“Look, Officer, we’re honorable people.” He took off his glasses. “Proletarian workers who—”
“You have something declare? Moneys? Jewelry?” he cut in.
“Huh? No, we don’t . . .”
Walter put his spectacles back on and hastily deposited a handful of coins, an old Communist Party USA membership card, and a blunt pencil on his trunk. Sue handed over the marriage certificate they’d forged at the printer’s and an old photo in which she appeared in a bathing suit with a friend. Jack offered up ten crumpled dollars and the letter of recommendation from the Amtorg agency. Despite the warning, he kept his mother’s medallion. The customs officer glanced at the membership card and recommendation, but held on to the picture of Sue, looking at it with obvious pleasure. “This how woman dress in your country?” He smiled.
Jack snatched the photograph from him, playing the affronted husband. “We Americans have come to the Soviet Union to offer our labor. Got it? Our labor.”
The man gave a smile and leafed through the passports again. “Jack Beilis. You have curious name.”
“Oh? I didn’t know a surname could arouse such curiosity . . . What’s yours?”
“Mine not your concern.” The smile disappeared. “Open luggage.”
The officer examined the contents. He said nothing, but he seemed amazed at the quantity of food. When he’d finished his search, he raised an eyebrow, unsatisfied.
“Everything all right, comrade?” Walter said, trying to fraternize with the officer.
“Alexei Petrov and Mikhail Lebedev were my comrades. They die in revolution of 1917,” he spat out with a sour expression. “OK. Take your things.”
Jack, Sue, and Walter didn’t need to be told twice. They bundled their belongings like dirty laundry and quickly obeyed. However, when Jack held his hand out to take his passport, the customs officer refused to return it.
“You must wait. I need make more verifications. Just routine,” he assured Jack in a tone that suggested otherwise. “My assistant give you receipt that allow you travel in nation until we resolve matter.”
“But what’s the problem?” Sue put in.
“In Soviet Union, we don’t often have problems. Only, sometimes, foreigners they make them.”
Though the journey between Beloostrov and Leningrad took only a couple of hours, to Jack it seemed never-ending. To avoid worrying Sue, he hadn’t spoken about his fears, but he was beginning to play out some scenarios in his mind that were less than promising. Still, his only option was to keep going, and the farther from his crime the better.
On the last stretch of the journey, he tried to get some sleep, but to no avail. He thought of Hewitt. His niece, Elizabeth. The incident at customs. Too many events ended with the same feeling: the sense of an uncertain future. As he tried to relax, his hand felt in the pocket where his dollars were hidden. He was relieved they hadn’t frisked him, though it may have been down to the misfortune of “Silicosis” Brady. During the inspection, an ill-timed coughing fit had betrayed his condition, and the stir had interrupted the searches. Jack was sorry for him. He pictured him alone and frightened in some dark cell, waiting to be repatriated.
He took a deep breath and looked around.
Dawn was breaking, and through the misted windows, Jack could make out the snowy fields of the former Saint Petersburg. When he wiped the glass, he discovered that the landscape was much like his father had described it to him as a child: clean, virgin countryside, as if freshly painted white, dotted with the occasional dacha, its little garden populated with fir trees, its chimney speckling the sky with smoke. Yet, as the train approached Finlyandsky Station, dark concrete buildings began to appear, one after the other. Konstantin called them the workers’ beehives.
“And soon you’ll be the bees that live in them.”
10
On the platform of Leningrad’s Finlyandsky Station, the passengers said their first farewells. Some of the Americans traveling with contracts with the Leningradsky Metallichesky Zavod had spread the rumor that the giant foundry on the banks of the Neva needed extra manpower, and the Millers had decided to end their journey here and try their luck in the former Saint Petersburg. Walter and Sue wished them well. Jack, shivering with cold and busy trying to find the fastest and cheapest way to travel to Moscow, waved to them from a distance.
On the way to the ticket office, he noted the two impressive banners hanging from the station façade, depicting Stalin and Lenin as mythological heroes. They made quite a contrast with the cracked walls, which, like the rest of the building, seemed to be falling to pieces. Yet what worried him most were the dozens of ragged peasants roaming around and looking lost, some with bare feet covered in filth so caked on, it was impossible to guess the true color of their skin.
Jack was finding it difficult to believe that the Soviet Union, proclaiming itself to be the nation of plenty, where there was no shortage of bread or work, was the same country he saw in front of him, like an old photograph yellowed by time. He turned his head to take in the beggars, workers, and peasants who milled around outside. He didn’t see a single taxi or motor vehicle of any kind. Not even a motorcycle. Nothing that might be associated with progress. Just people on foot, an old tram, and horse-drawn carriages on the snow-covered paving.
He was about to inquire about tickets, when someone grabbed his arm. Turning, he found Konstantin, visibly panicked.
“Have you seen my son Nikolai?” he asked frantically.
“No, I haven’t. The last time I saw him was with you on the platform. What is it?”
“The little devil! He disappeared when we were unloading the chickens, and now we can’t find him.”
Jack looked around. In a corner, he saw a uniformed man standing guard. “Have you asked that policeman?”
“Ask a member of the OGPU for help?” He spat in disgust. “That guy would grill me with a thousand questions before moving a muscle. You have no idea how things work here, do you? A life’s worth nothing here. If anything happens to Nikolai . . .”
Jack felt for the peasant farmer. He still didn’t understand why Konstantin wouldn’t ask the police for assistance, but he offered to help anyway.
“Let’s separate,” Konstantin suggested. “You stay with Olga and search the station, and I’ll go outside to check the surrounding area. We will meet up in fifteen minutes by the carriages.”
Jack nodded, and the Russian rushed outside. Then Jack informed Walter of his intentions and suggested to Olga that she watch the concourse while he searched the platforms.
He climbed onto several stationary trains, running down their corridors in case the little boy was trying to return to the compartment in which they’d arrived, but inside he found only workers and peasants. He ran back to the platform and searched under the railcars, then checked the public restroom, the cafeteria, and the barbershop.
He stopped to get his breath. There was no sign of Nikolai. It was as if the earth had swallowed him up and filled the hole with concrete.
He was about to return to the concourse, when he glimpsed a small child, crouching over a man laid out on the ground, half hidden near the freight platform. The boy was Nikolai. Jack’s heart raced. He headed toward the youngster, seeing his hands dip into the man’s overcoat and extract something that he stuffed into his little leather bag. Jack quickened his pace, not knowing what was happening. He stumbled across the tangle of tracks, yelling Nikolai’s name. He was one track from reaching him when from behind a car emerged the policeman he’d seen on the concourse. In a flash, the officer grabbed Nikolai and pulled him away from the man on the ground.
He prayed that the little boy was unharmed. However, as he approached the policeman, he was shocked to realize that the man on the ground was in fact a frozen corpse.
He was going to thank the policeman for his help, when the officer aimed a pistol at him.
“Are you this boy’s father?” he yelled.
“Relax. Please, lower y
our weapon. I’m a friend of the family. I was actually—”
Without letting him finish, the OGPU officer grabbed the leather bag hanging from Nikolai’s neck, tugged it off, and pulled out a document.
“The boy was stealing from a dead body, and he’ll be arrested,” he said, looking at the child without pity.
Jack was perplexed. He didn’t know how to respond. He couldn’t understand how, rather than investigating the circumstances around the man’s death, the policeman was more concerned with arresting a child. He looked at Nikolai’s contrite expression. The officer was holding him in his arms like a trophy. He was about to object to the policeman’s behavior, when he noticed Konstantin, hidden behind a pillar. He had no idea why he was hiding, but he guessed there must be a powerful reason. He tried to improvise. “Officer, I don’t mean to question what you’re saying, but how can you be so sure that the boy was robbing that poor man? I was at the same distance as you, and to me it looked like he was feeling the heart to see if there was a pulse.”
The policeman put Nikolai down and holstered his gun, but when the boy tried to run toward Jack, he grabbed him by the arm, shaking him like a doll. “Oh, sure. So I suppose this ration book in the name of”—he took out the document from Nikolai’s bag, read it, and showed it to Jack—“Leonard Kerensky, I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s a death certificate issued by the kid, eh?”
Jack contemplated the document while the officer bragged about his successes catching petty thieves specializing in ration books stolen from the starved or the frozen-to-death. It became clear that it might not have been the first time Nikolai had done something similar. At any rate, his chances of proving the police officer wrong had been reduced to zero. Jack pursed his lips. He looked back at Konstantin, but the Russian was motionless behind the pillar, like a startled deer. He was about to give up trying to defend Nikolai, when an idea came to him. He fixed his eyes on the policeman’s and hardened his expression.
“The dead man’s not Leonard Kerensky. I’m Leonard Kerensky. The boy must have taken my ration book to play with.”
The police officer looked at him with disbelief. Jack’s American clothes, not to mention his foreign accent, wouldn’t have fooled a blind man.
“Kerensky . . . You’re Leonard Kerensky, you say.” He looked at the ration book again, then at the frozen dead body at his feet.
“That’s right.”
“Excellent. In that case, tell me, how is it possible that your ration book states that you’re seventy-five years old?” He smiled.
Jack cleared his throat. But he was prepared. “Because that’s my age,” he assured the officer. “And here’s the document that proves it.” He dipped a hand into his jacket’s inside pocket, rummaged around, and finally held out an envelope containing the letter of recommendation from Amtorg.
“Oh! American . . . ,” said the policeman, feigning surprise, and he unfolded the letter that Jack had just handed him. “Recommended by the Soviet agency to perform essential work at the Gorky manufacturing plant,” he read.
Jack hoped the information would make the policeman have second thoughts. Suddenly, the officer raised an eyebrow. In the envelope, under the letter, was a ten-dollar bill.
“Do you know the penalty for trying to corrupt a police officer?”
“I’d rather not find out.” At that, Jack took out another ten dollars and inserted the bill under the letter that the policeman was holding. “It’s very cold out here.” He looked at the frost-covered tracks. “You could buy yourself a new pair of boots with that,” he added, pointing at the worn regulation footwear out of which the policeman’s toes were poking.
The officer looked from side to side, took Jack’s money, and stuffed it in his jacket.
“What did you say your relationship was to this little piece of work?” asked the policeman as he looked Jack up and down.
“Friend of the family,” he repeated.
“Well, that family should teach the boy that using illegal ration books is considered a crime against state property, and it’s punishable with ten years’ hard labor.”
“Of course. However, you’ll agree that the kid hasn’t used the book illegally. All he did was pick it up, in all likelihood to return it to the authorities.”
The policeman fixed his eyes on Jack again, before finally nodding his head. He was about to go when, without warning, he stopped.
“Take them off,” the officer ordered.
“What?” Jack didn’t understand.
“Your shoes. It’s true. It’s very cold out here.”
Jack obeyed. He took off the pair of shoes that his father had made for him shortly before his death, and handed them to the policeman. He felt the stones freezing his feet. Fortunately, the police officer took off what remained of his own boots and gave them to Jack.
“One more thing.”
“Yes?” asked Jack as he pulled on the tattered boots.
“Don’t try that trick on anyone else.” He patted the place where he’d stashed the dollars. “You’ll probably be shot.”
Konstantin embraced Jack again and again, nearly asphyxiating him.
“Leave something for Nikolai,” the American said with a smile.
On the way back to the concourse, Konstantin confessed to him that some time ago he had been involved in a serious altercation with the same corrupt officer. “A real son of a bitch,” he spat out. “He was a miner before joining the party and working for the OGPU, the government’s secret police. They assigned him to the public market, where the Organization paid him a bribe to turn a blind eye to their backstairs activities.”
“The Organization?”
“You know . . . friends who help one another mutually. You don’t think a smuggler could survive in a country like this operating alone, do you? Here, without blat, you have nothing to fall back on,” he clarified. Konstantin explained that the Organization had provided him with the false passports that he and his family used to cross the border from time to time. “We say we’re visiting sick relatives so we can arrange for the goods to be sent. Thanks to blat, we can cross the border no problem,” he added.
“And what were you saying about the corrupt policeman?”
“Ah yes! That bastard started demanding bigger and bigger bribes, without realizing that the Organization also had his immediate superior on the payroll. One day they demoted him without explanation and sent him to patrol this station. I’d already had an altercation with him at the market, and he blamed me for what happened. If I’d intervened when he caught Nikolai, he would’ve arrested me and jeopardized the Organization’s entire distribution system.”
“But he was your son—”
“Of course. And I promise you that if you hadn’t resolved it, I would have stepped in.” He opened his overcoat, and Jack saw a knife.
Olga burst into tears when she saw her son run toward her and leap into her arms. The tears stopped her seeing Jack saying good-bye.
“I’ll never forget what you’ve done for Nikolai,” Konstantin vowed, shaking his hand. “I heard that bastard say that you’re going to Gorky. Here.” He handed Jack a piece of paper. “Now you have blat, too. And one more thing: never trust anybody. In Russia, there’s no such thing as a friend.”
11
The Moscow-bound train departed from Moskovsky Station, located on the other bank of the River Neva, so Jack and the rest of the Americans had to drag their bags across central Leningrad from one station to the other. The inhuman cold prevented Jack from paying much attention to the impressive French-style palaces and Orthodox churches, which, crowned by gold domes, festooned the city with their exotic onion forms. However, he noticed again that not a single automobile circulated on the streets, as if the inhabitants wanted to preserve the city’s old-world charm. Very occasionally, a train of horse-drawn carriages would interrupt the silence with their clatter of hooves on the paving. Yet, aside from that, the city of the tsars seemed to be inhabited entirely b
y a plague of impoverished vagrants whose rags would have been an embarrassment even to the jobless Americans who begged in the soup lines.
Fortunately, Jack and his friends were heading to Moscow, the capital, which, according to Walter, was a byword for Soviet progress.
The provodnik who showed them to their third-class seats apologized for the modest amenities aboard the Moscow-bound train, but assured them proudly that when the Red Arrow first took up its route, not only did it cover the distance between the two major cities in less than eight hours, but it was also possible to telephone any part of the world from its restaurant car.
Jack thanked him for the information as he spread the mattress that he’d just rented from him out on the wooden bench. The freight train’s fifteen-hour journey time didn’t seem so bad to him, especially considering that most of the trip would be at night and he’d be sleeping.
He needed rest.
He turned the control several times, but the heating didn’t work. The cold forced him to keep his hands in his pockets for warmth, and there they found the piece of paper that Konstantin had given him before they parted. He took it out and read it again in the semidarkness: Ivan Zarko. Upravdom at 25 Tverskaya Avenue, Gorky. Konstantin had explained that an upravdom was a cross between a landlord, an administrator, and a building superintendent, employed by the state to manage the buildings that the party assigned to him. Jack carefully folded the paper and pocketed it again, while the image of a blood-soaked Kowalski appeared in his mind. He imagined that, by then, the customs officer who’d retained his passport would have sent it on to Moscow. It was only a matter of time before they established that it was false and ordered his arrest.
He looked at Walter, sleeping peacefully next to Sue, unconcerned about what had happened at the station or the danger they were in. According to Walter, it was highly unlikely that they’d detect that the passport was a fake in Moscow for two reasons. First, its tiny imperfections would be imperceptible to anyone unfamiliar with the new American documents. Second, they hadn’t retained the passport because they doubted its authenticity. Rather, they had likely confiscated it for the same reason Jack had been questioned at the Amtorg office in New York: the provenance of his unusual Russian surname. Furthermore, that the United States had cut diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union meant, in practice, that the Soviet authorities would never ask the Americans for his criminal record.
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