Sasha rented a small room within walking distance to the university. As he strolled to class, he used the time to review his lessons. Autumn had arrived early this year and with it ruminations about life. The trees, shedding their foliage, fractured the sparse sunlight into geometric shadows on the roads. What did the figures portend: his fate, his fortune? Some of his schoolmates delayed their exams; some failed; some passed; some simply disappeared, usually the outspoken ones or those who had something to hide.
Under a floorboard of his room lay the papers—unread—that he had found on the policemen and in the truck. Although he had initially saved them out of a morbid curiosity to know something about whom he had killed, he found it too painful to disturb the dead. After leaving his family, he had boarded a train and sat staring out the window. A railroad vendor had asked if he wanted tea, but even though the samovar whistled and he felt an insatiable thirst, he lacked the energy to reply. An old woman sitting across from him asked if he felt unwell. Her words came to him as if through water. On having heard the one soldier scream back through history, he had defensively rearranged his mind to muffle all sound.
He now stared at the ominous plank board covering the papers. In his dreams he could hear the board squeak, as if someone was suspiciously examining it. Other times he tried to dispel the phantasm of dream to interpret the Morse code that the board seemed to be sending, a farrago of dots and dashes. The longer he had left the papers untouched, the harder he’d found it to read them. But the night before, he had dreamed that his university examiners knew the contents and asked him why he hadn’t studied or burned them. His indecision, they said, called into question his readiness for his honors exam, an exhausting exercise to be held the next day.
Once awake, he scolded himself for his timidity. Perhaps the papers contained information about his parents having been “unmasked” as kulaks and the name of the denouncer. But that discovery was what he feared most: learning the name of the person who had betrayed them. The villagers were like family. They took meals together and, side by side, walked to church. In times of sickness and want, they aided each other. What if he learned, for example, that the Judas was the Chumachenkos, who shared a thresher and a plow horse with his family, and whose son, Sergei, pitched horseshoes with him; or the Sharatovs, who had helped build the Parsky barn; or the Bulgakovs, who famously invited the neighbors’ children to sit around a fire on a summer night and listen to fairy tales and ghost stories; or the one-legged Gregori, who showed the children his souvenirs from the Great War and regaled them with his exploits on the German front; or the Krichefskis, who raised chickens and, until their younger son died of polio, never failed to give the poor a stewing hen; or the Ezhovs? Having played with the Ezhov children, three boys and two girls, he regarded them as his own brothers and sisters. One August day, he had even kissed Natasha Ezhova on the cheek, in the apple orchard. At the time, she had said that Sasha was now promised to her and made him kiss the crucifix that she removed from around her neck.
Down the road lived the Nazarovs. On warm August nights, the two families would take their meals in the Parsky garden, at a long table covered with a white linen tablecloth. Although the dishes were cracked and the silverware common, the food would have suited a boyar: pheasant and partridge, carp and herring, mushroom soup, hot bread fresh from the oven, boiling water for chai thanks to the samovar that the Nazarov family carted by horse to the Parsky house. Pavel Nazarov had generously offered his samovar when Mr. Parsky complained that his was too small for ten people and needed repair. In the long summer light, the children would play tag and catch fireflies and read poetry while the parents sipped a cordial and reminisced about traveling operas and ballets that used to come to the theaters of the great estates and perform for the locals. Sasha wondered whether his parents actually saw such performances or lived them vicariously through the memories of their parents.
The Zaslavsky family, Ida and Naum, lived to the south of the Parsky farm. They had no children. After years of medical advice, Ida was told she was barren. A Jewish family—the only one for miles around—they kept to themselves. If they observed any religious practices, it was in the quiet and security of their own dwelling. Sasha would often visit them on his way home from school. The road passed their farm. They treated him as a surrogate son and called him their little David. During Passover, Sasha liked seeing their candle holders glowing with tapers and never ceased to stare at the mezuzahs on the outside doorposts, but best of all was the ivory chess set on which Naum taught Sasha to play. He would occasionally let the lad win, but they both knew that he could have swept Sasha any time that he wished.
Infrequently, Sasha would stay for a meal, and then return home to tell his mother that Ida Zaslavsky made strange foods with odd names, like gefilte fish and knishes and kugel and cholent and babka and charoset and hamantaschen. Mrs. Parsky worried that Sasha was being poisoned. But he assured her that the Zaslavskys ate the same food. The Parskys never invited the “Yids” to dinner, and the latter never invited Sasha’s parents. Such was life in their village.
If Naum had denounced Mr. Parsky . . . no, that was impossible. Yes, the two families had once quarreled over property lines, but any man who talked about the Talmud with Naum’s reverence could never betray his neighbor. Although the other farmers were rabidly anti-Semitic, Sasha’s parents, other than sometimes using the word “Yid” and repeating some jokes about Jewish economy, never repeated phrases like “the Christ killers.” To learn that Naum had been the denouncer would have elevated all the local prejudices to the status of truth. And since he couldn’t think poorly of the Zaslavskys, he adopted Winnie Verloc’s view in The Secret Agent that “life doesn’t stand much looking into.”
When he thought of the papers under the plank board, what tormented him most was the fear that his examiners might ask him about the murders. Personal digressions were common during honors thesis exams. His mouth suddenly tasted of bile, and his forehead oozed sweat. He breathed deeply. His body seemed to be acting independently of his mind, signaling him, telling him to read the hidden papers and dispel all his fears. He went to the door and fastened the bolt; then he slowly dressed in preparation for the examination—and the unveiling. He removed from the small mahogany armoire a black suit, his only one. From a bottom drawer, he took a white shirt, a blue tie, and his lone pair of dress shoes, which a former tenant of the house had left behind and which fit him. Now suitably attired in a funereal manner, he used the same knife as before to raise the plank board, extricating a wallet, a brown morocco notebook, and some incidental papers. Spreading them on his bed, he pulled up a chair and studied the contents. The first man he had killed, the one with the wallet, was Alexander Harkov, almost thirty-three years old. His birthday would have taken place in two weeks. A lock of hair in his wallet must have come from some former or current girlfriend. It exhibited a ringlet. Sasha ignored the few rubles. The notebook, actually a diary, belonged to the other man, Petr Selivanov, twenty-nine. Although he had found it in the glove compartment of the truck, Sasha concluded that the frayed and broken corners resulted from its having been carried in the owner’s pants and not in his jacket or shirt pocket. With shaking hands, Sasha ventured into Petr Selivanov’s private life.
Inside the front cover were birth dates. A photograph of his wife and daughter showed a pretty woman whose dark, Jezebel eyes exuded excitement, and a child with a bright face and pigtails. The pages were covered with rather elaborate sloping handwriting. Although short, the notebook was telling. One could see in an instant that the author had received a good education. On the wave of words, Sasha read:
12 May
Galina has given me this small brown morocco notebook. We have recently been arguing, usually over our differing views of life. I bought her a jar of caviar, and now she has given me this cahier. Two years ago, when we first met, I thought her the most beautiful woman in all Russia. She is passionate and sentimental and has wild Cossack blood. Her family comes from the region of the Don. Our first disagreement occurred over my joining the secret police. In the quiet of our bedroom, she called Stalin a limping leech. I told her the walls have ears and to watch what she says. (I shouldn’t even be writing this down.) She accused me of joining the wrong side, the Bolsheviks, instead of the Left Opposition. We both come from political families that fought in the civil war, hers on the side of the Whites and mine on the Reds. And yet she has taken a middle ground: that of the Social Democrats. I fear trouble will ensue.
20 May
We continue to disagree but now our differences have affected the bed. She tells me I am unworthy of her love. We met outside of Ryazan in August 1934, a stifling day. The sunbaked roads were hard as oak. A runaway horse, copiously dripping foam from its silken lips, came thundering down the lane. She grabbed the pommel, and swung into the saddle as effortlessly as if she were mounting a horse at rest. A rotund fellow with a sweaty red face, puffing from the exertion of chasing his mare, took the reins from her and opened his purse. She refused the reward. So taken was I by her courage and courtesy—yes, her handsome face also—I crossed the lane and boldly spoke to her. Although it is not my custom to speak to strangers, especially women, I could feel her magnetism from across the road. In these Soviet times, women have become fiercer than men. Give them boots, a uniform, a shoulder strap, and they behave like the Praetorian Guard. She smiled and we entered a shop for a cup of chai. I asked if I could see her again, and she said not likely. Only grudgingly did she tell me her name, Galina, and that she lived twelve versts from town on her parents’ farm. I told her mine were Kalmyk sheepherders. I had the impression that she disdained Mongols, but my family’s blood is so mixed with European that I could pass one way or the other. She repeatedly rebuffed my advances. But a chance meeting between her and my mother took place in a shop. Only then did she begin to treat my overtures seriously, I think because of my mother’s remarkable beauty.
27 May
They say a long courting period is best. We saw each other wherever we could, and whenever we made love she was always sensuous and tender. Finally in March, she agreed to live with me, and last June we married. Unlike some women, she never becomes hysterical over love. She is physically robust and shares in the pleasures of sex. But I am not without worry. She likes men and especially well-educated ones who excite her with ideas and shower her with praise. I suspect I have failed her in this regard. My own college education was rather conventional, though from time to time she does compliment my courage and compassion. She seems to be saying, “For now you will do.”
20 June
Less than a month ago, Galina was all loving and sweetness. I know she is moody, but of late also overtly flirtatious. How can this clever young woman, blessed with a college degree and wise to the guiles of young men, so naively accept their flattery? Does she sincerely believe it when they say that not beauty but wit makes her shine in their eyes? Does she pretend not to see their oily designs just to incite my jealousy? When it comes to love, her powers of self-delusion border on the irrational. I swear she suffers from “uterine frenzies,” which she always manages to dress up in some romantic locution, the better to abandon herself. She needs to have at her side a young man who is constantly singing her praises. And that man never changes. He is always morose, daring, and willing to ignore her outbursts of temper. She claims that these men are only friends and charming conversationalists. But more often than not, they are childlike, so she can soothe and console them.
1 July
From the OGPU training I am receiving, I have developed a nose for wrongdoing. Whenever I return from a field trip, the flat smells different and the furniture looks as if it has been moved, not much, but slightly. Of late, Galina has been colder than ever.
8 July
I arrived home early from headquarters and found Galina making the bed. She usually has it in order by the time I leave in the morning. I asked her why she was just now straightening up, and she said that she had been out. When I asked where, she flew into a fury and said that she would not stand to be questioned as if she were some criminal interrogated by the police. You have changed, she cried. You have become the enemy. Alya was standing at the door, watching.
19 July
My neighbor Alexander Harkov was recently assigned to the same police group as me. He left school at an early age to work in a metal shop. He may be rough around the edges, but he’s a good sort. Alexander and I often talk. He showed me a family picture. His sister, now dead, was quite beautiful. I was once friendly with his brother, Viktor, but he prefers his own company—and his political pamphlets. He’s obsessed with how dictatorially our Soviet commissar, Vladimir Lukashenko, runs the oblast. The two brothers are unmarried, but, as Alexander says, he’s not opposed though Viktor is. We ride in the same truck. He drives and I roll his cigarettes for him. Our current assignments have been to apprehend kulaks and confiscate their properties. I am more affected than him by the tears and the pleas of the women and children, but I take courage from following his example. Recently, a Jewish family threw themselves at our feet and begged to keep their small plot of land. Alexander called them Christ killers and roughly shoved them into the back of the truck. I tiptoed lightly through the house and saw religious objects of silver and gold, all of which I took for the state, including an antique menorah.
30 July
Galina’s training as a nurse has landed her a job at the local hospital, which has child minding. No more working at home as an editor and translator. I wonder whether the new job will affect her elegant writing style and mastery of French. Although I liked political history and writing analytical papers, if I had my university education to do over again, I think I would study archeology. Perhaps that’s why I like police work. It enables me to uncover the past and re-create a crime from the evidence, little as it may be.
11 August
Today was Galina’s birthday, and although we are still spatting, we had friends over to share several bottles of vodka and cake. Galina drew up the guest list: the Harkov brothers, her parents, the Tchaikovskys, and the Antipovas. We sang songs, toasted Galina, and read some Pushkin poems. Alya had happily painted a picture for her mother, but by the end of the evening, when Viktor Harkov and Galina were dancing cheek to cheek, Alya grew sullen. We all teased her, and took her aside to explain that Viktor was nothing more than a friend.
22 August
Alexander asked how Galina and I were faring. In the past, he only listened when I complained but never questioned me or commented. I told him that the marriage was failing, and that I could see an end in sight. Of late, she has selfishly started spending money on fashionable clothing, money we don’t have. Alya, she dresses in hand-me-downs. He murmured that Galina was a fine woman. Is he thinking of her for romantic reasons? But recently he’s been seeing a widow with two children.
31 August
I can smell fall in the air and see it in the lilac darkness. The dust motes have virtually disappeared from the sunlight, and the trees are already turning. My almanac says that it will be a cold winter and an early one. Today, for the first time in my police service I had to draw my pistol. A farmer refused to leave his farm. He and his family boarded themselves inside the house. I shot my pistol in the air. Alexander taunted me. He shot his pistol into the house. The family immediately abandoned the premises and boarded the truck.
10 September
The Harkov brothers came to us for dinner. It was Galina’s idea. They brought pastries, and we supplied the chicken and lentil soup. Galina asked Viktor to read some poems from Lermontov, but he said he was in no mood. Everyone could see that he was out of sorts. He complained angrily about the Soviet commissar for our region. He swore that the man was a tyrant and that someday he would kill him. I tried to settle Viktor down, but he was outraged because Lukashenko insisted that our district would have to undergo a chistka to determine who was faithful to the state and who was not. It’s criminal, Viktor swore, that we should have to live through a purge. This is 1935!
15 September
Another day, another action against kulaks. I am beginning to wonder about the wisdom of these arrests. This time we encountered a scene we had only heard about from other reports but had never witnessed for ourselves. The owner of the farm, rather than allow us to confiscate his animals, hid his three cows in the woods, where we found them under a thatched roof supported by four poles. Lying in a ditch near the house was a roan horse, shot through the head. One of its hind legs was sticking up in the air and the shoe was glittering in the sunlight. In the distance was a whitewashed church. The leg of the horse, bent at the knee, made me think of a broken cross. A small cloud momentarily blocked the sun. A minute later, the sunlight illuminated the smooth reddish fur of the horse’s leg, which blossomed like some magical leafless branch into orange splendor.
24 September
I ran into Viktor as I walked toward the river to fish. He refused my offer to join me and said that he had a pamphlet to print. His polemics have reached the ears of the city officials, as well as Galina, who strongly defends him against any criticism. Alexander can’t be sure, but he thinks that his brother has acquired a pistol. He found a manual and several bullets for a TT 30.
28 September
Galina was in a good mood this evening. She prepared a fat salmon for dinner that Viktor brought to the flat this afternoon in appreciation for her support of his views. I played the gramophone—Beethoven—and then suggested that Galina and I let love enfold us. But to my annoyance, no, fury, she said she was bleeding. I knew damn well she was lying. She had said the same thing two weeks ago. Either she was deceiving me then or she is now. I am sick of her excuses. I stormed out of the house and walked the streets for hours. When I returned I knew she was feigning sleep, so I audibly grumbled that love is a flower that wilts after marriage.
3 October
After days of silence, Galina and I finally spoke. She apologized for her behavior and said it was because Alya had been throwing tantrums after I left for work. The child seems troubled. She probably remembers her parents and the other orphaned children, all of whom prayed to be adopted by some kind family. We had both agreed at the time of our marriage that we would wait to have a child until we could afford one. But Mrs. Platonov’s pleas changed everything. After Alya went to sleep, we reminisced about the incident. Later we made love, but without the feeling of former days. As we lay in bed, she asked about the people, the kulaks we arrest, and how they react. I gave her a few examples. She turned her head away from me and said: Why do you still work for them?
10 October
The weather has turned unseasonably cold. Alexander and I have been ordered to travel a hundred versts to confiscate a farm. I usually make it a point never to remember the names of the families, but in this case the family name, Parsky, gave me pause. Dimitri Pavlovich Parsky was the first Tsarist general with battle experience to offer his services to the Red Army. No Bolshevik, he fought, he said, to save Russia from German slavery.
18 October
Alexander wanted to nap, so I agreed to drive. The roads were abominably muddy and slow. We stopped at a state-run roadside inn. I ordered tea, Alexander, vodka. Across the room we saw an old comrade, Martyn Lipnoski. He said that during a night of reveling, some whore had lifted his wallet, which held his papers and identity card. He looked as if he’d slept in his uniform. At least she hadn’t stolen his sidearm. Outside, it was pissing rain. Alexander offered him a lift, and I gave Martyn the extra slicker we kept under the seat, all the time wishing we could trade places, he in the truck and me in the tavern. When we reached a rise in the road above the Parsky house, Alexander stopped long enough for him and Martyn to take a quick swig from Martyn’s flask and for me to jot down a few notes. Sitting here listening to them guffawing uproariously at my scribbling, as they call it, I can’t help but think that perhaps Galina is right.