City of Ghosts by Ben Creed (most important books of all time txt) 📕

on the dead priest’s torso. Kerselidze knew his subject.

‘He’s not so fresh. The ink is a little blurred where his skin’s beginning to bloat. OK. The snake around his neck denotes a drug addict. This one here,’ he pointed to Father Tikhon’s left side, ‘the ring with the little round eye in the middle, means he was an orphan, alone in the camp when he arrived, with no protector. Not a good place to be. You say the other priests said he was fucked up? Then good for him. In the world of the gulag, being fucked up is best. It makes the other bitches careful. Make them think twice. If you can make them think three times, even better.’

Rossel stepped forward and pointed at the red reaper with the hammer and sickle etched into the priest’s right shoulder.

‘What about this one, Comrade Kerselidze?’

As soon as he heard the word comrade, the gangster’s face coloured. Then he spat on the floor next to Rossel’s feet.

‘I’m not your comrade, militia. I am King Wolf, here and in camp, and no thief in Leningrad or Kolyma knows any power greater than Gubaz Kerselidze. Not even Generalissmo fucking Stalin.’

Kerselidze’s hand closed around the white handle of the knife that was attached to his leather belt. Rossel glanced over at the thugs near the door who, on hearing their boss’s raised voice, had turned to face them. Rossel reached up and took off his cap, doffed it and bowed.

‘King Wolf, as you say.’

Kerselidze’s sneering mouth relaxed. ‘You got balls as big as Abkhazia watermelons to walk in here and only pretend to kiss my ass, gundog.’

Rossel tried again.

‘The red reaper on the right-hand shoulder.’

The gangster raised his eyes heavenward and pretended to think. Finally, he shook his head.

‘Most prison ink has no colour. Ink is made from blood, piss, ash from burnt tyre, boot, whatever a man can get his hands on. That’s how when friend, Pugachev, here,’ Kerselidze patted Pugachev on the shoulder, ‘told me about a distinctive red reaper tattoo, well, straightaway, it made me think of someone. A coloured tattoo is not unknown but is unusual. Especially if he was not a thief. Who knows where he had it done? But I remember a man with a red Death on his shoulder, yes.’

Rossel tried to keep calm.

‘You remember a name?’

Kerselidze spat on the floor.

‘I rule not just in one camp, militia officer. I have men in six, seven, eight camps. And friends in twenty. These past years, since the war, some bitches help Stalin, help Chekists, still call themselves thieves.’ He spat again with added venom. ‘Bitches. Fuck your mother. But look, I hear stuff. And I hear about crazy man with red tattoo and God in his head who slashed two thieves. So, I’m almost sure. But one more thing and I will know. Loma,’ he commanded, ‘do as Papa Gubaz asked.’

The barber had already managed to cut away enough of the tangled black hair with his scissors to now use his clippers. He flicked a switch in the wall and the blades began to buzz. Kerselidze pointed to a spot at the very centre of the back of the dead man’s head.

‘Just there, Loma, just there,’ he said.

Rossel, Pugachev and the head thief stared as Loma’s clippers moved, up and then sideways, across the back of the priest’s scalp; cutting a perfect cross into the middle of it. Rossel heard the shuffle of feet and with a lurch in his stomach realised that the other thieves were crowding around them to get a look. The skin of the revealed scalp, although still discoloured from the slight decomposition, was whiter than that of the rest of his body. Except, that was, in the exact centre of the cross, where, clearly visible, was a mark about six inches long. Rossel stepped closer to the body and started upward. The black tattooed letters were in Latin.

Capital letters, large enough to be eligible, and very neat. Three words only:

HOMO HOMINI LUPUS

Pugachev let out a low whistle.

‘The schoolboy Latin I learned in my former life was never up to much but I think that says: Man is wolf to man. What’s that all about?’

Kerselidze slapped his hands together in glee.

‘That’s him, all right, I knew it. The red tat on his shoulder and some gibberish on his head. No hair in gulag – too many fleas. Not a thief’s tattoo. A man like that, his name gets around.’

‘And his name is?’ Rossel said.

Kerselidze pointed at the body. It lolled in its straps, its grey flesh softening.

‘Avdeyev, Maxim Avdeyev. That was the name he answered to at roll call. Avdeyev – always first name on the list. Then he got religion and called himself something else. Like he was a real priest . . .’

‘Maxim.’

Something in the tone of Rossel’s voice made all the other men turn towards him. Kerselidze looked him up and down.

‘Something wrong, gundog?’

Rossel took a moment to reply.

‘An acquaintance?’ the gangster persisted.

Rossel nodded. The priest’s face, bone and gristle, leered at him. He felt sick.

Kerselidze roared with laughter and slapped him on the back.

‘You in big trouble, now, gundog? Yes, I know you are. I can tell.’

The gangster’s men were all chattering now, some in Georgian, some in Russian but laced with slang he only half knew.

‘No one survives twenty years in camps without being able to see shit coming from a million miles away.’

The thieves began to cackle. Kerselidze carried on laughing too, delighting in the show.

‘Like I always say, Gubaz see the future before the future sees itself!’

*

Pugachev drove the truck back towards Leningrad, talking incessantly. Rossel sat next to him in silence.

‘So this has been a reunion of sorts?’ said Pugachev. ‘Well, that’s a turn-up, Lieutenant. Wait until your superiors hear about this.’ He gestured to the body of the priest behind them. ‘That you and this painted popsicle are old friends.’

Pugachev swung the wheel as the truck slid around a bend. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you