Constant Nobody

by Michelle Butler Hallett

  Leaning on Matvei, Kostya managed to stand, and the pair of them staggered and dipped to the back door of Arkady’s house.

  Arkady had been watching through the study window. He met Matvei and Kostya at the door, opening it before Matvei could knock. —Good work, Katelnikov. Help him inside, first room on the left.

  Kostya winced. —Don’t shout.

  — I’ve not raised my voice. Over there, Katelnikov, just get him as far as the bed. Good. You may go. The front door, please, over there.

  Obedient, curious, Matvei gawked as he moved through the parlour, and he found himself outside again before he could ask Comrade Major Balakirev if he might assist in any other way.

  Then he let out a long breath, relieved he’d not been compelled to arrest Senior Lieutenant Nikto in a flowerbed. Such an interaction and its results would be, well…

  He got into the NKVD car, started the engine.

  Difficult.

  Just over an hour later, Arkady opened his front door, this time to Efim Scherba and the NKVD driver who’d delivered him. —Took you long enough. Dismissed.

  The driver saluted and left.

  Efim followed Arkady inside. —I’d like to know why you sent NKVD to knock on my door. He frightened the hell out of me.

  — Why? Have you got something to hide?

  — It’s late, Comrade Major.

  — Kostya needs you. In the study. Follow me. We found him drunk and passed out in my garden. I got him stripped down to his pants, but the stench on him.

  Kostya lay on the bed, insensible, halfway turned onto this right side, his right arm bent across his chest. His breathing lapsed into snorts and snores.

  Efim gave Arkady a smug half-smile, feeling, for the first time, the man’s equal. Here, Scherba the doctor could do things that Balakirev the Chekist could not: ease someone’s misery and call it his job. —The wine fumes are enough to knock me over. Any idea how much?

  — We found only one bottle on him, but I’m sure he drank more.

  — Has he said anything about his shoulder?

  — Nothing I could understand.

  Efim took up a thin rug from the desk and chair, intending to drape it over his patient. —Not much to be done for him until he wakes up.

  — Not the Persian! If he pukes on that, it’s ruined. Don’t look at me like that. It was expensive. I’ll get you something else.

  As Arkady strode upstairs, his tread and breathing heavy, Efim glanced around the parlour and the study. All this space, this entire house, for one man? A cat flap squeaked, and soon a large tom sauntered over to Efim. The animal eyed the strange human in apparent disdain. Efim called to him, rubbing his fingertips against his thumb, and the cat, eyes wide, trotted over and accepted a fondle around his ears. Then he wound his body around Efim’s ankles.

  Returning with a worn grey blanket, Arkady noticed the cat. —He normally avoids people.

  As Efim took the blanket for the patient, the cat leaned hard against his lower legs and purred. —Cats like me. What’s his name?

  — Tchaikovsky. The other two are Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. Well, why not? They live with Balakirev.

  — I didn’t know you liked music.

  Arkady adjusted the grey blanket over Kostya. —Vadym would say I only recognize The Internationale because everyone stands up. He named the cats. Come to the parlour. I’ll get us something to drink.

  Efim thought of his medical visits when he’d just graduated, of how a doctor’s call, once the patient settled, could become something of a social occasion. Sometimes a family had paid him for his services with food and drink. Efim often learned valuable information about his patient this way, and about how the family functioned. This visit? Efim wanted only to run and escape his dread, escape this man. Was it evil? Was Arkady Balakirev evil? Nothing so simple. Corrupt? This idea felt more accurate yet more difficult, because corruption meant something good had once existed there and might, with intervention and care, exist again. Survival, then? Had Balakirev turned himself cold and hard because all around him had gone cold and hard?

  Eyes reddened, Arkady passed Efim a glass of vodka. —We must be about the same age, Efim Antonovich, the same sort of man.

  — Is that so?

  — Old enough to remember the horrors of the tsarist days. Instead, I give you the Party’s promise of a radiant future.

  Each man emptied his glass.

  Arkady gestured to the table. —Try the diced cucumber. I’m sorry, the bread’s gone. I think I’ve got some crisp biscuit here somewhere. I eat out more and more. The NKVD cafeteria is quite good, you know, balanced meals.

  — Nutrition is important.

  — Never know when the next bout of food difficulties might come.

  Efim detected a uric scent then. The tomcats? No, cat urine smelled very different, and the animal had wandered off. —When was your last medical checkup?

  Arkady wiped yogurt from his lips. —I’m fine.

  — A devoted servant of the Revolution like yourself, pushing body and mind so hard…

  — It’s Kostya who needs you, not me. Did he ever tell you how we met? He was a bezprizornik in Odessa, one of hundreds. At least I thought I saw hundreds. I don’t know the numbers. Dangerous place to be lost, Odessa. Then the Germans took Odessa, cleaned up the streets and solved the bezprizorniki problem. They hanged them. The boys, I mean. I don’t want to think about what happened to the girls. Leave children alone. Why is that so difficult? I once had a photograph of those gallows. I kept it to remind Kostya and myself what I’d saved him from. I burned it last year. It was hard to guess the boys’ ages, because their faces looked so tough, all cheekbones and scowls, yet those baggy smocks belted round narrow waists as they queued told me they were starving. Why do we photograph such things?

  — I wouldn’t know.

  — An execution should be efficient and humane, quick and clean, for condemned and executioner alike. Too much terror in a hanging, too much temptation into theatre. That is why I approve of guns. Instantaneous.

  Efim considered the impact of a bullet on a brain. —As close as we can get.

  — I got Kostya out of Odessa just before the Germans took it.

  — Kind of you.

  — Completely unplanned. I simply had orders to return to Moscow. Kostya begged me to take him with me. When I saw those photographs years later, I knew I’d been right to do so. More?

  — Please.

  Arkady poured vodka. —We’ll drink to beauty.

  — Women?

  — Confession.

  — Very well. To the beauty of confession.

  The vodka burned Efim clean of worry and fear.

  Arkady put down his glass and laced his fingers over his belly. —It’s good for the soul. My own father was a doctor. There now, you’ve seen one of the stains in my file: my petit bourgeois background. Use it against me, if you wish. I didn’t have the good sense to hide it when I joined the Cheka. I didn’t boast about it, but I didn’t I hide it. It gets worse. My mother came from wealth. We took holidays in Odessa. The climate, you see, it agreed with my mother. So when I had a chance in the Cheka to visit Odessa, reconnaissance, set up a Cheka depot, I leapt for it. And despite everything, at first I felt so happy. That changed. Odessa felt desolate, boarded-up windows and bread queues, carriages and trains, and bezprizorniki everywhere, like they heaved out of the gutter. That’s how they smelled. They all begged. Kopeks or cigarettes. They always wanted cigarettes. Smoking kept them from feeling hungry.

  Efim thought about how much Kostya smoked.

  Pouring more vodka, clinking the bottle neck against the rims of the glasses, Arkady smiled. —Kostya wasn’t begging. I found him almost frozen to the ground. Someone had doused him in water, in January. I helped him up. Just another sign of the struggle, I thought, one who would have to find his place in the new order or die, but when I heard him curse, I knew then he must be special.

  — Because he cursed?


  Arkady tilted his head to one side, then put on his spectacles. The lenses magnified his eyes, and Efim could not look away. —In four different languages. A born polyglot. He’s fluent in six languages now. He’ll tell you it’s seven, but his spoken English is not very good. He’s got gifts to burn, so when he drinks himself to oblivion, or risks his career and his life for some whore, I confess, I tend to worry.

  Prying cucumber loose from his teeth with his tongue, Efim considered how much he’d scrubbed his hands earlier in the evening, how difficult he’d found it to remove Nadezhda Ivanovna’s blood from his cuticles.

  Vodka glugged and splashed as Arkady refilled his glass yet again. —Kostya’s shoulder. The pain is eating him alive. I can see it.

  — If you want his pain controlled, then I need to increase his morphine dose, and that starts us up the ladder to narkomania.

  — That’s not good enough.

  — Some shrapnel wounds never heal. I repeat what I said when I first examined him: proper convalescence, and then, if he must work, a desk job only.

  Arkady shook his head. —I can’t do that. Too much attention is dangerous.

  — More dangerous than severe pain or raging narkomania? What will that do to his judgement and career? What has it done already?

  — A crippled officer is an easy target in a purge.

  Efim had nothing to say to that.

  Arkady stood up. —Let’s get you comfortable, Efim Antonovich. Pick whichever chair you like, or the couch.

  — What? I can’t stay here.

  — So inject him now.

  — While he’s unconscious and liable to vomit? I might kill him.

  — Then you must stay. No doctor wants to kill his patient.

  Efim clenched his fists and stifled a cry. Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two. How many more? Certain he could smell blood from his fingers, and certain Arkady could, too, he reached for his medical bag. To calm his thoughts about the lab, he imagined the inventory of his bag: stethoscope, tongue depressor, reflex hammer, tourniquets, bandages, syringes, morphine. Speculum, dilatation rods, curettages, and a wooden dowel dented from the recent pressure of Nadezhda Ivanovna’s teeth.

  Risk of hemorrhage. She should not be left alone.

  Arkady settled himself into an armchair. —Take the Persian rug from the study so you don’t get a chill.

  Near half-past two in the morning, pain tearing a hole in his sleep, Kostya cried out. Efim followed Arkady to the little room, and, like Kostya, squinted and frowned in the sudden light.

  Arkady took his hand from the light switch and stood close to Efim, leaving Efim little room to work.

  Efim ignored him as he picked up Kostya’s wrist and took his pulse. —Shoulder?

  — What the fuck else?

  Arkady snorted. —Kostya, you will not make the doctor’s work more difficult than it needs to be.

  Kostya sat up. —Arkady Dmitrievich. Why are you here?

  — It’s my house.

  — Right, right, debauchery in the iris bed.

  Arkady flinched.

  Missing this, Efim took equipment from his medical bag and prepared an injection. —He’s still drunk.

  — He’ll be drunk for days, at this rate.

  Efim tied a tourniquet on Kostya’s left arm. —Lie down. No, not on your back, in case you vomit. On your good side. You’ll feel a pinch.

  Arkady watched the liquid flow into Kostya’s vein. Then, careful not to jostle the injured shoulder, he tucked the grey blanket around Kostya.

  Efim fastened his medical bag shut and thought he should admire Arkady’s tenderness, yet all he wanted to do was spit. —I need to get back to the flat.

  — Rest here, at least until the metro is running.

  — No, I can’t impose. I should go.

  — It’s half-past two in the morning. If NKVD see you out on the street, they will want to know why. I will call for a car and driver.

  — Comrade Major, that’s not necessary.

  Arkady had already picked up his telephone’s receiver and now spoke to an operator.

  After an awkward wait of twenty-three minutes, during which Efim tried different ways to sneak a peek at his watch, headlights shone on the front window. Arkady walked Efim to the waiting car and ordered the driver to bring the good doctor home. The officer stepped out and held the door so Efim could climb into the back seat. Efim looked over his shoulder; Arkady nodded, so pleasant, so courteous. The air smelled of iris.

  Fucked in the mouth, what did I do to my head?

  Snow fell from a white ceiling. Then Kostya got his eyes open further, chasing away a dream of snow at his wedding, a wedding that proceeded despite the unacknowledged absence of the bride. Annoyed by the dampness of the sheets, he sat up, and that worsened his headache. The stink of bile and wine from his soiled gymastyorka and undershirt on the floor added to his nausea, which then got urgent. Despite a difficult journey of staggering gait and burning eyes, he ascended the stairs and reached the bathroom in time. Then he sat a while on the floor, resting his face against the cool toilet bowl. His memories of the day before settled like silt.

  What did I say to Andrei?

  Irises.

  I hit her.

  Dima’s chair.

  He turned and retched.

  Shoulder aching, he grasped the sink, hauled himself up, and splashed some water on his face. Arkady’s razor and shaving soap lay in their usual spot, and Kostya picked them up, just as he’d done after release from hospital, recalling the fever dream on the train in 1918: Baba Yaga and her menacing comment on his Russian smell.

  He said it to the mirror. —I smell like a Chekist because I use the Chekist’s soap.

  He got himself back to the study, noticing the good Persian rug, the one he’d wrapped Nadia in at the party, rumpled on the couch in the parlour.

  — Arkady Dmitrievich?

  The cat flap squeaked; one of the toms, Borodin, slinked through the porch.

  Kostya ignored the cat, and the cat, as ever, ignored him. Then Kostya called louder, up over the stairs. —Arkady Dmitrievich, are you still here?

  Nothing.

  Back in the study he found a note on the desk.

  Good morning. Or afternoon. I telephoned Kuznets.

  You’re on leave for bereavement. The funeral is

  tomorrow, ten o’clock. The cleaning women are due at

  four today. Be certain you leave nothing on the floor. Do

  not make their work more difficult than it needs to be.

  You’ve already done that to me. Once you’re clean and

  civilized, make yourself useful and fetch the items listed

  on the other sheet for the funeral reception. And do not

  disgrace me with any more sloppy drunkenness. We all

  mourn here, Kostya. Grief entitles you to nothing. You’ll

  find some civilian clothes in your old closet and some

  bromide salts in the pantry for your headache.

  Kostya opened the curtains and stared out at the garden: so much greenery, so much space, not another human being in sight. That meant nothing, really, but in that moment, he believed in the garden’s offer of privacy and peeled off his galife pants, shorts, and socks. Naked, he strode upstairs to the bathroom again, recalling first he must visit the linen closet for a towel.

  He passed Arkady’s bedroom, hesitated.

  He’d not dared to look for the papers and passport there.

  Boris Kuznets had come and gone from this house as he pleased over the last six weeks.

  Kostya checked the dresser drawers, the clothes in the closet, the mattress, the bedding, the pillows, the rug, and the high closet shelf. He flinched when the telephone rang, then ignored it, wondering again if Arkady had buried the passport and papers in the garden.

  The dessert parties: the one thing he knew he hated about Arkady, and yet he craved invitation. Once allowed to attend, he’d always chosen a woman, always enjoyed hi
mself.

  Blood weighted his penis.

  A memory of sensation: the surrender of Nadia’s cheek beneath his fingers as he backhanded her face. He’d enjoyed it.

  No, it’s not like that.

  Forcing her to sit on the stool in the Lubyanka cell.

  Duty.

  Arkady forcing him to sit on a stool in a Lubyanka cell.

  He cares about me.

  Arkady beating him as an adolescent, as a grown man. The conversation with Arkady after the last beating, the absurd attempt at a bargain.

  His erection twitched.

  He shut his eyes, picked up the towel and held it to his face.

  A long shower washed away nothing.

  The watchwoman in the lobby slept on as Kostya climbed the stairs to his flat. He fumbled his key in the lock, grateful he’d not lost the key last night, and heard the jangle of the telephone. He strode past both a note on the table and the closed door to his bedroom and picked up the receiver by the bathroom door.

  — Yes, this is Nikto. Yes, yes, I just said that.

  The operator asked him to stand by for a call from Lubyanka.

  A woman’s voice, not Evgenia Ismailovna, greeted him with a crisp efficiency that made Kostya wince. Then she informed him he must report to work.

  — What, today? Comrade, I’m…German, yes. Italian, yes, very close to Spanish, but can this not wait until…Fine. Yes, thank you. Give me…I’ll be there as soon as I can.

  He eased the receiver into its cradle and sighed, further irritated by the darkness in the hallway. —Nadia?

  Nothing.

  The air in the flat seemed heavy, stale.

  Slow and careful, he eased the bedroom door open, padded to the closet, and took uniform pieces from their hangers. Asleep, Temerity did not move.

  In the kitchen, he found some bread and cheese and a note on the table. As he took a small bite of bread and picked up the note, he caught another whiff, another touch of that heaviness, a scent he knew.

  Old blood.

  The note read: Let her rest. Come see me at the Lab.

  Struggling to swallow the dry chunk of bread, Kostya considered the mysteries of women’s courses, of which he knew very little. Sometimes, women in the Lubyanka cells smelled of blood, even when no one had struck them. In Spain one night, Kostya had wondered how women in the field managed, or the nurses in the clinics, and he’d wondered this in moonlight as he flicked a cigarette butt into the spreading pool of blood at his feet. Trotskyist, tsarist, Red, White: all blood smelled the same. In defiance and pride then, Kostya had lit a second cigarette, baiting any sniper who might be nearby, daring him.