The next few weeks of typing English language documents for use in foreign publications of the Ministry of Health were quiet and uneventful. This period would have been quite settling for me because of its regularity and simplicity, except for an event at home.
One night I woke up well after midnight with a sudden sense of imminent danger. When I rolled over on the little bed in our room I saw my mother in the half light, approaching me stealthily with a hammer raised up as if to strike. Her face was fearful, but determined.
I leaped out of bed and grabbed the hammer. She did not struggle at all. I said, “You’re having a bad dream!”
She shook her head no, with perfect certainty. “It’s no dream, Alex. I heard them talking in the hall. I’ve suspected since you came back that you were really in the KGB, and when I heard them just now whispering at the door I knew it. They want you to poison my food, don’t they?”
I said, “Mother!” I turned on a light. “Wake up, Mother. This is just a nightmare.” I opened the door of the room and showed her the empty hall. “Look, dear. There’s no one there. You’ve been dreaming.”
“No, Alex,” she said solemnly. “You can’t keep it from me now. I know you are with them now.”
Then she went back to bed. I lay awake for the rest of the night, torn between grief for her poor mind and fear of what she might try to do.
In the morning she was perfectly lucid, as indeed she had been during her strange attack in the night, but she looked at me differently, and over the next few weeks I came to the sad understanding that she did quite honestly believe I was in the KGB, and that she heard voices more often than she let on to me.
At the end of three weeks I received a letter from one of Molotov’s deputies telling me to bring my passport and other documents to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to room number so-and-so, to meet with a man named Petrov.
There were no other instructions.
I went there the next day. The reception guard had a pass for me and showed me how to find Petrov’s office. I knocked and went in and introduced myself.
Petrov said, “Ah, yes. I have something for you. One moment.” He went out of the room and came back shortly.
“Here is your document,” he said. “Please read it over to see that it is accurate.”
Now, the astonishing thing about this document is that it corroborated my lie.
Why the foreign ministry decided to do this, whether they had asked for my application form from the Ministry of Health—whatever their motive was I will never know. But the document Petrov gave me stated simply that from 1942 to 1948 I was employed by the Diplomatic Corps Division of the ministry as a referent. The word meant nothing to me. The closest I could come to a translation into English was “reference man,” and that means nothing either.
When I took the document to the personnel chief in the publishing house at the Ministry of Health she glanced at it and then looked at me with a big smile. “Comrade Doldzhin!” she said. “You should have told me! You are a very modest man! Why did you not say that you were one of us!”
I had no idea what she meant. I just looked at the floor and shrugged and said, “Well...She said, “Tell me. How much extra were you paid for your MGB security work?”
I was dumfounded. Somehow I managed to put her off. I said it was confidential or some such thing. To this day I do not know whether she was fishing, or whether the word referent was some sort of code word used accidentally by the foreign ministry, or whether the foreign ministry itself had somehow gotten the mad notion that I had MGB connections. Maybe my mother was not the only deluded person in Moscow, I thought. God knows crazier things had happened in official Russia. I later learned that some services of the foreign ministry are virtually indistinguishable from the secret police, but what led this woman to think of me as one of “them” is still only a guess. I let on that my work had been so secret I preferred not to talk about it, and that settled it. And, as she had promised, the editorial job was waiting for me. I started the next day in the periodicals division, on Petrovka Street.
In 1956 the Soviet Ministry of Health was already circulating more than forty medical journals around the world. They had an insufficient budget to publish these journals in various language editions, so they appended foreign-language summaries to the major articles, in English for the English language countries. My job was to find translators for all the English-language summaries, make contracts with these translators, edit their work, and verify the medical accuracy of the translations. In the meantime I was to begin organizing all this work as a new branch of the publishing house.
The work was interesting. The pay was nearly twice what I had been making as a typist. For a while I was sufficiently busy and excited not to be too distracted by my mother’s dark fears and the voices she continued to “hear” in the hallway or coming through the floors and walls. Perhaps she caught something of my enthusiasm for the new job. For a while things were easier in the little room. I stood in line for several hours to buy us a new refrigerator so that she could have some iced tea and we could keep milk fresh in the room. When I got into the store I discovered that the line-up was really just to put your name down for the type of refrigerator you wanted (either the high price or the low; I optimistically chose the high-priced one) and then leave a postcard that would be mailed to you when your number came up. I was warned it might be a wait of more than a year.
Now I took steps to try to get my clothes and books and radio and camera back from the U. S. Embassy. The letter I received from Molotov’s deputy, in addition to sending me to Petrov for my employment certificate, had instructed me to contact the Foreign Legal Collegium about my belongings. This is a state agency that deals with foreign embassies on questions of inheritance and other legal matters.
When I could take some time away from the job, with permission from the director of the publishing house, I met with a representative of the Collegium, who listened sympathetically to my story. He said, “You know, the state would normally charge you a service fee: twenty-five per cent of the value of whatever you retrieve. But I’m going to recommend that it be reduced to ten per cent; you have suffered enough, Comrade, and I believe the state should not demand too much of you now!’
In a week I was called to the Collegium for an official interview. I met in an office with the chairman and with a sharp-faced, pleasant younger man who was introduced as Comrade Aleksandrov, the attorney for the Collegium. I spotted him as KGB. The Collegium had to be crawling with them. But I decided to play their game for the moment and act as though Aleksandrov was indeed their attorney and nothing more. The chairman said, “We have talked with the Embassy of the United States.
They have money for you and they will be glad to see you. All you have to do is go there in person and they will turn it over to you. Our attorney”—nodding toward Aleksandrov—”will go with you to see that everything is correct.”
I felt very playful and decided to force Aleksandrov to show his hand. So I said, “Well, I can’t go to the U. S. Embassy, you know. The terms of my release forbid it. There is always a KGB operative watching the gates and as soon as they see me it’s back to prison and I’m sure you understand that I won’t run that risk.”
The chairman said, “Look, Comrade Doldzhin, take my word for it, as long as you are with our attorney it will be perfectly all right. We’ve done this work. We want you to collect the money so we can close the file. You can’t possibly get into any trouble if you are with Comrade Aleksandrov.”
I was enjoying this. I knew that what he said was perfectly true, of course, but I wanted them to be made to prove it. I said to Aleksandrov, “I’m sorry. I just can’t go there with you.”
There was a tense pause in the room.
I said, “The only possible person I could go with is an officer of the KGB.”
The chairman was exasperated. He said, “That’s not necessary at all! We are official state representatives. You are in perfect safe
ty. You...”
But I just kept shaking my head, no.
The chairman ran out of patience. He said, “Oh, all right, Aleksandrov. Show him your card.”
Aleksandrov showed me a card like the one that had been shown me on Gorky Street eight years before. Red and blue. Aleksandrov, M. l., Major Operative. KGB.
I pretended astonishment. I said, “Why didn’t you tell me! Of course! That’s fine!”
The chairman said, “Just one thing. The Americans are very hostile toward us over the Suez crisis just now. We just request that you stay very close to him during your visit. Since you are a former American” (former? I thought) “this will give Aleksandrov some protection.”
What an irony, I thought. And then I realized it was just a pretext to keep me from getting loose. I wasn’t taking any chances just then, anyway.
The KGB-disguised-as-a-cop at the gates refused to let us in until Aleksandrov persuaded him to make a phone call to okay my visit. Then we went inside. My feelings were very odd. This place which should have been my place of employment. These people who had done nothing for me all these years .... I felt strangely cool and aloof. The consul came. He acted very cool too. He said, “Mr. Dolgun, we have a thousand dollars due to you. Would you like it deposited to your account in New York, or in cash here?” Nothing about how are you, or would you like us to act on your behalf, or anything like that. Just, how do you want your dough?
I said without thinking, “I just got out of camp. I’ve got a job but they haven’t paid me yet. I’ll take it in rubles.”
So that was that. I signed a chit for the receipt of my accumulated retirement savings. No mention of back pay for eight years or danger pay or any kind of acknowledgment of what I had gone through trying not to compromise my country while Sidorov and Kozhukhov beat me to a pulp.
I felt pretty let down. I said, “What about my personal stuff?”
He said, “Oh. Well, we have made a complete inventory, you know. Those things are in one of our warehouses, but we have thousands of crates to look through. We’ll let you know.”
Years later I found out that in fact my sister Stella had authorized them long ago to give my things to the Soviet Red Cross. I never did find out if the consul was lying or whether their records were so messed up they really did not know. But all the time I was running the consular file section, the records were in excellent shape.
Outside, Aleksandrov, who seemed to be quite a decent guy considering he was KGB, said, “You should have taken dollars, you know. You can buy a lot in Moscow with hard currency, without waiting. Cheaper too.”
I just shrugged.
From then on I threw myself into my work. I was determined to find a way to leave the country sooner or later, but my needs for the moment was a normal life and enough money for me and my mother to live decently. Hard work was a sort of drug for me. A tranquilizer. The number of journals we serviced increased from forty to sixty, many of them involving special material for the World Health Organization. I had a tough time trying to find enough contract translators who could deal with the medical articles. I put in a lot of extra time. To augment my income I freelanced my services to other publishing houses and translated books on a number of subjects, including medicine and sports. I began to save to buy a car. I made sure Mother had good food. I brought her flowers and did my best to make her comfortable. Every so often she would become obsessed with her conviction that I was KGB and involved in a plot to have her imprisoned again, and at least twice more she attacked me physically. I knew she should be hospitalized, but I couldn’t bring myself to send her to an institution.— I traveled the sixty kilometers to Istra regularly to see my father.
He worked as an auto mechanic and his salary was very small. I left a little money with him on every visit. He was a warm and lovable man, and we were on the best of terms; the alienation between him and my mother saddened me tremendously.
With the pressure of work in my branch, I was soon in a position to look for extra staff. I got myself a free-lance contract to translate a book on obstetrics and gynecology. It meant a killing load of extra work but the royalties promised would likely make my dream of a car of my own realizable, so I plunged into it.
One day in the street I ran into my, old pal and workmate Edik L. We started hugging each other like mad in the middle of the passers-by and burst into laughter all over again about the episode of the safe. Then Edik said, “Guess who is here! Felix!”
I said, “That bastard! He got me so drunk on cha-cha I nearly spent the rest of my life in Dzhezkazgan. He’s a nice guy. Let’s get together.”
“That’s not all,” Edik said. “Felix married Galya Zaslavskaya. Remember her?”
Of course I remembered her. That weekend we had a grand party and drank a lot of wine and talked over old times. I brought a girl from the office with me. Nothing serious, though. I wanted to marry, and yet I had decided to reject the idea for the time being. Partly because memories of Gertrude haunted me, and partly because I knew that if I did devise an escape plan it would be better to be on my own.
At the party Felix said, “Alex, someone is coming tonight I really want you to meet. One of the greats of the Trade Union. Did you ever hear of George Tenno?”
Everybody laughed at that George Tenno was a legend in the camps. No one else we knew of had survived more than one escape attempt. Tenno had tried two spectacular escapes and was still alive to tell of them. I had the sharpest laugh of anyone. I told the party how I had been beaten half to death because of my alleged association with Tenno.
“Well, well!” Felix said. “So now we will make an honest man of you and introduce you to George Tenno. He’s coming here tonight!”
George Tenno was lean and handsome, with a long aristocratic nose and strong intelligent eyes that looked at you with remarkable calm and assurance. I liked him on sight. He shook hands firmly and said, “Well, of course I recognize you! I was made to study photographs of you. Extensively and painfully. That was in Lefortovo in forty-eight and forty-nine.”
George Tenno and I became close friends very soon. George had been a commander in the navy, assigned as intelligence liaison officer with the British during the war, and often traveling on convoys bringing supplies in through Archangel and Murmansk. On his last return trip he became very friendly with the captain of the British cruiser he was assigned to. This man was promoted to vice-admiral after the war. In 1948, recalling George’s fondness for a certain brand of British pipe tobacco, the vice-admiral had sent a Christmas card to Moscow, with a pouch of the tobacco.
At this time George was undergoing special training. His English was excellent and he was going to be sent to the United States as a spy.
But the MGB decided that this Christmas message from a British vice-admiral smacked of conspiracy. They arrested both George and his wife, Natalie. For two years he was interrogated and had a very bad time. Finally he was sent to Dzhezkazgan, and Natalie to a camp in the far north, both with twenty-five years for high treason.
And then, once he was rehabilitated after the Khrushchev amnesties for senior military officers, he was immediately called upon by his former trainers, the GRU—the military intelligence service.
They knew his qualities and they wanted him back. But George wanted none of them. He wanted out of Russia by now. He was in no mood to fool around with espionage on anyone’s behalf. And so, to avoid being returned both to party membership and the intelligence service, he feigned mental illness. He requested an examination at the psychiatric clinic. He told the examining psychiatrist, “You know, I’ve suffered a lot in prison. I’ve been tortured. Of course I am a loyal Soviet citizen, but somehow, whenever I see one of these fat faces of party officials now, I just want to kick him in the ass. It’s terrible. I know it’s wrong but it just comes over me. Something snaps in my head and I... Oh, excuse me!”
At this point he would drop his matches. George twirled two matches nervously throughout the interview. Every mi
nute or so he would drop them. Then he would break off in mid-sentence and say very politely, “Excuse me. Of course you understand that I have to pick them up?”
He would drop to the floor, grab his matches, and start again.
It must have been an impressive performance. After a lot of tests, Tenno was certified Unfit for Military Service and taken off the rolls. Then he went to work as an editor for the Research Institute for Physical Culture.
Having such a good and trusted friend as George Tenno became increasingly necessary in the early months of 1957 as the strain of my mother’s unpredictable behavior became worse and worse. I looked to him as the source of stability in my life. I counted on him absolutely and he never let me down. My mother was not suffering. I was able to make her physically very comfortable, even though our quarters were so meager. She was lucid most of the time in her conversation and able to look after herself fairly well. But every so often the terrible fear she had of being taken again by the KGB, and her sad, bitter delusion that I was involved in the conspiracy to take her, would boil up and sometimes become violent. It was all I could do to hold on to my own sanity.
Finally, mercifully, the issue was resolved for me. One afternoon she fell asleep with the teakettle on the gas burner. The kettle boiled dry. Mother awoke to the smell of burning: the bottom of the kettle had melted. She became possessed with the idea that this was part of a plot against her, and that somehow it showed that the neighbors in our building were implicated. She stormed through the building creating scandal. She accused them all. One woman we knew was married to a policeman. She got hold of her husband. They all knew of my mother’s history of confinement in a mental institution. The policeman called the appropriate authorities. My mother was taken away for examination and she never came back. She was permanently hospitalized as a paranoid schizophrenic. And although I was miserable for days about this, and angrier than I had been for a long time at the viciousness and insanity of the system that had brought her to such a condition, I was able to comfort myself with the knowledge that she was safer and more comfortable now, and that for both of us life would be more tolerable than it had been.
An American in the Gulag Page 49