Apricot Jam

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  With that, the investigation was complete for the moment, and the lieutenant hurried back to his office in the Division to arrive before his two coworkers and the major came to work. He made it back in time. But for some reason the major did not come in, and at ten o’clock Lieutenant Colonel Kosargin himself arrived. The lieutenant ventured to report directly to him.

  The lieutenant colonel was about forty and was now in civilian clothes; he was fit and neat with a distinct military bearing. He had spent fifteen years in the “Organs” and had left the state security service a year and a half ago. He had been here for the last year.

  The lieutenant gave his full report and displayed the schematic drawing he had made. Kosargin’s eyebrows also rose as he wondered about the banker’s modest apartment.

  “What would you like me to do now, Vsevold Valeryanych?”

  Kosargin had a lean, energetic face, and his constant expression was one of immediate readiness for the task at hand.

  “What was Tolkovyanov’s first name, did you find out?”

  “Aleksei Ivanych.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  A crease appeared across Kosargin’s smooth forehead. What was he thinking about? Was he trying to recall something?

  “I think I’ll take this on myself. Call the bank and get hold of Tolkovyanov.”

  The lieutenant readily turned to leave, relieved that he had not been blamed for his delay over the past night, and went off to carry out his instructions.

  Kosargin remained seated. He had a very sharp professional memory. In ’89 he had happened to question an Aleksei Tolkovyanov during the time the local university students were creating some disturbances, clashing with the cadets of the border guards’ school across the street. The cadets had taken it upon themselves to use their fists to put the students in their place. The information on Tolkovyanov was that if he was not the ringleader of the students, then he was at least one of their main instigators. In those days, interrogations were tough: Don’t lose your head over all this glasnost nonsense; don’t be taken in by the disgusting stuff they’re allowed to print in the newspapers these days; if you keep this up, we’ll find a nice little camp for people like you, the kind of place you won’t come out of alive.

  Yes, in those days . . . Kosargin still could not comprehend how all this had come about. And the direction it had taken. And the speed with which it had happened, and the things that had been destroyed! The Organs themselves were thoroughly shaken, and one by one the cleverest and most energetic people within them had begun looking for something new and even resigning. Where could they go? Into these new private businesses and management boards. Some of them became nearly as wealthy as bankers and thus provoked the understandable resentment of their colleagues, who had stayed at their jobs and missed such opportunities. And now, it seems, even this ex-student has been able to move without a hitch into that world, unlike you.

  This made him even more eager to take on the case and investigate, if only to satisfy his curiosity.

  Tolkovyanov turned out to be at his job in the bank and was expecting visitors from the Organized Crime Division.

  Kosargin went to see him. He left his driver on a quiet street near a new, seven-story bank building with a vast expanse of glass and one of the enigmatic names they were now inventing. He went inside. The reception area on the second floor had a Western-style counter, not glassed in. Despite his civilian clothes, the receptionist immediately knew who he was; then another young man greeted him and took him at once to the bank president; the president had come to the outer office to meet him.

  Yes! Though that interrogation had taken place almost six years ago, Kosargin recognized him at first sight: it was he. That same tall fellow with a face that seemed a bit simple. He might have been a village cowherd dressed in city clothes. He was not, however, in a business suit, as one would expect from a bank president. He wore a loose, casual, olive green sweater, though his shirt collar—a lighter shade of the same color—was carefully arranged on the outside. He had a narrow gold ring on his finger, the sort they were now wearing as wedding bands.

  The banker gave no sign that he remembered their past encounter.

  They went into the president’s office. The furniture within was a mixture : there were some contemporary pieces—low, plump leather armchairs grouped around a small table covered with magazines, but also a few antique, or at least reproductions of antique, chairs with high, straight, carved backs and bare wooden seats; these were arranged around a table covered with a green cloth. On the wall hung an antique clock with a bronze pendulum and, when it now struck, a soft, ingratiating chime.

  Kosargin declined an armchair and sat on one of the wooden chairs, placing his slender portfolio on the green cloth of the table; the banker sat at his desk, which was placed crosswise to the table.

  He was in full possession of himself: he appeared entirely unshaken by his experience and his face showed no trace of fear, only his undivided attention. And, even on such a morning, he had not neglected to shave. His long ears, set high on his head, accentuated the length of his face.

  Kosargin mentioned only where he was from and did not give his name. Tolkovyanov did not ask to see his identity card, and it was only this that betrayed his preoccupation or uncertainty.

  The circumstances? Well, this was how it happened. He had opened the steel door and was about to enter; his wife was following. Suddenly he realized that he had forgotten to take one of her bags and—did it take a second or half a second?—he stepped back instead of entering the lobby; the steel door had almost swung shut again when the explosion burst inside. Whoever had sent the signal had acted a fraction of a second prematurely, thinking that his victim would now be inside the lobby.

  He gave a crooked smile, as if apologizing.

  His very simple hairstyle—combed to one side, like a child’s—added to the simplicity of his face.

  “Do you have any idea who would want to kill you? Who might have ordered the murder? Who set off the bomb?”

  Tolkovyanov looked right into his eyes. Attentively. Thoughtfully. He seemed to be taking Kosargin’s measure.

  And then—he recognized him! Kosargin could immediately tell from his expression.

  Yet Kosargin did not respond and said nothing to prompt him.

  Tolkovyanov had no names to give him.

  He was still pondering.

  Folding the five arched fingers of one hand into the fingers of his other hand and then, with apparent effort, unfolding and folding them again, he replied: “I’m not certain that your department can provide any effective assistance in this matter.”

  ALYOSHA HAD NEITHER imagined nor anticipated an attempt on his life, and yet one had just taken place. Still, when he had set off on the rocky road through this twilight world, he should have expected it and been prepared for it.

  As for the person who had ordered it, Alyosha suspected, though he had no proof, that it was the head of the Ellomas Company. His bank had a turbulent relationship with them, one that demanded great caution, and now Alyosha thought he understood where and how he had erred. Sometimes a single careless remark was enough to create a bitter enemy. Anyone who enters the world of finance must never give vent to his feelings or lose his self-control.

  And as for the one who had carried it out, he would be much more difficult to find. Alyosha could not even speculate, although it was only through that person that he could begin to untangle it all.

  Should he rely on the police investigation? Or, perhaps, simply wait things out?

  What is it that pushes us into these vague and pointless speculations, such as: What if he had picked up Tanya’s second bag earlier and had not chosen to step back precisely at that instant? Both of them could well have fallen into the trap . . . Alyosha’s daily schedule was so regular that a murderer would have no difficulty finding the right moment. But why something so complex? Why not simply use a pistol, at point-blan
k range? Probably the plan had been to leave a false trail, not here in this provincial city but leading back to B—, from which Alyosha had once come, to study at the local university. Recently there had been two murders in B—, both committed in the same way—an explosion set off remotely. Their idea was quite clever. But how could he convince anyone that he had no debts or scores to settle in B—, only fond memories of his childhood and youth?

  Among his fond memories were the well still being used in the yard of his little provincial house; the grass here and there in the yard that had not yet been trampled down; the whole residential district of little single-story houses with their gray, decrepit, carved gables; and the boys of this district. (And what he and these boys didn’t get up to! They pasted up posters all over the town with the slogan “Attack the priests!” They put together a plan for blowing up the last church in B—. And when there was some talk of going to war against China, they decided that if the battle came as far as the Urals, they would create groups of partisans in the forests right here, along the Volga.) Then there was his school—and what a fascinating place he found it, ever since he first stepped through the door. Five years later—physics! Later still—chemistry! What marvelous subjects, revealing things he had never seen or even guessed at, yet all the while they were right there in the world around him. The woman who taught chemistry was amazing, and so beautiful as well! All the kids were full of enthusiasm for chemistry, but Alyosha left the others behind: from grade nine he was working well beyond the school program and was ahead of the grade tens. But then there was physics. The teacher was quite useless. He was dull and he simply did not understand his own subject or realize what an amazingly iridescent treasure had been entrusted to his uncaring hands. He had no idea how to set up an experiment, so Alyosha prepared everything for him. At first, when he arrived at school well before classes and stepped behind the mysterious partition of the physics room, he would wander about and lose himself in dreams among the objects there: the rotating rings, the sparks that would fly from the contacts on the black cover of the coil, the blued-steel indicators behind the glass on the instruments, the inscribed measuring glasses and tubes, springs of all sorts . . . A mysterious, invisible current seemed to flow through all these things, and even the movies with their galloping horsemen seemed scarcely on the same level as this bewitching world.

  But soon, when Alyosha was a little older and had found his bearings, he realized that these were all childish, outmoded things: the real current of physics was moving much faster, and it was not moving here. His elders advised him to read magazines—Science and Life, Knowledge Is Strength, Nature—and he began haunting the town library, where he could read his fill. The things that were going on in the world! Imagine what was being achieved or was on the threshold of being achieved: Computers that could perform millions of operations in a second, that could direct entire industrial processes with no interference from humans! Computers that were capable of manufacturing more computers just like themselves! Computers in radio navigation! The transformation of heat into electricity with no mechanical operations! Solar batteries! The meteoric rise of quantum electronics! Lasers! The ability to see and take photographs in total darkness! It was as if the different branches of physics were a pack of hounds that had torn themselves from their leashes and were racing off in all directions. The molecular clock. The “frontier sciences,” the physical-chemical synthesis of substances with predetermined qualities. We were already on the threshold of a managed thermonuclear synthesis. Biotics. Bionics: technological devices that copied biological systems. And then, astronomy: the Big Bang Theory! The universe was by no means eternal; it had been created—all at once? And Black Holes that swallowed up matter utterly and without a trace—into nothingness!

  Meanwhile, young Alyosha was wasting his time in this lackluster school lab, memorizing some old rubbish paragraph by paragraph!

  The whole thinking world was rushing ahead, flying, circling about, being transformed in a breakneck rush. He could not stay here any longer; he could not be held down in this backward town of B—, even if it did now have some factories. Would other people discover it all, invent everything, reach the very limit of what could be done and leave nothing for Alyosha?

  He rushed to the university in the city, excellent student record in hand. He entered the Faculty of Physics, and for his first two years, he was delighted by all the subject areas that were waiting for him. He had to grab everything he could—more than just one area of specialization—not only because they were utterly fascinating but also because the more areas he covered, the greater his chances for success.

  These were the two happiest years of his life. Alyosha threw all his energy into his studies, trying to learn and investigate everything he possibly could.

  He was always confident of one thing: Whatever I take up, whatever job I set out to do, I will always succeed! (He also found time to be a Komsomol activist, never resting and always consumed by one task or another. He even restored an old car, a regular boneshaker, from what was no more than a pile of scrap someone had discarded, and every evening he would carry the battery up to the third floor of the student residence to be charged and then carry it down in the morning. The other kids laughed and jeered, but they were the ones who would ask him for a lift when they were late.)

  Then in ’86, after his first two years at the university (just at a time when new hopes for society were stirring!), something happened that seemed to break his life in two: he was drafted into the army for two years.

  Couldn’t they have done this earlier? Or waited until he graduated? Why did it have to happen right in the middle of his studies?

  It was as if his air supply had been obstructed.

  Never to be restored, perhaps.

  Life had never been easy in the army, but this was the very height of the practice of hazing—dedovshchina. You could expect no mercy from anyone senior to you. Still, in those years Alyosha was not skinny as he was now; he was heavy and strong, knew how to throw a punch, and could hold his own.

  The army assigned him to communications. Even there he tried keeping up by reading books on physics. But there wasn’t much chance for that. He gave up trying.

  Then he turned to reading the newspapers and watching television: he had to try to keep up with the life that was changing at such dizzying speed during his two years in the army. All sorts of “informal” organizations were springing up; people were spontaneously getting involved in unauthorized activities—something unheard of!

  He came back from the army to his third year at the university—“his” university, though perhaps it was no longer his. Was it the right place for him? Yet it no longer seemed to be so. (He realized, though, that among the multitude of self-styled colleges, universities, and even research institutes that were now springing up, their university still maintained its traditionally exalted place.) It seemed as if the army had pulled out the pivot point of his soul—his love of science. He still earned only the highest grades, but what was missing was the constant sense of the beauty of science, a beauty that at times even sent shivers down his spine. What remained was not beauty but merely the opportunity for practical application. Or was it just the pursuit of whatever was profitable, as in all areas of our life now?

  At this same time, the students were caught up in the rush to organize these now permitted societies and movements, and many were drawn into them. Alyosha was as well: If it’s possible to seek justice for people, then how could he remain on the sidelines? This was a sacred dream he had cherished since childhood: to live not just for himself but for everyone! What he saw around him were only ramshackle structures groaning under their own weight and simply waiting to be torn down by a new generation with a new vision. The meetings! The associations! Some were permitted, others not; protest marches with banners would be allowed one day and forbidden the next. Much of the energy of protest went to these things and even to brawls with the neighboring cadets. Then came th
e interrogations by the state security organs. (Not long before he would have simply been packed off to prison, and no one would have said a word.)

  Yes, indeed, life was now moving along many different courses. Then came a law permitting the creation of cooperatives. But to get permission to set up a cooperative, you needed a bit of influence somewhere higher up. At this point, right in the midst of these student disturbances and just after Tolkovyanov had been dragged off to the KGB, the first secretary of the party Oblast Committee came to speak at the university. He allowed questions, and Tolkovyanov stood up: The university is being remodeled, but it’s not being done economically. There are cost overruns and wasted materials. Authorize us to form a student cooperative, and we’ll make the repairs—better and more cheaply. And permission was granted! The kids rushed to their work. This was his first chance to test his business acumen, doing work he believed in, that could realize an actual profit. But then a wave rolled across the country from the opposite direction: Shut down all the cooperatives! And they were shut down.

  In fact these were not real cooperatives, begun with no resources and no starting capital. A “cooperative” succeeded when its owners were backed by ready cash of undisclosed origins. Some of them produced intricate locks for metal doors or doorbells that rang with various melodies, or even dish antennas for satellite TV. These things were ready and waiting, but the consumers didn’t rush to buy them: they didn’t fully trust “Soviet” goods and wanted foreign products.