In the following evening - Elya was dressed with a woolen coat, to go out in the cold weather. He hurried to Gepau Office, with aching knees. The guardes allowed him to enter, after one of them called Antonov on the phone. The Gepau Head ordered to bring Elya to his room and leave him there.
For the meeting with the Deputy of the Comsomol’s Secretary, Antonov had called his deputy too. The man came from a side-room, and walked to the cornered desk in Antonov’s wide office. Elya was standing opposite to the two Gepaus, and discerned that both were busy in surveying brown photos of suspects’ heads - stuck to the pages of “political criminals” albums.
Then Elya looked at the big photos of the leaders, hanging on the wall. They were beside a black curtain, that had hided a broad window; to prevent any move in the room to be seen from the street.
The two interrogators closed their albums at once, and Antonov said, petending to be surprised:
“Oh, comrade Elya Ruhin. What wind has brought you to us?”
“I would like to testify...against a woman. According to my long and best knowledge, she is a Trotskist! I’ve arrived here, as she has disappeared for a day and a half. Maybe for conspiring something.”
“Her name?” asked Antonov.
“Natalya Besarobina.”
“Does she live here, in Minsk?” asked Antonov.
“Yes, of course.”
Antonov was a man in his fourties, bald headed and muscled. His shaven face was a ‘Roman like protoma’ and his narrow eyes, hinting of a Mongolian origin of one of his forefathers, expressed a cunning cruelty, mixed with a wish to fix everything in order.
At that moment he began to roll tobacco, that he had taken out of a small fiber envelope - into a piece of transparent paper, making a “makhorka” cigarette.
“Do you know of any suspected activity of that woman?” – he asked Elya.
“I know her opinions, and her call to disobey Stalin’s followers.”
“She dared to make people rebellious? where?”
“She was chatting in the Social Welfare ministry, where she has been –or still is- employed!. Since Lenin’s death - she was frustrated, she said.”
The Deputy pulled out his desk drawer, and found there a long pencil. He looked at his superior, and Antonov nodded.
“Write quickly...we are in a time deficit,” he remarked to his deputy.
The deputy wrote two words and broke the pencil’s thin coaled edge. Antonmov looked even more angry, his face became red. His deputy sharpened the pencil with an “Okava” shaving Razor, and Antonov rose from his chair, and spoke to Elya:
“Has the woman sent you - love letters, Elya? You are a nice guy.”
Elya nodded. The Deputy was writing already, satisified of his prompt solution to the pencil’s trouble.
“She has been my fiance,” said Elya.
“And you had quarrelled. Of course.”
“Yes. That was due to the political issue. We could’t disconnect it from our private-intimate relationship. . .”
“So!? And you aren’t married yet...”
“That’s right and correct, comrade Antonov,” said Elya.
Gepau Head became impatient, intolerant and quite violent. He approached Elya, his fists as prepared to an assault. He almost touched Elya’s chest, as intending to strike him.
“Aren’t you- yourself- a Trotskist? Or a cosmopolite?!”
“Comrade Antonov: I loved Natalya Besarobina in the past. But all along the years - I stood in the row with Stalin and his followers and friends. Everybody knows that, including her. You can verify that.”
The deputy showed Antonov what he had written till now. He said: “excellent”. Then Antonov indicated Elya to approach his desk, and sign the written testimony. Elya has done that without hesitation, his eyes hovering over the words quite in a haste.
Antonov walked to the internal door and tapped it.
The guard arrived, gazing hatefully at Elya. Antonov walked to and fro, and suddenly his right palm stroke his forhead.
“Oh, how could I forget, Elya? Have You seen your uncle recently?
“No, comrade Antonov. No.”
“If you see him,” said Antonov, “or hear about him- you let me know, of course!“
Antonov indicated the guard to let Elya go out. He was taken to the long corridor, and passed through the door outgoing from Gepau building to the town. He was breathing the clean air, while looking at the multitudes of the stars on the cool, bright night sky.
CHAPTER 15
The Rabbi Who Tricked Stalin Page 14