The Last Paradise

by Antonio Garrido

  Jack shook his head. “Truthfully, I hadn’t even thought about it. I might get rid of a few things, but I haven’t seen the accommodation they’ve found for me yet. I spoke to a Soviet friend, and for now I’m going to move into a little house that’s empty in downtown Gorky.”

  “A little house? You should mind the friends you keep. In the Soviet Union, owning your own home’s forbidden.”

  “I don’t know who it belongs to, and I don’t care. I’m just renting it. But if you’re interested, I know a few high-level OGPU officers who live in impressive dachas.” The car passed some burned-out warehouses, and he took the opportunity to change the subject. “What happened there?”

  “A mob of counterrevolutionaries. The anti-Soviet pickets stopped the factory running for a few days, but the OGPU’s militias brought them into line,” he said proudly, as if he truly saw himself as a member of the secret police.

  Jack gazed at the ruins.

  The car stopped in front of Sergei Loban’s office, where Jack was going to apologize for his absence from work. Walter accompanied him to the door and waited until the director of operations had invited him in.

  “All right, Jack. I have to go. If you change your mind about the furniture . . .”

  “Sure, don’t worry. And say hello to Sue.”

  Walter smiled. He said good-bye to Jack and returned to the car. Jack watched from the window as Walter told the driver his destination. He raised an eyebrow. Walter had his own chauffeur. He’d moved up in the world; that was for sure.

  “Are you going to stand there all morning? Come on! Come in!”

  Sergei’s imperious voice made Jack hobble into his office more quickly than was advisable, and he smarted from his physical exertion. Seeing this, Sergei stood up. “Still limping? May I ask what treatment my daughter’s giving you?”

  Jack thanked Sergei for helping him into his seat. “Actually, I haven’t seen Dr. Natasha for a few days. In fact, I was almost back to normal, and I thought I’d restart work today, as we’d agreed, but I injured myself again and I can barely walk.”

  “By Lenin’s whiskers! You Americans are made of butter! I remember the day I was hit three times in the battle for Saint Petersburg. One in the belly, here right in the middle; another in the arm, and another in the thigh. I was tended to by a veteran, and the next day I was back on the front line, drinking vodka and firing at the enemy.”

  “It’s possible we’re made of different stuff. The point is that I wanted to explain my situation in person to you.”

  “There’s no need to make excuses,” he interrupted. “I knew you were unwell; I didn’t make you come here to bid you a good morning. I know you spoke to Hewitt at the firing range. Did he tell you anything?”

  “Nothing in particular. It seems he likes to shoot, and he invited me to the grand opening.”

  “And you separated yourselves from his niece and Viktor to talk guns?”

  “I was exhausted. I’d worked all night to finish Smirnov’s car, and I needed to sit down. Hewitt was kind enough to accompany me, and I didn’t see why I should refuse.”

  “He didn’t tell you anything about the factory? About the arrests? About what’s happening with the Americans?”

  “Only in passing, just taking an interest in his fellow countrymen,” he lied. “By the way, what’s their charge?” He took the opportunity to try to glean some information on his compatriots.

  “Counterrevolutionary activities,” Sergei said with a sour expression as he crumpled up a report. “They are ungrateful people who have tried to slow down the unstoppable progress of Bolshevism!”

  “It seems strange. The inhabitants of the American village are honorable people; all they think about is their family and their work.”

  “What kind of honor are you talking about? The one that puts its own interests before those of the great Soviet family? Because I’m talking about rabble: individuals who use treachery and sabotage to pursue their objectives, siding with the small number of insurgents who still yearn for the days of the tsars.”

  Jack listened in silence to Sergei’s rant. He resisted asking for more details because he knew that doing so would only align him more closely with the saboteurs. “All right. Well, if there’s nothing else . . .”

  “There is.” He smoothed his graying mustache. “I’m putting Wilbur Hewitt under close surveillance, so from now on, if you want to have a conversation with him, whether by telephone or in person, you must have it in the presence of one of my men, or you’ll be arrested. As for your sudden inability to work, I think we’ll have to find a solution. Although the Soviet Union pays a benefit to sick workers, the amount is little more than symbolic, and it would be difficult for me to justify a wage like the one I promised you.”

  “I don’t understand. You assured me I’d keep—”

  “Yes, yes . . . I know what I said. But my daughter also said that you’d recover in a couple of weeks, and you’ve showed up here a wreck. So to resolve this inconvenience, until you get back on your feet, I’m going to do two things: first, authorize the opening of a Torgsin grocery store in the American village, and second, make you directly responsible for it.”

  “That’s it?” Jack was suspicious. There was no Torgsin in Gorky, but Ivan Zarko had told him about the ones he’d seen in Moscow. They were state-authorized establishments where restricted goods were sold in exchange for hard currency and jewels.

  “Well.” He smiled. “Between sales, it won’t do you any harm to speak to your customers. I’m sure there’ll be rumors that might be of interest to me. They may know things we don’t, and they won’t mind sharing them with you.”

  The Soviet official waited for a response. Jack contemplated his stony, inscrutable gaze, imagining that, whatever Sergei’s plan was, there would be few loose strings that he could pull. But perhaps there would be one or two. He decided to play along. “I’d need help. People I trust. I’m struggling to stand up. If I can’t work at the Avtozavod, how will I be able to take care of a store?” he asked, confident that Sergei would agree to his request.

  “You have friends. Choose a few who’d be prepared to give you a hand. While you recover, I’ll free them of their other duties. They’ll receive the same wage, but they’ll have a comfortable job and access to the best food. They’ll be grateful to you, I’m sure.”

  “Very well. Give me a week to recover and get everything ready.”

  “It’s yours.”

  “As for the premises . . . I presume you don’t intend for me to do business from the latrines.”

  “Of course not! I had a spare-parts warehouse in mind; it borders on the American village. I’ll have it fitted out. Any other questions?”

  “Yes. Stock. Who’ll supply it, and at what prices?”

  “Stock? There’s no stock.”

  “I don’t understand.” He thought Sergei was playing games with him. “How do you expect people to do their shopping in an empty store?”

  “You tell me. You haven’t had any problem with it until now.”

  When Jack left the building, a car was waiting for him. He was annoyed to find Walter sitting comfortably inside it again, and despite his apparent friendliness, he was beginning to see him less as a friend and more as a guard dog with Sergei as his master. As they drove, Walter asked about the meeting, but Jack was evasive. He was deep in thought when, as they entered the compound, he saw that some of the bunkhouses were being closed down. “What’s going on?” He gestured to the structure that a motorized crane was demolishing.

  “Rehousing. You chose a good moment to move.” He pointed at a couple that two guards were leading to a black car. “John Selleck and his wife, Lisa. They tried to escape yesterday but were intercepted at the first railway checkpoint.”

  “Where’re they being taken?”

  “To the ispravdom, I guess. Apparently, they’d colluded with some defectors wanting to leave the country. Poor fools!”

  Jack watched the cou
ple through the rear window. The woman was crying inconsolably, begging the guards not to separate them, but the men dragged them apart, ignoring their pleas.

  Once they were outside Jack’s house, Walter opened the car door for his friend. Jack, resting on his crutch, thanked him for his help.

  “That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?” said Walter. He climbed back into the car and closed the door. Before leaving, he lowered the window. “Oh, Jack! One last thing. I told the housing committee that you planned to leave the village, and they asked me to speed up the process. Please, make sure you’ve gotten your stuff out by tonight. I want to reassign the home tomorrow.”

  Aware of the problems ahead, Jack slumped into the leather sofa in his home and sat there, exhausted, trying to understand why he was wasting time trying to move house instead of planning an ever more necessary escape. For any American, remaining in the Soviet Union was becoming no less dangerous than stomping barefoot on a nest of vipers. And Sergei, without a doubt, was the most venomous viper of them all.

  His head echoed with the wailing that resounded in the American village every night when Loban’s men burst in to arrest workers and take them away. The appeals for clemency from the sobbing wives and the children subsided only when the cars started up and drove away. He hated that Russian. Not content with trying to kill Jack, Sergei was shameless enough to ask him to spy on his compatriots in order to find evidence that would justify Wilbur Hewitt’s arrest. And all this, according to the American industrialist, was to avoid paying the large sums they still owed Henry Ford for the construction of their factory.

  He felt like a dirty rag for not helping Hewitt. He should have accepted his offer and joined him in organizing their escape together, but for as long as the wound on his hip forced him to get around with crutches, any attempt would be insane. Even once he’d recovered, fleeing Gorky would require careful planning, and a lot of money. While he was detained at the ispravdom, several prisoners had assured him that the Ukrainian city of Odessa was the best way to leave the country, with ships bound for Europe leaving its port. The problem was getting there. From what he’d heard, the trains were under tight surveillance, and in winter, road transportion was nonexistent due to the frequent blizzards.

  Whatever the case, any attempt would require Ivan Zarko’s help. He could surely provide Jack with false passports. What Jack didn’t know was the cost, or how long Zarko would need to procure them.

  While he waited for the right moment to inform Zarko of his intentions, he decided to make a list of allies and compare it to his list of enemies.

  First there was Walter. He was his friend, but Jack didn’t know what to think about him: he felt in debt to him for helping him flee the United States, but his increasingly unconditional loyalty to the Soviet regime worried him. The same could be said of Sue.

  Then he considered Joe Brown. Though he never spoke of returning to America, old Joe was a man he could trust, and his discretion, rather than stemming from suspicion, seemed to be a defensive mechanism. The Daniels family was similar. Harry Daniels had said on more than one occasion that he would cut off an arm to be able to return home. Among his acquaintances, he considered Miquel Agramunt. Despite his anarchist background, Jack’s meat supplier hadn’t hesitated to propose an illegal activity in order to improve his financial situation, which certainly made him a candidate for escaping. He thought he could sound them out by suggesting they join the team that he’d need to run the new store.

  The one person he was certain about was Ivan Zarko. As long as Jack had money, he could count on Ivan’s help.

  As a member of the OGPU, Viktor Smirnov would fall squarely into the category of enemy, were it not for the hostility he’d expressed toward Sergei on several occasions, which, if it came to it, might make him more of an ally. Moreover, his love of money and luxury meant he leaned more toward capitalist ideals than Communist ones. So perhaps Jack could take advantage of their friendship of convenience.

  Finally, there were Sergei and his daughter. He had a clear idea what kind of man Sergei was and preferred not to think about it. But Natasha puzzled him. He often thought of her, and though for the time being he could only say that her care had helped him, something inside told him that she deserved his trust.

  He breathed deeply as he reread his list. His enemies were powerful, and paradoxically, the only person with some power to face up to them was the man they saw as the worst of the Americans, Wilbur Hewitt.

  He reached the conclusion that he had no choice. He’d confess Sergei’s sinister plans to Hewitt and accept his offer to escape. Then he’d negotiate with Ivan Zarko, and while he recovered from his limp, he’d lie in wait, running the store as Sergei himself had ordered him to do, but with a subtle difference: rather than spy on his fellow countrymen, he’d find out more about the head of the OGPU, even if it meant going through his daughter.

  28

  Holding a colorful bunch of winter flowers, Jack waited impatiently for Natasha to come out of her office. He watched the weak rays of sunlight tinge the hospital exterior in a vain attempt to prolong the fall. The sun’s natural warmth contrasted with the cold premeditation behind Jack’s arranging to meet the doctor, but though he wasn’t proud of it, he could find no better way to discover more about Sergei than by probing his daughter.

  When Natasha Lobanova finally appeared, wearing her white uniform with a blue handkerchief covering her head, Jack couldn’t prevent a slight acceleration of his heart, which he fought off by quickly handing her the flowers. She smiled and accepted the gift. When she asked him what the gesture was for, Jack returned her smile. In reality, as soon as he saw her, he forgot all about Sergei and his grievances.

  “I was surprised when you called. What was it that was so important that you had to tell me?” she said, seeing that Jack was still silent.

  “Don’t you remember? We still haven’t had dinner,” he replied. As he said it, Jack thought he could detect a slight redness in Natasha’s face.

  “Oh! I thought it was something to do with your wound. So, did you want me to eat this bunch of flowers?”

  They both laughed. She declined his invitation because she had to collect some new equipment from the post office, but Jack wasn’t going to give up so easily. He brought up the conversation they’d had on the French Revolution, telling her that she wouldn’t have a better opportunity to gain a new convert. “You can’t leave me like this. Look at me, I’m lame!” He smiled, with a feigned expression of suffering.

  She looked at him long enough for Jack’s blue eyes to make her hesitate, then glanced at her little watch and screwed up her lips. She accepted Jack’s invitation, but on one condition. “I choose the place,” she said.

  Following Natasha’s directions, Jack drove the Ford Model A down various roads until they reached a ramshackle farm several miles north of Gorky. When they parked, she quickly got out of the car to greet the farmer, who had stopped digging when he saw the strange car arrive. “By Lenin’s whiskers! Natasha! Is it really you?” The man dropped his hoe and hugged the young woman. “Come on, come into the house! Who’s your friend?”

  Natasha kept smiling as the man bowed in front of her again and again, as if he owed her his life. When he’d finished making a fuss, the young woman introduced Jack. The farmer greeted him and guided them into the little home, where a woman surrounded by small children was busy stirring a stewpot on the fire. When the woman saw Natasha arrive, she took the pot from the fire and ran to kiss her.

  “Here. They’re for you,” said Natasha, handing Jack’s bunch of flowers to the woman, who celebrated the gift as if she’d been given treasure. “Sorry, Jack, but it’s the price of our dinner,” she whispered to him with a smile.

  They both sat at the table as the children screamed with excitement at the candy that Natasha brought out from her pockets. As they tucked into a bowl of hot soup, Jack listened to the stream of compliments that the married couple had for the young woman. He was
told how the doctor had saved the lives of the youngest kids during an outbreak of smallpox.

  “She’s an angel!” the farmer couple repeated between spoonfuls.

  Jack smiled. As well as sincere, these people seemed happy. The four children never stayed still, playing among themselves while the parents encouraged them with their laughter, and Natasha got involved, sitting them on her lap and tickling them. When they’d finished their dinner, the farmer opened his only bottle of vodka, and though Natasha initially refused, in the end it was impossible to say no. They drank a toast to the future, to the family, and to the children. Natasha laughed as the vodka warmed her stomach. Then, while the woman went to find something sweet, Natasha checked the kids for lice.

  “That’s how I like it! Clean!” she said with pride.

  When the farmer’s wife returned with three cookies, she apologized for the lack of treats. Almost everything they harvested from the kolkhoz went to supply the Avtozavod.

  “The cooperative’s left with almost nothing,” the farmer grumbled, but instead of complaining, he stood and picked up an old balalaika. “Does your friend know how to dance?”

  Without waiting for Jack to answer, the farmer broke into a catchy melody, prompting the children to form a ring and improvise a circular dance.

  “Come on, Jack! We can’t let those little tykes show us up. Let’s show them what we’re made of!” said Natasha, and she grabbed Jack by the hands and made him take a few steps. He was still hindered by his limp.

  Jack barely felt the pain. He had eyes only for Natasha, who seemed to be enjoying his company as much as the music. He held her close enough to feel her chest against his, and she let herself be led. They danced and laughed until a stab of pain in Jack’s hip forced him to stop. Seeing this, she took a step back.

  “Are you all right? How daft of me. I—”

  “Your daftness is wonderful,” he said without letting her go.