Go on. Take a shot. Kill me.
Nothing.
The men he hunted in Spain: he’d shot most of them. Once he’d cut a throat — quiet, but more difficult than he’d expected, as his target heard him and lunged almost out of reach. When he shot the five-litre tin of type O-negative in the clinic, the spatter reached his mouth, his nose, even the curves of his ears. Blood, blood, blood.
How much does a woman bleed?
He got himself into uniform.
Questions of menstrual cycles irked him all morning, providing a merciful distraction as he emerged from Dzerzhinskaya and strode towards Lubyanka and most certainly did not study a boarded-up office window on the third floor. Inside, he strode to Evgenia Ismailovna’s desk, ready to report in and enjoy the solace of tea, except a different woman sat there. He asked for both Evgenia and Boris. The new woman explained that Comrade Captain Kuznets was busy elsewhere and that Comrade Ismailovna was ill. Kostya nodded, accepting paperwork. Her courses? Former girlfriends had complained of sore breasts and cramps, and refused sex, but, in the end, they’d explained nothing.
How does it feel, to bleed like that, bleed to a purpose, bleed without injury?
These stubborn questions also interfered with his concentration as he interrogated some Comintern members accused of spying, an Italian woman called Nina Fontana who kept asking after her husband and children, and a German woman called Ursula Friesen. Both women spoke passable Russian, despite their injuries. Kostya played his game, addressing each woman in a soft voice, in her own language, offering cigarettes: the Nikto Touch. Everyone in his department marvelled at his skill with foreigners, especially the women. Get Nikto on it. Let handsome Nikto finish it. Call Nikto. Other officers had tried the business with the cigarettes, got nowhere.
The cigarettes, Kostya knew, accomplished little.
It’s the language. Their own language breaks them.
He ached to be anywhere else, free of bare walls and heavy doors, yet here, burrowed in Lubyanka’s basement, burrowed in duty, he felt safe, safe from Vadym’s death.
Ursula and Nina both signed the confession forms, new ones based on Kostya’s templates. Nina extracted a promise from Kostya that she’d be sent to the same camp as her husband, a promise Kostya could not keep and indeed soon forgot. Nina didn’t even try to read her confession form. Instead, she looked her interrogator in the eye and insisted the Soviet government take responsibility for her children. —You’ve a duty, now, comrade. Believe what you like about my guilt, but you know, you know, that my children have done nothing.
Andrei.
Timur.
Timofei.
Enrico, you are now Genrikh. Miguel, you are now Mikhail. Perhaps they’ll call you Misha.
— My children, comrade!
Kostya straightened papers. —I’ll see that they’re looked after.
He ate lunch in the cafeteria, taking his time, the taste of the shchi a little too sharp today, the noise of people eating a little too loud.
Matvei Katelnikov sat at his table and offered him a cigarette. Kostya accepted, and the two officers smoked together, in silence.
Yury Stepanov, eyes bright and strange, as though he struggled with some deep thought, offered him condolences. He sounded sincere. Kostya thanked him. That, too, sounded sincere.
Back in the department, Evgenia’s substitute called out to him, her voice nasal and high. —Comrade Senior Lieutenant Nikto. You’re required for poligon duty tonight.
— What? Why?
She gave him a stern look, almost a warning. —Languages. The commanding officer has asked for help with the paperwork, and you were named.
— That should have been cancelled. I am supposed to be on bereavement leave.
— Your orders are right here. Comrade Captain Kuznets signed them.
— When?
— Earlier this morning.
As Kostya shut his eyes, he saw text dance, and he heard pleas in different languages. —Words, words, words.
— Pardon me, comrade?
Walking away, he called over his shoulder. —I’ll be there. Of my own free will, yet twice as much by compulsion.
— Comrade Senior Lieutenant Nikto!
He froze, and others looked up from their work and conversations. The rebuke and accusation in her voice: a civilian to an NKVD officer? How dare she?
Kostya refused to turn around. —I am busy, comrade. What is it you wish?
— Look at me when I speak to you!
A man’s voice from somewhere behind Kostya: —I will not tolerate this!
Yury Stepanov.
He strode to the woman and slammed his open hands on her desk. —You, comrade, will not presume to command any of us. Comrade Senior Lieutenant Nikto works very hard under extremely difficult circumstances, and you—
— We all work hard, Comrade Sergeant, and I will not—
— Shut up! Shut up, you stupid bitch!
Other officers joined Yury now, and their deep voices rose in a collective until the woman’s higher voice collapsed in tears and defeat.
Kostya got to his office and slammed the door behind him. His startled officemates, subordinate in rank, hurried to their feet, addressed Senior Lieutenant Nikto in tones of respect, apologized that they hadn’t expected him, and explained they could leave. Wishing he’d got the strength to tell them to stay, or even invite them out for a drink, Kostya stood out of their way.
He sat at his desk, almost frantic with paperwork, for hours. Then, not bothering with supper, he signed a car out of Garage Number One and drove himself to the poligon.
Metriks: surname, first name and middle name, for those lacking the cultural habit of patronymic.
Age.
Address.
Hair colour, eye colour, height, weight, ethnicity.
Kostya tugged on a clerk’s sleeve and pointed to a blank on the form. —This one’s German, not Dutch.
— Are you certain, Comrade Senior Lieutenant?
— Can you speak German?
— No, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.
— I can. So I am the one to be certain, yes?
— Yes, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.
Kostya leaned over another desk. —That one’s French.
— Thank you, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.
A third desk and clerk. —Italian.
— Very good, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.
Eyes shut, Kostya rubbed his temples. Welcome to Iosif Vissarionovich’s Butcher Shop. Today’s special: international cuts. —I need some air.
The master-sergeant heard him. —Don’t go far. We’ll start soon.
— What?
— The squad is short a man tonight. Is that not why you’re here?
Kostya broke a match, took out another, lit his cigarette. —Of course.
Outside, in view of a grassy area perfect for picnics and games, another officer leaned on the stone cottage wall. He wore an old leather coat. —I remember you. Earlier in the summer, one of the Nagants. I’m Lev.
All expectations of etiquette and rank had departed, this poligon its own world now. —Konstantin.
Lev took a packet from his right pocket and pressed it into Kostya’s right hand, whispering the street value of the cocaine inside it.
— Why are you giving this to me?
Lev grinned. —Because you’ll need it tonight. And someday further on, I may need a favour.
Kostya nodded, tucking the little envelope into his pouch. —Hand-some coat. Old Chekist?
— Yes, my father’s. I had a cough last week, so he insisted I wear it to work, keep warm. I’m almost cooked. If I take it off, you won’t tell him, will you?
— Your secret’s safe with me.
Cigarette done, Lev headed inside, where the barrels of vodka and Troynoy stood ready, where other executioners prepared for the night’s work.
Kostya followed him. Then he measured out some cocaine and sniffed it, making sure Lev could see him.
<
br /> Dogs whined and barked. Tractors idled. The sergeant dipped a tin cup into the vodka barrel and raised in a toast. —To your stamina, comrades.
Feet shuffled; prisoners and executioners got into their final queues. Kostya checked his Nagant for the third time: loaded, ready.
Noises of clunking switches and electricity: outside, searchlights shone.
The sergeant blew a whistle.
Kostya looked to Lev. —Is that new?
— A few weeks ago he lost his voice shouting orders at us, and we got behind schedule.
Another whistle, and the men of the squad stretched fingers and limbs, touched their toes, ran in place.
Warm-up at the gym, Kostya thought, and he rolled his shoulders, stretched his back, turned his head from side to side.
Third whistle: the executioners marched into the bright light.
As Kostya’s vision adjusted, the squad formed before a new open grave, and the first line of prisoners joined them.
— Kneel!
The prisoners knelt.
— Aim!
The squad lifted weapons.
— Fire!
Noise and smoke.
A whistle blew. The next line of prisoners took their places.
The scene played out seven times; the Nagants reloaded while the Tokarevs mocked; another row; the Tokarevs reloaded while the Nagants jeered.
Again, again, again.
Kostya recognized Friesen and Fontana, the women from the morning’s interrogation.
Just this morning?
Kneel. Aim. Fire.
Kick a corpse.
A recess: return to the stone cottage for vodka and cocaine, no shortage. Celebrating this bounty, some of the men sang ‘Yablochko.’ —Ekh, little apple…
Lev turned from his sniffing as someone called to him, and the powder fell from the back of his hand. Alerted to this loss by another man, Lev only laughed.
Telling himself this would not, must not, become a habit, Kostya sniffed some more of Lev’s gift. A numb clarity returned, a great comfort: purpose and duty, unsullied by emotion, shone as clear beacons.
It didn’t last.
A whistle.
A return.
— Kneel!
On Kostya’s left, the gaunt form of Pavel Ippolitov, tall even as he knelt…
— Aim!
On his right, a flash of purple silk near a woman’s neck…
— Fire!
The purple left his line of sight. Vodka and bile shot into his mouth; he swallowed it back.
A whistle…
Blood and clots gushed as Temerity sat up and so tilted her pelvis; the flow soaked the padding. Efim had left to find more bandages, more wound dressing, more of something, anything, she might use.
As instructed, she rinsed the bloodied wads in the shower, wrung them out, then wrapped them in layers of Izvestia. Setting aside the last of the clean padding, unsteady, she stepped into the shower. She did not linger, careful to be thrifty with the soap, and, once dried off, packed, padded, and dressed again, she placed the package of Izvestia in a suitcase that Efim kept under his bed. He would dump the bundles in the incinerator at the lab.
No stains on my skirt, at least.
Finding the walk to the front room taxing, she sat in the soft chair. She dozed for a while, waking when Kostya stumbled into the flat. Fear jumped in her belly; fatigue pinned her down. That stink again: cordite and cigarettes and cologne and sweat and blood. His face and gymnastyorka looked dark grey, almost sooty, and his hair, which often shone with pomade, seemed dull as a shadow. He lurched toward the bathroom.
Temerity waited for him to call to her.
Not a word.
Instead, he strode back to the front room, fumbled in the drawers of the stenka, returned to the bathroom, and flicked on the electric light. An odd noise then, interrupted, brief, something between a hiss and hush.
Then Kostya yelped. —Ow! Nadia?
— A moment.
— Nadia, please.
— Yes, I’m coming.
Illuminated before the mirror, Kostya pried clippers away from a clump of hair on his now patchy head.
Bloodied hair.
He shook the clump free and resumed cutting. Rough. Random. The clippers made their shushing noise as Kostya left some spots incomplete, others bare, still others alone.
He glimpsed Temerity in the mirror. —The fucking showers don’t work!
Hush-hush-hush.
— The work we do, and no showers?
Hush-hush-hush.
— And now the car’s got to be taken out of service to be cleaned.
Hair fell to the floor. Temerity studied the waves and curls, and she wanted to cover the bloodied clumps with a towel.
Kostya dropped the clippers into the sink.
Wincing at the noise, Temerity rubbed her belly. She knew what she should ask. She also knew he might hit her again. —Where were you?
He took up the clippers again. —The poligon.
As Temerity struggled with the word poligon and considered geometry, the clippers jammed on another clump, and Kostya wrenched the lock of hair from his head.
— Fucked in the mouth!
— Let me do that.
— Don’t touch me.
— Kostya, please. You’ll hurt yourself.
— I don’t feel a thing. Oh. Look at that. More filth. More fucking filth on this filthy fucking night.
She said it in English. —God’s sake, you’re bleeding.
Tears cut little paths on his face, startling him when he looked in the mirror. —My name is Konstantin Arkadievich Nikto, and I am a senior lieutenant of state security. Tell me you love me. Tell me it’s still possible to love me. I’ll never be clean.
Temerity met his gaze in the mirror.
Behind Temerity, Kostya saw Gavriil, tall and fair, wearing a black peaked cap, little round spectacles, and a Chekist’s leather coat like Lev’s, like Arkady’s. He looked like an effete intellectual desperate to prove his revolutionary devotion and credentials, except he looked like nothing of the sort. Revolutionaries might have long and thin faces, and the old Chekists might wear those coats, but Gavriil, for all the order of the disguise, meant chaos. Gavriil shed the coat and revealed NKVD uniform, then shed that so that he looked like the ikon of the Novogord Gavriil, only with eyes of flame.
Kostya’s knees buckled, and he caught himself on the sink.
Temerity’s voice reached him. —Get in the shower and get that mess out of your hair. Then I can finish the cut.
— Get rid of it. Clip it off. All of it!
— Fine, but you’ll have to wash it first. I’ll turn on the water, get it warm.
She did this, disgusted with herself. Shall I hold Tam Lin tight?
Kostya watched the water flow from the shower head. —Nadia, I’m sorry about your face.
— Yes, I’m still quite angry about that. The water’s warm now. Get in.
He stood there.
Sighing, she tugged at his gymnastyorka and portupeya. —Take these off.
He writhed out of his uniform, dropped the lot on the floor, and stood beneath the water. Temerity glanced at the holster, then at the scars on Kostya’s shoulder.
— Nadia, pass me the soap.
She did. Then she put the toilet seat down and perched there.
Water ran, ran, ran.
— Nadia, I’m so sorry I hit you.
Staring at the wall, she said nothing.
— That will never happen again. I swear it.
She studied the clumps of hair on the floor.
— I’ve not been my best self. I don’t even know who that is. I’d like to think he’s better than the man who hit you.
She moved some of the locks and clumps aside with her toes.
He rinsed. —Arkady Dmitrievich says my grief entitles me to nothing.
— He’s right.
Kostya turned off the water, accepted a towel from Temerity, and drie
d off. He touched his scalp. —What have I done to my head?
— How’s the shoulder?
— Fucking recoil. Did Efim say when he’d be back?
— No.
— Please.
Please, what?
He stood there, arms limp. —Nadia, please. Just…touch me. Tell me I’m real. I still exist.
She stared at him.
— I am a ghost. I’m already dead. And I’ve killed you, too.
Temerity touched the skin near the scars of his bad shoulder. —You’re quite warm for a ghost.
Gentle, he took her hand, placed it instead on his good shoulder, then lifted it to his lips and kissed it.
Then he let go of her hand and picked through his clothes for cigarettes and matches. —Recite something and help me fix my head. Please?
Almost line by line, interrupting herself with pauses as she got better control of the clippers, she whispered Shakespeare’s sonnet 40 in English and cut what remained of Kostya’s hair.
The English words and rhythms soothing his ears and his mind, even as meaning flew past him, he sat on the toilet seat and watched his hair fall away. Gavriil, still standing by the wall, eyes no longer flames but caverns, refused to explain anything. Then he disappeared.
Temerity lowered the clippers. —Done.
Kostya ran his hand over his scalp: the faintest stubble. —Good. We’ll clean this mess up later. Right now I need a drink.
— I think you’ve had enough for tonight.
— Far too much. But just one drink, for just one story, yes?
Big green eyes stared up at her.
Tapping the clippers clean of hair, she gave a tight little smile. —All right, Kostya. One drink.
He sipped his vodka. —Vadym had a nephew my age, Mikhail. Everyone called him Misha. When Arkady Dmitrievich first brought me here to Moscow, in ’18, we both had flu. Vadym looked after us. After I got a bit better, he introduced me to his Misha. He thought we might be friends. Arkady Dmitrievich never liked Misha, called him a rebellious angel and said he’d come to a bad end. Misha was determined to solve every problem himself, and he was braver than me, not that I ever told him that. I loved him. We competed in everything, especially at the gym. He played better bandy, but I could row faster. He leapt hurdles, but I could run the long races. I could shoot better, and that pissed him off. Neither of us could be best in wrestling. Coaches called stalemate after stalemate. We graduated from school and ran straight for the NKVD. We competed there, too. In the end I got the better grades, and I was always the better shot.
Constant Nobody Page 34