Stalin’s Ghost (5 page)

She wrapped a sheet around herself before picking up the phone. The cord only stretched so far and she turned away to whisper. Suddenly nakedness seemed ridiculous to Arkady and the scent of sex cloyed.

What was the etiquette of cuckoldry? Should he leave them to their privacy, allow himself to be chased from his own bivouac? It wasn’t as if he and Eva were married. It was clear that she could still physically act as if they were lovers and, from time to time, banter cheerfully enough to raise his hopes, at least until tonight, but the performances took more effort all the time. It was rare that their work shifts coincided because she scheduled her hours more to avoid Arkady than to see him. Betrayal was exhausting, weighting every word with double meaning. Even when they made love he would spend the rest of the night examining everything Eva had said or done, watching her as if she were going to slip away and watching every word he said so as not to jar the mutually constructed house of cards. It had collapsed now, of course.

The funny thing was that Arkady had brought them back together by bringing Eva to Moscow, strolling with her around Patriarch’s Pond on an autumn day and not understanding her shock when Isakov called her name.

“Keep walking,” Eva had said.

Arkady said, “If it’s a friend, I can wait.”

“Not yet,” Eva whispered to the phone, while her eyes stayed on Arkady. “I will, I will, I promise…. I do, too,” she said and set the receiver down.

Everything but a kiss, Arkady thought.

It wasn’t by chance that Isakov called when Arkady was likely to be home. Isakov was rubbing his face in it.

The phone rang again, jarring him. Arkady felt his breathing build. Eva backed away.

“I know you’re there, Renko. Turn on your television. Congratulations, you’re on the news,” Zurin said and hung up.

Arkady turned on the set. There were only six channels. The first showed the president laying a wreath, his eyes twisted one way, mouth another. Soccer. Patriotic films. Chechen atrocities. Finally, Prosecutor Leonid Zurin himself on a snowy street corner with a female reporter. Zurin’s white hair whipped back and forth and his cheeks were apple red. He smiled indulgently, a natural actor. After his desperate phone calls to Arkady, Zurin seemed to have regained himself.

“…a long winter, and sometimes winter is like the doldrums of summer, when all sorts of strange stories seem to be news, only to be forgotten a week later.”

“So the rumors of Moscow citizens encountering Stalin in the Metro are fabrications?”

Zurin spent a moment in consideration. “I wouldn’t say ‘fabrications.’ There was a report of a disturbance at a station last night. I sent a senior investigator who was particularly familiar with Stalin issues to the scene and he determined, after interviewing all the so-called witnesses, that no such event had, in fact, taken place. What had happened, according to Investigator Renko, was that some of the older riders got off the train earlier than they had intended and, as a result, found themselves stranded with a blizzard above and no more trains below.”

The reporter would not be shaken off.

“Which Metro station?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Are you investigating further, Prosecutor Zurin?”

“Not to chase phantoms. Not while there are real criminals on the street.”

“One last question, how did this rumor about Stalin get started? Do you or your investigator think it’s a hoax? A political statement?”

Zurin composed himself. “We think no conclusions need be drawn. Stalin is a figure of undeniable historical significance, who continues to draw positive and negative reactions, but there is no reason to make him responsible for every mistake we make.”

“Even getting off the train at the wrong stop?”

“Just so.”

Arkady sat, stunned, dimly aware that the next news item was on the trial of a war veteran who had shot and killed a pizza deliveryman who resembled a Chechen. Other vets were lending moral support to their brother in arms.

Eva turned off the set. “You are ‘familiar with Stalin’? What did Zurin mean by that?”

“You’ve got me.”

The phone rang and this time Arkady picked up.

“Ah,” Zurin said. “No more games. Now you answer. Did you see the news? Wasn’t it interesting?”

“There should have been no publicity.”

“I agree with you but, apparently, someone spoke to the press. I had to deal with reporters because the investigator assigned to the case was incommunicado. Renko, the next time I call you, whether it’s your weekend or your deathbed, you will jump to the phone.”

“‘Familiar with Stalin’?” Eva repeated. “Ask him what he means.”

Zurin said, “Explain to your lady friend that she is in a vulnerable position. Today I decided to review her papers. Doctor Eva Kazka is a divorced Ukrainian national with a Moscow residency permit based on her employment at a city polyclinic. Previous employment, a medical clinic in the Chernobyl Zone of Exclusion. A negative word, even a phone call from my office, and she would lose her present employment and her permit and go back to playing doctor for two-headed babies in Ukraine. Do you understand? Just say yes.”

“Completely.” Arkady watched Eva pull the sheet tight around herself.

“And that’s why you will answer every time I call and why you will handle this investigation exactly as I say. Do you agree?”

Eva said, “Whatever it is, say no.”

Arkady said, “What investigation? You told the reporter there wouldn’t be one.”

“What else could I say? That we were going to conduct a ghost hunt in the middle of Moscow? There will be an investigation but it will be confidential.”

“Don’t you think people will wonder why I’m asking questions if I’m not on a case?”

“You will have a case. You will investigate the claims of a citizen who says he has received threats against his life.”

“Then he wants a bodyguard, not me.”

Zurin said, “We don’t take it seriously. He’s reported death threats for twenty years. He’s paranoid. He also happens to be an expert on Stalin. You’ll be doing an investigation within an investigation. In fact, I’ve arranged it so you start tonight. The expert has agreed to meet you at the Park Kultury Metro and take the last train of the night for Chistye Prudy station. You will ride in the last car, since that seems to be where the sighting was.”

“Who is this expert?” Arkady asked, but Zurin had hung up.

“You weren’t going to do this,” Eva said.

Arkady filled her glass and then his.

“Well, you changed your mind and now I’ve changed my mind. Cheers.”

Eva left her glass where it was. “I have to go to work. The last thing I need is to tend sick children with vodka on my breath. You are ‘familiar with Stalin issues’? What did Zurin mean by that?”

“My father knew Stalin.”

“They were friends?”

“That’s hard to say. Stalin had most of his friends shot. Let me drive you to the clinic.”

“No. I’ll walk. I can use the fresh air.” Eva was on a different tack. “Did Stalin ever visit this apartment?”

“Yes.”

“I’m standing where Stalin stood?” She looked down at her bare feet.

“Not here in the bedroom, but in the rest of the apartment, I suppose so.”

“Because I always like to absorb the atmosphere and now I feel that I have really come to Moscow.”

“That’s the historian in you.”

“It’s certainly not the romantic.”

Ah, that was it, Arkady thought, Stalin was to blame.

For the workers who burned with ambition, for soldiers slack-jawed from hash, for those too old and too poor to wave down a car, for revelers going home with a split lip and broken glass in their hair, for lovers who held hands even wearing gloves, and for the souls who had simply lost track of time, the illuminated red
M
of the Park Kultury Metro was a beacon in the night. They stumbled in like survivors, stamping off snow and loosening scarves while Arkady watched. Fifteen minutes to the last Red Line train and he had seen no one resembling a Stalin expert.

Eva knew he had been less than forthcoming about part of his conversation with Zurin. Now they had both lied. What should he have said? If he had told her that the prosecutor was using her as leverage, she would have packed and been gone in a day. Even if she had promised not to, he would have come home to find the apartment empty.

Something was moving along the banked snow of the sidewalk. It made progress and then stopped and rested against the bank. A faint snowfall sparkled. The approaching something developed an overcoat and the sort of tufted knit cap a Laplander might wear for herding reindeer, and closer, a prow of a nose, woolly brows, and blood-raddled eyes. Grandmaster Platonov.

“Investigator Renko! Look at these fucking boots.” He pointed to the felt
valenki
he wore.

“They’re on the wrong feet.”

“I know they’re on the wrong feet. I’m not a cretin. There was no place to sit down and switch them.”

“Are you my Stalin expert?”

“Are you my protection?” Platonov’s glare folded into resignation. “I guess we’re both fucked.”

T
he Moscow Metro is the underground palace of the people.” Platonov limped, one boot on and one off, as he pointed at the walls. “Milk white limestone from the Crimea. Now that the riffraff is gone, you can see it properly.”

With its arches and tunnels, the hall of the Park Kultury station looked more like a monastery than a palace. A cleaning woman shuffled on towels across a wet section of the floor at about the same speed Platonov was moving.

Arkady asked, “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

“To meeting a phony Stalin? This is an idiotic prank. Did you find Zhenya?”

“No.”

“You won’t, not until he’s ready.” Platonov stepped onto the down escalator, sat to finish switching boots, stood to put his cap in one pocket and, from another pocket pulled a white silk scarf he flung around his neck. Fumes of liberally applied cologne finished the effect of a bon vivant, a man about town.

Ahead, a man with a violin case hurried down the steps. Behind, an old man in what had once been an elegant astrakhan cap gallantly carried a handbag for his wife while she pursed her lips and rouged her cheeks.

“Nervous?” Arkady asked.

“No,” Platonov said too quickly, and repeated, “no.” With his heroic beak, he could have been a Roman senator or King Lear cast out by ungrateful daughters so they could play chess. “Why should I be nervous? I take this subway line every day. It was dug by volunteers during the most difficult times of the thirties and the war. You can’t imagine it now, but we were idealists then. Everyone, male and female, the young cadre of the Party, vied to dig the Metro.”

“Not to mention brigades of forced labor.”

“Some convicts redeemed themselves through labor, that’s true.”

“Which reminds me, has anybody notified the Communists that Stalin is back? I think the Pope would be informed if Saint Peter were seen in the streets of Rome.”

“As a courtesy, Prosecutor Zurin, knowing the Party’s interest and concern, did inform us. I’ve been delegated to make a report.”

“So, besides teaching and playing chess, you are also a Party bureaucrat?”

“I told you at the chess club that I was well-connected.”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Any sane man would have run from the assignment, Arkady thought. “And you chose me?”

“I thought I detected a glimmer of intelligence.” Platonov sighed. “I may have been wrong.”

The train had collected the dregs of the evening: an inebriated officer of the Frontier Guard who leered at four prostitutes shivering in skimpy jackets and high-heeled boots. Arkady and Platonov took one end of the bench, the pensioners Antipenko and Mendeleyev took the other end. The violinist dropped into a corner seat, set his violin case across his knees, and opened a book. He had a round face and a wispy beard à la Che. Arkady didn’t expect many passengers in the last carriage; the Metro was famous for its safety, but the later the hour the more people gravitated toward the front of the train.

As the doors closed, Zelensky, the filmmaker, rushed in and took a seat near the far end, where he emanated nervous energy in a spooky black leather coat that emphasized how thin he was. His frizzled hair looked especially electrified and iPod cords hung from his ears. As the train pulled out he pushed a duffel bag under the bench. If he noticed Arkady he didn’t show it.

Park Kultury station fell behind; Kropotkin, Lenin Library, Okhotny Row, Lubyanka and Chistye Prudy stations lay ahead. Lightly loaded, the train flew through the tunnel with added whip. Windows turned to mirrors. A pale man with deep set eyes sat across from Arkady. No one should ever have to confront himself, he thought, not on the last train of the night.

Platonov rambled on about the Metro’s glories, the white marble hauled from the Urals, black marble from Georgia, pink marble from Siberia. At Kropotkin station he pointed out the enormous chandeliers. The station was named for Prince Kropotkin, an anarchist, and Arkady suspected that the chandeliers would have made the prince’s hand itch for a grenade. Six elderly riders got on, including those two ancient riders from the night before, Antipenko and Mendeleyev. Arkady wondered what the odds were of three passengers riding the same carriage as the night before. Why not, if they had regular schedules?

Zelensky listened to his music with his eyes closed, an occasional nod betraying the beat. Arkady had to give him credit; iPods were the most frequently stolen item on the Metro, but the filmmaker seemed blithely unconcerned. Mendeleyev and Antipenko snatched glances at Arkady, their eyes bitter and bright. Their youth had coincided with the peak of Soviet power and prestige. Little wonder they were wistful and furious at the downward course their lives had taken.

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 holding 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?”