“But not that damned Vladimir. All he has to do is walk into a room and everyone pays attention. I suppose it has its benefits, all this fussing. It makes you find other ways of bringing focus. Vladimir just won’t listen to reason. He just wants to shoot people. It’s all he knows, the use of force. But I don’t want to shoot people, Vasily. I would rather reason with them.”
Mikail kicked some dirt toward the graves, in the direction of the body bag with the name Volkhov. “Lev, there. Take him, for example. Do you think it was necessary that he died? Or this man Clay? Could they not have been reasoned with?”
Vasily looked at the bag in front of him, and then at the bag in the next grave over, and thought of the traveler he’d met in the cell with Volkhov. He remembered the light in the two men’s eyes as they had discussed plans for their escape; the clarity they’d had in that moment; a crystalline notion of who they were and what they were about. He’d not often been in the presence of men who seemed to their purpose so clearly. He remembered the way they’d taken him into their conversation and plans, and how they had treated him as an equal… or something close to an equal. And then he felt the grip of regret that they’d not been successful in their escape.
Mikail didn’t seem to notice that Vasily’s mind was elsewhere. “Todd… now he was another matter altogether. Do you remember how close he’d been getting with the outside guards? That was not a coincidence, Vasily Romanovich. He was dealing black market goods, having them bring drugs in from outside, giving our food and perhaps more to our captors. He was evil, Vasily. Believe me. I didn’t shoot him without cause. In reality, it was an act of mercy. You weren’t there when I discussed Todd’s crimes with Vladimir. He wanted… no…” Mikail paused. “There is no way he would have been so merciful. If I’d left the decision to him, Todd’s whole family would be dead right now. Believe me, executing Todd was a merciful act. Sometimes…” Mikail paused for another moment, choosing his words.
“Sometimes you have to manage events and men in a way that serves everyone in the best way possible.” His voice trailed off for a moment, and Vasily wondered why he was telling him this. He was just about to ask that question, almost feeling as if the young man was reaching out to him for understanding, when Mikail interrupted his thoughts.
“Where is the backpack, Vasily?”
Vasily swallowed, and tried not to show on his face that he was going pale. He wondered whether, in the limited light, the nervousness in his features could be detected. He remembered something Volkhov once told him in one of their long afternoons together back when the old man was teaching him English. That was when Lev had slowly taken him under his wing, showing him kindness that few others in the town ever seemed to. He’d said, “Never answer an open question with anything but a question when there is danger at hand.” Solid advice that seemed to apply to the current situation. He turned his head slightly towards Mikail, attempting a blank, dull expression on his face.
“What backpack?”
“The guards saw you leave with a backpack.”
“The guards you just shot?”
“Yes.”
“I have no idea what that means, Mikail Mikailivitch. You’d have to ask them.”
“But there was a backpack. It belonged to the man called Clay, the man you were responsible for overseeing before he broke out of prison…”
Vasily tried to keep his voice even. I’m just dumb Vasily, he reminded himself. If it can be said that in the world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, it is perhaps equally true that in a camp where everyone is trained as a spy, the man who seems least capable is often the least suspect. He remembered what Clay told him when he’d said that no one thought Vasily capable of deception, and how that fact gave him an advantage in a world where deception was second nature. He played the only card he had to play. He told a lie and convinced himself to believe it.
“I don’t know, Mikail. Perhaps they lied in order to lead you off their trail. There is no backpack that I know of. Those two,” he said, indicating to the two nearest body bags, “were more worried about whether I would get them extra blankets than anything else.”
“Vasily, sometimes when you find yourself in a hole, the best way to get out is to stop digging.”
Vasily looked at him, and Mikail looked back, raising an eyebrow at him as if to suggest, for the second time in the space of a couple of hours, that he might soon find himself lying in a grave like those before him. Vasily made a face that suggested he didn’t know what he was expected to say next, and Mikail placed his hand on the young man’s shoulder as if to calm him.
“Listen, comrade, you go home and think about it, will you? It’s late. I worry that you are out of your depth. There is a rising tide in this place and it will drown you if you let it.” Mikail shrugged his shoulders when he said this, almost as if he was powerless in the town. “It’s possible that it will drown you even if you don’t let it, but go and get some sleep. Perhaps the walk will jog your memory. I have other things to think about right now, and Warwick has seen too much bloodshed for one day. But remember, Vasily, I’m somewhat limited in what I can do for you. I have to play the hands as they’re dealt, and, as with Todd, I have to make use of sometimes unpleasant means to serve the greater good. There is a man with a gun named Vladimir who is not as long-suffering as I am. I would hate for him to have to rummage around and find what you cannot.”
Vasily got up to leave, brushing the earth off the seat of his pants, and trying to decide if he should protest his innocence for one beat longer or whether he had already lost that opportunity. He decided to simply drop the whole matter and attempt to relate to Mikail as one human being to another. At that moment, his mind rested on a quote from Solzhenitsyn: “If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?” Vasily decided that, at this moment, the bravest thing for him to do was not to attempt to make a correct calculation about the likelihood of his being believed or not, but, instead, to simply show compassion to this man whom he had come to fear in his heart.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” he said. “No one deserves to have to live with that burden and to be held accountable for such a cost.”
Mikail seemed genuinely moved by his statement. “Yes, Vasily. Well… we all have our crosses to bear. Yours will be to carry yours for as long as you are able, while mine will be to raise Cain.” He paused. “I hope we are both up to it.”
Monday, Early Morning
Vasily walked hurriedly, but with purpose, along the side street to the end of the block, and then turned up the hill toward the house of Aleksei Gopchik. It was 4 a.m., and his mind was tired and his energy level was waning quickly. He’d spent the last couple of hours knocking on the doors of the people closest to him, waking them from their slumber, trying his best to convince them to pack a bag and come with him to an escape.
He hoped with all of the hope that he could muster in his breast that he might convince them that the town was unsafe, but that he, dull little Vasily, would be able to lead them to safety. As he should have expected, he’d been frustrated at every turn by the blank and unbelieving stares of his dearest friends.
The pattern had become painfully consistent. First there would be a sleepy shuffling as the inhabitant groggily made his way to the door, as if to confront a rude interloper. The door would open. Yawning incomprehension was followed by either a blatant display of skepticism or, in some cases, downright hostility. How old is the reluctance to heed the midnight warning? How many prophets have heard the same refrains?