End to Ordinary History

by Michael Murphy

  “That is when we need friends most,” Rozhnov sighed. “When the rest of the world is going crazy.”

  The old man’s complex face was a welcome point of reference. Strelnikov watched it with childlike wonder, savoring new insights about the character it revealed. He felt vaguely omniscient. “I have been in a peculiar state.” He forced a smile. “It started just this morning. I don’t entirely trust my judgment.” As the admission came forth, Strelnikov checked himself. Rozhnov might be part of Kirov’s plot.

  “I’ve never seen you looking better,” Rozhnov said. “Why don’t you trust your judgment?”

  Strelnikov studied the old man’s countenance. There were depths and nuances in it he hadn’t seen before. This was a profound and exceptional man, someone he would like to confide in. But he hesitated. The man might also be an enemy of the State.

  “Is there something embarrassing?” Rozhnov asked.

  With all his suspicions, Strelnikov liked and admired the old bureaucrat. But still he checked himself. Should he talk about Kirov freely?

  Rozhnov, however, was not burdened with contradictory thoughts. Strelnikov’s divided state was something Rozhnov had wrestled with for years, until he had achieved his present integration. “You don’t want to answer,” he said. “What are you hiding? Some new discovery, one the world won’t understand?”

  Strelnikov smiled at the old man’s sly inflection. “Not a scientific discovery,” he said. “But a philosophical one. It has something to do with that book you gave me.”

  “Something about the secret of light?”

  “Yes, the secret of light.” With a handkerchief, Strelnikov wiped perspiration from his upper lip. From the photograph of his laser invention, a subtle light was streaming.

  “I thought the book might bear on the issues raised by Kirov’s commission,” Rozhnov said. “It is good to see how enduring these insights are. That book is very old.”

  The light from the photograph filled the space between them. Strelnikov looked down at the desk. “Do you know the people in Yakov Kozin’s surveillance group?” he asked at last.

  “Not very well,” Rozhnov said, framing his next revealing statement. “But this afternoon I heard about Kozin’s claims. It seems he has named us both traitors to the State.”

  Strelnikov gathered himself. “Named us both?” he asked, lifting his vodka carefully and placing it on the desk. “I hadn’t heard that we were part of the plot.”

  “I heard it from the office of Secretary Brezhnev himself. They asked me if the man had gone crazy.”

  Strelnikov looked at the intercom on his desk to make sure that no one could hear. “We had him sent to a doctor this afternoon,” he whispered, “for a medical check. I am sure his superiors will recommend he get some rest.”

  “Perhaps you should check with the doctor. According to Brezhnev’s people, Kozin is passing his stories now to anyone who’ll listen.”

  “Even to Brezhnev? Impossible.”

  “I heard it from people I trust, just an hour ago. Maybe you should check.”

  Turning to the speakers by his side, Strelnikov flipped a switch and asked an assistant to place a call to Petrovsky. “We shall hear in a moment,” he said. “I find this all surprising.”

  While the phone connections were being made, Strelnikov held back his fear. Absurd as it seemed, there was a bond between him and Kirov that others might perceive, a bond that Kozin had sensed.

  “Petrovsky here!” The doctor’s voice came over the speaker.

  “Petrovsky? What happened with Kozin? How did he seem to you?”

  “He’s all right,” the doctor said. “I recommended a little rest, but there is nothing wrong with him. No strange ideas or reactions.”

  “You gave him a medical clearance?” Strelnikov was astonished. “But he was acting like a madman here!”

  “Like a madman? I’m surprised. He was completely rational in my office. I wish you had told me that.”

  “I had a guard escort him. He was out of control here at the Praesidium. Didn’t you talk to the man I sent with him?”

  “No, I didn’t see him. In fact, there was no guard with him. He came here all alone.”

  “If you see him again, give him a longer examination. The man is very sick.” Strelnikov’s voice was filled with displeasure. He hung up and rose to his feet. “Rozhnov, what else is he saying? What did the people in Brezhnev’s office tell you?”

  “Only that,” said Rozhnov gravely. “That you and I and Kirov are involved in some incredible plot. No one believes it, of course.”

  Strelnikov composed himself with effort. “Then you don’t think there is anything to his stories? Kirov said something to me about secret Muslim groups, something about ‘Tamerlane’s Angels’ and the ‘Path by Kyzyl Kum.’ Do you know anything about that?”

  “Those Muslim passwords are getting to be an open secret. All sorts of gossip are floating around about them.”

  “All sorts of gossip!” Strelnikov was surprised. “I thought they were guarded secrets.”

  “These Muslim groups generate a thousand rumors,” Rozhnov said with disgust. “ ‘Tamerlane’s Angels’ must be totally ineffective as a signal, given all the ways it is used. No, I think Kozin is crazy.”

  Strelnikov felt a sudden relief. If Kirov had no allies who answered to these passwords, there might be no truth at all in Kozin’s claims. But would the people in Brezhnev’s office call for investigations? “I will check on Kozin,” he said, his husky voice faltering. “Perhaps we can talk about this tomorrow.”

  Seeing that Strelnikov was too distracted for more conversation, Rozhnov stood and left. He had accomplished what he had come to do.

  33

  A LIGHT SNOW WAS FALLING as Avram Berg approached the National Hotel. Rubbing his hands for warmth, he scolded himself for being nervous about seeing the American. Fall would like his proposal. The only problem was getting to see him.

  Adjusting the collar of his overcoat and wiping the snow from his beard, Berg went through the hotel door into the outside foyer. “I am here to see a friend,” he said to the doorman.

  “Your name, please?” the uniformed figure asked.

  “Avram Berg. Darwin Fall is expecting me.”

  The doorman, a stocky, red-faced Russian in his sixties, looked at the list of people permitted to enter. “There is no Avram Berg on this list,” he said. “I will have to phone his room.”

  Berg was afraid Fall might not remember his name. “That is not necessary,” he said impatiently. “Mr. Fall is expecting me. Someone has forgotten to put my name on your list.”

  “Stay here, please,” the man said with a scowl. “I will phone his room.”

  Berg followed the doorman into the main foyer and stood by while he picked up the house phone. His beard and scruffy overcoat had not made a good impression. “Stand outside,” the doorman said with a threatening look. “Or I will not make this call.”

  “I am a television producer,” said Berg, raising himself on tiptoe so that his five feet seven inches might equal the doorman’s height. “He is expecting me.”

  “He is not expecting you!” the scowling figure answered. “Get out of here!”

  Seeing that the man was about to grab him, Berg backed away. As he did, Fall came down the carpeted stairs from above. Seeing Berg, he waved.

  “Darwin Fall!” Berg called out. “I am here to see you about that television show. My producer wants to see you!” He shouldered past the doorman, stepping on a toe for revenge, and held Fall’s shoulders as if they were dear old friends.

  “It’s good to see you,” Fall said with a worried look. “I need someone I can talk to. Do you want to go for a walk?”

  Berg hestitated. “It’s snowing,” he said.”We will be more comfortable in your room.”

  “But I need some exercise.” Fall pulled Berg away from the angry doorman. “I’ve been stuck here since the weather got bad.”

  Berg nodded, and they
went outside. Pulling their collars up against the falling snow, they started down the sidewalk. “I’m stranded,” Fall said. “The man I’m here to see hasn’t called for two days, and I haven’t been able to reach Gorski. None of my other friends answer their phones. How did you know I was here?”

  “Gorski said you were coming. I talked to him a few days ago.”

  “Then why doesn’t he call me? Is he all right?”

  “He has been sick with the flu,” said Berg, placing a hand on Fall’s shoulder. “But I must tell you about my program. Will you talk to my boss about it?”

  “What do you want me to talk about?”

  They had turned off Marx Prospekt onto Gertsena Street and were walking more rapidly now. “I want you to describe vour own research and talk about Soviet parapsychology.” Berg waved his arms expansively, shaking the snowflakes out of his long black hair. “My producer is crazy to meet you.”

  Fall did not reply. A man was running down the sidewalk toward them, waving desperately. “Who is that?” Berg asked. “He seems to know you.”

  The man wore a reclaimed army coat and looked frightened. ‘Darwin Fall,” he said breathlessly, handing Fall a folder. “These papers are from Vladimir Kirov. Please! Read them carefully. They contain secret information about Soviet psychotronics. Take them to your colleagues in the States.”

  The man disappeared through the falling snow, and Fall started to open the folder. “Don’t open it!” Berg whispered. “This might be a trick!”

  “A what?” Fall asked with disbelief.

  “A police setup. Drop that folder, and let’s go.”

  As he spoke, a black Volga sedan pulled up to the curb ahead and three men seized the man in the army coat. Then two of the men ran toward Fall.

  “You are under arrest!” said one in broken English. “You please give us that paper.” He was a short, angry-looking man with a flattened nose. Before Fall could protest, he took the folder.

  “But I haven’t done a thing!” Fall gasped. “You can’t arrest me!”

  The second man came up beside him. With an abrupt gesture he signaled another sedan.

  “What is this?” Fall shouted. “You have to give me some explanation!”

  “You know what you have done,” said the first man. “We don’t argue you.” They both shielded him from Berg and two curious passers-by.

  “I will tell my producer about this,” Berg said to Fall, turning away to hide his face. “He will call the authorities.”

  “We are from the Moscow Police,” said one of the men as he shoved Fall toward the car. A moment later Fall was seated between them as they drove off. The other sedan had gone in the opposite direction.

  “The American Embassy knows I am here,” Fall said angrily. “I had an appointment there this afternoon.”

  The two policemen looked straight ahead, neither of them giving the slightest sign they heard him. The car was slowing as it passed through Dzerzhinsky Square. To his horror Fall recognized the KGB Center. The car had parked by an entrance of the Lubyanka Prison.

  Five minutes later he sat alone in a room with bare walls, three chairs, and a table. Someone would come to see him, his accosters had said—he had no choice but to calm himself. Had Kirov been arrested too? Visions of torture crossed his mind, and his anger turned to acute anxiety.

  The door opened and two men came in. One, blond and wearing a light blue suit, looked more Swedish than Russian. The other was a thug like the men in the Volga sedan, a muscular man about six feet tall who wore a fixed look of contempt. In broken English he asked Fall for his overcoat and jacket. While he emptied their pockets, the Swedish-looking man asked Fall to describe his Moscow visit. “What are you really doing here?” he asked with even good humor. “We know about your meetings with Vladimir Kirov.”

  Fall said that he would not answer until he had talked to someone from the U.S. Embassy.

  “You will only make trouble for yourself this way,” the man said quietly. “The more you cooperate, the sooner you can leave. Personally, I don’t like this kind of thing, but it appears you might be in trouble. We have seen your missile maps.”

  Again Fall refused to answer. At this, the second man ordered him to take off his clothes. When Fall refused to comply, they told him they would use force. Fall saw that they meant it. A minute later he stood naked while the two went through his pockets. The man in the blue suit inspected Fall’s passport and wallet, removing each credit card and holding it up to the light. For ten minutes Fall sat on his chair and shivered. It might be weeks before his friends in California realized he was missing. Did the Russians know that?

  “So you have a meeting at the U.S. Embassy,” said the blond interrogator. “We will check on that. Somehow I don’t believe you.” He continued to scrutinize Fall, looking him up and down with apparent good humor. The other man handed back his clothes, and both Russians watched him dress.

  At the National Hotel two KGB agents searched Fall’s rooms. After looking through all his belongings, they placed his books and an unfinished letter to Atabet into cases they carried. Then they ordered the maids to rearrange everything in the suite as if they had given the place a special cleaning. A half-hour later, they delivered their finds to the KGB Center.

  Smyslov and Karel had not confirmed any of Kozin’s stories. Because Kirov’s work in Central Asia involved his winning the confidence of Muslim groups, he had to learn their secret signs and passwords. Nowhere was there evidence of his plotting against the State or signs of cabals he might be engineering. The most damning thing against him in the wake of Kozin’s scandal was his heightened visibility.

  But their inquiry had taken a startling turn. Several people reported rumors of Strelnikov’s role in the “Kirov plot.” Prominent members of the KGB might also be involved. One of Smyslov’s assistants had heard the rumor at the Kremlin. Upon learning this, Smyslov and Karel finally decided that Kozin had gone on a paranoid rampage or worked for a conspiracy himself. The man would have to be detained.

  Some fifteen minutes after ordering Kozin’s detention, Smyslov and Karel examined the materials from Fall’s hotel room. There was a diary entry in which Fall described Sergei Aitmatov as “a new kind of Russian patriot” involved in a “transformation of Soviet society.” What had Kirov told him to promote such an extravagant opinion? This could be an important lead. But more interesting—and confusing—were strange markings in Fall’s copies of two books: Nabokov’s Lolita and Love’s Body by Norman O. Brown. It seemed the two volumes held a secret code.

  Handwritten notes in the page margins contained frequent notations that “A. said.” “A” must stand for Aitmatov, they decided (not thinking of Atabet), and the notations bearing this designation added up to an elaborate scheme for restructuring the Soviet State. Several passages in Love’s Body, especially in chapters seven (“Head”) and fifteen (“Freedom”), appeared to provide philosophical support. “The real apocalypse comes,” one passage read, “not with the vision of a city or kingdom, which would still be external, but with the identification of the city and kingdom with one’s own body . . . Kingship is fornication—the identity of politics and sex.” This was doubly underlined and in several places the notation “A. agrees!” was marked. Was this the kind of thing Kirov was telling his American friends?

  That the citation in Love’s Body was related to Kirov’s concerns was proven by a diary entry. “Aitmatov links bodily transformation to the withering away of the state,” Fall had written. Then, in the most outrageous statement of all, Fall concluded his summation of “A.’s vision” by paraphrasing Norman O. Brown: “The Kremlin is the Penis of the Soviet State, A. says—the Monarch refusing polymorphous liberation!” Both Karel and Smyslov were disturbed that Kirov would talk about the government with such derision. The passage convinced them that these materials should be studied carefully. Given their potential importance, moreover, they would have to be analyzed for invisible writing.

  There wa
s a problem, however. The United States Embassy had just lodged a formal complaint about Fall’s arrest with the Foreign Ministry. But if invisible inks were involved, the study of his diary and books would take several days to complete. If Fall were released he would miss them, and if he missed them he would cover his tracks. They might lose these precious leads to conspiracies they could only guess at.

  Darwin Fall, however, had not learned about the embassy protest. While his books caused alarms at the KGB Center less than a hundred yards away, he sat alone in his cell wondering how long it would take his friends in California to see that he was missing. There was no way he could know that he had protection here in Moscow, some of it based in the Center itself.

  Fall’s diary and books had been delivered to Smyslov and Karel at five o’clock. News of the embassy protest reached the Center at six. At seven the cleaning lady came to Kirov’s flat to deliver a second message. When she told the old lady at the building’s entrance that she had returned for her belongings, the KGB man sitting in the small foyer hardly noticed her. On the second floor she looked for signs of more police, then pushed a note from Baranov under Kirov’s door. Fall had been arrested, it said, and would be released at eight o’clock. Kirov could see him in safety at the National, for in response to the United States embassy protest, the police were about to end Fall’s special surveillance. He should go to Fall’s room at once, however, for it might be his last chance to see him.

  34

  AT EIGHT O’CLOCK THAT night, Fall was released. With no apology or explanation, his blond interrogator told him that he had been cleared of all charges. Because of suspicions generated by his meetings with Kirov, however, he would have to leave the Soviet Union within twenty-four hours. A ticket to London on Aeroflot would be sent to his room in the morning.