Stuart Kaminsky - A Cold Red Sunrise

Commissar Illya Rutkin tucked his briefcase under his arm, adjusted his goatskin gloves, pulled down his fur hat to cover his ears and tightened the scarf over his mouth before opening the door of the wooden house and stepping out into the Siberian morning.

He had been reluctant to get out of bed, reluctant to dress, reluctant to light the small stove, heat his day-old tea, eat the smoked herring left for him in the cupboard. He was a Commissar. The old woman should have prepared his breakfast, given him some attention, but he had been warned.

Tumsk was not only Siberia but a small weather outpost near the Yensei River between Igarka and Agapitovo well within the arctic circle. Tumsk had barely been touched by the move to modernization which had, since the days of Stalin, been part of the propaganda of a harsh but promising new land beyond the Urals. Siberian towns sprang up to mine copper, diamonds, gold, to develop power from wild rivers, to revive the fur trade with the Evenk natives who have paid little attention to six hundred years of history.

Tumsk had not resisted change. Tumsk had not even been threatened by it. No one had cared. A few dozen people lived in the town just beyond the banks of the river, worked in the weather station, lived out their days as political exiles, made plans or hid. Tumsk was not a town in which to invest one's reputation and future.

Rutkin put out his right foot and tested the snow. It was brittle on top and took his weight reasonably well. In a few minutes or so the plow from the naval weather station on the slope would come to begin its rounds creating temporary paths, but Illya Rutkin did not have time to wait. He took another step out into the frigid, dark morning clutching his briefcase tightly and stood panting. What was the temperature? Sixty below? Ridiculous. Probably more like forty below. He stood with his arms out at his sides like an overbundled child in his fur coat under which he wore another coat and thick underwear.

The Commissar waddled rather than walked toward the People's Hall of Justice across the town square, glanced at the statue of Ermak Timofeyevich who had, with a band of cossacks, conquered most of Siberia in the name of the Czar early in the sixteenth century. Ermak, in full armor, a cap of snow on his head, was pointing east, contemplating the Siberia which he had taken. Ermak was badly in need of repair.

Rutkin took a few more steps, stopped and looked west, toward the Ural mountains more than a thousand miles away that stood like a great wall stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic Ocean and separating Russia from the vastness of Siberia.

There was no one on the square. Something sounded to his left and Rutkin turned awkwardly to look toward the river, but the river was hidden by a low ridge covered, as was the world, with snow. He looked toward the taiga, the massive forest that came within a hundred yards of the town on three sides. Nothing. No one.

The Commissar sighed and started again toward the low stone building where he was to conclude his investigation into the death of the child. Normally, a Commissar would not have been dispatched from Moscow to Siberia for such an investigation, but there were two factors which made it a reasonable action. First, the child was the daughter of Lev Samsonov, a well-known dissident physician and scientist who had been sent by a court tribunal to Tumsk a year earlier. The hope had been that the world would forget Samsonov while he was in exile, but, apparently, the world had not forgotten him. Somehow word of his thoughts, life, efforts to return to Leningrad got to the outside world, even as far as the United States. The decision had been made only a month ago to allow Samsonov, his wife and daughter to leave the country. Arrangements were being made. The date of departure was only days away and so, now, the suspicious death of such a man's child had to be given serious attention, a Commissar at least, and, Rutkin had to admit to himself, he was probably considered one of the least busy of all available Commissars.

Rutkin had been given careful instructions. He had made "mistakes" in the past, he had been told by Party District Leader Vladimir Koveraskin, mistakes relating to certain alleged abuses of power for personal gain. Rutkin knew well what he meant, knew that the assignment to Tumsk was a warning, a taste of the Siberia in which he could easily find himself on a permanent basis. Illya Rutkin, who puffed his way through the snow, was expendable. If he failed to resolve this situation and it led to negative outside publicity, it would be Rutkin who would be blamed, demoted and punished. If he succeeded, he had a chance to survive, keep his title, his influence, his dacha near Yalta. At the age of fifty-four, he did not look forward to starting a new life above the arctic circle. His wife, Sonia, would certainly not join him. She would keep the apartment or, if necessary, go to live with their son and his wife and child in Odessa.

Rutkin had no doubt and mixed feelings about the knowledge that Sonia would not be at his side blaming, grinding her teeth in sleep, hating his failure.

Barbaric, he told himself, looking at the ring of concrete buildings alongside almost ancient wooden and brick structures. The buildings around the square and the houses on the slope circled Ermak, who looked ever eastward. These people, he thought. Some of them, the older ones like that fool of a caretaker, still said spasi bog, may God save you, rather than spasibo when they wanted to say thank you. The place, even the wooden church building where no services were held, was part of a useless past that would not simply die. The entire town had no reasonable function for existing other than the weather station. Well, there was another reasonable function: to isolate people like Samsonov. Siberia was dotted with exile towns to receive those who, for various reasons, the State did not want to put into the more formal prisons farther east. One cannot be a martyr if he or she lives to a ripe old age.

But Illya Rutkin did not want to think of such things. He was, in fact, feeling good this morning, hopeful about the future. He knew something, had through careful investigation discovered something startling about the case that would save his career. Well, if he were to be honest, the information had come to him through luck and not investigation, but he had no need to be honest about this and nothing to gain from such honesty. So he trudged on, wanting to be the first person present for the hearing, to give the impression to these exiles, hooligans, ancients that he was constantly alert, that the State was constantly alert.

He would show these people, show Samsonov and the outside world that Commissar Illya Rutkin was not a man to be fooled, trifled with. He would be swift, efficient, and then he would make a show of presenting his information and the documentation on the child's death, closing the hearing and re-packing his briefcase before he departed. He had already made the call to Igarka to pick him up that afternoon, told them that he would have the entire matter settled, but he had refused to tell Famfanoff, the local MVD officer, what he had discovered. No one was going to take credit for this but Illya Rutkin.

He looked up, took a deep breath and another step toward the People's Hall of Justice. He had no more than thirty yards or so to go but he could not hurry. The icy air would not let him hurry, the snow would not let him hurry, his heavy clothing would not let him hurry and years of neglecting his body would not let him hurry. So, he did not hurry.