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MOSCOW, MARCH 1938
In the darkness behind my eyelids all other senses are heightened. The murmuring of the witnesses seems deafening. Damp air clings claw-like to the nape of my neck. The stench of fear and evacuated bowels wafting from the other stalls, threatens to choke me. But above it all, the pain of betrayal, cold and fatal, stabs like the piercing edge of a blade in my heart.
I open my eyes to search for my accuser, but he does not make his presence known. He pretends he is too important to attend the last of these three trials. Of course, he is here. Hiding in the shadows, watching in silence as the charges are read. I’m accused of wrecking, espionage, Trotskyism, and conspiracy. These crimes are not mine. Just as they are not the crimes of the twenty men who stand here with me today. Nor were they the crimes of the men in the two preceding show trials I myself led for him. For this coward.
Twenty years ridding Mother Russia of the Tsarist regime, their pathetic White Army and every bourgeoisie man, woman, and child I could root out of hiding. His damn precious canals were built under my direction, with men—slaves—trained in my gulags. The Order of Lenin was bestowed upon me, a hero of Communism.
Yet, it was for nothing. His paranoia has driven him to madness. His power over the people is fading. I tried to tell the stupid kozel—to warn him. And for my loyalty, I—deliverer of the Purge—now stand trial. Stalin, you bastard, I know you are watching.
"I appeal to you. For you, I built two great canals!" My voice echoes around the great hall.
A flicker. The momentary flash of a match behind a muslin curtain in a window on the second floor. The outline of a pipe, now gone. The hall is eerily silent. My comrades in chains remain mute. Resignation carved into the pallid skin of their pathetic faces.
Stalin will not save me.
Not even Yahweh can save me from this.
And why should He? The blood of ten million souls stains my hands. White officers tied to planks and slowly fed into furnaces. Women and children, scalped and flayed. Dirty Christians given communion of molten lead. Filthy peasants buried alive or turned into living statues as ice-cold water was poured over their naked bodies in the winter-streets of Orel. Yes, death is my reward for these acts, for loyalty to the cause—but my soul will know no peace. And if that is my fate, then every dirty goat and pompous peacock will feel my wrath from the grave.
The bailiff pulls at my arm, leading me away from the podium to my doom. To be shot in the head. Perhaps, I deserve this providence. But what of Ida? Without my protection, my dear wife will be hunted down and murdered—or worse. I have confessed to all but espionage in hopes she will be spared. Yet, in my heart, I know this will not save her.
As I leave the court, some observers watch with disgusted stares, while others give pitiful sighs. They all should die. Every last one. Red. White. Tsar. Communist. It makes no difference anymore. No one understands. Only my Cheka brethren know what it means to be Bolshevik. To do whatever is needed.
I raise my gaze to the window where I know he is skulking and spit on the floor in defiance.
“Menya zovut smert’, i ad prikhodit so mnoy!”
Yes, my name is Death and Hell follows with me.
