Stalin's Ghost

by Martin Cruz Smith

  At the Lenin Library station the officer of the Frontier Guard got off and vomited in his cap. The station conductor, a stout woman in a Metro uniform, made sure he didn’t spill a drop on her platform. Eight passengers boarded, intellectuals by the thinness of their coats. One attended to his comb-over and vaguely acknowledged Platonov.

  Platonov spoke over the rush of the train. “A so-called chess master, but really just a wood pusher. Oslo, 1978, he resigned against me in eleven moves. Eleven! As if he had sudden indigestion instead of a bishop shoved down his throat and a rook shoved up his ass.”

  “Do you make many enemies?”

  “Chess is war. Zhenya understands that.” Platonov puffed up a little. “I’m playing the winner of a local tournament match on Friday. That fraud across the aisle pretends he’ll show up. He won’t.”

  At the Okhotny Row station two babushkas from the night before joined the car, bringing with them the scent of boiled cabbage to vie with Platonov’s cologne. The prostitutes briefly flirted with Arkady before deciding that he was a cold engine. Three were in the death grip of tight Italian skirts. The apparent leader, a redhead in snakeskin pants, seemed to listen to private music without the aid of an iPod. The others gasped when the lights of the car flickered and sparks shot up between the tunnel and the train. This was the oldest section of the entire system. Rails were worn. Insulation frayed. Blue imps danced around the switches.

  Platonov asked, “Do you know the sad thing?”

  “What is the sad thing?”

  “That Stalin was able to enjoy the Metro as a passenger once only. On that occasion he was so loved by the public he was mobbed and the security forces never let him do it again. To think, we’re riding where he rode.”

  The train approached the stop for Lubyanka, the legendary factory of woe, where men were beaten like metal into more useful shapes: collaborators, confessors, victims eager to accuse themselves. They were delivered by car or, in Stalin’s day, what seemed an innocent baker’s van, but never via the Metro.

  Next station, Chistye Prudy. In spite of his skepticism, Platonov removed his cap and made other small adjustments to appear presentable, and Arkady noticed a general stir among the riders: coughs, straightened backs, attention to shoes. Medals suddenly appeared. Antipenko wore the gold star of a Hero of Labor. The babushkas were Heroine Mothers. Zelensky let his earbuds drop around his neck. The violinist dog-eared a page and slipped the book into his violin case. At a depth of seventy meters the train descended further and its breath grew cooler.

  The door to the next carriage opened and a man in a warm-up suit entered with a boy and girl in parkas. The man had broad shoulders and a heavy brow, but his physical menace was undercut by his stumbling from pole to pole as he followed the children. They were about ten years old, with blue eyes and golden hair that could have come right out of an artist’s tube of paint. The girl held roses wrapped in cellophane. Zelensky took charge of her and the boy and marched them through the carriage to Arkady.

  “What a coincidence. I said to myself that looks like Investigator Renko over there, and it is. Two nights in a row, is that coincidence or fate? Which is it?”

  “So far, just a ride on the Metro.”

  “We’re going to be on television,” said the girl. She raised the flowers for Arkady. “Smell.”

  “Very nice. Who is the posy for?”

  “You’ll see,” Zelensky said. “Okay, kiddies, go back to Bora. Uncle Vlad has to talk.”

  Zelensky rocked like a sailor to the motion of the train while the boy and girl returned.

  “Is Bora a filmmaker, too?” Arkady asked.

  “Bora is protection.”

  “You must need protection pretty badly.”

  “Don’t underestimate Bora. Bora is a pit bull. But what are you doing here?” Zelensky grinned with bewilderment. “According to the television, you said there was no investigation, that no one saw Stalin. You changed your mind?”

  “I thought it over and decided that maybe there was a chance that Stalin had been in hibernation for fifty years.”

  Zelensky noticed Platonov’s interest in the conversation. “Getting nosy?”

  “No.” Platonov shook his head vigorously.

  Arkady asked, “Is this the first time on the Metro for Bora? He looks a little lost.”

  “He’s new to Moscow, but he’ll catch on. He’s a handy man to have around.”

  “For crossword puzzles?”

  “Things are changing. I’ve had a bad patch, but I’m coming out of it. I admit I did some adult films. To you that might make me a pornographer.”

  “That would do it.”

  “That’s because you’re concentrating on me. What’s important, the messenger or the message?”

  “What’s the message?”

  “You’ve no idea what you’re getting into.”

  “Will there be special effects?”

  “We don’t need special effects. We have the secret.”

  “Share it with me.”

  “You’ll see what you’ll see.”

  Zelensky let his smile hang in the air and returned to his seat. As the train slowed, passengers seated on the left side of the aisle migrated to the right. Instead of displaying the usual subway torpor they were increasingly excited, as if they were in a theater and the curtain about to rise.

  Platonov cleared his throat. “Renko, I apologize for not backing you up a minute ago.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re a chess player, not a policeman.”

  The train went black and from black to yellow.

  “Stalin!”

  “It’s him.”

  “Stalin!”

  Full lights returned as the doors opened. All Arkady saw was an empty platform and marble columns. Platonov rose from his seat, drawn to the open door. The violinist had exchanged his book for a mini video camera and was taping the scene. Arkady recognized the camera because the prosecutor’s office had one similar.

  Arkady followed Platonov onto the platform. “Did you see anything?”

  “I…don’t know,” Platonov said.

  Everyone filed out of the carriage and their numbers grew as curiosity attracted passengers disembarking from forward cars, some with vodka-sloppy steps, bottles tucked inside their coats. Where there had been fifteen people, fifty milled about. The doors closed and the train pulled away. Shorter people on the platform were tiptoe with excitement. Arkady saw no one carrying anything big enough to manufacture special effects, like a strobe light and battery. He also did not see any platform conductors, although they generally allowed no lingering from the last train. Every Metro station had a militia post at street level, but Arkady didn’t feel he had time to go up the escalator, wake the officer on duty and tell him…what?

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Arkady asked Platonov.

  “I…don’t know.”

  Arkady turned to a babushka who looked as sweet as the Virgin’s mother and asked if she saw anything.

  “I saw Stalin as plain as day. He asked me to get him a bowl of hot soup.”

  Two men in fur hats and parkas hung back on the platform. They hadn’t been on the train or boarded it. They weren’t Russian. In winter Russians in general just added another layer of clothing, Arkady thought. It was Americans who wore parkas as round and bright as hot-air balloons.

  “Friends, fellow Russians, brothers and sisters,” Zelensky said. “Please give us room.” He indicated how much platform space he needed and where his cameraman should stand, acting the role of a director very much in charge, moving slowly to intensify the moment. From his duffel bag he took a framed photograph of Stalin that he set against the base of a platform pillar. Bora relieved the children of parkas to show off their embroidered peasant shirts. Zelensky dug into his bag again and came out with a spindly votive candle and a candleholder he placed in the boy’s hands. While Bora lit the candle, Zelensky looked toward the men in parkas. The shorter one pantomimed hold
ing something. Zelensky arranged the flowers in the girl’s hands. The cameraman went on taping. From the flesh trade to Stalin’s ghost, it was all the same to Zelensky, Arkady thought, but Zelensky was not even directing, he was taking his cues from the American. The children made a short procession and placed the candle and flowers before the photo. Stalin wore a white uniform in the picture. His vigorous mustache and hair were unmistakable, and the shifting flames of the candles brought his eyes to life.

  In singsong, the children chirped, “Dear Comrade Stalin, thank you for making the Soviet Union a mighty nation respected by the world. Thank you for defeating the Fascist invaders and imperialist aggression. Thank you for making the world safe for its children. We will never forget.”

  The American pointed and Zelensky beckoned Mrs. Astrakhan Cap closer to the photo. She daubed her tears with her shawl.

  “What did you see, Grandmother?” he asked.

  “A miracle. When my husband and I came into the station we saw our beloved Stalin surrounded by radiant light.”

  Other voices answered that they, too, had seen Stalin. It was contagious, despite their different versions.

  “He was writing at a desk!”

  “He was studying war plans!”

  “He was reading Tolstoy!”

  “Pushkin!” claimed another.

  “Marx!”

  The American drew circles with his finger. Speed it up.

  Zelensky addressed the camera. “We Patriots declare this Metro station sacred ground. We demand a memorial to the military genius who, from this very site, victoriously defended the motherland. How can any Russian government deny us that? Where is Russian pride?”

  The American lifted both hands.

  Zelensky held up a red-on-white T-shirt that said, “I am a Russian Patriot.” Bora began to circulate through the crowd to distribute similar shirts. An interesting group, Arkady thought: the elderly joined by the mildly curious, the seriously drunk, four cold prostitutes and American puppet masters.

  “‘I am a Russian Patriot,’” Zelensky read the shirt aloud. “If you are not a Russian Patriot, what are you?”

  The pensioners Mendeleyev and Antipenko each took a shirt. The American waved, and the camera found the photogenic Marfa Bourdenova. Until now the schoolgirl had hidden in the crowd like a dove on a bough. She looked likely, by the way she hung on Zelensky’s every word, to miss her curfew once again. Arkady felt a rush of anger at the filmmaker, at the willing believers and the make-believe shrine, because in Moscow this was enough to summon the past. The videotape might be even more effective for being clumsily staged and poorly lit, the sort of documentary that was the stuff of rumors. And all of it stage-managed by Americans. Arkady asked himself, what would Stalin do?

  Zelensky caught Arkady’s approach and began to rush his delivery.

  “Russian Patriots honor the past. We will return to the visionary and humanitarian—”

  Arkady walked behind Zelensky and kicked the candle and holder across the track. He took a step back and did the same with the flowers.

  “Are you crazy?” Zelensky said.

  Arkady held up his ID for all to see and announced, “Filming in the Metro is prohibited. Also this gathering is delaying the scheduled cleaning and maintenance of the Metro, putting the public safety at risk. It’s now over. Go home.”

  Zelensky said, “I don’t see any cleaning women or maintenance men.”

  “A schedule is a schedule.” Arkady picked up the Stalin photograph.

  “No!” A dozen voices protested.

  “Then we’ll trade.” Arkady shoved the photo into the cameraman’s free hand and relieved his other of the camera. Arkady popped out a mini cassette and slipped it into his coat.

  “That’s my property,” Zelensky said.

  “It’s evidence now,” Arkady announced and gave back the camera. He went into the crowd to grab Marfa Bourdenova by the wrist and started for the escalator. She screamed. Platonov padded alongside. Uncertainty froze everyone else except the two Americans. They had disappeared.

  Ahead, Bora set down the duffel bag. No longer on the rolling deck of a subway car, he seemed more sure-footed. Arkady headed straight at him.

  Zelensky shouted after, “We’ll just shoot a new tape tomorrow. We don’t even need to do it in Chistye Prudy Station. We’ll just say it’s Chistye Prudy.”

  “Each station is individual,” Platonov shouted back. “People will know.”

  “Please, don’t help,” Arkady said.

  Bora waited for a signal from Zelensky.

  “Let me go, you bastard!” Marfa Bourdenova tried hitting Arkady but he dragged her too fast for her to connect solidly.

  Bora reluctantly gave way. Once on the escalator, Arkady kept moving.

  Marfa shrieked for help.

  Arkady said, “I’ll let you go at the top. I know you’ll run back to him, only notice, he’s not going to wait for you at the bottom. He only wants the tape.”

  At the top of the escalator Arkady released her wrist and, as predicted, the girl bolted for the down escalator. Bora and the cameraman were already on their way up, two steps at a time.

  The night sparkled. Platonov wanted to search for a taxi, but Arkady struck out for the park behind the station.

  “Renko, we won’t find a taxi this way, that’s obvious.”

  “Then it’s also obvious to Zelensky. He’ll look here last.”

  “Shouldn’t we discuss this?” Platonov said.

  “No.”

  “I thought you were supposed to protect my life, not endanger it.”

  “If no one sees us, we’ll be fine.”

  The park was open space the length of a football field, slightly dished, a white sheet of snow edged by a blur of plane trees and wrought iron fences. The snow reflected the light of boulevards on either side, but there were no paths or lamps within the park and even side by side the two men looked to each other like shadows.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” Platonov asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Consider yourself fired, dismissed.”

  The footing was uneven, a surface of fine snow over icy sled tracks. As a kid, Arkady had sledded and skated in the park a hundred times.

  “Be careful.”

  “Don’t worry about my health. This is the man who asked me if I made enemies.”

  “If you have to talk, whisper.”

  “I’m not talking to you. Consider this conversation finished.” Platonov trudged in silence for a step or two. “Do you even know who the Russian Patriots are?”

  “They sound a lot like Communists.”

  “They sound like us, that’s the idea. The Kremlin brought in Americans. The Americans polled people and asked which political figure they most admired. The answer was Stalin. They asked why, and the answer was that Stalin was a Russian patriot. Then they asked people if they would vote for a party called Russian Patriot, which didn’t even exist. Fifty percent said they would. So the Kremlin put Russian Patriot on the ballot. Just on their name they’ll get votes. It’s a subversion of the democratic process.”

  “What if Stalin comes back from the dead and campaigns for them?”

  “That’s the outrageous part. Stalin belongs to us. Stalin belongs to the Party.”

  “Maybe you can copyright him, like Coca-Cola.”

  Platonov stopped to catch his breath. Arkady heard shouts and saw two figures on the snow fifty meters behind. The beam of a flashlight swung from side to side.

  “It’s Bora and the cameraman,” Arkady said.

  “I knew we should look for a car. Why did I listen to you?”

  Platonov started moving again, but at a slower, shambling pace.

  “How is your heart?” Arkady asked.

  “It’s a little late to be concerned about my health. Don’t you have a gun?”

  “No.”

  “You know the trouble with you, Renko? You’re a pantywaist. You’re too soft for your job. An inve
stigator should have a gun.”

  What they needed was wings, Arkady thought. Bora seemed to fly over the snow, correcting the false first impression of clumsiness.

  “Where are we going?” Platonov demanded. They had been headed down the middle of the park. Now Arkady turned toward the street.

  “Just stay with me.”

  “This makes no sense at all.”

  Bora had already halved the difference and far outstripped the cameraman and the reach of the flashlight. By the way he pumped his knees he might have been a professional athlete, Arkady thought. Arkady admired men in that sort of physical condition; he never seemed to find the time.

  Platonov took air in gasps. Arkady pulled him by the sleeve back in the direction they had originally been headed; it was like helping a camel through the snow. The two turns had cost time and distance. Finally, Platonov could go no further and hung onto an oil barrel in which shovels were deposited.

  Bora approached through hanging flakes. Something bright hung from his hand. Left far behind, the cameraman shouted at him to stop. Bora took quicker, more purposeful strides.

  “You laughed,” he told Arkady.

  “When?”

  “In the Metro. For that I will carve out your eyes and fuck you in the face.”

  Bora drew his arm back. He was in midstride when he plunged through the snow and vanished. Snowflakes seesawed in his place. Arkady brushed snow aside and saw a hand pressed against the underside of ice.

  The cameraman caught up, his beard frosted from his breath. He was just a boy, soft and heavy with red flannel cheeks.

  “I tried to warn him,” the cameraman said.

  “The name should have been a hint,” Arkady said.

  The wartime Kirov Station had been renamed Chistye Prudy for the “clear pond” that cooled the park in the summertime and provided skating in the winter. Soft spots were posted with Danger—Thin Ice! signs that were perfectly visible in the daytime. The pool was shallow and the hole Bora had plunged through was just out of reach, but by a freakish chance he was on his back under more solid ice and faced the wrong direction. He couldn’t get his feet under him and, with such poor leverage, could only use his fists, knees and head. Arkady had only expected Bora to get soaked in icy water. This was a bonus.