The cold sun of ancient blades shines off the wall; the blades have awakened, the ring of sabers can be heard from distant fields; Kirill imagines that a century later he can hear the silence of the damask steel, feel the grim weight of dozens of blades, swords of Damocles, hanging over the heads of the old men.
It was an evil hour when Gustav came up with the idea to collect swords, to create a metal sun on his study wall, an otherworldly sun, shedding spectral light on the night that befell the family in August 1914.
Gustav, thought Kirill, was collecting an herbarium of coats of arms—having none of his own—the stingy slow- and long-lived souls of weapons: as vestiges of ancient catastrophes, witness of familial collapses; as proof that the true strength of an ancestral line lies not in a martial spirit, not in bravery but in the intelligence and knowhow of the bourgeois entrepreneur who values contemporary life.
And now, thought Kirill, the blades were mocking Gustav because his weapons—bank accounts, shares, capital—could not protect him, and he had no others.
Rumors, whose reliability Kirill could not establish, said that Gustav had bought a special sword from Schliemann himself after his excavations in Troy; perhaps there were secret connections between the two Germans who had come to Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century and made their fortunes, but Kirill could not part that curtain.
The image of the Trojan sword did not leave Kirill.
He often thought of the First World War as the Trojan War of the new times. In the Iliad, everyone was called upon to fight; the war divided the universe into two battling sides, from the heights of Olympus to the depths of Poseidon’s ocean and the gloomy underground of Hades. No one remained neutral, neither men nor gods. War engulfed the entire world, and then spat it out changed, so changed that it took Ulysses twenty years to find his way home: the former topography, the old roads were lost.
In Homer’s world, only men bearing arms had the power to act, to change fate. The Trojan sword reminded Gustav that today only warriors and not merchants could save the world; no one else could avert the threat.
The threat was great. Leafing through the government anti-German documents, Kirill saw the birth of totalitarianism in Russia—before the Bolsheviks came to power. He saw how a repressive state arose, how the public was willing to praise terror, keep looking for “aliens,” turncoats, agents of evil who were the cause of the all the country’s ills: there wasn’t enough bread and the kerosene lamps blew up.
If not for the history of spymania in the last years of the empire, it was not clear why people in the Stalin era slid so easily into the madness of mutual denunciations, approving mass arrests and demanding bigger and more frequent executions of “enemies of the people.”
But the citizens had already been exposed to state propaganda that blamed defeat in the war and lack of weapons on German agents who had penetrated headquarters, given away secrets to the enemy, and sabotaged production. The power of that exposure was so great that ten years later, when the first show trial began, the “Shakhty case,” prosecution of “saboteurs” in the coal industry, people readily “remembered” the picture of a world filled with traitors, and they believed it again.
Andreas and Gustav finally found a warrior, a man of war, who could protect the family. Kirill loved this plotline more than all the others in his future book. His great-grandfather Arseny didn’t know it, Grandmother Karolina didn’t, his father didn’t. Gustav and Andreas kept it from the younger generation—but Kirill figured it out, calculated from the details, from the brief journal notations.
The end of January 1915. Once again the house, the night, and the black wind brings the smell of burning and gunpowder; the house does not smell of oven smoke but the stench of the trenches. Gustav and Andreas are reading the draft documents they bought at great expense that the emperor would be signing in the next few days, and each paragraph squeezes and compresses Gustav and Andreas, reducing them to the size of the bronze soldiers on the desk guarding the inkwell.
But Kirill is reading the documents published in a book and feels what the two old men had felt at home: the horror of doom.
The first document: “On landowner and land use in the Russian State by Austrian, Hungarian, German, and Turkish citizens.” They had escaped that bullet; Gustav was a Russian citizen by then.
The two read as if watching beaters rounding up the prey in a hunt on a distant hill.
“Acquiring property by any means is forbidden ... This rule does not extend to renting apartments. ... The ban extends to societies if enemy citizens are shareholders ... In joint-stock companies that have the right to acquire real estate, people with German citizenship are not allowed to be chairmen or members of the board ... assignees ... agents ... technicians ... clerks ... or any workers. Real estate in the provinces can be confiscated ... Special lists of names ... Complaints within a month.”
Even the orders of 1937 introducing execution quotas in the regions—how many people must be killed in a certain period—did not shock Kirill as much as this paper. He saw the succession of evil, for which tsarism or communism were mere stand-ins.
Of course, Kirill did not consider this a specifically Russian phenomenon. He recalled the memoirs of the chief of German intelligence Walter Nicolai, who described the fear of espionage in the early months of the war: rumors about cars filled with gold to bribe German generals, of telephone cables leading to France for espionage purposes. The Russians persecuted Germans for half a century. Germans under the Nazis destroyed Jews. Americans put Japanese in concentration camps during World War II—everyone had his Other. Kirill was interested in how the same archetypical evil reacts to the local soil, what monstrous variations develop through the peculiarities of national fears, what forces bring defeat or victory, national catastrophes or triumphs.
Kirill observed through the fates of Gustav and Andreas how the fear of Germany grew, embodied by events, both real ones—defeat in war—and those invented by propaganda—German colonists burning wheat and knocking down telegraph poles—a fear that would remain deep in the subconscious of the residents of the USSR. Kirill thought that the victory in 1945 gave rise to such profound feelings because they had conquered fear, which was much older than the war itself, but they had conquered only one concrete fear, which did not make them fearless and left them Stalin’s slaves.
A second document: the decision of the Council of Ministers to limit land ownership and use by Russian Germans. His Imperial Majesty personally wrote: BE IT THUS.
Be it thus ...
Two at the desk, Gustav and Andreas. The inky night spills over the floor, rapidly rising, like floodwaters, the two are drowning in it, while on the surface the tubby inkwell bobs like an ancient ship. Somewhere outside, far away, at a printing press the typesetter is composing lead letters into a text that will be spat out by the printers: “It is no longer permitted to conclude any act of acquisition of the right to property, the right to own and use real estate ... The ban extends to individuals of Austrian, Hungarian, and German descent ... Paragraph d) who became Russian citizens after 1 January 1880, as well as societies whose membership includes any of the above-listed individuals.”
The bullet hit its mark. Andreas had become a Russian citizen in 1882, Gustav, his father-in-law had insisted on it, but it was too late, too late! He should have done it two years earlier! Gustav had only recently become a citizen.
It was a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse, of Battleship: A-2, miss; G-6, wounded; D-7, killed. The printing presses rolled again, spitting out new pages; in the Baltic Sea, Russian destroyers see the smoke of German squadrons on the horizon.
“In the western and southern border regions . seize all real estate by voluntary agreements . Including the entire territory of the Crimean Peninsula ... Along the entire state border.”
Gustav had moved his manufacturing closer to Europe so that he could sell to two markets more conveniently—and now his lands were subject to being taken withi
n a year.
And suddenly, lines that saved some people.
“3. These rules do not apply 1) to people who can certify one of the conditions below: 1) being Russian Orthodox from birth or being converted before 1 January 1914.”
Oh those parentheses, the usual punctuation points regulating the flow of speech—suddenly becoming guards, supervisors, deciding who will die, who will live. Oh grammar itself, with its rules, its rational construction seeming to reflect impartially the construction of life—suddenly becoming the conductor of evil will, will that uses what is already there in language: negation, the imperative mood, the bureaucratic sticky routine, neutral verbs like “extend” and “certify” now no longer neutral but threatening and demanding.
Kirill had a feel for language, he liked written speech, he liked the strictness of legal definitions. But here, for the first time, he sensed how language separates itself from a person, becoming the voice of an institution, the letters donning police uniforms, growing in false significance, becoming dangerously bigger than people.
Conversion to Orthodoxy was the loophole for the weak. Far-sighted Gustav had insisted on it back in 1882, but Andreas refused—another saving thread snapped off. What did they say to each other, the two old men in a shaky house that had seemed so solid? Did they have regrets?
The machines keep printing:
“c) One’s participation or the participation of a descendant or ancestor on the male line in military action of the Russian army or Russian navy against an enemy in the rank of officer or as a volunteer, or belonging (self or one of the listed persons) to the number of people who were awarded for military excellence during action of the army or navy, or the death of a descendant or ancestor in the field of battle.”
A warrior. That’s why Gustav and Andreas needed a warrior. One who paid with wounds or death for the right to be considered a loyal citizen, one who alone saves dozens of people: cousins, sisters, aunts, grandparents.
This was something like the recent wedding of the Swedish princess, thought Kirill. The commoner fiancé was brought into the narthex of the cathedral, the doors were closed, and a miracle occurred, for when he came out to join his bride, his blood was deemed royal. Just like a German who fought under the Russian banner and shed blood for Russia magically became a Russian.
Probably they first thought of Arseny. He had not received any awards, but he was an officer in the Battle of Tsushima, then served in the active navy, was in combat. Without telling him, not wanting Arseny to feel that he was expiating imaginary sins, they sent documents to the government regarding paragraph 1.c.3 of the decision of the Council of Ministers requesting the immediate exemption from the confiscation lists. It is likely Gustav asked his patron Sukhomlinov to intercede and assumed things would be settled quickly.
The reply did come quickly. However, it was not what Gustav and Andreas were expecting. It was an expansive document of a dozen pages that said few things if one wrung out the legalese.
The person of Arseny Schwerdt, medical officer, raised questions among the high commission. Arseny was perfectly fine for heading an ordinary frontline hospital and his superiors were satisfied with his service. However, as a living indulgence, a forgiveness of the sins of origin for Gustav and Andreas, Arseny was examined with special attention in other spheres as well. And in those spheres, there was the opinion that Arseny Schwerdt could not be counted as an example of atonement because “in not fully clear circumstances” he spent the night in Japanese prison and subsequently had a reprimand from the regimental commander, “which served as the reason for removing him from the list for a military award.”
Another heavy stone on the scales was the fact that the colonel who had suspected Arseny of treason nine years earlier had grown significantly in rank and was now a general of the Imperial Retinue. Even worse, he was in the enemy camp against Sukhomlinov, the connection between Gustav and the minister of war was no secret from him, and when asked once again about the circumstances of the affair long ago, the newly appointed general vengefully repeated his suspicions, adding new ones: Arseny Schwerdt was definitely a traitor and escaped punishment only thanks to the minister’s patronage.
Of course, there was a second opinion: Arseny Schwerdt was an educated officer, the charges were nonsense and intrigues, and therefore the request should be granted immediately. But that was the second opinion and bureaucratically less weighty, so the petitioners were informed that their case would be examined by an ad hoc commission when the Council of Ministers promulgated the legal interpretations for the liquidation legislation.
The reply did not offer much hope. Actively pursuing their position and demanding justice meant drawing more attention to Arseny, and that attention could destroy him, ruin his career, poison his life. Gustav and Andreas knew that they wanted to take away their company, and if Arseny became an obstacle, they would simply trample him in the mud.
The night outside the walls was as black as the ocean abyss. The mansion with palms growing in the rooftop hothouse was like a tropical island sticking out of the water. Candle flames flickered on the lower floors like glowing bottom fish darting in the deep. A tugboat tooted out on the Moskva River and it seemed like an ocean liner releasing steam from overheated boilers, the ship lost under foreign skies where savages as alien as people living on stars celebrate their rituals.
Who suggested this, Andreas or Gustav? Gustav, thought Kirill. Andreas would not have wanted to upset the memory of the long-ago Andreas. But Gustav won, and the Marinated Midshipman was taken out of the barrel of oblivion, dressed in his torn uniform, a naval officer’s sword placed in his hand, and the headless cadaver was sent out to war.
A new letter went to the commission: an ancestor, Midshipman Andreas Schwerdt, died during military action between the Russian Navy and indigenous foes, he died on the battlefield, weapon in hand, and the savages violated his body. Therefore, in accordance with paragraph 1.c.3, the Schwerdt family has the right to retain their property.
Clever Gustav! He must have known that the commission would be in a bind when it came to a cannibalized midshipman, a ghost from many years ago; they would have to get the archives, gather a council on whether a random fight with savages was to be considered “military action,” whether aborigines with stone axes, spears, and a dozen stolen rifles could be considered “foes,” and the sand on the beach where the sloop from Grozyashchy landed on a battlefield. But that was what he wanted: to drag things out, complicate them, and in the meantime Minister Sukhomlinov would step in (Gustav was preparing an additional gift for him), and the family would be saved.
Even the high-ranking general who persecuted Arseny could not accuse the Marinated Midshipman of anything; the grim and terrible ghost of the eaten seaman could affect the most hardened conscience; how can you eat, how can you drink postprandial Madeira picturing death on a spit? Like a shadow rising from the grave for the sake of posthumous justice, the headless midshipman wandered the ministry offices and no one dared to refuse the mournful petitioner, permeated with the quartermaster’s strong brine; the case seemed to be going in the Schwerdts’ favor.
Gustav, Gustav! He did not know that the foe had been released, hunting his ghost.
In December 1914 the Russian counterintelligence arrested Lieutenant Kolakovsky. Kolakovsky had been imprisoned by the Germans, and now was back on Russian territory. He was suspected of treason. To save himself, Kolakovsky, a liar and a Cagliostro, invented an alibi: as a prisoner he agreed to become a German spy, but only in order to learn German secrets and pass them along to Russia. The Germans, Kolakovsky maintained, believed him and revealed their espionage organization to him.
On Kolokovsky’s denunciation, Colonel Myasoedov, Sukhomlinov’s protégé and confidant, was arrested. The net would be cast widely: Myasoedov’s family, his mistress, and his business partners would be arrested; the counterintelligence agents would come for the owner of the station café where Myasoedov ate, for the wine merchant
who supplied his liquor, for the music teacher who lived in the same rental apartment as his mistress, for the owner of the typewriter on which he once typed something, for lawyers, well-diggers, hunting friends—for everyone who had a connection to Myasoedov.
Minister Sukhomlinov, under attack, would have no time for Gustav. Sukhomlinov would see that he was the real target, that they were trying to topple him using Myasoedov, and he would cut off all his former contacts.
Gustav, who had dealt with Myasoedov when he had been Sukhomlinov’s confidential agent in Kharkov, hoped that no one would ever recall that connection. The only one who could protect the family from collapse would be the Marinated Midshipman, the ghost wandering the ministry corridors.
***
Kirill understood that the Schwerdt family stood at the edge of a precipice as a result of the Myasoedov case. They were saved by the fact that the higher authorities demanded a swift sentencing, and counterintelligence did not have time to arrest everyone the colonel had known.
Kirill was amazed by the fascinating horror of Myasoedov’s fate, the plot of his life and death; the colonel seemed to have been shown to Gustav, Andreas, and Arseny so they would understand something important about their future.
Myasoedov. Gendarme, served with the border guards along the border with East Prussia. Knew German well. Was personally presented to Emperor Wilhelm, hunted at his estate.
Myasoedov. Bon viveur, Don Juan, a man of dubious morals.
Myasoedov, who tried to organize a shipping line to bring immigrants to America by using his service connections. Corrupt.
Myasoedov, whose rivals—probably owners of another shipping company—used “their” police to falsely accuse him of aiding smugglers and revolutionaries.
The Goose Fritz Page 18