Peace on Earth. Gordon Stevens

the game with them, and wondered why he would not tell them. The sun was growing warmer.

      ‘When will you tell us the story?’ they asked again.

      ‘What story?’

      One day, he knew, he would no longer be able to hide the truth from them. One day he would tell them.

      ‘The story about the little boy.’

      ‘The story about the little boy who was born in Bethlehem.’

      He knew what they were going to say.

      ‘The story about the little boy who died to save us all.’

      He thought about the boy, about what the boy had done when he had grown to manhood, what the boy had done when he had been their age. The shadows had gone from the land. He knew that they were old enough to know, that they were too old not to know.

      ‘Today,’ he said at last. ‘I will tell you the story.’

Book One

       The verse from the poem

      And you, my father, there on the sad height,

      Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

      Do not go gentle into that good night.

      Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

      from Dylan Thomas

      ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’

       The dream

      The tunnel was long, filled with smoke, the flames coming at him. He was moving down it, eyes sweeping from left to right. Not his eyes, she dreamt, it was as if he was behind his eyes, as if he could see the destruction around him through the sockets of his eyes. His breathing was deep and rasping, as if it was not his breathing. She heard the voice, guiding him, telling him where to go, what to do. Protecting him, committing him. She tried to wake from the dream, to take him from the tunnel, saw the death around him, unsure whether it was his death or the death of another. He was moving on, the smoke and flames coming at him, engulfing him, as if he was descending into Hell. She heard the voice again, saw the death again. His death or someone else’s, she was still not sure. He was moving on, deeper into the tunnel. She could no longer see him.

       The family from the far-off land

      The weather that morning was cold, even for Moscow.

      Yakov Zubko knew what it meant – that the winter would be long and hard. He rose, moving quietly and carefully so that he did not disturb his wife and children, and left the flat. The streets were still empty. By the time he reached the metro station at Sviblovo it was twenty minutes past five. He paid his fare and hurried down the stairs. There was only one other man on the platform. Yakov Zubko tried not to look at him and wondered if the man was waiting for him. Somewhere they were waiting for him; somewhere the men from Petrovka would always be waiting for him. Him and the likes of him.

      He remembered the other man, the man in the house on Dmitrov, and stepped onto the train. There were three passengers already in the compartment, Yakov Zubko heard the doors shut behind him and chose a seat close to them. Never sit in a corner, never sit where they would look for you, where the men from Petrovka would think you were hiding. He looked to see what the man on the platform was doing and counted the kopeks in his pocket.

      There were twelve stops to Marx Prospekt, he watched at each to see what the man who had been on the platform would do, and counted again the kopeks in his pocket. Each day he counted them, telling himself how the kopeks became roubles, reminding himself how precious was every single rouble. Precious enough now, while he had work, while the tourists were still in Moscow and he could trade with the man in the house on Dmitrov. Even more precious later when the winter froze the streets, when the hotel found out about him and threw him out, when he and Alexandra could barely afford the kasha and the vegetable soup which scarcely kept them and the children warm. Precious, too, as he and Alexandra sat together each evening and estimated how many roubles they would need, how many roubles they had managed to save since they had applied again to the office on Kolpachny Lane.

      He remembered how much was in the tin they kept under the bed, remembered how much to the last rouble, and thought again of the man in the house on Dmitrov. He did not give the best prices, Yakov Zubko could have got more in the streets behind Begovaya, but the man on Dmitrov was reliable, and no matter how much he and Alexandra needed the extra roubles it was a risk even he could not afford to take.

      The train arrived at Marx Prospekt. He left the station and crossed to the hotel.

      Alexandra waited till he had left the flat, then crossed the room and watched him making his way along the street. He was a good man, a good husband and father: the way he played with the children, took them to feed the swans in Gorky Park, the way he left the flat each morning without waking them, not knowing that she was awake, listening to him, telling him to be careful. Even the way he did not tell her about the man in the house on Dmitrov, or the faceless men from the building on Petrovka.

      She stood at the window till she could no longer see him, then turned back into the room, feeling the cold and knowing it would soon bring the winter, wondering what else it would visit upon them. He was a good man, she thought again, remembering what he did for them, how he sought to protect them from what he did, from the inevitable day when he would be betrayed and caught, how he tried to hide from her the secret of the house on Dmitrov. She knew the secret anyway, had heard him talk about it in his sleep, even knew the name of the man, had heard her husband work out in his sleep how much Pasha Simenov would pay him.

      She felt the cold again. Not today, Yakov Zubko, she asked him, please not today.

      The unmarked Zhiguli left the building overlooking Petrovka at six and was in position by six fifteen. Iamskoy let the engine run, keeping the car warm, and instructed the militiaman at his side to make the first entry in the day’s log. The operation was routine but important, the sort of assignment that had been gathering momentum since those with political connections at Petrovka had begun to prepare for the tide of change that would sweep from the Kremlin now the new guard had taken control there. Big enough to make the statistics look good, especially if they netted someone deemed undesirable by the state, even more so if they managed to ensnare a foreigner upon whom they, or someone else, could exert the usual pressure, but small enough not to interfere with the private lives and arrangements of the big boys, the bolshaya shiska, for whom the statistics were intended.

      The street in front of him was beginning to get busier, not busy, just busier, there was still no movement from the house under observation. He looked at his watch. There were two shifts on the operation, six to two and two to ten; he had organised it that way, using his authority to get the early shift, not so that he would be off-duty by mid-afternoon, but because that way he could exercise more control over who made the arrest. Not today, he had thought as they left militia headquarters that morning, not enough contacts noted in the log book for the arrest to be made today, probably tomorrow, certainly the day after. Routine but important, he had seen it from the moment the surveillance had been first planned. Which was why his superiors had chosen it, why it would look good in their statistics. Why he, in turn, would make sure it was a success, why he had arranged it so that it would be he who made the arrest.

      In an upstairs room he saw a curtain move and wondered who would be coming to buy, who, more importantly for the statistics, would be coming to sell. He checked again the name of the black marketeer in the house on Dmitrov.

      Pasha Simenov.

      The letter arrived at eleven.

      Each morning Alexandra waited for it to come. Each morning after she had taken their son to school and settled their daughter in the flat, she waited for the sound of the postman on the landing outside. Each morning she heard him as he put his bag down, knowing that he was only regaining his breath, that he would pick up the bag and walk on.

      She heard the noise