‘You’re in deep trouble, boy. This is treason.’
‘I’ll tell you anything, anything at all. Just ask!’
‘Why were you to be Minister of…’ Likhachev looked down the list of appointments. ‘…Sport?’
‘That shows I wasn’t serious. Sport’s not important. I said I’d do it because I’m more into football than literature.’
‘You could be shot for this, prisoner.’
‘I’m only eighteen. Please, I don’t understand any of this.’
‘Whose idea was it to form an anti-Communist government?’
‘It was Nikolasha’s idea. It was all him.’
Likhachev cleared his catarrh. ‘That’s convenient since he’s dead. Who was behind him? Forget your father. Forget your fancy friends. Forget the Aragvi. Now it is just you against the almighty power of the Soviet State.’
George was exhausted. He wiped his face, tried to focus. ‘Vlad Titorenko was his best friend but I don’t think Nikolasha even showed him the notebook.’
‘But reading his notebook, it is clear that one person had to approve his ideas, his conspiracy, his government. Who was it?’
The shock was making George feel leaden. His eyelids were heavy and he wanted to yawn. ‘Sorry, I’m so tired…’
‘Concentrate, prisoner. It is clear that someone else was the brains behind this treason. Let me read you this:
‘It was not about politics. It never has been. It was about love.’
Likhachev punched George in the mouth, throwing him across the room.
‘We have the written evidence of his notebook. And it is quite clear that this “NV” is the grey cardinal of his conspiracy. Who is “NV”?’
‘Prisoner Minka Dorova, the punishment for conspiracy under Article 158 is death. Were you a party to a terroristic conspiracy?’ asked Colonel Komarov. Soft-spoken with the habit of running his hands through his light-brown curly hair, he focused on Minka sitting opposite him. His forehead, she decided, had the rumpled frown lines that marked the sincerity of the truly stupid.
‘No.’ Minka closed her eyes. She never thought she would miss Kobylov and Mogilchuk, but now, each question made her feel sicker. She fought waves of giddy panic and told herself: Keep your head!
‘Then why is your name in the government as Minister of Theatre?’
‘But that’s a joke. Surely you can see from the title of the ministry?’
‘We believe that you and Nikolasha Blagov and your other friends were pawns in this vile plot. Someone is behind it. Someone important.’
‘I don’t know whom you mean.’
‘Answer the question. Who is really behind this conspiracy to form a new government?’
‘No one.’ Minka was conscious of the tears running down her cheeks.
‘In his notebook, Nikolasha says that “NV” approves all his decisions. Who is this “NV”?’
Concentrate, Minka, she told herself, confess nothing, and you will get through this. She shook her head.
Komarov lit a cigarette. ‘Come with me, prisoner,’ he said and pressed a button on the desk.
Two warders entered and took her by the arms.
‘Where are you taking me? What are you going to do to me?’
‘We’re going to show you something to concentrate your mind.’
She was marched into a room with a glass wall through which she could see an empty interrogation room, just like the one she’d been in. Table, lamp, two chairs.
‘You can see in but no one can see out,’ said Komarov. ‘And no one can hear you.’
The door opened into the neighbouring room, and a small boy with tousled hair and large brown eyes walked in, wearing blue silk pyjamas with red piping.
‘Senka!’ she cried, throwing herself against the glass. ‘
ANDREI KURBSKY LAY in his cell. He now knew he would never escape the curse of his tainted biography; he’d always be the son of an Enemy. But there was one consolation: he felt closer to his father.
His father must surely have been through the same registration, the same cells, perhaps even this one. Andrei looked at the marks on the walls: drawings, words, scratches. He read out the names, dates, messages. Some must have died here; some must have been shot in the cellars and they wrote their names here to be read. He searched for his father’s name and dreamed that he too would be sent out to the Gulags – and that one day, in a snowy forest clearing, he would meet his father chopping logs…
The night was lonely. Someone was shouting; someone was coughing. Andrei was tired and so afraid. It was the uncertainty that was the hardest thing. Who else was in the cells here? What had they said? What was it safe to say?
The clip of boots outside. Locks turning. The door opened, and he was on his way to the interrogation rooms but this time he found a new officer was waiting for him. One look at Colonel Likhachev’s sunken, broiling eyes and little yellow teeth and Andrei knew that the case had taken another twist.
