by Dan Pollock
“Like in Prague in ’sixty-eight? Sure, I know. Big heroes! Nazi stormtroopers! Bullshit, Tarushka! Just be a good soldier, like I was, and your Uncle Dima. Not a killing machine.”
They faced each other across the kitchen table far into the night, polishing off a liter of vodka between them. In the end it was old Oleg whose slumping head hit the oilcloth first, and who had to be wrestled to his bed by his dark-eyed son.
“You’re a stubborn bastard, Tarushka, just like your crazy, beautiful Georgian mother” was the last volley the old man managed to fire off before collapsing unconscious onto his mattress. It was an admission of defeat, if not consent.
But Oleg’s trump card, which he had been content not to play in the debate, was a surety that his consent mattered little in the final issue. Taras needed his permission, he thought, about as much as a cunt needs an alarm clock. His obdurate, moody son would do exactly as he wished—but it would not matter.
The Soviet system was not geared for change, for career-switching. It was always and everywhere a one-way maze of choices leading to mostly dead-ends. The great socialist engine of the State funneled its citizens irresistibly through that maze, providing the ever-onward peristaltic impetus—through man-dated levels of education, housing and employment, with diminishing downstream choices—but there was no system for backtracking to a main branch, or even lateral switching from one tributary to another.
And Taras’ course through that maze had been pretty well ordained since the age of fourteen, when Oleg and Dima had proudly enrolled him in the DOSAFF, a civilian support group for future military recruits. If the local draft board, the voyenkomat, had certified the young Arensky as a superior physical specimen—suitable for the elite KGB Kremlin guard or security forces, or the GRU Special Forces—then he would already have been directed there.
But this had not occurred. At age fifteen Taras, perhaps slightly tardy in reaching his full physical growth, had gone instead—with his uncle’s considerable connivance—into Moscow’s Suvorov Military Academy, a direct career path for future commanders. Two years later, as one of the top cadets in his class, he had moved on to his present four-year officers’ training academy in a forest outside Moscow.
Now, with a little more than two years remaining till he received his commission, was Cadet Arensky, on an afternoon’s whim, ready to scrap the whole business and tell the Soviet military apparatus that he should be reclassified forthwith? Well, such an anarchic thing could not happen! A son might well defy his father’s wishes, but Oleg imagined Tarushka would have rather a more difficult time with the academy commandant, Lieutenant General Gennadiy Buslakov!
Beyond that, even were permission given for Taras to volunteer, Oleg knew that the Spetsnaz, like all Soviet elite forces, ran incredibly tough selection courses. Few made the grade. And Oleg had heard the rumors that most who did were either Olympic-caliber athletes, genetic supermen, or total criminal degenerates, prized for their ruthlessness. But certainly not good souls, like his boy.
At least these were the consoling thoughts that had enabled Oleg Arensky to smile at his bullheaded son—who so foolishly imagined he had bested his old man!—and let himself succumb, with some sense of decorum, to alcoholic stupor.
Oleg knew ultimately he would be proven right.
And that was precisely what Taras discovered. To a man, his faculty advisers told him to forget the entire matter. All he would get for his trouble, one said, were unfavorable notations on his record. Another professor, a myopic martinet who still taught Prussian cavalry tactics and quoted Frederick the Great, even denied the existence of any peacetime commando force. Was Cadet Arensky perhaps thinking of the sappers and partisans who had operated so effectively behind German lines in the Great Patriotic War?
The only positive suggestion came, surprisingly, from one of the school’s ideological instructors, who suggested Taras ask the secretary of his Komsomol cell to submit a letter of recommendation to the GRU, the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet General Staff, which was responsible for special operations forces. Taras thanked him politely.
But most of those he consulted were factually pessimistic, very much as Oleg had predicted. It was useless to make such an application now. Taras should have been earmarked for special forces before conscription. Oh, occasionally members of regular military units were creamed off during basic training, he was told, but never plucked from officer training academies. He should buckle down to his studies and forget all this Spetsnaz nonsense.
Instead, Taras came up with the idea of locating a Spetsnaz officer and approaching him directly. But his only link was Marcus, who had gone off to Odessa without leaving his new military address. So Taras turned to the academy library, but his researches yielded no published roster of officers. He did find the official biography of Rodion Igorovich Marchenko, the major general who had invited Marcus into Spetsnaz, but among the many illustrious citations there were no mentions of special forces or a present command. The GRU obviously had no desire to publicize the strength, deployment, organization or very existence of their special forces.
Spetsnaz brigades were contained within each military district, Taras had heard, but usually concealed among airborne or air-assault troops, adopting the uniforms and designations of those units. They also assumed special names depending on the regions in which they operated. For instance, Spetsnaz in the Siberian Military District might go by the name of okhotniki, hunters, yet call themselves reydoviki, raiders, in the GFSG, the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.
Finally Taras turned to Uncle Dima. And as in the case of his nephew’s impassioned pleadings the previous year for special leave to visit his fiancee in Siberia, the Defense Ministry apparatchik eventually gave in. A gruff “I’ll see what I can do” was all Taras got, but from Dima that was usually enough, and so it proved. A week later his uncle phoned him to report the following Saturday morning at eight sharp to the GRU officers training building on Peoples’ Militia Street near the Mnevniki Bend of the Moscow River. Taras was to be in uniform and ask for Major Kornelyuk.
Recalling Marcus’ interview with Marchenko, Taras worked an extra hour perfecting his military appearance and went to the appointment with soaring expectations. Alas, these were brought crashing down in five deadly minutes with a bullet-domed, inhospitable officer who sat with clasped hands and tight lips under twin portraits—of Lenin, of course, and a smaller one of a Marshal Viktor Kondratevich Kharchenko, who, Taras had heard, was considered the father of modern Spetsnaz. The major asked only two or three perfunctory questions, waited out each of Taras’ answers without giving a flicker of acknowledgment, then announced there were no openings.
“Comrade Major, may I inquire if my answers were unsatisfactory, and if so, in what way?”
“Your answers were perfectly fine. I can only repeat, we are not accepting applications.” To emphasize the point, the major closed the folder before him—presumably Taras’—and placed it in his out basket. “Now, I’m afraid I have a rather busy schedule this morning.”
Taras, hat under arm, paused before turning to go. “Sir, may I also ask why you agreed to see me?”
“I was ordered to do so. I’m sorry. Your ambition is laudable, but in the future I suggest you keep it in strict harness to the curriculum of your fine academy. Good day, Cadet Arensky.”
Taras left, deciding that if Major Kornelyuk was a typical Spetsnaz officer, he wanted no part of that organization. In any case, the young man was finally ready to abandon pursuit of the dream.
The dream, however, had not quite finished pursuing him.
For the following year it came true by accident—or, more accurately, because of a perfectly executed balestra, a fencing maneuver. Taras had taken up the sport at the Suvorov Academy at fifteen, doing well enough with foil and épée, but finding the saber, with its more athletic cut-and-thrust techniques, considerably more to his liking. By the time he had moved on to the Supreme Soviet Military Academy two y
ears later, his skill with this highly flexible, edged weapon was such that he was given permission to practice in Moscow on weekends and during leave at the Central Army Sports Club (ZSKA) complex on Leningrad Prospekt.
One afternoon in the autumn of 1979 a group of fencers from the rival KGB club, Dinamo, dropped by the competition hall for some extramural competition. Taras won several bouts, and rather easily. He was approached afterward by one of ZSKA’s senior sabermen, a very tall fellow with a long face and elegant, Leninesque mustache and goatee, who asked if he would mind one more duel.
Taras agreed, and found himself pressed very hard by the much more experienced swordsman. Still, by sheer speed of reflexes, Arensky hung on, only a touch behind; then, on a stop cut that could have been judged either way, he drew even at four all. With the shout to resume play, Taras sprang into the balestra—a forward hop followed by an immediate lunge—and scored again. He was now a point ahead. His older opponent attacked furiously during the final minute, pushing Taras back to the end line, but was unable to score a hit.
When Taras was declared the winner at five-four, the other man unhelmeted and, with the sweat pouring off his face, drew Taras aside to the Pepsi machine. “Damn good fencing,” he said, grinning as if genuinely delighted by the outcome.
“Thanks. I was pretty lucky.”
“Perhaps a little. Do you know who I am?”
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t get here very often.”
“My name is Dokuchayev.”
“Taras Arensky. I’m still sorry. I should know but—”
“Ossip Dokuchayev.”
A bell rang, faintly. The Olympics? Had Dokuchayev perhaps been a member of the Soviet fencing team at Montreal? Taras inquired.
“Yes, I was. But what is much more to the point, I am also a candidate for next summer’s Moscow Games. Only you, my little student, just might keep me off our team.”
Taras shook his head and smiled. “I’m not that good.”
“You damn well better be—if you beat me!” Dokuchayev knew talent when he saw it. He had, he explained, these past few weeks been scouring the city’s sporting clubs—ZSKA, Trud (Trudoviye reservy), Spartak, Burevestnik, even Dinamo—for promising fencers, specifically sabermen.
“In fact, I was pretty enthusiastic about a couple of those Dinamo guys, until you cleaned their clocks.”
“I guess we Army lads have to stick together. Who wants a KGB champion? Spetsnaz, sure, but not Committeemen.”
“Why do you mention Spetsnaz?”
“Well, it happens I know someone who just joined, or got selected. A good friend. And everyone has heard that some of the best ZSKA athletes are actually special forces officers. But you never know which ones.”
“The best ones are,” Dokuchayev said. “And you could be one of them. Why are you laughing?”
“Because it’s funny, that’s why. Last year I tried every way I could think of to get into Spetsnaz, or even apply, and I was told to stop making a nuisance of myself.”
“Whom did you talk to?”
“Major Kornelyuk.”
“Who’s he? Never heard of him.”
“Some officer over on Peoples Militia Street. He gave me two minutes, then told me to forget the whole thing.”
“Govnyuk! You were sticking it up the wrong hole, that’s all. Believe me, Taras, I can get you an appointment with somebody much higher than that.”
“Who?”
“Me. I’m a lieutenant colonel in Spetsnaz. And last time I checked, that outranked a major. You want to talk, go ahead, I’m listening.”
“This is a joke—sir?”
“Forget the ‘sir,’ since you just whipped my ass. And no joke, Taras. Do you still want to join Spetsnaz?”
“Sure I do, unless everybody’s like that major.”
“Forget that prick-twister. If you want in, you’re in. It’ll take a couple weeks to clear away all the mudistika—bureaucratic bullshit—between the sports club and your school, but I’ll start shoveling the manure tomorrow. And before those two weeks are past, I promise, you’ll be training here full time.”
Taras shook his head in disbelief. “How can you do this? Nothing moves that fast.”
“Hey, where have you been all your life? The Olympics are coming, my young friend, maybe you heard of them? The biggest invasion of Moscow since the Wehrmacht or Napoleon’s Grande Armée? Comrade Brezhnev is spending a billion and a half rubles on construction in Moscow alone. You’ve seen the Olympic Village they’re building off Vernadsky Prospekt.” It was hard to miss—eighteen high-rise housing blocks sprawling over nearly three hundred acres of southwest Moscow. “I understand they’re already in a panic down there. They’ve got army battalions and Komsomol ‘volunteers’ working around the clock just to be ready by next July.”
The fencing competition would be held right at the ZSKA complex, Dokuchayev went on, at a five-thousand-seat hall under current renovation. “You’re good enough to be there, Taras. And with the right training, you could not only make the team. You could medal.”
“What am I supposed to say?” Taras had always known he had talent, but knew as well he would never have the time or proper coaching to develop his potential. Now he was being told it could all be arranged—in time for next summer’s Olympics!
“What you say, my little idiot, is yes!”
And so he did.
Lieutenant Colonel Dokuchayev was true to his word. Within two weeks Cadet Arensky of the Supreme Soviet Military Academy had become Sergeant Arensky of the Central Army Sports Club, with a full sergeant’s pay and special allowances for sports clothing, equipment and diet.
And Oleg performed his own stunning about-face. Far from being upset at this peremptory and unauthorized career change, his father couldn’t have been more proud. He spent a good deal of his daily shift on the factory floor keeping his workers apprised of the latest developments in his son’s life, even telephoned members of his wife’s family he hadn’t spoken to in years. As more than one captive listener was told, the demands of fatherhood had kept him from fulfilling his own potential as a football midfielder. So it was only fitting that the Arensky prowess would shine through in his boy. And who knew what glories lay ahead? An Olympic medal—even gold—was not out of the question. Sportsmen were, after all, national heroes, like cosmonauts.
The older Arensky even spruced up his son’s old room and offered to let him move back in, for a nominal rent. But young Sergeant Arensky was now billeted with two other ZSKA fencers—both lured away by Dokuchayev from other local clubs—in a four-room flat in a refurbished pre-Revolutionary building just off Leningrad Prospekt near the Aeroflot Hotel. He was given full access to all the ZSKA facilities, including trainer, sports medicine clinic and fitness coaches, plus entrée into the master classes of Dokuchayev’s own teacher, the Hungarian Takacs, twice world champion.
Also as promised, Taras was made a member of the Spetsnaz. But, Dokuchayev stressed, he was to divulge this to no one—not even his roommates, neither of whom had been accorded the same distinction. And in practice, the Spetsnaz connection meant little, for Sergeant Arensky’s military training was, for the time being, almost nonexistent, so as not to interfere with an intensive athletic regimen. A third of his day was spent on overall conditioning—increasing stamina, speed, strength and flexibility, by squatting, stair-climbing, sprinting, jogging backward, stretching, and high-repetition abdominal exercises; another third was devoted to specific fencing movments—barbell lunges, endless blade and footwork drills; and the final third was actual combat practice.
Only three times in the first two months was he spirited away for weekend Spetsnaz training, at a GRU complex near the village of Sezhodnya twenty-five miles northwest of Moscow. And this was not intensive—some paramilitary sports (competitive shooting and martial arts), topography, radio communications and, most of all, language work. For Taras was expected to perfect a foreign language—he chose English—as rapidly as possible to
colloquial level. After one year he would receive his commission as a lieutenant—or higher, depending on his placement in the Olympics and subsequent international competition.
He was, it turned out, in a special branch of Spetsnaz constituted entirely of professional sportsmen (though, for the purposes of international athletic competition, they were all considered “amateurs”). There were two other parts of Spetsnaz: networks of intelligence agents and actual fighting units—the elite cadre which Marcus had joined and in which Taras imagined him by now totally immersed. But Taras did not really know; he had heard nothing from his friend in nearly ten months.
The Cowboy’s last letter had been from Odessa, just before he was set to leave for jump school in Ryazan, a hundred and seventy-five kilometers southeast of Moscow on the Oka River. Taras could only hope Marcus was still alive; for Taras had heard from his military instructors that Spetsnaz combat training was the most rigorous in the world, involving such character-building stunts as swimming icy rivers and parachuting onto mountaintops or into craters.
But if anyone could survive such gung-ho fanaticism, even thrive on it, surely Marcus Jolly was the man. Probably he was just too swamped with Ryazan’s superhuman curriculum—and actual combat exercises—to put pen to paper. Certainly there was no point in worrying about the intrepid American, or in envying him. Besides, Taras was totally immersed in his own regimen—and Olympic dream.
And he was making substantial progress. There was no question about his ability to hold his own with his teammates, and he was winning more and more matches. His most dramatic improvement had been in the crucial area of tactics—in feeling out, and then deceiving, his opponent; in staying always a move ahead in the constant mental chess of competition; in varying his foot- and handwork patterns, his tempo and rhythm and attack combinations. In the process he had become tremendously fit. As hard as Spetsnaz officers pushed their combat units, it was difficult to imagine them equaling the standards of Olympic fitness reached by Taras and his clubmates.