The Last Paradise

by Antonio Garrido

  On the way home, he wondered why Natasha had hidden her relationship with Smirnov from him. Though he had distanced himself from her in recent days, he couldn’t help but feel betrayed. It tortured him to think that her pleasant face—without a trace of duplicity, those honest eyes—was masking a huge lie. That her kisses, embraces, and sighs were those of a fleeting encounter. But then, why had he caught her arguing with Smirnov in her office?

  He could barely think. Did it really matter? He was overwhelmed by having reached a crossroads where, whichever path he chose, he would be heading into the abyss. He cursed everyone angrily, then hardened his heart and picked up his pace. If his rage hadn’t prevented it, he might have shed a tear for his own soul, but there was no time to cry. Only escape could save him. It was time to flee, or die trying.

  He was approaching his house when he came across a wild mob, running down the streets from home to home and vandalizing everything in its path. He tried to ask a passerby what was happening, but the man ducked into a nearby doorway. When he turned to ask someone else, there was a sharp bang. Jack stopped in his tracks. There were some screams, and the sound of a vehicle speeding off. Then there were more cries, followed by more gunshots.

  Jack ran to his house and yelled to Elizabeth to come down to the living room. As the young woman dressed, he began to gather the possessions he’d need during his escape: warm clothes, his savings, the incriminating reports, and McMillan’s passport. When she came down, she asked what was happening.

  “There’s no time to talk. Gather your clothes. Only the essentials. And see what you can salvage from the kitchen. Anything edible—potatoes, bread, whatever.”

  “Now? Where’re we going?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll get Ivan Zarko to hide us somewhere safe.”

  “But why? And what are those bangs?”

  “They sound like gunfire. It looks like the OGPU is raiding houses indiscriminately.”

  “Have you heard anything about my uncle?”

  “We can’t do anything for him now. Get your coat and do what I say. Quickly. We’ll worry about your uncle later.”

  “I’m not going to flee and leave the only family I have here. My uncle Wilbur hasn’t done anything wrong, and—”

  “He hasn’t? How can you be so sure? Do you know where he got the money for the passports from? What would you know? Wilbur Hewitt lied to me. He got me into this mess. He killed George McMillan, the person I replaced at the Avtozavod, and—”

  “What?” Elizabeth’s face was twisted with disbelief.

  “You heard. I didn’t tell you to spare your feelings, but a witness saw your uncle kill George McMillan.”

  “George? That’s absurd! My uncle wouldn’t kill a fly. I don’t know how you can believe it.”

  Some nearby gunshots made both of them give a start.

  “Well, I believe it because there’s a witness who described how, a few days after arriving in Moscow, your uncle strangled that man with his own hands on the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge and threw his body into the river.”

  Elizabeth was left dumbfounded, looking at Jack as if he were a ghost. “But, Jack, don’t you remember?”

  “Don’t I remember what?”

  “The terrible injury that my uncle suffered on the SS Cliffwood? How could an invalid who could barely hold a cup in his hand strangle a man twenty years his junior and hurl his body over a balustrade?”

  Jack cursed himself before punching the nearest wall. How could he have been so stupid not to have realized it before? What Elizabeth was saying was so obvious that even a child would have considered it. He cursed himself again. Without question, Smirnov had given false evidence at Sergei’s behest in order to implicate Hewitt in a crime so vile that it would dissolve any trace of his innocence in the eyes of the jurors. He didn’t know how to respond to Elizabeth, but at that moment, the revelation was irrelevant, as were McMillan’s accounting records and the name Vladimir Mamayev. No secret report was going to stop those who had lied and hatched this plot, nor would it prevent them from coming after Jack and Elizabeth. When he tried to explain it to the young woman, she turned on him.

  “What secret reports are you talking about?”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore. Your uncle’s condemned. We have to escape.”

  “Escape? Is that all you can think of?”

  “And what would you have us do? Turn up in Stalin’s bedroom and demand a fair trial? Don’t kid yourself. Come on!” He took her wrist to make her go with him.

  “Let go of me!”

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Elizabeth? If we don’t escape now—”

  “All you know how to do is run away. Just like you ran away from New York so you wouldn’t go down for the shooting.”

  “What?” Jack turned pale. He couldn’t believe what Elizabeth had said.

  “Did you really think nobody would find out? Nobody would know you were a fugitive?”

  “But, how . . . ?” Jack imagined that Walter must have somehow revealed the details of his landlord’s death to her.

  “It’s all in here,” she said. She took an old copy of the New York Times from inside her dressing gown and waved it at him. “In the local news section, dated the day before the SS Cliffwood set sail.”

  Jack was silent, feeling the blood pulse in his temples at a feverish rate. “It . . . it was an accident,” he finally managed to sputter.

  “Oh yeah? Well, here it says a guy named Kowalski reported you for shooting him and running away with his money.”

  “What did you say? He reported me?” Jack didn’t understand. How the hell could a dead man have reported him? “Give it here!”

  He snatched the paper from her and read the article closely. When he’d finished, he slumped into an armchair. It was impossible. The last paragraph of the piece explained that Kowalski had suffered only a minor injury.

  The thunder of a burst of gunfire tore him from his daze. He was no murderer! If he’d known that Kowalski was alive, he could have stayed in the United States and proved his innocence; proved that he hadn’t stolen from his landlord, much less fired at him on purpose. And if he hadn’t killed him, why had Walter lied to him? Why had he told him that Kowalski was dead?

  Jack let out a scream that resounded around the entire house. If he’d had Walter in front of him, he would have beaten him to death. He cursed him. That rat whom he’d considered a friend, who had offered to escape with him to the Soviet Union to save him from the electric chair; that heartless bastard had deceived him and made him believe that he was a murderer just so Jack would accompany him on his brainless adventure, to use him for his knowledge of the Russian language, without caring that he was ruining his life.

  He had never hated anyone so coldly, so profoundly. He’d never felt so betrayed. He stuffed the article into his coat and roared with fury again, while Elizabeth stared in astonishment at Jack’s transformation into a beast thirsty for revenge.

  Some bangs on the door made him come around. He jumped up and ran to a window to see who was knocking. It was a stranger begging for help. Jack had no time to react. A car braked sharply next to him; then someone got out and shot the man in the head. Jack closed the window and turned to Elizabeth, who was screaming. “We have to go!”

  “No! I’m not going without my uncle,” she said, filled with terror.

  Jack could see that he’d have to remove her by force, but told himself that it would be sensible to wait until she had calmed down. “All right. I’ll go fetch the car, drop by the store to take what’s left, and come back for you. You wait here. We’ll see what we can do for your uncle,” he said to reassure her. “Here. Take this key. When I go, lock the door, hide upstairs, and don’t open up for anyone. Understood? Understood?”

  She nodded, her eyes filled with tears. Jack hugged her. He promised her that everything would be OK, told her again to hide, and left in the direction of Ivan Zarko’s abandoned repair shop.

  Despite the fros
t, the Ford Model A rumbled into life. Jack waited for Yuri to open the repair shop door, then slowly rolled the vehicle onto the paved street.

  “We’ll meet at my house later. I’ll pay you the rest there,” Jack said to him.

  Jack accelerated away. He drove through the night at full speed with the headlamps off, following the dim glow of the moon. The gunfire and screams continued. As he approached the American village, he saw fires blazing. He considered turning back, but he needed supplies, or he and Elizabeth would starve to death. He skirted around the village and headed toward the rear entrance of the store. He parked and went in. Outside, the gunshots reminded him that one false move could be his end. Still, he was driven by a cold-blooded desire. Even if it was the last thing he did in the Soviet Union before escaping, he was determined to find Walter and take his revenge.

  He turned on the flashlight he’d brought from the car. The beam illuminated the bare walls. Someone had been there before him. There was nothing left on the shelves. He was about to leave when suddenly he noticed a crouched form in front of him. “Who is it?” he yelled. His heart skipped a beat.

  There was no response. He aimed the flashlight at the point where he thought he heard some muttering. He was about to retreat, when a pair of powerful arms suddenly grabbed him from behind and began to asphyxiate him. Jack struggled. He tried to free himself, but whoever was holding him had the strength of a bear. He could barely breathe. He gripped the flashlight like a mace and hit back with all his might, but he missed his target. He was beginning to feel his life force leaving him. In a final attempt, with a two-handed blow, he made contact with his assailant’s head. The man, stunned, released Jack and fell to the ground. Then Jack leapt on him, intending to ram the flashlight into his head. He sat astride the man’s chest, about to strike him, when he recognized the man beneath him.

  “Joe?” Incredulous, he stopped the deadly blow midswing.

  He shone the flashlight around him and discovered the Daniels family and Miquel, cowering in a corner.

  They explained to Jack that they’d decided to hide there when the OGPU burst into the village and began firing indiscriminately. “I’m sorry, Mr. Beilis,” Joe Brown apologized. “I thought you were one of them.”

  “But what’s happening?” Jack asked.

  “It was Smirnov. He was laughing and yelling threats,” Harry Daniels replied. “This morning we saw him fire on the Petersons when they tried to escape. My God! He shot them down without a second thought, and then finished them off as if they were vermin. This is insane! We ran with only the clothes on our backs and hid in the forest.”

  “What’re we going to do, Jack?” sobbed Mrs. Daniels. She was hugging her younger son, almost suffocating him.

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to escape. No one’s safe here.”

  “But how? To where?”

  “I don’t know. Here.” He took five thousand rubles from his jacket and handed them to them. “It’s all I can do for you.”

  “Jack, for the love of God! We have nowhere to go.”

  He was silent while he looked at his friends’ frightened faces. He realized that their lives were in his hands. He cursed his bad luck. “All right! Do you have food?”

  “A bag of kippers, some cookies, potatoes, and turnips,” said Miquel. “It’s all that was left.”

  “Good. Then take only what’s essential and follow me.”

  Jack loaded the car with the food that Miquel had managed to save, warm clothes, blankets, a can of gasoline, and a couple of knives, leaving the rest of their belongings on the ground. “Come on, get in!”

  Without turning on the headlights, Jack drove the Ford A south. The sound of gunfire was soon replaced by the bang of explosions. In the distance, Jack saw one of the assembly plants go up in flames. When he looked back at the road, to his horror he discovered a barricade that had sprouted from nowhere. He swerved and left the road, fortunate not to hit any trees. A volley of bullets whistled around them.

  “Get down!”

  He didn’t have to repeat himself. He regained control of the vehicle as well as he could and accelerated until they reached the track that he and Natasha used to walk down together. After a few miles, he slowed down. “There’s an abandoned cabin somewhere around here. Get out with your belongings, and wait for me. Don’t use any lights. I have to go back to Gorky for Elizabeth.”

  “I’ll go with you,” offered Miquel.

  “No. It’s too dangerous. And you’re the only one who speaks Russian and knows the area. If anything happened to you, they’d be done for.”

  Miquel nodded, but Joe Brown offered to come in his place.

  “You will help if there is any trouble. I am good in a fight, and, believe me, I drive a helluva lot better than you do,” Joe said.

  Jack thanked him. “Remember,” he said. “Keep quiet. If we’re not back by noon . . .”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

  Jack stopped the vehicle near his house. There was no time to take precautions. He asked Joe to wait in the car with the engine running. “If you see anyone approach, accelerate as hard as you can.”

  Joe nodded. He moved into the driver’s seat and wished Jack luck.

  Jack ran to the house, praying that Elizabeth had changed her mind. The street seemed deserted. When he reached the door, he inserted his key in the lock. But before he even turned the key, the door swung open.

  Jack tensed. Gripping a knife in one hand and the turned-off flashlight in the other, he advanced through the living room in the dark. The only light came from the embers that crackled in the fireplace. He was tempted to call out to Elizabeth, but he stopped himself. Suddenly, he walked into a chair that was lying in the middle of the room, and when he stumbled, he lost the flashlight. He crouched down to search for it blindly, crawling forward. When he found it, he decided to turn it on. He heard a noise behind him and turned to shine the light in its direction. The beam illuminated some rough forms. Jack retreated, still aiming the flashlight at them. It was Walter and Elizabeth. He was holding her from behind and pressing a revolver against the back of her neck.

  “Walter?”

  “Where are they, Jack?”

  “What’re you doing? Let her go!”

  “Freeze or she’s dead! The reports. Where are you keeping them?”

  Jack cursed himself for leaving Elizabeth alone, and for failing to see Walter for who he really was. He would have enjoyed ripping out his heart.

  “Son of a bitch! What are you trying to do? Don’t you think you’ve done enough by making me believe I was a murderer?”

  “Ha! So you finally figured it out.” Walter smiled. “And you thought you were so smart. Poor, stupid Jack. So smart you thought you could dazzle Sue with your good looks and your money.”

  “I never thought I was better than you.”

  “Oh, but you did. Remember when you punched me in the coffeehouse? Ha! I could have laughed for a week when you swallowed the lie about Kowalski. You fell for it like a fool.”

  “Why did you do it, Walter? You could have left without me.”

  “You’re wrong. When we went to Amtorg, I already knew they’d only accept skilled workers. Saul Bron was just fobbing me off. If you hadn’t intervened when you did, I would have brought up that you were a technician. I needed you, Jack. Without you, I would never have achieved my dream.”

  “Have you lost your mind? How could you? How could you do this to us, Walter? What will Sue say?”

  “Don’t even say her name!” He aimed the gun directly at Jack’s head.

  “What will you tell her, Walter? That someone shot us? Will you make up another lie like the one about Kowalski?”

  “I told you to shut your mouth!” Walter bellowed. “Do you think she cares about you? She doesn’t give a damn about you, Jack. Not one bit.”

  “That’s not true. She helped me when—”

  “When she visited you in jail? Is that what you were g
oing to say? Because if it was, you should know that I was the one who sent her to figure out how much you knew.”

  Jack fell silent. He looked his adversary in the eye. “How much are they paying you? What have they promised you?”

  “Do you really want to know? Respect, Jack! Respect! No one laughs at my ideas here. I’m somebody here. I’ve had enough of being the poor idealist they poked fun at in his own country for his beliefs. I’ve had enough of being a nobody, of being invisible, looked down on . . .”

  If he hadn’t feared for Elizabeth’s life, Jack would have leapt on Walter and ripped him apart with his bare hands. Walter was trembling like a frightened rat. Jack tried to buy time. “For God’s sake! Do you really think you’re important to them? Do you think you have a place in their history books? Come on, Walter. Let her go. Let her go and—”

  “Give me the reports!” he roared, and he cocked the revolver. “Do you think this is a joke? I’ll kill her, and then I’ll kill you.”

  Jack believed he would carry out his threat. He lowered the flashlight. Walter was grimacing grotesquely, like someone possessed. “All right! Here. I have them here!” He took the reports from the cupboard and showed them to him.

  “Leave them there, on the floor, and step back.”

  Jack did as Walter asked.

  “This isn’t the way to build a better world, Walter.”

  “No? And how would you know? Get back! And you, pick them up,” he ordered Elizabeth.

  She obeyed and handed them to him. Jack caught a glimpse of her terrified face in the beam of his flashlight. “You have them. Now let her go!”

  “Relax, Jack. Let’s see what we have here.” Walter examined the papers as well as he could to check they were what he was looking for. Then he headed toward the fireplace, dragging Elizabeth with him.

  “I’m telling you to let her go!” yelled Jack.

  “Oh . . . I’ll get around to that.” He threw the reports onto the embers. The papers took on an orangey glow, before going up in flames. They were consumed in an instant. When there was little left but ash, Walter withdrew.