Iron Dogs and Caesar's Ruby Read online

  He found it difficult to keep up as he followed the officer through the factory and they finally stopped at the floor manager’s office door where papers were handed to a clerk. As he waited, Molenkov noticed two other men standing near one of the exits and after a few seconds he thought he recognized one of them. No, that is not possible, he told himself then decided not to say anything as the three were led outside into the even more frigid cold toward an awaiting truck.

  With some assistance from men already in the cargo bed, they climbed into the rear and found places to sit as the heavy canvas tarp at the back was unrolled from the top and tied down. With their eyes not adjusted to the darkness they waited silently in the cold then heard shouted orders just before the truck’s engine seemed to reluctantly growl to life. Moments later as it started moving Molenkov heard a voice ask, “Sergei? Sergei Molenkov?”

  He turned in the direction of the sound but could only make out a shape. “Yes?” he answered, trying to be heard above the intermittent noise.

  “It is Boris!” the man said excitedly.

  The name registered poorly from a part of Molenkov’s memory that had been created long ago, then the truck came to a rather abrupt stop and he leaned further after improving his grip on the wooden slats of the bench. “Boris?”

  The voice came back with a note of exasperation. “Boris Tsokolalev. You do not remember?”

  Someone seated at the back end of the truck bed managed to manipulate a portion of the canvas flap, letting a beam of grey light in.

  “Tsokolalev?” the man holding the canvas open asked in astonishment. “You ... you are Boris Tsokolalev?”

  Molenkov could finally see the man seated across from him but he could not believe his eyes. “Tsokolalev? Boris?” His voice fell to a whisper. “It cannot be.”

  Tsokolalev didn’t react – instead he continued trying to see the man at the back, shielding his eyes from the glare. “I can’t—”

  The grizzled man at the tailgate said emphatically, “Vatolkin! Illia Vatolkin! Number twenty-four Bolshaya Morskaya.”

  In an almost shout Tsokolalev said, “Illia!” then abruptly turned again to Molenkov and pointed to the other man. “You remember Illia?”

  Molenkov’s memory made the connection and he suddenly realized two men he had not seen in decades were riding with him in a military truck. The fact that their shared fate was unknown seemed to be forgotten and he couldn’t conceal the joyous amazement. “Illia! Is that you? This is not possible ... we thought you were dead ... how could this be?”

  Vatolkin adjusted the canvass again and the light diminished, temporarily leaving them all with even poorer vision. Over the noise and pausing when the truck’s abrupt movements jarred him, he told his story of being arrested in 1918, accused of being involved in Madame Fabergé’s escape to Finland. After being sent to a gulag for three years, he was inexplicably freed and had returned to Leningrad, working mostly at repairing watches and clocks. For the last two years he had been assigned to machining parts for telephones.

  “Boris?” Molenkov asked the man across from him, “All this time ... were you in the armory ... there in the same factory with me?”

  The little man laughed grimly. “Two days. No, no, three days my old friend. Until Tuesday I was repairing tin ware then they decide I should put sights on guns.”

  A man further forward in the truck spoke up. “You worked at Fabergé?”

  Everyone turned in the direction of the voice.

  Molenkov said firmly, “I did.”

  In the dark, with the irregular motion of the truck it was difficult to tell if anyone else nodded in agreement or was shaking their head.

  Another question came from the same man, “What did you do?”

  “I cut gemstones and made carvings,” Molenkov replied proudly. “And you?”

  “Metal refining.”

  Another voice spoke up. “Enamels.”

  “As I did,” another said then added tiredly, “My name is Yuri Kozhedub.”

  After another moment of reflection Molenkov asked in wonder, “Yuri? ... Do you remember me?”

  “I, I ... it has been so long,” the man replied. “I cannot say.”

  “Sergei Molenkov – it’s Sergei,” he said enthusiastically.

  Vatolkin worked the canvas open again, this time providing enough light to allow them to study the faces around them in more detail. The eleven men in the back of the truck quickly realized age had made the task of recognition extremely difficult if not almost impossible; they had not seen each other for well over twenty years and the horror of what Leningrad had become had turned older men seemingly ancient.

  Tsokolalev asked loudly enough to be heard by all of them, “The House of Fabergé ... we all worked there ... am I right?”

  “Eleven years,” Molenkov said. “A journeyman under Perchin.”

  Each of the men followed suit and took their turn stating the number of years they had worked in what had once been the premiere Fabergé production facility.

  The sound of the engine quieted slightly and with an alarming screeching of brakes the truck came to a stuttering stop on the snowy road’s surface. As the canvas was rolled up they heard more voices then saw armed soldiers standing nearby.

  “Iz, vyyti iz gruzovika,” (out, get out of the truck), they heard as the tailgate swung down. Two of the soldiers assisted some of the less agile to the ground then escorted the odd little assembly of old men through the dry, crunching snow to a Commissar Officer who led them into a driveway between two tall buildings and through two heavy doors into a vestibule.

  The sentries inside gestured to the group to move into the large, windowless room where more than fifty elderly men were already seated on wooden benches.

  Some began recognizing acquaintances and friends from their distant past and the word spread that all of them had worked either for the House of Fabergé or for a number of its suppliers.

  A short, fleshy-faced Commissar Officer, wearing thick glasses stepped into the room with a list in his hand and began scanning the assembled group of what could easily have been declared men too old to be of any viable use.

  Molenkov watched and listened as the man called two names at a time then perfunctorily gestured toward the door to an adjoining office. On the other side of the door Commissar Officers could be seen, two standing behind tables covered with several stacks of papers and two sitting behind small desks.

  When he heard his name he got up stiffly, walked up the aisle and across the room into the office and stood before one of the desks. In moments he was answering questions about his prior work from an impatient man who didn’t even look at him for more than a few seconds at a time. When the list of questions seemed to be completed, a printed paper and pen were passed across the table from the man standing behind it. “Sign here,” he heard and looked at the pointed finger on a line. “You are to start a new work assignment immediately, Comrade.”

  Molenkov took the pen and unsteadily signed the document then the bureaucrat unceremoniously stamped it and what looked like a copy.

  “Give these to the Lieutenant outside,” the man said then handed him several papers. “You will be taken to your residence to collect your personal items. You will be going away. A uniform will be provided. You can bring only one piece of luggage. Keep that in mind. Through that door Comrade.”

  Molenkov seemed frozen in time. “Yes Comrade, but—?”

  The Officer cut him off with a bored, dismissive glance and a raised hand. “One more thing, Comrade. You are to say nothing about your new work assignment. Is that understood?”

  When Molenkov didn’t respond immediately the official asked more forcefully, “Do you understand, Comrade?”

  Molenkov hesitated for only a second then nodded and said, “Yes, Comrade, I, I ... but where am I going?”

  The man glared at him impatiently and pointed toward the door. “There, you are going through that door,” he said icil
y.

  Another man was already waiting to take Molenkov’s place in the office and the room he had come from was still half full; he decided it was best to move and not ask any more questions.

  In the hallway beyond the office a Red Army Sergeant with a disfigured face and wearing a shabby uniform looked at him dully as he reached out for the paperwork. After only glancing at it he handed it back, turned and pointed toward a door. “That way.”

  Molenkov walked down the hall and went through the door to the outside where an aging enlisted man of undeterminable rank stood in the cold and pointed him to the opening of a parking garage across a small courtyard. “There,” the man huffed weakly.

  Once inside near a line of several parked cars, Molenkov handed his paperwork to a soldier who struggled to read it, adjusting his glasses with one hand and holding the page up close. “Mulnikov?” the soldier asked.

  “Molenkov,” he corrected

  Irritated at having his failed eyesight pointed out the soldier consulted a map for several moments then gestured toward a driver who rose up from leaning on the fender of one of the cars. “Give this to him.”

  Molenkov took the papers and approached the driver and after taking one page and reading it the woman simply pointed to the rear door then got behind the wheel and started the car. The two men already seated inside were strangers and although he was now almost certain they had also been workers at Fabergé, they rode without speaking and were dropped off at their respective kommunalkas, the shared residences most Soviet citizens were forced to live in.

  Having gathered what little there was of his possessions from his space in the dingy room, he rudely ignored the prying questions of a busybody woman tenant, then waited at the front door of his building with his suitcase at his feet, opening the door nervously several times in anticipation and with no small amount of trepidation. Fortunately, none of the other residents of the building came or left; he had no need to fabricate some kind of story for them and he hurried outside when he heard the car approach and come to a stop.

  The three men rode in silence through the almost deserted streets to the Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya, the Palace Quay, along the Neva River where the vast complex that was the Hermitage had been established.

  The eastern wing of the Zdanie Glavnovo Shtaba, the General Staff Building, had once housed the Foreign and Finance Ministries until those functions had been moved to Moscow; to the men’s shared and growing astonishment, the car pulled to a stop near a portico and the driver ordered them out.

  When they got out of the car a man checked their papers then directed them through a door to an anteroom where a bulky, stern-faced woman in a housekeeper’s uniform instructed them to clean the snow and dirt off their boots with brooms that were passed from one to another. Once satisfied with the results, she led them along a broad corridor to a set of stairs and down into a large, windowless room nearly filled with rows of tables and benches.

  Molenkov immediately realized the room was not just out of the reach of the frigid Russian winter elements – it was actually heated and the men already there were no longer wearing their collection of rags or tattered outer clothes. He loosened the thread-bare towel that had served as his scarf and opened his coat, relishing the warmth as he looked around. “Tsokolalev?” he asked aloud amidst the quiet conversations.

  “Over here,” a voice came to him.

  Molenkov worked his way over then slid his suitcase under the bench and sat above it. Two of the other men from their original truck journey soon joined them and they began looking around trying to identify any more familiar faces. Conversations in the room were subdued but in some places became almost affable; several more reunions took place as additional men were delivered to the Hermitage.

  When the room was nearly full, Molenkov thought he smelled something other than what one would expect in a room with more than fifty men who had rarely worn clean clothes or bathed. “What is that smell?” he asked under his breath.

  “I have long ago given up trying to identify such things,” someone answered.

  The man across the table from him said ruefully, “Leningrad has a way of destroying the senses.”

  “Bread?” someone whispered.

  “Not just bread,” said another.

  A man behind Molenkov turned and said as if he could not believe his own nose, “I smell cabbage!”

  Someone grumbled, “Bah ... what you smell is you!”

  “No, no ... turnip ... those are turnip greens,” someone else claimed.

  The double doors at the end of the room swung open and three servers rolled in a cart of tin plates, bowls and cups that were quickly passed down the rows. Next were pots of hot tea, carried down the aisles and placed among the groups of men who quickly started pouring and drinking.

  Two more carts, piled with small loaves of real bread and carrying two huge metal cook pots with aromatic steam rising from them were pushed into the room. Servers began by passing out the loaves then worked their way down the aisles ladling soup into bowls held up by eager, sometimes shaking hands.

  Other than the repeated sounds of thanks and awe at what was being given them, talking quickly came to an end. Soon the only sounds in the room were made by hungry men using metal utensils to eat quickly but it wasn’t long before low conversations resumed.

  A man not far from Molenkov held up a small piece of what was probably sausage. “Where did this come from?” he asked before putting it in his mouth and slowly and methodically savoring it.

  “I don’t believe I want to know,” another said under his breath.

  The man who asked the question said, “I have not even seen a living animal in months.”

  Molenkov finished chewing a chunk of bread he had dipped in the salty broth. “This is not ration bread,” he said.

  “You are right ... there is no sawdust in it,” someone whispered.

  “Rye ... it is rye,” another said.

  I had forgotten what real bread tastes like, Molenkov admitted to himself then added in an almost whisper, “It seems to me ... I do not think we can do what they want with unsteady hands.”

  That assessment was gradually met with nods of agreement from the men around him; almost all of them had been weakened if not debilitated by malnourishment. It dawned on Molenkov that any of those who had been rejected were probably beyond any hope of recovery. We are surviving – they will not, he thought.

  While they were eating, a well-dressed civilian took a position at the doorway. “Comrades – I am Ivan Yeremenko,” he said loudly. As the majority of the men raised their heads and turned, he went on. “Finish your meal while I deliver my message to you.”

  There were a number of men in the room who had heard of Yeremenko and the fact that a man of his position was addressing them was yet another surprise in this day of surprises.

  “Comrades ... you have been chosen to work for the State Diamond Fund. I am its Director. The orders for your work come from the Kremlin ... from Comrade Stalin himself. I have come from Moscow to see for myself what is being done.”

  He definitely had their attention. To them, this was a man who probably spoke with Stalin frequently, perhaps even dined with him at one of his dachas from time to time. But while the men might have craned their necks or raised their heads to get a look at him more than once, they quickly returned their focus to their bowls. It wasn’t lost on most of them that while Yeremenko lived and dined among their glorious leaders in Moscow, the bread and bowl of actual soup was the most they had eaten in a very long time and at this man’s whim, could very well be their last.

  Yeremenko introduced the tall, slender man next to him. “This is Comrade Merkulov. He is in charge of this facility. You will be meeting your supervisors shortly. Those supervisors report only to him. They will introduce you to your work assignments. Let me make one thing very clear before I leave – your best work is required. And, at your most rapid pace. If you cannot perform your tasks you will
be returned to your previous assignments.” As if wanting to make sure the men understood that threat, Yeremenko paused long enough to scan the room, looking at the men for even a hint of confusion. “As you will soon discover, Comrade Murkulov is an expert ... and a demanding one. He will accept only your finest work. Only the finest work will keep you here.”

  At that Molenkov and Tsokolalev shared a knowing glance across the table. Both realized the outlook for those who slacked off or did shoddy work was the eventual death sentence Leningrad had become.

  Sounding much like a military officer, Merkulov then proceeded to outline their lives for the still-undeterminable future. They were to be housed in a barracks section near the dining hall they were now in. They would be provided with three sets of work clothes that must be kept clean. There was a facility for them to do their own laundry and failure to use it could mean an end to their assignment. Cleanliness, something that had been so recently foreign to them, was now of paramount concern.

  They were not allowed to send letters or communicate with persons on the outside. They would eat in the dining hall in the morning at 0600 before reporting to their work and once again their meal would be served there in the evening at 1900. Their midday bread ration and tea would be brought to them near their work areas at noon each day.

  Merkulov finished by announcing, “You may have questions but those will be addressed by your supervisors. When you are finished with your meal they will come to direct you to your quarters.”

  As Molenkov watched the haggard faces around him during the short speech he saw most of the men appeared almost numb – seemingly unable to believe in or understand their good fortune. A few were doing their best to conceal their distrust and cynicism but there were some who seemed eager to begin working.

  Hushed discussions sprung up after Yeremenko and Murkulov left the room then the doors opened again and the servers brought out bottles of vodka. As they were being distributed and cups eagerly filled, a group of four civilian managers came into the dining hall.