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

Rossel tried to make his voice sound unconcerned but failed.

‘She doesn’t look so good right now, Doctor. I fail to see how you can reach such a conclusion,’ he said.

Dr Volkova studied him.

‘Not by looking at her, comrade. By looking at you. Your hands are trembling and I’ve never seen you so pale.’

22

Thursday October 25

Time ticked away with every clack of the train’s wheels.

After a couple of stops, a little girl of about ten got on with her mother. They sat opposite Rossel. One of the girl’s legs was missing and her face was scarred. The mother, without being prompted, blamed the girl’s misfortunes on a German incendiary bomb. Soon she was in full flow about her wartime misfortunes and the punishments that should be visited for all eternity on the German people, the way it was a disgrace that half the country had got away with it. The girl kept silent, glum and embarrassed, so Rossel took off his left glove and showed her the two stumps, with their smooth white tips, where fingers should be. She stared at them without any sign of being impressed until he mimed playing the piano and pulled the stupidest face he could, which elicited a giggle, though the mother did not join in. By the time the train reached his stop, he and the girl had bonded, if not healed, and he had decided to feel a little less sorry for himself.

The journey was brought to a halt by the river, which barred the way to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Estonia. On the Russian side was Ivangorod; on the other lay its twin town, Narva. Both had their fortresses, medieval structures that glowered at each other over the dark water. A rusty bridge yoked the two scruffy settlements together. If Sofia really had been a fairy-tale queen, he thought, then this seemed the perfect place for some ogre to imprison her.

It was easy to find Ivangorod’s police station, a squat, red-brick building in the shadow of the town’s castle. Rossel walked up the stone steps and went in.

Lieutenant Yuri Shumilov was amicable enough towards an equal from the big city but gave the impression of a man who had other things to do, though in an outpost this sleepy it was hard to imagine what that might be.

‘Here is her regional file, Lieutenant. Sofia Semyonovna Fedotova. We collected some items from the room she was staying in when she was first reported missing – letters, drawings, bills, her work permit.’

Rossel wondered if it was possible to get a transfer to somewhere like this – somewhere well out of the way, where no one got to bother you with corpses on railway lines.

‘There are also some volumes of poetry, a sketchbook and a couple of photographs, all in this bag,’ continued Shumilov. ‘There is no next of kin we have been able to find. Do you know of any? The clothes are in a package and will be donated to factory workers. The papers I thought you might want to look at. Feel free to take them, I don’t want them anymore.’

Rossel looked around the station at the three other militia officers leafing through meaningless paperwork and realised that a transfer would be a mistake. The biggest killer out here was boredom.

The radio was on. A staccato, patriotic march, indistinguishable from all the others, crashed to a close and a voice brimming with enthusiasm announced the broadcasting of a speech by ‘our dearest, greatest leader, the great architect of Communism, General-Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Our beloved Stalin.’

Over the radio came a soft but unmistakable voice, a pleasant tenor with a light Georgian accent, greeting delegates from the republics of the Soviet Union and from communist parties around the world to the forthcoming celebrations.

Shumilov and his colleagues froze.

‘Comrades,’ crackled the general-secretary’s voice. ‘The entire country is celebrating this meeting, the first Congress since our victory over Nazi Germany, Japan, and other fascistic powers in the Great Patriotic War. Since 1945, new fronts have opened against new enemies who wish to see our achievements in culture, science, society and other peaceful endeavours crushed. Yet we have prevailed thanks to the unity of the communist fraternity, at home and abroad. We have . . .’

Shumilov glanced at Rossel. Both men got hurriedly to their feet and stood to attention; the other three militia officers did the same.

‘. . . imperialist ambitions to undermine us, to sabotage us, to provoke us into disunity and strife, emerging with glory into a new age of prosperity and happiness. Yet we must remain as vigilant as ever against the snakes and devils of the capitalist exploiters and fifth columnists. They, and all traitors who offer them help, must be annihilated without pity for the good of the state.’

Stalin rarely spoke with anger in his voice. Since the war, indeed, he had made fewer and fewer speeches, and when he did, he sounded pragmatic and downbeat, as if he were announcing that month’s agricultural production figures.

There was no mistaking the venom behind his words now.

‘We must cut out the infected parts of the Party to save it from illness. We will march onwards, under the flag of Lenin, with the guidance of Marx, trampling underfoot those who dare to stand in our way. Traitors, wreckers and fifth columnists – we must be ever vigilant. Do not hesitate to strike in the forthcoming campaign to root out our enemies, wherever they may be lurking. Do not fear to give your assistance to the guardians of Bolshevism. Find the Trotskyites. Unearth the counter-revolutionary doctors plotting against our government. Isolate and destroy the conspirators. For, as you learned during the war against the fascist Hitlerite aggressor – and as we see again with the imperialist ambitions of the United States and her lackeys in Europe – nothing can be taken for granted, and no perfidious so-called ally can be