The Forbidden Zone

by Michael Hetzer

  An hour later, the first group of prisoners filed into the yard. Victor moved the viewer slowly over the faces, back and forth, sweeping and identifying, sweeping and eliminating.

  Victor spent the next seven days on the roof, peering through the eyepiece of the telescope. The inmates were brought out in shifts, so Victor’s days were long. A couple of times he thought he saw Anton, but with later inspection he was proven wrong. By the last day, he knew the exercise schedule of the Leningrad Special Psychiatric Hospital better than the prison personnel themselves.

  Victor was now sure. Anton was not in Leningrad.

  Victor returned to Moscow pleased that he had succeeded in eliminating one of the Soviet Union’s largest special psychiatric hospitals from his list, but depressed that he had not located Anton. Three hospitals had now been eliminated, but Victor had heard nothing from the others, and he wondered how their assignments were going.

  He got off the train in Moscow at nine o’clock in the morning and went straight to the long-term parking lot to get his car. He was driving west along Kalininsky Prospekt when an on-foot traffic policeman waved his black-and-white baton at him. Victor pulled over.

  “Documents,” thegaishnik demanded.

  Victor handed over his registration, proof of insurance, proof of inspection and internal passport. He no longer had the red Party card.

  The policeman took the documents and went behind the car. He spoke into the radio attached to his shoulder. He came back and asked Victor to open the hood.

  “What’s the matter, Inspector?”

  “Just open the hood, comrade.”

  Together they found the identification number on the engine block. The policeman radioed it to the dispatcher.

  “Where did you get this car?” the policeman asked.

  “I bought it about six months ago.”

  “How?”

  “Through the SAPO Institute.”

  “SAPO?” said the policeman impressed. “You work there?”

  “Not anymore. Why?”

  “This serial number is on a list of stolen vehicles.”

  Damn Oleg.

  “It’s a mistake.”

  “No doubt,” said the officer sympathetically. “But I will have to impound the vehicle until it is sorted out.”

  Victor handed over the keys knowing he would never see his car again.

  Victor retrieved his telescope and bags from the trunk and hailed a taxi. He got back to his apartment an hour later and threw open the door.

  “I’m home!”

  No one replied. He had hoped to find Oksana and Grisha there. Their absence probably meant that Oksana was still in Kazan. Victor went directly to the phone to call Oksana’s mother. Grisha would be with her, and Victor hoped to bring him back to the flat that evening. He missed the little guy. Victor picked up the telephone.

  The line was dead.

  On June 24, the same day that Katherine Sears began teaching English in Bolshevichka, the day the Large Magellanic Cloud ascended into Aquarius, Victor ascended the steps of the bell tower in Zagorsk. When Katherine Sears didn’t come, he passed the rest of the afternoon visiting with Father Andrei. Victor told him about his dreams.

  “You remember that day at the river?”

  “Certainly. I got there just as you were reviving Anton.”

  “Can you add anything at all to what I’ve told you?”

  Father Andrei frowned. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” Victor said miserably. He must have sounded like a fool.

  Two days later, Victor took Grisha to Kazansky Station to meet Oksana. Her mother had told him that Oksana would be arriving on the 3:12 P.M. express. That’s all he knew.

  Victor spotted Oksana in the crowd on the platform. She wore a red beret on her blond hair and was impossible to miss. Their eyes met. They searched each other’s faces for a moment, then their eyes fell in the knowledge that Anton was still missing.

  Grisha spotted his mother and dashed toward her. She scooped him into her arms. The three-year-old began a lengthy report on the many shortcomings of his new day-care center. He had been forced to leave the posh one nearIzvestiya a week earlier. Victor picked up Oksana’s bag, and they headed for the subway entrance.

  “You didn’t bring the car?” Oksana asked.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  That evening after they had put Grisha to bed, Oksana related the story of her two-week-long ordeal at Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital.

  The first two days had gone disastrously. She was turned away at the gate and later threatened by a local police detective.

  “He said I would be arrested if I was caught within a hundred yards of the hospital,” she said.

  Next, she stalked nurses at the nearest bus stop, trying to find someone sympathetic to her problem. Not only was she turned down but someone reported her. This earned Oksana another visit from the detective, who by now had a copy of a KGB report that identified her as the wife of a dissident. Now, she was banned from talking to anyone from the hospital.

  Ten days had already passed and Oksana was desperate. She charged into the guard station and threw herself on the mercy of the men. She began to weep. “My husband is in here! Please help me! Are you not men?”

  “I was hysterical, and the two guards rushed to console me,” Oksana recalled. “They kept telling me to calm down. Calm down.”

  They checked their records and assured me that they had no Anton Perov in Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital. Then I just broke down totally. This time it was not an act.”

  The two guards, at a loss about what to do with this inconsolable female, called for help. It arrived in the form of the asylum’s chief of staff.

  “I guess they thought I needed a doctor,” said Oksana.

  The psychiatrist led her through the compound to his office. He made several calls, which verified the guards’ contention that they had no Anton Perov. When that still didn’t satisfy Oksana, the psychiatrist, at his wits’ end, agreed to take her on a tour of the compound.

  The guards joined them so the four went about the hospital like an inspection team, peeping into every cell.

  “God, Victor, it was horrible,” said Oksana. “A dumping ground for human beings. I don’t care how sick they are, they . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence.

  She recovered and went on with her story. She had finished the tour of the asylum and turned to the men, saying, “You know, maybe Iam mistaken.”

  “As I left the asylum grounds I turned to say good-bye to the guards,” recalled Oksana. “You’ve never seen such relief on men’s faces.”

  Victor and Oksana laughed, but the laughter was grim. For unspoken between them was the knowledge that only two hospitals now remained — Moldavia and Orel.

  And already, six weeks had passed.

  31

  It was called a chat. Two diplomats would meet for a few hours away from the usual diplomatic regalia and just talk man to man. The theory was that as men they could sweep away the political dust and see their way clearly past the problems of the day. It didn’t always work that way. The trouble with men is that men get hung up on ideas. In the diplomatic world, ideas are about as welcome as a cockroach on a dinner plate.

  But the myth of the diplomatic chat endured, and so it was that U.S. Ambassador Raymond Stevens and Soviet Foreign Minister Oleg Bitovich were scheduled to have a diplomatic chat on July 26, 1984, in the ambassador’s private residence, Spaso House. Among the issues they would discuss — eighth on a list of nine — was the fate of an American fugitive by the name of Katherine Sears.

  “It’s a mansion on a quiet downtown street,” Cameron told Katherine by telephone the day before the meeting. “They’ll have dinner. Some California wine. New England pot roast. The point is, it will be a relaxed atmosphere.”

  Katherine was alone at the White Dacha headquarters. It was Wednesday, not the usual day for her call, and Sergei was in Moscow. She had walked thirty m
inutes from Ivanovka just so she could hear these excruciating details of the next day’s meeting. Katherine wouldn’t normally have been interested in a diplomatic dinner menu, but, this evening, no detail was too small. For his part, Cameron seemed pleased to have such an interested listener. He relished his role as diplomatic insider tossing off tantalizing glimpses of the glittery world of international diplomacy.

  “We’ve absolutely forbidden the ambassador to bring up human rights,” Cameron laughed. “It infuriates the Russians, just infuriates them. Anyway, the affair should be a great opportunity to talk about unusual things such as — ”

  “Such as me.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Katherine smiled. “You’re all right, Cameron.”

  He was an annoying little fellow, but Katherine couldn’t help it — he was growing on her.

  Cameron went on to say that the meeting would touch on a wide range of issues. The specters of Afghanistan and Iran loomed large, of course. But there would be ample time to give her case its due attention.

  “And what if the foreign minister agrees to issue me an exit visa?” asked Katherine.

  “Then you’ll be in the embassy tomorrow night. You could be back in Ithaca the day after tomorrow.”

  Katherine took a deep breath. It was impossible not to get her hopes up.

  “The meeting should break up at about ten o’clock, and I’ll be briefed immediately,” said Cameron.

  “I’ll call you at eleven,” Katherine said.

  It was settled.

  The next day in class, Katherine faced her students feeling like a traitor. She pictured Igor, Yegor, pretty Katya and all the others coming to class on Friday, their homework completed, and waiting with growing concern for a teacher who would not come.

  “It’s not like her to miss a class,” they would say. “Is she sick? Has some tragedy befallen her?”

  As far as they would know, their teacher, Yekatarina Yurgina of Riga, would have simply vanished. For their own safety, and hers, Katherine could tell them nothing.

  After class, Katherine took a stroll through Bolshevichka. She walked along the river to the swinging bridge and then crossed to the center. She leaned on the wire railing. The muddy water ran swiftly below. The river was smooth and silent, but she could judge its speed by the sticks and bits of grass that rushed by.

  She recalled that first day, back in April, when she had crossed the bridge. Patches of snow had clung to the banks. The day had been faintly magical. But today was summer ingenuous. Katherine had never really considered that Russia might have a summer. Such a summer! Clouds drifted in a blue sky the color of an Italian fresco. Sparrows, warblers and a dozen other birds unknown to her sang from branches hidden by the lush greenery. White seed-pods from poplars drifted in the air like summer snow. The Russians called itpukh , fluff.

  Upstream a group of children plunged into the river. They screamed and splashed each other. She heard a curse below and noticed an old man fishing on the bank. Katherine went on across the bridge and followed the river to the clump of cottages where Galina Tushchina lived. Katherine needed the office key so she could make her late-night phone call.

  Galina’s hair, which had been grape purple when they first met, was now luminescent copper, roughly the color of a shiny American penny. Galina invited Katherine to stay for tea, and the two women had a pleasant conversation about nothing that Katherine could recall later. Katherine left, checked her watch, and went directly to the bakery. It was three o’clock — an odd hour — and the fresh bread loaves would be coming out of the ovens. She recalled with a smile her first attempt to buy bread from the Bolshevichka bakery three months earlier.

  After Katherine bought her loaves, she went outside and stood on the square, saying a silent farewell to Bolshevichka. It really was a fine little village, she decided, even if the hardware store had never been open (you could always borrow a tool from the collective farm); even if queues for sausage stretched an hour and a half (at least you saw your neighbors); even if bread was only available every other hour (it gave you someplace to be, and it was fresh).

  Katherine walked toward the river. She crossed the swinging bridge, cut across the beet field stepping carefully from rut to rut so as not to harm the young stalks, and turned north along the single-lane road to Ivanovka where Baba Krista would be waiting.

  Baba Krista, of course, knew nothing about Katherine’s reasons for being there, or her impending departure. The old woman had merely accepted her new roommate as a grandmother accepted a troubled grandchild.

  As Katherine’s Russian had improved, she had enjoyed many talks with Baba Krista. The talks were leisurely, peppered with long pauses and unexpected resumption. They were the sort of conversations Katherine could not recall having had in her native language. They talked about the cat, children, what was on sale that week in the shops, why men never help with the house chores, why men shouldn’t be allowed to help with the house chores, the perils of vodka, Sergei. They never talked about careers or money. And only once about politics.

  On that occasion, Baba Krista had, in passing, referred to the communists asrevolutioniks , as though they might fade from the scene at any moment. It had struck Katherine as uncharacteristically irreverent, and she had asked Baba Krista about it one afternoon while they were drinking coffee.

  “Oh my, dear,” said Baba Krista as though she were addressing someone who had just said the world was flat. “The Bolsheviks were newcomers themselves not that long ago. I remember it well. All puffed up and self-important they were, building monuments to themselves.” Baba Krista sighed, and her ancient eyes glistened.

  “Back then, everyone was calling them the New Russians. Never forget, Yekatarina, someday, they, too, will pass. Then it will be on to the next new thing, and as sure as snow falls in Siberia people will begin all over again talking about the ‘New Russians.’ Ha!”

  Baba Krista took a sip of her coffee, and her eyes grew thoughtful. This was one of those pauses when it seemed that the conversation had ended. Katherine knew better and waited. The old woman went on.

  “There is no such thing as New Russia or Old Russia. There’s just Russia timeless. Everything else is just a flea on an elephant. He hitches a ride, and then, when the elephant decides to turn, he cries, ‘Look at me! I’m controlling the beast!’”

  Baba Krista was napping in her armchair when Katherine arrived that afternoon with her loaves of warm bread. Katherine smiled at the sleeping woman and went to her room. She got outSoviet Latvia and began to read. The propaganda-laced Russian-language book was the primary source of Katherine’s growing vocabulary. She forced herself to read five pages a day, looking up every word. The book, now half-finished, was filled with underlined words and definitions scratched in the margins. Today, however, Katherine had trouble concentrating and put the book down. She lay back on the bed and, as she had done that first night in Ivanovka, fell asleep staring into the Red Corner, at the icon of St. George and the Dragon.

  Sergei arrived at nine o’clock. They ate fried potatoes, sausage and black bread and then went outside. Darkness didn’t fall until eleven o’clock, so the sky was still light. They took a walk up the grassy street, as they had that first day when Sergei told her the story of Ivanovka’s decline and fall.

  Sergei said, “I’ll think of something to tell Baba Krista and the rest of the town after you’ve gone.”

  “Thanks,” she said. They were quiet a moment, and then Katherine said, “Maybe you were right. I shouldn’t have started teaching.”

  “No,” said Sergei. “They’re really going to miss you over there. Maya Timofeyeva is bragging to anyone who will listen that she has the best English teacher in Russia.”

  “Really?” said Katherine. “I thought she didn’t like me.”

  Sergei smiled. “She does complain about your unorthodox methods.” He shot her a sideways glance. “She is also boasting about how much your Russian has improved.”


  Katherine laughed. “Now I know you’re joking.”

  Sergei remained serious. “Have you forgotten how it was?”

  Katherine realized abruptly that she had. Three months ago, she certainly couldn’t have dreamed of teaching a course in English. Nor could she have conversed with him as effortlessly as she was that evening. All along, her impatience with the pace of her progress in Russian had been an impediment to learning. In the last weeks, almost without realizing it, she had slipped into fluency.

  “I guess you’re right,” she marveled.

  “You have a real gift for language,” he said. “I can’t believe you’re an astronomer. That trick you do of replaying conversations in your head is spooky.”