Stalin's Barber

by Paul M. Levitt

  Yefim then decisively swooped down on Razan’s beard, periodically wiping the blade on the stained sheet that covered him. The shave completed, he used prongs to remove a hot towel from a small steamer and wrapped it around Razan’s face. Snipping the air with his scissors, he took a clump of hair between two fingers, and began shaping Razan’s hair.

  “Note,” said Yefim, “that Stalin’s mustache and pipe are a measure of his moods. When he strokes his mustache, with his hand or the stem of his pipe, he’s content. When he thrusts his pipe forward like this”—he extended his arm—“blood is in the air. He will shout and wave his arms when he’s angry or silently pace with an unlit pipe. When he puts down the pipe, watch out! He grows pale, his eyes yellow and bitter, his expression spiteful. Then comes the explosion and the terrible consequences.” Yefim paused. “He also has a gentle side.” The Uzbek put his mouth next to Razan’s ear. “But here’s the rub. The man I barber may or may not be Stalin. I have no way of knowing. According to the secret police, who have their own reasons for leaking such information, Stalin has a double. In fact, they say he has several. Whenever he travels he always has three cars or trains or planes leaving at the same time. They say two limousines carry decoys, and one carries Stalin. With three choices who can identify the real Supreme Leader?”

  “But the Supreme Leader’s voice and his doubles . . . how can they sound alike?”

  “Just as the men are indistinguishable from a distance, so too are their voices. The secret police have achieved that effect with their doctored radio broadcasts and speech therapists. Besides, Russian in the mouth of a Georgian comes out as neither one tongue nor the other. From the gargle of vowels, you can’t tell the difference. Speech won’t help you. I’ve listened carefully every time the Vozhd has given radio broadcasts or public addresses. One moment I think, yes, that’s the man I regularly shave. The next, I say, no, his r’s are wrong and his guttural ch’s lack a phlegmy effect. In the end, I doubt my own ears. One can’t ever be sure.”

  Always the pragmatist, Razan tried to think of what other tests he might apply. “When you pass these men in the hall, you must know the man you barber and the man you don’t.”

  Yefim smiled indulgently. “Who said they pass in the hall? I’ve never seen it. The main barbershop is on another floor. That’s where his aides come for haircuts. Neither the Supreme Leader nor a decoy has ever entered the shop while I was at work.” He paused, as if trying to find a way to explain the conundrum. “You see, the problem is that even if these men stood side by side, you still wouldn’t know which was the genuine article. Only a few trusted aides do. And making the situation even more unclear is that Stalin has mastered numerous moods and faces and attitudes. He is a chameleon. How else could he have remained in power this long? My guess is that the real Stalin delights in pretending he’s one of the doubles, and that the decoys enjoy imitating Stalin.”

  “But you must have some inkling who is the Vozhd and who isn’t?”

  “His closest associates say—and you can decide the truth for yourself—that the Boss is paranoiac about others usurping his power. He might therefore have his own trusted barber, or use a decoy, or sit in my chair or yours just to learn our thoughts. In fact, he loves to lay snares for those he thinks are unfaithful. ‘To choose one’s victims, to prepare one’s plans minutely, to slake an implacable vengeance, and then to go to bed,’ Stalin has crowed, ‘there is nothing sweeter in the world.’ I’ve often thought: What if the man I am grooming is a decoy for would-be assassins, and the real Stalin has his own loyal Georgian hairdresser who comes to his rooms or a Kremlin hideaway to barber him? Stalin is not the sort of man to let an Uzbek or a Jew put a razor to his throat. I think that just as he has doubles in two cars, while he is seated in another, he has at least two barbers. If I’m right, then the person I used to see a few times a week is a double who has been schooled with great care, even using a favorite phrase of the Vozhd, ‘typically not right.’ But to be safe, call him Stalin. Better to err on the side of caution.”

  The reference to Jews gave Razan pause. He knew the old canard that Jewish barbers lasciviously pandered to hair and to flesh. But any good barber soothingly manipulated the scalp, sensuously ran his fingers through the hair, and gently touched the person’s face. To barber with care was as intimate as foreplay. How could Yefim not know the man in the chair? It would be like not knowing the woman in bed with you. Surely, Yefim had studied the real or counterfeit man to discover details of his life. If the man in the chair could not, for example, authoritatively discourse about Georgia or his Siberian exile, then Yefim would know the man for a double.

  But a moment’s thought led Razan to conclude that the secret police must be expert in preparing impersonators. They could have surgeons remake a face, and have tutors school the decoys in all the public details of Stalin’s life and habits of speech. The police might even allow the men to be given information that presumably only Stalin would know, with the understanding that discovery meant death. Yes, the secret police specialized in cunning. He had heard that they were even conducting experiments on brain waves, hoping to ascertain a person’s thoughts. He shuddered to think of a world in which even a person’s mental privacy could be invaded.

  “How can you barber a man reputed to be the Vozhd,” asked Razan, “when you have no idea whether he really is that person? One slip of the razor or tongue . . .”

  Yefim advised Razan on the importance of owning many faces in a country that regularly changed its political officials and manifestoes. To survive, a person had to be rubber faced and loose jointed, prepared to smile or cry, kneel or do backflips. Those who convinced themselves that they could maintain their integrity by preserving a private face, no matter how slavishly they behaved in public, usually perished. A double life was not enough; only those who could juggle eight lives, nine, a dozen, would be standing at the end. The Vozhd had learned early how to constantly reinvent himself and expected the same of others, even at the cost of friends and family. Hadn’t he counseled his people to renounce their families if it served the working classes? Hadn’t the Bolsheviks made a cult of the “selfless revolutionary,” whose sole morality was that, in the service of the party and its cause, the ends justify the means? In the paradise to come, owing to the revolutionary sacrifices of the socialists, an ideal human being—a “collective personality” living only for the common good—would emerge. In fact, many socialists regarded the fundamental goal of the revolution as the creation of a new man and a new woman. In support of this view, they approvingly cited the example of Liuba Radchenko, who had abandoned her husband and two young daughters because she felt that it was the duty of a true revolutionary not to be tied down by family. Gorky had perhaps said it best: A new politics demands a new soul. Betrayal was thus countenanced, nay, encouraged, so long as the party prospered.

  That Stalin was a different person for every interview, every audience, made perfect sense. As circumstances changed, so too did the Vozhd; even his face metamorphosed to correspond with his needs. His acting skills thus made it impossible for anyone to anticipate his behavior or to know him well. Although his lackeys and flatterers trimmed their words to suit the occasion, they were, given that Stalin could change in an instant, frequently caught off guard—to their peril. The sycophants (Mandelstam called them hyenas in syrup) had so often felt compelled to alter their personalities that they no longer knew who they were. Over time, they became all the different masks that they wore. Internalizing their different “selves,” perhaps hating one self and loving another, created schizophrenia not only in the Politburo but also in the country. People sacrificed their essential core, if they ever had one, to please the Supreme Leader and the country. Certainties dissolved, killing off trust, loyalty, and love. As a result, one could never know who the man standing next to him really was: the “real” person, a double, or an actor.

  “You have no way of knowing,” said Yefim. “And this is true, as I’ve indicated
, for the man you may shave. I can see you are doubtful. I readily admit that what I am saying is speculative, but if true, immensely important. Stalin’s fear of assassination is so great that he regularly kills off the people around him. For us, you and me, to even entertain the idea that he has his own private barber, and that we are merely engaged in a charade, would put us high on the executioner’s list. Think about it.” Razan tightened his sphincter muscle as he felt his bowel loosen. He looked around, wishing for a toilet. “Since the man in the chair may in fact be the Vozhd, it is quite possible that one day you will be approached by persons unknown and offered a great bribe to disclose what you know about Stalin’s daily schedule, or forthcoming plans, or current health. You might even be offered a rajah’s ransom to slit his throat. Yes, I know, you are thinking such an act would be suicidal and gain you nothing. Ah, but you’re wrong. Your family would be spirited out of the country to a safe one, where they could live handsomely off the money.”

  Although nausea now compounded Razan’s fear, he forced himself to respond. “Are you saying that if the man who openly enjoys Turkish haircuts and shaves is a double, then the real Stalin can remain beyond the reach of those who would use his barber to harm him?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not knowing whom you are lathering, aren’t you racked by curiosity?”

  Yefim smiled sympathetically. Clearly, Razan was an innocent. To bring wisdom to this benighted creature, Yefim explained. “Nobody knows the Vozhd. For security reasons, he won’t allow it. Except perhaps for his daughter, he lets no one get close to him. And yet paradoxically he is everywhere, with us at all times. Believers say they have seen his face in rivers and lakes and the sea.”

  “Am I to understand that this ghostly presence is known to only a few, all of whom are in danger?”

  “Yes. The old Bolsheviks who knew the real Koba have long since been murdered. In the absence of fact, the official line in this country trumpets that Stalin is the Loving Father, the Savior of Mother Russia, and the Protector of Children.” He patted Razan’s arm. “Wait! You, too, will quickly learn to speak of him in this way.”

  Having seen pictures of Stalin, Razan knew his mustache and big nose but not much more. Yefim added what he could, based entirely on the man, Vozhd or not, whom he regularly barbered.

  “He is short and has bad teeth, foul breath, a pockmarked face, and yellow skin. His left hand is crippled, and he walks with a limp. He loves moving pictures, reading history, cultivating roses and lemon trees, and drinking tea with Armenian brandy. Usual attire? Military tunics and breeches tucked into crimson-tooled, light morocco boots.” Perhaps thinking of the oft-repeated saying that the walls have ears, Yefim ceased talking and concentrated on his barbering. Once he had finished with the scissors, he used his clippers to remove the tiny hairs at the base of Razan’s neck, artfully flambéed his customer’s ears, and applied an aromatic lotion and some talcum powder. Boujinksi then removed the sheet, shook the hairs onto the floor, and invited Razan to his lodgings. Yefim pressed a wall button to warn the women above. As Razan reached for his purse, the Uzbek barber stopped his hand and shook his head no.

  At the top of the stairs, Razan saw a brass nameplate, Boujinski, and down the hall a communal bathroom. The front door opened into a cramped room divided by a curtain, behind which women were giggling. Yefim said that the voices came from his daughter and her mother.

  “Might I have the pleasure of meeting them?”

  “You must understand. She treats her side of the curtain like an ichkari, the women’s quarters of a Muslim house. I tell her that she and the child need sunshine and fresh air, but she ignores me.”

  Without mentioning Dimitri, Razan observed sympathetically, “Your religion must have presented an obstacle to your work in the Kremlin.”

  “More than an obstacle, it led, I feel certain, to the loss of my position. Why else would Stalin’s people have lectured me about the evils of the chadra? They said the head scarf was a mark of centuries of despotism and slavery, even though millions of Russian women wear babushkas. The Bolsheviks regard all religions as superstitions. When I tried to explain that Uzbek women wear the veil because it’s what makes them Uzbek, they simply repeated that our women and their veils serve to resist socialist freedoms.”

  “I thought that the Vozhd supported the independence of national groups, like the Uzbeks.”

  “He did once, but then changed his mind. By putting all the nationalities under the Soviet, he took control of the country.” People who constantly change their minds, thought Razan, can’t be trusted. The job was quickly losing its appeal. “You do know that Stalin attended the Tiflis Theological Seminary—and was expelled?”

  “Maybe that’s why he hates religion,” Razan replied.

  “The official explanation is that the church fathers dismissed him because of his radical activities; but I have also heard it whispered that he impregnated a young girl and then went to work for the Tsar’s secret police, the Okhrana.”

  “Stalin? A secret agent for the Romanovs?”

  “That’s what many old Siberia survivors say. They point to the fact that he always escaped internment easily. But the only people who know for sure are the archivists, and they live precarious lives.”

  Duly impressed by the range of Yefim’s reflections and command of the language, Razan asked him if had been formally educated.

  “In Tashkent and Odessa, I studied philosophy and economics. I trained to be a teacher, and worked in a school in Bukhara for two years, but I was sacked for setting what the head of the school called ‘excessively high academic standards.’ Her idea of excessive was my insistence that the students know grammar. She called me an ‘elitist,’ and said such people did not belong in the Soviet school system. Fortunately, my father, a barber, had taught me the trade.”

  “That’s how I learned as well.”

  “We were fortunate to be taught the Turkish style. Not many Russian barbers know the secrets. Pauker didn’t, even though he was hairdresser at the Budapest Opera and worked as a barber in the Austro-Hungarian Army. A bit of a dandy Pauker was. He reputedly procured girls for Stalin. I spoke to him once. He told me he used talcum powder to fill Stalin’s pockmarks. I gathered that every time Stalin bared his throat to the razor, Pauker shook with terror.”

  Not until this moment had Razan considered how many people over the years had entrusted their lives to his own hand. He had served all classes, from royalty to runagates. If he had slit the justice minister’s throat, he might have changed the course of Albanian history. The very thought caused him to shiver. Actually, Razan associated the sight of blood with tonsorial failure, and could remember no more than a dozen times that he had nicked a man’s face, though never badly.

  “Let me ask you a professional question. If the man you barber has deeply cratered skin, I assume you use a scissor to snip the hairs in the craters and a blade on the few smooth parts of his face.”

  Yefim nodded. “It’s a slow process, and since it always occurs late in the evening, I’m not always properly rested.”

  This admission surprised Razan. “Evening? Strange. How late?”

  “Two or three in the morning. He goes to bed at four or five and sleeps till noon. I usually barber him after midnight. If you replace me, you’ll discover your client has numerous quirks, like never sleeping in his bed but rather on the office divan.”

  The trouble with quirks, Razan mused, is that unless they always expressed themselves in the same way, you could never anticipate a person’s behavior. If the health of a civilization rested on the predictability of human behavior, then caprice was a danger to all. He therefore decided to learn the man’s idiosyncrasies.

  “Here’s what he doesn’t like: doors left open or slammed, people standing close to him, tall people, imaginative people—he assumes he authored every good idea—repetitiveness, as in explanations, his own or others, men who can’t hold their liquor or can’t stay awake late at
night. He’s like quicksilver.”

  “Have you no way to predict his good days or bad?”

  “In advance, no. But his love of movies remains constant. His favorites are American westerns, Charlie Chaplin, and Tarzan.”

  From behind the curtain came laughter. Razan felt certain that he detected three voices; he also felt certain that to inquire would have been forward. Yefim acted as if he had heard nothing. Razan vaguely remembered Dimitri saying that the wife had a sister. Perhaps the two women were entertaining the young girl.

  Hearing voices brought to mind eavesdropping. What if Yefim’s apartment was bugged, or his shop? Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Given Yefim’s disclosures, Razan and the family could be in danger. Razan began to pace, looking for suspicious bulges in the wallpaper and eyeing the light fixtures.

  “Now you remind me of the secret police. All you need is a black coat. What is it?”

  Razan gestured for a pencil and paper. Writing quickly, he handed Yefim a note: “My apartment came equipped with a listening device. What about yours? And your shop?”

  Unperturbed, Yefim pointed to the walls and the light sockets. “I’ve looked and could see nothing. We rarely speak about politics and mostly in Uzbek.” He paused. “But it is true that translators are easy to find. If we’ve somehow been bugged, that might explain my dismissal and other things.” Yefim shook his head skeptically.

  “Let’s look again,” Razan whispered.

  But all the light sockets were clean, and the walls seemed perfectly normal. “Perhaps,” Razan added, “your embankment apartment was also safe, and the source was an informer.”

  Yefim studied his guest. His gaze bespoke pain or bad tidings. But for whom?