Russian Roulette: The Story of an Assassin Read online

  The policemen made their decision. If they stayed where they were, if they tried to force me to my feet, it would kill them … quickly and unpleasantly. Yes, they wanted their promotion. But their lives mattered more. Maybe it occurred to them that the very fact that they had come close to me meant they themselves would have to be eliminated. As far as they could see, I was dying anyway. I was lying on my side now, writhing on the ground, sobbing. My whole face was covered in blood. One of them spoke briefly to the other. I didn’t hear what he said but his colleague must have agreed because a moment later they had gone, hurrying back the way they had come. I watched them turn a corner. I very much doubted that they would report what had just happened. After all, dereliction of duty would not be something they would wish to advertise. They would probably spend the rest of the day at the bathhouse, hoping that the steam and hot water would wash away the disease.

  I waited until I was sure they had gone, then got to my feet and wiped my face with my sleeve. At least the encounter had given me an advance warning. There was no way I was going to walk into the railway station at Kirsk. The moment I tried to buy a train ticket, there would be someone there to arrest me and I very much doubted the same trick would work a second time. If I was going to get onto a train to Moscow, I was going to have to think of something else.

  And I already had an idea.

  There had been quite a few passengers arriving in taxis and coming off buses just before I had been arrested and that suggested that the evening train might be coming soon. At the same time, I’d seen a number of porters running forward to help them with their luggage. Some of them had been boys, dressed in loose-fitting grey jackets with red piping down the sleeves. I don’t think they were employed officially. They were just trying to make a few kopecks on the side.

  I made my way back towards the station – only this time I stayed behind the trees, close to the buildings, keeping an eye out for any policemen, mingling with the crowd. I soon found what I was looking for. One of the porters was sitting outside a café, smoking a cigarette. He was about my age, even if he was trying to disguise it with a beard and a moustache. They were both made of that horrible wispy hair that doesn’t really belong on a face. His jacket was hanging open. His cap sat crookedly on his head.

  I sidled up next to him and sat down. After a while, he noticed me and nodded in my direction without smiling. It was enough.

  “When’s the next train to Moscow?” I asked.

  He glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes.”

  I pretended to consider this piece of information. “How would you like to make five rubles?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowed. Five rubles was probably as much as he earned in a week.

  “I’ll be honest with you, friend,” I said. “I’m in trouble with the police. I was almost arrested just now. I need to get on that train and if you’ll sell me your jacket and your cap, I’ll give you the cash.”

  It was not such a big gamble. Somehow, I knew that this boy would be greedy. And anyway, most people in Russia would help you if you were trying to get away from the authorities. That was how we were.

  “Why do the police want you?” he asked.

  “I’m a thief.”

  He sucked lazily on his cigarette. “I will give you my jacket and cap,” he said. “But it will cost you ten rubles.”

  “Agreed.”

  I took out the money, taking care not to show him how much I had, and handed over a single note. Tonight, this porter would drink himself into a stupor. He might invite his friends to join him. He handed me his coat and his cap – but I did not go straight to the station. I stopped at one of the stalls and used another four rubles to buy a pair of second-hand suitcases from an old man who had a whole pile of them. Quickly, I took off my outer clothes and slipped them into one of the cases. I put on the jacket and cap. Then, carrying the suitcases, I made my way to the station.

  It seemed now that the police were everywhere. Was it possible that the ones who had arrested me had talked after all? They had thrown a ring around the entire building. They were in front of the ticket office, on the platform. But not one of them noticed me. I waited until a smart-looking couple – some sort of local government official and his wife – got out of a taxi and I followed them into the station. They did not look round. But to the police and to anyone else who glanced our way, it simply looked as if they had hired a porter and that the two almost empty cases I was carrying were theirs.

  I had timed it perfectly. We had no sooner arrived at the platform than a train drew in. The evening train to Moscow. I followed my clients to their carriage and climbed in behind them. They were completely unaware of my presence and although I was out there, in plain sight, nobody challenged me.

  This is something that has not changed to this day. People look at the clothes you are wearing without ever thinking about the person who is inside. A man with a back-to-front collar is a vicar. A woman in a white coat with a stethoscope around her neck is a doctor. It is as simple as that. You do not ask them for ID.

  I stayed on the train and a few minutes later it left, very quickly picking up speed, carrying me into the darkness. I knew I would never return.

  МОСКВА

  MOSCOW

  Kazansky Station. Moscow.

  It is hard to remember my feelings as the train drew near to its final destination. On the one hand, I was elated. I had made it. I had travelled six hundred miles, leaving the police and all my other problems behind me. But what of this new world in which I was about to find myself? The train would stop. The doors would open. And what then?

  Through the windows I had already seen apartment blocks, one after another, that must have been home to tens of thousands of people. How could they live like that, so many of them, piled up on top of each other? Then there were the churches and their golden domes, ten times the size of poor St Nicholas. The factories billowing smoke into a sky that was cloudless, sunless, a single sheet of grey. But all of these were dwarfed by the skyscrapers with their spires and glittering needles, thousands of windows, millions of bricks, rising up as if from some crazy dream. Of course I had been shown pictures of them at school. I knew they had been built by Stalin back in the 1940s and 1950s. But seeing them for myself was different. Somehow I was shocked that they did actually exist and that they really were here, scattered around the city, watching over it.

  I had been fortunate on the train. There was an empty compartment right at the back with a bunk bed that folded down. That was where I slept – not on the bunk but underneath it on the floor, out of sight of the ticket collectors. The strange thing was that I managed to sleep at all, but then I suppose I was exhausted. I woke up once or twice in the night and listened to the train rumbling through the darkness and I could almost feel the memories slipping away … Estrov, Leo, my parents, my school. I knew that by the time I arrived in Moscow, I would be little more than an empty shell, a fourteen-year-old boy with no past and perhaps no future. There was even a small part of me that wished I hadn’t escaped from the police. At least, that way, I wouldn’t have to make any decisions. I wouldn’t be on my own.

  One name stayed with me, turning over and over in my head. Misha Dementyev. He worked in the biology department of Moscow State University and my mother had insisted that he would look after me. Surely it wouldn’t be so hard to find him. The worst of my troubles might already be over. That was what I tried to tell myself.

  The station was jammed. I had never seen so many people in one place. As I stepped down from the train, I found myself on a platform that seemed to stretch on for ever, with passengers milling about everywhere, carrying suitcases, packages, bundles of clothes, some of them chewing on sandwiches, others emptying their hip-flasks. Everyone was tired and grimy. There were policemen too but I didn’t think they were looking for me. I had taken off the porter’s cap and jacket and abandoned the suitcases. Once again I was wearing my Young Pioneers outfit, although I thought of getting r
id of that too. It was quite warm in Moscow. The air felt heavy and smelt of oil and smoke.

  I allowed myself to be swept along, following the crowd through a vast ticket hall, larger than any room I had ever seen, and out into the street. I found myself standing on the edge of a square. Again, it was the size that struck me first. To my eyes, this one single space was as big as the whole of Kirsk. It had lanes of traffic and cars, buses, trams roaring past in every direction. Traffic – the very notion of a traffic jam – was a new experience for me and I was overwhelmed by the noise and the stench of the exhaust fumes. Even today it sometimes surprises me that people are willing to put up with it. The cars were every colour imaginable. I had seen official Chaikas and Ladas but it was as if these vehicles had driven here from every country in the world. Grey taxis with chessboard patterns on their hoods dodged in and out of the different lines. Subways had been built for pedestrians, which was just as well. Trying to cross on the surface would have been suicide.

  There were three separate railway stations in the square, each one trying to outdo the other with soaring pillars, archways and towers. Travellers were arriving from different parts of Russia and as soon as they emerged they were greeted by all sorts of food stalls, mainly run by wrinkled old women in white aprons and hats. In fact people were selling everything … meat, vegetables, Chinese jeans and padded jackets, electrical goods, their own furniture. Some of them must have come off the train for no other reason. Nobody had any money. This was where you had to start.

  My own needs were simple and immediate. I was dizzy with hunger. I headed to the nearest food stall and started with a small pie filled with cabbage and meat. I followed it with a currant bun – we called them kalerikas and they were specially made to fill you up. Then I bought a drink from a machine that squirted syrup and fizzy water into a glass. It still wasn’t enough. I had another and then a raspberry ice cream that I bought for seven kopecks. The lady beamed at me as she handed it over … as if she knew it was something special. I remember the taste of it to this day.

  It was as I finished the last spoonful that I realized I was being watched. There was a boy of about seventeen or eighteen leaning against a lamp-post, examining me. He was the same height as me but more thickly set with muddy eyes and long, very straight, almost colourless hair. He would have been handsome but at some time his nose had been broken and it had set unevenly, giving his whole face an unnatural slant. He was wearing a black leather jacket which was much too big for him, the sleeves rolled back so that they wouldn’t cover his hands. Perhaps he had stolen it. Nobody was coming anywhere near him. Even the travellers seemed to avoid him. From the way he was standing there, you would think he owned the pavement and perhaps half the city. I quite liked that, the way he had nothing but pretended otherwise.

  As I gazed around me, I realized that there were quite a lot of children outside Kazansky station, most of them huddling together in groups close to the entrance without daring to go inside. These children looked much less well off than the boy in the leather jacket; emaciated with pale skin and hollow eyes. Some of them were trying to beg from the arriving passengers but they were doing it half-heartedly, as if they were nervous of being seen. I saw a couple of tiny boys who couldn’t have been more than ten years old, homeless and half starved. I felt ashamed. What would they have been thinking as they watched me gorge myself? I was tempted to go over and give them a few kopecks but before I could move, the older boy suddenly walked forward and stood in front of me. There was something about his manner that unnerved me. He seemed to be smiling at some private joke. Did he know who I was, where I had come from? I got the feeing that he knew everything about me, even though we had never met.

  “Hello, soldier,” he said. He was referring, of course, to my Young Pioneers outfit. “Where have you come from?”

  “From Kirsk,” I said.

  “Never heard of it. Nice place?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “First time in Moscow?”

  “No. I’ve been here before.”

  I had a feeling he knew straight away that I was lying, like the policemen in Kirsk. But he just smiled in that odd way of his. “You got somewhere to stay?”

  “I have a friend…”

  “It’s good to have a friend. We all need friends.” He looked around the square. “But I don’t see anyone.”

  “He’s not here.”

  It reminded me of my first day at senior school. I was trying to sound confident but I was completely defenceless and he knew it. He examined me more closely, weighing up various possibilities, then suddenly he straightened up and stretched out a hand. “Relax, soldier,” he said. “I don’t want to give you any hassle. I’m Dimitry. You can call me Dima.”

  I took his hand. I couldn’t really refuse it. “I’m Yasha,” I said.

  We shook.

  “Welcome to Moscow,” he said. “Welcome back, I should say. So when were you last here?”

  “It was a while ago,” I said. I knew that the more I spoke, the more I would give away. “It was with my parents,” I added.

  “But this time you’re on your own.”

  “Yes.”

  The single word hung in the air.

  It was hard to make out what Dima had in mind. On the one hand he seemed friendly enough, but on the other, I could sense him unravelling me. It was that broken nose of his. It made it very difficult to read his face. “This person I’m supposed to be meeting…” I said. “He’s a friend of my parents. He works at the University of Moscow. I don’t suppose you know how to get there?”

  “The university? It’s a long way from this part of town but it’s quite easy. You can take the Metro.” His hand slipped over my shoulder. Before I knew it, we were walking together. “The entrance is over here. There’s a direct line that runs all the way there. The station you want is called Universitet. Do you have any money?”

  “Not much,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter. The Metro’s cheap. In fact, I’ll tell you what…” He reached out and a coin appeared at his fingertips as if he had plucked it out of the air. “Here’s five kopecks. It’s all you need. And don’t worry about paying me back. Always happy to help someone new to town.”

  We had arrived at a staircase leading underground and to my surprise he began to walk down with me. Was he going to come the whole way? His hand was still on my shoulder and as we went he was telling me about the journey.

  “Nine stops, maybe ten. Just stay on the train and you’ll be there in no time…”

  As he spoke, a set of swing doors opened in front of us and two more boys appeared, coming up the steps. They were about the same age as Dima, one dark, the other fair. I expected them to move aside – but they didn’t. They barged into me and for a moment I was sandwiched between them with Dima still behind to me. I thought they were going to attack me but they were gone as suddenly as they’d arrived.

  “Watch out!” Dima shouted. He twisted round and called out after them. “Why don’t you look where you’re going?” He turned back to me. “That’s how people are in this city. Always in a hurry and to hell with everyone else.”

  The boys had gone and we said no more about it. Dima took me as far as the barriers. “Good luck, soldier,” he said. “I hope you find who you’re looking for.”

  We shook hands again.

  “Remember – Universitet.” With a cheerful wave, he ambled away, leaving me on my own. I walked forward and stopped in front of the escalator.

  I had never seen anything like it. Stairs that moved, that carried people up and down in an endless stream. They seemed to go on and on, and I couldn’t believe that the railway lines had been laid so deep. Cautiously, I stepped onto it and found myself clinging onto the handrail, being carried down as if into the bowels of the earth. At the very bottom, there was a uniformed woman in a glass box. Her job was simply to watch the passengers, to make sure that nobody tripped over and hurt themselves. I couldn’t imagine wh
at it must be like to work here all day, buried underground, never seeing the sun.

  The Moscow Metro was famous all over Russia. It had been built by workers from every part of the country and famous artists had been brought in to decorate it. Each station was spectacular in its own way. This one had gold-coloured pillars, a mosaic floor and glass spheres hanging from the ceiling blazing with light. To the thousands of passengers who used it, it was nothing – simply a way of getting around – but I was amazed. A train came roaring out of the tunnel almost immediately. I got on and a moment later the doors slammed shut. With a jolt, the train moved off.

  I took a spare seat – and it was as I sat down that I knew that something was wrong. I reached back and patted my trouser pocket. It was empty. I had been robbed. All my money had gone apart from a few coins. I played back what had happened and realized that I had been set up from the start. Dima had seen me paying for the food. He knew I had cash. Somehow he must have signalled to the two other boys and sent them into the station through another entrance. He’d kept me talking just long enough and then he’d led me down the steps and straight into their arms. It was a professional job and one they had probably done a hundred times before. My anger was as black as the tunnel we’d plunged into. I had lost more than seventy rubles! My parents had saved that money. They had thought it would save me. But I had stupidly, blindly allowed it to be taken away from me. What a fool I was! I didn’t deserve to survive.

  But sitting there, being swept along beneath the city, I decided that perhaps it didn’t matter after all. Even as the train was carrying me forward, I could put it all behind me. I was going to meet Misha Dementyev and he would look after me. I didn’t actually need the money any more. Looking back now, I would say that this was one of the first valuable lessons I learnt, and one that would be useful in my future line of work. Sometimes things go wrong. It is inevitable. But it is a mistake to waste time and energy worrying about events that you cannot influence. Once they have happened, let them go.