“YOU ARE BEING INDICTED,” Zhuk said to Roman, sitting behind a desk as if he were a one-man tribunal, while Roman stood in front of him, feet apart, arms locked behind his back.
“Indicted for what?”
“Agitation against the Soviet Government,” Zhuk said. “For your ceaseless though unsuccessful efforts to undermine the Communist Party. And, most importantly, for your insufferable campaign in advancement of Ukrainian nationalism.”
“But what did I actually do?” Roman said. “What specific crime am I being charged with?”
“I just told you.”
“No, you gave me party slogans,” Roman said. “You haven’t cited a single specific instance of my wrongdoing. I have given you most of my farm to cultivate. I have agreed to work for you, nearly for free. I have begun an organization specifically to eliminate the very elements of our Ukrainian agricultural life you find most abhorrent—the successful farmer you call kulak. Unlike most other farmers, my family and I show up at your meetings to support your goals. We even started to develop chickens that might produce more than one egg a day. I mean, the project is still in the egg phase, but there’s hope for next year.”
“Next year will be too late for you, Comrade Lazar.”
“Yes, too late seems to come rather early these days,” Roman said. “But as with all farm life—the grain, the planting, the tilling, the breeding, the milking—the raising of new, more productive Soviet chicks requires patience, Comrade Zhuk. It requires perseverance. Are my efforts to help you achieve your aims considered sabotage just because we have not waited the necessary time to see results?”
Roman managed to talk himself out of arrest and indictment, despite Potapov’s murder. He bought himself and his family some time. Perhaps it was because he’d been in custody when Potapov was killed; even Zhuk could not pin on Roman what Roman clearly could not have done.
“We’re just giving you rope to hang yourself with, comrade,” said Efros when he released him. “One way or another, we will determine if you had anything to do with Comrade Potapov’s unfortunate demise.”
Roman mock-saluted him. “As always, my full support for all your endeavors, Comrade Efros.”
“Roman,” Petka said when Isabelle’s brother returned home, and the family gathered to assess their situation, “this is insane. You know the farm can’t deliver what you promised Zhuk.”
“I know,” said Roman. “They also know what they’re asking for is impossible. The private farm can’t deliver it, and the collective won’t deliver it either. You think just because you work on a farm owned by the state that you’ll escape punishment when you fail to deliver their grain? We’re all just buying time, Petka.”
Petka disagreed. He thought the collective would offer them more security.
“Shame you forgot the meeting where they ordered me to find a way to foal my mares more than once a year,” Roman said. “If they can demand this, they can demand anything. And punish me for anything.”
Petka continued to insist on his preference for Soviet protection, not Roman’s. “Collectivization is inevitable,” he said. “There is no use fighting it.”
“Said only by a man who doesn’t own his land,” said Roman. “Collectivization will come at too high a cost for Ukraine, for Ispas, and for us. And that includes you too, Petka, you and your family. And the quota will still be unmet. It wasn’t met during the Civil War. Famine, burning farms, slaughtered livestock, murdered farmers.” Roman ground his teeth. “It’s not going to be met now.”
“Said only by a man who refuses to grow up,” Petka said. “There is no way out. Stalin is not going to let you keep your private farm. It’s anathema to everything he believes. A Communist country created specifically to live under socialist ideals cannot be fed by large, privately owned, economically efficient, successful farms! Who is being naïve here? That’s an impossibility Stalin will never allow. He will take the farm from you. Why fight it?”
Roman leaned forward across the table. “Why are you doing their bidding for them, Petka?” he asked, omens of evil in his voice.
“Why are you fighting a battle you can’t win?” said Petka.
Roman threaded his hands behind his head. “So, off you go. Go join their collective. What’s stopping you? Oh yes, that’s right. You have nothing but your cow to yield to them. So, what you’re really saying is you want me to join their collective.”
“Yes! Of course that’s what I’m saying. Do it for all of us.”
“Petka, your childlike gullibility would be endearing if it weren’t so dangerous,” Roman said. “Over and over you keep proving to me that it’s easier to fool a man than to prove to him he has been fooled. You think Zhuk will take care of you? You’re adorable. Two months ago Efros took half of what little provisions we had. He seized our grain and didn’t pay us for the theft! Zhuk promised my sister he would pay us. Where is our money?”
Petka, omens of evil in his own voice, said, “They didn’t take even half of our provisions, did they, Roman?”
After last summer’s poor harvest, when everyone in Ispas knew there wouldn’t be enough to feed their families for the winter, much less to give to the likes of Efros and Zhuk, the Lazars dug graves for their few bushels of grain, wrapped them in plastic to protect against moisture, the killer of sown crops, and buried them underground. They buried their potatoes and radishes and carrots, too, in root clamps: holes in the earth, covered with hay. They couldn’t bury their chickens or horses. But they buried everything else.
Every person on the farm helped hide the provisions. Including Petka.
Roman sat back in his chair and leveled a piercing stare at Petka, tall, jittery, self-righteous, and said nothing.
But after Petka retreated to his hut, Roman confronted Mirik and Isabelle.
“I’m going to give you my prognosis on your brother,” Roman told Mirik. “It’s bleak. It’s bleaker than my prognosis on the harvest because the danger from Petka is more immediate.”
“It’s going to be fine,” said Mirik. “You Lazars love to overreact. It’s what got us into this mess to begin with.”
“Yes, blame the Tsar for getting his family slaughtered,” said Roman, his tone disgusted and scornful. “But tell me, Mirik, the husband of my sister, the father of my sister’s children, what are we going to do when your brother turns informer and betrays us because he thinks it will save his hide?”
“I don’t know, Roman,” said Mirik, disgusted himself. “I suppose you’ll try to deal with it like a Lazar, and I’ll deal with it like a Kovalenko.”
“I can’t wait to see how a Kovalenko handles the exposed heart of a black beast,” said Roman.