The Case of Comrade Tulayev

by Victor Serge

  Erchov exploded.

  “Valia, do me the favor of breaking that record this minute!”

  The record cracked in two, the cold water came down on his neck like a solace.

  “I broke it, Sima darling. And I’m tearing up the yellow cushion.”

  “Thank you,” he said, straightening up. “You’re as good as cold water.”

  The cold water came from under the snow. Somewhere wolves quenched their thirst in it.

  They had sandwiches and sparkling wine brought to the bedroom. His apprehension had faded … better not to think about it or it would come back. There was not much of tenderness between them; theirs was an intimacy of two very clean and intelligent bodies profoundly delighted by each other. “Want to go skiing tomorrow?” Valia asked, and her eyes opened wide, her nostrils opened wide. He almost knocked over the low table in front of them, so instantaneous was the reflex that carried him to the door. He flung it open — and a woman’s voice in the hall cried: “What a fright you gave me, Comrade Chief!” He saw the chambermaid, bent over the carpet, picking up towels. “What are you doing here?” Erchov could hardly articulate for anger. “I was just going by, Comrade Chief. You frightened me …” He closed the door and came back to Valia, his face sullenly angry, his mustache bristling. “That bitch was listening at the keyhole!” This time Valia felt definitely frightened. “Impossible, darling, you’re overtired, you don’t know what you’re saying.” He crouched on the floor at her feet. She took his head in both hands and rocked it on her lap. “Stop saying such foolish things, darling. Let’s get some sleep.” He thought: “Do you think it’s so easy to sleep?” and his hands moved up her thighs to her warm belly.

  “Put on a record, Valia. Not Hawaiian, or Negro, or French … Something of our own …”

  “How about ‘The Partisans’?”

  He walked up and down the room while, from the phonograph, came the masculine chorus of Red Partisans riding across the taiga: “They conquered the Atamans — they conquered the Generals — they won their last victories — on the shores of the sea …” Columns of gray-cloaked, singing men marched through the streets of a small Asiatic city. It was late in the afternoon. Erchov stopped to watch them. A strapping fellow sang the first lines of each stanza alone, then they were repeated in well-disciplined chorus. The rhythmic tread of boots on the snow made a muffled accompaniment. Those conscious voices, those mingled and powerful voices, those voices with the strength of the earth in them — that is what we are … The song ended. Erchov said to himself: “I’ll take a little gardenal …” and there was a knock at the door.

  “Comrade Chief, Comrade Gordeyev wishes to speak to you on the telephone.”

  And Gordeyev’s calm voice came over the wire, announcing new leads on the assassination, discoveries only just made — “so I had to disturb you, please excuse me, Maxim Andreyevich. There is an important decision to be made … Very strong evidence pointing to the indirect complicity of K. K. Rublev.” Which would establish a curious connection between this case and the two previous trials … “As K. K. Rublev is on the special list of former members of the Central Committee, I did not wish to assume the responsibility …”

  So you want me to take the responsibility of ordering his arrest or leaving him at liberty, you vermin … Erchov curtly asked:

  “Biography?”

  “I have it before me. In 1905, medical student at the University of Warsaw; Maximalist in 1906, fired two bullets from a revolver at Colonel Golubev, wounding him — escaped from military prison in 1907 … member of the Party, 1908. Intimate with Innokentii (Dubrovinsky), Rykov, Preobrazhensky, Bukharin” (and the names of these men, who had been shot as traitors after having been leaders of the Party, seemed enough to condemn Rublev). “Political Commissar with the Nth Army, special mission in the Baikal district, secret mission in Afghanistan, president of the Chemical Fertilizers Trust, instructor at Sverdlov University, member of the C.C. until … member of the Central Control Commission until … Censured and warned by the Moscow Control Commission for factional activity. Request for his expulsion on the grounds of Right Opportunism … Suspected of having read the criminal document drawn up by Riutin … Suspected of having attended the clandestine meeting in Zyelony Bor forest … Suspected of having helped Eysmont’s family when Eysmont was imprisoned … Suspected of having translated a German article by Trotsky, which was found when the premises of his former pupil B. were searched.” (From all directions, suspicion pointed at the man who now supervised the general history section of a library.)

  Erchov listened with increasing irritation. We knew all this before, you rat. Suspicions, denunciations, presumptions — we’ve had our fill of them! There is not a shadow of a connection between all this and the Tulayev case, and you’re only trying to set a trap for me, you want me to arrest an old member of the C.C. If he has been let alone up to now, it must be because the Political Bureau wants him let alone. Erchov said:

  “Very well. Wait till you hear from me. Good night.”

  When Comrade Popov, of the Central Control Commission — a figure unknown to the general public but whose moral authority was of the highest (especially since the execution for treason of two or three men even more respected than himself) — when Comrade Popov sent in his name to the High Commissar, the latter had him ushered in immediately, and not without a decided feeling of curiosity. It was the first time Erchov had ever seen Popov. On very cold days Popov wore a cap over his thick dirty-gray head of hair — a workman’s cap, for which he had paid six rubles at Moscow Ready-to-Wear. His faded leather overcoat had been new ten years ago. Popov had an aging, deeply-lined face, pimply from bad health, a thin faded beard, steel-rimmed spectacles. So he entered — the cap on his gray head, a bulging brief case under his arm, a strange little half-smile in his eyes. “Everything going well, I hope, my dear comrade?” he asked, as if he were an old friend; and, for a fraction of a second, Erchov was taken in by the old fox’s guileless manner. “Very happy to meet you at last, Comrade Popov,” the High Commissar answered.

  Popov unbuttoned his overcoat, dropped heavily into a chair, murmured: “I’m tired out, damn it! Nice place you have here — well designed, these new buildings,” and began filling his pipe. “It wasn’t like this in my day. I was in the Cheka at the very beginning, you know — with Felix Edmundovich Djerzhinski. No, there was nothing like the comfort, the system you have today … The land of the Soviets is progressing by leaps and bounds, Comrade Erchov. You’re lucky to be young …”

  Erchov politely let him take his time. Popov raised a flabby, earth-colored hand with cracked and dirty nails.

  “But to come to the point, my dear comrade. The Party has you in mind. It has us all in mind, the Party. You work long hours, you work hard, the Central Committee knows your worth. Of course you have had almost too much on your hands, what with straightening out the situation you inherited” (the allusion to his predecessors was discreet), “the period of plots through which we are passing — ”

  What was he getting at?

  “History proceeds by stages — during one period there are polemics, during another there are plots … To come to the point — you are obviously tired. This matter of the terrorist attack on Comrade Tulayev seems to have been a little beyond you … You will excuse me for saying this to you with my usual frankness, absolutely between ourselves, my dear comrade, and as man to man — just as once in ’eighteen Vladimir Ilich himself said to me … Well, because we know your worth …”

  What Lenin may have said to him twenty years earlier, he had not the least intention of relating. It was his way of talking — a counterfeit vagueness, with a liberal sprinkling of “well nows,” a quavering voice — how old I’m getting, one of the oldest members of the Party, always in the breach …

  “Well now, you must take a rest — just a couple of months in the country, under the Caucasian sun … Taking the waters, comrade — how I envy you! Ah — Matsesta, Kislovodsk, Sochi,
Tikhes-Dziri, what wonderful country … You know Goethe’s poem:

  “Kennst du das Land wo die Zitronen blühn?

  “… don’t you know German, Comrade Erchov?”

  A chill ran through the High Commissar. At last he was beginning to grasp the meaning of Popov’s chatter.

  “Excuse me, Comrade Popov, I am not sure that I quite understand you. Is this an order?”

  “No, my dear comrade. We are simply giving you a word of advice. You are overtired — just as I am. Anyone can see it. We all belong to the Party, and we are responsible to the Party for our health. And the Party looks out for us. The old stalwarts have thought of you, your name has been mentioned in the Organization Bureau.” (He used the term to avoid naming the Political Bureau.) “It has been decided that Gordeyev shall replace you during your absence … We know how well you and he get on together … so it will be a colleague in whom you have complete confidence who … yes, two months … not a day more … the Party cannot give you longer, my dear comrade …”

  Moving with exaggerated slowness, Popov uncrossed his legs and stood up: rancid smile, muddy complexion. Benevolently he held out his hand. “Ah — you aren’t old enough yet to know what rheumatism is … Well, when will you be off?”

  “Tomorrow evening — for Sukhum. I shall begin my leave of absence this afternoon.”

  Popov seemed delighted.

  “Good! That’s what I like — military promptness in making decisions … Even I, old as I am … Yes, yes … Get a good rest, Comrade Erchov … A magnificent country the Caucasus — the jewel of the Union … Kennst du das Land …”

  Erchov firmly shook a slimy hand, saw Popov to the door, shut the door, and stood helplessly in the center of his office. Nothing here was his any longer. A few minutes of hypocritical conversation had been enough to remove him from the controls. What did it mean? The telephone buzzed. Gordeyev asked at what time he should summon the department heads for the projected conference?

  “Report to me for orders,” said Erchov, controlling himself with difficulty. “No — cancel that. No conference today.”

  He drank down a glass of ice water.

  He did not tell his wife that he was taking this sudden vacation by order. At Sukhum (palms beside an unimaginably blue sea, hot summer weather), the “strictly secret” envelopes reached him for a week — then stopped. He did not dare to ask for more. Instead he spent his time in the bar, with several taciturn generals on their way back from Mongolia. Whisky gave them a common mentality — fiery and ponderous. The news that a member of the Political Bureau had come to stay in a nearby villa sent Erchov into a panic. Suppose he should ignore the High Commissar’s presence? “We’ll take a trip to the mountains, Valia.” Under a blazing sun the car climbed a zigzag road: dazzling rocks, ravines, the immense enamel beaker that was the sea. Blindingly blue, the sea’s horizon rose higher and higher. Valia began to be afraid. She sensed flight, but a flight that was ridiculous, impossible. “Don’t you love me any more?” she asked him at last. They had reached four thousand feet and still there was nothing but rocks, sea, and sky. He kissed her fingertips, not knowing if his sickening fear left him capable of desiring her. “I am too afraid to think about love now … I am afraid — what nonsense! … No, it’s not nonsense — I am afraid because it is my turn to die …” The landscape of sun-drenched rocks was deliciously fatiguing — and the sea, the sea, the sea! “If I must die, let me at least enjoy this woman and these colors!” It was a brave thought. Avidly he kissed Valia on the mouth. The purity of the landscape filled them with an ecstasy that was like light. They spent three weeks in a chalet high in the mountains. An Abkhasian couple dressed in white (husband and wife were equally beautiful) served them in silence. They slept on a terrace in the open air, their bodies clothed in silk; and, after making love, they were together again as they gazed up at the stars. Once Valia said: “Look, darling, we’re going to fall into the stars …” So, occasionally, he tasted peace. But all the rest of the time he was obsessed by two thoughts — one rational and reassuring, the other disguised and perfidious, following its own obscure course, tenacious as decay in a tooth. The first was clearly formulated: “Why shouldn’t they retire me for just long enough to get this accursed case settled, since I seem to have made a mess of it? The Chief has shown that he is favorably disposed toward me. After all, all they have to do is send me back to the army. I can’t have offended anyone, because I have no past. Suppose I ask to be sent back to the Far East?” The second, the insidious one, murmured: “You know too much — they’re never going to believe you’ll keep your mouth shut. You will be made to disappear as your predecessors disappeared. Your predecessors went through all this — work, clues, anxiety, doubt, leaves of absence, irrational flight, resignation, and return — and they were shot.” — “Valia,” he suddenly called, “come hunting with me!” He took her on long climbs to inaccessible spots, from which, suddenly, the sea would be visible, fringing an immense map; capes and rocks jutted out into a whirlpool of light. “Look, Valia!” On a rock peak rising from the sunny scree an ibex stood against the blue, horns lifted. Erchov handed Valia the rifle; she put it cautiously to her shoulder; her arms were bare, beads of sweat gleamed on the back of her neck. The sea filled the cup of the world, silence reigned over the universe, the creature stood tense and alive, a golden silhouette. “Aim carefully,” Erchov whispered into her ear. “And above all, darling, miss him.…” Slowly the rifle rose, rose; Valia’s head dropped back; when the barrel pointed straight up into the sky, she fired. Valia was laughing, her eyes were full of the sky. The report faded to a faint rasp like tearing cloth. Calmly the ibex turned its slim head toward the two distant white figures, stared at them for a moment, bent its hocks, bounded gracefully toward the sea, and disappeared. … It was that evening, when they got back, that Erchov found a telegram summoning him to Moscow immediately.

  They traveled in a private railway car. On the second day the train stopped at a forgotten station in the middle of snowcovered cornfields. An impenetrable gray mist darkened the horizon. Valia was sulking a little, with a cigarette between her lips and a book of Zoschenko’s in her hands.… “What do you find to interest you,” he had asked, “in that sort of sour humor which is a libel on us?” She had just answered, angrily, “Nowadays you never say anything that isn’t official. …” Going back to everyday life had set them both on edge. Erchov began looking through a newspaper. The orderly officer entered, announcing that Erchov was wanted on the telephone in the station — a defect in the equipment made it impossible to connect the through wire with the private car. Erchov’s face darkened: “When we reach Moscow, you will have the rolling-stock supervisor put under arrest for a week. Telephones in private cars must function ir-re-proach-ab-ly. Make a note of it.”

  “Yes, Comrade High Commissar.”

  Erchov put on his overcoat, which bore the emblems of the highest power, stepped down onto the wooden platform of the deserted little station, noticed that the train was only three cars long, and strode rapidly toward the only visible building. The orderly officer followed him respectfully, three paces behind. Security, Railway Supervision. Erchov entered; several soldiers came to attention and saluted. “This way, Comrade Chief,” said the orderly officer, blushing oddly. In the little back room, overheated by an iron stove, two officers rose as he entered, puppets jerked by the strings of discipline, one tall and thin, the other short and fat, both smooth-faced and of high rank. A little surprised Erchov returned their salute. Then curtly:

  “The telephone?”

  “We have a message for you,” the tall, thin one answered evasively. He had a long wrinkled face and gray eyes that were absolutely cold.

  “A message? Let me have it.”

  The tall, thin one reached into his brief case and drew out a sheet of paper on which were a few typewritten lines. “Have the goodness …”

  “By decision of the Special Conference of the People’s Commissariat for Int
ernal Affairs … dated … concerning Item No. 4628g … order for the preventive arrest … ERCHOV, Maxim Andreyevich, forty-one years of age …”

  A sort of cramp settled on Erchov’s throat, yet he found the strength to read it all through, word by word, to examine the seal, the signatures — “Gordeyev,” countersigned Illegible — the serial numbers … “No one has a right,” he said absurdly after a few seconds, “I am …” The short, fat one did not let him finish:

  “You are so no longer, Maxim Andreyevich. You have been relieved of your high office by a decision of the Organization Bureau.”

  He spoke with unctuous deference.

  “I have a copy of it here … Be so good as to surrender your weapons …”

  The table was covered with black oilcloth; Erchov laid his regulation revolver down on it. As he reached into his back pocket for the little spare Browning he always carried, he felt an urge to send a bullet into his heart; imperceptibly, he forced his hand to move more slowly, and he thought that he let no expression appear in his face. The gilded ibex on the pyramid of rock, between sea and sky. The gilded ibex threatened by the hunter’s gun; Valia’s teeth, her straining neck, the blueness … it is all over. The tall thin one’s transparent eyes never left his, the short fat one’s hands gently grasped the High Commissar’s hand and secured the Browning. An engine gave a long whistle. Erchov said: