Constant Nobody

by Michelle Butler Hallett

  A Chekist. He had a beard like Lenin’s, and I was stupid and sleepy now with the cold, so I thought he was Lenin, bigger than I’d imagined from the photographs, and he’d come to tuck me into bed. The beads clicked, and the Chekist reached out his hand. ‘Get up,’ he said. I didn’t take his hand. I told him to leave me alone and let me sleep. He hauled me up to my feet. ‘You will get up,’ he said, and that’s when I called him a son of a syphilitic bitch in four languages. He stared at me a moment, and then he laughed. He took a flask from his coat and held it out. It was vodka. I choked on it. He took it away, and he said, ‘I am Balakirev of the Cheka, and you will come with me.’ I thought he would put me in jail, but he saved me. By his own free will, he saved me.

  Temerity studied Kostya through whorls of cigarette smoke. —It reminds me of another story.

  Kostya smirked. —When Baba Yaga smells the Russian hero. She complains of it, and then she asks, ‘Are you here of your own free will, or twice as much by compulsion?’

  — Is it true?

  — Baba Yaga?

  — You.

  He reached over and stroked her hand the same way she had stroked his. —I’m here, aren’t I? And I saved you. How the hell did you even get to that party?

  — I don’t know.

  — Please don’t cry.

  She sniffed back tears. —I’m not crying. There were two of them. Armed. Not in uniform.

  — Did they show identification?

  Temerity shook her head. —I flipped one of them before I saw the Nagant. Jiu-jutsu.

  Kostya stared at her a moment, then laughed. —And you wonder why I love you.

  — You hardly know me.

  — Sometimes, Nadia, it might be a person, or an idea, or, I don’t know, a scrap of cloth, but what the cloth means, or even the existence of the scrap and how it came about: it’s precious. To be cherished. Worth saving. Look, I’ve participated in those parties. I’ve chosen a woman and taken her. I’m not proud of that. But you, first in Spain, then in Lubyanka, finally at that party, three times, Nadia, three impossible times. Not only are you something to cherish, but you are meant to be cherished. You are meant to be here, and I am meant to save you, just as Arkady Dmitrievich was meant to be in Odessa and save me.

  She shut her eyes. —Twice as much by compulsion.

  — Do you believe me yet?

  When she opened her eyes, tears fell, and she laughed, a hard and hollow laugh. —Believe you about what?

  — That I won’t hurt you. Think, woman. You kneed me in the balls, and I didn’t strike you back, and believe me, I wanted to. Everything I’ve told you is a weapon you can hurl back at me. You tell another officer even half of it, and I’ll be arrested in less time that it takes to say my name. In Lubyanka, we’ve got these special cells. The floors are sloped towards a grated drain. The walls above the drains are battered and pocked. We’ve got a spigot and a hose in the corridor outside. If I fuck up, that’s where I die. And yet here I am, Senior Lieutenant Nikto of the NKVD, who wants to save a British spy.

  — I’m not—

  — You are, and if my colleagues knock on the door—

  — Then I’m dead.

  — Interrogated, brutalized, raped, and then yes, dead. And I’ll go with you.

  She sneered. —How gallant.

  — No. At gunpoint.

  She said nothing.

  Kostya stayed close, kept his voice low. —The good doctor will be home soon enough. You need to convince him that you want to be here, that you’re fond of me. At least a little. I can sleep on the bedroom floor, but we must both sleep in the bedroom.

  Temerity shut her eyes. Your duty at all times…

  Eyes still closed, she extended her hand for him to shake. —Fine.

  Instead, once more, he kissed it.

  Vadym and Arkady strolled Red Square. Both in uniform, both on duty, they’d claimed old Chekists’ privilege and announced to their respective department secretaries a need for fresh air. Vadym had appeared at Arkady’s office door, and Arkady, already too distracted to focus on a report from Boris Kuznets on Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two, had smiled in relief.

  Vadym struggled to remember the last time he saw Arkady smile.

  Outside, as they kept their voices low and their faces calm, Arkady with less success, Vadym addressed his old friend with his usual term of endearment. —You grumpy old goat. You snubbed me. The invitation to my flat for supper.

  — What invitation?

  — Ah. Kostya forgot to tell you.

  Arkady clicked his tongue and looked to the sky. —That boy will be the death of me.

  Vadym chuckled. —Such a boy, such a remarkable boy, thirty-two years old.

  — Fine, fine, he’s a grown man. It hardly means I’ll ever stop worrying about him. Do you know where he was last night?

  — His bed, I hope.

  — Poligon duty.

  — Kostya?

  Arkady nodded.

  Vadym recalled his own days in the civil war as a Red Army executioner. He’d shot deserters. He’d hunted them, too, and often, as the deserters passed their final night, he sat up with them. Vadym considered it a duty, a deathbed vigil. Sometimes deserters confessed to guilt and shame. Sometimes they remained sullen, or defiant. Sometimes they shook. Boys, many of them, fifteen, sixteen. So many boys. At dawn, he shot them, in the head. —Wet work. Still, it must be done.

  — Must be done, Dima, but by a man like him? It’s artless slaughter. Any knuckle-dragging ape can shoot someone in the head.

  Vadym changed his stride to imitate a gorilla’s.

  Arkady almost laughed. —I didn’t mean you, Dima. I’m sorry. I’m not…we all shoot…I can’t think straight. Some days, I hate humanity.

  — Only some days?

  — When we see something strong and beautiful, we want either to possess it or destroy it. Kuznets rides my back, thinks he’s sniffed out treachery. Then he spots Kostya, who’s one of our best officers, and he recognizes that, so boom, he must either possess Kostya or destroy him.

  — Arkasha…

  Arkady shut his eyes. The diminutive’s sting of affection: only Vadym called him Arkasha, and then in moments so scarce they hurt. —And one reason Kuznets would possess or destroy Kostya is just to make a little sideshow as he pursues me, because I once said good things about…a man who’s no longer working. Of course, I said good things about him. He was the fucking chief.

  They walked in silence for several minutes.

  Vadym took a key from his pocket and passed it to Arkady. —Kostya was asleep when I dropped by with mushrooms.

  — Good. He needs the rest. And thank you for checking on him. He’s been avoiding me. Mushrooms?

  — At the fruit market where I found the lemons. Did I tell you about the lemons?

  — Lemons are only good for keeping cats out of the flowerbed.

  — The rest of us like them. Remember the first time we took the boys mushroom hunting, and I cooked mushroom soup in the woods? Misha turned up his nose, and Kostya stole Misha’s bowl and licked it clean.

  Pocketing the key, Arkady chuckled. —Yes, I remember that. Was he civil when you woke him?

  Delighted to see his friend laugh, Vadym also laughed. —I let him sleep. I left the mushrooms with his girlfriend.

  — What?

  Vadym gazed up at St Basil’s, at the beautiful domes he’d viewed, what, thousands of times? He sighed. —Ah. He’s not told you. Now I have embarrassed you both, yes?

  — A girlfriend? Living in the flat?

  — Calm down. He should have married long ago.

  Arkady softened his voice. —I’m worried about the propiska regulations, that’s all. How did he get her registered to live there so fast?

  — Well, I’m not about to start an official inquiry.

  — What does she look like?

  Vadym thought about it. —Petite, dark curly hair, not his type at all.

  — And her nam
e?

  — Solovyova, Nadezhda Ivanovna Solovyova. From Leningrad, maybe? Her speech is a touch old-fashioned, now that I think on it, a smack of the aristocrat. She’s lovely. I’m quite charmed.

  — I can tell.

  — She’ll be good for him, if he holds onto her. Not got much of a record with women, our Kostya. That last girlfriend: Sofia, yes? She didn’t last long.

  — A complete whore. I could see that the moment I met her.

  This time, Vadym looked to the sky. Sofia, like Yulia, Tatiana, Sonja, and the others, would not, or could not, withstand the words and scrutiny of Arkady Balakirev. —When will you learn to trust Kostya? He won’t get entangled with a whore, complete or otherwise. He’s not that stupid.

  Breathing hard, Arkady slowed his stride. —Fine words from a man who never got married.

  — I can’t burden a wife with the work I’ve done and must yet do.

  — Neither can I. So I serve my needs as they arise.

  Vadym gave him a long look, long enough to lose sight of the street and stumble.

  Arkady grabbed his arm, kept him from falling. —We should get back.

  — Promise me you’ll consider Kostya’s feelings and be gentle with this one? Civil, at least?

  — I am always civil.

  — No, you’re an iron-bound old Chekist who treats every encounter as an interrogation.

  Arkady looked at Vadym in some confusion and hurt. —I do no such thing.

  — You just did it to me.

  Arkady ignored that. —If she’s worthy of him, if she truly loves him, then she’ll not be frightened off by me.

  Neither man spoke again until they’d reached the Lubyanka doors.

  Vadym looked Arkady up and down. —Are you sure you’re all right?

  Face sweaty and pale, Arkady nodded. —Never better.

  — I’ll reschedule supper, yes?

  — That would be best.

  Emerging from the shadows by the door, Efim almost dropped his large burden and so embraced it the harder. An electrical cord trailed behind him, plug knocking the floor, as he strode toward the flat’s kitchen.

  Kostya looked up from the cutlery drawer; he seemed to be counting.

  Efim made it sound like a joke. —Are we missing a knife?

  — No. What the hell have you got there?

  — A samovar.

  Kostya took it from Efim’s arms and laid it on a kitchen counter. —I’d guessed that much. Where did you get it?

  — The lab. I found it alone in a hallway just outside my office, toppled over on the floor next to the chair where the radio sits. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in operation. We’ve got a new one at the lab, massive thing, an absolute beast.

  — So you stole this one.

  — After working many hours of overtime, I contributed to a more just society and picked up rubbish from the floor. Or, if you prefer, I liberated it from the tyranny of sanitation engineers.

  Kostya stared at him for a moment. Efim stared back. Then they both snorted and laughed.

  The samovar squeaked as it tilted to one side.

  Efim frowned. —Just needs a little support at the base. Some folded newsprint might do it. Ah, Nadezhda Ivanovna. You wanted tea earlier.

  Kostya looked at Temerity. —You never told me that.

  Efim kept his face neutral. Not very observant for a secret policeman, are you? —Now you may have such tea as you please.

  Wondering why Efim seemed to be needling Kostya, Temerity smiled. This womb-shaped machine, while smaller than the one at the communal kitchen in Hotel Lux, still baffled her. Surely, she could conquer it. —It’s beautiful.

  Kostya ran his fingers over the samovar’s dim brass. —It needs a good polish.

  Efim looked around for the best outlet. —Nikto, have we got any tea?

  Kostya already strode for the telephone. —No, but I know where to find some.

  Temerity studied the samovar. —Will it work?

  — Only one way to find out.

  Connected to Arkady’s house, Kostya listened to the telephone ring and ring and ring. He ended the call and returned to the kitchen, where Efim and Temerity tested the samovar’s balance on a narrow strip of counter near an outlet. —I’ll be about an hour.

  Temerity peered at him.

  — You want tea, don’t you?

  Arkady stared at the stains in his toilet bowl. He recalled the day his father announced this renovation to the house, this indoor plumbing, flush toilet and shower bath. Arkady had been eleven, 1903, the same day he brought home failing grades in history, composition, French, religion, and music. Dmitri had wept after dark, when he thought Arkady had fallen asleep, wept and demanded of his wife why their one surviving child must be such an ignorant brute. Ekaterina defended her son: a big boy for his age who frightened the other children, no fault of his own. Perhaps he’d be an athlete one day, or a soldier. He’d find his place. Dmitri had disagreed: I fear a place will yawn open for him, and he’ll fall into it.

  The telephone rang: five, six, seven times.

  Not now, Vadym.

  The ringing stopped.

  Arkady glanced at his shaving mirror. In his face, he took after his mother, except for the bloat. Is it getting worse? No, I just had too much salty food today, the damned shchi and sausages at the cafeteria. Age. The face coarsens with age. I look nothing like my father.

  Dr. Dmitri Dmitrievich Balakirev had first blamed the Great War, then the Revolution, the Civil War, and finally the flu pandemic and all the resultant overwork for his depleted condition. One evening, while standing in this bathroom, looking at this toilet, he diagnosed himself. Oh, to be certain, Ekaterina later told Arkady, Dmitri consulted with a colleague; the other doctor only confirmed the guess. Yes, yes, very sad, and Dmitri’s father before him. Dmitri Balakirev continued to work until the morning he stared at his stethoscope and did not recognize it. Then he took to his bed and died in great pain. Ekaterina died not long afterwards, and Arkady hid the strange bottles she’d discarded, perhaps dropped. His mother, Arkady told everyone, died of grief. The poison, he told himself, was just a tool.

  She did not love me enough to stay. And I was helpless to stop this. Never again.

  Downstairs, the cat flap opened and shut: one of three tomcats on his rounds. Sometimes the cats shat in his flowerbeds, and sometimes they perched on his higher windowsills, immovable sentries. When inside the house they scratched the furniture and woodwork but never soiled the floors. Arkady fed these huge cats herring and fowl and any other delicacies he might find, and they repaid him in dead mice and adoration, when they felt like it. They often got busy at dusk.

  Arkady sighed. Dusk. His favourite time of day, once. When young Kostya asked him why, Arkady had said, Change. Transition. So much happens.

  Tired, Arkady got into bed. Disgraceful, really, to laze like this so early in the evening.

  His eyelids felt so heavy.

  Disgraceful.

  The metro train escaped the light of Vasilisa Prekrasnaya and rumbled northeast. Two stops, then a walk to Arkady’s house to borrow some tea, which he’d replace when he next got to the shops. The old man wouldn’t even notice. The lights flickered in the metro car, then steadied, and Kostya thought of wires, new wires drawing lines in the sky and cutting the wind till it whined. Then he thought of the boys at Home of the Child of the Struggle Moscow Number Two Supplemental Number Three, the nearest orphanage. Once upon a time, he’d visit every week. He called it community work; Arkady called it redemption.

  Redemption from what, Arkady Dmitrievich?

  Protection, then. You would protect those boys because no one could protect you.

  Kostya would listen to the boys’ complaints about food, teachers, lessons, silly rules, and then he’d tell them stories, often finishing with his own story as a child on the streets. The wires cut the wind, that’s how he’d start, the wires cut the wind, and it whined and howled one winter day in Odessa. He’d
told the Spanish boys on the voyage to Leningrad about the wind and the wires, about the family that stole his grandfather’s house, how he had to move on. The boys had stared at him in stunned disbelief and then recognition, recognition of suffering, cruelty, and sorrows. Don’t let anyone call you a bezprizornik, he told them, just as he’d told the Moscow boys. A human being is not now, not ever, a stray dog.

  He sighed, and his eyes felt gritty. When did I stop visiting the orphans? When did I stop telling stories? And why the hell did I tell Nadia about Odessa?

  The wires cut the wind, and it whined and howled one winter day in Odessa. That day the herring merchant boxed my ears, and Timofei had me beaten.

  As the memory filled him with nausea and rage, the metro car filled with people, and Kostya shifted on the bench to make room.

  All this time, and some herring merchant still hurts me? He’s dead. Fucking dead. Since 1918. After Arkady Dmitrievich found me.

  Once Arkady had pried him loose from the ground, Kostya slept at the Cheka depot set up in an abandoned store, where he and his grandfather once purchased sweets and loukoum. The dusty shelves lay in collapse and disarray, looted weeks before. During the day, Kostya continued to live on the street, scouting alleys and buildings, reporting back to Arkady and the other officers. The best method for such reconnaissance, however, was the queue. Kostya, like other street children, hired himself out to stand in line, to keep a place for someone else. Hours of waiting meant hours of eavesdropping. One evening, as Kostya complained of seized muscles and swollen feet, Arkady showed him how to massage his calves and reminded him how suffering yielded wealth. Kostya agreed, adding that other street children endured sexual abuse when hungry enough; his bed and supper at the Cheka depot prevented that. Arkady pounded a fist on the table, disgusted by the depravities of other men. One left the children alone. Then he commanded Kostya never to call himself or allow anyone else to call him a bezprizornik. Do not accept such abuse, not now, not ever. You are far more than a stray dog. Is that clear?