But rather than erupt in anger, as he was expecting, Yakushev only looked satisfied. “I knew it also. This is why I always choose the man who was poor. And I always choose the man who was beaten as a child. There are always plentiful candidates in our country, but harder to find the one who hasn’t grown up to become a bully himself. Those have other uses, but not as secret agents. And do you know why?”
This time Alexsi didn’t have to act out his bewilderment.
“Because to be oblivious is a luxury of privilege. This is why you see everything and miss nothing. Because the beaten child learns to enter every room and read everyone in it like a book, in order to discover who will and who will not raise their hand against him. It is a skill almost impossible to teach in any reasonable amount of time. And no finer preparation for an agent. You have spent your life preparing to become that agent.”
Alexsi felt a flash of resentment, perhaps because he knew it was true.
“You were very subtle, of course,” Yakushev continued. “I read your report alongside the girl’s. They match almost exactly, but she is still mystified as to your motives. I see you toying with her, and she knowing something is wrong but still having no idea what.” He chuckled, which was more disturbing than reassuring coming from him. “She even warns that the grenades may be booby-trapped, and should be examined carefully. And you should be arrested immediately because of your skills at escape.”
Alexsi remembered that last time she had been standing there, just before she left, waiting for the bluecaps to swarm him and drag him away.
And now came one of those rare Yakushev smiles, there and gone in a flash, that was also less than reassuring. “I don’t begrudge you your moment of triumph, but only as a learning experience. Unlike in melodramas, there is no moment when a secret agent can reveal or even allude to his true identity to anyone not already aware of it. It is inevitably fatal, and regardless of the circumstance there is always a way out if you keep your wits. Do you heed me?”
“I do,” Alexsi said.
“Good. So be clever but not too clever. Risk is thrilling, but always have the discipline to minimize it. It is fatal for an agent to indulge his passions.”
“I understand,” said Alexsi, acting but not feeling suitably chastened.
“Good. Except for those reservations I cannot fault your performance. Do you wish to hear the reviews?”
Alexsi knew he’d be hearing them no matter what. “If it is permissible.”
Yakushev described what happened clinically, as if he were reading from another dry report by someone whose hand was aching and just wanted to be done with it. But Alexsi saw it much more vividly in his mind’s eye. The five teenagers standing on a street corner in the Arbat district, traditional home of intellectuals and artists. Not far from his own apartment, actually. Dmitri quivering with excitement, ready to take his place as one of the heroes of song and story. Yuri uncharacteristically silent because he was shitting his pants from fear. Aida probably standing beside him to keep him from running away before the final act. The other two girls shaking in their boots but determinedly carrying the grenades in their bags.
Three automobiles speed down the street, and of course it’s Stalin’s motorcade because they are the finest American luxury automobiles so who else’s would they be? They slow to take the corner and everyone throws their grenade. Or not. Perhaps fear freezes them in place; perhaps Yuri drops his at his feet. If they had any sense at all they would run, but they want to watch the explosions and themselves making history. But of course there are no explosions, just Chekists pouring from the vehicles and the buildings and possibly the snowdrifts also. Screaming from the girls as they all are kicked and punched and handcuffed and thrown into the Black Maria that arrives on cue. Then in the Lubyanka Aida laughing and having a congratulatory glass of cognac and basking in the admiration of her fellow Chekists while her dear friends are taking the rubber hose down in the interrogation rooms. Not because there is anything more to learn, really, but for daring to raise their hands against the Soviet colossus. Perhaps the entire drama in the streets was filmed with cinema cameras, and Stalin will watch it later, with the secret police high command anxiously awaiting his reaction. And he stares impassively at the screen, bangs the ashes from his pipe, and says it’s about time you did your jobs correctly.
And then there was Yakushev in the very same voice saying, “The men Dmitri and Yuri, and the women Nadia and Larissa have been interrogated and shot. Those of their friends who should have reported their suspicious actions have received the appropriate sentence of twenty-five years at hard labor.”
Twenty-five years for attending a birthday party, Alexsi thought. There’s a present for you. His reaction was an inward shrug. It all would have happened even if he had never been there.
“The girl Aida Rudenko is a member of the NKVD city and province of Moscow section,” Yakushev said. “Considering your past history, my old second section of internal counterintelligence requested your participation, since there was no reason the Moscow section should gain full credit for uncovering this plot. I regarded it as an excellent training opportunity. Everyone involved has been rewarded for their work.” Yakushev passed an identity book across the desk. “You are now granted the right to shop in special government stores. And you may regard the one thousand rubles the girl gave you as part of your reward.”
Alexsi glanced at the book. It was State Security identification with his photograph.
“You have a question,” said Yakushev. “I can tell.”
“I was only wondering why they weren’t arrested at the beginning,” said Alexsi. “I can’t see the difference between them wanting to kill Comrade Stalin in the first place and all the trouble it took to get them standing out on a street corner with hand grenades.”
“Listen to me, boy. I am your master, and you work to please me. Correct?”
“Of course, Comrade,” Alexsi replied.
“We all have masters to please. Will you say that there are no enemies of Communism? And that these enemies are not only in the capitalist world, but here in our own country also?”
Alexsi shook his head. He couldn’t argue with that.
“Comrade Stalin knows that the enemies of Communism are tireless in pursuing their plots against him. If you tell him there are no plots then he will naturally think you are either incompetent or one of those doing the plotting. Well, here we have a plot. Comrade Stalin is satisfied we are doing our jobs. The Organs receive more resources to accomplish our vital work as the sword and shield of the state. Do you see?”
Alexsi nodded. And the competition between the Moscow section and this second section. Just as he thought before: Chekist office politics. Yakushev’s man wins. Medals for everyone. It really was like an opera. And these were people who would think nothing of annihilating four students like they were insects underfoot in order to gain a promotion. Not just them, but untold numbers every day. Because how else would the many thousands of guardians of State Security occupy their hours? If Stalin wasn’t a madman already, he would be after hearing about all the plots. The whole country is trying to kill you, Comrade Stalin. Well, then I’d better kill them all first. No, don’t even think about that, Alexsi told himself. It might come out on your face.
Yakushev said, “Now that you have proved you can be trusted, the time has come for you to learn the ultimate objective of your training.”
Just like the little pieces of their exercises coming together in a greater whole, Alexsi could now see their purpose in inserting him into this conspiracy. It had all been a test, but with real human lives. They wanted to be certain he would follow their orders, no matter what; no hesitations, no refusals. They wanted him as ruthless and unprincipled as they were. They wanted to see if he would flinch from having blood on his hands. Well, as long as they were satisfied, then they could think whatever they wanted. Alexsi knew in his bones that if his and Aida’s reports hadn’t matched perfectly he’d be fa
cedown in a ditch somewhere instead of a thousand rubles richer.
Yakushev said, “You of course recall Friedrich Shultz, the boy you grew up with. And his family.”
“I do,” Alexsi replied. And then as if to mock all his previous thoughts: oh please, oh please, if somehow they are free don’t tell me I have to betray them now. If nothing else they did broke him, this would. Because everything he had done, everything, had been for them.
19
1932 Soviet Azerbaijan
“Oh, no,” Emma Shultz said despairingly at her first sight of Alexsi crossing her threshold. But she composed herself quickly. “Friedrich!” she snapped at her son. “Bring me a basin of water.”
Freddi had been supporting his battered and bleeding friend. “Yes, Mama.”
Emma turned to Alexsi and visibly softened. “Sit down at the table, dear, and let me look at you.” Then to her daughter, who was hovering behind, not wanting to miss a second of what was going on, “Gerdi, watch the supper.”
Gerde was a flaxen-haired miniature of her mother, and at nine was three years younger than Freddi. “Yes, Mama.”
When Freddi brought the basin Emma Shultz briskly produced a small sheet of rough cotton wool, not one of her good towels, and a medicine bottle half filled with a thick, alarmingly orange-colored fluid.
“Be still, dear,” she said softly, cradling Alexsi’s chin in one hand while she toweled away the rest of the blood and ooze with the other.
Her hand was so cool, and her touch so gentle that Alexsi closed his eyes and rested the weight of his head in her palm.
“Were you fighting again?” she demanded, a little more sternly.
“No, Aunt Emma,” he replied in German.
They had been speaking Russian up to that point, and she shook her head in pleased amazement. “Your accent is better every time.” She paused, and then, “So it was your father?”
He nodded against her palm. Her blond hair was mostly gray now, and she wore it in a pair of braids. Work and worry had scored her forehead and the corners of her eyes, and weighed down the skin of her face, but she had the kindest blue eyes Alexsi had ever seen.
Emma Shultz let out a sharp blast of breath that conveyed disgust far more effectively than mere words. She tore off a piece of the cotton, placed it over the neck of the medicine bottle, and shook it. “I’m afraid this will hurt you even more, my dear, but we cannot allow the cut to become infected. Especially so near your eye.” She stopped, and said in Russian, “Did you understand what I just said?”
“Yes, Auntie,” he replied in German. “I’m ready for the medicine.”
Watching her the boy close his eyes and tense up his body, Emma Shultz’s face took on an expression of utter sadness.
When it was over Alexsi helped Freddi with the water, fetched wood for the stove, and swept the floor before supper. The Shultz home was like the rest in the kolkhoz: too small for all the people in it, rough wood, the ground floor a living area and kitchen and table and stove and chairs. Above a half loft, where the adults slept. But in many other ways it was so much different from his. There was a hand-laid wooden floor instead of a dirt floor. It was so much cleaner that he liked to sweep it just to see it clean, not even to make himself welcome. There was a cabinet with old and amazing porcelain objects and dishes, not to mention a beautiful wooden box filled with silver knives, forks, and spoons with amazingly intricate handles that Freddi had secretly shown him once. He said they were carved from the tusks of elephants. And even more amazingly, another cabinet filled with books. Just like the library. Aunt Emma even let him look at them as long as he was careful and washed his hands first.
And she made exotic German meals. Her cabbage was laced with vinegar and spices. Alexsi thought her potato soup was the most delicious thing ever. It was enough to make you forget how rotten the potatoes were.
After supper the women washed the dishes. He and Freddi fetched more wood and water. Otto Shultz sat with his pipe, reading a book. Alexsi didn’t want to go home to get his school text so he sat at the kitchen table practicing his exercises from Freddi’s.
“I will make you a bed,” Emma Shultz announced.
Otto clicked his pipe against his teeth, but Alexsi was grateful for the reprieve. Emma hovered over him while he washed himself and scrubbed his teeth with a finger dipped in salt.
His pallet was on the floor, next to Freddi and Gerdi’s bed. When he heard from Freddi and Gerdi’s breathing that they were asleep, Alexsi quietly put his clothes back on against the night chill and tiptoed over to the bookcase. He removed a thick volume and, clasping it in his arms to keep from dropping it, inched his way through the darkness of the room to the stove. He opened the firebox door a millimeter at a time to keep it from squeaking and carefully placed a piece of wood on the dying coals to give himself enough light to read by.
With his back against the warmth of the stove, Alexsi ran his fingers over the soft embossed leather binding and gently turned the pages to the story he had been reading last. He was delayed, as always, by the beautiful engravings that demanded to be looked at. They called the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, but to him they were not so far from the way people acted every day. From the first time Aunt Emma read him “Hansel and Gretel,” translating as she went into Russian, he knew he had to learn German so he could read them himself. It had been a word-for-word struggle at first, and he had exasperated Freddi with questions, but now he could read them easily. Save a word or two to ask Aunt Emma in the morning. He didn’t want to make her angry, the way everyone else was when he asked them questions, but she always seemed happy when he did.
Alexsi heard whispering from up in the loft, and stopped turning pages so he could hear.
Otto was saying in German, “We barely have enough to give our own children. We cannot afford to feed that boy so often.”
“Then what will happen whenever his father beats him and throws him out of the house?” Emma demanded. “He will go hungry. Or worse, steal food.”
“He probably does that anyway,” said Otto. “They say there isn’t a lock in the kolkhoz that can keep him out. He is probably listening to us right now.”
At that Alexsi felt a twinge. He would have rushed back to bed, except he was afraid of making a noise and giving himself away.
“He has a good heart,” Emma insisted. “And he is so bright. You hear how he speaks German, to please us? Just by listening and asking me questions.”
“Intelligent and no morals is an evil combination,” said Otto.
“Where is he to learn them, except from us?” Emma demanded again. “What am I to say when Freddi brings him home and insists we give him supper?”
“Freddi has too big a heart,” said Otto.
“Would you rather him be heartless like everyone else in this place? I am proud of our son. He loves Alexsi, and Alexsi loves him. Freddi is a good influence on him.”
“And what kind of influence is he on Freddi?” said Otto. “He will get Freddi into trouble, and then we will be in trouble.”
“Alexsi will not risk his place with us.”
“Boys do not think of things like that.”
“I will not turn him away,” said Emma. “His mother dead, his father a brute?”
“Dear,” said Otto. “Our situation is precarious enough as it is.”
“We came to Russia to build Communism,” said Emma. “You were wounded fighting for the Bolsheviks in the Civil War.”
“The Russians think I am a German first, and then perhaps a Communist,” said Otto. “And always suspect because of it.”
Alexsi knew the Shultzes had moved to the kolkhoz from Helenendorf. It wasn’t far. He had been there once when Pyotr went trading. A strange place, a farm settlement built by Germans who came a long time ago to escape the wars of Napoleon. A little German village in the midst of Azerbaijan. Freddi said that they moved because they were Communists, which was good, and the other Germans were bourgeois, which was bad.
&nb
sp; “Chauvinism,” said Emma, a bit louder as her voice rose. “If only Lenin had lived. This group are nothing but gangsters. Camorra, not Communist.”
“Ssssh,” Otto whispered. “Dear, one of the children could innocently repeat something you say, at school, and that would be the end of us.”
“This is exactly what I am saying,” Emma continued, just as loud. “Once a party member was on the political vanguard. Now you must be a cow. Waiting to be poked with a stick to tell you where to go.”
Otto said patiently, “Dear…”
Emma said fiercely, “Our children will see the Revolution succeed.”
“Now about the boy,” said Otto, unmistakably desperate to change the subject.
“I will not sit back and watch him become an ignorant bully like his father. I will not. With his brain he could be a scientist, an engineer. He could go to Moscow and be a credit to the party.”
Alexsi heard Otto sigh in the darkness, his way of reconciling himself to the familiar sensation of being unable to move his wife.
The stove behind Alexsi’s back was beginning to cool. He didn’t understand words like “chauvinism” or “Camorra,” but he understood enough. He would have to think of a way to add food to the Shultz larder. And think of how to do it so Aunt Emma would not refuse. The light from the firebox had died to where he could not make out the printing of the book. Rather than use any more of the Shultz’s firewood he carefully closed the door, replaced the book, and crept off to bed. He would have to find them more wood, too.
Just like the stories in the book. He had been wrong not to repay the kindness of the good.
20
1936 Moscow
A Single Spy Page 12