The date today is August 14, 1996. I never put dates down because I don’t believe in years. But today I will, because this is the most important day in the history of my world.
Chapter Twenty
I COULD HEAR THE COMMOTION OUTSIDE THE house, but I still did not move. I lay there wondering if this was where my path would end, in the house of the father of the young man who already once tried to kill me—and for what? For some dream of a nation that never really existed? For a land that has since time immemorial been truly boundaryless?
Suddenly I deeply, deeply regretted that I had never taken Daphne to the movies or to a decent restaurant. Lonya would have taken her to the best places. I know he wanted to. Why did I stop him? Every time he saw me he asked about her.
“That girl, what’s her name?”
“Daphne,” I’d repeat for the hundredth time.
“You’re lucky with that one! Good for you!”
Right now she was no doubt taking care of Anyusha, consoling her with well-intentioned fabrications: Be patient, don’t worry; your father will be home soon, he just has a lot to think about, that’s all. He’s the victim of a terrorist attack, don’t forget that. Was it simply Daphne’s belief in goodness that repelled me?
She quoted the Noble Eightfold Path for me and tried to teach me yoga, but I found each position painful and laughable at the same time.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said to me.
“You don’t care if I find this stupid?”
“No, why should I? You have another path.”
One time I told her I didn’t think I was really in love with her. She merely placed her fingers on my lips and said, “Love is everywhere.”
The sounds outside grew louder, more restive.
I thought perhaps the head had made another appearance, because I had the sense that something was lurking in the corners of my vision. I wanted to tell him my story. I wanted him to know how terribly, terribly wrong he was.
And if I had wanted to, I bet I could have broken down that door with one blow.
After Lonya brought us the news of Collette’s arrest, we piled in the truck and raced back to Moscow, leaving the foundation of my new dacha unpoured. I wanted to take a few minutes to cover the frame with a tarp, but Lonya threw me in the truck, and off we drove. All our lumber would be stolen by nightfall. Back in Moscow, we tried to unearth what happened to Collette. No one had anything new to tell us. The only official report was a small item in Moscow Pravda:
CURRENT EVENTS
On August 23, 1982, a leading Zionist terrorist was apprehended on the train leaving Moscow for Tallinn, Estonia. A criminal investigation has been initiated. More warrants may be issued.
In my panic, I decided to head over to Lefortovo. Perhaps I could bring her some decent food, some fresh clothes, paper, a pencil. What was I thinking? Paper? Pencil?
“We don’t even know where she is,” Fima argued. “We should try the police or the Ministry of Justice. They have to notify someone, it might as well be you.”
But of course no one would receive us there either.
Lonya was the only one who could find even a scrap of information.
“She was arrested waiting for the trolley,” he said.
“But I thought she was on a train?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I was told. Vera Lifkin was actually with her. They were waiting for the number twenty-two. These three cocksuckers came up and grabbed her. One of them was in uniform. She said they were very polite. ‘I’m sorry to inconvenience you, Collette Petrovna …,’ and that was that.”
“My God,” I said.
“God should go take a piss in his own mouth,” Lonya replied.
What we learned we learned mostly from the air around us, from rumors and “known facts,” and from the Chronicle of Current Events. Our ears were glued to the Voice of America and the BBC. We mingled at the Choral Synagogue and milled around the compounds where the foreign reporters lived, hoping for scripture to float off their lips and make sense of all the contradictions in our lives.
Eventually the trial was announced. Collette alone was accused. No vast conspiracy, no Zionist plotters. We did not know if that was hopeful or ominous. Everyone had a theory. It was because Andropov was sick. It was because too many people were applying to leave. It was because George Shultz insulted Gromyko in a secret meeting in Brussels. It had everything to do with American troops in Lebanon. Fima said, “It’s obviously because Andropov is actually a Jew. He has to cover it up or his enemies will destroy him.”
The trial itself was short, and what actually happened will always remain shrouded under the cloak of state secrets. No friends of Collette’s were allowed in. No reporters, other than those from Tass and Pravda, Izvestia, and Novosti. Citizens were bused in to fill the galleries. They were treated to lush buffets of caviar and sturgeon, white bread, and smoked meats. Not even family was allowed in, except for one unexpected and unexplainable exception. Collette’s cousin, my best friend, the foulmouthed, one-eyed Lonya Bruskin, was invited into the courtroom. They did not even object when he took notes, which I read years later—in fact, not until after the bombing. As for me, even though I was the closest person to Collette in all of Moscow, I was not permitted to enter. This, they explained, was because I was being called as a witness.
From the Transcript of the
TRIAL OF COLLETTE CHERNOFF
From the archives of the Union for Soviet Jewry, as recorded by L. V. Bruskin
FEBRUARY 12, 1983
Presiding, Secretary of the Court Judge Kovalesky
Citizen Assessors, Minskaya and Grigorolev
For the People, Assistant Chief Procurator Ignatov
For the Defense, Advocate Fishman
The session began with Judge Kovalesky asking if Chernoff understood where she was and if her attorney was ready to present her case. Chernoff declared that she could not accept her court-appointed attorney and would defend herself. At this point, Fishman left the courtroom.
The judge then agreed to consider “two or three” of Chernoff’s petitions, specifically the question of witnesses. “Though frankly,” he added, “I can see no validity in your witness list. What could these people have to say pertaining to any of the charges? Not a thing, except more propaganda and incitement. As to your good character, the People shall be the judge of that, based on the evidence and nothing else.”
Judge Kovalesky then read the charges. These included plotting to hijack an aircraft, revealing state secrets to the American CIA agent Charles (“Charlie”) Spaulding, passing anti-Soviet information to Western correspondents, illegal demonstrations in front of government offices, and engaging in Zionist activities. Several of these were capital offenses under articles 64a and 72 of the penal code.
JUDGE KOVALESKY: Defendant Chernova, that is the death penalty. Do you understand?
CHERNOFF: I understand all too well.
The prosecutor then began his examination of Collette Chernoff.
PROCURATOR IGNATOV: Is it not true that you met repeatedly with a man attached to the American embassy, a Mr. Charles Spaulding?
CHERNOFF: Yes.
IGNATOV: Did it in no way occur to you that he might be working for the Americans?
CHERNOFF: Of course he was working for the Americans. He was attached to the American Trade Mission.
IGNATOV: And it did not occur to you that he is CIA?
CHERNOFF: I never asked him. Just as it would be pointless to ask you if you worked for the KGB.
IGNATOV: You passed letters to Spaulding.
CHERNOFF: I don’t deny it.
IGNATOV: And he passed instructions to you.
CHERNOFF: What kind of instructions could he give me? He gave me personal letters.
IGNATOV: Letters from Israel. What relatives do you have in Israel?
CHERNOFF: I don’t need relatives.
IGNATOV: You received invitations to reunite with a family that is not even y
our family. That is deception and fraud.
CHERNOFF: The fraud is demanding invitations from Israel. Everyone should have the right to freely emigrate, even you, comrade.
IGNATOV: Your Honor, note that the defendant admitted passing and receiving documents with the known spy Spaulding. The defendant admitted knowingly receiving false documents of invitation to defraud the orderly process of family reunification. This, I would argue, is typical of the entire Zionist conspiracy. By the way, Comrade Chernova, would it surprise you to know your friend Spaulding has fled the country?
CHERNOFF: It would not surprise me in the slightest.
IGNATOV: You should know the letters you passed between you have been presented to the court. They confirm completely your activities as a spy and provocateur.
CHERNOFF: I would like to see them, so that we can all read them aloud.
JUDGE KOVALESKY: You have already seen them. You wrote them.
IGNATOV: Is it not true that you wrote on July 15, “the only way out would be to steal a plane. Fly to Stockholm, like Dymshitz and that group.”
CHERNOFF: I’m sure the next sentence explains it was only wishful thinking. In fact, Dymshitz and his group were arrested, and many innocent people were convicted on their account. Why would I want to repeat that?
IGNATOV: On August 12, you received a letter from the Frenchman Dubé in which he urged you to reconsider. “Think of Paris, not Stockholm!” But you were not to be deterred. More plans and more plans!
CHERNOFF: There were no plans. It was just fantasy.
IGNATOV: You were distraught that your father had abandoned you.
CHERNOFF: I merely wanted to know what happened to him after he was arrested.
IGNATOV: Your Honor, there is no record of any Chernoff in State Security files. He was never arrested. He simply abandoned his family.
CHERNOFF: I’d like to offer evidence.
JUDGE KOVALESKY: We’ve already ruled on your petitions.
CHERNOFF: I was not aware of that.
JUDGE KOVALESKY: Had you had proper legal counsel as we advised, you would be aware of everything.
CHERNOFF: Then I want to call my witnesses.
JUDGE KOVALESKY: We have considered your lists of witnesses and already ruled. They have nothing to add to these proceedings. My dear Collette Petrovna, I can see that you are a passionate young person. I can see that you have been led astray by foreign ideas and false impressions. I myself have a daughter your age. I urge you to stop this farce and save yourself. Admit what you have done, accept the preliminary investigative report. It’s not too late. Our justice is firm but fair. Embrace it; see the error you have made.
CHERNOFF: Your Excellency, I hope your daughter is here in court today to see what becomes of people who follow their consciences.
The next witness was KGB colonel Vasin. He testified that Charles Spaulding was a CIA agent well known to the security forces. He also stated that Chernoff was often in the company of at least two other known CIA agents whom he could not name because they were still under surveillance. Chernoff was not allowed to cross-examine “for security reasons.”
Following Vasin were a series of witnesses, including two Jews who declared that Zionism was anti-Soviet, several people who had confronted Chernoff in front of KGB headquarters, and a neighbor, Plotkina, who had kept notes on the activities she witnessed in Chernoff’s hallway.
CHERNOFF: Did you see me do anything illegal?
PLOTKINA: Undoubtedly.
CHERNOFF: What specifically?
PLOTKINA: It’s all in my statement.
CHERNOFF: If the judge would instruct her to answer.
JUDGE KOVALESKY: The witness has already been very clear. But let me ask her anyway: Comrade Plotkina, did you record the defendant doing anything illegal?
PLOTKINA: Yes.
JUDGE KOVALESKY: Then we can accept the written statement as fact. The witness is excused.
The final witness was the architect Roman Guttman.
PROCURATOR IGNATOV: Comrade Guttman, you are not yourself a so-called refusenik.
GUTTMAN: No.
IGNATOV: Nevertheless, you were intimate with the defendant.
GUTTMAN: I am her friend.
IGNATOV: You were witness to the many times the defendant met with the CIA agent Spaulding.
GUTTMAN: I knew Charlie Spaulding.
IGNATOV: You don’t deny you saw her pass letters and documents to him.
GUTTMAN: I don’t say one way or the other.
IGNATOV: So you don’t deny it.
GUTTMAN: No. I have no idea what passed between them.
IGNATOV: You were present at the apartment of Feldman, at the apartment of Tsipkina, and also at the so-called Moscow Hebrew University.
GUTTMAN: Yes. But the past is irrelevant. It is the future I care about.
IGNATOV: The future is completely in her own hands, comrade. As to these meetings, Chernoff was there with you.
GUTTMAN: Ask her these questions.
IGNATOV: She’s already admitted it.
GUTTMAN: Then why ask me?
JUDGE KOVALESKY: You must answer the question.
GUTTMAN: If she says she was there, she was there. The past does not concern me.
IGNATOV: You took automobile drives with Spaulding and the defendant Chernoff into the countryside in order to evade the authorities and to exchange secret documents and instructions from Israel and America. Is this not correct?
GUTTMAN: I don’t know anything about secret documents. I did take several rides with Spaulding, but that is the extent of it.
JUDGE KOVALESKY: Comrade Guttman, I must ask you again to truthfully reply to the questions.
GUTTMAN: But I am being truthful.
IGNATOV: These are the letters we found in Chernoff’s apartment. Do you recognize them?
GUTTMAN: Yes. I recognize the handwriting. But I will repeat a third time; I have no interest in the past, only the future.
IGNATOV: This letter in particular.
GUTTMAN: Yes, yes. This letter.
IGNATOV (striding over to Collette Chernoff’s table and waving the document in front of her face): Let the record show witness Guttman has identified the treasonous documents as being in the possession of defendant Chernoff.
Chernoff was allowed to cross-examine. She rose from her seat, studied the witness carefully, and then, suddenly and decisively and without asking a single question, sat down again. Guttman was excused, but for some reason he hesitated. The guards were forced to escort him from the room.
From the first moment I saw her I realized that her health had been broken. Her skin, which had always glistened like untracked snow, was hollowed out and gray, as lifeless as tin foil. Her lush, rounded body, which I had found so irresistible, had melted away, leaving only branches and thorns; and the fantasy of black hair that once fell about her shoulders like fresh milk had been chopped into a crown of nettle, her ears sticking out like two dried figs. Her nose had become hawklike and her lips thin, white, cracked, and tight, as if clamped shut by door springs. Illness had closed its wings upon her and let out a sour, metallic smell that stung me as I passed the prisoner’s dock. She sat there, behind the barrier, calmly watching me. Only her eyes had any strength left, two fierce jewels hard as steel, guarded behind two iron lids. I latched on to these and did not let go until I was led from the room at the end of my miserable performance.
Some weeks before, the police had come for me at Tishinskaya. I had spent the days after Collette’s arrest pacing my apartment and, after Mother went to sleep, drinking myself into a stupor. Now they finally arrived and my mother wept in terror, but I went willingly, even happily—whatever might happen, I would finally learn something about Collette.
The Wanting Page 25