11.2 Sibir of Siberia

Dorothy and Schmid were picked from Metropol by an In-Tourist transfer vehicle and taken to Yaroslavsky Railway Station by seven and they embarked the train to begin their romantic journey to the Far East. If their plan went well, they would fly from Tokyo to San Franscisco, then to New York, Amsterdam and back to Germany. How it made possible for an East Berliner to travel around the globe! He was a pensioner and permitted by the GDR to travel out of the country since November 1962. Besides, he carried a diplomatic passport.

As the train started, compartment lights turned on and a loudspeaker shattered through a wall of gravel speaking Russian to make an announcement. An elderly Russian lady in uniform came to check their tickets and served tea. Music played of Vladimir Troshin’s ‘Evening in the Moscow Woodlands’ that stimulated a melancholy mood whatever it interpreted but soothing to listen at the hour as the train rolled out of the station into the night. Their compartment in first class with four berths were occupied by three. The third person was a thirteen-year-old girl from the family in the next cabin.

A new dawn after a light shower, their cabin flew over green fields and white birches to the eyeshot on the other side of the track. Birds perched on top of the trees. A freight train passed loaded with logs and timber. They crossed a couple of villages with wood huts and by noon stopped at a freight yard in the big town of Kirov. Eleven minutes later, they were out gliding eastward towards the Great Siberian Plain. The sun gone behind the clouds and the Russian lady began to shovel coal into the hot-water stove at the end of the car.

White sticks of birches and red carpets of flora in their eyes, occasionally an island of dark forest passed in the distant horizon. Forlorn towns, train junctions and a switchman standing outside holding a stick and worn off signal flags on isolated posts.

They played English songs as well in their repertoire like The Beatles and Pete Seeger. Tyler Friesen heard ‘Eight Days A Week’ for the first type in the Stolypin car. He had seen The Beatles on television during the 1964 Ed Sullivan Show.

The train passed Perm, Sverdlovsk and stopped at Omsk in the afternoon on the third day. In 10 minutes, the train took off again and a thin crescent of a New Moon peeped in the sky before the light went out.

Dorothy and Schmid in the first-class dining car shared a bottle of Champagne with a three-star Russian general in full dress uniform with a wide red stripe down each side of his trousers and a blue tunic with ribbons on the breast. They were singing their hearts out.

Next morning, the train stopped at Krasnoyarsk by the Yenisei River. By then Tyler Friesen’s cell was full with two more inmates. It took fourteen minutes here but Lev Vassiliev found no time to check on William Murphy. Two coaches from the rear were disconnected.

Lev placed a call from Irkutsk and felt satisfied everything did go well. The train blew its whistle and he jumped on time. By late afternoon on the fourth day, the train ran smoothly along Lake Baikal.

John Adams sat down with Lieutenant Colonel Rolnik with three photographs. He passed the first print and said, “This is Samvel Salazar, picture taken during a performance in Vienna in 1953,” he continued, “Howard Turner called him twice in February and once in March. On the day Friesen went missing, Salazar called Howard Turner and attempted no calls after that. He knows about Turner’s death probably. On the other hand, he is the one who asked Katrina at Hotel Zamanak to call the embassy in Moscow. She didn’t know where he was going because he never checked out from the hotel.”

“What do you make out of it?” asked Rolnik.

“I have no idea. I am not calling him.”

“Don’t,” uttered Peter Rolnik, “his phone will be wired by the KGB.”

“Hajnal Gábris,” he placed the next photograph, “She met both Jaco Ferre and Friesen, she was questioned by the Rendörség both times. Miklós Tamás managed to get some information out of this girl for a small tip. She said that Friesen went to Hotel Nemzeti and entered this man’s room secretly to take some photographs,” Adams delivered the third print, “Aleksandre Giorgashvili, better known as Alexey, but she couldn’t say what he looked for or the contents in the photographs.

“Since Friesen collected a map of Georgia, this is the man he was following. Alexey is a former submarine commander and a Board Member of TAM, Tbilisi Aircraft State Association. Heavy smoker, flies often, particularly to Yugoslavia.”

“He’s KGB!”

“That’s what I thought.”

While on the train, Tyler Friesen asked a security guard to get him a pen and he did get a pen during a pee break. He gave the pack of cigarettes to the gvardiya in return. When the train left Krasnoyarsk Station, inmates disembarked the Stolypin and climbed four ZIL-157 box trucks at the junction of Respubliki Street and driven 30 minutes on a bumpy road to an MVD facility outside the city. Krasnoyarsk was a big city and equally beautiful but Tyler did not have a chance to see this place. There were several movements and military activities going on here and the guards were very strict.

Tyler was summoned to a guardroom and cross-examined. Then transferred to another 4 x 8 square feet cell where he spent that night. He wore gloves, boots and hat, in the shuba coat. Next morning, he was taken again to another office room and a starshina who could speak English talked to him.

“Mister Murphy! Sit down!”

“I am not Murphy,” he grunted.

The sergeant looked intently with cold blue eyes, “Whoever you are, you are going to Turukhansk.”

“Where is that place?”

“Eight hundred miles north.”

“For how long?”

“Five years.”

“Why?” asked Tyler Friesen.

“Don’t question me,” he said, “See these papers from Directorate 5! I have some advice for you.”

“What advice! I want to make a telephone call.”

“You’re not getting it, Murphy, and where you’re going, you cannot take a long-distance call,” he raised his voice.

“I have a family in the United States.”

“Mr Murphy! You can write a letter every month. Your letters will be checked and mailed to wherever you want to send. And you will receive letters unchecked. You are not allowed to go out of the town. If you go five miles out, you must first get permission from the chief. Every ten days you show up at the office and sign your presence on the register. There will be no doctor or provisions. You will be allowed to work and earn rubles for a living. And there won’t be anybody who can speak your language.”

“If I don’t?”

“If you don’t, on your first attempt you try to do something smart, you will be sent to Ognenny Ostrov for 25 years under Article 58. You know, prisons are tough, controlled. You won’t be allowed free movement.”

“I understand.”

“Mister Murphy! We cannot help you now. Some inmates seek ways with the villagers to find a connection to the outside world. You are going to the sibir of Siberia. It won’t be easy. I advise you to keep clear of trouble.”

“What is your name?”

The starshina stared blankly, “Ilya Ivanovich.”

“Thanks, Ilya.”

He spoke thoughtfully, “I will call you when your boat is ready.”

The phone on the table rang and Tyler dropped his eyes on it. The sergeant paused to stare at him before picking it up and still an echoing zeal penetrated through his ears. Tyler remembered Salazar’s bells.