Constant Nobody

by Michelle Butler Hallett

  — What?

  — Target practice.

  Kostya stood up, balancing burdens of dossiers and tea. —Oh. What’s your weapon?

  Still on his knees, Matvei grinned and patted his holster. —Tokarev.

  — I use a Nagant.

  Matvei blushed. —Oh. Maybe that’s why you’re so good. I mean…

  Yury rolled his eyes. —Comrade Senior Lieutenant Nikto is busy.

  Matvei got to his feet, stood aside, and, in his haste, knocked into someone else. This time, tea spilled. The bearer of the tea, another new man, uttered fierce apology as he and Matvei navigated a dance of power, rank, and a puddle.

  Kostya wanted to shut his office door in Yury’s face, but he knew that Yury would only open it and continue, unperturbed, implacable, steady as a river, clueless. Kostya dropped the dossiers on his desk, making the blotter rock, and suppressed a sigh. —Fine. Tell me.

  — What’s to tell? He’s under arrest, he’s guilty, and he speaks a language none of us understands.

  — Well, what’s he guilty of?

  — Oh. Wreckage. At the Stalin Works.

  Migrant labourer, Kostya thought. Came to Moscow after the ’33 famine.

  Yury leaned against the doorjamb. —Nikto, you speak Kazakh.

  — Some.

  — It’s better than none, and I’m late for a meeting at Number Two.

  — Number Two what?

  Yury spat it out before wisdom could tell him that perhaps a fellow officer did not need that information. —Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two.

  Kostya kept his eyes on his dossiers and sipped some tea. I must give Scherba my condolences. —And what is your business at Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two, Yury Grigorievich?

  Wincing at his quick confession, Yury reminded himself that Kostya outranked him and so must be answered. That, in turn, made Yury’s lips purse together into a tight little frown. —Supervision.

  — I’ll go see your prisoner once I get through these dossiers, after the department meeting.

  Yury cleared his throat. —Meeting? At, ah, what time again?

  — In ten minutes.

  — Right. Yes, well, Special Purpose must wait. And, of course, Captain Kuznets did ask me to assist him with this meeting.

  — Then perhaps you should check with him, yes? Wait, wait, before you tear off in a mad hurry—

  — I am not in a hurry.

  — Where will I find your Kazakh?

  Shifting his weight from foot to foot like a prisoner denied urination privileges, Yury gave Kostya the cell number. Then he rushed toward the office of Boris Kuznets.

  Kostya smirked into his tea.

  The scents of stale tobacco, metallic sweat, vinegar, excrement, wine fumes, and resinous colognes filled Kostya’s nose as he stood still, arms crossed so he’d not jostle or nudge anyone else, getting jostled and nudged himself.

  Staff meeting.

  The stink of men, Kostya thought, always in the stink of men.

  Boris Kuznets spoke, his voice monotonous and huge, a cloudy sky on a winter day. He quoted figures, compared charts, heaped praise, demanded better. Soon, comrades, very soon, stern word would soon come from no less than the Boss himself, yes, Comrade Stalin, about increased vigilance and redoubled efforts, the ongoing need to root out and destroy the enemy, as many heads as Zmei Gorynich, cut off one and three more grow.

  Kostya shut his eyes. The story of Dobrynya Nikitich and Zmei Gorynich in the Saracen Mountains: his grandfather had told it well, as he did the story of Koshchei the Deathless, adding new details each time, so that just when Kostya thought he knew the story, it grew. Koshchei hides his death, his soul, buried beneath a green oak tree within a heavy iron chest fixed with many bolts. And within that chest lies a twitchy hare. Within the belly of the hare waits an angry duck. And within the duck waits an egg, and within this egg lies a needle. And within the eye of that needle rests the soul, the death, of Koshchei the Deathless.

  Boris droned on. —Innocent people will be hurt. This is regrettable. It is also unavoidable. When a building is on fire, and we are all desperate to escape the flames, someone gets bruised. Outside, when everyone is safe, the bruises no longer matter. Our job, comrades, is to make the Soviet Union safe. Right now, Mother Russia burns, and she screams for our help.

  Jostled hard, Kostya opened his eyes and glared at his neighbour.

  Boris picked up a final stack of paper, instructing Yury Stepanov to ensure each man in the room received his personal copy. The crowd rippled and surged as Yury navigated. The sheets lay filed alphabetically by officers’ surnames; the officers stood at random. Each man got one sheet.

  Boris announced dismissal. —Once you receive your new targets, you may leave.

  Yury gave Kostya two sheets.

  — Stepanov, wait.

  Already wiggling through the crowd, Yury spoke in a sharp tone, much too sharp for a sergeant to a senior lieutenant. —What?

  — It seems I have two sheets.

  — Yes.

  — Every other man received one. What, I’ve got twice the work now?

  Yury shook his head and looked to the ceiling. —Your name is on both sheets.

  Upper right corners: Nikto, KA. Yes, both sheets bore his name. Except the second sheet bore his name in ink, in handwriting, atop the crossed-out, typed name of another officer: Minenkov, MP.

  Misha.

  Ignoring the tremor in his hand, Kostya shoved the second sheet at Yury. —Ismailovna typed this?

  Yury shoved the paper back. —Get off me.

  Boris called out. —Nikto, stay behind a moment.

  — Yes, Comrade Captain.

  Waiting for the crush of men to pass, Kostya got himself to a wall and stood there to study his two sheets of paper. Targets. Quotas. Timetables. Incentives. Well, the mention of incentives, no concrete details. Then he reported to his captain.

  Boris sounded jolly. —Twenty years.

  What, my sentence?

  — Just think on it, Nikto. In December we’ll celebrate twenty years of the Cheka.

  Kostya nodded. —A milestone, Comrade Captain.

  — We call ourselves NKVD now, but the soul of it, the reason our blood pumps: Cheka. There’s talk of a party, you know, a big celebration. At the Bolshoi. When were you last at the Bolshoi?

  — Ah…

  — You should go. Concerts, ballets, it’s good for you.

  Kostya knew what that meant: good for him to be seen in the right places by the right people. Anyone of power, and most of those who desired such power, attended ballets, concerts, and plays at the Bolshoi. Sometimes they even enjoyed the event for its own sake.

  — Here’s what I want from you, Nikto. It’s for the internal NKVD magazine, and for the department. We need some photographs, old and new, revolution, continuity, that sort of thing. I can’t think of anything better than a portrait of you and Balakirev, new NKVD and old Cheka, flower and roots. Him seated, I think, and you standing to attention just behind his shoulder. Hope for the future.

  The future?

  — Nikto? You’ll tell Balakirev?

  — Of course.

  — Warn him to expect a summons. For the photograph.

  Place your head in the wooden bracket, comrade. Hold the slate up. A little higher. Good.

  Kostya inclined his head to his superior officer. —He’ll be flattered.

  — So he wants us to pose for a portrait.

  Voice blending into the general racket of the cafeteria, Kostya shook pepper into his bowl of shchi. Nothing fell.

  Arkady took the pepper shaker from Kostya, gave it a hard rap on the table, and turned it upside down again. Still, no pepper fell. Snorting, Arkady knocked the pepper shaker on its side.

  Vadym dipped bread into his shchi. —Balakirev, you photogenic old goat. Glory at last.

  Arkady mumbled his answer around a piece of bread. —Kuznets just wants to blind me with the flash.

  — I
f he did, the bloat in your face might go down. How long have you squinted like that?

  Arkady looked to Kostya, pleading for intervention.

  Kostya sat back in his chair and tilted his head to one side. —What-ever do you mean, Dima? Surely not that Arkady Dmitrievich looks unwell?

  Now Arkady glared at him.

  Vadym prattled on. —Arkasha, really, your eyelids should not be so puffy, nor your cheeks. Look, your hands are swollen. What about your legs?

  — I could tap them like trees and drain off sap. What of it?

  Kostya slurped soup and hoped that hid his alarm.

  Vadym scowled. —Have you consulted with a doctor any time since, oh, I don’t know, the Revolution?

  Grunting, Arkady stood up. —I need to take a leak.

  Vadym forced a chuckle as Arkady left the table. —I believe I’ve hit a nerve.

  — You’re right, Dima. He’s not well.

  — No, he can’t be, not the way he looks and behaves. Kostya, he listens to you.

  — Like hell he does.

  — Can you convince him to see a doctor?

  Not wanting to get nudged and brushed, Kostya leaned away from the men passing the table. Even here, in the cafeteria, where one might expect the noise to allow a more intimate conversation, one must acknowledge the press of other people, so many other people. —Maybe.

  — I have to ask you something else.

  Kostya waited. Guessed.

  The words fell out of Vadym’s mouth, a speedy confession. —I’m worried sick about Misha. I know he’s missing.

  Kostya knocked his glass of water against the side of his bowl. Hard.

  Vadym took the hint and lowered his voice. —Did you—

  Craning his neck, Kostya spotted Yury and Boris approaching the table. He tapped his glass against the bowl a second time.

  Vadym turned to greet them. —Hello, hello, come sit down.

  Kostya nodded and gestured to empty chairs at the neighbouring table. Oh, the old man will love this.

  Yury and Boris approached their table, Yury bearing two full trays of bread and shchi. The soup slopped over the bowls. As Yury struggled to place the trays on the neighbouring table without further spill, Boris pulled a chair over to Kostya and Vadym’s table. —Vadym Pavlovich, I owe you an apology. I missed choir practice this morning. Trouble in the cells.

  — I guessed you were busy.

  — Yes, teaching scales to a young woman. Not yet seventeen and stubborn as a woman of fifty.

  As Vadym shut his eyes and sighed, Kostya noticed Arkady striding across the cafeteria, returning to the table.

  So did Boris. —And you, Konstantin Arkadievich, did you tell himself about the portrait? Ah, as my father would say, speak of the devil.

  Nodding to Boris, Arkady tugged his chair a little closer to Kostya’s.

  Boris glanced at Yury, who still stood at the other table. —Go ahead and start, Yury. Don’t let your soup get cold. So, Arkady Dmitrievich, you’ll pose for the photos?

  — Why wouldn’t I?

  Yury winced as his soup burnt his mouth.

  Boris winked at Vadym, as if sharing a secret. Then he dug in his pouch and gave an object to Kostya wrapped in a pristine white handkerchief. —Don’t drop it.

  Kostya parted the fabric and revealed a small bottle, heavy for its size, shaped in a fat oval and balanced on a pedestal, the blue glass cut with further perpendicular ovals. A tassel dangled on the bottle’s neck. Such a strange object, strange and beautiful. It contained perfume, and it bore a name in the Latin alphabet: Shalimar.

  Arkady loomed close enough to Kostya to throw a shadow over the remains of his lunch. He seemed to bite back his words. Even so, he sounded angry, betrayed. —What is this?

  Boris laughed. —A little present for our Konstantin. Just a token of my admiration for his loyalty and hard work. Yury tells me it’s a very fine perfume. French, of course.

  Just catching sight of Matvei Katelnikov as he took a seat at Yury’s table, Kostya removed the chipped stopper, sniffed, sniffed again, and then held the stopper under Arkady’s nose.

  Arkady sniffed. —Well, it’s not Krasnaya Moskva. Similar. No, wait. Some rose, I think. Iris? That sweetness: lemon? Leather? Your nose is better than mine, Kostya. Ugh, something is ruining the flowers. It smells almost dirty.

  Yury supplied the answer with his mouth full of shredded carrot. —Civet. Little animals, like wild cats. They secrete musk from their perineums. You can kill them and harvest the glands or keep them in solitary cages, near other civets so they can smell them. Then you can just scrape the secretions. The cages are a much better idea. Keep them alive and productive, well, until they die.

  None of the other men had anything to say to that.

  Watching Yury wipe up spat carrot, Kostya replaced the perfume stopper. I know this scent. Startled by this recognition, and by the recognitions hiding within it, he almost spoke. The briefest of warnings, surely just a trick of the light, flashed in Arkady’s eyes. No. Kostya saw it. The old man knew where this perfume came from: a British woman’s handbag. He’d found it and offered it to Boris as a bribe, and now Boris had given it to Kostya to prove something to Arkady.

  Boris shook his head at Yury’s mess. Then he looked at Kostya again. —Should you wish to please a woman, now you can. Beyond the obvious, I mean.

  Yury, too, had advice. —Or save it for a gift for another man, to get his help. You may never see another bottle of French perfume again.

  Arkady stared at blue glass.

  Yury raised his glass of water as if in a toast. —Too bad Misha’s not here.

  Vadym dropped his spoon; it clattered in the soup bowl. Kostya stared hard at Yury. So did Arkady.

  Yury’s eyes widened. —I mean, we’re all together here, well, Katelnikov’s new. Katelnikov. Isn’t that a Doukhobor name? Has that not caused you any trouble?

  Matvei shook his head.

  Grinning to hide his anger, Kostya turned away from Yury to face Boris. I won’t forget that, Little Yurochka. I’ll pay you back. —Thank you, Comrade Captain. This is beautiful.

  — Just make sure any woman you give it to merits such a gift.

  As Kostya tucked the bottle into the pouch on his portupeya and then took out his matches and cigarettes, he pleaded in his thoughts with Vadym: Don’t ask if she cooked the mushrooms. Don’t mention her. Please, don’t.

  Vadym chuckled, and his eyes, while still sad from thoughts of Misha, twinkled. He took a breath to speak.

  Arkady spoke first, clapping his hand on Kostya’s good shoulder. —As if such a woman could even exist. You smoke too much, Tatar.

  Boris smiled as he stood up to join Yury and Matvei at the other table. —Nikto, Stepanov, Katelnikov: you younger men would do well to learn what your elders, Arkady Dmitrievich and Vadym Pavlovich, with their sacred vows of chastity as priests of Cheka, already understand. A man might drown in women.

  Arkady, Vadym, Yury, Matvei, and Kostya, each annoyed for his own reasons, suppressed frowns.

  Boris finished his warning. —Cunt may ruin us all.

  Yury nodded, and soup dribbled from the spoon onto his chin. —Amen.

  Blowing out a long stream of smoke, Kostya stood up, stepped over to Yury, and chucked him on the chin. Then he shook a shred of carrot from his finger. —From each according to his ability, to each according to his work. You’ll never get to drown in women with lunch on your face.

  Blushing in misery, Yury joined the laughter of the men.

  He is the true heir of the Tatars, not I.

  Kostya lifted his gaze from the prisoner, slumped in a chair before a desk, and took in the pocked and peeling walls, the damp floor, and the caged electric light. Then he looked the other two NKVD officers in the eye. —Neither of you speak Kazakh?

  — Not a word, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.

  — I thought it was gibberish, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.

  Kostya glanced again at the prisoner: brui
sed, bleeding, handcuffed. Nearly five hours had passed since Yury asked Kostya to look in on this prisoner. Cuffed all that time, if not longer. Can’t be helped. —It’s a gorgeous language, and you wouldn’t know beauty if it gave you a blow job and then chewed off your cock. Free his hands.

  — But he’s dangerous.

  Kostya glared at them. —I just gave you an order. Oh, I must show identification, yes? Stand at attention when I speak to you! Look at my collar. Look at my card. What do you see? Hey?

  The guard who wouldn’t know beauty stared straight ahead. —I see, ah, the rank of senior lieutenant.

  His fellow glanced at the identification and nodded. —Yes, I see it, too: Senior Lieutenant Nikto. That’s what it says.

  — Right. Now free his hands and get out. Tell the guard outside I will bang on the door and call out when I am ready.

  — Yes, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.

  The heavy door clunked shut; the lock clacked into place.

  As the sobbing man moved his stiff arms until his hands lay in his lap, Kostya walked behind the desk, pulled out the chair with minimal noise, and sat down. Think. Think in Kazakh. —Good day.

  Battered and swollen eyelids allowed only a slit for vision. Tears leaked.

  Kostya passed him a handkerchief. —My accent is heavy, I know, but do you understand me?

  — Yes. Your accent is fine.

  — Thank you. I’m out of practice.

  — No, no, it’s beautiful.

  — What’s your name?

  — Abdulin. Nurasyl Abdulin.

  Green eyes, like mine. —How long have you been in Moscow, Abdulin?

  — Three months. What is your name, officer?

  — How old are you?

  — Nineteen last week.

  Kostya noticed the date of birth in the dossier. —Happy belated. Why are you in Moscow?

  — I can’t hunt. I can’t ride. I can’t farm. I can no longer be a burden on my father. I came by train. Some of the way I walked.

  — And where do you work?

  — Shanghai.

  Kostya nodded, recognizing the nickname for the city-within-a-city in Proletarsky District of tents, barracks, and dugouts for factory workers. —What is your job?

  — I told the other men, I told them, I told them—

  — Hush, hush. The other men cannot speak the language. The other men are gone. I won’t hit you. You’ll tell me now, yes?