Stalin’s Ghost Read Free Page A

lowered by rope to the ground. He returned to his trowel and painstakingly freed a rib cage with arms attached. As Arkady’s eyes adjusted he saw that one entire face of the excavation was layered with human remains outlined by the snow, a cross section of soil with skulls for stones and femurs for sticks. Some were clothed, some weren’t. The smell was of sweet compost.
    The canvas bucket was passed fire brigade style across the pit and pulled by rope up to a tent where other shadowy bodies were laid out on tables. The colonel went from tent to tent and barked at the men sorting bones to work faster. In between orders, he kept an eye on Arkady.
    Sergeant Gleb said, “They want all the bodies out by morning. They don’t want people to see.”
    “How many so far?”
    “It’s a mass grave, who can say?”
    “How old?”
    “From the clothes, they say the forties or fifties. Holes in the back of the head. In the basement of the Supreme Court yet. March you right downstairs and boom! That’s how they used to do it. That was some court.”
    The colonel joined them. He was in full winter regalia with a blue fur hat. Arkady wondered, not for the first time, what animal had blue fur.
    The colonel said loudly, “There will be an investigation of these bodies to see whether criminal charges should be brought.”
    Heads turned along the line, many amused.
    “Say that again,” Arkady asked the colonel.
    “What I said was, I can assure everyone that there will be an investigation of the dead to see whether criminal charges will be brought.”
    “Congratulations.” Arkady put his arm around the colonel’s shoulders and whispered, “That is the best joke I’ve heard all day.”
    The colonel’s face turned a mottled red and he ducked out of Arkady’s grip. Ah, well, another enemy made, Arkady thought.
    Gleb asked, “What if the grave runs under the entire court?”
    “That’s always the problem, isn’t it? Once you start digging, when to stop?”

2
    A rkady took his time. His relationship with Zurin had deteriorated to a game like badminton, in which each player took mighty swings that feebly propelled loathing back and forth. So instead of racing to Chistye Prudy Metro station, Arkady stopped in a lane of brick buildings hung with banners that filled and emptied in the wind. Arkady couldn’t see all the banners, but saw enough to learn that “Studio Apartments–Concierge Services–Cable” would soon be erected on the site. “Interested Parties Should Subscribe Now.”
    He kicked his way through snow down a flight of stairs and knocked on a basement door. There was no answer but the door was unlocked and he pushed his way into a black space with no more than a seam of street light along the top of the basement windows, about as hospitable as an Ice Age cave. He found a light switch and an overhead rack of fluorescent tubes flickered to life.
    Grandmaster Ilya Platonov sat sprawled face down on a table, asleep between chessboards. Arkady thought the fact that Platonov had found that much room was remarkable since chess sets and game clocks covered every surface: antique, inlaid and computerized boards, men lined up like armies summoned and forgotten. Books and magazines on chess crammed the bookcases. Photographs of the Russian greats—Alekhine, Kasparov, Karpov, Tal—hung on the walls along with signs that said, “Members Are Requested Not to Take Boards to the W.C.” and “No Video Games!” The air reeked of cigarettes, genius and musty clothes.
    Arkady stomped the snow from his shoes and Platonov’s arm compulsively shot out and hit the game clock.
    “In your sleep. That’s impressive,” Arkady said.
    Platonov opened his eyes as he sat up. Arkady guessed his age at about eighty. He still had a commanding nose and a pugnacious gaze once he rubbed the sand from his eyes.
    “In my sleep, I would still beat you.” Platonov felt his pockets for a wake-up cigarette. Arkady gave him one. “If you played