“The particular spot,” I reminded him. “Our entire district was built by Beria. I know this already. He, of course, always took off from the airport on Khodynka; but other people boarded planes on the other side of the field. What does our maniac know about that other, forgotten part of the field? And what does that part have to do with Beria?”
The archivist took a deep, noisy breath. “He knows something that very few people know, frankly. And I find it strange that a maniac could get his hands on such information. It’s extremely difficult to come across. What’s on that side of the field now?”
“A construction site. Just like every other goddamn neighborhood in the city… New buildings crawling up to the skies all over the place.”
“And you want to know which building stood there before?”
“Can you tell me this over the phone?” I asked after a pause.
“Yes, after Mr. Suvorov’s novel The Aquarium, I can,” the archivist reassured me cheerfully. “The Aquarium, the main intelligence directorate of the Red Army, stood there. Around it were various military fences, barracks, even tents, when the troops were training for the parades on the occasion of the Bolshevik Revolution. The area belonged to the military, in other words. That wasn’t much of a secret. The secret, for a long time, was what was there underground.”
“Do you mean catacombs, bomb shelters, underground tunnels?” I recalled the heavy metal door with the spindle wheel.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” said the archivist. “Back then they were building bomb shelters everywhere, and Beria was in charge of it. In the summer of 1953 they took him into one such bomb shelter at the far end of the airfield, just after Comrade Stalin died. That was where he spent his last days. How long exactly is difficult to say. They say that they executed him first, and prosecuted and sentenced him later, in December. It’s possible, by they way, that he was executed in that very basement, right between Birch Grove Park and Khodynka Field. The site of his final orgasm, as it were.”
“From the point of view of psychiatry, it’s interesting that you would refer to an execution as a last orgasm,” I said pompously. “Would you be so kind as to explain what you mean in more detail?”
“Doctor, not everyone’s a maniac. Could you hold on a second? I’m going to go grab something… here. A memoir of someone who loathed Beria with all his heart. For various reasons. The Bystander, by one Mr. Dmitri Shepilov, minister of foreign affairs under Khrushchev. He was also in charge of culture, arts, and ideology in the Communist Party. He was, by the way, a handsome man who loved women. Ordinary women, mind you, not underage schoolgirls. The chapter is called ‘The Battle.’ And I quote… hold on a minute, I’m going to quote him where he talks about where they put Beria. ‘And when he was told he was under arrest, his face turned green and brown from his chin to his temples and up to his forehead. Armed marshals entered the meeting hall. They escorted him to the automobile. It had been earlier agreed upon that the Beria would not be put in the internal jail in the Lubyanka or the Lefortovo detention cells: that could lead to unforeseeable consequences. It was decided to keep him in a special detention cell in one of the buildings of the Moscow Military District under surveillance by armed guards.’ He’s referring to your Khodynka; or, rather, the farthest end of it. Later the military closed some of the buildings there and gave them away. Oh, and here’s the part about orgasms: ‘He persistently from the depths of his memory recalled the most erotic scenes and relived them, voluptuously enjoying all the little details, in order to excite himself, seeking oblivion for at least a few precious moments. The supreme officers who guarded the door of his cell all day and night could see through the peephole how Beria, covered with a rough military blanket, writhed underneath it in spasms of masturbation.’ What style, doctor! Note, however, that I wasn’t quoting from the book. I was quoting from the original manuscript that I received from one of his publishers. Even though this was way after the Soviet era, the publishers had scruples about printing the piece about the military blanket, so they left it out.”
A blanket, I thought. A military blanket. And clothes.
“Sergey, do you happen to know if they confiscated his clothing, too, after he was arrested?”
“Clothing? My dear doctor, not just clothing. Shepilov very clearly states in his memoirs that they they took away his shoelaces, his belt—even his famous pince-nez, so he wouldn’t cut himself with the glass.”
“And where did they take it all?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know. Does it really matter? I doubt they would have kept that information in the archives. Although, it’s possible they might have written it all down in some official document somewhere.”
On the other hand, I thought, it doesn’t really matter. I imagined the military investigators fingering every little wrinkle of a light gray overcoat and then… then tossing it in some corner… and then…
Suddenly, I heard my mother’s voice in my head. When was it? How many years ago did she tell me about the cold day in June 1953, before I was even born? It was a story about her and my father. They were sitting alone on some stone steps by the river, cigarette butts floating past, next to a tall Stalin-era building on Kotelnicheskaya embankment. They must have felt very happy on that short June night, when the sun rose almost as soon as it had set. They felt happy until the stone steps began to tremble under their feet.
Because tanks started rolling down the boulevard next to the embankment.
And my father—who had run off to fight in the war as a boy, and who ever since had been able to tell the difference between tanks on their way to military parades and tanks going off to war (portholes shut tight, armaments at the ready)—got up from the stone steps to watch. Then he went back to where my mother was and said somberly, “I think I’d better run home.”
But it wasn’t war. It was Marshals Zhukov, Nedelin, Mos-kalenko, and others, getting ready to enter the Kremlin and arrest the omnipotent minister of national security.
And arrest him they did. The troops under Lavrentiy Beria’s command did not rise up in his defense. The door to the dungeon at Khodynka slammed shut behind him.
A cold, cold summer in 1953. A summer coat. An underground bunker that looks like a bomb shelter. Its roof, covered in moss, disappearing into the ground.
“Hello? Doctor, you still there?” said the voice on the other end. “I could tell you things that have come to light in other documents just beginning to surface nowadays. For example, Beria’s not the only one to blame for the purges and execution of prisoners. After the war, he was involved in the A-bomb and nuclear power (glory be his name), and construction, and a number of other things. There were people whose hands were just as bloody as his. They were the ones who assassinated him. Are you interested in hearing more?”
“I am,” I said honestly, “but not now. I have a crazy man walking the streets. Thank you very much, Sergey.”
What happened after 1973 in terms of maniacs in overcoats? Nothing, really. They were dormant. Why was that? And why has that suddenly changed? I remembered the construction site, all the dozens of new houses that had risen up in the past few months on Khodynka Field. The large wasteland of the former restricted airfield was no more. It was crawling with…
Construction workers.
Construction workers clambering up and down the stairwells of the new buildings, dumping garbage by the surrounding fences, excavating… and excavating some more for the foundations of new buildings.
I had one slim chance left, and I used that chance the next day.
Because the foreman of the defunct brigade of two vanished construction workers from Moldavia was still occupying a lone structure in the next courtyard.
“So they’re not coming back, eh?” I asked the foreman, and sat down on the porch next to him.
He shook his head furiously.
“Too bad,” I continued. “Say, uh, they borrowed a book from me… about space invaders. You seen it?”
“No,” replied the foreman mournfully, and again shook his head. “Haven’t seen it.”
“I understand.” I was moving closer to my goal. “I just need the book. It’s the cops who need the rapist. But the book is still mine, you see—”
“My guys are no rapists. They’re good guys,” the foreman said, finally able to muster a coherent sentence. “The book… go ahead and look around. There’s no book in there.”
I could hardly believe my luck. I went inside the little house where the construction workers had stayed. A strong, unpleasant odor from a portable toilet assaulted my nostrils. Then, in an instant, I saw a dull gray garment hanging on a coatrack right in front of me.
The rest was easy.
“By the way, I need to do a paint job,” I said. “This thing here, is this your work coat? How much do you want for it?”
“That’s no work coat,” answered the foreman. “The guys left it here. You can have it. Instead of the book. Go ahead, they won’t be needing it. They’re not coming back. Their families keep calling and calling…”
Holding the gray overcoat at arm’s length, I asked: “Where did you work before? Wasn’t there a construction site over there? On the other side of the field, by that concrete fence? I believe that’s where I met your guys.”
“Oh, sure,” said the foreman. “The finishing team arrived when we were done over there. And we moved here. And now… we’re done here too.”
I remember at one point I felt the urge to bury my face in the coat and inhale the smell of a cellar and potatoes. It took me some effort not to do so. I threw it down on the landing in front of my door. I had no intention of bringing the thing into my apartment. I went inside and found a large shopping bag, put the overcoat in it, and left it in front of the door. Then I scrubbed my hands thoroughly. In a closet I found a bottle of flammable liquid for barbecuing and dropped it into the bag as well.
I was in a hurry. It was getting late, and I didn’t want to leave the coat outside for the night. Someone might take it.
Then I was in that deserted edge of Birch Grove Park. An empty bench, and the remnants of the bunkers protruding from the ground.
I dumped the coat onto the surface of the nearest bunker, on the concrete slab covered with moss. I poured the liquid onto the coat and set fire to it with my lighter. Thick, oily smoke billowed up and gravitated to the concrete fence and beyond, where the floors of the nearby buildings mounted into the sky.
It burned very, very slowly.
“Now why did you do that?” The thin, tremulous voice came from somewhere below.
No, I wasn’t scared. Even when I noticed that someone had been sitting on a nearby bench the whole time. It was… an old lady? That’s right, just an old lady in a light summer coat and a funny straw hat trimmed with two wooden cherries. The red paint on one of them had almost completely peeled off. But her cheekbones burned with the same color, in an almost invisible network of blood vessels. When I saw those liver spots on her powdered cheeks, I thought in panic, How old is she? Why didn’t I notice her before?
Or maybe she hadn’t been there when I set fire to the coat?
“Do you think it’s about the coat?” the old lady asked in a childish—no, not childish, but teacherish—voice, high as a violin string. “It was just fabric. Good fabric too. Very durable. That was silly. Just plain silly.”
“No, it’s not about the coat,” I replied through my teeth. I had to say something, just to break the silence—and so I wouldn’t be afraid.
“You haven’t even seen him,” the old lady continued, not paying any attention to my words, and staring vaguely in the direction of my sneakers with her light gray eyes. “You weren’t even born yet in ’53. Not to mention before that.”
“Did you see him?” I asked.
“Just like I see you now,” the voice went on. “Only closer, much closer. As close as can be.”
And slowly, very slowly, she parted her thin, bloodless lips.
EUROPE AFTER THE RAIN
by Alexei Evdokimov
Kiev Station
Translated by Mary C. Gannon
“What’s the story on your pal?”
“He was born, he suffered, he died.”
—Dialogue from Heist, a film by David Mamet
If you ride out from the center of the city on the Filevskaya line, a minute before Kievskaya, the train, whistling and puffing, slows down and emerges out into the light on the subway bridge. Your eyes try to take in the sharp bend in the river, the angular, protruding architectural ruins along the embankments, and the broad flat façade of the White House, its flanks a bold invitation to gunfire from weapons mounted on tanks.
On this day the picture seemed to be smeared like bad reception on a TV screen with whitish rain showers, frequent and driving. I frowned and hunched my shoulders, anticipating the discomfort, but when I crawled out from underground into the station, it had already stopped. The darkened asphalt breathed out a bathlike moisture, passersby shook off their umbrellas fastidiously, and the returning sun was multiplied in puddles.
I glanced at my watch and walked down the street, slowly making my way over to a fountain that looked like the remaining evidence of the recent shower; I wanted to turn it off. Some people had already sat down, sticking backpacks and plastic bags under their behinds, on the steps of this stunted amphitheater. Others peeled off their jackets or simply shook the water from their soaking heads; this hot spot for the young filled up quickly. I remembered that I had waited for Yanka here; I remembered that, stretching my hood as far as it would go and trying to light up underneath it, I had regretted my choice of meeting places. When the St. Petersburg girl had finally arrived, I took her to the new pedestrian bridge, where we blended in with other couples.
Together with them we staggered through the stuffy glass passageway from one side of the bridge to the other—I pointed with my finger, explaining that this was probably the only place in the city where you could see, more or less up close, four of the seven Stalin skyscrapers at once. Nodding at the MID building with a coat of arms on it, I explained that according to the original design it was to have been the only one without a spire. At the last minute Stalin announced that it looked too much like an American skyscraper that way. It was too late to change the design—the building was almost finished; but who would be the one to contradict Stalin’s wishes? So they ran a gigantic metal rod through the top floors, and placed a ridge-roofed tower on top of that, painted to look like stone. After Khrushchev unmasked the cult of personality, he was reminded that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to remove this idiotic detail of Stalin’s gloomy legacy. Nikita snorted and ordered that it stay right there, as a monument to the tastelessness of the generalissimo.
On the left side we moved onto a path that led along a high, grassy slope past the Turkish embassy toward the Borodinsky Bridge. Europe Square was now below and opposite us.
I like this place.
Here, the river and the open space in front of Kiev station leave a large expanse open to view. Here, you can really see the sky, which is rare in this capital city that squeezes you between enormous stone slabs. The view that spreads out before you here—the Gothic silhouette of the university on a distant bluff to the left, the palisade of mighty pipes on top of the Radisson, the spire of the Hotel Ukraine perpendicular to layers of lilac clouds—is one of those typical and utterly urban landscapes that create the face of a city, which Moscow, monstrous and vague with its eroded individuality, so lacks.
That’s what I said to Yanka, trying to show her the city from its most presentable perspective, trying to be amusing and casual, not pressuring her. I knew my role and my place. When I met her a year before in her native Petersburg, I invited her out of politeness (but not only that, not only…)—I invited her (that is to say, them, her and Igor) to “visit us in our capital with no culture,” promising to show them around and entertain them. Of course, they didn’t jump at the opportunity—not because they had anyt
hing against me, but because in the absence of any other attractions in the city, the prospect of hanging out with me was not sufficient inducement to overcome a distance of six hundred kilometers. Then, suddenly, Yanka found a reason—the wedding of a college friend. The event was to take place over several days (the newlyweds belonged to circles that had money to waste on lavish parties). But the other guests weren’t really to Yanka’s taste; and that’s when she remembered me.
Exceedingly pretty, with a slight, charming unevenness in her features, and with that rare combination of intelligence and spontaneity, that balance of self-assurance and sincere goodwill that you sometimes find in people from very well-to-do families—smart, prosperous, and affable; that was Yanka.
During those three days, I mobilized all my meager resources of joie de vivre and sociability. My guest was as open and friendly as ever; she listened attentively and meekly tasted the shark at Viet-Café, but on the whole she seemed fairly indifferent. As I later became convinced, people who feel that they are equal to life’s demands don’t experience an excess of curiosity about the range of its phenomena: they already know exactly what they need from it.
I had absolutely no chance of ever landing on the list of things that those people wanted from life. Back then I hadn’t abandoned my rock and roll efforts. Officially, I was supposed to be a journalist, which is how I presented myself (I was a freelancer). I was also acquainted with progressive, and sometimes even high-profile people; and I was, after all, a Muscovite. Theoretically, I belonged to practically the same circle as my female contemporary from the Petersburg theater crowd; the sense of insurmountable social and psychological distance was completely unfounded.
I felt not only a distance, though—I felt an abyss. In our relations, which seemed on the surface to be relaxed, there was something reminiscent of a conversation in the lingua franca of a Norwegian and a Malaysian who sit side by side on a flight in a transcontinental Boeing; however well-disposed they might be toward each other, they are still from different worlds. At that time, a little over four years ago, I had only begun to guess about the nature of that difference.
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