“So you have little faith in the NKVD?”
“I prefer my own senses.”
“Then use them to expose Razan and bring us irrefutable proof of his conspiring against our Great Leader and the people. I don’t care whether the evidence is true or false, so long as it is irrefutable.”
Dimitri said sardonically, “Invented evidence.”
“Comrade Lipnoskii, those who lack the discipline imparted by the NKVD spend every day improvising competence. You are not one of those. Your skills are now ingrained and natural.”
How, Dimitri asked himself, had his stepfather fallen out of favor with Stalin? Perhaps, in fact, he hadn’t but was merely another person close to the Boss who, for safety’s sake, had to be suppressed. In Stalin’s circle, familiarity bred more than contempt; it made one privy to Stalin’s life, thus rendering the Supreme Leader vulnerable to anyone wishing him harm. Even if Razan was devoted to the Bolshevik cause, he had obviously become too familiar with the Vozhd and his inner sanctum. Virtually everyone close to Stalin eventually perished, and those who remained were each day more likely to disappear. But what if Razan had been stamped a pariah for another reason? The possibilities were almost endless. Perhaps he had inadvertently insulted Stalin, told a joke that was taken the wrong way, scared him by nicking his neck during a shave, talked to the wrong people, read banned books, viewed uncensored films, perhaps even credited Trotsky with contributions to the October Revolution. Dimitri would have to find out the reason for the trumped-up charges, but first he’d have to find an excuse to delay the investigation until he could fashion some plan to save his parents.
“I can see that you are mulling over your new assignment,” said Beria. “Silence lends itself to different interpretations. It can be taken for consent, or can betray one’s guilt, or can be a forewarning of conspiracy.” He banged the desk. “What am I to make of yours?”
Dimitri played a card that the secret police normally ridiculed in others: personal feelings. “I find your information so shocking that I ask for time to digest it and decide how to proceed.”
“In the event that you decide not to cooperate with us, let me remind you that on these very premises, we have a laboratory for testing poisons. You didn’t know that, Comrade Lipnoskii, did you?”
“No.”
“It’s a new addition. My idea. We test our poisons on both animals and traitors.” He removed a sheet of paper from his desk drawer. The stationery bore the NKVD imprint. “Let me read one doctor’s report, ‘We administered the poison in the prisoner’s food. Although he was a healthy, strong man, he rushed about the cell as his stomach pains worsened. From his execrations against us and the Supreme Leader, it was clear that he understood what had happened to him. He ran to the steel door, blood pouring from his eyes, beating the door with his fists and his feet. He shoved his hand into his slobbering mouth, gagged, slid to the floor, and died.’”
Of course, Dimitri knew that Beria’s description was intended to unnerve him, so he summoned his sternest look and posture and militantly announced, “Enemies of the people deserve worse.”
This reply disconcerted the “prosecutor,” who was, in light of the cunning of Dimitri’s reply, all the more inclined to believe that Dimitri had told Suzdal to run away. Furthermore, the file in front of him suggested collusion. But for now, to silence his doubts, he stoically repeated his earlier command. “We want you to collect evidence that will enable us to convict Razan Shtube and his wife, Anna, for traitorous acts against the state. Do you understand me?” Beria stood. “If you wish to prove your loyalty to Stalin and the Soviet people, you will succeed in this task. If you do not, well, I have already shared with you the work of our secret poisons lab.”
For hours, Dimitri aimlessly walked the streets, stopping periodically for a schnapps. By the time he fell into bed, he was thoroughly drunk and absolutely convinced that he would not betray his own family. What remained to be decided was how to proceed. Should he shoot Beria or poison him? As a secret agent, he too had access to some of the more baneful tinctures. But as sleep overtook him, he dreamed that he was flying. He had launched himself off a promontory, backward, as if doing a flip, and seconds later was airborne. Righting himself, he flew over the familiar Moscow landscape. Below lay the Kremlin, and the river, and Saint Basil’s, and Red Square with its redbrick buildings and mausoleum, and crowds waiting to see the embalmed body of Lenin. That his entire family sat comfortably on his back seemed perfectly natural to him and, in fact, made him smile.
Sobriety returned to Dimitri accompanied by a fierce headache. He took his dream as an omen and decided that his next step would be to talk to his mother, whose common sense was anything but common.
They met in a stand of birch trees at the forested Izmailovo Park, arriving, as arranged, after dark and on different trains.
“Why did you want to see me alone? Is Razan in trouble?”
Dimitri ran his hand across his eyes.
Anna kindly said, “You used to make that same gesture when you were a child and found yourself in hot water. What’s the matter?”
As she reached out to touch him, he stepped back and replied plaintively, “It’s bad. Gregori is in prison, and you are suspected.”
After Dimitri had recounted his meeting with Beria, Anna lit a cigarette. “Poor Gregori. I knew that one day his need to believe in something or someone greater than himself would ruin him.” She inhaled deeply.
“Can you think of any anti-Soviet activity that my stepfather might have engaged in, even inadvertently?”
“Razan, anti-Soviet? He’s an uncritical fool. Oh, he takes precautions, like everyone else, but underneath he trusts people. I’ve told him a hundred times, ‘When talking to the Vozhd repeat how much you admire him.’ But he thinks it’s enough to tell Stalin how beautiful his daughter is. He says that she’s his favorite, but I tell him to praise both.”
“You’re right. Stalin treasures adoration.”
They walked in silence as Anna lit one cigarette after another, discarding them after only a few puffs. In the approaching dark, her lucubrations led her finally to say, “Although I can prove I didn’t commit a crime, how can I prove I was not thinking about doing so?”
Dimitri nodded in agreement and added, “Anti-Soviet thoughts, though unprovable, are punishable. That’s why the government engages in thought control: to prevent subversive ideas.” Anna stridently laughed. “In fact, one has a much better chance of escaping the charge of a material crime than an abstract one.”
Anna nodded and then made an astonishing suggestion. “Tell Beria that your parents are Zionists, and they’ve frequently said that Palestine is paradise, not the Soviet Union.”
Coming to a dead stop, Dimitri turned and stared at his mother, fearing she’d lost her senses. “Are you mad?”
“If you have a better idea,” said Anna, lighting her last cigarette, “tell me. If you don’t, I suggest that we meet Razan in a safe place to talk. I’m sure he can tell us how to make it work.”
* * *
The NKVD had begun to patrol the Moscow parks where people escaped to speak freely. As Dimitri and Anna left Izmailovo, they passed two men in raincoats whom Dimitri knew to be secret policemen.
“What if they ask why you were in the park with your mother?”
“I have the perfect excuse. Comrade Beria told me to use any means to uncover incriminating evidence against you and my stepfather. I was just following orders. But we cannot meet here again.”
The next day, Anna suggested that Dimitri commandeer a taxicab in the name of the NKVD and slowly drive it through the city. They could speak freely in the car. Dimitri liked that idea, since he normally used one of the cab drivers as an informant; and his taxi, with its missing front grille and dented right fender, resembled the other worn vehicles. A borrowed cab would be easy to explain, and if stopped, readily explained.
As warm breezes carried the scents of August, Dimitri carefully removed
the listening device in the overhead lining above the backseat and drove slowly around the Ring Road. Traffic was light.
“Mother says that you can clarify this zany idea of hers,” said Dimitri.
Sitting in the backseat, Razan leaned forward and explained that given the number of Jewish doctors in Moscow, and given their reputation for competence, their departure for Palestine would be an immeasurable loss. “Not that they’re thinking of leaving; they’re not. But the mere suggestion of inducing them to leave, particularly in the name of Zionism, would drive Stalin crazy and get your mother and me sent to an insane asylum.”
Dimitri nearly drove off the road.
“In all my life, I never heard such a lamebrain idea. Are you trying to get yourselves killed?”
“With all the talk in the west of anti-Semitism, German concentration camps, and pogroms, Stalin won’t kill us. He’ll arrest us. I know that much about the man from my barbering.”
Touching her son on the shoulder, Anna said, “Have the secret police report that we belong in an asylum. You can then suggest we be sent to the same one as Alexei. From there we shall make our escape.”
Dimitri shook with laughter. His eyes teared. “My dear mother, I have heard about some great escapades in my life, but this one tops them all. It simply won’t work. I’ll try, but you’ll see.”
* * *
“Palestine!” Beria bellowed. “A paradise!”
“They hope to persuade our Jewish doctors to leave the country.”
Beria, who had been bent over his desk studying Dimitri’s report, slowly lifted his head, adjusted his glasses, and hissed, “They are Zionist wreckers!” He paused. “It’s nothing less than an attempt to sow religious dissension!” Beria ran a hand over his mouth to wipe away the foaming saliva. “The next thing you’ll tell me is that they intend to parade in the October celebration dressed as Kaganovich or Molotov or as Stalin’s double.” But the moment he used the word “double,” he withdrew it. “Forget what I just said. How could anyone try to be a stand-in for our Great Leader or want to parody him?”
“Agreed, but nonetheless . . .”
Beria paced between his desk and the window. He stared mutely into the street. The word “double,” so fraught with recondite meaning, confirmed for Dimitri what he had long suspected but wouldn’t dare utter: Stalin used political decoys. At that moment, he realized how great a danger Razan posed to Stalin, and why he, like the barbers before him, had to be removed, not to mention the pogrom that Stalin was putting in place. Now he understood what lay behind Beria’s order to unearth damning evidence. But when the exhilaration of his insight had passed, he felt sick, knowing that only he stood between his family and a firing squad.
An irate Beria thundered, “We must create a cordon sanitaire around these conspirators. Find out who they are. If this Jewish plot spreads, it could prove lethal. The western press is already accusing us of anti-Semitism.”
Without thinking, Dimitri replied, “Well, aren’t we?”
Beria shouted: “Idiot! Don’t you see the implications?” He rubbed his jaw. “Find the network. We must isolate the traitors.”
Dimitri edged forward in his chair. “Comrade Beria, such a plot will be seen for what it is: preposterous. As much as I dislike betraying my own family, those behind it are obviously ill.”
Beria studied Dimitri and, with feigned sympathy, replied, “I am disappointed in you, Comrade Lipnoskii. Don’t you see the greater danger? Surely when you entered the service of the secret police, you were schooled in how peasants think.” Dimitri nodded. “As you know, the people put more store in faith than in fact. Myths, legends, superstitions—this is the stuff of religion. Faith, not fact, captures the imagination, precisely because it is not amenable to proof. An exodus of Jewish doctors! What could be more dangerous than the belief that God was calling them home to Palestine? It would undoubtedly appeal to the enemies of the people, who would twist the meaning to their own purposes. Now go out and get me names, thousands of them—after all, they are merely statistics—and we shall rid our beloved country of this pestilence.”
“Wouldn’t it be best just to exile the barber and his family to Voronezh, and assign them to a mental institution? I know one.”
“Out!” Beria roared.
Dimitri staggered from the Lubyanka Prison, followed by a police agent who made no effort to conceal himself. Dimitri had now become the servant of two masters, the state and his family. On the sidewalk, he mumbled to himself, “Antigone revisited.”
Part II
Pavel´s Polish Pelagia
Rain, heavy rain and autumn frost,
The nearing train meant all was lost.
And what of Pavel, nesting in Brovensk? His forge eventually suffered confiscation. On the military train’s first visit, Basil von Fresser had counseled the citizens of Brovensk to resist, earning him, his wife, and eight other Germans living in the town exile to an icy camp near the top of the world. Wisely, the villagers agreed that relinquishing ownership of their farms was the only way to prevent “resettlements.” A few owners, however, had ignored the new laws, including Pavel, who had quietly continued to work outside the orbit of the collective, fashioning farm implements and fancy ironwork and artistic metal lattices. Efim Klimov, the one-eyed apparatchik the Soviets had put in charge, knowing nothing about ideology, retired to the inn, and left Pavel and his furnace untouched by Bolshevik theory. Comrade Cyclops, as the people called him, discharged but one chore. He regularly visited the telegraph office to collect his orders from the Central Committee of the oblast and relay them to the town.
In the middle of the night, a lugubrious train whistle signaled the second arrival of the ravening special army cavalry corps charged with nationalizing privately held shops. This time, the army seized the forge and compounded the injury by informing him that his brother was an enemy of the state. Pavel could be either exiled to a work camp to produce shovels and plows and scythes and hoes and axes—handsome scroll wall sconces and tapered metalwork were now a thing of the past—or enlist in the army and become part of the operation to “free” western Ukraine, western Belorussia, and eastern Poland.
The military captain, Antip Skoropodski, in charge of recruitment for the Brovensk area, had heard that Pavel was a skilled horseshoe player, a game that Antip adored. But after one match with Pavel, he knew that he had just met his regiment’s future champion. Promising Pavel an easy service, Antip proposed that Pavel join the army in the capacity of farrier. In addition to forging horseshoes and caring for equine hooves, Pavel would play other regimental champions, whom Antip would challenge in his role as horseshoe impresario. Pavel agreed. Steaming off on the military train, Pavel and Antip traveled for several days before transferring to a westbound troop train bound for Ukraine and the Polish border. Before crossing into Poland, Antip and his regiment stopped in a small Ukrainian town for Antip to school new recruits—and to wait for the Germans to complete their conquest of western Poland. But the Soviets were surprised by the rapid German advance eastward and realized that they would have to field an invading army earlier than originally planned. Antip was therefore instructed, in his capacity as a politruk, political officer, to indoctrinate his soldiers not leisurely but in one week. The “special courses” might have sounded to sophisticated ears like rubbish, but to the majority of soldiers, illiterate peasants, the propaganda rang true. Suave and well spoken, Antip’s physical appearance reinforced his message. He had dark lustrous hair swept back and parted in the middle. A courteous manner and a pleasant smile (he was proud of his good teeth) stamped him as a kindly man, and in fact, he was inclined to eschew draconian measures. But if necessary, he could be conniving and cruel. His only bourgeois sin was a liking for lilac cologne, with which he liberally doused his cheeks after shaving. Unlike most of his men, he sported no mustache, regarding the fullness of his upper lip as one of his more attractive features.
“You will be entering a bourgeois state,”
Antip lectured from the front of the classroom in a village school, a chalkboard in one hand and a pointer in the other. “We are entering Poland,” he said, holding up the board with its hand-drawn map of the area, “in order to aid Ukrainians and Belorussians . . .” Antip paused. His orders from central headquarters were unclear. In the same directive, he was told to say that the Soviets were coming to help Poland in its war against Germany, and to explain that they were coming only to offer protection from the Germans. The directive had concluded with the command: “Just make the intervention of the Soviet Union plausible to the masses.” Antip continued, “In our war with Germany, we wish to help Poland. Now, you may well ask: How can we help Poland? We can free the proletariat from the polskie pany, the Polish pans, the masters, who for twenty years have been drinking the blood of the poor. The peasants must be allowed to treat the pans as they please. We will distribute leaflets to the local population urging them to rectify the wrongs suffered at the hands of their class enemies: capitalists, landowners, officers, uniformed men, reservists, scouts, policemen, teachers, particularly school principals, and the parasite priests.” Antip looked at his recruits and could read the shock in their faces. He therefore added, “Remember, their priests are of the Roman Church.” His recruits relaxed. “And let us not forget to remind the victims of Polish rule that they have been ill used for years by those who staff the local administration: judges, public prosecutors, activists, prominent members of political organizations, church and government volunteers, landowners, businessmen, leaders of the community, and even state pensioners. All of them . . . to jail!”
Antip rubbed his smooth chin and debated whether to speak further of the leaflets, some of which called for assaults on the “enemies of the people” and their stooges with whatever was at hand—scythes, axes, pitchforks, ice picks, hammers, crowbars, shovels. One leaflet in screaming block letters said: “POLIAKAM, PANAM, SOBAKAM—SOBACHAIA SMERT.” For Poles, pans, and dogs—a dog’s death. He wondered whether to suppress it. But thinking better of running afoul of his superiors, he concluded his peroration by saying, “I repeat then: We of the Red Army are here to assist in the national and class liberation of the people from under the rule of the Polish pans, the beloruchki, those with white hands.” The group was by now growing restless, so he saved the sweetener for last. “Each Red Army man and woman will receive three hundred rubles to buy consumer goods in Poland. But do not think that just because the shops are overflowing with goods, the Polish poor can afford them. The ragged ones are relegated to eating turnips and tares.”
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