Ice Trilogy (25 page)

“This city will be ours,” I said.

“Brothers are perishing every minute! We have to hurry!” she answered furiously.

“No. We have to
enter
this city correctly. Then we will take it,” I replied.

“There’s no time! No time, Bro!”

“Fer, this city could destroy us. And then we will never find our own.”

And I
added
to the statement with my heart. She
replied
.

Oa and Bidugo
listened
to us. The Wisdom of the Light at this moment spoke through my heart: in Moscow it was imperative to act discreetly.

Though furious, Fer
understood
. She embraced me in tears.

Hiring a carriage, we rode through Moscow. Almost everywhere was the smell of food. Food was carried along the streets on trays, the store windows were bursting with rolls and sausage. Many passersby were chewing something as they walked. NEP was breathing its last, and it was as though people felt the coming of severe Stalinist socialism and were storing up food.

Arriving at Lubyanskaya Square, we entered the large building where the OGPU was located. It was from here, from this yellowish-gray, many-storied mansion that the threads of this mighty organization stretched to all ends of the USSR. Deribas’s bosses sat here, his close friends worked here. I showed our pass. They took our luggage, weapons, and outer clothing. Soon Fer and I were walking along the squeaky parquet behind our escort. Oa and Bidugo remained outside in the waiting room. Our escort took us to the office of the assistant head of the Special Department of the OGPU, Yakov Arganov. We entered the secretary’s room, occupied by a handsome desk and a typist. The secretary announced our arrival by telephone, then threw open the leather-covered door; we entered. Arganov was sitting at his desk and scribbling something rapidly; he had a lively, cunning face, black hair, thick eyebrows, and an owlish nose. The secretary closed the door after us. Arganov raised his head and squinted. Then he smiled.

“Aha! Deribas’s foundlings. So you made it to White-Stoned Moscow after all.”

He adroitly extricated himself from behind the desk and came up to us; he was short and narrow-shouldered.

“Now, let’s see, let’s se
e..
.”

He fixed his black, birdlike eyes on us.

“And you look like him! Well, come now, let’s introduce ourselves. Arganov.”

He extended his small but tenacious hand. We shook it.

“Alexander Deribas, Anfisa Deribas.”

“Yes, yes. You’re straight from the train? Hungry?”

“No, thank you, Comrade Arganov, we’re fine.”

“How’s Terenty? Gotten his health back? What befell my combative friend?”

“The doctors say it was exhaustion,” I answered.

“Yeah, yeah! Devilish nonsense!” Arganov waved his short hand dismissively, turned sharply, walked over to the desk, and picked up a box of Cannon cigarettes. “Deribas could take on three of me. He’s called me the last three days in a row — his voice is normal. He sent a telegram off to Batrakov. Epilepsy, I ask you! What goddamn epilepsy? I’ve known Terenty since 1917. Epilepsy!” He offered us the open pack of cigarettes, but we shook our heads; he lit up quickly and with a whistle exhaled smoke from his large, thin-lipped mouth. “There’s idiots everywhere you look.”

The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.

“Arganov here! Well? What do I care about your Kishkin? More nonsense! There’s Pauker’s order: sixteen special cars by four tomorrow morning! And you don’t need a lot of guards: these are nepmen, where they gonna run? Hell, it’s not 1920. No, you call yourself. You keep harping on that Kishkin, Kishki
n..
.”

He hung up the phone. Irritated, he took a drag on his cigarette.

“Kishkin! Kishkin!”

His unseeing gaze ran over us and he picked up the receiver again.

“Anton, come in here.”

The secretary entered.

“Listen, I remembered the name of that Polish guy, you kno
w...
Gorbanya’s case. It wasn’t Kislevich, it was Kishlevski.”

“Kishlevski?”

“Kishlevski, that was it!” Arganov grew even livelier. “Give Borisov a call; tell him to free those Kisleviches. He got the wrong ones, Pinkerton! Nonsens
e..
.”

“That’s why they’re not talking!”

“Of course! As soon as Somov hanged himself, everything got mixed up! Good that I remembered. Kishlevski! Exactly! Go on, Anton, before someone tells Yagoda.”

The secretary nodded and turned, but Arganov hadn’t finished.

“Wait a minute. And there are these young people.”

He could see us again.

“Are you educated?”

“I studied at the university,” I answered.

“I can read and write,” Fer answered.

“All right then, we’ll set you up in the archive. Take them to Genki
n...
no, better straight to Tsessarsky! And they should put them in the dormitory, in the old one on Solyanka. Got it? But first — Kishlevski! Understand? And no nonsense!”

“Yes, Comrade Arganov, sir!”

“There are two more with us,” I added.

“Anton, figure it ou
t...
That’s it for now!” Arganov hurriedly shook our hands.

A little while later we were sitting in the department of cadres. Arganov’s patronage turned out to be considerable. His secretary helped us with the registration of Oa and Bidugo’s documents: we said that our friends had been robbed, and their documents as well, in the train. Oa introduced himself as a former artist (he actually did draw beautifully and painted icons); Bidugo (a carpenter from Rostov-on-Don) didn’t change his profession, calling himself a carpenter and cabinetmaker. Fer and I were set up in the archive department of OGPU: I was to help the archivist organize dossiers; she was to glue the folders and envelopes for these cases. Oa was sent to work in the department of visual propaganda at the OGPU’s House of Culture; Bidugo, to the warehouse as a carpenter. Fer and I were assigned to the OGPU dormitory; Oa and Bidugo were housed in a huge communal apartment densely packed with single workers.

Thus began our Moscow life. At the OGPU we received grocery cards, tickets to the cafeteria, and a very tiny salary. But Deribas had given us a bit of money to take with us. We bought apples, carrots, cabbage, and grain with it. This is what we ate. In the dormitory we were called “derirabbits”: in the evenings we chewed on vegetables. We carried grain around in our pockets, trying to chew it on the street, where no one disturbed us with conversations. Soon our two main problems were identified: food and close contact with people. In the OGPU, as in all Soviet organizations, the expectation was that everyone went “to lunch” in the cafeteria together during the lunch break. It took an enormous amount of work for us to avoid this. It was almost unbelievable, but our hearts
gave hints
about what to do and how. We successfully
avoided
it. As “blood relatives” of Deribas, the Chekists tried to take care of us; they kept inviting us to dinner. We refused in a panic, using any excuse, even going as far as various illnesses: visiting people meant you had to drink wine and eat people’s food. The head of the archive accounting department, Genkin, wishing to “fatten us up,” gave us a ticket to the “good” cafeteria (normally we would have been expected to dine in the cafeteria for workers). We pretended that we went there, shuddering from the smell of the cafeteria alone: it was a place where they boiled and fried the corpses of rabbits. One time I couldn’t refuse and I swallowed a piece of fried baby rabbit. I vomited immediately. Fer drank some wine, which was literally poured down her throat on Stalin’s birthday, celebrated in the archive department. She was in
terribly
bad shape. In the department everyone decided that Anfisa Deribas had alcohol intolerance. But we could calmly inhale tobacco smoke into our lungs. Smoking helped us “be one of the group” in the Soviet collective. Naturally, we had no dependence on tobacco like genuine smokers. In the workers’ dining hall people were fed various kashas, but we couldn’t eat them, either: our organisms could accept only
whole
food, untouched by decay and flame, not boiled, not frozen, not ground, not marinated. The corpses of living creatures were entirely indigestible for us, but neither could we eat still-living creatures: our hearts wouldn’t accept blood. Neither living nor dead. Only grain, fruits, and vegetables could be digested in our stomachs and give us strength. We only took that which was
whole
into our bodies, what had not been destroyed by humans. Smoke was whole. As was water.

When the archivist, returning from the “good” cafeteria, picking at his teeth, muttered that “the baby rabbit today was to die for,” I nodded and muttered, “Of course.”

On weekdays we worked, trying to merge into the mass of Soviet people,
remembering
their habits, life values, moral principles, humor, and fears. We penetrated alien skin, in order to
be one of them
. It was
surprisingly
easy for us to do this: the power of the heart helped. The Light speaking in us fortified our inner strength and multiplied our opportunities. After the awakening of our hearts each of
us
had become a genuine Proteus: each discovered within not only a capacity for transformation but also an incredible
flexibility
in dealing with the stern, unpredictable world. Having thrown off the stone armor of our past, dead life and broken kinship ties, it was as though we had become boneless and were able to easily bend and penetrate the
crevices
of the world. Nothing restrained us, only the Light shone ahead, led us to our secret goal. Our ability to mimic had no analogy in the world of people. It was the highest artistry, an artistry that no professional actor had ever dreamed of. No one could appreciate it because this theater had no audience: only a stage on all four sides.

Furthermore, we were possessed of amazing endurance; we slept no more than four hours a day. At the end of the workday we didn’t feel tired and “voluntarily” took on new jobs, trying to seem “selfless and conscientious.” Soon Fer and I were called the “twin Deribases.” The bosses and co-workers were pleased with us. Oa and Bidugo also exhibited a “labor ethic and enthusiasm” at their work.

On the weekends the four of us went to Sokolniki Park, secluded ourselves in the forest, and, holding hands, spoke with our hearts for hours. Fer and I taught Oa and Bidugo and learned from them. The wisdom of our hearts grew.

We were waiting for the Ice.

It arrived in Moscow on January 2, 1929, at the Kazan station, in the baggage section of the Khabarovsk–Moscow train. Brothers Ep and Rubu arrived on the same train. We embraced on the filthy, phlegm-smeared platform. Our hearts flared: Ep and Rubu! Our first brothers, sent to us by the Light, discovered on the rivers of severe Tungusia, then lost. We shouted and wailed with ecstasy, frightening the Soviet passengers. Ep was wearing the uniform of the OGPU; Rubu, civilian clothes. His outer look had changed; he had grown a beard, wore glasses, and outwardly looked like a Soviet engineer. The brothers accompanied four crates with Ice, the very same ones that we had hidden in Deribas’s attic.

When the querulous porters hauled the first crate from the baggage car and placed it on the sleigh, a fog descended in front of my eyes — the Ice! I approached it, fell on my knees, and pressed my body to the crate. With a yelp, Fer pressed against the crate from the other side. Our hearts
jolted
from the presence of the Ice. And the Ice vibrated in response. The ephemeral earthbound world swayed beneath our feet. It was powerful.

The porters stood waiting, sniffing their frost-blue noses in bewilderment. A passing policeman stopped.

“What is that?”

Fer and I didn’t move, kneeling before the Ice.

“Very important equipment,” Rubu answered.

“All right, then.” The policeman looked askance at Ep’s
icy
blue eyes, saluted, and moved on.

In our theater there was no audience.

Two crates of the Ice were brought to Lubyanka by order of Deribas and placed in the warehouse under protective covering. There the Ice could be safely kept until spring. The other two crates we hid in the basement of a burned-out house on Solyanka Street, not far from the dormitory.

Deribas got Ep a job in the transport department of the OGPU, which allowed him to move around a lot and be
nearby
, with a means of transport at hand. With new documents and a new name, Rubu was made an agent in the procurement department of the Peat Institute, whose Party committee secretary had served in the same regiment with Deribas. Several weeks later our brothers Edlap and Em, and our sisters Orti, Pilo, and Ju, who had undergone the
heart sobbing
, made it to Moscow as well. They were young, energetic Komsomol activists according to their documents; all of them matriculated at Rabfak because of their proletarian origins and recommendations from the Komsomol organization of the Far East OGPU. The Bolsheviks’ idea was that this new educational institution would prepare cadres of young Red professors loyal to the Party’s goals, who would gradually replace the old “ideologically putrefied and petit bourgeois” intelligentsia.

Now there were eleven of us in Moscow.

The Ice was nearby. Everything was ready to begin the search.

But our hearts
restrained
us: we still did not have the last link in the chain. We already
knew
how to search for our brothers. We had the
means
to awaken their hearts.

However, we had to understand, once and for all, the
correct
way of doing this. So that
all of us
could do it correctly and safely.

At the beginning of February the temperature dropped. Moscow’s women wrapped up in scarves; sparrows and pigeons hid under roofs; carriage drivers covered their horses with double blankets. Only the peddlers were happy: buns and loaves of
kalachi
froze quickly, so no one could check their freshness. The water pipes froze. People and animals were afraid of the cold, they kept close to houses and stores.