The Accused

by Alexander Weissberg

  “I mustn’t say. Don’t ask me, Lenochka; just get me something to eat.”

  While I was eating my mind went over the situation again. Obviously I shouldn’t be able to stay in the Soviet Union much longer. But would they let me leave? I should have to find that out as quickly as possible. And then I should need an exit visa from the Passport Office, and that was under direct G.P.U. control. My application for a visa would come into the hands of the people with whom I had just spent four unpleasant hours.

  If they really thought I was a foreign spy what was the point of interrogating me and then letting me go? A real foreign spy would certainly have illegal connections to help him escape over the frontier.

  Or perhaps they really did suspect me of being a counterrevolutionary, and wanted to check their suspicion by personal contact, see how I reacted to their charges and whether I made any attempt to escape. Of course I should be kept under close observation. Then if they decided I was innocent after all their persecution might stop.

  My mind was too busy to allow me to eat in peace. I got up from the table and went into the next room. Lying down on the couch, I tried to read. First of all I picked up the newspaper, but apart from letters from kolkhoz peasants in praise of Stalin and appeals to the people to be on their guard at all times, there was nothing. I pitched it away in disgust and picked up a book. It was Tolstoy’s War and Peace. The page at which the book opened described the scene between Natalia Rostov and her cousin Sonia in the house of the Rostovs. I began to read and gradually I grew calmer. How different life had been in those days! Had it been more beautiful? At least the relations between human beings had been franker and more human. Men were not compelled to fear spies everywhere or to accuse their friends of fictitious crimes to save themselves. But perhaps the idyllic conditions described by the great novelist had existed only for a small circle of people, only in the aristocratic society to which Tolstoy himself belonged? And the relative freedom he described was based on the exploitation and oppression of the serfs. But at least the ruling class had been free. Even that was not true today. The workers were supposed to be the ruling class here, but could they be called free? They all went in fear of anonymous denunciation.

  As I read on my restlessness disappeared, the experience I had suffered receded into the background and I lived in the world of Tolstoy’s immortal characters. Then I fell asleep.

  It was evening when I awoke, and immediately the memory of what had happened flooded in on me. I suppressed my fears as well as I could. It was difficult to come to any decision alone, and yet I dared ask no one for advice, dared tell no one about what had happened.

  I felt I ought to get into touch with my brother-in-law and my mother-in-law in Moscow. But I couldn’t go to Moscow. The G.P.U. would probably regard that as an attempt at flight and arrest me immediately. The telephone would certainly be tapped, and my letters would probably be opened. I could not give a letter to anyone else either; it might fall into wrong hands, and then I should be arrested and charged with having betrayed state secrets.

  I went out and walked through the park as far as the grounds of the Institute. It was a cold starry night and a carpet of snow crunched under my feet. I sat down on a bench from which there was a wide view over the countryside to where the lights of the tractor works were shining several miles away. Sitting there thinking over my problem, an idea occurred to me. I could volunteer for service in Spain. The Comintern was recruiting people for that purpose. The G.P.U. could hardly accuse me of desertion if I joined the Republican forces. I had never had any military training, but I was able-bodied and as an engineer it would not take long to train me in the use of modern weapons. The moment was favorable. The Great Powers had just decided in London that after a certain date the entry of munitions and volunteers into Spain would be prohibited, and the Comintern was therefore doing its utmost to get as many volunteers into Spain as it could before the blockade was established.

  I got up and went to our club, where I met a number of colleagues, but I was so restless that I found it impossible to conduct a coherent conversation. I listened to them talking but my mind was elsewhere, still going round and round the happenings of the day. Before long I left and went home, where I took some sleeping tablets.

  The next morning I went to the building site and worked hard to keep my mind off my troubles. I reckoned that if all went well I could be out of the country in a month, and I was anxious to leave everything in good order for my successor. I went through the estimates, fixed the dates for the beginning and the conclusion of the building work and the subsequent assembly, discussed the capital requirements for the first quarter with the accountant, and asked him to draw up a provisional balance sheet as soon as possible. Then I made a tour of inspection. Once again I looked over the river at the coking works and congratulated myself on our living quarters, which were now nearly completed. Then I went to the low-temperature station. The glass was already being put in, and everything was beginning to look shipshape. With deep satisfaction I observed how well it had all turned out. The first project with its innumerable small windows had looked like a nineteenth-century textile factory, and I had turned it down. Now the station and all its auxiliary buildings had become one of the finest industrial plants in Kharkov.

  I went through the hall and stopped for a moment or two at the great low-temperature apparatus. It was open below, and obviously someone was inside with a lamp. When I called out a woman appeared. It was Anna Nikolaievna Sergeyevna, dusty and dirty in a leather jacket and leather trousers. Her smudged face contrasted with her well-kept hair and her beautiful hands.

  “What are you doing here, Anna Nikolaievna?” I asked in astonishment.

  “I couldn’t quite understand the low-temperature apparatus from the designs, and so I thought I’d have a look at the assembly. I often come here, you know.”

  Anna Nikolaievna was a student who had applied to us for an engagement about six months previously. I had been much taken by her intelligence and serenity and by the cultivated way in which she spoke, and I had used my influence to support her application. A few months later she ended her course at the Technological Institute. After concluding their studies young engineers had to go into one of the big industrial undertakings to do practical work. Only after some years of this were they permitted to join one of the scientific institutes if they wanted to do research work. Anna Nikolaievna was predestined for scientific work, but at the end of her studies the People’s Commissariat ordered her—together with all the other students in her group—to go to the Gorlovka nitrogen works in the Donetz Basin. She came to me to say good-by, and I was rather sorry at the idea of losing the quiet and talented girl.

  “I’ll tell you what, Anna Nikolaievna,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do for you. Perhaps you won’t have to go to Gorlovka after all.”

  Now our station was a sort of cross between a scientific institute and an industrial undertaking, so I wrote a letter to the People’s Commissariat explaining the particular case. Three weeks later word came through from Moscow that the girl could do her practical work with us. She said nothing when I showed her the reply, but from the firm pressure of her hand I knew that she was delighted. The work with us was very promising for a young engineer with scientific ambitions.

  She proved easily the best of our learners. She never dodged any kind of work, and although she was not a member either of the Communist Party or of the Komsomol she carried out both her technical and social obligations in an exemplary fashion. On one occasion it became necessary for an engineer to hold courses for the most promising of our workers. Anna Nikolaievna took on the job and did it excellently. The young and intelligent girl was very popular with the workers who took the courses.

  One day she came to me.

  “Alexander Semyonovitch,” she said, “I’m being paid only two rubles an hour for my work in the courses. I don’t think that’s enough.”

  I was astonished to hear it. The pay reall
y was shamefully inadequate. The work was not standardized, and I don’t know to this day who fixed such a low rate.

  “What do you think would be a suitable rate?” I asked.

  “Well, five rubles an hour, perhaps.”

  “Good, I agree. Take the matter up with the head bookkeeper and tell him to settle it retroactively.”

  I liked the calm and objective way in which she had asked for more pay. She knew her duties and she knew what she was entitled to, though she very often did unpaid work. She never sought to obtain any material advantage she had not fairly earned. But when the situation called for it she mentioned calmly and without embarrassment what she thought was the proper return for her work.

  I recalled all this as she crawled out of the well. Young people like that are the best types in Soviet society, I thought. They rarely take any part in political discussions, but they are completely devoted to the cause of socialist construction. They place their intelligence and their capacities in the service of a great and progressive idea, and they are happy to do so although they live in poorer circumstances than young people in Western Europe and many of the good things of life are unknown to them. If I have to leave the Soviet Union for good now I shall miss people like that. Shall I ever meet them again? Shall I ever be able to return?

  I continued my tour of inspection, and Anna Nikolaievna accompanied me.

  “When do you think we shall be finished, Alexander Semyonovitch?” she asked.

  “If all goes well, in two or three months, I think.”

  “Are you looking forward to it very much, Alexander Semyonovitch?”

  “I certainly am, Anna Nikolaievna. And what about you?”

  “I’m looking forward to it very much too, though I haven’t done much toward it. And I’m looking forward to the work afterwards, too.”

  “Do you think the work here will be more agreeable than elsewhere?”

  “I can’t imagine its being any better anywhere else. Friends of mine come to Kharkov from the Donetz Basin now and again and they tell me how they’re getting on. They’re not exactly dissatisfied with their work, but they say that about a year after the opening of a new plant when all the difficulties have been ironed out the work gets monotonous. Making the same analyses and checking production over and over again doesn’t appeal to me. Here there’s always a chance of learning something new and trying out things for myself. And we work better together here, too. There aren’t so many intrigues.”

  “So you think that, Anna Nikolaievna?”

  “You know that as well as I do, Alexander Semyonovitch. I’m all agog to see whether the plant works well. And above all I’m glad we’re going to have the best people to work here when everything’s ready. Will you invite foreign scientists to come here to work, Alexander Semyonovitch?”

  “I don’t think any more foreign scientists are likely to come here now. The time for that has gone.”

  “But why? After all, they’ve had much more practical experience than we’ve had. And if there are some who would be prepared to work honestly with us?”

  “No more foreign scientists will be invited to come to the Soviet Union to work, Anna Nikolafevna. In any case, I shan’t be in a position to suggest it.”

  “Why not, Alexander Semyonovitch? You’re talking so strangely today.”

  “Anna Nikolaievna, if you promise me to keep your own counsel about it I’ll tell you something. I shan’t see the completion of the work here and the starting up of normal operations.”

  “Why ever not? Do you want to go away?”

  “No, that’s not quite it, but I’m being sent away for work elsewhere.”

  “But that’s incredible, Alexander Semyonovitch! To send you away before the work is finished—after you’ve guided it through all the difficulties for three years!”

  “I have no choice.”

  “Alexander Semyonovitch, I don’t know what your motives are, or for what reason the authorities want to recall you, but it seems unnatural that you should have to go now. All our people are so very hopeful about the station because they have such confidence in you. I know the workers here just as well as I know the engineers and the technicians. We all think the same.”

  “It’s nice of you to say so, Anna Nikolaievna, but my decision can’t be influenced by it—or that of my superiors either. I hope I shall be able to come back one day and see how you’ve all been getting on.”

  She gave me her hand.

  “Alexander Semyonovitch. I don’t know what the reason for your decision is, but I feel that there must be something wrong if you have to leave us now. We’re all too unimportant here to exercise any influence on such things. In any case, thanks for having helped me to come here.”

  “Goodby, Anna Nikolaievna.”

  She apparently guessed what was wrong and she sought some cautious and discreet way of expressing her sympathy.

  After that I left the station and went over to the offices, where I found the gardener waiting for me. He had brought the plans for the lay-out of the grounds. There were to be grass plots, and from the near-by woods a number of young trees were to be transplanted to provide shade in the summer. Instead of the usual brick wall around the station I wanted a six-foot hedge of green shrubs reinforced with concealed barbed wire. The gardener pointed out that it would be difficult to get permission for a hedge instead of a wall in a place doing work of national importance. He was right, of course, though the hedge I proposed would really be a better protection than a wall, which could easily be climbed. I looked through the plans and it occurred to me that now I should never know whether I had been successful or not, whether it would really turn out as beautiful as I hoped, whether the people who worked here would really be happy and, above all, whether the results of the research work would justify the great expense.

  It was four o’clock by the time I was finished and I rang up the garage and ordered the car. Grischa had one of his wild days again, and he drove like a madman. This time I made no attempt to interfere. The speed seemed to soothe my nerves. In a quarter of an hour I was home.

  As soon as I got inside the door all the hopeless depression of the day before overcame me. I could see that Marcel and Lena were concealing their anxiety. I thought of my next visit to the G.P.U. and my heart fell. What did they want? Why didn’t they let me live and work in peace? The great difficulties of the earlier years were over. The famine was gone; there was no longer a struggle within the Party, no longer any dispute about the political line. We were supposed to be happy, to be enjoying life, and working hard for the country. Why did they interfere? To whose benefit was it? Why all this pathological watchfulness when there was nothing to watch? ‘Why all this denunciation when there was nothing to denounce? No matter what the regime, no matter what the social order there would always be petty intrigues to make life difficult, but so long as they were not deliberately encouraged by an uncontrolled secret service then they would not disturb the basis of human co-operation. But now that was exactly what was happening. Anna Nikolaievna had shown me her sympathy—and her courage, for she had probably already heard that I was finished. But how many would act like her?

  Lena brought in the meal and we all sat down. No one said a word. When they thought they were unobserved they looked at me anxiously. I found the atmosphere oppressive and I began to talk about unimportant matters. Afterward I went into my room and sought escape in Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

  Later in the evening I went to the library of the Institute and tried to read one or two journals. I soon abandoned the attempt. I found it impossible to concentrate.

  I left the Institute and went to the club. Some of the younger people were singing songs from the days of the civil war, and I found that it moved and soothed me. When I left the club Piatigorsky was standing on the steps with a number of young men discussing the civil war in Spain. I joined them and decided to mention my resolve to volunteer for service in Spain. I was quite sure that Piatigorsky had connectio
ns with the G.P.U. In that case Polevedsky would know all about it when I went to see him again.

  “I’m thinking of going to Spain myself,” I said casually.

  “How are you going to manage that, Alexander Semyonovitch?” asked Piatigorsky.

  “Quite a lot of foreign comrades are going,” I replied, “and I think I could be more useful there than here.”

  “How are you going to get there?”

  “Oh, arrangements are made by the organizations which have such matters in hand. I shall volunteer, and the rest is not up to me.”

  No further comment was made. Young people in the Soviet Union are well disciplined. When a reference is made to “organizations which have such matters in hand” they usually change the subject. They rely completely and blindly on such ‘organizations.” They probably wondered why I had mentioned the matter at all, but they made no comment.

  I went home. I felt better now that I had publicly announced my intentions. Why shouldn’t they let me go? I thought. The whole thing is only a stupid test to see how I react.

  In bed my thoughts turned to Spain. It would be wonderful to breathe free air again and to be relieved from the increasingly intolerable pressure of the past two years. It had all started on December 1, 1934, with the assassination of Kirov. By chance Davidovitch had been appointed Director of the Institute on that very day, and things had changed at once. Everything he did or said was shot through with mistrust and suspicion. It was not only against me, the foreigner, but against anyone in the Institute who showed the least strength of character and independence of thought. We all felt that Davidovitch and his creatures kept the G.P.U. informed, and wrongly informed, of everything we said and did. In the end he had to go, and we all thought things would improve then, but we were wrong. It was not we who represented the real views of the Party and the Government, but Davidovitch and the G.P.U. after all. In any case the die was now cast. I had to get out—if they would let me get out.

  It would be difficult to leave everything, but at least it would be a fine thing to fight openly against a hated enemy, and to feel that every blow was in reality directed against the still greater enemy in Berlin. There would be no stifling intrigues in Spain, no general distrust of all against all.