The next time they took us outside it was snowing hard. Making our way from the mess hall to the gate was a struggle. There is a corridor right through the wall beside the gate, with a guardroom built into the wall itself. The others were led past the guardroom and outside, and I was kept back and told to sit in the guardroom. That was fine with me because there was an electric coil in there, a homemade affair of just a few feet of wire hung on a frame, and loose ends plugged into the outlet. When I was finally taken outside in the stinging snow, the other seven had been searched again and were loaded into a van. The van drove off. I stood there with several guards and their machine guns and dogs. I felt quite important somehow, but nobody would tell me what it was all about. The snow was so heavy that the lights along the wall disappeared about a hundred feet away. I began to shiver violently. One of the guards began to curse the van for being late. They took me back into the guardroom. We waited half an hour for the van. The van had a large central space and one cell. They put me in the cell and seven soldiers sat in the larger space. At the station I was put on a Stolypin car attached to a waiting train, and into a cell half the size of a normal Stolypin cell. I was alone in that cell. It had an outer door of solid wood and an inner door of steel bars. The wooden door was kept closed while other prisoners were shoved into the coach Then, when none of the others could see me, the door was opened again after the train began to roll, and two guards stood outside with a master sergeant and a senior lieutenant. The officer said, “Prisoner, you must understand that you have nothing in common with the general convoy on this coach. I am the only one allowed to speak to you. You must speak to nobody else even if you are spoken to. Whatever you want, call me. If soldiers in the general convoy speak to you, ignore them.”
So. There was a special convoy, seven of them as it turned out, assigned to look after me!
Somehow this confirmed my fear that I was going to Moscow to be shot, and I began to shiver again, although the cell was very warm. Soon I talked myself back into a tentative optimism and went to sleep. It was pleasant to sleep in a warm place, I told myself; I was much better off than my poor buddies shivering in the barracks. I like the sound of a train at night, and I had lots of room to stretch out. With various reassuring thoughts, some of them illusions, some real enough, I slept pretty well. In the morning I was not rushed to the toilet. Later when I asked for water it was brought immediately, and when I asked for more they brought it whenever I wanted it. There was no harassment throughout the trip.
My cell was beside the toilet, and I could overhear the other prisoners speculating about my closed door when they were taken to the toilet in the morning. There were two popular rumors, said by their supporters to have come on the best authority. One was that I was an American general captured in Korea. The other was that I was a leader of the Georgian government who had tried to flee the country and was being taken to Moscow to be shot.
At Chelyabinsk they took me in another solitary van to an MGB prison, and marched me across the sidewalk between a double line of soldiers. I heard a voice from someone in the street say, “Look! Numbers!”
I thought, They haven’t seen numbers before! I let on my sack was heavy and that I had to shift it, and swung it so the big patch on my back would show. A woman’s voice said, “Look at that! So young! How terrible he looks!!”
They put me in a solitary cell for a couple of days and brought me a daily food ration, so I was able to keep my travel rations aside.
Back on the train, now that I knew I could go to the toilet whenever I wanted, I treated myself to herring, and drank lots of water.
Finally I was taken off the train in Moscow, early in the morning, and put in a plain gray van with the same kind of solitary cell and again an escort of seven soldiers. I thought, Whatever this is going to be, it’s important. I was apprehensive, but not really frightened anymore, just terribly curious to get on with it and find out what it was all about. After a few minutes the van stopped and I heard the familiar doors of Lubyanka. The sound gave me pleasure, strangely enough. The man who searched me was the same blue-chinned man who had searched me in that same room almost two years earlier. He did not recognize me, but he looked at me a bit strangely and took out a razor blade and began to cut the numbers out of my padded jacket. I screamed at him, “What are you trying to do! Don’t you know they shoot you for that?” My old sense of mischief was getting back in shape. I said, “You can get in deep trouble for that. That’s my secret name. They’ll never let you get away with cutting that out!”
The blue-chinned man stared at me in real consternation. He did not say a word but he put the jacket down and left the cell. After a while he came back with an officer. The officer said, “Does the prisoner have civilian clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Put those in storage and issue his civilian clothes.” So when they took me upstairs I was back in my navy-surplus gabardine pants, and my poor worn shirt with the epaulets and four bread buttons.
The office they took me to was surprisingly rich in its decoration and furnishing. A thick elegant carpet, good hangings on the wall, excellent polished mahogany furniture. We went through it to an inner office that was even more plush. The guard knocked quietly and then pushed the door open and motioned me into a chair. A man of medium height sat writing at the desk and for a long time he wrote and said nothing. I knew the routine so I waited and studied him. I studied him very carefully—I remember doing it; but I cannot remember his face. I have every reason to remember this man. I can remember his words and the sound of his voice and the clothes he wore, but not his face. I don’t know why that is. The other men who interrogated me are very clear. I can see Sidorov’s pock-marks as if he were here. I would know him anywhere. But this man—General Ryumin, I would find out later—has no face for me, no features at all, as if a nylon stocking were pulled over his head.
Even more vague than that—a faceless face. I can’t remember him.
I remember his suit. An elegant German suit. There was a good, broad-brimmed hat on the hat-rack with a British label in it. I thought, Time for a tease again. Ryumin was still writing and was quite surprised when I broke the rules and said in a strong voice, “Fifty-eight point ten.”
“What’s that?” he said.
“Fifty-eight point ten. Section one. Praise of foreign, non-Soviet clothing.” I nodded at the hat. “And your suit,” I said. I was getting pretty fresh again. “And I bet your tie, as well.”
Ryumin got up and came around the desk and stood in front of me. He hit me hard with his palm on one cheek and the back of his hand on the other, with a whipping motion. He said, “I have heard accounts of your cockiness. A repetition is not required.”
He went back to his desk.
“Why do you suppose we have summoned you?” I said I had no idea.
“Well, of course, you have your twenty-five-year term, and in a sense we are through with you. But we are very much interested in the operations of American intelligence here in the capital and throughout the Union. We know most of it, you understand, but we believe you can supply some important links. We do not propose to create any unpleasantnesses for you. Eventually you will go back to camp. We expect you to talk very freely and have no uneasiness about your American friends, because of course two years have gone by and all the personnel have dispersed to their homes or other postings. If you cooperate fully, we will house you comfortably while you are here, in a, cell with congenial companions. We will give you an allotment of 200 rubles a month so that you can buy extra nourishment and machine-made cigarettes. So tell me, what do you say? Will you make your best contribution to our investigations in this matter?”
I just stared at him silently.
“Ahh,” General Ryumin said. There was a long pause.
“I suppose you are able to recall the Sukhanovka prison,” he said.
I had trouble getting my voice to work. I tried not—to show it. I said, “Very well, of course.”
&n
bsp; “Of course,” Ryumin said levelly. “Of course you do. I have to congratulate you on your passing of that test. You came through your sleepless nights and those innocuous little beatings with flying colors. I am not being sarcastic. I know of nobody who did as well as you. You have my respect. I know your endurance... All this in an almost congenial tone. Which then changed to a very quiet and hard and intense voice.
“I know your endurance and I know how to break it down very rapidly. I have the full authority to use every means and method of physical and mental torture to get your confession. I am quite prepared to use them. I will beat you to death if I do not get your confession ....”— Then he leaned back on his chair and resumed the easygoing tone again. It is so strange that I can see his gesture and remember his elaborate, wordy way of speaking and everything he said, but I cannot see his face. He repeated his words slowly but with an almost amiable tone. “I will beat you to death if I do not get your confession.”
He put his fingertips together and waited. I was unable to talk at all. I just stared at him until my throat came out of spasm. Then I said, “What confession? I thought you just wanted some links in your picture of United States intelligence in this country.”
“Ahhh,” said Ryumin. His fingers were still together. “You mean I am supposed to be one of the links?” I asked him, trying for a lofty tone.
“Ahhh,” said Ryumin.
I said, “I will tell you what I know. It’s not much. I had nothing to do with intelligence operations. I was a clerk in the consular section. You know that .1 am willing to talk but I can’t say what I don’t know.” I was trying hard to keep the fear out of my voice. I was not succeeding perfectly.
“It is altogether up to you,” Ryumin said after a while. “I will give you a few days to think it over. Then if you have not decided to cooperate, you and I will pay a visit to Sukhanovka together, and then it will not take very long at all.”
He pressed a button. A guard came. I went to my cell in a daze. It was strange that only after I got back to the box cell and went over the encounter in my mind did I realize that there had been another man in the room with us, a colonel of the MGB in uniform. He had been invisible to me for some reason until after I left. Perhaps I imagined him there, although I was to meet him soon after.
The next day at noon I was taken to Ryumin again. “Will you cooperate?”
“I told everything in my last interrogations. There is nothing else.”
“It is your life.”
Back to the cell.
Next day at noon.
“Have you thought it over?”
“Of course.”
“And you will help us?”
“If I had anything more to tell. But even if I had, I’ve forgotten a lot in two years. I’ve been beaten and starved. I’ve been sick. That doesn’t help people remember. What is it you want?”
“The full story of your intelligence work and your espionage work in Moscow.”
“There is nothing to tell.”
“It’s your life.”
Back to the cell.
Next day at noon.
“Well? What about it? Nice cell here in Lubyanka? Nice food? Nice companions? Or torture and death at Sukhanovka?”
“Let me ask one question,” I said. “Ask it, then.”
“Why? Why do you bring me back? Why all this special treatment on the train? What do you hope to gain?”
“The truth, of course.”
“You say you know everything. You only want links.”
“Ahh.” Ryumin got up and walked back and forth for a minute.
“All right, I’ll tell you,” he said. “I don’t know why I should, but perhaps it will help you to understand you must cooperate.”
He pressed his fingers together and I believe he faceless face stared at me for some time before he told me.
“We are going to have a public trial. We have ample evidence that the U.S. Embassy has been engaged for a number of years in wide-ranging intelligence activities. We know that you participated in them too. In the trial we will expose certain Soviet citizens who have unfortunately collaborated with you and your colleagues. You know who they are. This has been ordered from the highest level. Do you understand?”
“Don’t you think that even if I had anything to tell, knowing about that trial would really shut me up?”
“I don’t evaluate the situation in that manner, no. I believe that when you appreciate how irrefutable my orders are, you will understand that you have no way to avoid cooperating. Nobody can resist the highest Soviet power.”
I said, “Witnesses at public trials usually disappear afterwards. They are shot so they can never recant.”
He looked angry for a moment. Then he said, “Not in your case. I will never need you for a witness. I just need you to lead me to those traitorous officers. And to give me material to flesh out the skeleton we already understand very well.”
I thought about that for a moment. I began silently to try concoctions that might save my skin but would never be credible outside Ryumin’s office, not in the States, anyway. Something so obviously phony that my people would know what was happening. I was not thinking clearly. I said, “I really have told you everything I can think of.”
“It is not good enough,” Ryumin said flatly. I tried a last, hopeless gambit.
“If you’re worried about my phony signature on all the protocols, I’ll sign my right signature. Would that help? Or I’ll make something up if you want. But I don’t know anything that I haven’t told you.”
Ryumin flew up out of his chair and yelled at me. “We have no desire to be misled by your phantasmagoric inventions! We want the truth and we will have the truth!” He pressed the button. He jammed it hard with his finger, jammed it repeatedly, so that his finger bent and went white at the knuckle. He said, very hard, “So! I will see you in Sukhanovka! You can blame only yourself for what happens next!”
There was snow at Sukhanovka when I got out of the van. My cell was number 18 .1 truly believed when I came into it that it would be my last home in the world. I smoked heavily for the first few minutes until I remembered that the window would be open only twenty minutes a day. I thought, I can save my tobacco for the interrogation room. It was some sort of defense against the realities that must be waiting for me in that room. I was deeply, terribly afraid.
It must have been eight thirty or a quarter to nine when the cell was opened. “Prepare for interrogation.”
I sensed a deep, deep inner fear. I suddenly found the strength to look at myself and see that I was on the point of giving in. I said, “No, Alex. Never.”
The fear persisted.
I said, “Try! You must! You’ve done it, before! It can’t be worse! Try!”
Somehow I pushed the fear back and brought some determination forward. I walked out of the cell quite steadily. By the time I arrived at the door of the interrogation room I had summoned enough willpower and energy to achieve what I wanted to achieve, and when I walked through that door I had covered my face with a large and radiant smile.
Chapter 18
General Ryumin was not in the room. The man waiting for me was the same MGB colonel I had failed to see in Ryumin’s office four days ago. He had a high balding forehead and—a chunky, humane face. He said, “Please sit down. My name is Colonel Chichurin. I will be your interrogator.”
I caught myself being astonished. I thought, Watch it, kid. These guys are full of tricks. There’s a horseshoe in the glove somewhere.
Chichurin’s technique, however, was consistent with his appearance and his manner. He spoke quietly, never got angry, and never hit me. He began with a lot of general questions about life in America and about my political attitudes. He told me several times that I was in for a lot of trouble, but in a kind of gentle, scolding way. We covered a lot of the old ground, and it was clear that he was familiar with the protocols from my time with Sidorov and Kozhukhov. Sometimes, for days and nights and day
s, we would discuss world history, psychology, medicine, anything but the issue of my espionage and intelligence activities. I could not tell whether he was stalling, waiting for me to take the initiative, or just trying to wear me down. I could not figure it. At the beginning of each session he would say, “Are you going to confess today?”
I would say, “There is nothing to confess.” The rest of the session was small talk.
There was no sleep except Saturday and Sunday nights, and I very soon began to go unconscious and fall off the chair again. I had lost the knack of sleeping while sitting up. There was no way to steal sleep in the cell, and Chichurin never knocked off early. He once complained about my keeping him from seeing his family, and about how tiring it was to sleep on the couch in the interrogation room.
So it seems that several weeks went by uneventfully, except that I acquired bruises from falling off the chair, and my mind was pretty confused much of the time. I started counting steps again. I remember crossing Spain. I made a scratch calendar on the wall, but I was often too vague to remember whether I had marked it or not, and so sometimes I am sure it was marked twice or maybe three times in a single day, and sometimes not at all.
I had lost the urgent sense of fear, but I still felt that the sleeplessness and the tiny meals would finish me off. I knew I did not have the resources that had kept me alive through the first session in this hellish place. It was just a matter of time.
One night when I arrived in the room Chichurin brought out a photograph of Michael Kovko. “Do you recognize this man?” I did not bat an eye.
I said, “He looks familiar. I don’t know. My memory is poor. I might have met him sometime. I’m very confused.”
Chichurin purred at me. “Now I am sure you know him very well, don’t you?”
“I can’t say. I don’t know.”
Chichurin took the photograph back. “We know all about your trip to Kiev with Dina, you know. You might as well admit to it.”
An American in the Gulag Page 28