The Last Paradise

by Antonio Garrido

  “So, you’re here for telling the truth,” Natasha said.

  “Like I said, I don’t know why they’ve locked me up. All I know is that the day after assuring your father that he was arresting the wrong workers, I had molten iron raining on me.” He groaned when he tried to move.

  “And you think it’s connected?” She paused what she was doing. “I mean . . . you think my father was behind the accident?”

  “Who else could it be?”

  “I can’t answer that. But I know my father. You’ll have to be patient.” She finished the examination. “If you really are innocent, you’ll walk out of here. I promise.”

  Jack couldn’t help but feel annoyed. The only conclusion he could draw from Natasha’s response was that some people didn’t leave this place. The young woman was about to leave when he stood and took her by the wrist. “Natasha, why are you bothering with a foreign criminal?” Her clear face was devoid of malice.

  “I guess you don’t look like a criminal. And you say you’re here only because you told the truth, right?” She smiled, allowing Jack to continue holding her hand.

  “Listen. I really appreciate your coming, but I need someone to tell me the truth for once. Why did you insist on visiting me?”

  Natasha fell silent, looking him in the eye without blinking. “Honestly, Jack, I feel sorry for you.” She freed her hand from his. “Don’t take it the wrong way. What I mean is, it saddens me that you’re here with nobody to turn to. No family to help you.”

  Jack felt remorse grip his stomach. Though he’d told her the opposite just a few days earlier, he decided to reveal the truth about his personal situation. Natasha listened in silence. When she learned that Jack had entered the Soviet Union as a married man, she fixed her eyes on the cell tiles. “Heavens! So the reason you live in a house is because you have a wife, after all,” she said without looking up. “And . . . you have children as well?”

  “I’m sorry. I haven’t explained myself very well. The reality is that I don’t even have a wife. What I mean is, our marriage was the result of a terrible mix-up. In fact, I’ve filed for a divorce,” he hastened to clarify.

  “Sure. Well, we all make mistakes sometimes. Me included,” Natasha replied, and without warning, she said good-bye and left.

  That night, Jack barely slept. Though happy to have seen Natasha, he was unsettled by her relationship to the man he held responsible for his imprisonment. Before she left, he had asked her to let his friend Walter know that he was in prison, and she’d agreed to do so. The sound of a distant explosion made him jump. It seemed the disturbances at the factory continued. He wrapped himself in the threadbare blanket and waited for dawn.

  The jailer’s roar made Jack give a start. He stopped reading the Izvestia newspaper, and as ordered, stood at attention.

  “You have a visitor,” the jailer announced.

  Jack headed down the corridor that led to the visitors’ room, imagining that Walter had received his message. But when the bolts on the door were drawn aside, he was surprised to find Sue standing there in a ragged overcoat. After a few seconds in a daze, Jack sat with her on a bench, under the watchful eye of the guard. He asked her how she’d managed to get in to see him. “I’m still your wife, remember?” She showed him the counterfeit marriage certificate.

  Jack cleared his throat. It annoyed him that, even though their divorce was being processed, Sue was carrying around a forged document that could potentially get them into trouble. However, he didn’t have the luxury of choosing his visitors, and, at that moment, Sue was his only contact with the outside world. He put the business with their marriage to one side and asked her why Walter hadn’t come.

  “When you disappeared from the hospital, alarm bells went off in the village. Those who think you sympathize with the Russians didn’t care, but Walter tried to find you. You know he works for the OGPU now,” she said, swelling a little with importance.

  “Yeah, I know. But why hasn’t he come?”

  “He wanted to, but he can’t risk being associated with someone accused of counterrevolutionary acts. He has no idea why you’ve been arrested, but he thinks you may have been branded an enemy of the workers.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “You haven’t read the Soviet Penal Code?”

  “No. Should I have?”

  “Walter asked me to bring you a copy.” She took it from a cloth bag. “I think it was given to him by a doctor. Here. It’s the 1927 edition. We looked through it last night but didn’t understand much, since it’s in Russian. Wait, let’s see, I’ll find it . . .” She opened the volume nervously, in search of the paper bookmark on which she’d noted something down. “Yeah. Here it is: ‘Article 58.1. A counterrevolutionary action is any action aimed at overthrowing, undermining, or weakening the power of workers.’ There’s more, but this is the paragraph they translated for us.”

  With the guard’s consent, Jack took the volume from her and ran his eyes over it. He saw that, in addition to Sue’s quotation, Article 58.7 specifically mentioned industrial sabotage, and 58.9 referred to damage. He was surprised to find that both crimes were punishable by death.

  “Are you OK?” she asked, seeing him turn pale.

  “Yeah, yeah.” His throat was dry. “And you two?”

  “We’re getting by. Walter seems happy in his new job. He says the Russians treat him well. He’s thinking about joining the party; it might get us a better ration card and more food.”

  “Sue . . . This is all a big mistake. If I could speak to Walter, I bet he could—”

  “I told you he can’t come. Tell me whatever you want to say, and I’ll pass on the message.” She glanced at the guard, as if worried he could understand what they were saying.

  Jack shook his head. He didn’t like involving Sue in his problems, but he knew that he had no choice. He revealed to her that Wilbur Hewitt had hired him to investigate the sabotage plaguing the Avtozavod, and that in the course of his inquiries, he’d discovered that Americans were being falsely charged and arrested. “Tell Walter to be careful. I’m convinced that Sergei Loban is behind all this,” he whispered.

  Sue coughed when she heard him. “Loban? But he’s the head of the OGPU.”

  “Just tell him.”

  “All right. I’ll let him know, but I don’t see what he’ll be able to do to help. After all, he’s just the new boy.”

  “Damn it, Sue, you have to get me out of here. If not you, then whom can I turn to?”

  “Jack, think it over! Walter’s just an assistant. Do you want them to arrest all of us? They say they’re opening the American embassy in Moscow in November. Maybe they can—”

  “They say, they say! That rumor’s been making the rounds since Roosevelt was inaugurated in March.” He thumped the table. “And even if they establish diplomatic relations, he won’t be able to get help from the embassy, because in America he’s wanted for murder.”

  “Well, don’t worry. We’ll find a way to get you out. But I have to go,” said Sue, seeing the guard gesturing to them to finish. “I should give you a kiss, or the guard will think it’s strange.”

  Jack nodded, his mind elsewhere. When she kissed him, he was surprised.

  “Take care,” said Sue.

  “Yeah. You, too. Say thanks to Walter for the Penal Code. And remind him to speak to Hewitt! Maybe he can help me.”

  When Sue left, it dawned on Jack that he would not escape the labor camp alive.

  26

  Jack would never forget the night when, without saying a word, two Soviet guards came into his cell and dragged him out to the same black car in which, a few weeks earlier, they’d taken him away from the American village. He asked where they were going, but neither escort answered. They just put him in the backseat, and one sat on each side of him. As they drove through Gorky’s dark streets, Jack recalled the sinister stories that circulated in the ispravdom about the nocturnal outings that the prisoners were subjected to fro
m time to time. Reportedly, they were taken in the middle of the night, put in a car that drove them off, and a flash of light was the last thing they saw. As he imagined what awaited him, his heart skipped a beat.

  As the vehicle penetrated the forest and the city’s lights disappeared, Jack’s fears grew. He didn’t know where they would stop, or whether people would be waiting for him when they did, but doing nothing could prove fatal. Though he was handcuffed and hemmed in by two men, presumably armed, he told himself that he had to escape. He was strong. If he attacked the two guards inside the vehicle, the driver wouldn’t be able to help them. Maybe he would have a chance.

  He looked at his escorts. The one on the left seemed the stronger of the two. He would hit him first with the handcuffs, then the one on his right before he could react.

  He felt sweat cover his entire body. The vehicle drove on while Jack delayed his surprise attack, waiting for a good moment that would probably never arrive. He could sense the proximity of death, and he didn’t want to hasten it. He didn’t consider himself a believer but commended himself to Adonai nonetheless. He was taking a deep breath before he would deal the first blow, when the car suddenly braked hard, stopping on the edge of a precipice, near an abandoned hut where two more men stood waiting, flashlights in their hands. He didn’t have a chance to react. The guard on his right grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him out of the vehicle like a sack of garbage while the beam from a flashlight blinded him. Jack shaded his eyes to try to identify the men, but he couldn’t. Then, the Soviets moved aside, leaving a familiar-looking man with a graying head of hair standing in front of him.

  “Good evening.” Sergei Loban’s voice boomed in the silence of the night.

  “It might be for you.” If they were going to kill him, there was little point in formalities.

  “Jack, Jack . . .” He paced around the American. “I have to make a difficult decision, and I’d like you to help me.”

  “What kind of decision? Whether to shoot me or throw me off a cliff?” He spat into the ravine. He thought he could see Sergei smiling.

  “How melodramatic you Americans are! You two. Leave us,” he ordered his men. “You see, my choice is very simple, as I hope yours will be. I need to know whether you’ll go back to your old job.”

  Jack was suspicious of Sergei’s offer. He found it impossible to swallow that he’d been dragged out of jail to be told in the middle of the night that everything was suddenly going to return to normal. “Is this a joke?” he managed to say.

  “I never joke,” replied Sergei, his expression serious. “Now listen carefully. I’m proposing that you return to your position as if nothing has happened. If you accept, you must keep this conversation secret. You can tell anyone who asks that we arrested you by mistake and that, with the imminent arrival of Ambassador Bullitt, we decided to let you go.”

  Jack looked around. The rifles Sergei’s henchmen carried gleamed in the moonlight. If he tried to escape, he’d be riddled with bullets before he took a single step. Sergei’s offer was his only option, so there was no harm in showing some curiosity. “So what would my job be? To wait for a truck to run me over, or for an iron girder to fall on my head?”

  “I guarantee you that nothing like that will happen. One of my men will stay with you at all times.”

  “One of your men? Like Orlov?”

  “Forget Orlov. We’ll assign you someone more competent. The only difference between this job and your previous one will be that, rather than taking your findings straight to Wilbur Hewitt, you’ll bring them to me. And only me.”

  “Why the secrecy?”

  “We have reason to suspect him. We believe he is using his position to embezzle funds for his own profit.”

  Jack remembered his conversation with Hewitt at the hospital. The industrialist had told him he was afraid that he would be accused of something. “What makes you think I’m going to betray my countryman?”

  “Jack, Jack . . . you’re so untrusting. Why not look at it another way? If your investigations confirm our suspicions, then he’s a crook who deserves to be punished.” He continued to pace around Jack. “And if you find that Hewitt had nothing to do with the sabotage, you’ll have helped your friend.”

  Jack pretended to think it over. He needed time. “But if I don’t report to Hewitt, he’ll think I’m not doing my job and stop paying me.” He had to show that he was worried about appearing credible.

  “Then invent faults, make up hypotheses, suggest improvements. Play along for as long as possible. You’re a smart guy; I’m sure you’ll manage.”

  “Hewitt’s smart, too. Sooner or later, he’ll discover what I’m up to, and he’ll fire me.”

  “In that case, you can always carry on working at the Avtozavod as a skilled operative.”

  “With the same miserly salary that my workmates earn?”

  “You were worse off in America. And anyway, you run food on the black market, don’t you?”

  Jack flushed red. “I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about. Contraband’s forbidden, and . . .”

  “I’m talking about the pork ribs that Miquel Agramunt supplies you with and that an employee of yours sells in the American village. As I’ve told you many times, we Soviets aren’t stupid. If I’ve allowed your little scheme to continue, it’s only to keep in check the discontent that a famine could cause among the Americans.” He paced again. “So, if you accept my offer, whatever happens with Hewitt, you’ll keep working for me, and I’ll turn a blind eye to your black market business. In fact, I could even authorize the sale of your products in the village store. After all, you’re all capitalists, so the manner in which you swindle one another is no business of mine.”

  “And if I refuse?” Jack ventured to ask.

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate.” He gestured at the weapons aimed at him. Jack looked at them.

  “I’m not intimidated by you.”

  “Maybe you’re not. But you wouldn’t want your wife and your friend to end up like you, hurled down a ravine.”

  “You bastard!” Jack went to strike Sergei, but a rifle butt to the back stopped him.

  Sergei bent over Jack as he knelt, trying not to pass out from the pain.

  “Please, Jack. Don’t make me behave like a savage. Decide what you’d rather do. Work for me or share a grave with your friends.”

  Jack swore. As soon as he’d accepted Sergei’s proposal, he knew that he’d sold his soul to the devil himself.

  When the Black Crows left him on the central street of the American village, Jack gave a sigh of relief. He waited for the black car to disappear into the distance, and only then did he pick up his kit bag. He turned and limped toward his house. To his surprise, he found Yuri on the steps outside, wearing a fur coat that made him look like a crouching bear. At first, the Russian told him to halt, but as soon as he recognized him, he let out a roar of joy, which soon turned into laughter when Jack invited him in for a drink. Jack needed it, too, and the half bottle of vodka he’d been saving for a special occasion barely lasted five minutes. Once they were warm, they talked about what had happened in Jack’s absence.

  “Uncle Ivan told me to keep watch on the house in case you were locked up for a long time. He has contacts everywhere, and when he heard you’d been sent to the ispravdom, he guessed you wouldn’t be in too much danger.”

  “Oh? And why is that?” he asked, intrigued.

  Yuri finished off his vodka and smiled. “Because the other Americans who disappeared never set foot in the ispravdom. They just vanished.”

  When Yuri left, Jack wandered around the rooms of his house, feeling like he was in a palace. He checked that everything was where he’d left it: the reports in the trunk, the food in the pantry, his books stacked up, and the furniture in order. Even the tools that were spread across the floor in the garage were as he’d left them.

  He was unable to sleep. He lay on the bed with his eyes open, as if h
is eyelids had been soldered to the sockets, staring at the ceiling in the darkness of the room. He couldn’t understand anything. He still couldn’t see why he’d been arrested, let alone why he had been released. He couldn’t explain why Natasha Lobanova had showed so much interest in him. And he certainly couldn’t grasp how he still had his home. He found no answers. He closed his eyes and tried to rest, but only managed to toss and turn on the bed until the weak rays of sun filtering in through the window announced the arrival of a new day.

  As hard as it was, he had to get up. His job as a traitor awaited him at the Avtozavod.

  Wilbur Hewitt stood up from the armchair in his office with shock on his face. He hugged Jack as if he were a son returning from war. The industrialist assured him that he’d tried everything within his power to secure his release. “But it proved impossible. They even forbade me from visiting you,” he said contritely.

  “Don’t worry; you didn’t miss anything.” Jack hid his discomfort.

  “I warned you to forget it!” he yelled. “I told you, kid: we don’t sniff the Russians’ butts, and they don’t sniff ours. Anyway, the important thing is you’re back. And you say Sergei himself admitted that it was all a mistake? Unthinkable! But at least you’re free. How’s the burn?”

  “It’s improving, slowly. What was it you wanted to tell me? You seemed real nervous at the hospital.” He wanted to know whether Hewitt’s worries were to do with being under Sergei’s suspicion.

  “Shhh! Lower your voice!” he whispered, and pointed at a loudspeaker as if it had the ability to hear them. “I don’t know if I’ve told you before, but aside from reading the New York Times, shooting is one of my favorite pastimes,” he exclaimed, making a point of raising his voice. “Do you shoot?”

  “No.”

  “Not even a revolver? And you call yourself an American? Ah well, it doesn’t matter,” he said, almost screaming. “I’ll teach you. The day after tomorrow, they’re opening the firing range, so you’ll be my guest. After the ceremony, there’ll be a banquet, and at times of shortage like this, you have to make the most of these occasions.” He paused, then bent toward Jack’s ear to whisper to him. “Try to act normal. Perhaps after the celebration we’ll find the right moment to speak without arousing suspicion.”