Stalin's Barber

by Paul M. Levitt

  Even her own family was not exempt from her divided feelings. She well remembered leaving Brovensk and having to decide which belongings to sell and which to take. Once the decision was made and she had sold most of her furniture, Razan had suggested that she give the money to Pavel, since they would be well cared for in Moscow. At first, she thought he was teasing; then, she thought he was mad. “My possessions!” Razan had replied, “Charity begins at home.”

  She had scoffed at the very idea of Razan quoting the Bible and had said, “Yes, with me!” But in the end, she had given Pavel the money.

  On reaching Helsinki, the truck driver called his dispatch officer for instructions. The reply came back: “Take them to the front steps of the Parliament Building, Eduskuntatalo. Her husband and daughter will be inside waiting for her.” Northwest of the main post office, the driver stopped. Anna thanked him and leaped out to greet Razan and Yelena, racing down the steps of the building. The driver put her bags at the curb and left. In the winter cold, the family’s entangled arms formed a cocoon, and they sank to the pavement, as love leaked out of their eyes. Razan handed her a gift: a broadtail coat with a mandarin collar in fox. But happiness often companions with pain. When Yelena asked about her dearest Natasha and kind Dimitri—the child had never felt close to Gregori—Anna attributed all of their deaths to bombs and artillery shells. Had someone pointed out the connection between her dray and the fate of her children, she would have called them contemptible Bolsheviks. In her mind, she had been a courageous mother, caring and protective. No, they had died from the hateful war and the greediness of nations claiming as much land as their armies could conquer. She had tried only to do what was best for her family: to keep them wealthy enough to live free of the hunger and sweat of the poor.

  * * *

  That evening, at Anna’s request, the family attended the Uspenski Orthodox Church. Inside the redbrick building, the family stood at the back, admiring the largest Orthodox cathedral in Western Europe. Anna requested a few minutes for herself and made her way to the altar, where she genuflected before an icon sprinkled with gold dust, “Mother and Child.” After crossing herself, she stood and kissed the icon. Then she dropped a few coins in the donation box, lit four candles, and prayed that her children and Yuri be received into heaven. Razan whispered to Yelena to say a prayer in Uzbek for the souls of the dead, and he silently did the same in Hebrew. When Anna returned, she buried her face in Razan’s chest and quietly sobbed. He gently stroked her hair, still lustrous, though much grayer than it was before Solovki. No one spoke in the tram on the way back to the government-owned apartment assigned to Razan. During his family’s absence, when he was not meeting with the intelligence service, he had consoled himself by decorating the walls of the apartment with reproductions of bucolic country scenes; and of course, he included Yelena’s paintings, except for Stalin’s iconic mustache.

  Weeks later, Razan tried yet again to explain the events in the cinema. But he found Anna’s questions as difficult to answer as those of the Finnish secret service.

  “I know it sounds crazy,” he said in the muted voice that he had acquired from living for so many years in the Soviet Union, “but I swear: I slit his throat.” Anna sympathized with his recent misery without actually expressing agreement. “You must believe me, because if I killed an innocent man, he was no doubt forced, on pain of death, to play the role of Stalin.”

  She looked at him lovingly but not as she had when they lived in Brovensk. “Better,” she said, “that we listen to the radio,” and turned it on. The Finnish Orchestra was playing the Brahms cello concerto.

  They listened in silence, holding hands, until Razan rose to answer a knock at the door. His neighbor, a Russian exile whose family estate had been looted, and the library burned, excitedly asked, “Did you hear?”

  “We are listening to the Brahms.”

  “Me, too. But a special announcement. From the Politburo. Stalin has declared that ‘a son does not answer for his father.’”

  “Taras, what are you talking about?”

  “Stalin just said, on the radio, the purges must end and the country needs to be united. They quoted him in Russian: ‘A son does not answer for his father.’ It no longer matters if your parents were kulaks or priests or merchants or Jews or Tsarist officers. All is forgiven. He’s put forth a new policy. Who knows his motives? First he signs a peace pact with Germany, and now with his own people.”

  “Four years ago, in 1935, December, I think it was, he made the same declaration, and look what followed.”

  Taras nodded and crossed the hall to his apartment. While latching the door, Razan noticed that his hand shook. He had become an observer of his own failing health, standing outside of himself and chronicling his progressive decay. Is this my reward, he thought, for knowing about great crimes and, though hating them, continuing to work in the Kremlin? He ran his hand through his hair and paused to view its perfect whiteness in the entry hall mirror. His pale blue eyes brightened, elated by what they saw: Stalin slumped in his favorite cinema chair, his head bowed, and a trickle of blood tracing the cut made by Razan’s Damascene razor. “I waited three years too long,” he said to the mirror. Stalin’s head slowly rose and turned to face the barber. His neck was unscathed and on his lap rested Razan’s matryoshka doll. “Konspiratsia . . . the virus of the age,” muttered Stalin. “I knew it was only a matter of time before you too caught the virus.”

  Anna called to him. “Are you talking to me?”

  Razan returned to the sitting room. Without any preamble or qualifying expressions, he calmly said, “I was talking to Stalin.”

  She consoled him and said that with rest he’d recover. But her expression belied her words. The first time he’d told her about the murder—their reunion night—she had pressed her hands in prayer, kissed Razan, and said, “If only it were true.” When he insisted then, like now, that it was, she had quoted an old proverb, “Believe nothing and be on your guard against everything.”

  The radio concert continued, but Razan’s attention was elsewhere. Anna leaned over and kissed his head.

  “Who was that at the door?” she asked.

  He nearly said Stalin.

  “You look,” remarked Anna, “as if you’ve just seen a ghost.” At that moment, the barber devoutly wished he could escape from the konspiratsia tunnel, where life and lies were one, and ride his train of memories to a place of cure and absolution for having served as Stalin’s barber.

  FINIS

  Razan’s List

  Number of suicides and unexplained deaths: unknown

  Arrests, 1936

  Klavdiya Vasilyevna Generalograva: Ter-Vaganyan’s wife

  Executions, 1936

  Bakayev, Ivan: Expelled as an oppositionist, he was at one time the Leningrad security police chief and a member of the Central Control Commission.

  Kamenev, Lev Borisovich: Briefly the nominal head of the Soviet state (1917) and a founding member (1919) and later chairman (1923–1924) of the ruling Politburo. Shortly after his death, his first wife, Olga, Trotsky’s sister, and his second wife, Tatiana Glebova, were shot.

  Smirnov, Ivan Nikitich: A former Trotskyite who publicly insisted that Stalin resign as secretary-general, he headed the Commissariat for Heavy Industry until his arrest as an oppositionist.

  Ter-Vaganyan: one of the original Bolsheviks; a noted intellectual

  Arrests, 1937

  Svanidze, Alexander Semyonovich: brother of Stalin’s first wife

  Svanidze, Mariko: sister of Stalin’s first wife

  Executions, 1937

  Agranov, Yakov: worked for the secret police, controlling intellectuals and liquidating “enemies of the people”

  Bakayev’s wife, Anna Petrovna Kostina: a party member since 1917

  Bzhishkyan, Gayk (or Gaya or Gai): Armenian Soviet military commander in the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War; accused of terrorism

  Enukidze, Avel: one of the original Bolsh
eviks and, once, a member of the Soviet Central Committee

  Goloded, N. M.: Belorussian accused of being a National Fascist and supporting the White Russians

  Mironov, L. G.: served in the secret police under Yagoda

  Molchanov, G. A.: As head of the Secret Political Department, he investigated the so-called Trotsky-Zinoviev conspiracy.

  Mrachkovsky’s brother and nephew: arrested as unreliable

  NKVD agents: thousands

  Pauker, Karl: Chief of security, he was a former hairdresser at the Budapest Operetta and briefly served as Stalin’s barber.

  Prokofiev, G. E.: Former assistant people’s commissar and Yagoda’s second secretary in the secret police, he was arrested as a rightist.

  Shanin, Lev: disagreed with Stalin about agricultural policies

  Smirnova, Roza and Olga: Ivan Smirnov’s wife and daughter

  Sulimov, Daniil: a former member of the Soviet Central Committee

  Zinoviev’s son, Stepan Radomyslsky: Stalin hated his father.

  Executions, 1938

  Aitakov, Nedirbai: a Turkmen and a leading Bolshevik figure in the early Soviet period

  Bukharin, Nikolai: A leading Moscow Bolshevik and a member of the Central Committee, he and Stalin clashed often, especially over his insistence that agricultural collectivism proceed gradually.

  Chertok, I. I.: Chief subordinate to Karl Pauker in the NKVD and principal interrogator of Kamenev, whom he mercilessly bullied. When the police came for him, he threw himself from his office window.

  Erbanov, M. I.: first secretary of the Buryat-Mongol Communist Party

  Ikramov, Akmail: Former first secretary of the Uzbekistan Central Committee. An internationalist, he once telephoned Stalin to defend a colleague, a call that earned Koba’s wrath.

  Kamenev’s son, Yuri: killed just before his seventeenth birthday

  Khodzhayev, Fayzulla: Uzbek who was one of the chairmen of the USSR Central Executive Committee until the Uzbek Party was purged

  Krylenko, Nikolai: the people’s commissar of justice who signed innumerable death warrants

  Musabekov, Gazanfar: a member of the Soviet Central Executive Committee, representing Azerbaijan

  Rakhimbayev, Abdullo: chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, Tajik Soviet socialist republic

  Redens, Stanislav Frantsevich: married to the sister of Stalin’s second wife

  Smirnov, A. P.: In the early years, he successfully opposed Stalin’s insistence on executing putative conspirators.

  Unshlikht, I. S.: One of the original Bolsheviks, he worked in the war ministry and as a GPU leader fighting against Chechen nationalists.

  Yagoda, Genrikh: Head of the NKVD and, from 1934 to 1936, director of Soviet internal affairs and border guards, he organized the interrogations for the first Moscow Show Trial.

  Executions, 1939

  Akulov, A. I.: procurator-general who often issued arrest warrants

  Berman, Matvei: OGPU deputy chairman; in charge of the Gulag

  Chubar, Vlas: a Ukrainian Politburo leader who begged Stalin, without effect, to send food during the great famine

  Frinovsky, Mikhail: Ezhov’s police deputy, privy to state secrets

  Kamenev’s elder son, Alexander: Stalin hated Kamenev.

  Radek, Karl: A journalist, he advised Stalin on German politics in the 1930s, served two times on the Central Committee, and helped write the 1936 Soviet Constitution. Accused of treason, he died in a camp.

  Anna’s Notes

  Terms

  bolshaya zona: (the big prison zone) or the world outside the camps

  bushlat: a long-sleeved, cotton padded jacket worn by prisoners

  Christ’s followers: religious ones

  deshovka: whore, a name given to virtually all the women

  dokhodyaga: a person close to death

  dry bath: a search

  Ivan: a pigeon, a fall guy, a sap

  ment: a jailer

  Nasedka: a prisoner who worms from his or her roommate information upon which the authorities can act

  pachan: the leader of a criminal gang

  parasha: the pail for natural necessities; the toilet

  popka: a parrot; an informing jailer

  stone sacks: the niches hewn out of the monastery walls that unruly zeks were shoved into, making movement of any kind impossible

  stukachi: informers

  tufta: deception; getting credit for work not done

  urki: criminal prisoners who love to hear stories

  Idioms

  The bear roared: the signal to begin working

  The dove cooed: the signal to stop working

  “I’ll make you suck the snot out of dead men!”: a threat made at the daily roll call for any infraction

  shitting into someone’s head: brainwashing

  to receive seven kopeks of lead: to be shot

  to sit down on a needle: to become a drug addict

  Glossary

  au contraire: to the contrary

  babushkas: shawls; often used to designate old women

  beliy grib: white mushroom

  biscotti: biscuits

  blat: the informal exchange of favors, bribes, payoffs; pull, influence

  burqa: an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions

  chadra: head scarf

  chai: tea

  cherkeskas: Circassian coats, with wide sleeves, that reach to the floor; they resemble burqas, except that they are designed for men.

  chistka: purge

  cit: citizen

  cittadini: citizens

  cordon sanitaire: (French) a barrier restraining free movement of people or goods, so as to keep a disease, infection, or some other contagion from spreading from one locality into another

  das Ekel: Literally, the word means grouch.

  davening: praying

  Deus vobiscum: God be with you.

  ebreo/a: Hebrew

  etta govnaw: Go take a shit for yourself.

  Extreme Unction: the anointing of the sick

  Fasci Italiani di Combattimento: Italian League of Combat

  frum: kosher

  genug: enough

  govnaw: shit

  horribili dictu: as horrible as it is to relate

  ichkari: The enclosed women’s quarters of a Muslim house; from the outside, it is impossible to see the women inside, though they can look outside.

  incroyable: incredible

  kvas: A fermented drink made from rye, barley, rye bread, and other ingredients; often flavored, it is not strong.

  kvell: to exclaim or feel good about the achievements of a family member or a friend

  le brouillon: (French) first draft

  mensch: a man who is honorable, decent, and responsible; a man who exhibits strength of character

  naches or nachas: joy

  nepman: a merchant who buys and sells for profit; a capitalist

  NKVD: The initials stand for People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.

  Novecento: nineteen hundred

  oblast: geographical region

  obnovlentsy: church reformers

  perlustration: the opening of other people’s mail for the purpose of spying

  poste restante: general delivery; a service where the post office holds mail until the recipient calls for it

  Pravda: truth, the title of a Russian newspaper

  predatel: traitor

  Qur’an: Koran, the holy book of Islam

  sans: (French) without

  schmuck: Yiddish pejorative for a penis

  shpik: spy

  shtiklech: customs, habits, peculiarities

  stopiatnitsa: a person who was not allowed to stay in Moscow; specifically, a person who had to live at least 62.14 miles outside the city

  Talmud: The collection of writings constituting the Jewish civil and religious law; it consists of two parts, the Mishna (text) and the Gemara (commentary), but the term is sometimes restricted to the
Gemara.

  Topolino: little mouse; the smallest car that Fiat made

  tovarishch: comrade

  traif: forbidden food

  Vozhd: Leader

  Wehrmacht: literally “defense power”; the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945