The Cross and The Sickle

by R. D. Zimmerman

  Mayakovsky froze. Over his shoulder, he said, “What's this?”

  “You see,” insisted Yezhov, putting his glasses back on. “There's still a great deal I can do to assist in this matter. You can't dismiss me now. The woman mentioned documents. That's why Miller and the old woman ran. You were the first to find Miller, surely there must have…”

  “That's odd,” said Mayakovsky, concerned. “I found nothing.” He turned toward Yezhov. “What else do you know about these so-called documents, Lieutenant?”

  “Well, I…” he stammered. “Didn't you find anything.”

  “No.” The colonel was absolute. “Nothing.”

  “There must have been something. Something on Miller, perhaps, or on the old woman.”

  Puzzled, Mayakovsky shook his head. “That's very interesting, but there wasn't. However, I will certainly check into it.” Lost in thought, he returned to the window. “The old woman is in the hospital—I'll question her this afternoon.”

  “And what about Miller? Surely I can be of assistance to you in his interrogation,” added Yezhov, his voice deep.

  Mayakovsky had little patience left. “Lieutenant Yezhov, a specialist is coming from Moscow to interrogate Miller. I will contact you should your help be needed.” He folded his hands behind his back, disgusted with Yezhov. “Now… I have a number of things to see to today and I did not bring you in here to discuss the details of this case. I am in no need of your assistance. I merely wished to inform you of your present work status: you are on a one-month leave of absence. Should you find it necessary to question this any further, your position will again be reviewed. And I can assure you that it will not be favorably.”

  Yezhov was silent.

  Mayakovsky shouted: “Dismissed!”

  Distraught about the turn of events, Yezhov hesitated before rising. Then, in a hurry, he got up and quickly left the room.

  Mayakovsky heard his office door slam. He shut his eyes and exhaled with relief.

  “Bozhe moi.” My God. The last thing he needed at this point was further interference.

  “Vishnyak!” he shouted to his aide.

  His office door was opened. “Yes. Comrade Colonel.”

  ‘‘Send in this other,” he said with disinterest. “The agent we're sending to Vienna. And order my car.”

  Mayakovsky did not want to wait any longer. After he met with the next agent, he would head to the hospital to confer directly with Elizaveta.

  Yezhov was furious. He gripped the back of his neck with one hand and squeezed tightly. It couldn't be true. Colonel Mayakovsky couldn't do this to him, couldn't negate everything that Yezhov had worked for. Only now, with his future called into question, did Yezhov realize how much of his career rested in the hands of a single person, a single person ill-disposed toward him. Only now did he realize how much he could lose should Mayakovsky so desire.

  “Could lose?” said Yezhov, aloud. “Nyet.”

  He had already lost. Mayakovsky had taken away his success, his achievement. There would be no glory, no promotion, and no opportunity for securing, among other things, a decent apartment. If another witness were needed, they would, as the colonel had said, simply create one. The KGB had no need for Yezhov. He was the loser in a struggle he hadn't realized he was fighting. Mayakovsky, for his own reasons, had come to the conclusion that Yezhov was a hindrance and had eliminated him.

  A month's leave of absence. Yezhov knew what it meant. He was out. There would be no more upward climb. Not now nor, as long as Mayakovsky was in command in Kiev, in the future. At best there would be nothing higher than lieutenant. More likely, the month's leave of absence was just the beginning of the end. Even if he were allowed to return he would probably be assigned to some menial task, such as transcribing endless, boring hours of conversation between foreigners and their inquisitive Intourist guides. He punched the button for the first floor and the elevator dropped. Never before had he felt so vulnerable. Much more was at stake than just his career.

  The entire situation, particularly Mayakovsky's actions, struck him as odd. He didn't care for any of it. First he was reprimanded because he had followed Miller and the woman to her apartment. Miller hadn't been tailed, and he and the blonde had spent the entire evening together. Yet Mayakovsky found none of this of interest except, perhaps, the aspect of the lights being turned off. No damage had been done. No grand scheme ruined. Yezhov had brought relevant, potentially valuable information and Mayakovsky had acted as if…

  The elevator came to the ground floor. Yezhov did not get out. It was too early to step aside. Too early to surrender. If he gave up now, all would be lost. Miller's interrogation. It was his last chance. His last hope. Yezhov could not risk being excluded from Miller's interrogation. Somehow he had to be part of it.

  He pushed a button and the elevator plunged to the prisoner detention area.

  Yes, the colonel had acted as if Yezhov had been intruding. But intruding into what? Yezhov's anger dissipated. If so, that would explain why Mayakovsky had dismissed him from the case. It would also explain Mayakovsky's lack of tolerance for Yezhov's actions and why he had appeared almost threatened.

  The elevator doors opened and Yezhov stepped into a stark hallway. The corridor, dotted with naked bulbs, continued for no more than five meters before being interrupted by a thick, locked iron gate. In front of that barrier sat a middle-aged woman with hair dyed bright red. Over her staunch figure was a crease-free uniform, not marred by active movement; her only duty was to record precisely who passed in or out of that gate and the exact time of such movement. On the other side of the barrier stood an armed guard, also in perfect uniform. Beyond, in one of the cells, was Nicholas Miller.

  Yezhov approached the woman, who examined him with the utmost disdain. She pursed her lips, smearing slightly her Red October Lipstick. In front of her, on her desk, sat a clock and the ledger in which she recorded all activity.

  Yezhov bent down to the woman's ear level. He spoke clearly and politely and in a voice that the guard could not hear.

  “Comrade, I have a favor to ask.”

  The woman grunted and shifted in her seat. She sniffled and wrinkled her nose. She liked this position of power and she took an exaggerated amount of time to decide.

  Several moments later, she said, “Guard, see what's wrong with the American down there. He keeps making noises of some sort.”

  When the guard obediently went to check on the noise that he hadn't heard, the woman turned to Yezhov.

  “Yes?” she said, primping her unnatural red hair.

  Yezhov took out a fifty-ruble note from his wallet.

  “Nyet, nyet.” The woman was shocked and insulted.

  Yezhov took out thirty more.

  “Perhaps.”

  “There's one hundred more in it for you. And no danger.”

  The woman picked at something between her tea-stained teeth, glanced to see if the guard had returned, and then reached out her surprisingly long arm.

  XXVII

  His cell was a small room with a hard, narrow bed attached to the wall, a tap with cold water, and a sanitation hole in one corner. The walls were a dingy industrial green, and a low wattage bulb, encaged with heavy wire, hung in the center of the tall ceiling. There were no windows and the heavy steel door had only one vent at eye level that could be opened and closed from the outside.

  He found no rest in sleep. He dreamed of Olga. He imagined that they were out for a stroll on Kreshatik—a very pleasant stroll—and then a taxi came roaring down the street, jumped the curb, missed him, and hit her. He woke up screaming. He woke up screaming again when he saw her at Saint Vladimir's. Though in the dream she was legless, somehow she ran away from him. She ran and collided with an enormous icon. She was absorbed by the icon, her face becoming long and drawn and hideously Byzantine. Then, once she was part of the icon, she turned into a cloud of incense.

  Chasing after her, he burst into the cloud of smoke, was enveloped by it, a
nd then awoke choking and gasping for air. Both asleep and awake, he heard her over and over screaming at him to run, to get away. Over and over he was awakened by her muffled scream and by the reverberating gunshot. And when he opened his eyes from fitful sleep, he thought he was in the catacombs and that he had to look for Olga.

  Olga. They said he had killed her. He couldn't stand it. But the truth didn't make any difference. Not here, not in this subterranean jail, this man-made version of the catacombs, also removed from reality. Now buried away in this cell, the same damp, earthy coolness seeping into his bones, the only truth was their accusation. Here, where there was no sun and no moon—only the dim bulb which burned continuously—reality was whatever they chose.

  By the end of the second day Nick could stand it no more. A light blanket thrown over his shoulders, he wore the same filthy and ragged clothing they had found him in, and he had washed only slightly in the frigid tap water. He had not been allowed to see any Americans nor even been told if anyone at the exhibit had been informed of his fate. And not a single Soviet representative had sought to question him. A senior officer, their colonel, was the first to find Elizaveta and him in the catacombs. They had hauled him out of the caves—leaving Elizaveta, still unconscious, behind—bluntly told him that Olga was dead and that he had killed her, stuffed him into a yellow and blue police jeep, and then finally shoved him back underground into this cell. Left totally isolated, no one spoke to him and it drove Nick crazy. In his sanest moments he knew they were in the process of deciding just what to do with him. At his weakest, years of Cold War propaganda against the horrible Russians came flooding in and he feared for his life.

  Insane with anxiety, Nick ran to the steel door and began furiously kicking it. He screamed so loud that he thought his vocal cords would rip.

  “I'm a foreigner! A foreigner, you fucking idiots! Do you hear me? You can't treat me like this! I demand to see someone from my embassy!”

  A moment later a guard came to the door, opened the small window, and peered in. So freshly shaved that his face glistened, so well dressed that there was not a rumple in his uniform, the sight of this perfect soldier pointed all the more to Nick's poor condition. Nick ran his fingers over his prickly beard and stepped back.

  “You must have a special cell for foreigners.” Nick had convinced himself that there had to be. “Something more comfortable. Something with hot water.”

  The guard shook his head.

  “But I'm not one of your citizens. I'm from a different country. I'm American.” This had been his password to special favors throughout the U.S.S.R. It had to work now.

  The guard shook his head again. He lifted his hand and pretended as if it were a gun. Then, against his strictest orders, he whispered the first words Nick had heard since his imprisonment.

  “Bang, bang, bang!” said the handsome Russian soldier, laughing. “You killed her just like a gangster from Chicago!”

  Nick fell asleep when he could cry no more. Death. Tossing and turning, there was nothing else rippling through him but death. Everything was temporal, particularly life. Nothing was permanent, with the exception of death.

  Some hours passed before he was awakened by the sounds of a key in the cold, steel door. He opened his swollen eyes unsure of whether it was a dream or not, unsure if there really was a familiar person standing in the room.

  By no means trusting himself, Nick said. “Mr… Mr. Thomas?

  “Congratulations, Nick,” said the exhibit director, entering the cell. “You made Walter Cronkite.”

  Nick sat upright and rubbed his face with his dirty hands. “No kidding?” He pulled the blanket over his shoulders.

  “I'm serious.” Mr. Thomas, smiling, held a bulging plastic Marlboro bag under one arm. “Walter Cronkite.”

  “Wonderful. What does the Politburo think about that?” Nick couldn't imagine it; the U.S.A. and CBS seemed more like folklore. “Churchill said ‘Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.’ Well, here I am locked in a cell buried in Mother Russia's bowels and I don't know why they're doing this to me.” Nick looked up at Mr. Thomas, who was making a forced effort at being lighthearted. “You gotta get me out of here.”

  The older man stopped pretending. “We're trying, Nick.” He ran his open palm over his bald head. “Honestly, we are. It's so damned complicated.”

  “Well, what in the hell took you so long to get here?

  Where were you?” said Nick, beginning to unleash his anger at the situation. “I'm in prison! And I've been here for days. Where were you and what's the Ambassador going to do? Christ, I don't even know if it's morning, afternoon, or evening.”

  “Now, now,” said Mr. Thomas, patiently trying to soothe Nick. “It's six in the evening and you've been here for almost two days. They didn't tell us about… about the incident until yesterday. And even then they contacted the embassy in Moscow directly. I've been trying to get in here ever since.” He was at a loss. He held out the Marlboro bag. “I brought you some clothes. I figured you might need a change.”

  Nick spotted the bright plastic bag—the same bag he had used for bribing people throughout the U.S.S.R.—and said, “Next time you come, skip the file and chisel. Just bring me some more bags, some jeans, and a carton of cigarettes. That ought to get me out of here.” Disgusted with everything, Nick got up, examining himself as he did so. “I look like shit. I feel like shit.” He went quickly to the door. Taking the bars in his hands, he shook the door and screamed, “This place sucks, you fascists!”

  “Nick!” snapped Mr. Thomas, grabbing him by the arm. “Stop it, stop it right now!” He shoved the bag of clothing into Nick's arms. “Take this and sit down. I don't like the situation any better than you do, but yelling obscenities is only going to make matters worse if it does anything at all. Now, sit down.”

  Frustrated and on the verge of breaking down, Nick threw the bundle of clothes onto the bed. He sat, put his head in his hands, and gave a disgusted groan.

  “I didn't do it. I swear to God I didn't do it.” Tears filled his eyes. “I didn't kill Olga,” he said, looking directly at Mr. Thomas. “I swear.”

  Mr. Thomas, slightly embarrassed, stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I didn't think so. No one does. Not even the Ambassador.”

  Nick, unable to hold it back any longer, began to recount the story in a monotone voice. “One of the controllers, Viktor Yezhov, followed us. He surprised us and started swinging a gun around.” Relieved to finally tell someone, Nick felt as if he were letting excess air out of a drastically overinflated tire and that the dangerous pressure, with each word, was lessening. “Olga went after him. She told me to run. I didn't want to. I didn't want to go, but she told me to get out of there and take her aunt. And… and we ran. Through the catacombs. Then there was this gunshot.

  Mr. Thomas crossed the room and touched him gently on the shoulder. “Nick, I know you want to tell me, but…” He motioned around the cell, which was surely bugged, and put his finger over his mouth. “Someone from the embassy more versed on this type of matter is coming down on the evening flight from Moscow.”

  Nick understood. “Sure, I'll wait for him and then we'll talk.” His answer was sober, though he didn't know how much longer he could go without telling someone. “Just stay clear of Yezhov. Don't let him back in the exhibit. He did it. He's the one.”

  Mr. Thomas nodded. Seeking to change the topic, he said, “You're okay, though, aren't you?” He spotted the bruise on Nick's forehead. “I mean—”

  “No, they didn't rough me up at all.” He touched his head, then picked at his ragged shirt. “I ran into a wall and then tore up my shirt later on. But they haven't touched me. They've just let me sit and go stir-crazy in here.”

  “Nick,” said Mr. Thomas, firmly. “You're doing fine and you'll be fine.”

  He shrugged off the encouragement. “No one has said a word to me. No one. From their side, I mean. And they haven't even asked me what really happened down
there.” Thinking about it now, he became more confused. “There's something else…” He didn't dare mention it, at least not while their conversation was being monitored. Colonel Mayakovsky was the one who had found them. Before anyone else had come, he took the documents from Elizaveta and stuffed them in his pocket. In a threatening voice he had warned Nick not to mention the papers to anyone. “It just doesn't make sense. None of it.” Elizaveta, still unconscious, had supposedly been taken away to a hospital. Whether or not she was still alive, he didn't know. “You haven't heard anything about Olga's aunt, have you?”

  Mr. Thomas shook his head. “The only thing they told us was that they were holding you…for…for murder and that…” Already he regretted saying this much.

  “You mean there's more?” said Nick, incredulous.

  Mr. Thomas closed his eyes. “And that there would be a trial.”

  “Oh, great.” Nick stood up and started pacing around, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. “And you know what that means? That means they're going to convict me. Wonderful. Terrific. I'm never going to get out of this country. Never. And if they don't shoot me, in twenty years all I'll be able to say is that Kiev is a clean city, a green city. That, and ‘Long Live the Decision of the Communist Party!”

  Mr. Thomas was at a loss. “Calm down.” He didn't know how to handle Nick. “Just don't go get too excited. We're going to get you out of this. Don't worry, we will. Hell, the whole world is watching. Journalists are bombarding the embassy with questions and a few have even managed to get passes to come to Kiev.”

  Nick stopped pacing and, his back to Mr. Thomas, leaned up against the wall. He put his head on his arm and tried not to lose control.

  “I didn't do it. I don't know what they want out of me, but I didn't do it.” He choked on his words. “You know, I… I was still getting to know her, but… the only limits I saw in our relationship were the… the borders of the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. I really could have loved her.”