Читать книгу Two for the Devil - Allen Hoffman - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN GRISHA TOOK SVETKOV’S SEAT BEHIND THE DRAB, massive desk, he felt a resurgence of the revolutionary enthusiasm that had once pulsed routinely through his Chekist veins. More importantly, he felt a purity of purpose that he had not experienced for several long, disappointing years. He smoothed his tunic as if it were a priestly vestment and he the priest who must assure the sanctity of the service. So much wasn’t right, but now that the Communist party had chosen him to protect its inner core, there was hope. From this bleak office in the Lubyanka would radiate a new vigilance that would cut away the smothering calcification and expose the life-generating marrow. Mankind’s confidence in the Great October Revolution would be justified!

Grisha sat in the seat of power with a revolutionary confidence that he represented the forces of progress. Historical necessity tickled him like a feather, and he wanted to laugh aloud. Yes, and he had not arrived a moment too soon. Careerists, opportunists, apparatchiks, were trampling the revolutionary flame into the dust; fear of his own arrest was sufficient proof that things were in a terrible state! But the pure spark that had ignited the revolution had survived and would be fanned into flame anew, igniting, illuminating, warning, tempering, and spreading.

Grisha’s inspired mind leaped to the battlements of the Kremlin for a historical perspective. Only an old Chekist could retrieve the Great October Revolution. “What’s to Be Done?” Lenin had heralded, and Grisha knew. The party had to retrace its steps to that point where it had taken the wrong path and from there proceed along the proper way with Bolshevik confidence. The revolution had gone wrong with Trotsky. Exiling the traitor had not solved the problem, but miraculously, that moment could be recaptured. If not the moment, then the man himself; and through the man, things could be set right. Perhaps Trotsky had returned to Russia on his own to help solve the problems he had caused, but Grisha doubted it. An arrogance such as that could not admit error.

No, Trotsky must have been captured and spirited back to Russia. Stalin himself must have understood, for only the general secretary had the authority to give such an order. It would be Grisha’s job to see that the prisoner cooperated. If he did, then the real counterrevolutionaries could be rooted out. As to the personal future of the prisoner, Stalin no doubt would want him shot. There was certainly something to be said for that, especially if it meant that others wouldn’t be shot, but even that might be unnecessary if he confessed properly. After all those years of promising prisoners that if they told the truth, they would have nothing to fear, such might really be the case!

The thought stimulated Grisha; it would justify so much that had happened; so much that he had done to so many. That the “old man” could become the “new man” excited him further. Thus freed from his havoc-wreaking attempts to create a new man, Comrade Stalin could return to building the country, the job he was suited for. But Grisha restrained his enthusiasm; all of this was in the future. First he had to gain the cooperation of the party’s most brilliant theoretician and most dangerous enemy. A man who had created and commanded the Red Army. Whose case could be more delicate than this, a case so delicate that as yet no file existed?

After Svetkov and the guard had departed, Grisha gazed steadily at the prisoner. He was, indeed, surprised.

“Lev Davidovich?” Grisha called softly across the large chamber, using Trotsky’s first name and patronymic, informal name, in faint hope that his disappointment was premature.

Accepting Grisha’s gentle, indistinct query as an invitation, the prisoner stepped humbly forward to be able to hear better. Although he said nothing, his pale meek face silently drew itself into an apology. “Yes?” it seemed to ask in reluctant embarrassment.

This pained, vulnerable attitude momentarily disarmed Grisha.

“You’re not Leon Trotsky?” Grisha uttered disconsolately.

“No.” The prisoner responded so softly that Grisha couldn’t hear him, but he could see the man shaking his head in humiliation that he had disappointed once again.

The prisoner’s extraordinary humility saved Grisha from the collapse of his own exuberant expectations of interrogating Trotsky. Grisha experienced surprise and disappointment, but almost no embarrassment before this new prisoner, who seemed to lack any defiance or mistrust. The man even seemed somewhat relieved to find himself standing across from the NKVD director of investigations.

“Sit down,” Grisha said, not uncharitably, and the man responded quickly but with slow, careful movements. The effect was strange and further aroused Grisha’s interest. The man seemed to be in good health. There were no signs that he had been beaten. He wore his belt and shoelaces. Obviously, he had not been processed as a formal prisoner. Grisha assumed that he was being held in one of the special cells where accommodations and diet were more like those of a comfortable hotel than a prison.

And yet, as frightened as the man was, he didn’t seem afraid so much of Grisha as of himself. He seemed to look to the NKVD officer for help, but without the usual righteous indignation of the innocent. The man had an aura of self-professed guilt about him. His strange eyes trumpeted it. They were preternaturally large and filled with both shame and innocence. Where had Grisha seen something like this—the pale, wide eyes, the slow movements, the innocent fear and complete vulnerability? He was reminded of the small, furry creatures of the night, who lived in the treetops and relied on their large eyes and inaccessible habitat to survive. Once an adversary discovered them, they were helpless. At the zoo, Grisha had liked them at once. And only them. Tigers, snakes, crocodiles, he had recognized them all as enemies of the revolution. On battlefronts and in interrogation rooms he had struggled against their counterrevolutionary claws, poison, sharp teeth, and voracious jaws. At the zoological garden, Grisha was fascinated but tense. He knew them all from the cages of the Lubyanka—beasts whose very nature was to prey upon the Great October Revolution. He always insisted that his cadets spend time in serious study at the zoo. The grasping, scampering monkeys, shameless profiteers and speculators. The kulak birds sang so beautifully but were the first to steal grain from another’s harvest. And the ugly nonparty owls, sleeping by day and screeching by night. A comrade could learn a lot from the brutal world of nature, all right. But one creature always drew him to its cage in wonderment. He had seen them all before in the Lubyanka except for the large-eyed, slow-moving, nocturnal lemur. Fearful and trusting, an investigator’s dream.

“You are?” Grisha inquired imperiously.

“Dmitri Cherbyshev,” the man answered meekly.

“Would you like to tell me in your own words why you’re here?” Grisha asked. Stressing “in your own words” suggested clearly that the NKVD interrogator most certainly knew all and was merely being kind.

The prisoner’s large eyes filled with a fright and a horror that threatened to paralyze him. Although the eyes did not close in the least, they no longer focused on the questioner. The effect was as if out of embarrassment the prisoner had looked away or lowered his glance. Had he done so, Grisha would have been offended and doggedly pursued the prisoner. This strange inward retreat, however, did not offend Soviet justice. Grisha was reminded of Svetkov’s term “delicate.” Here was an extremely delicate prisoner. Sensitive to the man’s plight, Grisha sat up attentively.

“It’s difficult, isn’t it?” Grisha suggested sympathetically.

The prisoner looked at his NKVD interrogator and nodded. Although Grisha didn’t think the man would burst into tears—the wide eyes seemed beyond tears—Grisha was concerned that the man might sink within their wet white surface as if into a moist fog.

“I understand,” Grisha said with studied sincerity. “Perhaps I was a little too sudden. I can see that you want to tell the truth, don’t you?”

Dmitri glanced at Grisha and nodded.

“Sometimes it’s not easy. We understand that, but it’s always the best way. It’s the only way. After all, we’re here to help you. Maybe we should get to know one another. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself. Dmitri, where do you work?”

Dmitri’s eyes focused. “At the Lenin Library,” he said.

“That’s a wonderful place to work. A wonderful name, too. Of course, with my activities here, I just don’t have the time to visit it the way I would like to. It’s one of the world’s largest collections, isn’t it?”

The prisoner merely nodded.

“What do you do there?” Grisha asked buoyantly.

“I am in charge of some of the foreign collections,” Dmitri answered.

“What foreign languages do you know?” Grisha inquired.

“Polish, English, French, German—all rather well, and I read several others,” the prisoner answered simply.

“You’re obviously very talented,” Grisha commented respectfully. “Do you enjoy your work, Dmitri?”

Dmitri squirmed uncomfortably in the large leather armchair without being able to formulate an answer.

“You don’t enjoy your work?” Grisha suggested.

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?” Grisha asked politely.

Dmitri looked at Grisha. “Since I’ve had these difficulties, I just don’t know.”

The man put his hand to his forehead in desperation and shook his head. Grisha was sure now that he was about to cry.

“Would you like a drink of water?” he suggested.

The man removed his hand from his head and fell back into the deep upholstered leather chair, gripping the armrests. Grisha picked up the phone and heard the new secretary’s crisp “Yes?”

“May we have a pitcher of water, please?” The voice responded, “Immediately,” and Grisha regretted not having been more imperious in his order. She probably would have respected him more if he hadn’t said please. That’s not the way things used to be.

“Where do you live?”

“In the Arbat. Close to the library,” he answered.

Grisha nodded. “Married?”

The prisoner shook his head. Grisha thought he detected a telltale sign of guilt.

“Have you been married?” he asked casually.

Again Dmitri shook his head with the same telltale signs.

“Engaged?”

A third time the prisoner shook his head. The fact was that this timid Dmitri didn’t look like a ladies’ man, but the Cheka had been fooled often enough on that score. Even after the revolution, sex remained a mystery. Somewhere in Moscow there must be a woman who would thrill to Dmitri Cherbyshev’s wide, frightened eyes and clutch him close. Not that much would happen between them with the man’s debilitating fear, but then, Grisha thought, who knows; there seem to be enough of those frightened furry little lemurs to populate the jungle and the zoos, too.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. He buzzed Tatiana in. She entered with a tray containing a large, heavy cut-glass pitcher and two heavy glasses. Grisha had seen them before in this office, but he wondered anew whether they weren’t left from tsarist times. Still, he couldn’t imagine that glassware could survive so long anywhere in Bolshevik Russia, especially in the Lubyanka, where things were destined to be broken. Imperiously he raised his arm and silently pointed to the portion of the desk directly in front of the prisoner. Tatiana primly put the tray down and turned to leave.

Grisha watched her mannish walk, all shoulders and arms, no hips at all. Who would find anything like that attractive? Maya Kirsanova came to mind. She had Bolshevik steel in her heart, but she had hips and human needs, too. If Grisha had had a revolutionary love, she was it. Should he have divorced and married her? There was no great romantic love, but politically Maya was aware, a trusted party member, and there was grace in their relationship. The Cossacks had chided him about it, but with respectful affection. He had envied the natural way they sat on their horses, and they had envied him. They were right, too. He and Maya had “ridden” with a natural physical dignity that made them both proud and grateful to have one another. But this stern, short-haired NKVD secretary— who could ride her with any joy? What would the Cossacks have thought of her? They most probably would have compared her to a mule instead of a graceful, thin-faced mare or a strong, supple Maya Kirsanova.

My heavens, he had let her go! And why was he thinking of her now? Since Kirov had been shot, no one seemed to be screwing in Russia anymore. If they were, the NKVD would know about it, and the NKVD didn’t know about it, so it must not be happening. In the purges one-fourth of Leningrad had disappeared. Who could make love waiting for a knock on the door? Grisha couldn’t; he knew that. So what difference did it make if Chekist women no longer existed? Neither did the Cheka, and neither did sex. Why was he sitting at Svetkov’s desk and in his leather chair with such thoughts and such tense discomfort?

“Dmitri, it’s a little warm in here. Why don’t you have a drink?” Grisha suggested. Welcoming the chance to get up from the chair, he poured the man a glass of water.

Dmitri, relieved at the opportunity to do something with his trembling hand, took it. Grisha watched the water roll about in frenzy as Dmitri’s spasmodic anxiety entered the liquid. A quick darting wave roiled forward and leaped over the rim, running down onto Dmitri’s hand. He leaned forward, licking at his thumbs with the same slow grace that had marked his entry, and then, surprisingly, his hands ceased to shake. He sipped from the glass and rested it on the desk.

“Thank you,” he said with cringing sincerity.

Eager to begin, Grisha returned to Svetkov’s seat.

“Dmitri, take another drink,” he suggested.

Obsequiously, Dmitri obeyed.

“You know we’re here to tell the truth. Sometimes what we have to say is difficult or painful. Sometimes we are ashamed of the things we have done, but there is nothing better for us than the truth. Often we imagine that some things are frightening to tell, but they generally reveal themselves as not half so bad as we imagine. And you’ll feel better for having told the truth, too. I can see that you aren’t very comfortable now. Am I right, Dmitri?”

Dmitri nodded.

“Remember, we’re all here in this building to protect you, because when we protect the revolution, we are protecting all of us, aren’t we?”

Again Dmitri nodded, but this time in a curt, perfunctory manner.

“So why don’t we just start at the beginning,” Grisha coaxed.

Dmitri nodded and then reached to drink from his glass. Instead of the usual timid sip, he took two long gulps that almost drained the large tumbler. He grasped the glass tightly, his fingers blanching white, and his great fearful eyes swam in frenzy as if they were drowning in the copious fluid he had swallowed. Suddenly his lips began moving. Staring at the floor, he spoke so softly that at first Grisha wasn’t aware that he was talking. After several sentences he stopped. Although Grisha had not heard a word, he thought it best to be encouraging.

“Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Grisha asked. Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “It never is. It’s our imagination that is the problem.”

“Yes, but what can we do about it?” Dmitri asked. His face wore a look of supplication.

“Tell the truth,” Grisha stated triumphantly.

“And that will control our imagination?” Dmitri countered doubtfully.

Dmitri clearly thought that he, Grisha, had heard his confession. Grisha thought it better not to reveal the truth to him now. After all, there were lesser and greater truths, istina and pravda. Pravda was the very newspaper of the party, and only the party could determine the greater truth, the revolutionary truth. How could he begin to explain that to a nonparty person, and such a troubled one at that?

“Of course the truth will help control the imagination. If necessary, the truth can even spark the revolutionary imagination. Lenin first imagined the revolution, didn’t he? And Stalin imagined the new man.”

Grisha had added the latter for good form, but he noticed that the prisoner shrank back in horror.

Embarrassed at his ignorance and frustrated by the failure of his gentle technique, Grisha asked abruptly, “When did all this begin?”

The prisoner’s lips began to move.

“I can’t hear a word you are saying. You’ll have to speak louder,” Grisha announced.

“I’m sorry,” Dmitri said softly, but loud enough for Grisha to hear.

“That’s better. Now, my friend, when did all this trouble begin?”

“I think after Kirov, the Leningrad party chairman, was shot,” he answered.

Here at last was something Grisha could sink his teeth into. Stalin himself had rushed to Leningrad to investigate the murder of the second most important Communist.

“Were you in Leningrad at the time?” Grisha asked. Dmitri shook his head. “Did you know the assassin, Leonid Nikolayev?” A shake of the head in reply. “Were you involved with the desperate Zinovievite circles that manipulated Nikolayev?” Another negative response. “The White Guards, then?” A shake of the head. “Trotskyite?” Another no. “But you did welcome the Leningrad party chairman’s murder?” Grisha accused with certainty.

“No,” Dmitri murmured innocently, horrified at the suggestion.

“Why not?” Grisha asked, as if the prisoner had every reason to.

The question confused the prisoner. “No,” he murmured. “I didn’t know very much about Kirov. I should have known more. He was one of the party’s most important leaders.” His voice trailed off.

“In what way were you implicated in Kirov’s death?” Grisha asked, slightly exasperated.

“In the way everyone was—a lack of vigilance and a lack of Communist awareness,” the prisoner answered.

“And do you admit to this?” Grisha demanded.

“I thought everyone did. Only party members spoke at the meetings, and they said we were all responsible.”

“These were meetings of the library staff ?” Grisha asked. Dmitri nodded.

“And they began after Kirov’s death?”

“No, we had them before, but they weren’t so important. After Kirov’s murder, we began having them regularly, every day for two weeks. Work at the library practically came to a halt. We met from the afternoon until the late evening. We learned about the murder and the threats to the state.”

“And it was at one of these meetings that you admitted your betrayal?”

Dmitri shook his head.

“You didn’t admit your betrayal?” Grisha asked reasonably.

Again Dmitri shook his head.

“What other possibility is there?” Grisha wondered affably. Without confirming or denying Grisha’s rhetorical question, the prisoner sat staring at the NKVD officer. Grisha waited while a tremor of guilt played across the man’s face like wind over water, then he asked gently, “Are you going to answer?”

Dmitri nodded. He looked as if something were stuck in his throat.

“I thought we agreed that you would feel better if you told the truth,” Grisha gently reminded him.

“No one spoke except party members. They were very upset.”

“At whom?”

“At everyone.”

“At everyone?” Grisha asked incredulously.

“Not at Comrade Stalin himself. Comrade Stalin had relied on all of us, and we had all failed him. Enemies were everywhere, and we had to become more alert to these destroyers and wreckers,” Dmitri recited by rote.

“You didn’t believe it?” Grisha suggested.

“At first I didn’t understand it. It seemed that Comrade Stalin could do everything alone if he had to, but that it would be so much better if we helped him,” Dmitri explained in his usual timid manner. Then he fairly exploded, “They talked about Stalin all the time!”

“What were you hiding that you didn’t think they should know?” Grisha queried.

The prisoner, however, paying no attention to Grisha, continued his narrative. “You couldn’t help but think about Stalin. The more I listened to them, the more I thought about the general secretary. We were instructed to follow Stalin, even to anticipate his thoughts, but in fact it was only through Stalin that we could know what was right or wrong. I couldn’t understand our relationship to him. He needed us, and he didn’t need us. He loved us, and he hated us. I thought, What does he want from us? He wanted to be all things, but only to the parts of us he wanted. We were urged to think about the general secretary all the time.”

Dmitri suddenly turned to Grisha. His impassioned eyes still held a full measure of fright.

“Do you understand?” he pleaded.

Grisha was afraid that he did.

“Everyone claims they don’t. Even the psychiatrists. The NKVD ignored the letter I sent them. Do you understand?” Dmitri implored.

“Go on,” Grisha ordered dryly, but with a scratchy voice that betrayed him.

Obsequious, almost sycophantic rapture shone through the frightened eyes. Grisha was worried that the man would say, “Good,” for the prisoner knew that he understood. Grisha was thankful that the man merely nodded slightly and returned to his tale.

“You see, Stalin was the party. The party was the state. The state was the people. So Stalin was us. But we weren’t Stalin. How could mere little insects like us be Stalin? I admit the thought is preposterous. Poor Stalin had enemies everywhere. Not just in the wicked foreign capitals, not just in the old Russia. Stalin had an enemy in every one of us. These enemies permitted Kirov to be killed and by extension the party, and thereby Stalin himself. Stalin was building the new Soviet man, and we were trying to kill this new man. So of course he was angry. After all, hadn’t we killed Kirov? And weren’t we planning far worse acts against the Great Teacher Stalin himself?”

Here the prisoner paused.

“Were you?” Grisha asked gravely.

“How could I plot against Stalin? How could I plot against myself? How could I do such a thing?” the man fairly shouted in indignation.

He gripped the arms of the chair. His eyes burned with shame. “How could I do such a thing?” he repeated in quiet, amazed horror. His voice broke suddenly, the great open eyes blinked, and the man was crying.

Grisha pointed to the water pitcher, but the prisoner ignored the suggestion. He composed himself to continue. When he did so, it was in a calm, sober voice filled with all its former apology and embarrassment.

“I must admit that I had been warned, but I didn’t listen. The party members warned us that it seemed easy, whereas in reality nothing was more difficult. They warned us that in our most unsuspecting moments we could fall prey to counterrevolutionary anti-Soviet activity. Do you know why I didn’t listen?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I was bored. Everything was Stalin. Stalin this and Stalin that. These meetings became our primary work. We were to defend Stalin against everything. Politics didn’t interest me. I barely knew who Kirov was. How could I join counterrevolutionary activity? What could I do? It all seemed so fantastic. It was fantastic, and of course they were right. I had been warned and—” The prisoner paused. “And as I told you, it happened. I admit it was my fault.”

Not having heard the original confession, Grisha did not quite understand what this strange, bewildered, and bewildering man was supposed to have done.

“Let’s go through it again. In detail,” Grisha suggested.

“In detail?” the prisoner asked in revulsion.

“Yes, you seem to have found your tongue. We want to hear the truth, don’t we?”

Grisha paused, but Dmitri simply stared across the great expanse of desk as if he were overlooking an abyss.

“And another thing. Don’t lower your voice. You don’t have to shout either. Just speak normally.”

“May I have some more water?” the prisoner rasped. He sounded as if his tongue were sticking to his mouth.

“Yes, of course,” Grisha said.

The man poured a large glassful and began to sip it, staring alternately into the disappearing fluid and at his NKVD officer.

“You didn’t hear me the first time, did you?” Dmitri asked softly.

Embarrassed at being caught in his subterfuge, Grisha said noncommittally, “Just repeat it.”

“They never do,” the prisoner said. “No one ever has. I’m to blame. I always drop my voice in shame. It’s not your fault.”

Annoyed at the prisoner’s arrogant attempt to exonerate him, Grisha said, “Speak up, please.”

“I’ll try,” he whispered.

“Louder,” Grisha ordered.

“Is this better?” the prisoner asked in a nearly normal speaking voice.

“Much,” Grisha answered.

The prisoner nodded, but didn’t continue speaking.

Grisha stifled his rising impatience. “I know it must be difficult, but I can assure you that you will feel better once you have told me the truth.”

“I was always thinking about Stalin,” the prisoner began quietly.

“Yes, I understand that,” Grisha said patiently.

“Good. Most people don’t. I’m not sure that I do. But I think my confusion began after what happened.”

The prisoner was staring at his investigator. Grisha nodded.

“And every night I would find myself alone with him.”

“You would go home and imagine that Comrade Stalin was in your living room?” Grisha asked.

“No,” the prisoner answered, then added, “In the bedroom.”

He stopped again, a mask of anguish on his face.

“What was the general secretary doing there?” Grisha wondered.

“He was with me. We were together . . .” The man’s voice trailed off, then he closed his eyes and whispered, “like a man and a woman.”

He opened his great fearful eyes to view the reaction. It was slow in coming.

“Like a man and woman?” Grisha repeated in prudish confusion.

“As much as such things are possible,” the prisoner answered.

“Possible?” Grisha repeated uncertainly.

“Every night it’s the same. There we are together like two creatures. One mounting the other from behind. Every night. Always the same.”

He made this confession in horror, suffused with relief at having told the truth.

“This has been going on every night since Kirov was killed. You can’t imagine what it is like to live with something like that,” he added.

Grisha heard the man’s relief at having confessed to the sword and shield of Soviet society, but he himself could not believe that he had heard it right.

“You and . . . the general secretary?” he said in a tone of revulsion.

“Yes,” the prisoner said forthrightly, and in the rush of confession sought for greater clarity. “Like two dogs, one on the other. Every night. It’s disgusting.”

“Disgusting? It’s revolting. It’s filth!” Grisha was sincerely horrified.

“Yes, I know,” the prisoner agreed shamefully.

In his puritanical revulsion, Grisha felt the carousel begin to turn. Slowly, ever so slowly at first, with no sense of motion as the machine slipped its brake. His first realization came as the background began sliding around. Grisha knew that soon the platform would gather speed and revolve with merciless rapidity. If only it could be stopped now. A case of mistaken identity. Grisha prayed for a simple case of mistaken identity.

“Are you sure?” he asked quickly.

“Yes, very,” the prisoner insisted.

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean the general secretary. Are you sure it was him?”

Dmitri looked confused. “Absolutely. His picture is everywhere.”

“Yes, of course it is,” Grisha frantically agreed. “But if”—he paused reflexively—“if you are down on all fours like a dog, how can you be sure who is on top? It could be anyone. You are facing the ground in front of you, and you can’t see who is behind you. It might be anyone. That’s so, isn’t it?” he demanded triumphantly.

This brilliant analysis pained the prisoner but didn’t lessen his certainty.

“Well, I suppose you’re right about the person on the bottom if he doesn’t turn around, but I’m always on top,” he explained.

“You mean?” Grisha whispered in shock.

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t catch what you said,” the prisoner apologized, sliding forward in his seat to hear better.

“You!” Grisha rasped, directing an accusing finger at his prisoner, “and . . .” his finger pointed down, indicating the party on the bottom whose exalted name he couldn’t dare mention in such an inferior position.

“Yes, the general secretary is always on the bottom. He prefers it that way. I know, because when he does turn around, he is smiling.”

The prisoner sat back in his armchair. Grisha, however, moved forward to the edge of his. Feeling as if his head were going to explode, he grasped it on either side and pressed in on his temples. Through a haze of murky sensations—contempt for Svetkov, fear of Stalin, hatred of Trotsky—that began to swirl, he knew that only one preventive explosion might save him, his career, and his life. He pushed against his skull to compose himself, dropped his hands, sat up, and very deliberately unfastened his holster. Without removing his eyes from the prisoner, he drew his pistol. This time he did not place it on the desk. Releasing the safety, he continued to point the heavy weapon directly at the prisoner.

“Dreams are not permitted the new Soviet man. They cannot be controlled,” he explained in a quiet, menacing voice. “They are inevitably insurrectional and anti-Soviet.”

“Yes, I know.” The prisoner confirmed the verdict.

As Dmitri Cherbyshev stared at the deadly, cocked weapon, his eyes widened in fearful vulnerability. Slowly they changed, and Grisha read in them no sense of outrage or desire to escape. Quivering slightly, Cherbyshev stared almost worshipfully at the instrument that would determine his fate. The gentle nocturnal lemur faced the sharp-toothed cat in daylight. Denizen of a nightmare world from which one could never wake up, he had only one hope, to stop dreaming. In the chamber of the automatic lay the dark, leaden release from his horrors.

The prisoner appealed to the NKVD officer to liberate him. It was an appeal that in most cases would have been immediately successful, but in the netherworld of the Lubyanka, a prisoner’s wishes were rarely met—even when they coincided with those of the state security administration. Otherwise, the terror would hardly be worthy of its name, and names were very important to the masters of the Lubyanka. Grisha, as Colonel Hershel Shwartzman, knew at once that his only chance to survive dictated that he march the prisoner off the rug onto the marble floor and blow his filthy anti-Soviet scheming brains out. Logic demanded it, and the NKVD colonel who held the pistol was not squeamish about executing such brutal logic. Grisha, however, was hesitant, for he did understand what even the Soviet psychiatrists refused to admit: Stalin had driven the man crazy. If Stalin were us, as Dmitri had said, then Grisha was Dmitri. Grisha chose not to shoot the prisoner, and thereby Colonel Shwartzman applied inadvertently an even more inspired principle of the Lubyanka: mercy can be the cruelest torture of all.

Grisha placed the exposed weapon on the desk and reached for a pen and several sheets of paper. He could see the great wave of disappointment flooding the prisoner’s eyes. Colonel Shwartzman was determined to keep the prisoner from slipping below their surface.

“It won’t take long. You understand that we must have a few particulars before we proceed.”

The prisoner stirred, blinking his eyes as if at the gentler rays of daylight. When the colonel was certain that he had the man’s attention, he gently patted his pistol.

“It won’t go anywhere. I promise. I know what you want. Trust me,” he said duplicitously.

The prisoner nodded. His eyes remained on the pistol. Colonel Shwartzman glanced down to straighten the several sheets he had placed one upon the other.

It seemed warmer, and although the colonel didn’t quite understand why, Grisha did: he felt the itch, not of historical necessity, but of burgeoning curiosity as to Dmitri Cherbyshev’s filthy insurrectional activities. His other self, the colonel, stifled this interest as inappropriate. He, too, certainly shared it, but Grisha had sought refuge in the bureaucratic world of the colonel’s NKVD. The normal operating procedure of the NKVD demanded a complete signed confession in accordance with Bolshevik methods that “have proven effective,” as he had preached to Svetkov some time earlier.