The Knife Sharpener's Bell

by Rhea Tregebov

  He’s turning my hand in his, then he raises it to his mouth, touches his lips against the palm. “Annette. Momma, Poppa . . .”

  “They’re fine. They’re all right. You know how strong they are.”

  “I know. You too. You have to be, don’t you? Solly was so strong. A few weeks after that day of walking, Solly told me he’d do it. He was ready to fight to change things. He wanted to know if I was too.”

  Fighting guns with sticks.

  “I didn’t agree to anything, not right away. But when I thought about it, I knew it was what I wanted. To fight. So I said yes. And that was when Solly told me that they already had a group, an organized group, and that I should consider myself a member of it. He said he couldn’t tell me anything in detail about who belonged, but that he did know that there were more than a dozen of us. They’d already made up an executive committee. Solly and two others were the executive.”

  “Vladimir, don’t tell me this. It can’t be true.”

  “Don’t worry, Annette. I keep telling them you and Anatoly didn’t know anything about it. And it’s not like we did much. We fought about everything.” He smiles. “We just couldn’t agree. And then we figured that the best thing to do would be to try to open up a discussion. We wanted to have a newspaper. We were trying to get a hectograph, print copies. Lena, Solly and I were going to write articles that would get people talking about what they believed in. Openly. We were going to make twenty copies of the newspaper and distribute them to everyone in the organization. Maybe more, distribute them around the schools.”

  “That’s all you did?”

  “Solly and I wanted to write a book. We were going to call it State Capitalism. We talked about that for a week, argued about the title, the approach. Then we changed our minds. We figured that what we needed to write was a book on the history of the Party, the direction it had taken. We were going to call it Thirty Years. I would have shown you what we wrote, Annette, but nothing ever came of it. We never finished writing anything. We never got anywhere; we argued too much. So you see? I did everything they say I did. And now I have to tell them the truth. They know everything anyway. They had listening devices in Solly’s apartment; they recorded us.”

  The building bears down on us and I can see it now – section, plan, elevation – this prison, its labyrinth of cells, bars, staircases, corridors. And moving fluidly through the concrete and brick arteries and veins, the life inside: these prisoners yoked to their guards, the monstrous couples they form, half human, half animal. Vladimir’s not the one who’s guilty.

  “What did they record? It’s nothing,” I say. “Nothing but talk. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “It wasn’t just talk, Annette. We, we discussed taking action. We had huge arguments. Solly had a gun. He, he even talked once about blowing up a Metro station . . .”

  “A gun? What kind of a gun?”

  He looks sheepish, chagrined. “From his brother; from the war. It didn’t work.”

  “You promised me, Vladimir. You promised.”

  “I promised not to do anything foolish. It wasn’t foolish.”

  Not foolish! – toying with rebellion, playing at a revolution! A broken gun. He’d give away his freedom, everything, his whole life, for these childish pranks?

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I say. “Casting yourself as a hero of the Revolution?” I grab him by both arms, shake him. “A hero! What makes you think revolutions have heroes?” I let go, get up, wanting to walk away, but there’s nowhere to go.

  He covers his face with his hands, rocking, a dry gasping wracking his narrow chest. He’s a child.

  They’re children, all of them – Vladimir, this Solly, the girl.

  Articles he never wrote, newspapers he never printed. Surely the authorities can’t seriously be charging him with treason? Maybe they’re bluffing; maybe they want to give these naughty children a good scare, give them a year or two in exile for the nothing they’ve done. And they’ll be out, and all right, and everything will start all over again.

  But they are: they are charging them with treason. And the sentence for treason – I don’t want to think about the sentence. I don’t want Vladimir to think about it.

  I sit beside him, take his hands from his face, stroke them. “Vladimir?” He looks up, wipes his face on his sleeve.

  “Vladimir, I’m sorry.”

  He’s taken my hand now, turning it his quarter turns: to the left, then the right.

  The horse-faced guard comes in, an amused sort of smile on his face. “You have fifteen more minutes.”

  They must be listening.

  The guard looks at us and his face suddenly changes. “Fifteen more minutes.” Briefly his face seems sad, almost human. He leaves, shutting the door.

  We have fifteen minutes. I won’t let them take him from me, not this time. “Vladimir,” I whisper, pulling him to me, holding him against me. I want what I want. They’re not going to take him from me. “Vladimir.” I stroke his chest, his face. He’s not crying now; he’s holding on, pressing his mouth against my hair, breathing me in. I hold on, hold tighter, won’t let him go. All my body wants to keep him. It’s with my body I’ll keep them from taking him away. I kiss his chest, his shoulders. He says nothing, no words any more, just our bodies. Our bodies decide. He puts his mouth against mine. Have me so you can keep me. Rememberme with your body. His body held against mine, pressed hard now, as if he wanted to erase, just for this moment, the border between us. And we do. There’s no time for more than this: my body held against his, legs held around him, him inside me. Where I’ll keep him. His eyes are open, looking into mine, steady, holding onto me. In the cold room we’re both sweating, our bodies sheeted in sweat. I can feel the bones of his rib cage against my chest, can feel his spine under my hands. I can feel myself both drawing him in and letting him go, letting myself go. The border between us eradicated, so that I can know him and keep him, a part of him. Not just memory. He pulls me tightly against him, releases a small cry.

  We hear something.

  He lets me go, lets go.

  We slip apart, away, quick as we can settle ourselves, our clothes; hear footsteps at the door and then the lock turning, the door opening.

  The door opens and everything shifts. It’s over. The two men, immense, take his arms, take him away.

  But I’m concentrating. More and more I am myself. I’m crouched in a corner of the room, concentrated, shrunk into myself so that I can hold on to what I have of him, of myself. I feel myself gripping down, bearing down on the life I feel approaching, the life I can almost touch, the one I’m giving myself, the one I’ll give to the child I know will be born.

  Chapter Twelve

  I would like to stop here. I would like to stop at this moment when we gave our daughter life, as though we willed her into being. We did. I would like to stop here but I mustn’t. I have to go on to what happened next.

  They let me go back down the hallways and staircases to the room where Raisa was still waiting, still hanging on to our purses as though that would save us. And they let us both go home, to the apartment, to Pavel. Briefly. Back in the apartment I said as little to Pavel and Raisa as possible, lied as best I could, which is not very well. I had given Vladimir the package; we knew he was alive. We had something to keep us going. But Raisa soon pried the charges out of me – not just treason, but terrorism – and we could not keep from thinking about what the worst might be. I knew that now more than ever I had to protect them, tell them as little as possible of Vladimir’s “confession.” But I did try to assure them that the charges couldn’t possibly stick, that he had done nothing. He had done nothing.

  I think they chose to believe me, because it was best to believe. I don’t know now what I believed at the time. But what carried me through those days was the certainty that my act of love, of defiance, was right. I remain certain of it,know it a choice I will never recant. All my foolishness before and since, my vanities, m
y stupidity – none of the evidence against my own good sense keeps me from the conviction that taking Vladimir into me and giving our daughter her life was right.

  So our diminished little family held itself together with hope, and disbelief, until, a few weeks later, the MGB came for me too. In daylight this time. I don’t think we were surprised to see the men at our door again. Nothing made much sense by then, or perhaps everything made no sense. Like Vladimir, mute, obedient, I signed the arrest warrant. There was less formality this go-round; Raisa had no time to pack me a bag. I was hustled out of the apartment carrying nothing. I remember Pavel holding Raisa in his arms to keep her upright, remember the destroyed look on her face. She’d lost for the moment the stamina that had carried her through Vladimir’s arrest.

  They shoved me into the Black Raven. The doors closed, and there was no light, and I felt a void invade me, felt hope evacuated. I was alone, or I thought I was alone because I wasn’t sure then that my daughter was with me. I clung to the floor of the van, believing I didn’t have the strength even to lift my head. I didn’t know what strength I would find.

  I wonder if that was the moment I was most afraid, the moment that, not knowing for certain that I had my daughter, I felt that I had lost everything. That I could do nothing. In the back of that van, I felt for the first time the full power of the State.

  The State apparently feels remorse. My blue file folders prove it. Because the new, improved State has given me back everything it took, at least in the form of documentation. I have everything. Even those pieces of paper that speak straight from the void; the pieces of paper in which I stand accused, in which we all stood accused:

  Arrest Warrant dated 10 April 1951 for Annette Gershon. She is accused of being a member of a counter-revolution ary youth group, based on the testimony of the following other arrested members of the group: Vladimir Efron and Anatoly Trubashnik.

  Their names are printed on the warrant, Vladimir and Anatoly. Just as Solly’s name was printed on Vladimir’s warrant. Did they truly name us? Probably. I can’t know, because there were so many lies that the truth is irretrievable. And it doesn’t matter. They would have taken me anyway.

  And I was taken. Hustled out of Pavel and Raisa’s apartment, shoved in the Black Raven, driven to Lefortovo prison, placed, like Vladimir, like the others who were arrested, in solitary. And, like Vladimir, like the others, I was interrogated. Let the State offer its version:

  Record of the Interrogation of Prisoner

  7 May 1951. Gershon, Annette, date of birth: 1926; place of birth: Winnipeg, Canada; nationality: Jewish; citizenship: USSR. Until arrest, student of architecture, Mossovet Architectural Workshops.

  Interrogation began at 22:45.

  QUESTION: You stand accused under the following sections of the 58th article of the Criminal Code of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: 1-a, 8 and 10 of being a member of a youth counter-revolutionary terrorist organization. Do you understand the accusation?

  ANSWER: I do. I am accused of being a member of a youth counter-revolution ary organization.

  QUESTION: Do you acknowledge your guilt?

  ANSWER: No, I do not. I was not a member of any counter-revolutionary organization.

  QUESTION: When did you join the counter-revolutionary organization?

  ANSWER: I was not a member of any counter-revolutionary organization.

  QUESTION: Under whose influence did you join? Did your cousin Vladimir Efron not recruit you as a member of the Group for the Liberation of the Cause of the Revolution?

  ANSWER: I was not a member of any counter-revolutionary organization.

  QUESTION: You did not become a member of the youth counter-revolutionary organization the Group for the Liberation of the Cause of the Revolution?

  ANSWER: No, I did not.

  QUESTION: You did not become a member of any other counter-revolutionary organization?

  ANSWER: No, I did not.

  QUESTION: Vladimir Efron has testified that you had many conversations of an anti-Soviet disposition.

  ANSWER: If I am guilty of being of an anti-Soviet disposition, I still did not join any counter-revolutionary organization.

  QUESTION: You are not being honest. Tell the truth!

  ANSWER: I have told the truth.

  QUESTION: You admit to being of an anti-Soviet disposition?

  ANSWER: Yes.

  QUESTION: Be more specific regarding the nature of these conversations.

  ANSWER: My cousin and I had many conversations on many topics.

  QUESTION: I ask you again: what was the nature of your discussions?

  ANSWER: We shared an interest in Soviet history and political theory.

  QUESTION: Did Solomon Koznitsky not recruit you as a member of the Group for the Liberation of the Cause of the Revolution?

  ANSWER: I was not a member of any counter-revolutionary organization. I have never met Solomon Koznitsky.

  QUESTION: Vladimir Efron has testified that his cell of members included himself, Elena Tarasova and Solomon Koznitsky. Were you also a cellmember?

  ANSWER: I was not aware of the membership of the cell.

  QUESTION: But you were aware of the existence of the cell?

  ANSWER: I was not aware of the existence of the cell, or of the counter-revolutionary organization.

  QUESTION: Again, I urge you to tell the truth: you were not aware of the counter-revolutionary youth organization?

  ANSWER: I was not.

  QUESTION: What activities did you undertake as a member of this counter-revolutionary organization?

  ANSWER: I was not a member of any counter-revolutionary organization.

  QUESTION: Anatoly Trubashnik has testified that you had many conversations of an anti-Soviet disposition.

  ANSWER: Anatoly and I shared many interests, including an interest in Soviet history and political theory.

  QUESTION: And Trubashnik shared these unhealthy opinions with you?

  ANSWER: We were friends who shared many conversations.

  QUESTION: Did Trubashnik not supposedly ”prove” to you that Trotsky had allegedly been an outstanding historical figure?

  ANSWER: I do not recollect any conversations between Anatoly and me regarding Trotsky’s historical position.

  QUESTION: What is the nature of your relationship with Anatoly Trubashnik?

  ANSWER: We had friendly relations. He visited me frequently at our apartment.

  QUESTION: Did you have conversations of a political nature with your so-called ”cousins” Raisa Efron and Pavel Efron?

  ANSWER: No, I did not.

  QUESTION: Were you aware of a letter that Pavel Efron wrote to Comrade Stalin dated February 10, 1951?

  Answer: Yes I was.

  QUESTION: What was the nature of its contents?

  ANSWER: I believe Pavel was asking Comrade Stalin to look into my cousin Vladimir Efron’s arrest.

  QUESTION: Were you aware of the anti-Soviet nature of the contents of the letter written by Pavel Efron dated February 10, 1951?

  ANSWER: I did not read the entire contents of the letter.

  QUESTION: I ask you again: were you aware of the anti-Soviet contentsof this letter?

  ANSWER: I did not read the entire letter.

  QUESTION: And you never had conversations of a political nature with either Raisa or Pavel Efron?

  ANSWER: I did not. Signature of Prisoner:

  _____________________________

  I sit in the interrogation room on a wooden bench in front of a wooden desk, the only light the watery glimmer of the dim light bulb overhead, going over the official transcript of my interrogation. Bare though the room is, it’s crowded with what I remember: my father handing me an orange, my mother stirring cake batter. Why am I here? For no reason. For so many reasons. Because my father wanted a better world, because my mother wanted to go home. Because there is no Poppa, no delicatessen. I’m no one’s daughter. Because I have to sign a piece of paper full of lies.

>   What would my father do?

  What would my mother do?

  My father wanted to give me the world. My mother held on to herself, kept everything good. She gave me nothing. Or she gave me a gift that wasn’t for me – she gave nothing and nothing was wasted. He wanted to give me the world, but would he have given in? He gave in so many times.

  She wouldn’t have given in. She held on to herself, to everything good.

  What is the world my father would have given me? The world isn’t good. The world that built the prison that keeps me, keeps Vladimir and the others. But the world is good. And I am holding on. For myself. For the child I’m holding. What can they do to me?

  Put me in prison.

  All right then, I’m in prison.

  So what? So what.

  In this moment, waiting to sign or not to sign, it doesn’t matter what they do to me. It doesn’t matter how I’m punished.

  They can’t make me do anything. Not if I’m not afraid.

  And I’m not afraid.

  I won’t give them anything.

  I’ve done nothing wrong.

  My interrogator takes the transcript, types a furious sentence at the end:

  The interrogation concluded at 5:30. Note that prisoner refused to sign the minutes of the interrogation. Interrogation was concluded by interrogator of the Department on Particularly Important Investigations of the MGB of the USSR.