Alexis Moiseyev leaned on the starboard rail with a cigarette in his right hand. Olivia was not totally surprised that he was the one waiting for her. He was on her list of candidates that she had developed as she lay in the early morning darkness. His thin body carried a nervous energy that radiated even as he stood still. It was this nervous energy that had made Olivia put him on her list. He always seemed to have a separate agenda in the team meetings. It was subtle. His questions and his thoughts were just slightly off, but it was enough that Olivia had suspected that he was working on something he wasn’t completely sharing. His gaze was focused on the rolling forested hills on the Russian side of the Amur.
Alexis looked over at her as she stood next him. “Those hills look virginal, but they can tell many tales.”
Olivia pulled her hair back so that the breeze wouldn’t push it into her face as she turned to him, “I’m listening.”
“How much do you know about the gulag?”
“I’ve read Solzhenitsyn.”
“It is difficult to understand until you open the closets and start to count the members of your family or your friends families who disappeared into those hills,” he said gesturing with his cigarette.
“I have nothing to compare it to in my life.”
“Only the Jews have any understanding in America. But for us it is different, because it was part of family. We did it to ourselves.”
“I’ve never understood why Stalin was allowed to get away with it.”
“He saved us from the Nazis, but in the end they may have been the better bargain.”
“The notes in the materials you gave me have something to do with Arkhara?”
“I believe they have everything to do with the evil we are investigating.”
“Why haven’t you brought this up in our group meetings?”
“The others will think that I am crazy.”
“Why am I different?”
“You seek truth, not victory.”
“And what truth was in the papers you slid under my door at three in the morning.”
“There was a lab involved in nuclear research at the gulag camp at Arkahara.”
Olivia turned her head and locked eyes with Alexis. “And how do you know this?”
“I believe my father worked in that lab.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Your dialogue is always terrific, and this is no exception. Nice & spare. I also really love the description of Alexis at the top. Fabulous!
ReplyDelete