“It’s not true,” the man said in simple honesty and looked strangely at his NKVD antagonist.
Offended, Grisha could see that the man was not the least bit intimidated.
“How can you expect me to believe that?” He twisted his face into a pained expression.
The prisoner began to answer, then hesitated, as if he thought better of it.
“Tell me,” Grisha coaxed with a certain gruff sincerity. “We’re here to tell the truth.”
“For the last week you have been accusing me of Menshevik wrecking through Bukharinist counterrevolutionary circles,” the man said with no emotion.
Shamed at his lack of revolutionary vigilance and enraged by the prisoner’s lack of fear, Grisha screamed, “I’ll squeeze your balls until you piss blood! You’ll sign whatever the charge is. And if the charge changes, you’ll sign again. You think it makes a difference. You’ll sign that your mother was a garbage truck. And it will be true, too!”
Grisha’s head was reeling. He had never talked this way. This was the new way, the way his younger colleagues spoke, all vulgar bluster. Ashamed of indulging in such a primitive outburst, and embarrassed—the organs never made a mistake—Grisha wanted to get rid of the prisoner immediately. He rang for the guard to remove him.
While waiting, he took his pen and entered a few meaningless remarks in the file about “double-dealing as a means of wrecking the truth.” He didn’t want to look at the prisoner until the guard arrived. Grisha wasn’t afraid of revealing his own fear, but he was unnerved by the absence of any in the prisoner. The man should have experienced a terrible, debilitating fear that would reduce him to putty in the interrogator’s hands, to be molded for the good of the state. Why wasn’t he afraid? After all, Grisha really could squeeze his balls until he pissed blood. There were investigators in the building who beat prisoners on the base of their spines until they were crippled, and in some cases without the subtle pretense of serial blows. They simply snapped men’s spines. Grisha’s vulgar, demeaning threat might have been proved idle, but how could the prisoner, whatever his name was, know that? Grisha felt the shadow of his immediate superior Colonel Nikolai Svetkov hovering over him. Only Svetkov’s informer would have nothing to fear. If Grisha popped this old Menshevik into a punishment cell for a week, he might look at things a little differently, but to do so would be admitting his own failure.
Grisha felt weak and vulnerable, which was the best reason not to put this what’s-his-name into solitary. If he were in the hold, Grisha would be freed for another insulting assignment. Heaven only knew what Svetkov would come up with next time. In 1936, where in the world had he found a Menshevik? Grisha was probably better off with the case he had, embarrassing as it was. In the early twenties the Mensheviks had been jailed, and by the early thirties most had been exterminated. How could Svetkov swirl in from Kiev to Moscow and find a Menshevik to investigate?
Svetkov’s handing the assignment to a colonel was a clear insult. “This calls for the tested eye of an old Chekist,” Svetkov had announced with his usual burst of energy. It wasn’t clear, however, who was testing whom. And as Grisha heard the guard approaching, he had an overwhelming desire not to be found wanting. Contradicting all his previous thoughts, he had what seemed to be a brilliant solution: he would send the leftover prisoner to a punishment cell for insulting Soviet justice. Yes, in a feverish rush he decided that was the certain way to save himself. It would demonstrate his loyalty, his courage, and the correctness of his beliefs. But another voice screamed that it would leave him naked, exposed to Svetkov’s machinations and charges of incompetence. Svetkov would suggest that he had failed by not eliciting a confession from what’s-his-name and by wasting a punishment cell that was needed for really dangerous elements. And if Svetkov could find a Menshevik with whom to torture him, what else might he find?
A knock on the door, and two guards entered. Grisha was swept by a wave of terror as the carousel whirled around. So they had come for him, too. Would his last ride be an elevator descent to the basement or a sedan drive to some NKVD woods outside the capital? As his mind split, falling into the basement and flitting to the outskirts of Moscow, his eyes fell onto the ugly, scratched surface of the blocky desk, and the filthy top suddenly fascinated him, with its myriad scratches, abrasions, and dirt; it was altogether unique and worth a lifetime of study. A lifetime he no longer possessed.
While Grisha studied the desk, one guard escorted the Menshevik from the office. The other stepped forward and cleared his throat. Reluctantly, Grisha looked up to discover that his jailer was Yuri, a plodding, dull-witted man whom he had gotten to know well over the past years. He lacked all personal spite, and Grisha looked at him in resignation.
“Colonel Svetkov would like to see you in his office now,” Yuri announced.
“Why didn’t he telephone?” Grisha asked suspiciously.
Yuri shrugged uncomfortably. It wasn’t his job to guess why the new director of investigations did things the way he did. His job was to lock and unlock cells. He shrugged again.
“Who asked you to call me?” Grisha asked.
“The colonel himself,” the guard answered.
“Where were you?” Grisha covered his embarrassment with a strong aggressive tone. No longer servile, he fixed his strong gaze on the jailer.
“In his office,” the man replied, his discomfort steadily increasing.
“Good, Sergeant, things are working well. The party is doing its job!” Grisha announced with revolutionary bravado.
“Yes, Comrade Colonel,” the guard replied with a serious enthusiasm that erased all signs of unease.
Grisha nodded, dismissing him. Comforted by the familiar dogma, Yuri left.
Grisha did not share the dullard’s sense of well-being. What did Svetkov want, and why hadn’t he used the telephone? Grisha didn’t like it. Since he had arrived from Kiev two months ago, Svetkov had been working to isolate Grisha and discredit him. Take this Menshevik, this what’s-his-name—and Grisha felt a pang of conscience. An NKVD investigator who spent five nights interrogating a socially hostile element and couldn’t remember a name, or even the action of the enemy, discredited himself and should be isolated.
Colonel Shwartzman leaned forward and checked the front of the folder: Sergei Gasparov. Grisha quietly stared at the unfamiliar name. What was it?—a name on a folder in the Lubyanka, a paper tombstone. Grisha shook his head. A Menshevik. Who would have imagined such a thing these days? Realizing that the Mensheviks lacked all understanding of historical necessity and were bourgeois to the core, Lenin himself had begun to root them out. How could Grisha expect to remember a Menshevik? But Grisha couldn’t forget Sergei Gasparov’s eyes; they revealed no fear. A Menshevik buried alive. How could he not be afraid? His absence made Grisha uncomfortable—he no longer had an insurance policy. He picked up the folder and stood up. His superior, Nikolai Svetkov, wanted to see him.
CHAPTER TWO
NIKOLAI SVETKOV’S UNCOUTH, BESTIAL ENERGY FLOWED out through the open office door. Grisha could hear the animated, shouting voice and sensed the appearance of the speaker. Ruddy, thick Russian features crowded onto an insufficient expanse of face. Unkempt, his rumpled tunic would be hanging like a shaggy coat. He often draped it over his chair to reveal a smudged shirt badly in need of a wash; his shirttails, like dark, dirty rain clouds, ballooned out of pants inevitably in need of pressing. Had Grisha learned that Svetkov, like the prisoners, slept in his clothes, he would not have been surprised.
The similarity to prisoners did not end there. Although both dreamed prolifically, good and bad dreams, Svetkov’s were the prisoners’ nightmares, whereas the prisoners’ dreams were the chief investigator’s nightmares. Indulging his rapaciousness, Svetkov seemed to thrive on the dark intimacy of his relationship to the prisoners. He always looked happy and prosperously well fed. There was a softness to his pink flesh, but Grisha didn’t doubt the strength in the sturdy frame. Indeed, the apparent sof
tness gave the false impression of greater bulk. The boorish, joking selfaggrandizement disguised an untrained but clever, perceptive mind. Like Stalin himself, Svetkov was most dangerous when he was most clownish, as if his laughter unleashed within him something terrible and capricious.
For all his fear of the speaker, Grisha wasn’t listening to the bullying voice inside the office. He had been surprised to find a new secretary. The young, uniformed female officer invited Grisha to enter with a curt nod. Her hair was cut so short that it barely moved when she flipped her head. Although she hadn’t been there the day before, she seemed to know who he was and acted with an arrogant confidence that Grisha envied. Yes, that’s how it should be done! That’s how he, too, had done it once—when he and the revolution were both young and glorious. But Chekist women had never been this mannish. Certainly not Maya Kirsanova; for all her severity and dedication, a few long blond hairs had always escaped the discipline of the tightly tied bun. Grisha found nothing astray on the new secretary. Nodding vigorously for him to enter the office, she seemed oddly sexless. Grisha straightened up, smoothed his neat tunic, and stepped into the large, impressive chamber.
Occupied with the telephone, Svetkov waved him gleefully inside, inviting him with a conspiratorial wink to appreciate his performance. Although he was grinning broadly, his voice was harsh and threatening when he spoke into the telephone.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find a train, because if you don’t, we’ll have to march them over and dispose of them in your office. You leave us no choice!”
He paused while the party on the other end trembled in terror.
“I know you understand!” Svetkov bullied. He hung up the phone, turning to his live audience for approval.
On the couch sat Pechko, a junior lieutenant, who chuckled out loud at his commander’s wit. One of the new men, Pechko had been introduced shortly before Svetkov’s arrival. Grisha wanted to join in the laughter, but he felt too weary and too fearful that he might be among those marched off for disposal. Realizing that he couldn’t ignore the joke without offending Svetkov, Grisha nodded wearily in agreement. “Yes, you won’t find a larger office in Moscow than the stationmaster’s.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Grisha saw Pechko slyly examining Svetkov for the proper response. No sooner did the NKVD chief of investigations beam his approval and begin to guffaw than Pechko nodded vigorously and returned to chuckling. Grisha felt as if he were among idiots—rather boorish ones, too. But instantly Svetkov turned completely serious and motioned him to be seated. The man could switch gears with lightning speed. It made him all the more dangerous. Grisha took a seat in one of the frayed, overstuffed leather armchairs in front of the massive desk, which had once insured an empire. Like a drunk encountering a policeman, Pechko was trying to regain his sobriety; his unsuccessful attempts made him all the more ludicrous. Grisha focused on Svetkov.
“Pechko needs some information for his investigation,” Svetkov was saying.
Grisha nodded agreeably. This was how the service was supposed to function. He pivoted slightly to face the junior lieutenant, who was seated on the large couch off to the side.
“What do you know about the Jewish New Year?” Pechko asked.
It was such a surprising question that Grisha wasn’t sure he had understood correctly. In fact, he was certain that he had not. He stared in dull amazement at his questioner.
“The Jewish New Year,” Pechko muttered with slight embarrassment.
“The Jewish New Year?” Grisha repeated, wondering why Pechko should be mentioning such a thing in the office of the director of investigations.
“Yes.” Pechko nodded, a touch too aggressively.
“What about it?” Grisha asked.
“That’s what I want to know,” Pechko agreed.
“Why?” Grisha asked, befuddled and anxious.
“Why do you think! Because he has an investigation with a fanatic Jew!” Svetkov burst impatiently into their conversation.
Welcoming the interjection, Pechko nodded vigorously.
Grisha, too, had been recalled to his senses.
“Major Feldman handles religion. He’s very knowledgeable,” he informed them.
“Yes, we know, but we’re asking you,” Svetkov said bluntly.
Grisha knew that he must not give in to an investigator. The first reasonable admission always opened a floodgate of demands and accusations. “Why?” he responded with equal bluntness.
“Because Feldman’s not here, and you are,” Svetkov replied.
“Where is he?”
“Major Feldman can’t be everywhere. That’s why all of us are here to help him,” Svetkov announced sarcastically, with a shrug of disbelief at Grisha’s unreasonable hostility.
Grisha sensed that he was making a fool of himself by standing on ceremony.
“What do you want to know?” he asked defensively, knowing that the game was already lost. You couldn’t begin to cooperate and stop when you wanted to stop.
“Good,” Svetkov said buoyantly, his overlarge mouth curving into a buffoonish grin. “After all, we’re here to tell the truth,” he laughed, burlesquing the NKVD line fed to all prisoners until they agreed to absolute untruths.
Pechko laughed dutifully, but Grisha did not. It was all he could do to keep from wincing. Svetkov glanced at Pechko, who quietly controlled himself.
“I have an old-fashioned Jew, a long coat and beard. Primarily a British spy, but he also committed economic sabotage. He’s shaky, and I want the names of the other bloodsucking profiteers. Is there any way I can use the Jewish holy day to get him to tell the truth?”
“I don’t really see what we could do in the Lubyanka,” Grisha answered thoughtfully. After all, the Lubyanka was not a synagogue, was it?
“What do these Jews do on their New Year?” Svetkov asked directly.
No, Grisha didn’t like it, but he began to concentrate on Rosh Hashanah for the first time in many years. “It’s the beginning of the New Year. It’s the day of judgment for the coming year. In the synagogue they pray, and at home they dip bread and apples into honey for a sweet year. It’s a holiday, but a serious one,” Grisha concluded with a certain vagueness concerning events deeply buried under the weight of decades. He felt that he was omitting something important, but couldn’t imagine what that might be.
“What about special wine? Do they use a special wine?” Pechko asked.
“No, I don’t think they do. They use the wine they always do,” Grisha answered.
“What wine is that?”
“Jewish wine. They make it themselves. I suppose it is special to them, if that’s what you mean, but it’s the same wine they use all year for religious blessings.”
“What do you think of Pechko letting the prisoner have some in his office to celebrate the New Year?” Svetkov proposed.
“To create dependence and the belief that I really do want to help him,” Pechko encouraged by way of explanation.
Grisha couldn’t help raising his eyebrows in puritanical disapproval.
“You don’t think it’s a good idea?” Svetkov asked.
“Who needs bourgeois superstition? We have our own Bolshevik methods, and they have been proven effective,” he answered forcefully.
Pechko glanced at Svetkov; both looked slightly disappointed.
“I suppose so,” Svetkov said.
“I’ll continue then with the usual method tonight?” Pechko asked his superior.
“Did you know that tonight is the Jewish New Year?” Svetkov asked Grisha.
In spite of Svetkov’s barbed question, Grisha merely shook his head. There was something special about Rosh Hashanah that he was forgetting. “Oh,” he announced, like a schoolboy recalling the right answer, “they blow a ram’s horn.”
“Why do they do that?” Svetkov asked curiously.
“They think it helps them to become better people.”
“Does it?” Svetkov asked seriously.
&nbs
p; “How should I know?” Grisha snapped.
“Your father might have told you,” Svetkov suggested casually.
“My father died when I was an infant.”
“Maybe your father-in-law, the grand rabbi in America, might have told you, or his daughter, Rachel Leah, your dear wife, might have mentioned it this morning,” Svetkov speculated.
Grisha was surprised that this insult wasn’t delivered with Svetkov’s usual obscene smile.
“If anyone did, I don’t remember,” he responded.
“Some things are best forgotten,” Svetkov said sympathetically.
Grisha squirmed uncomfortably before this new, considerate Svetkov.
“What should I do with the wine?” Pechko asked petulantly, now that he wasn’t permitted to serve it to his prisoner.
An extraordinary grin wreathed Svetkov’s face. “Give it to me. Tonight is the Jewish New Year. I’ll know what to do with it.” He laughed.
Pechko, slightly confused, was trying to laugh when Svetkov’s face contracted. “That’s enough of this nonsense, Pechko. Get back to work. Colonel Shwartzman and I have some serious matters to discuss.”
Under Svetkov’s disapproving gaze Pechko aborted his laugh with two deep choking breaths and rose to leave. Beneath the chandelier he bowed awkwardly toward his superiors and, breathing unevenly, marched self-consciously out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Turning to Grisha, Svetkov remained serious, but softened his expression as if he were dealing with a respected comrade. “Colonel, forget that silliness. A simple problem needed a simple solution. I called you in for something really very important.” Svetkov paused, as if searching for the right words. “Some cases are so delicate”—the word seemed to discomfort him—“that only the most senior investigators can be trusted with them. It’s no secret that no one here has had your experience defending the revolution. We are relying on you to make use of that formidable experience. This is a case that demands an old Chekist. Unfortunately, we have only one left.” Svetkov delivered his charge and sat back with evident relief.
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