Peace on Earth

Yakov Zubko was half way across the road when he saw the car begin to move. ‘No tricks,’ he remembered how he had lied to Alexandra the night before, ‘no way they can stop us now.’ Every trick, every way they could stop him. He turned the corner, out of sight of the car, and began to run. Up the road fifty metres, Simenov had told him, through the block of flats. Which block, he suddenly thought, panicking, there were two blocks of flats, one on either side of the road. He reached them and turned left into the alleyway beneath the building, side-stepping to avoid the children and crashing into the dustbins stacked against the wall. In the Zhiguli Iamskoy saw Simenov walking up the road, the man with the Beryozka bag turning almost casually round the corner. ‘We go for Simenov,’ he decided. They were almost at the junction; in the street in front of them Simenov disappeared down a side turning, in the passageway beneath the flats Yakov Zubko regained his balance, feared he had chosen the wrong block. ‘The other man and his suppliers.’ Iamskoy changed his mind.

Yakov Zubko broke into the sunlight and saw the car park; wondered for the first time if Simenov knew who he was, what he was, felt his legs seizing up, felt himself slowing down. ‘Run,’ he heard the voice, ‘run for Alexandra, run for the children.’ His lungs were hot, the bag was heavy, impeding him. ‘Run,’ he heard the voice again, shouting at him, screaming at him, ‘run so that you can all go home.’ In the far corner he saw the exit and the step to the tram stop.

Iamskoy turned the corner and accelerated up the road. Nobody with a Beryozka bag, nobody running as if his life depended on it. In the car park behind the flats Yakov Zubko was half way to the corner. ‘You take the right block,’ Iamskoy slammed on the hand-brake, ‘I’ll cover the left.’ He was out of the car, running, the door swinging open. He saw the dustbins rolling on the ground, the children staring. ‘This one,’ he shouted, ‘he’s gone through this one.’ He sprinted into the dark, seeing the car park ahead. ‘Run,’ the voice screamed at the Jew for the last time, ‘run as you’ve never run before.’ Yakov Zubko reached the corner, saw the tram in the street below, saw it beginning to move. ‘Wait for me,’ he prayed. He cleared the steps two at a time and hauled himself on as the rear doors clanged shut and the tram pulled away.

The kitchen was quiet, peaceful: Alexandra finished lunch, put the suitcase on the table and began to pack the children’s clothes; at her side her son and daughter watched her closely. ‘Tonight,’ she told them, ‘your father will be home early, tomorrow we will have a treat, tomorrow your father will take us all for a train ride. I will make sandwiches for us to eat.’

The passengers on the tram were looking at him, at the Beryozka bag he was carrying. Someone was bound to question why he had it, someone was bound to report him. He knew what he had always avoided in the past, what he had to do now, remembered what Alexandra had told him. One thing more important than Jerusalem, one thing more important than anything else. He left the tram and took the metro to the black market behind the station at Begovaya.

At the observation point overlooking Dmitrov Iamskoy watched as the militiaman checked the house of Pasha Simenov and confirmed the door was locked. ‘We say nothing,’ he ordered the man when he returned to the car, ‘we simply log the fact that Simenov left the house and turned east.’

‘What about the man with the Beryozka bag,’ asked the militiaman, ‘if he is selling is there any chance he’ll go to Begovaya?’

The possibility had already occurred to Iamskoy. ‘No chance. If he does have anything to sell he’ll lie low for a while.’ There was no way they could leave the observation point, he meant, no way they could concede that they had made a mistake. ‘Unless,’ he added as an afterthought, ‘he has a reason for off-loading the stuff today.’ No way that anyone would have that strong a reason, he was sure, no way anyone would risk the black market at Begovaya knowing the men from the building on Petrovka were waiting for him.

‘But if the others pick Simenov up this afternoon, they won’t know what to ask him.’

‘No,’ said Iamskoy, ‘but we will tomorrow.’

It was almost three, the sun already pale, when Yakov Zubko entered the maze of streets behind the metro station at Begovaya; he walked slowly and carefully, checking the buyers and sellers, eavesdropping on the conversations and negotiations, till he had worked out who was paying the best prices for what he had to sell. The man he approached was overweight, already wearing a winter coat, a cigarette in his mouth. Yakov Zubko struck up a conversation, after ten minutes he asked whether the man was interested in American denims.

‘Buying or selling?’

‘Selling,’ said Yakov Zubko.

‘What size?’

He realised he did not know. ‘New,’ he said, ‘the manufacturer’s labels still on them.’

‘How much?’

‘How much are you offering?’

The man gestured that he should follow him to a car parked on a side street. In the front passenger seat was a young woman, attractive, less than twenty years old. Money, thought Yakov Zubko, could buy anything, even in Russia. She saw them coming and moved to the back, allowing them to sit in the front.

‘How much did you say?’ the man asked again, fingering the flesh round his jaw.

‘Two hundred each,’ Yakov Zubko doubled the price he had calculated, ‘a hundred and eighty each if you take all three.’ He pulled them from the bag and showed them to the dealer.

The man snorted. ‘Eighty each.’

‘A hundred and sixty.’

‘Ninety, that’s as high as I can go.’

He knew he had made a mistake, that he should not have allowed the dealer to trick him into being the first to suggest a price, then began to see the way he could retrieve the advantage. ‘A hundred and fifty,’ he said, ‘that’s my lowest. After I’ve paid my man, that leaves me almost nothing.’

‘Your man?’

‘The man I get them from.’ He used the present tense, as if he had a regular supply.

‘You can get more?’ The dealer took the first bait. Yakov Zubko thought of Alexandra and the children standing behind the table when he had returned home the previous evening. ‘Not this week, probably next, definitely the week after.’

‘New like these?’

‘With the manufacturer’s labels. Any size you want.’

‘A hundred.’

‘A hundred and forty.’

‘A hundred and ten.’

We are going home, Yakov, Alexandra had said, giving him the papers from Kolpachny Lane, we are going home to Israel. ‘A hundred and thirty and they’re yours.’

‘How many others can you get?’ The dealer had always been greedy, now he showed it.

‘Three, four pairs a fortnight.’ He was watching the man’s eyes. ‘To start with,’ he added, ‘more if I can guarantee my man a good price.’ He could see the dealer trying to work out his source. An American, the man would be thinking, probably a businessman with regular trips to Moscow, the denims only the start of things. Yakov Zubko reinforced the image: ‘What about perfume?’

‘French?’ The tone in the man’s voice gave him away.

‘Of course.’

‘I’d like to meet your man.’

‘You must think I’m mad.’ Believe what you’re saying, Yakov Zubko, he told himself, make him believe what you’re saying.

‘A hundred and twenty-five each.’

‘A hundred and twenty-five each,’ he agreed. Enough for the visas and the renunciation, he thought, but not nearly enough for the tickets.

The man pulled a roll of notes from beneath his winter coat. It was more money than Yakov Zubko had seen in all the seven years since he and Alexandra had applied to leave Russia. ‘About the perfume,’ he said, taking the bottles from the bag, watching the way the dealer’s eyes flicked from the money to the contraband, seeing again the greed. The man reached forward to take them, Yakov Zubko moved them back.

‘Genuine?’ asked the dealer.

‘Seals and tops unbroken,’ confirmed Yakov Zubko.

‘Fifty each.’ It was the dealer who made the first offer.

‘A hundred.’

‘Seventy-five.’

‘Seventy-five.’ He had the tickets for the children, plus something towards the fare for Alexandra. ‘And a good price for this.’ He took the camera from the bag. ‘Only a sample,’ he lied, ‘one a fortnight, make and model specified three weeks in advance, for as long as you like. Guaranteed delivery.’

‘Anything else?’

‘You say, I’ll ask.’