Child 44 - Страница 16

— Doctor Roman Hvostov. I’m a psychiatrist.

— Leo Demidov.

— Pleased to meet you.

They shook hands. Hvostov gestured at the prisoner.

— Don’t worry about him.

Hvostov led them to his surgery, the door to which he unlocked, gesturing for them to come in, as though they were children and this was his playroom. The surgery was small and clean. There was a red leather chair bolted to the white-tiled floor. By using a series of levers the chair could be lowered to become a bed and then raised upright again. On the walls were glass cabinets filled with bottles and powders and pills, labelled with neat white stickers and careful, tidy black handwriting. Hanging beneath the cabinet was an array of steel surgical instruments. There was a smell of disinfectant. Brodsky didn’t struggle as he was strapped to the chair. His wrists, ankles and neck were fastened with black leather straps. Leo tied his feet whilst Vasili tied his arms. Once they were finished he was unable to move any part of his body. Leo stepped back. Hvostov scrubbed his hands at the sink.

— For a time I worked in a Gulag, near the city of Molotov. The hospital was full of people pretending to be mentally ill. They would do anything to get out of work. They would run around like animals, screaming obscenities, tearing their clothes off, masturbating in full view, defecating on the floor, anything and everything to convince me they were deranged. You could trust none of it. My job was to identify who was lying and who was genuine. There were numerous academic tests but prisoners quickly caught on and this information was shared and soon everyone knew how to behave in order to cheat the system. For example a prisoner who thought he was Hitler or a horse or something equally and obviously outlandish was almost certainly pretending to be insane. And so prisoners stopped pretending to be Hitler and became much more subtle and sophisticated in their deceptions. In the end there was only one way of getting to the truth.

He filled a syringe with thick yellow oil, then positioned it on a steel tray and carefully cut away part of the prisoner’s shirt, tying a rubber tourniquet around the top of his arm in order to expose a wide blue vein which popped up. Hvostov addressed the prisoner:

— I hear you have some medical knowledge. I’m about to inject camphor oil into your bloodstream. Do you understand what that will do to you?

— My medical experience is limited to helping people.

— This can help people too. It can help the deluded. It will induce a seizure. While you are in this seizure you will be unable to lie. In fact you will not have the ability to do very much at all. If you are able to speak you will only be able to speak the truth.

— Then go ahead. Inject your oil. Hear what I have to say.

Hvostov addressed Leo.

— We’ll use a rubber gag. This is to stop him biting off his tongue during the most intense part of the seizure. However, once he calms down we can safely remove the gag and you may ask your questions.

Vasili picked up a scalpel and began using the tip to clean his fingernails, wiping the line of dirt on the side of coat. Once he was done he put the scalpel down and reached into his pocket, pulling out a cigarette. The doctor shook his head.

— Not in here, please.

Vasili put the cigarette away. The doctor inspected the syringe — there was a yellow dewdrop of oil at the needle’s tip. Satisfied, he sank the needle into Brodsky’s vein.

— We need to do this slowly. Too quick and he’ll suffer an embolism.

He pushed down on the plunger and the treacle-thick yellow oil moved from the syringe into the prisoner’s arm.

The effects did not take long. Suddenly all intelligence left Anatoly Brodsky’s eyes: they rolled back in his head and his body began to shake as if the chair he was strapped to was charged with a thousand volts. The needle was still in his arm and only a small fraction of the oil had been injected.

— And now we inject a little more.

Another five millilitres was injected and bubbles appeared at the corners of Brodsky’s mouth, small white bubbles.

— And now we wait, we wait, we wait, and now we inject the rest.

Hvostov injected the remaining oil, pulling the needle out and pressing a cotton pad against the entry point on the arm. He stepped back.

Brodsky was less like a human and more like a machine gone wrong, an engine pushed past its limits. His body was pulling against the restraints in a way that suggested that there was some external force acting upon him. There was a crack. A bone in his wrist snapped as it jerked against the restraint. Hvostov peered at the injury, which was already swelling up:

— That’s not unusual.

He said, glancing at his watch:

— Wait a little longer.

Two separate streams of foam dribbled down from either side of the prisoner’s mouth, running underneath his chin and dripping onto his legs. The vibrations were slowing down.

— OK. Ask your questions. See what he says.

Vasili stepped forward and untied the rubber gag. Brodsky vomited foam and saliva onto his lap. Vasili turned around with an incredulous look.

— What the fuck is he going to tell us like this?

— Try.

— Who are you working with?

In response the man’s head slumped against the restraint. He gurgled. Blood ran out of his nose. Hvostov used a tissue to wipe away the blood.

— Try again.

— Who are you working with?

Brodsky’s head rolled to the side, like a puppet, a doll: lifelike, capable of motion, but not actually alive. His mouth opened and shut, his tongue extended — the mechanical imitation of speech but there was no sound.

— Try again.

— Who are you working with?

— Try again.

Vasili shook his head, turning to Leo.

— This is stupid. You try.

Leo’s back was pressed against the wall, as though trying to move as far away as possible. He stepped forward.

— Who are you working with?

A noise came from Brodsky’s mouth. It was ridiculous, comical, like a baby’s spluttering. Hvostov crossed his arms and peered into Brodsky’s eyes.

— Try again. Ask simple questions to start off with. Ask him his name.

— What is your name?

— Try again. Trust me. He’s coming out of it. Try again. Please.

Leo stepped closer. He was close enough to reach out and touch his brow.

— What is your name?

His lips moved.

— Anatoly.

— Who are you working with?

He was no longer shaking. His eyes rolled forward.

— Who are you working with?

There was silence for a moment. And then he spoke, faint, hurried — as a man might speak in his sleep.

— Anna Vladislovovna. Dora Andreyeva. Arkadi Maslow. Matthias Rakosi.

Vasili reached for his notepad, scribbling down the names, asking:

— Recognize any of those names?

Yes, Leo recognized those names: Anna Vladislovovna: her cat is going blind. Dora Andreyeva: her dog refuses to eat. Arkadi Maslow: his dog has broken its front leg. The seed of doubt, sitting dormant and undigested in the pit of Leo’s stomach, cracked open.

Anatoly Tarasovich Brodsky was a vet.

Anatoly Tarasovich Brodsky was nothing more than a vet.

17 February

Dr Zarubin put on his mink-fur-lined hat, picked up his leather bag and nudged his way off the crowded tramcar, half-heartedly apologizing. The pavement was icy and, stepping down, he held on to the side of the tramcar for support. He felt old suddenly; unsteady on his feet, fearful of slipping over. The tramcar pulled away. He looked around, hoping this was the right stop — the eastern outskirts were a district he knew vaguely. But it proved a simple matter to get his bearings — his destination dominated the grey winter skyline. On the opposite side of the road stretching many hundreds of metres above him and above everything else was a set of four U-shaped apartment blocks arranged in pairs with each block positioned as if one were the reflection of the other. The doctor marvelled at this modern design, home to thousands of families. This wasn’t just a housing project. It was a monument to a new era. No more privately owned one- or two-storey properties. Those were gone, flattened, smashed to brick dust, and in their place stood perfectly formed, government-designed and owned apartments, each painted grey and stacked up and up and side by side. Nowhere had he seen exactly the same shapes repeated so many times in so many directions, each apartment a perfect facsimile of the next. The thick layer of snow which capped the roof of each building was as though God had drawn a white line and said no further, the rest of the sky is mine. That, Zarubin thought, was their next challenge: the rest of the sky. It certainly didn’t belong to God. Somewhere in one of these four buildings was apartment 124–the home of MGB officer Leo Stepanovich Demidov.

Earlier this morning the doctor had been briefed by Major Kuzmin on the details of Leo’s sudden departure. He’d left at the beginning of a crucial interrogation, claiming to feel feverish and unable to continue his duties. The major was concerned by the timing of the departure. Was Leo really sick? Or was there another reason for his absence? Why had he given assurances that he was well enough to work only to change his mind after being set the task of interrogating the suspect? And why had he attempted to interview the traitor alone? The doctor had been dispatched to investigate the authenticity of Leo’s illness.