Читать книгу Tatiana and the Russian Wolves - Stephen Evans Jordan - Страница 6

My first trip to Russia started on a bright summer day. I was drawn to Red Square, the Kremlin, and the massive Spasskaya Tower, its electric red star dominating Moscow’s evening skyline. Below the Kremlin’s walls, St. Basil Cathedral’s multicolored onion-shaped domes were more vivid than I had imagined, their gold Russian crosses shimmering in the summer light. Perhaps reflecting Russia’s recent past, Spasskaya Tower seemed to glare down at St. Basil’s standing its ground in ancient serenity.

The Russia I had imagined as a boy did not stand up to the Moscow I encountered as an adult. A few blocks from Red Square, the buildings were shabby and needed a good scrubbing; broken windows were replaced with plywood and cardboard, and broken concrete showered down from the exteriors. The people were shabby too: their clothing was often dirty; some smelled of old food and older sweat; stumbling drunks were common any time of day. Dressed in an American business suit, I stood out and felt watched.

Late one afternoon, I was outside the Bolshoi Ballet looking at the posters when an old woman—a street sweeper, babushkas they’re called—and three of her friends approached. They were dressed worse than most Russians, with traditional kerchiefs (babushkas) over their heads and lumpy sweaters in warm weather.

The approaching woman had once been tall but was now hunched; her glasses were mended with black tape, and she was still wearing winter boots. She asked, “Why are you here?”

I shrugged as if I didn’t understand.

She winked at her friends. “You, all dolled up like that, we’ve no use for you people.” With a shooing motion, she said, “Get out of here. Now. Understand?” As I walked away, she called me a vulgar name.

I turned and said in Russian, “Why, you horrid old creature. Tell me, did you kiss your mother with that filthy mouth of yours?”

She was surprised. Her friends shuffled in their boots.

I stepped toward her; she didn’t retreat. “I was minding my own business, not bothering a soul until you strolled up and called me the foulest name.”

She seemed amused.

“Why don’t you and your friends just totter off and leave me alone?”

“Where are you from?” She grinned. “Where did you learn Russian like that?” She bowed a little. “Come on, tell me.” She looked to be at least seventy, but Russian women of her type looked older; it was the endless drudgery. What teeth she still had were bad, her skin was splotchy from exposure to the cold, and years of vodka hadn’t helped either. I admired her, a tough Russian.

“I’m an American, but Russian is my first language.” I smiled at her.

I could smell the onions on her clothes and alcohol on her breath as she stepped toward me. “Your family ran away after the Revolution?”

“Otherwise they’d have been shot or sent to the gulags.”

She agreed with a nod. “Your Russian’s old-fashioned and southern.” She cocked her head. “Buy vodka for my friends and me? What do you say?”

Poor thing, what she had lived through: the Revolution and the Civil War; the forced collectivization of the farms during the late ’20s and early ’30s and the resulting famines; Stalin’s purges of the late ’30s, the horrors of World War II, followed by more of Stalin’s infinite brutality. Surviving all of that, she ended up a street sweeper. Well, God bless her; I gave her enough rubles for a liter of vodka and then some.

Taking the money, she said, “You’re a gentleman, a real gentleman. Sorry for the name I called you.” Backing away, she added, “Olga, Maria, Anastasia, and I will drink to your health.” She paused. “To do so, we need your name.”

“Alexander.”

“All three, please.”

“Alexander Andreivich Romanovsky.”

“God bless you, Alexander Andreivich,” she said, waving the money to her friends.

“Your name?”

“Tatiana,” she said over her shoulder. I didn’t catch the rest.

Tatiana was my mother’s name. “God bless you, Tatiana,” I shouted as she faded away.

Thinking about our exchange, I wondered if Tatiana was somehow connected with my feeling of being watched. If I were being watched, giving an old woman money for vodka was harmless, even in Russia. After all, I had been told for several days that Russia was changing for the better; perhaps it was. Or maybe I was sensing the fear that ran throughout Russian history and still stalked the people.

***

Earlier that year, I had been promoted to Vice President and Eastern European Area Manager at Universal Bank. Based in San Francisco, it was one of the world’s largest commercial banks. Soon after my promotion, the Soviets invited the world’s leading banks to Moscow to discuss financing a natural gas and oil pipeline to Western Europe. I spoke Russian and French as well as English, and Universal had sent me to kick the project’s tires. An easy assignment, since Universal’s senior management was determined to be the project’s lead American bank.

I spent a week in Moscow, attending presentations by Sov-Gas (the Soviet entity that would borrow the funds) and studying their projections. The Soviets hosted an elaborate dinner the first evening. Subsequent evenings offered numerous possibilities, including the ballet and the symphony.

I was staying at the cavernous Hotel Ukraine. Built during Stalin’s reign, from the outside the hotel looked like a high-rise concrete pastry. The rooms were comfortable, and the antiquated fixtures worked. The formal presentations were over, and I was scheduled to leave Moscow early the next morning on an Aeroflot flight to New York. Reviewing my notes in the lobby near the bar, I saw Boris Izmailov approaching and waved.

Boris was one of the Soviet Foreign Trade Bank’s senior officers; his bank would coordinate much of the project’s borrowing. We got along well during the brief time I knew him. Speaking English, Boris told me that he had business to discuss and escorted me to a conference room off the main lobby where he introduced me to an elderly watery-eyed man, Ivan Alexinsky, whom I remembered from the Sov-Gas presentations. Ivan had stayed in the background, but he stood out. It was his clothes; his baggy suit was forty years out of date. He looked liked one of Stalin’s men.

I introduced myself in English. Without standing or offering his hand, Ivan grumbled in Russian. I sat down. Neither Ivan nor Boris spoke. After a long moment, I asked Ivan in Russian about the pipeline project. Boris answered with a quick rehash of earlier presentations. Since Boris and Ivan wanted to see me, I decided to wait until they explained why. They didn’t. Boris looked at Ivan, who stared at me. I folded my hands and looked away.

Ivan leaned forward and asked, “Where were you born?”

“Paris. Why do you ask?”

“But an American citizen?”

“Yes.”

“Naturalized?”

“Yes.”

There was a knock on the door; I jumped a little. As Boris opened the door, a man from the hotel said that I had a call from San Francisco that would be sent to my room.

“It’s early morning in California. Must be important,” I said. “Excuse me.”

Ivan seemed surprised, Boris relieved.

In my room, I was asking a confused hotel operator for my overseas call and sensed someone behind me. It was Boris.

“Izvinitrye pazhalsta (excuse me), Alexander Andreivich.” His statement struck me as odd, since earlier introductions had been in English, and I had introduced myself as Alexander Romanovsky, without my patronymic, Andreivich.

I stood up. “Yes?”

Boris continued in Russian, “Sorry, but the door was open. Ah, there’s no call from the States. I set this up. We must speak.” Boris and I resembled each other: in our late thirties, we were both tall, fair, with Russian light-blue eyes. Boris’s Russian was educated with a clipped, big-city accent that sounded northern, probably Leningrad. Compared to his, mine was outdated and drawly with my mother’s southern accent.

I thanked the operator and hung up. “What do you want?” I said in Russian.

Boris looked around the room. I followed his eyes; Boris nodded. My room was bugged. He asked, “How does Ivan strike you?”

“Lately I’ve had the feeling of being watched. Perhaps Ivan has something to do with that?”

“Your Russian name attracted the police.” Boris’s tone was blasé; his eyes weren’t.

“And?”

“The police found some odds and ends about your grandfather. Then they called in Ivan—he’s a retired KGB general—and he remembered your grandfather, Adrian Romanovsky, from the old days. Checking files that had been stored away for years, Ivan found out that your grandfather returned to Russia with the Germans during the Great Patriotic War.” Russians call World War II the Great Patriotic War.

“That was ages ago,” I said.

“According to Ivan, those old files say that Adrian Romanovsky was a war criminal. Ivan thinks the American authorities would come after you if they found out.”

“Under American law…”

“What if the American authorities did a complete background check on you and your family? Problems?” Boris nodded yes.

“Yes, there could be repercussions.” My voice had fluttered.

“And there’s Universal Bank to consider.” Boris motioned as if he were tying a knot—my grandfather and Universal Bank.

As a trainee, I was told that, in the event of a bank robbery, I was to cooperate. I hoped that policy extended to blackmail. “I will see to it that Universal participates in the Sov-Gas loans so long as the information about my grandfather is not disclosed to Universal or the American authorities.”

Boris circled his thumb and forefinger. “Well, that’s settled,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs and tell Ivan the good news.”

Instead of the elevators, Boris took my arm and guided me into a stairwell. “Nice work, you sounded sincere and frightened.”

“I was and am. What did we just do?”

“I am professional, a banker like you. I have principles like yours, Western. Ivan believes you can be forced to make Universal approve the Sov-Gas financing. I told him that Western banks don’t work that way, and you can’t force Universal into deals. But he’s drunk all the time and won’t listen. So we’re doing it his way.” With a giddy laugh, he added, “One more thing: I’m scared.”

“Then I’m terrified.” We blinked at each other. “Does your bank know about this?”

“My bank has nothing whatsoever to do with this…this stupid blackmail,” Boris sputtered. “If they knew I was involved, I’d be in big trouble. However, Ivan could make far more trouble if I told my bank that he had forced me. If you help, maybe we can get out of this mess.” He grabbed my jacket. “Please, help me.”

“This is moving far too fast.”

“Don’t you see? Ivan has you,” Boris said.

“Well, I don’t think so. For one thing, I was born two years after the war ended and never knew Adrian Romanovsky. As for the American immigration authorities, even if they checked my records, I’d deny knowing anything about my grandfather returning to Russia with the Nazis. But here’s where it may get tricky for you: Universal’s policy states that any attempt to blackmail or bribe its officers must be reported in writing. I’ll write a report telling them exactly what happened.”

“I can’t stop you reporting this,” Boris said. “Ivan’s a survivor. He made it through Stalin’s purges, the war, and the dangerous time after Stalin’s death. He knows where all the bodies are buried.” Boris laughed a little. “Ivan is one of the freest men in Russia; no one gets in his way.”

“I see.”

“Ivan can make trouble for you. Maybe a passport problem. You were born in France but travel under an American passport. Sorting that out might take a day or two. Given the way you dress and talk with that fancy accent, a few nights in police custody might be tricky.”

“Okay, I’ll go along with Ivan since Universal’s management is eager to be the lead American bank in the pipeline project.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Boris said.

“Being blackmailed pushed everything else aside. And until now, Universal’s credit decisions were none of your business.”

“Yes, of course,” Boris said. “I’ll tell Ivan that you’ll see to it that Universal approves the deal. Our taped conversation in your room will prove that. Then all that is left is to listen to Ivan. He always goes back to the old days before the war when he was coordinating actions against the Whites in Europe.” The Whites were royalists who fought the Communists during the Russian Civil War that followed the Revolution from 1917 to about 1922.

Boris offered me a cigarette.

I had quit years ago but took it.

“You’re one of the lucky ones,” he said. “Your family got out. My grandparents were sent to the gulags because they were landowners—kulaks, enemies of the people. But they were peasants with a few hect-ares of land and some livestock.”

“Lucky? Out of two very large families, I’m the only one left.” I tried the cigarette and was dizzy.

Boris said, “Adrian Romanovsky was captured toward the end of the war. According to Ivan, when the Germans retreated, Adrian Romanovsky went to an estate his family owned before the Revolution and waited. He told the Red Army interrogators that he was a czarist officer, then a White officer.”

“And?”

“An officer, he demanded to be shot. Ivan said that Adrian Romanovsky was hanged. The hanging was slow.”

“Why in God’s name…”

“I don’t like this any more than you do.” Boris shook his head. “Ivan is my ex-father-in-law; that’s a primary reason why this is happening.” Boris studied his cigarette. “This is all about Ivan’s hatred; I’m afraid you’re going to listen to it.”

I ground out my cigarette. “You may tell Ivan that I have no intention of listening to his odium.”

“Odium?” Boris said. “Have you thought about updating your Russian?”

“I have. What else does Ivan know?”

“After the Whites were defeated, Adrian Romanovsky and his young son, Andre, fled to Turkey. A year or so later, they reached Paris. Adrian became the leader of a White émigré group that assassinated Soviet agents operating in Europe. The young boy, Andre, was a child prodigy and would become an important mathematician. When the Germans invaded France, Andre was evacuated to England and worked breaking German codes. Your mother, Tatiana, worked for a major Parisian art gallery; she came from one of the original boyar families—princes, going back to Kievan Rus. Her family name was Trepoff. The files end when Andre and Tatiana, his wife, left France and went to the University of California with their young son, Alexander Andreivich—you.”

“What else did Ivan say about my mother?”

“Not much, but I know the Nazis used Parisian galleries to plunder museums and private—that is, Jewish—art collections. German terms were: take it or leave it. Should you leave it, we’ll take it and send you to the gas.”

“What did Adrian Romanovsky do for the Germans?”

“Counterpartisan work.”

I wondered about my mother’s brother, Alexander Trepoff, who returned to Russia with Adrian Romanovsky and vanished.

Vanishing—a theme that runs through Russian folk tales and history:

Olga was gathering mushrooms in the forest and vanished,

Must have been the wolves.

A knock on the door one night and Sergei vanished,

The wolves again.

Since Boris hadn’t mentioned Alexander Trepoff, neither would I. Perhaps his file never existed, or perhaps he and his file had vanished. “The Germans were killers back then,” I said.

“People who assisted them had various motives. However, some were as bad as the German, others even worse.”

“I’ve read that Russians are possessed by Russia. My grandfather going home to die was quite Russian, wasn’t it?”

Boris’s smile was tenuous. “You should keep him in your mind that way.”

“I hope you’re as honest as I think you are.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Boris gushed. We clapped each other’s shoulders and brushed cheeks. “You’re ashamed of being Russian?”

I didn’t know many Russians. My parents had avoided the Russians in Paris. The only Russians I met in California were at the Russian Orthodox church in San Francisco that my mother and I attended. Most of the parishioners were émigrés bewildered by the upheavals that flung them to the other side of the world. They clung to one another, but my mother refused to socialize. When I asked why, she said they weren’t our type; we were special Russians who’d become quite rare. I missed her point and thought the two special Russians lived in the intimate world my mother and I had created.

Descending in an elevator, I hoped that I had read Boris right; if not, things would get far worse, and soon. Boris asked me to arrange appetizers and vodka while he spoke to Ivan. I greased the concierge with a pack of Marlboros, an unofficial currency that was better than rubles or dollars. The concierge called the bar, then minutes later, a waiter and I entered the conference room.

I filled the short-stemmed glasses with icy vodka and said, “Za vashe zadarov ye! (to your health!)” We downed the vodka.

Helping himself to the pickled mushrooms, Ivan asked, “How do I address you? Your Honor or Your Radiance?” Czarist terms of address for the aristocracy. I didn’t answer, and Boris poured another round.

As he was about to repeat his question, Ivan’s cigarette cough rumbled into a phlegmy spasm, his skin went rusty-scarlet, and his eyes watered. Probably a formidable man in his youth, Ivan was in his seventies, and his lungs were racing his liver to see which went first. He lit a cigarette and gulped the vodka. His high Slavic cheekbones made his blue eyes look small. A common complaint among Russians: small eyes.

Russian eyes had fascinated me since I first saw them on television news. Always in the winter, the cameras caught the smallish eyes set in square Slavic faces as Russians navigated the snow with a slow rolling gait, arms tight to their sides. I was told that they walked that way because they had been bound in swaddling clothes as babies. Or perhaps they were balancing themselves on icy streets and a slippery society.

Ivan caught me staring and wheezed, “Your Radiance; yes, that fits.”

“That was a long, long time ago,” I said. “Anyway, as Boris may have told you, I’ll see to it that Universal Bank participates in the Sov-Gas financing. That’s conditional, of course, on you not telling Universal and the American authorities about my grandfather.”

“I’ll see to it.” I detected an ember of satisfaction in Ivan’s damp eyes. “But tell me, Your Radiance, does it bother you that your grandfather was a war criminal?”

A Soviet secret policeman calling anyone a criminal was preposterous. “I never knew my grandfather. On the other hand, the French and the British gave my father medals for his service during the Great Patriotic War.” I stood up. “But why, in heaven’s name, are we discussing my grandfather who died more than forty years ago?”

Ivan yelled, “He was hanged. Now, sit down.”

“I’ll stand.”

Boris’s eyes widened.

Ivan glared. “People like your family…” Coughing stopped him.

“People like you killed most of them, ” I said.

“Obviously, we missed a few.” Ivan gasped after several shallow breaths. “My father’s family came from the south, where your accent is from. White cavalry squadrons took his village. Those fancy officers—like your grandfather—declared the village Red and nailed the men to a barn. My grandfather, an old man, hands nailed, freezing to death.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

Ivan tossed back another vodka. “My father was Red Cossack cavalry, a squadron leader, in the south. His troopers came across one of those big estates. The men had gone with the Whites and left behind the women and old men. My God, what those women went through.” Ivan drifted off into his thoughts; from his expression I couldn’t tell if they were pleasant or troubling. Then he refocused. “Your grandfather got what he deserved.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Ivan said, “Your grandfather—”

Boris took over. “Ivan, all of our grandfathers are dead. Awful deaths…yours, mine, his.”

“The aristocrats,” Ivan said, “I’ve never seen any in person. Only their pictures, like you in fancy clothes.” I was wearing a summer-weight, gray-striped Brooks Brothers suit. “And talking with that aristocratic drawl, you’re one of them, a pampered lap dog. You’re a banker pandering to rich capitalists, like your mother pandered to the Nazis.”

“She did not.” I glanced at Boris, who seemed surprised.

“The French resistance was Communist,” Ivan sneered. “They didn’t miss anything and reported everything. And why would our informants lie?”

“Communists believed that aristocrats were capable of anything.”

“They were right. But that’s between you and your mother.”

“She’s dead.”

“Sorry,” Ivan said.

“You’re not.”

Pointing to me, Boris said, “He’s one of the few left; their time ended years ago.” Taking Ivan’s shoulder, he said, “Let’s go.”

Ivan staggered and pointed at me. “You’re a ghost. A damned ghost.” Clapping his hands, he said, “Boo, go to hell, where you belong.”

Returning to my room, I was drawn to the window. Northern cities come alive in the summer, releasing energy the winter had muffled under heavy wraps. Lines were forming at the theaters. In the parks children were playing, young couples were flirting, older folks reminiscing accompanied by the balalaika’s fluttering cords. I thought of joining them for the homemade pirozhki and sausages blistered over open fires; the beer would be fresh, the vodka clean. More vodka was tempting, but I had a report to write.

Exhuming my grandfather and my uncle in a memo to Personnel was demeaning for my parents and the relatives I had never known. They were gone, along with the millions that Communism had consumed. Not mourned then, they had become ciphers in the history books. As Stalin himself once said, “A single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.”

I sat down and wrote the report.

Stretched out on the bed, I waited for my mother. Early that morning, she would emerge from dawn’s frail light; we would talk, as we had before she became ill. About to leave, she would ask if I loved her more than anyone; I’d say yes. When I asked if she had loved me, she would fade away without answering.