirty. Schwerin is not expected until, shall we say, around midnight. Do you see what I am getting at?’
‘I am not sure I do.’
‘You and your horse-riding clods. Don’t you remember, Golden, who you are?’
‘I’m a writer, that’s all. And we fought the Fascists, we did our best, but I’m no soldier. Just a writer…’
‘A writer? No, no, prisoner. You are a convicted terrorist and British–Japanese spy, found guilty of the gravest and most shameful crimes, including planning to murder Comrade Stalin and our leaders, in conspiracy with your mistress, the spy Sashenka. Yes, I remember her all right! Quite a beauty.’
Is she alive? wondered Benya.
‘You are a terrorist sentenced to death, and you already have Eight Grammes lodged in your head. It’s just unfired. You have helped our enemies. If you resist me in any way, you and your Cossacks will be nothing more than smears on a wall within a few minutes. I’ll do it myself’ – and Kobylov slapped his pistol on to the plywood table like a gambler throwing down his money.
Benya flinched.
‘Ah yes,’ said Kobylov. ‘But there’s another way. Do you want to hear it?’
Benya tried to speak.
‘Do you know what we believe in? Watch me say it. Re-demp-tion, Golden, re-demp-tion! Do you know what that means for you?’
Benya shook his head.
‘If you correct your mistake, you may be redeemed. Not just sent back to the Camps but truly redeemed! I can’t promise anything for your donkey-humping bumpkins. They need to be checked out. But for you, that’s a promise! Golden?’
‘You want me to…’ Benya was overcome by a new panic. ‘I can’t go back. I can’t! I will die out there.’ He was shivering, beyond tears. ‘You don’t know what we saw out there!’
Kobylov glanced at his watch again, bejewelled fingers drumming. Then he lost patience and slapped Benya across the face. Benya saw a rain of red stars behind his eyes, and his face was burning. He touched his lip. It had a pulse of its own, it was ballooning, and there was blood on his fingertips.
‘Pull yourself together, Golden, and stop pitying yourself,’ Kobylov roared. ‘We’re in a desperate war. The Motherland is in peril and our great Soviet State is in jeopardy. Don’t you know the Germans are killing the Jews? Golden, listen to me. It’s just a few hours more and when you return, you will be redeemed.’
‘I’ll never return… I’m not sure I can do this. I mean I want to…’
‘You have every chance of succeeding and you’ll be helped by your Cossack pals. You’ll have new guns and ammo; fresh horses. Do this and you will return to normal life, to your cafés, your bookshops, your girls, all those girls who love writers – do you remember the old life, Golden? Good. Now, what do I want you to do?’
‘You want me to go back and replace the maps?’
Kobylov flashed his dazzling teeth. ‘You’ve got it! Get those three sheepfuckers. Mogilchuk rides with you. You leave in fifteen minutes.’
‘One thing.’
‘Speak.’
‘I want my horse, Silver Socks.’
‘Is that all? Done. Your nag awaits!’
VIII
‘Getting out was easy,’ said Panka when they reached the office of the Sergei Kirov Collective Farm 23 some hours later. ‘It’s getting back that will be difficult.’ Behind them the sun was sinking over the Don, the light sticky.
Just as they had done that morning, they dismounted and tied up the horses and lay in the grass and watched. The Germans’ horses were still where they’d been tied up. Around them, they could hear the cawing of crows; and a vulture on a branch like a priest in his cowl.
‘No one’s there,’ said Panka. ‘Over to you, Benya.’
‘Go on, Granpa,’ said Prishchepa.
‘Do your duty and we can get back,’ said Spider.
A pause. ‘Garanzha, I need you to come up with me,’ said Benya.
‘Afraid of stiffs?’ asked Garanzha.
Benya nodded.
‘Come then,’ said Garanzha, waving his fingers like a magician.
‘Wait,’ said Mogilchuk. ‘I give the orders here.’
‘What are your orders?’ Benya sighed. It was all going to be much more difficult with Mogilchuk watching them.
‘Right, let us proceed!’ ordered Mogilchuk.
They had to humour him. If they made it back, he would decide their destiny.
Garanzha smirked. ‘Good, let us proceed.’
Panka remained on watch, covering the hut with his Papasha as the others approached the door, Mogilchuk creeping up as if playing grandmother’s footsteps. Garanzha winked at them.