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about Papu Rapava.
    Someone tapped softly on the door and he held up a warning hand to the old man. Very quietly he reached over and turned off the bedside lamp.
    They sat together and listened to the whispers, magnified by the darkness but still muffled and indistinct. There was another knock, and then a splutter of laughter, hushed by the others. Maybe they had seen the light go out. Perhaps they thought he was with a woman - such was his reputation.
    After a few more seconds, the voices faded and the corridor was silent again. Kelso turned on the light. He smiled and patted his heart. The old man's face was a mask, but then he smiled and began to sing - he had a quavering, unexpectedly melodious voice -Kolyma, Kolyma,
    What a wonderfiul place!
    Twelve months of winter
    Summer all the rest...
     
    AFTER his release, he was this and no more: Papu Rapava, railway worker, who had done a spell in the camps, and if anyone wanted to take it further - well? yes? come on, then, comrade! - he was always ready with his fists or an iron spike. Two men watched him from the start. Antipin, who was a foreman in the Lenin No. 1 shed, and a cripple in the downstairs flat called Senka. And they were as pretty a pair of canaries as you could ever hope to meet. You could practically hear them singing to the KGB before you were out of the room. The others came and went - the men on foot, the men in parked cars, the men asking 'routine questions~ comrade' - but Antipin and Senka were the faithful watchers, though they never got a thing, neither of them. Rapava had buried his past in a hole far deeper than the one he'd dug for Beria.
    Senka died five years ago. He never knew what became of Antipin. The Lenin No. 1 shed was now the property of a private collective, importing French wine.
    Stalin's papers, boy? Who gives a shit? He wasn't afraid of anything any more.
    A lot of money, you say? Well, well -He leaned over and spat into the ashtray, then seemed to
    fall asleep. After a while, he muttered, My lad died. Did I tell you that?
    Yes.
    He died in a night ambush on the road to Mazar-i-Sharif. One of the last to be sent. Killed by stone-age devils with blackened faces and Yankee missiles. Could anyone imagine Stalin letting the country be humiliated by such savages? Think of it! He'd have crushed them into dust and scattered the powder in Siberia! After the lad was gone, Rapava took to walking. Great long hikes that could last a day and a night. He criss-crossed the city, from Perovo to the lakes, from Bittsevskiy Park to the Television Tower. And on one of these walks - it must have been six or seven years ago, around the time of the coup - he found himself walking into one of his own dreams. Couldn't figure it out at first. Then he realised he was on Vspolnyi Street. He got out of there fast. His lad was a radio man in a tank unit. Liked fiddling with radios. No fighter.
    And the house? said Kelso. Was the house still standing. He was nineteen. And the house? What had happened to the house?
    Rapava's head drooped.
    The house, comrade -There was a red sickle moon, and a single red star. And the place was guarded by devils with blackened faces -KELSO could get no more sense out of him after that. The old man's eyelids fluttered and closed. His mouth slackened. Yellow saliva leaked across his cheek.
    Kelso watched him for a minute or two, feeling the pressure build in his stomach, then rose suddenly from his chair and moved as quickly as he could to the lavatory, where he was violently and copiously sick. He rested his hot forehead against the cold enamel bowl and licked his lips. His tongue felt huge to him, and bitter, like a swollen piece of black fruit. There was something stuck in his throat. He tried to clear it by coughing but that didn't work so he tried swallowing and was promptly sick again. When he pulled his head back, the bathroom fixtures seemed to have detached themselves from their moorings and to be revolving around him in a