Denouncer (20 page)

NICKY: That call?

EVA: A friend of a friend . . . Mrs. Tukachevksy.

NICKY: The flat . . . with the leather chair and Finnish couch.

EVA: It belonged to a former acquaintance of mine.

NICKY: Former?

EVA: Deceased . . . you might say.

NICKY: I ought to shoot you.

EVA: Wa-a-ait a minute, Nicky. Don’t blame me for what’s happening to you. After all, when Isaak Steinberg was taken away, you didn’t say anything. Not a word. So you can’t very well complain now.

NICKY: You’re right. I should have helped Isaak. But what about you?

EVA: What do you mean?

NICKY: I’m standing here right now. I’m not next door.

EVA: Believe me, Nicky, if I let you stay here or give you money, it will only make matters worse.

NICKY: They can’t be any worse.

EVA: They can, Nicky, believe me: they can. By bringing me into this situation, you could cause the loss of something far more important than
your
life.

NICKY: What’s that?

EVA:
My
life.

Someone is knocking on the door and shouting “open up!” Ivan Goniff and others burst into the room as the curtain falls.

To enthusiastic applause and laughter, the cast took several bows and then cleared the stage of props and scenery. Filatov’s face was ashen, as his two colleagues whispered to him earnestly. Sasha had gone backstage to help strike the set. From his vantage point behind the curtain, he could see the three police officers huddled so closely that their heads nearly touched. Galina had promised to say a few words about the play, and Sasha urged her not to keep the audience waiting, most of whom remained in the room, either to frequent the stalls, or to chat, or to hear Galina. The three secret police officers disengaged and came to the foot of the stage.

Galina’s public explanation differed only slightly from what she had told Sasha. The play had originally been written in 1933 for the Moscow State Radio, but during rehearsals the censor had shelved it. A member of the Politburo close to Nikolai Bukharin had made the script available to his nephew, whom she failed to identify as Goran Youzhny. She likewise failed to mention that the play had been commissioned by the Leningrad Communist Party. “The playwright,” she said candidly, “was none other than the former director of the Michael School, Avram Brodsky, who at my request adapted it for the stage.”

The audience quickly glanced around and, no doubt owing to the presence of the OGPU, failed to call for the author. When Sasha emerged from backstage, Filatov summoned him. Confronting the three police officers, he counterfeited a smile. No response. Larissa, broad faced and blond, with pale blue eyes, looked stoically Ukrainian. Basil’s narrow face, sunken cheeks, dark eyes, and yellow teeth, brought to mind a wolf in search of a bone. Certainly, thought Sasha, a former lawyer could afford a dentist.

“If I’m not mistaken, you owe me a letter,” said Filatov calmly.

Debating whether to plead overwork, Sasha decided the less said the better and answered laconically, “Correct.”

“Then why haven’t I received it?”

“My contacts with Brodsky, which are frequent enough, haven’t turned up any information worth passing along.” Trying to anticipate Filatov’s next question, he added, “He even failed to react to my censorious comments about Radek and the Left Opposition.”

Filatov shook his head with a jerk, as if trying to dislodge water from an ear after swimming. His expression read, “I’m tired of waiting.”

“We can talk now, if you wish,” Sasha politely suggested.

Pause.

“This play,” Filatov asked suddenly, “whose idea was it?”

“The playwright’s.”

Filatov looked at the floor and then slowly raised his head. “I will listen to an intelligent argument in opposition, but I will not tolerate insolence.”

At that moment, both Larissa and Basil, their faces blank, were penning notes on similar flip-lid, pocket-size pads, official OGPU issue. Apparently protecting the country required one to relinquish all feeling and transmogrify into stone. Filatov was the exception. Sasha knew, therefore, not to abuse the feelings of this officer, feelings that were all too rare in the secret police.

“My apologies. I was trying to protect the innocent.”

Filatov ran his thumb from his lower lip to his chin, a gesture that he had used during their first interrogation. “Name them!”

“The director, the actors, and the writer.”

A second later, the policeman in Filatov smartly went to work. He directed Larissa to interview Galina, and Basil to question the actors. As the two officers went their separate ways, Filatov gently touched Sasha’s arm and patiently explained, as if talking to a child, that the tensions between the Leningrad Soviets, the home of the Right Opposition, and the Moscow Soviets had been and still were tense, especially in light of Kirov’s murder.

Boris lowered his voice and asked, “Did you hear about the assassination attempt on Lukashenko’s life? This morning . . . in Ryazan. It failed.” Then in a normal voice: “No need to protect the identity of the person who selected Brodsky’s play. I’m pretty certain I know.”

Clever man, this Filatov, mused Sasha. But if he thinks I’ll ask him to share his thoughts, he’ll wait for the rest of his life.

An unduly long pause on the part of Filatov followed. He was apparently waiting for Sasha to take the bait. When he realized that his ploy hadn’t worked, he remarked rather sharply, “You’ve been denounced yet again. This time for calling our Soviet textbooks biased, and for allowing a wall poster to go undetected for almost a day, a poster in praise of Trotsky. Are you utterly without sense? On these two accounts alone, I could have you jailed.”

Convinced that Filatov was a consummate actor who wished to render him defenseless, and therefore had just played the part of the outraged but compassionate cop, Sasha decided to try boldness instead of submission, an approach that surprised Filatov.

“You say you’ll listen to a reasoned argument to explain the production of the play, good.” With more daring than he’d exhibited ever before, Sasha declared that they both knew that if the OGPU hoped to pin anything on Brodsky, they needed Sasha to draw out the ex-director. Had Filatov forgotten how Hamlet used the same technique, a play, to discover the guilt of his uncle? Through the production of the play, Sasha had hoped to achieve a similar effect. Brodsky might reveal himself. But Brodsky had not attended the performance, a miscalculation that Sasha owned up to.

For the first time in years, Filatov found himself speechless.

Sasha took it as his cue to continue. “Although, as you saw for yourself, Brodsky was not in the audience, he knew it was to be acted and seemed exceedingly pleased. Now you can draw your own conclusions. Is he serving the Soviets or the Left Opposition? If the latter, then he would want his play to elicit sympathy, not laughter; if the former, he would expect to hear execrations. Did you hear the audience? Laughter. So what do you conclude?” Sasha paused. “Laughter lends itself to contradictory interpretations. The audience may have been tickled or teased to reflect. Which? Who knows? And as for Brodsky, what he thinks is anyone’s
guess.”

The shine on Filatov’s shoes had faded. He kneeled and rubbed them with his handkerchief. In that position, he noticed that Sasha’s footwear was badly worn. Shoes had played an important role in Filatov’s life. He and his brother had shared a pair so that in winter one or the other could attend school. In his closet at home, he had fourteen pairs stored in a neat row. Some people thought that clothes or uniforms or epaulets made the man. Not Filatov. Shoes.

“I judge from your shoes, Comrade Parsky, that your expenses are so great that they have kept you from a new pair.”

A knowing smile crept across Sasha’s face. He had given his best shoes to Petr Selivanov when he had left for Ryazan. The poor man had been reduced to putting strips cut from old tires into his torn boots. Once Sasha realized that he and Petr wore the same size, a fact that he found strangely comforting, he gladly parted with his black dress shoes, which he had little or no occasion in Balyk to wear.

Sasha played on sentiment. “Alya’s pony is costly, but the child’s smile is worth it. Shall we eat?” At one of the food booths, he asked for two plates of blintzes with a generous dab of sour cream.

Filatov insisted on paying. “Your boots! Remember?”

Maneuvering the policeman through the milling crowd to a quiet spot, Sasha tried to redirect the conversation to the school. “The students are reluctant to return to cold rooms with inadequate light. What we need is a dormitory. Living with the locals has its disadvantages; the students are constantly subjected to superstition.”

“Yes, but their having to share the houses of farmers and craftsmen also has a good side. The experience teaches them to value education. They appreciate all the more their good fortune in being enrolled here.”

“You are an intelligent man, Comrade Filatov. Tell me: Why is it that Soviets think hardship, hunger, abuse, and even beatings are useful prerequisites for a formal education?”

Savoring a blintz, Filatov replied, “Because there is no better teacher than pain. I once heard Stalin explain that in the Georgian language one of the meanings of ‘beatings’ is to educate.”

When Larissa and Basil returned, Boris thanked Sasha for the typewritten invitation and told him he expected a “full report” sooner rather than later. He then excused himself and exited with the comment, “I want Larissa and Basil to meet Comrade Brodsky.”

12

H
is last night in Balyk before leaving for Ryazan, Petr Selivanov had made a special meal for the four of them: duck a l’Orange, rice pilaf, steamed asparagus with butter, and, of course, strong black tea. The meal had begun with shots of vodka and Petr’s succinct but heartfelt speech of appreciation for Sasha’s hospitality, which included a pair of shoes. Alya cried, and Petr promised to return, though he ne
ver said when. Sasha knew that after the Fortress Plot, Petr would be leaving for Kiev and his new girlfriend, and that he was unlikely to pass this way again. During the course of the meal, he distributed gifts: for Alya a riding crop, for Galina a zircon bracelet, and for Sasha a collection of handwritten poems that had been passed from one person to another (
samizdat
).

“One day, the Lord willing, these banned poems will see print, but probably not until Stalin dies, which can’t come soon enough.”

So blasphemous were Petr’s words that before Galina and Sasha could thank him for their gifts, they instinctively scanned the room, terrified that someone might have heard.

The next morning, Alya crawled into the attic to say good-bye, but Petr had already left. Sasha had reason to suspect that in the early hours, Petr had quit his attic aerie and crawled into Galina’s bed. Although Petr had taken great care not to make any noise, the wooden ladder leading to the attic loft squeaked. Sasha had pretended not to hear.

✷

As the train clickety-clacked toward Ryazan, Petr mentally pictured priming the dynamite sticks made from nitroglycerin, soaked in diatomaceous earth or powdered seashells, but not sawdust, which was unstable. Two sticks, he thought, would do the job nicely, assuming they were each about 8 inches long and 1.25 inches around, and each weighed about half a pound. He trusted that he would have available to him reliable blasting caps and fuses or electrical cable. An elderly woman, across the aisle, opened her chestnut-brown rattan picnic basket. Her jaws moved in anticipation of her savory snack. Eyeing Petr’s new shoes, she concluded, though he hungrily smiled at her, he had no need of a handout. When the food porter pushed his wagon through the car, he too noticed Petr’s shoes and nodded approvingly. Petr bought a cup of tea and a roll. Before long, he realized that others in the car were pausing to stare at his shoes, which had become objects worthy of admiration among all these badly shod people. Before the train reached Ryazan, Petr carried his military service bag to the men’s room and slipped into his old boots. On his current mission, he certainly didn’t need to be calling attention to himself.

A tram took him to within walking distance of Viktor’s flat. But instead of walking directly to the building, an ugly cement slab, one among many, he circled the block to make sure he wasn’t being followed. The front door stood slightly ajar, and the elevator wasn’t working. It was as if time had stood still. Nothing had changed since he last saw Viktor. The hall still reeked from cooking odors and urine. Given the paucity of public toilets, people simply took it upon themselves, when walking down the street and feeling the need to pass water, to duck into a building hallway.

Petr nervously knocked on Viktor’s fourth-floor flat. The peephole in the door moved and an eye appeared. Viktor mumbled some undistinguishable words, opened the door, and quickly closed it behind Petr. Without speaking, Viktor led his guest into the back room and unlocked the closet. Inside was a wooden crate stamped with German words. Not even pausing to take off his overcoat, Petr kneeled and asked for a claw hammer; then he carefully pried loose the top boards.

“Who gave you this crap?” he asked, slipping out of his coat.

“The secret police.”

“It’s from Austria. Date: 1934. The shelf life is usually one year. You’re damn lucky the stuff hasn’t gone off, killing you and bringing down the whole building.”

“But if the dynamite can still be ignited . . .”

“Tell your police friends to discard this stuff immediately—before it goes off accidentally.”

An agitated Viktor ran a hand through his hair and paced. “That’s your job! That’s why we brought you back.”

“I never agreed to undertake a suicide mission.”

“And what if they say, use what we gave you—or else?”

“Or else what?”

“We’ll sling your friend into prison and throw away the keys.”

“If that’s the case, I’m leaving right now.”

Viktor sounded like a braying mule. “From the moment you approached the building you’ve been watched from the building across the street, and I wouldn’t be surprised if an OGPU man is already stationed down the hall. Look for yourself.”

A skeptical Petr grabbed his bag and said good-bye. He opened the door and looked. To his left, he saw a man lounging against the wall and smoking a cigarette. Bold as brass, Petr approached him and whispered, “The dynamite is so old it’s bound to be unstable. You shouldn’t be around it. If it goes off, the building and you are rubble. Is that what you want?”

“Just do your job, and we’ll do ours.”

“Do you plan to stand here all night and tomorrow and the next night?”

“Someone will.”

Defeated, Petr returned to the open door of the flat, from which Viktor had watched and surmised from Petr’s downcast look that his request, whatever it was, had been denied. Pulling off his coat, Petr said simply:

“Let’s get started. The first thing I want to do is dismantle one of the sticks to see which absorbent substance they put the nitro in.” He just hoped it wasn’t sawdust or wood pulp.

“Nitro!” Viktor exclaimed. “Those bastards told me the dynamite was perfectly safe. Even an idiot knows to shy away from that stuff!”

“What did you think dynamite was based on, shoe polish?”

With Viktor eyeing the door, wishing to distance himself from the danger, Petr said, “Let me check the electrical cable and fuses.” He carefully unpacked the crate. “We’ll need extra fuses and blasting caps, just in case. But whether any of it will work, who knows? By the way, ask your friends,” said Petr irascibly, “who will be digging the loading holes in the road for the sticks.”

A second later, Viktor was gone. In his absence, Petr looked through whatever personal papers he could find in the flat. He still harbored the suspicion that Viktor and Galina had been lovers. Although he no longer cared, given his girlfriend in Kiev, he still wanted to know. From the top shelf of Viktor’s clothes closet, Petr removed a brown accordion file that held letters from friends and associates. Among the letters were two from Galina. In the first, she agreed to help him distribute leaflets and complained about Petr’s working for the secret police. The nature of the leaflets was never mentioned. In the second, she deplored Petr’s political timidity and wished she and Viktor could live together instead of having to “steal a few minutes when conditions permit.” For a second, Petr entertained the idea of rigging a small charge of dynamite and a timer to Viktor’s bed, but he knew that the dynamite was so unstable it might kill him in the process or might not ignite at all; and then too there was the agent in the hall. Petr would not be free until the day the explosives were buried in the road.

Several hours later, Viktor returned. Over dinner, which, given Viktor’s culinary incompetence, Petr prepared, he brought up the subject of Galina, but not before prefacing it with the admission that he and Galina planned to divorce, and that he had met another woman. “For all your professed lack of interest in women, you did have a yen for Galina. I admit she’s extraordinary.” He paused and waited for his statement to seep into Viktor’s ventricles.

“Good soup,” said Viktor, clearly trying to decide how to respond. “We had a great deal in common. I suppose we still do. It began as a political alliance and ended . . .”

“In bed,” Petr interrupted.

“You know the Soviet attitude toward such things. No one owns another. We were simply living like . . . liberal Bolsheviks.”

Petr made no reply. If he decided to settle the score with Comrade Harkov, it would be on his terms, not Viktor’s, and Petr had time before that moment arrived. Perhaps with the same thought in mind, Viktor remarked:

“I don’t see your service revolver, the faithful Nagant M 1895. You had it the last time you were here. The secret police now carry TT 33 pistols.”

The OGPU had obviously introduced Viktor to bullets and bombs. “I left the gun with Galina. If a military patrol had stopped me on the way here, I didn’t want to be armed. Desertion is one thing, a revolver, another. People with guns are tempted to use them. I didn’t want to be tempted.”

The telephone rang. Viktor answered it, and looked sick. Then he grabbed his coat and excused himself, saying he had to meet someone. But before leaving, he made the same loud alveolar clicking noise that he had often made when approaching or seeing someone he knew. He would pull the tip of his tongue down abruptly and forcefully from the roof of his mouth. In college, Petr had read about click languages in Africa. Viktor knew myriad sounds. And why not? He had taken a degree in linguistic anthropology and had always rued that his middling academic record had prevented him from doing fieldwork in Africa. As Petr carefully sorted and organized the dynamite sticks to his liking, he wondered how extensive a vocabulary “clickers” could have. The larger the selection, the more subtle the sounds. Did click language precede words? Infants and young children respond excitedly to clicks, as if the sounds were lodged in their genes.

Out of the vaporous night, a car quietly came to a halt. From the window, Petr saw a man hurriedly exit, and Viktor emerge from the building to greet him. They entered the building together. A few minutes later, the two men materialized in the flat, neither of them looking pleased. Viktor introduced Petr to an unsmiling OGPU officer, Comrade Kirill Razumov, who wasted no time in laying out the “new” assassination plan. On the kitchen table, he spread a map with all the roads leading to the Ryazan Kremlin clearly outlined. Pointing to an X, he said:

“Here’s where you need to plant the dynamite.”

The spot differed from the one originally agreed upon. It was a hundred yards farther from the Kremlin, on a section of road that ran between a line of trees. Razumov, a squat brawler, whose bushy hair and eyebrows gave him a wild appearance, suddenly burst forth with a diatribe about traitors and Lukashenko lackeys. As if for effect, his powerful arms and large hands visually reinforced his angry words. A dumfounded Petr listened to Viktor explain that Lukashenko’s bodyguards had somehow learned of the arbor plan.

“So forget the ferns and the car stopping and Lukashenko’s being blown sky high,” Razumov added. “We have to recalibrate. There’s an informer in our midst, but he’ll eventually tip his hand, and then . . .”

Dismayed, Petr asked, “If the secret police can’t keep a secret, who can?”

Without responding to Petr’s indictment of the police, Razumov wiped his runny nose on his coat sleeve and removed his black gloves, which he folded neatly and put in a pocket. “Our new plan is probably safer. We’ll run the cable under the road and place the detonator behind the trees. Then you can make a dash for it down the hill. We’ll have a car waiting for you. Don’t even consider the river. Half the city would be watching from the hill.”

From Petr’s expression, the two conspirators saw something was amiss. But before Petr could speak, Viktor said:

“I promised Comrade Selivanov I would be in charge of the detonator, and all he had to do was plant the dynamite and wire it.”

Razumov shook his head in disagreement. “Your man here digs the bore holes, plants the sticks, wires the explosives, and sets them off. He’s the professional. You,” he said to Viktor, “are just an amateur. We’re not going to alter our plans again.”

Clearly annoyed, Petr said, “Explosives are my territory, road digging is yours.”

Comrade Razumov coldly eyed Petr. “I understand you’re particular about the loading holes, their width and depth. Well, since we can’t conduct a trial or test shot, I am merely suggesting,” he said archly, “that an expert make the bores: you!” Petr responded with a grimace. Razumov lit a cigarette. “Comrade Selivanov, I have the impression you regard me as a country bumpkin, a member of the secret police who can’t keep a secret. But I’m knowledgeable enough to know that in matters of explosives, you leave the details to the expert. If I’m not mistaken,” he said, proud to show he was hardly a fool, “in hard ground the hole is tamped at the top about the charge, and when you tamp the hole, you take great care to see that no dirt or pieces of sod get between the primer and charges below.” He smiled triumphantly. “In the service academy, we learned how to plant charges.” He then said that the OGPU would provide Viktor and Petr with the clothes and tools of a road worker. “Not even the local police will give you a second look.”

✷

The road to the Ryazan Kremlin, like most secondary roads in the city, was only partially paved. Viktor drove a repair truck to the site on the map marked with an X, parked, and from a toolbox removed a pointed bar, sledge, and crowbar. The truck bed held shovels and wooden horses, which Viktor and Petr carried to the designated place in the road. Positioning the wooden horses in a circle, Petr began shoveling the thin layer of snow that covered the ground. The men were dressed in overalls, fleece-lined jackets, and rubber boots of the kind that all ditch diggers were issued. Once Petr had cleared the snow and bared the icy ground, Viktor went to work with his sledge and pointed bar.

“The ground’s like cement,” Viktor groused.

“Keep digging. I need the hole at least a foot deep.”

When the two holes were dug, eighteen inches apart, Viktor started to run a trench toward the woods. A patrolling police car stopped. Two of Lukashenko’s henchmen exited and asked to see the work order. Razumov had provided Viktor with all the necessary documentation for a new drainage line.

“On this stretch of road, it ices up bad,” said Viktor, affecting a laborer’s diction. “Then what you got is a toboggan run, with cars slippin’ this way and that. Why just last week I seen . . .”