THE NEXT MORNING, Yuri got out of bed, picked up a dry towel and wiped off the dripping condensation covering his window. Outside, the volume of ice in the fjord had visibly increased overnight, almost enough for a brave soul to try to skip across to the other side. Two more weeks and you would be able to walk straight over there and touch the glacier. He showered in piping hot water, making sure not to get his hair wet. Walking around outside with a damp head was a guaranteed ticket to a fortnight’s stay in Pyramiden’s hospital. It was possible to avoid getting ill here by constantly wrapping up for the outside, and then pulling off layers as soon as you got inside again.
As he dressed, he turned on his radio, a Yugoslav military receiver he had traded in return for adding an extra radiator to a family apartment. Yuri had arrived with few possessions but his technical abilities came in useful for bartering. While the radio was one of the best models in town, he still had to work hard to obtain an acceptable signal. He achieved this by connecting a length of copper wire to the aerial and wrapping the other end around his room’s iron plumbing pipes. The clearest signal was a Norwegian station, with presenters who spoke Norwegian, which he didn’t understand. And they played far too much Abba for his liking.
Legally, he should not be listening to western stations at all. Back home, the police checked roofs to see who had their antennas bent towards the capitalist half of the world. Up here, there was more freedom as long as you didn’t flaunt it. As a rule, Yuri only listened to western stations. If he couldn’t find one, he preferred silence rather than listen to the official voices from home. Not understanding what foreign presenters were saying added a sense of mystery. Though he guessed that their monologues were probably as banal as those on Soviet radio.
The Norwegian signal was lost momentarily and Yuri adjusted the tuning dial. He found himself on a different station, which was faint and unstable, but they were playing Bowie. Yuri mimed along, not knowing what most of the lyrics meant. He could tell that the man had attitude and that’s what he liked about him. If Soviet censorship was actually working, he should not have known who David Bowie was. But everyone did. As with many western stars, his records were banned for being ideologically harmful compositions. You could get them of course, in Moscow, if you had money or something to trade. You could get anything you wanted in Moscow. It was just a matter of knowing the right person to ask.
Bowie was also famous in the Soviet Union because he was one of the few western musicians who had actually visited it. On the way home from Japan, he had travelled by train from Moscow to Warsaw because he had a fear of flying. He did not play any concerts but the trip had generated a song, ‘Warszawa’. The Soviet Union had its own rock stars, such as the Singing Guitars, aka the Russian Beatles. But Bowie was special.
Even in the big cities, an original vinyl was a rarity. When Yuri was younger, western music was bootlegged on to old X-rays. Bone records, they were called. But since cassette tapes had become available, it was easier to get the music you liked. Except in Pyramiden. This was another of the sacrifices one had to make on Svalbard. You had to survive with what you found around you. People here had little, and what little they had, they shared. This was the Arctic way of life.
When the Bowie song was over, a Russian voice said, ‘Until next time. This was Seva … Seva Novgorodsev. The City of London. BBC.’ Yuri turned and stared at the radio. A Russian on the BBC. And then the man was gone as quickly as he had found him. A new programme began. Who the hell was he? Yuri switched off the radio but decided to leave the dial untouched. This man needed further investigation. He left his wet towel on the radiator to dry. Then he prepared himself to face the elements.
He grabbed his cigarettes and matches from the table and left the room. Smoking was something he only did outside. It was too cold to open his apartment windows to air the place out. He had recently switched to Bulgarian light cigarettes, which the advertising said were better for you. Inhaling them gave him a false sense of heat, as though his lungs were a stove.
Leaving his apartment block, Yuri lit his first of the day and turned in the direction of the waterfront. Then he began the five-minute trek to the power station, which was located beside the coal deposit and the harbour. Pyramiden’s miners worked almost every day of the year to fill the coal deposit in preparation for the next ship home. No Christmas break for the Christians nor Hanukkah for the Jews, except on their own time, and in private. Once the ship had docked in the harbour, a crane levered the black rock into the hold. And as soon as it had sailed away, sitting deeper in the water, the whole process started anew. Their outpost was kept going solely for this purpose. If the coal ever ran out, the town would die.
Long before he reached the power station, he smelled the smoke from the burning coal, rising out of the tall twin chimney stacks. The plumes of smoke were an ugly sight against the still Arctic landscape, but needs must. His arrival this morning was earlier than usual, but he was annoyed to find Semyon already settled inside the control room with his arms folded.
‘Morning,’ said Yuri, turning his back to take off his coat.
Five seconds inside the room and he had already started to sweat. The power station was the warmest place in town.
‘So, any bright ideas?’ asked Semyon, before Yuri even had the chance to hang his coat up.
‘For what?’ he replied, stamping the last of the snow off his boots on to the doormat.
‘The exec problem,’ said Semyon. ‘We’ll have to fix it today, or they’ll put us both out of our jobs.’
‘Oh,’ he replied. He tapped the glass on a pressure dial on one of the floor-to-ceiling control units, as if he were concerned about the reading. ‘I had a brainwave last night actually. Couldn’t sleep. One of the junction valves. That was it. All sorted now.’
‘You fixed it?’ asked Semyon. ‘By yourself?’ His eyes, magnified by his thick glasses, were burning a hole in the side of Yuri’s head.
‘Yep, all back to normal, nothing more to worry about. You didn’t think of those valves, did you?’ he added, out of pure malice.
‘Sure I did,’ blurted Semyon, ‘I checked some of them. I didn’t find anything.’
Yuri thought the man might bust a blood vessel, he was frowning so much.
‘How many did you have to check before you found it?’ the Latvian asked.
‘Oh, let me see,’ replied Yuri. He made a show of silently adding up with his fingers. ‘A dozen probably. That one was rusted right through. Could have gone at any time.’
‘Can I see it?’ asked Semyon, in a tone that Yuri did not like.
He turned and gave his assistant a cold look. He was a cocky little bastard. Most people would think twice about calling someone a liar. Especially if that someone was their boss. Yet he had known the Latvian would ask for proof. He would have done the same under the circumstances. He walked over to where his coat was hanging, pulled the offending valve from his pocket and looked at it. Then, without warning, he turned and threw it low and hard. The speed of Semyon’s reaction was impressive and he just managed to grab it before it hit the wall.
Yuri smiled and shrugged. ‘Good catch. You’ve been playing American baseball, haven’t you?’
Yuri had fought boys with Semyon’s physique at school. They looked like pushovers but turned out to be little wiry bastards that you could never get a good hold of.
Semyon lifted his glasses and scrutinised the metal object, holding it right up under his nose. But it backed up everything Yuri had said. He had held on to it for months for that very purpose.
‘Satisfied?’ asked Yuri.
Semyon didn’t reply. He avoided making eye contact with Yuri, and said nothing further. That’s right, thought Yuri, you’ve nothing to say now. In Yuri’s opinion, which he kept to himself, the glue that held the Soviet empire together was dishonesty. Corruption equalled survival, and potentially success and happiness, if you were very good at it. Honesty condemned you to a frustrating life. Within such a corrupt system, it was possible for anyone to bend the rules as they saw fit, as long as they did not allow themselves to get caught. That was the key.
At noon, Pyramiden’s residents began to assemble outside for the official opening of the new street Yuri had walked to work on that morning. The wooden walkway, connecting the town square to the power station, had been built to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Great October in 1917. ‘Great’ because it was the beginning of the people’s revolution and year zero of the communist age. Nearly everyone was there to mark the day. An absence without good reason would be noticed, though the community here didn’t need much encouragement; there was little else to do, so they liked to participate in any organised event. They could even be persuaded to assemble outdoors, and freeze their asses off, just for a bit of diversion.
The adults formed a large loose circle, and chatted giddily among themselves while they waited for the mine president to arrive. The children ran around and through the group, swaddled in layers of outdoor clothes like babushka dolls, their rosy faces and wide eyes peeking out with excitement from under their hats. Yuri had always considered it strange that their parents would bring them, by choice, to one of the harshest places on the planet. Svalbard had the distinction of having the northern-most human settlements in the world. The younger ones did look happy, he had to admit. For them it was probably an adventure. It was the teenagers who seemed depressed. Suicidal, Yuri would say, by the looks of the spotty ones in front of him, staring vacantly at the ground. But dissatisfaction was what teenagers were good at, wherever they were.
He scanned the faces of the women in the crowd as the director’s speech began. He spotted English Catherine again. For some reason, she was positively beaming with delight at being present for this occasion. Standing behind her right shoulder was Anya, the teacher. Yuri waited an age till he caught her eye and then gave her his best smile, but she looked away as though she hadn’t seen him at all. Yuri sighed. Perhaps this wasn’t going to happen, and he should move on. She had airs, this woman, as though she was on a different plane of existence to everyone else. Not a snob, as such. Her clothes were no better than the next person’s. Just, she gave the impression of being elsewhere.
For a moment, he tuned in to the mine director’s voice. As usual he was speaking at length about coal. How the town was meeting its targets and more. How the five-year plan was progressing according to the five-year plan. How when it was successfully completed there would be another five-year plan to take its place, and so on. The director told them they should all be proud of their collective contribution to these achievements.
Am I, thought Yuri? Yes, he decided, he was. Not for the mine director, or Mother Russia, or communism, or Emperor Brezhnev. He was proud of what he had built here, with his own hands. It gave him personal, individual satisfaction. He did not care if anyone else noticed or appreciated what he had done.
After the director’s statement on the rude health of the mine, English Catherine started a round of applause, which everyone felt obliged to join in with. Then it was the turn of Grigory, Pyramiden’s resident party man. Yuri had no time for party hacks but he and Grigory were friends, mainly because he was not an average politico. A short, portly man in his late fifties, he was out of place in this raw frontier, more suited to the intellectual cafe society of Leningrad. His wavy grey hair and matching bushy moustache made him resemble Albert Einstein. To complete the picture, the moustache was often dotted with the crumbs of whatever he had eaten last.
Yuri enjoyed his company. Their conversations were a step up from any other he was likely to have here. With some exceptions, miners tended not to provide the most stimulating encounters. The two men played chess sometimes in the library, though Yuri suspected his opponent was guilty of postponing his best moves in order to prolong the game and make him feel better about his limited abilities.
Stuck up here in the Arctic Circle, Grigory was probably the only party man in the whole of the Soviet Union who wasn’t making a prince’s fortune dealing on the black market. There was not much to trade in Pyramiden. No one coveted a new fridge, or a washing machine. The town provided for all their needs. It was the only place in the whole of the Soviet Union where communism worked as it had been intended. Almost.
Grigory dabbled in poetry and was an eloquent speaker, though, as the party expected, his orations were peppered with the limitless wisdom of Lenin. The great man’s bust listened, unmoved, from its plinth nearby. Grigory knew his audience, and his speech was mercifully short, rounded off with one of his two jokes about snow, both of which Yuri had given him. As the crowd dispersed, with smiles on their faces, Yuri walked over to greet him.
Yuri often wondered if Lenin would have remained so revered, and for so long, had he not passed away young. No doubt, had he survived he would have fallen out with younger men who were eager to take possession of his throne. Khrushchev had famously denounced Stalin, once the dictator was safely dead, and later Brezhnev had not waited as long before he took Khrushchev’s power for himself. If Lenin had lived to old age, then his words might have become subject to censure, as had happened to so many other former heroes since.
‘Nice speech,’ said Yuri. ‘Vladimir Ilyich really does have words of wisdom to suit every occasion. Unless you just made those up. Did you?’
Grigory smiled. ‘Yes, he does. Aren’t we lucky. By the way, I was chilly while you were gone, Yuri. I had to sleep in a chair in my office for two nights.’
‘That’s all sorted now,’ Yuri assured him. ‘You can go back to your own bed. Apologies for any inconvenience.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Grigory. ‘Funny the way it happened while you were away. A word of advice between friends, with ladder-climbers like Timur around, it is best not to tempt fate too often.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Yuri.
Grigory smiled and ignored his answer. ‘Have you met Catherine yet?’ he asked.
Yuri turned to find the young English woman standing directly behind him. Up close, her wide blue eyes seemed to hide nothing. And the light sprinkle of freckles on her cheeks, the same colour as her strawberry blonde hair, gave her a childlike quality.
‘No, I haven’t had the pleasure.’
Catherine offered her hand, which was small, but her grip was firm.
‘Pleased to meet you, comrade,’ she said, in quite acceptable Russian.
‘Call me Yuri,’ he said.
He reserved the word ‘comrade’ for people he was annoyed with.
‘Yuri here is a fixer of all things. He has magic hands,’ said Grigory.
Catherine’s eyes widened further, which did not seem possible.
‘Then he is a valuable asset to the Soviet people,’ she said, with a straight face.
Yuri and Grigory grinned at each other. Yuri had not met many foreign Reds. The ones he had, he found to be idealists in love with just that – an idea. One they had never had to live through.
‘He is indeed very valuable,’ agreed Grigory. ‘Precious I’d say. Why don’t you wait for me in my office, Catherine, and I’ll be along there in a moment.’
‘All right,’ said Catherine. ‘I’m sure we will meet again, Yuri.’
‘Nothing is more certain,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to avoid anyone here, even if you wanted to.’
Catherine smiled and walked off in the direction of the administration building.
‘How was Moscow?’ asked Grigory.
‘Same,’ said Yuri. ‘Too many people, too much traffic. I didn’t see much, only the inside of the graveyard.’
‘Your ex-wife come?’
‘Ha. No. She didn’t come, surprise, surprise. It’s better that way, believe me.’
‘You two were in love once, though?’ Grigory asked. ‘Weren’t you? Or have you forgotten?’
Yuri frowned, wondering where this was headed. ‘A distant memory, that’s all. And for such a short time, between fights, I am not sure it can be classed as love.’
‘Shame,’ said Grigory. ‘Too many women is not good for a man. Especially at your age. By the way, while we are on the subject, do me a favour, and stay away from her.’
‘What? You mean the cosmonaut? Where did that come from? I have absolutely no intention. Did she—?’
‘No. She did not say anything. I have just had to deal with the fallout from your affairs too many times. And this one is an innocent.’
‘I can see that,’ said Yuri. ‘Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. Much appreciated, friend. Don’t worry, Miss Innocent is not on my to-do list. What’s she doing here anyway?’
‘She’s writing her university thesis on why the first human settlements in space will have to be communist.’
‘Seriously?’ asked Yuri.
‘I think she has some very interesting arguments,’ replied Grigory.
‘I’ll bet she does. But that still doesn’t explain why she’s here, in Pyramiden.’
‘We were the closest thing she could find to a space-like living environment,’ said Grigory.
‘Well, she’s got that right,’ agreed Yuri. ‘Ice cold and light years away from civilisation. Cosmonaut Katerina. Her application to come here must have been greeted with open arms. I suppose they are going to milk her for publicity.’
‘No one is using anyone. We are going to help her, that’s all. You know some day you are going to drown in that cynicism of yours.’ Grigory walked on.
‘I’m a good swimmer,’ said Yuri. ‘Chess soon?’
‘If I’m free. Just come find me.’
It was true what Grigory had said. Sometimes his affairs had not ended as cleanly as he liked to imagine. One in particular, involving the wife of a miner, had been spectacularly messy. Threats, spousal violence and a couple of kids caught in the crossfire. The experience had made him avoid the extra complications of married women ever since.
For several days afterwards, Yuri and Semyon worked together on the dam system that prevented the town from flooding in the spring thaw. No water was running down the mountain now, but it would as soon as winter was over, and they needed to prepare in advance. The two men rarely spoke for the whole of this time spent in close proximity to one another. When they did it was short and to the point. Yuri didn’t know, or care, what he did in his spare time, but having Semyon around kept him on edge.
After yet another day of sly looks and non-communication, Yuri decided he was spending too much time second-guessing his potential Latvian usurper, and that he needed to think more about himself. It had been four months since he had any female companionship and he resolved to take matters into his own hands the following morning.
Parents were still dropping their children off when Yuri arrived in the school lobby, carrying his metal toolbox. He explained to the headteacher that it was routine for him to check all the systems in every building at least once a year, and today was the school’s turn.
‘But the classes are starting,’ she protested. ‘Couldn’t you come back in the evening when everyone is gone?’
‘Oh no. It’ll take me the whole day at least,’ he argued. And when she was still reluctant, he added, ‘Wouldn’t you rather a little disturbance now, than allow a problem to build up and have to shut down the whole school for who knows how long?’
‘All right,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘I suppose, if you think it’s really necessary.’
‘Don’t worry. You won’t even know I’m here.’
Yuri took a moment to check the electrical fuse box inside the front door, while casting a curious glance down the hall towards the classrooms. He could already hear her voice, addressing her pupils. He had planned to make more of a pretence about his presence here by visiting all the other rooms first. But he decided to hell with that – he wanted to see her straight away. Perhaps she really did have no interest in him, but he was going to aim high until there was a reason not to.
On his way down the corridor, he passed a long line of children’s winter boots. Hanging above them on hooks were their thick winter coats, with gloves dangling from the pockets.
He knocked politely on her classroom door and entered, without waiting for permission.
‘Good morning, Miss Anya,’ he said.
She didn’t reply, just looked at him, waiting for an explanation for his intrusion. He ignored her stare and headed to the back of the classroom, watched by many little eyes. There, he knelt at the radiator under the window. His being in her classroom didn’t seem to disturb her too much; she continued without hardly missing a beat. She was teaching mathematics to a group of ten-year-olds. Her style was direct and no-nonsense. She wasn’t harsh with the kids, but she certainly wasn’t motherly either. Yuri liked that about her. He didn’t trust homemakers any more. He listened to her for as long as he thought he could reasonably stay in the room. When she wasn’t looking he watched her from the corner of his eye. His opinion had not changed. She was the best-looking woman he had ever seen in Pyramiden.
Suddenly there was silence, and Yuri looked up to see that the children had been tasked to work on a problem on their own. Seizing this opportunity, he quickly packed up his things and walked to the front of the classroom.
‘Are you finding everything all right in here?’ he asked her.
Even though she was not actually doing anything at that moment, Anya looked displeased at being addressed directly, in a way she would have to respond to.
‘Everything is fine,’ she said.
‘No problems?’ he asked.
‘If there is a problem, I’m sure someone will call you. I already said, everything is fine.’
He smiled. Her expression didn’t change.
‘Yes, yes you did.’
He nodded once and walked out with the feeling that his knuckles had just been rapped, like a schoolboy. A long bleak season of solitude appeared to be stretching out in front of him. There would be no more boats until March. Pyramiden had reached its full winter complement of women. He could of course, set his sights lower, but he was not in the mood for that right now. He wondered if there were any good books in the library that he had not already read.
Since Yuri had returned at the beginning of October, the hours of sunlight had been getting gradually shorter until one day, towards the end of the month, the sun did not rise at all. It would stay that way for another 111 days exactly. For a few more weeks there would be several hours of twilight each day, when there would still be a perceptible light just below the horizon at sunrise and sunset. Then that too would be gone and all would be given over to darkness. It was a surreal time for everyone. Yuri had experienced it eleven times before, but the fresh arrival of endless night still had a tendency to push him closer to the edge of sanity. Each day ran into the next, and the next, with no visible difference. Time seemed to have frozen at the moment when night was at its darkest and light should have begun its return. Wearing a watch became both pointless and essential. He expected that for the miners, the tunnel rats, it must be business as usual, since they rarely saw the sun anyway.
The weather changed too. Without the sun, the cold became something sinister. A foe to be battled.
Two days after the sun went into hiding, Yuri ran into Catherine outside the swimming pool. She had another gleeful expression on her face.
‘You see?’ she said.
‘See what?’ he asked.
She waved at the darkness surrounding them, and the starry sky above. ‘Space. Now my study can really begin.’
‘Ah,’ he agreed. ‘So it can.’
‘You’re on my list to interview,’ she said. ‘I’ll be tracking you down one of these days.’
As she walked away, he was pleased that his first impression of her had been incorrect. She was not such a ditzy cosmonaut after all. As the wind began to whip up around him, he gazed up at the Milky Way, which was as clear as though he were looking through a telescope. He felt a sudden chill. Not from the cold. It was the thought that Catherine’s theory might come true and that busts of Lenin might one day find their way up to those stars too.
After doing thirty lengths of the pool, Yuri made his way to the canteen in the Cultural Palace. He was late and there were no other diners left, but the kitchen staff managed to rustle up a hot meal for him from the leftovers. A clear fish soup to start, followed by minced pork dumplings with sour cream. The chandeliers had been switched off, and the only illumination came from the fluorescent kitchen lights. It was peaceful having the place to himself. A tsar alone in his grand dining hall. But it didn’t last.
Timur walked up the staircase and stopped before reaching the top. He nodded for Yuri to come down to him. Yuri hesitated. A private word with a KGB agent was never desirable; but this one seemed unavoidable. He put down his knife and fork and walked down to the first stairwell, to where Timur had retreated.
‘How long have you been in here?’ Timur asked.
‘I just got here,’ Yuri said. ‘Now my dinner is getting cold. Why do you ask?’
‘Do you know what Semyon was doing this evening?’
‘Yes, I do actually,’ replied Yuri. ‘The mine reported a problem with the air ventilation. I sent him down to fix it.’
‘Why didn’t you do it yourself?’
Yuri decided not to admit that he didn’t like it down there. It offered too much of a ripe excuse for demoting a mine’s chief maintenance engineer.
‘I was busy,’ he said. ‘And it seemed like a minor problem. Semyon’s well able to handle stuff like that on his own. What’s he gone and done?’
Timur paused before answering. ‘The job wasn’t so simple, as it happens. He’s dead.’