The Bloody Meadow Read Free Page A

then had the uniforms take him down to the cells.
    It hadn’t been a difficult case, but Korolev felt satisfaction that they’d resolved it so quickly as he began to put the file in order for the procurator’s office. But the
sense of pleasure at a job well done disappeared when the page he was holding started to rustle loudly. He quickly placed it on the surface of his desk, holding it flat and pushing down, staring at
his whitening knuckles, knowing that this was the only way he could stop his hands shaking. It was just that everything was on top of him all of a sudden, he reassured himself, that was all. It had
been a long winter, and the Lord knew even the bravest got low during the winter months. And when had he last breathed easily? He remembered a time long before, a summer’s day, lying beside a
river, his arm around Zhenia, and Yuri sleeping beside them in the shade of the tree. When had that been? The divorce had come through more than two years ago, and they hadn’t been happy like
that for a good time before it. And his son had been small, very small, and his hair still baby soft. Three years ago, maybe?
    ‘Damn,’ he breathed, realizing it had been five years at least, and Yasimov looked up in surprise from the report he was writing. Korolev made himself smile, feeling it stretch his
mouth taut. Yasimov returned it, giving him a small nod of appreciation.
    ‘For a moment there, Lyoshka, I was wondering how they’d break the news to the family. You handled it well.’ Yasimov stretched back, releasing a contented sigh. ‘I tell
you what, though – a scrape that close makes the air smell sweet.’
    ‘Yes,’ Korolev agreed, thinking that the air would smell even sweeter if he could get a good night’s sleep. It had got to the stage recently when he’d wondered whether
there was any point in taking off his clothes at night, so little time did he spend in his bed. But tonight he’d get eight hours, do some washing, eat some hot food.
    ‘To kill your own brother,’ Yasimov said, shaking his head.
    ‘Alcohol has no family,’ Korolev replied, reaching for another file he was working on.
    ‘Still, nothing is all bad, you know,’ Yasimov said, looking as though he was contemplating stopping off somewhere on the way home.
    ‘I can’t disagree with that,’ Korolev said. ‘The world wasn’t made in black and white.’
    Not at all, he thought to himself; it was mainly grey, the grey of twilight, the grey of the night’s beginning.
    §
    Korolev’s nerves had settled by the time he walked down the wide steps of 38 Petrovka Street and began to make his way home through the still-busy streets of Moscow. He
took the longer way, heading towards the Kremlin and through Red Square, passing the recently installed red star that topped the Spassky Tower and glowed like a bright beacon of hope against the
black sky above it. It reassured him for a moment, and he felt a surge of pride that he was fortunate enough to be a Soviet citizen, living in the capital of a country that was leading the world by
example. But then he remembered the fear throughout the city, particularly amongst Party members. The works meetings in Petrovka Street were no longer the calm affairs of six months before, but
instead had become steadily more and more hysterical. Activists denounced each other for lack of vigilance, for concealing class origins, for having been former Mensheviks or, even worse,
supporters of the exiled Trotsky. And every now and then one of his colleagues would disappear.
    Korolev kept his head low, sat at the back and was grateful that he’d never joined the Party. But even non-Party members weren’t safe – the State expected complete loyalty from
all of its citizens and, while he’d fought with the Red Army during the Civil War and had supported the Revolution for twenty years now, Korolev still had allegiances to individuals and
beliefs that would put him at risk if they ever came to