Abaddon - Chapter 4

Penny Simpson’s notes, May 14, 2010

Back from Belarus. Belarus appalling. These are people whose great grandfathers fought with guns to keep them from being ruled by Moscow, and they’re falling over themselves to kowtow to their new suited and booted czars. The Russian state automobile, the Mercedes, is everywhere, whilst ordinary White Russians queue out of the shop and down the street for bread. Russian fascist graffiti everywhere. Russian communist graffiti everywhere else. White Russian local politics boring (in fact nonexistent - Lukashenko’s grinning fizzog everywhere. He’s one of those democratically elected leaders who, gosh, just keep on getting democratically elected again, and again, and again...).

Was in Belarus as a token Russian speaker to support what were described to me as real reporters from head office in London. This was, of course, not necessary - everyone in Russia, White or otherwise, speaks English nowadays. And White Russian dialect is so impenetrable, might as well not have been there. Ended up shrugging shoulders and grinning gamely half the time. Real reporters glared at me disapprovingly.

In any case, now back to my ongoing project for the Thursday travel pullout. Made the mistake of returning directly to Na from Belarus. Man on customs went over my British passport with a fine toothcomb, examined and re-examined my visa, asked me suspiciously why I spoke Russian. Would not believe that I’d learned it in school. Asked me questions about the current make-up of the Man United squad, and became still more hostile when I professed no knowledge. Eventually escaped from customs man’s clutches after two hours of continuous questioning. Make mental note to go back via Warsaw next time.

Travel piece is now turning into investigative journalism. One of the local papers, Gaziëta Gabyzaï, which translates as The Abysmal Gazette, is printed in both Russian and Vaemna-language editions. Picked up the Russian edition, read it cover to cover, and found no record of any murder having been committed in the last two days. Two days ago, I saw the boy being thrown into the pit from my hotel window. Attempted to ring Ivan on his mobile, but received no reply. Remonstrated with myself for having failed to report a murder I’d seen happen with my own eyes. Why didn’t I report it? Apart from the fact I wasn’t sure, in the morning, whether or not I’d been dreaming, I have no idea.

Decided to report the murder now. Or, at the very least, to walk out to the break in the Beglerbeg’s Wall and assure myself I hadn’t been dreaming. Crossed the main square in front of the cathedral, walked in front of Starbuck’s, and saw Ivan sitting there on the turd-brown sofa with a blonde bit who certainly wasn’t his wife. They were talking in English, she with an American accent. Had no idea Ivan even spoke English. She had a dictaphone out on the table and was scribbling away notes absent-mindedly in shorthand whilst hanging adoringly on his every word.

A pimp passed Ivan on the pavement, flanked by bitches. He said something rapid to Ivan in Vaemna. Ivan laughed manfully. The pimp smirked and moved off. My Vaemna must be getting better. I think I had a pretty good idea what they had been saying to each other. I turned, unseen by any of them, and found myself looking at my own reflection in Starbuck’s shop front.

I hurried on. The American deep-down-dangling machine was growing steadily, and had moved closer to the Beglerbeg’s Wall. It had KOMATSU written ostentatiously all over it. Like two Komatsu executives buggering each other, it now rested on four sturdy yellow legs.

There was nothing by the wall. What, after all, would there have been? Blood? A signed confession written by the three who dumped the boy over?

Maybe it had all been a dream.

Halfway along the wall, though, I saw something passing strange. A man with a completely unnecessary torch strapped to a hardly more necessary construction helmet strapped to his head, dressed dapperly in a plastic sack saying FISONS with armholes cut out for his head and arms, was standing arguing with a city policeman. I couldn’t help noticing that the man appeared to be tied to a lamp post.

“Why not?” said the man in English. I felt the familiar sinking in my stomach all English people feel on realizing an idiot encountered abroad is also English. The Englander had a partner in crime who was dressed as quietly as he was, and whose grasp of haute couture even ran to air cylinders and flippers.

“Is danger”, explained the policeman. “Very big danger.” He held his hands out wide to illustrate how big the danger was. For the record, it was about three feet wide.

The man turned and pointed at the big fuck-off American crane. “You see that? Why are they allowed to go down there?”

The policeman shrugged. “They have permission.”

“And I haven’t got permission.”

“I know if you have permission or you not have permission. You not have permission.”

“Look, one of our friends may be hurt down there. Maybe even dead.”

At this point, Air Cylinder Man tugs his associate’s shoulder. “Look, Pete, maybe this isn’t the time.” It certainly isn’t. The police monkey’s hand is crawling over his left buttock behind him towards his gun, which is one of the little Russian ones that can punch a hole through steel. And the policeman can’t understand a word they’re saying now. They’ve lost it and started talking far too fast. He is also a small man – most Vaemna are – and both of them are much, much, bigger than he is. He is scared.

I interpose myself.

“Excuse me, officer”, I say, in perfect Russian. “These are two colleagues of mine. They are concerned a friend of theirs might be lost and hurt in the abyss.”

Captain Head Torch is hurt at being interrupted. “Barisef –”, he says, in Russian so dreadful it really shouldn’t be spoken by a human being.

“Shut up”, I say, in perfect English. “He will shoot you. You are not in North Yorkshire now, grobag boy.” This stops him. I switch back to the policeman. “I apologize for any inconvenience my coworker here may have caused. He fears his friend may have suffered a fatal accident.”

The inspector’s hand eases on his left buttock, and comes round in front of him again. He looks me up and down slowly.

“You have White Russian accent”, he accuses. I cringe. I hadn’t realized it was starting to rub off.

“I was born and bred in Minsk”, I lie.

He nods slowly. Then, he holds up a finger, to indicate he is about to say something important.

“Where people go when they die”, he says, “they stay, whether that place is a good place or a bad. It is not the job of your friend to bring people back.” He makes that little religious sign in the air, the one I’ve seen Gviong make, the one that may be the sign of the cross, and then again might not.

“You may go about your business”, he says. “Legal business”, he clarifies darkly, and departs.

***

“You can untie yourself from that lamp post now”, I say. To do him credit, Captain Head Torch finds this amusing.

“It’s a belay point”, he says.

“It’s a lamp post”, I say.

“We weren’t lying about our friend”, says Air Cylinder Man. “He disappeared down the Abyss yesterday.”

“Entering the Abyss without a permit”, I say, “is illegal. And what was he doing in there on his own, anyway?”

Pete shrugs. “He’s that sort of guy.”

“A tosser”, clarifies Air Cylinder Man.

“We’ve come here all this way from England, he’d promised us we were going to do the whole first mile down together, by the book, and then he takes off from the hotel while we’re asleep with half our gear.”

“Can’t do anything in our company”, says Air Cylinder Man.

“He’s an experienced caver”, says Pete. “Happier underneath Yorkshire than on top of it. If he comes up and tries to walk back to the minibus across the moors he gets lost.”

“The caves in North Yorkshire”, I say, “aren’t over a mile deep.”

“He’s been a mile down before and come back up”, says Pete. “We’ve been down Sarawak Chamber in Borneo before. That goes down about a mile.”

“Course”, adds Air Cylinder Man, “you have to climb a mile up a mountain before you get to down the mile. So you might as well have just stayed put, really, for all the buggering about.”

“This guy who went down the Abyss”, I say, “is over five feet in height and weighs more than seven stone, I take it.”

Pete nods. “Try six foot six and fifteen stone.”

“In that case, I haven’t seen him.”

***

Take Pete and Air Cylinder Man under my wing and off the street. Passers-by point and laugh and giggle and find them amusing, but obviously know they’re cavers rather than some sort of new wave of gay fashion. Cavers are common animals around here. Caving is illegal - the city authorities protect the sanctity of the Pit with an almost superstitious reverence - but it’s usually only possible for the police to arrest spelunkers after they’ve penetrated the hallowed chasm and are on the way back up, and even then all they can really do is fine them. Cavers gather round the Abyss like jackals round a carcass, waiting for the beat coppers to be otherwise occupied giving directions to tourists, before wrapping a rope round the nearest streetlight, cycle stand or traffic bollard, hopping over the Beglerbeg’s Wall and abseiling down into the void. It’s more usual for them to do their dirty in the hours of darkness, though. These guys must be genuinely worried.

Take them into the Xotel-Restavran Vugromaen in Victory Parade. ‘Vugromaen’ means ‘The Three Romes’, an old slavic church expression meaning Rome, Byzantium and Moscow. Russocentric toadying of the worst sort, but an interesting name for a gin palace. I buy them Russian coffees, on expenses - it’s a cold day, and they’re too northern to be lying about their friend.

It transpires Pete is a Business Process Reengineering Consultant, whatever that may be, and his friend Vernon (Air Cylinder Man) is a lecturer in mathematics. I knew they had to work hard to be able to afford all those shiny nuts and karabiners.

It is obvious Pete and Vern - and their missing friend, Sean - have been dreaming of this trip since they dug their first hole at the seaside with a bucket and spade and sat in it. “Course, you realize, it’s the challenge”, says Pete between quaffing.

“This thing must be twice as deep, shit, maybe three, four times as deep, as anything I’ve ever done”, he says. “Counting Wilhelmina Tranter at St. Paul’s Secondary”, he adds, in some personal surprise.

“And in the caves in Sarawak”, interjects Vern, “the water’s warm.” He sounds disgusted, as if caving in warm water has something vaguely homosexual about it.

“And the guano”, says Pete with relish, “the guano adds a challenge.”

“It changes to bat guano a few hundred metres down”, says Vern, obviously excited.

“Gosh”, I say, hoping I sound adequately impressed.

Pete and Vern seem to pay the sort of attention to inanimate chasms in the ground that most men do to women. Under the current circumstances, I find their total lack of attention to me refreshing, and buy them more drinks. They buy me more drinks. I learn a great deal about clints and grikes. You should always, it seems, take air cylinders of the more modern round-ended type down caves, as the older square-ended ones can catch in a cave roof and drown you. You should always climb rope ladders sideways-on.

Leave the Xotel-Restavran Vugromaen drunk and singing rude songs about swallow holes. Glad to have run into idiots from my home country. Pass a pimp in the street (probably the same pimp, still sporting a moll on each shoulder). Offer him fifteen hundred Minim for his bookends in heavily Belarus-accented Russian. He does not understand.

The Troglodytes are still going down the pit. They say the edges of the pit are quite well-patrolled, even after dark, and the top ten or twenty metres are crumbly with a thin coating of earth (and also, in place, human sewage) so it would be difficult, not to mention dangerous, to take that route. They say they have found another. I’ve already asked them if they’re going down the town sewer system. They say they aren’t.

It is still daylight. I still have time for a shower and a few minutes’ scribbling; the feature isn’t finished, maybe I can add a subsection on how to cave effectively in Na. I’m halfway back to the hotel when I remember my original reason for being out here.

The police station is on the other side of the square. It’s a big, squat, solid building that seems to have taken the last few hundred years of cowboys and Indians and Commies and Aryans in its stride. It has a line of shiny POLISIC cars parked up outside it. These cars are the very fastest Eastern Europe has to offer, Skoda Superbs, Czech on the front of the bonnet, German underneath it. Slow as fuck. It’s well known a savvy joyrider in a stolen Clio can outrun virtually any police car on the road here.

And the car at the end of the line is even slower. The big Zil. The police commissioner is in. Maybe the woman at Starbuck’s had more self-respect than some people I could mention.

Someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn.

“Very poor, pretty lady”, says someone from the level of my shoulder. “Need dollars. Dollars will go up against Sterling Yen and Euro by close of play today.”

I look down. A face stares up at me. It looks like an ordinary face that has had the head sucked out of it. The skin is stretched taut over a cage of bone. The skin is also that of a seventy-year-old man, and this is odd, because I’m almost certainly looking at a thirteen-year-old boy.

I stare. I stare shamelessly. I stare not just because this is the first Oracle Smoke victim I’ve seen. I stare because I saw this boy fall a mile (two miles, three miles, four?) to his death only a few days ago.

“I’m sorry”, I say. “I’m English.”

The boy shrugs. “English dollars. And to him shall be given a sword, and he shall go forth conquering, and to conquer.”

I feel something pull at my other arm. I turn and notice I no longer have a handbag. Instead, I have a leather strap looped redundantly round my arm, and a boy even shorter than the one at my right elbow is absconding with the bag. Far too late, I move to yell. Realizing yelling will do nothing - they are already away and running - I move to run after them, and run into a stationary police officer, a kindly old gent of 50 or 60, watching them go with a look of unconcern. He holds up a hand to stop me.

“No further, if you value your neck”, he says, pointing at the inch-long sliver of sharpened steel the younger boy is carrying. “That went through your handbag strap with very little trouble, I believe. They are only very small, but they will kill you.” He pulls out a whistle and blows it. The boys continue running. “See? They are unafraid even of my whistle.”

Suddenly I’m not quite so sure I want police assistance. “I don’t want to cause trouble for them. They’re only stealing for food.”

He grins and shakes his head all-knowingly. “They don’t steal for food or shelter. They steal only for the Smoke, and they will steal for it until they starve.” He spits out the whistle and pulls out a gun. “This is my little boy gun”, he assures me. “7.62 millimetres only. It will hardly hurt a sparrow.”

He fires a warning shot to one side of the boys. It zings off distant cobblestones. They continue running. He fires again. One of them drops to the ground, blood jetting from his leg. But the other, the boy who went down the pit, is still running free. He even stops to grab my bag off his downed friend's body.

And it is the body. The dead body. A terrific amount of blood has come out of it for so short a time and so small a frame. The boy probably died of shock.

“Alas”, says the policeman, “God sees every sparrow that falls.” He makes that peculiar Vaemna religious symbol, and tucks his gun away. He jerks a thumb across the square to where a big black Merc has suddenly moved off from the kerb, its motorized mirrored windows closing.

“The mafia, they make a living robbing Smoke couriers. Once they break the chain of supply, the addicts must steal money to pay to get their Smoke bottles back. Otherwise the addicts would have no interest in you. You do not come in a bottle, and are not wrapped in aluminium foil.”

This puzzles me. “You mean the mafia don’t produce the Smoke.”

He shakes his head.

“Then who does?”

He smiles, and shrugs. Then, he walks off, ambling slowly along the cobbles at policeman speed, smiling at the beautiful morning.