Statistics

“I repeat: The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic,” said Stalin, as Razan applied talcum powder to the Supreme Leader’s pockmarks. “I learned the lesson early that it is better to kill the country’s enemies as a group than to try each man individually. But of course there are exceptions.”

That night, Razan suffered terrible dreams. He awoke in a sweat. In a small town that looked like Brovensk, a statue dedicated to Stalin stood ready to be unveiled. When the sheet was removed, a slim rod about ten feet high held an enormous mustache, and nothing else. The people gasped. But the worst was yet to come. The mustache called his name.

“Razan, you pity all the people removed from the house on the embankment, all the suppressed you have personally known. Every one of them traitors! Ask yourself: When ‘enemies’ are led away, do your neighbors object? No. They tell themselves that nobody would dare to shoot others without conclusive evidence against them. If people are arrested, it means it was necessary. Also ask yourself why so many people willingly let themselves be arrested and later confess.”

In his dream, Rubin Bélawitz, Razan’s rotund childhood confidant from Albania, appeared and said those who confessed believed that for their own sacrifices to matter they had to support the party. It was beyond their power to admit that the great experiment had gone wrong. To further the work of the party, they even confessed to crimes they had never committed.

The mustache spoke again. “Production and crop failures mean only one thing: Enemies of the people not only exist but thrive everywhere. Believe me, Razan, the Supreme Leader does not make mistakes. Others do. In any case, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

The townspeople agreed, shaking their heads and muttering, “Death to the traitors.” When Razan asked the farmers and factory workers why they denounced their neighbors, they admitted to settling scores with their bosses, taking possession of furniture and apartments they coveted, getting back at faithless lovers, and gaining entry to Communist groups by denouncing their parents.

The mustache said, “You have heard the word of the people.”

Razan replied, “But how can you explain the hundreds of thousands languishing in jails for no legal reasons?”

Suddenly storm clouds gathered, and the wind blew violently. The statue toppled, and the mustache landed in a puddle of mud.

* * *

That evening, as Razan removed an offending hair from Stalin’s upper lip, the barber asked, “And who are these maggots wrecking our country? By now the west ought to know how much you love the people.”

At once Razan realized the statement’s latent irony, but would Stalin? The Boss said nothing as Razan applied alcohol to his ears and lit a match.

Although consecrated by savage conviction, Stalin often assumed a gentle manner, using his pipe as a prop, or singing a favorite Georgian song, “Soliko,” or inviting questions, all the better to disarm and identify his critics. “I see you are troubled, Comrade Shtube. How may I put your mind at ease? Ask me anything.”

“Some of my neighbors . . . they work for the government and display your photograph. They seem harmless enough. Unlike fleeing kulaks, they have papers and permission to live in the city.”

Stalin lowered his voice, a sign of danger. “No one is harmless, Razan. From plotters to priests, everyone has a secret life. In every heart, ventricles pump the Judas germ.”

If Razan fell from favor, he knew that Poskrebyshev would love to see him and his family on a condemned list, which he could happily stamp “Suppress,” a euphemism for liquidation. The barber quickly asked Stalin to tell him about his daughter, Svetlana, whom Razan extolled for her beauty and intelligence.

“Her copybook poems,” said Stalin contemptuously, “are a bad imitation of Akhmatova. Poets!” Stalin complained. “I have to correct their meter and rhymes. They are all pretenders.”

So the rumor was true. Stalin did edit verses before they saw print. Historians, of course, required a tight rein. Everyone knew that Soviet history had to conform to Stalin’s view of its purpose and his role in it. But poetry? No wonder people said that before long the Boss would be comparing himself to Pushkin.

“Much of what currently gets scribbled is rubbish. I ought to know. In my youth, I wrote poems. A number of them were even published. But I do not claim for myself the exalted title of ‘poet.’ A good critic, yes. The trouble is that because the Soviet people love literature, innumerable poseurs call themselves poets.”

Razan knew that you could die for writing a single unorthodox line or a politically incorrect metaphor. It was best to write nature poetry and not have to worry about a taboo subject destined to be airbrushed out of history. Boris Pasternak had learned that lesson.

“Comrade Shtube, we have often talked about safe topics, but we have made it a point, perhaps wisely, never to talk about any political figure.” At this moment, Razan instinctively knew that Stalin was going to ask him whether he approved of the show trials. “Vyshinsky,” he said. “Andrei Vyshinsky. From the point of view of the man in the street, people like yourself, how is our chief prosecutor regarded?” Razan had come close. Although most everyone inside the Kremlin knew that the confessions of the condemned during the show trials had been obtained through torture, Vyshinsky proudly declared that “confession of the accused is the queen of evidence.”

In 1935, Andrei Yanuarievich Vyshinsky had been appointed prosecutor general of the USSR, and in 1936, he was appointed chief prosecutor of the Moscow treason trials. A year later, he still cast an ominous shadow across the law courts. His words were often quoted admiringly.

I think it is clear to all now that these wreckers and diversionists, whether they be Trotskyites or Bukharinites, have already long since ceased to be politically in tune with the workers. They have turned into an unprincipled band of professional wreckers, disgusting diversionists, spies, and murderers. It’s clear that these men must be rooted out and destroyed without mercy.

Stalin waited to hear Razan’s judgment.

Warily, the barber said, “A good Bolshevik, a professor of law, and a rector at the University of Moscow . . . how could such a person not be highly esteemed?”

Stalin chuckled. “You Jews are all Talmudists. What you have just said can be taken, of course, to mean that any man with his qualifications cannot be well regarded. Is that not so?”

“You would make a good Talmudist yourself, Dear Leader.”

“From whom do you think the Orthodox and Latin churches learned their catechisms: Saint Thomas Aquinas. And where did he learn his? I will tell you. Partly from Aristotle, but mostly from the Jews.” He fondled his mustache and waited for Razan to respond.

“I am not as well versed in religion as you are, but I did not intend to answer in a compromising manner.”

Stalin smiled. “Then tell me, what do you think of Vyshinsky? But before you speak,” he muttered, “I will tell you my thoughts. The man began life as a Menshevik. I distrust his words, which he never uses in the service of reconciliation but only cruelly and vituperatively to score points against his opponents. Do you agree?”

“Words indeed can hurt rather than heal.”

“But is he hurting our cause or helping it?”

“It depends on the situation,” said Razan, inwardly cringing.

“I didn’t know you were a relativist.”

“Isn’t every good Bolshevik?”

“Absolutely not! Bolsheviks, like Christians, know right from wrong.” He held up a hand mirror. “Sin and goodness differ.”

Razan tried humorously to dismiss the subject. “But as you said, Supreme Leader, I am a Talmudist.”

Removing the barber’s apron and tossing it aside, Stalin led Razan by the arm to his office window. “You see out there? At this moment, numerous assassins are plotting my death. I would prefer to share with those people what I share with you: mutual affection and respect.” Razan beamed. “But misbehavior cannot be ignored. Study history, Comrade Shtube. I read it every night. Learn how great nations fail owing to treachery.”

What Razan knew for certain was that Stalin at the February and March Plenum of 1937 had unleashed a ferocious purge of his own people. But the arrests had actually started in 1934, with the murder of Sergei Kirov, who headed the Leningrad Bolshevik Party. Some said that Stalin had ordered him killed for opposing Koba’s wish to liquidate critics and kulaks, and for putting the Leningrad Party in opposition to Stalin. Dimitri Lipnoskii called Kirov’s death “the seminal event” that unleashed Stalin’s demonic spirit. Executions in the thousands followed, but slowly. Although Razan had no reason to doubt Dimitri’s assessment, the barber had noted that the purges began in earnest right after the 1934 Night of the Long Knives in Germany. Hitler had decapitated those who might challenge his power. It appeared as if Stalin was imitating Hitler. Ezhov, no fool, knew how to endear himself to Stalin. He fueled the purges by exacerbating Stalin’s native Georgian fears of conspiracy, insisting that even the most innocent-seeming people were actually spies, two-facers, and enemies of the people. No one was to be trusted.

As a precautionary measure, Stalin ordered all of Kirov’s close Leningrad associates killed and most of the members of the Leningrad Party shot. From 1933 to 1938, the size of the party was cut in half. The years 1937 to 1939 were the worst. Every day, Pravda reported the names of “enemies of the people.” Either a terrible germ had infected the country and was causing wholesale madness and slaughter, or the anti-Soviets, from Trotsky to the monarchists, had gained control of millions of minds, persuading them all to become wreckers. Potential assassins, according to Ezhov, lay in wait around every corner. If the dwarf was hoodwinking only the Vozhd, why did most of the Russian people believe that the country was indeed in the grip of a mass conspiracy, one that required the most ruthless countermeasures? Razan was told that in those two years, one million were shot and two million died in the camps. Were they all enemies of the people?

Razan, for whom seeing was believing, had recently begun to admit another source of comprehension: feeling. He was letting his thoughts grow from his gut. Although he had never seen a show trial, had never seen a so-called wrecker, had never seen people confess, had never seen Leonid Zakovsky’s guide to torture, had never seen a person subjected to “French wrestling” (frantsuskaya borba), or the zhguti (the “special club”), or the dubinka (the truncheon), or the conveyor belt (constant interrogation), or sleep deprivation, he had seen—and felt in the pit of his stomach—Alexei Ivanovich Rykov’s last moments with his daughter. One March day at dusk, while Razan paused at the front of his building, set to depart for the Kremlin, a black sedan pulled up at the curb. A minute later, Rykov appeared leaning on his daughter’s arm. She led him to the car. He was dressed in a suit, tie, vest, and unbuttoned overcoat. The back door of the black limousine opened, though no one appeared. Rykov turned to Natalya. They shook hands awkwardly, said nothing, and then kissed formally, three times on the cheek. Rykov climbed into the car, which drove off toward the Kremlin. Natalya left the sidewalk and stood in the middle of the street watching the Black Maria disappear. Just before it turned the corner, she began to run after it. When she turned back, she was crying.

Razan clasped her in his arms, as she buried her face in his shoulder. She related her father’s last minutes. “Once he heard, he asked me to look after mother. Her stroke occurred when the attacks on him became more ominous. ‘Tell her I’ve gone for a walk,’ he said, ‘and telephone Poskrebyshev for the precise time. I want to dress properly. It won’t do to appear disheveled, which is a sign of fear.’ I called, and Poskrebyshev said, ‘The car is on the way now.’”

No friend or member of Rykov’s family ever saw him again. Tried and convicted, he died March 15, 1938. When Razan heard from Natalya that Rykov had kept a list of prominent Bolsheviks who had been suppressed, the barber copied it, later adding other names.

* * *

Although Razan wished no man or woman ill, he knew that many of the “suppressed” were merely dull apparatchiks, but others, like Kirov, exhibited an admirable independence of mind. Did they not know that entering the cage of a wild animal greatly increased their chances of being eaten? This truth applied to him as well, so by 1939, after his long service, all his senses were attuned to trouble, and his byword was caution. Instead of joining Stalin in telling stories or exchanging jokes, he rationed his words and excused himself from social events that at one time he and Anna would have attended. Even knowing that Stalin had a double, he still couldn’t definitively prove, given the behavior of the man whom he barbered, whether this man was the real Vozhd. It was a mark of the man’s genius that for all his identifiable characteristics—pockmarks, decaying teeth, stale alcoholic breath, withered left arm, pudgy fingers, bad leg, Georgian accent, and love of movies—he might be only a decoy. Who, then, actually engaged the world’s leaders?

The entire Soviet apparat, and especially the State Security Division, pretended, of course, that Stalin was but one man. In fact, Razan never heard a whisper to the contrary. Of all Stalin’s secrets, the closest held by the apparat were the names of his decoys. But unbeknownst to Natasha, she had the name and background of one among her purloined papers. It was embedded in Babel’s unfinished novel, which she had microfilmed and hidden in Yelena’s stuffed panda.

Razan decided that the crisis over Yelena’s painting, followed by the confiscation of photographs depicting the work, had to do with Stalin’s identity and affected Yelena’s safety. His wish to protect Yelena became an obsession and, like Jean-Paul Marat’s rash, had to be scratched. The question that Razan couldn’t answer was whether the authorities wanted the official portrait to portray the real man or a decoy. He could see arguments for both sides. If an assassin had Stalin in his sights, all the more reason for promoting the false over the genuine. But given the personality cult that Stalin reveled in, he would want his beaming face peering down on his beloved people from every poster and wall. But Razan’s frequent attempt to discover the real Stalin failed.

Perhaps the answer was to be found in the Boss’s love of movies. So when Stalin invited the barber to join him to see a film that Koba had commissioned—a comparison of Stalin and Houdini, who had died in 1926—Razan agreed. He followed the Vozhd and his guards to an elevator, where they all descended into the Kremlin courtyard, proceeded through the old winter gardens, where the pruned stalks poked through the snow like skeletal fingers, and entered the Great Kremlin Palace. On Razan’s first visit to the Kremlin, he had been given a tour of the yellow-and-white stone palace on the crest of Borovitsky Hill, but he had never visited Stalin’s luxurious cinema built on the second floor. A musty smell pervaded the first floor.

“It comes,” Stalin said with a smile, “from the rottenness in the west wing, where the imperial family used to keep private apartments.” As if to prove his physical fitness, the Boss ascended the stairs two at a time and flung open the door of the cinema like a child expecting to find inside a delicious treat. His guards automatically took up positions on either side of the room, with the thinner of the two men positioning himself in a small alcove next to a table spread with wine and mineral water and cigarettes and cigars, as well as boxes of imported chocolates. A screen was mounted on the far wall and, in front of it, eight rows of padded chairs, one upholstered in plush, which Stalin took. So excited was the Boss at seeing the film that he never once offered Razan a drink or a sweet. The Vozhd even neglected to ask the barber to sit. When Razan, in deference to the Boss, retreated to a back row, Stalin said he wanted him within sight.

“Sit here.” He patted the chair next to him. “I asked Eisenstein to produce it and have Isaac Babel write the screenplay. But Sergei refused and Babel, I learned, was in prison. Ah, these artists, they all want to be individualists instead of collectivists.”

Razan felt sorry for the minister of cinema, Ivan Bolshakov. A pale retiring fellow, whom Stalin called Ivan or I. B., he was on call day and night, as was the projectionist, Aleksandr Ganshin, for Stalin’s favorite entertainment. It was whispered that the Vozhd took his political inspiration from films. Before being suppressed, the writer who had lived on the embankment next door to Razan had said that Stalin ruled the Soviet Empire by means of “cinematocracy”—rule by cinema. At the time, Razan thought the comment ridiculous. But seeing the Boss’s euphoria, he now wondered.

“I. B. is my minister of cinema,” Stalin exclaimed, leaning back in the plush chair and resting his legs on an ottoman. “He behaves like a scared rabbit. Do you know why?”

“Do you mean why he’s the minister of cinema or why he’s scared?”

Stalin smiled. “His predecessor was an enemy of the people. I had him shot. Relax, Comrade barber!” Koba exclaimed. “I can see that you’re nervous. Ivan also translates the films for me, though I suspect he’s not always accurate. At least that’s what Molotov says.”

“A good reason to feel scared,” said Razan, “given the importance of words and where a mistake can lead.”

Luxuriating in his overstuffed chair, Stalin stroked his newly trimmed mustache.

“Usually, after I have met in the little corner of my office with my advisors, we come here. For some reason, they always leave the first row empty. I find that strange, don’t you?”

Razan wanted to say that perhaps his lackeys feared to seat themselves in front of him lest they appear presumptuous, but the barber said only, “Maybe they’re all farsighted.”

Stalin slapped Razan on the back and roared, “You really are quite a wit. A wonderful pun. I must remember it. Farsighted.” He paused just long enough to cause Razan to worry. Then Stalin said in a voice so flat that it sounded monotonic, “Apparatchiks, yes-men, functionaries . . . that’s all they are. Farsighted! They can’t find the front row of a cinema or an idea even when I lead them.”

As the silent film began, photographs of Harry Houdini and Iosif Stalin appeared side by side. Razan made a point of noting which Stalin photograph had been selected for the film. Subtitles explained the similarities between the two men: virtually the same height; physically strong; fluent in two languages; obscure immigrants who had known great poverty, Harry in Hungary, and Stalin in Georgia; book and signature collectors; crowd pleasers; adored and even revered; famous, and for essentially the same reason, their magical abilities.

In one frame, Harry and his father sat side by side at a workbench cutting neckties; in another frame, Stalin and his father sat side by side at a workbench cobbling shoes. As the screen changed to show Harry trussed and nailed into a wooden crate lowered by a crane into a river, Razan tensed. After a few minutes, Harry surfaced—free! Razan sighed. In the next scene, the barber watched Stalin escape from a Tsarist prison camp, tramp through the snow, take a sledge, board a train, and slip off as it slowed toward its destination, a railroad platform in Tiflis. Razan read the subtitle: “Both men escaped from every prison cell and shackle in the world. How? Through careful planning. They never left a single thing to chance, always looking after each detail.”

In the next series of paired scenes, the admiring workers questioned first Houdini and then Stalin.

“Mr. Houdini, people say your chains are unshackled by angels. They say you can shrink and slide through keyholes, and that you can dematerialize yourself and pass through solid wood planks and stone walls. But you say it’s all done by trickery and training. To us, it looks like you have supernatural powers! Who should we believe?”

Houdini answered, “America is needle and thread, backaches, and ten cents an hour. Believe me, I am special! Just think of all the people who aren’t.”

“Comrade Stalin, the people say that because you are beloved by the workers of the world, you embody their combined strength. Is that how you have managed to escape from imprisonment, make a revolution, suppress the enemies of the people, and bring prosperity to our great motherland? If you are not supernatural, then you are Herculean.”

Stalin answered, “Capitalists and landowners want to crush the workers and rule the world. Yes, it takes great strength to overcome the bloodsuckers. But I will prevail, and the proletariat will rule!”

Near the end, in a scene Razan never forgot, Stalin and Houdini discuss socialism, though in reality the two men never met.

STALIN (sympathetically): Your beloved mother is dead, Harry.

HOUDINI: I adored her. She was my source of life and sustenance.

STALIN: Now you must believe in something else. I can help you.

HOUDINI: No! No! She was a saint. Without her, what else is there? I must defeat death and reach her. Otherwise I’m alone.

During Stalin’s next speech, Houdini’s mixed emotions—despair and hope—express themselves in anguished gestures.

STALIN: Not alone, Harry. The people are behind you. Together we can all create a better world. You and I together.

HOUDINI: I hate politics.

STALIN: We must show death that life is stronger. Socialism gives life and plentiful harvests. You can smell the fertility. The scent is in the air, Harry, and the wonder.

HOUDINI: You’re trying to mislead me.

STALIN: Why would I do that? The people love me. You know that what I say is true. Just look at the Soviet paradise.

HOUDINI: I can’t see it.

STALIN: Open your eyes. Don’t resist, Harry. Heaven is not above but below your feet.

HOUDINI: Oh, Mama, what’s happening to me? I’m being mesmerized.

STALIN: Your mother’s dead, but I’m here. You need me. I embrace you, comrade.

Stalin holds Houdini in a bear hug.

HOUDINI: You’re suffocating me!

STALIN: No, this is just the beginning. We can show death that life is stronger. You and I, Harry, through socialism: one mind, one body. It’s all possible, Harry.

HOUDINI (dazed): When, mother, when will you return?

STALIN: Never.

HOUDINI: No!

He extricates himself from Stalin.

STALIN: You can’t escape the truth. Socialism is the answer. It alone can conquer death.

HOUDINI: I don’t believe you.

STALIN (calmly): Your mother’s in her grave, Harry, but I am here.

As they watched the film, Stalin anticipated the subtitles, repeating them from memory. He even gesticulated as he spoke, ostensibly engaging in a dialogue with the silent movie. It appeared to Razan, from Stalin’s subsequent comments, that he couldn’t tell the difference between the movie and real life. He actually seemed to believe that he and Houdini had engaged in a conversation, and that he had convinced Houdini of the rightness of the socialist cause.

“A great man, that Houdini,” said Stalin. “I can feel myself hugging him. A sad and unnecessary death, especially for a man who planned his every move. He wasn’t ready. Houdini loved boxing and knew the sport inside and out. He had stomach muscles like iron. I know. I’ve read everything printed about him. But when a university student came backstage and asked for permission to test him, his pride wouldn’t let him say no. It was all so stupid. Houdini was lying down. As he started to get up, the young man hit him before he could flex his muscles. Ruptured his appendix. He died several days later.” Stalin reflected for a moment and then continued. “Now you know why I rarely let a person touch me. You are one of the few, the very few, so don’t abuse the privilege.”

* * *

On returning from a mission to Perm, Dimitri found a message to see Lavrenti Beria, whom Stalin had recalled to Moscow, with all his Georgian thugs, to head the secret police. With Ezhov, for no apparent reason, having fallen out of favor, Beria was appointed to direct the ministry of State Security, checking on the loyalty of Soviet officials. Headquartered in Lubyanka Prison, Beria had at his disposal brutal interrogators and prison cells. His office doubled as a torture chamber and a brothel; the latter he used for raping schoolgirls who were kidnapped by his bodyguards.

His receding hairline, large distinctive forehead, round face, thin lips, and pince-nez gave him the appearance of an intellectual. But his college education—he was trained as an architect—had not mitigated his ruthlessness. It was he, in his capacity as principal policeman in Transcaucasia, who had declared, “Let our enemies know that anyone who attempts to raise a hand against the will of the party of Lenin and Stalin, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed.” He had secured his place in Stalin’s affection with his fawning oration, “On the History of the Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia,” which shamelessly distorted the truth and asserted that Stalin was the originator and sole leader of Transcaucasian Bolshevism. The Vozhd showed his appreciation by making Beria a member of the Politburo and one of his most trusted subordinates. Calling him “The Prosecutor,” Stalin charged Beria with suppressing any signs of opposition, at home or abroad. Beria replied that every man was guilty.

Dimitri knew Beria only by reputation. A Georgian friend had called him a “butcher,” and now he was sitting calmly at his desk peering through his pince-nez at Dimitri, who had no idea why he’d been summoned. As with almost all secret-police interrogations, a file lay open on the desk; but Beria failed to take into account that Dimitri had already mastered the tricks of the trade.

“Comrade Lipnoskii,” said Beria, turning over several sheets of paper, “your record is good, but your family history should have earned you the death penalty under my predecessor.”

“I fail to understand . . .”

“Don’t interrupt. Your brother Gregori . . . we sent him to Rome to spy for us, and he came back a shpik for Mussolini. A double agent. He has been sent to Solovki.” Beria used the revolutionary vernacular, the street word for spy, no doubt to show his personal contempt for Gregori. “When did you last speak to your brother?”

“It’s been years.”

“Can you prove that?”

As Dimitri thought of how to prove a negative, Beria tapped his fingers on the desk. Finally, Dimitri replied, “If you had intercepts or taped phone calls, you would have shown them to me. But you have nothing. And for good reason. My brother and I have long been estranged.” He pointed to the file. “As you know, I despise his religious convictions.”

“They’ll beat those ideas out of him in Solovki. A wonderful irony, isn’t it? As the Vozhd says, we use an old monastery to reeducate priests to the truth of atheism.” Beria laughed and repeated, “A wonderful irony.” He removed his glasses and, wiping them, said, “Normally, we take no chances. Most families would have been exiled for having a traitorous son. But you have been a faithful agent, and then, too, there’s your stepfather. As long as he has the Vozhd by the throat, so to speak, we will believe what you say: that you and your brother hate one another.”

Dimitri, whose cramped breath had tightened his chest, began to relax. But his relief was ephemeral. Beria turned a page and said with a feigned smile, “You can go now, but I want to see you tomorrow.”

Ah yes, thought Dimitri, the wait-and-sweat technique. Let the victim leave and stew over the insinuations, in the hope that on his return, he will change his story and confess all. But Dimitri knew preciously few details about Gregori’s activities and decided it was best not even to inquire. Silence, he told himself, never deceives.

Outside Lubyanka Prison, he passed the long line of family members waiting to inquire about their loved ones. They carried parcels of food, string baskets with books, and bundles of clothing. The question that all of them hoped to have answered at the front gatehouse was whether the person they sought was even in Lubyanka Prison. If not, where then?

Returning to his narrow room in the Kremlin, Dimitri picked up his well-marked copy of Antigone and remembered what the police instructor had said when he had distributed copies to the class of neophyte agents.

“The great social struggle of our age is the one between individualism and communalism. Of course, every person should share in the freedoms and fruits of a great society. But an excess of individualism leads to greed and a destructive self-reliance that ignores the plight of others. Communalism can be equally pernicious if it snuffs out individual creativity and impresses upon the people a detestable conformity. Antigone is the first great work of literature to engage this philosophical divide. Although the title refers to Oedipus’s daughter, the play is really about Creon’s struggle to balance individual rights against the needs of the state.”

Dimitri turned to the words that his instructor had often quoted:

You can never know what a man is made of,

His character or powers of intellect,

Until you have seen him tried in rule and office.

The next day, Beria stared at him coldly. “We have another reason to question you. The hairdresser Yuri Suzdal. You told him that he would be arrested unless he fled. He told us so himself.”

Dimitri knew that interrogators make numerous accusations, proceeding from the rule that you can tell whether a person is lying if, one, he yells and shouts his innocence, and two, he never changes his language or alibi or excuse. Skillfully, Dimitri framed his excuses in different words and cited several alibis. Beria shortly realized that the usual interrogatives wouldn’t work, and that he would have to try another tack. After exhibiting hardness, he now became soft: bad cop, good cop.

“I suppose, Comrade Lipnoskii, you know the joke currently making the rounds?” Dimitri shook his head no. “What’s the highest building in Moscow? It’s the Lubyanka Prison. Because from the top floor, you can see all the way to Siberia.”

Dimitri forced a smile but couldn’t bring himself to laugh.

“Not funny?” said Beria disappointed, immediately dropping the mask of cheerfulness and returning to what he knew best: hardness. “We have a photograph of you and Yuri Suzdal at the railroad station.”

He handed it to Dimitri. But since the two lovers had never stood together on a train platform, either to leave on a holiday or for any other reason, Dimitri knew that the NKVD Photographic Department had used separate snapshots—ironically, perhaps his own—to juxtapose him and Yuri. The background railroad setting had been clearly staged. In fact, the forgery was so careless that the men were clothed for different seasons of the year, Suzdal, winter, and Dimitri, summer.

“Comrade Beria,” he said, returning the photo, “you and I both know it’s a forgery. Just look at what we are wearing.”

Beria studied it a moment, bewildered, as if he’d failed to scrutinize it before, and then he barked, “The fools! They can’t competently perform the simplest tasks.” He smirked and added, “Comrade Lipnoskii, you are to be complimented for identifying shoddy work. You have just proved your worthiness for the most difficult assignment you have yet to undertake. We want you to conduct a full surveillance—mail, phone, personal contacts, taps, informers—to establish that Razan Shtube and his wife, Anna, are working for the Albanian government as Fascist spies.”

Dimitri could feel along his veins a thickening anger, but before he could respond, Beria said, “What better way to show your loyalty to the country? And who has greater access to these people than you?”

His temper barely under control, Dimitri leaned his elbows on Beria’s desk and said icily, “Someone has made a mistake.”

An irate Beria, apparently having already forgotten about the picture, fumed, “You dare to call the work of the NKVD a mistake?”

“As fraudulent as the photograph.”

“We have arrested a courier who entered the country illegally. He left Tirana last week and was uncovered in Voronezh, before he could make his way to Moscow. Among his papers we found documents incriminating your parents.”

Beria reached under his desk, and a distant scream indicated that a prisoner was being tortured; or, more likely, that a recording from a previous interrogation was being played for Dimitri’s benefit.

“I understand the point, Comrade Beria, I have used the same methods myself.”

“The fact remains that we have apprehended an Albanian courier.”

“Everyone knows that half the population of Voronezh are secret police, always willing to perjure themselves for promotion.”

“So you have little faith in the NKVD?”

“I prefer my own senses.”

“Then use them to expose Razan and bring us irrefutable proof of his conspiring against our Great Leader and the people. I don’t care whether the evidence is true or false, so long as it is irrefutable.”

Dimitri said sardonically, “Invented evidence.”

“Comrade Lipnoskii, those who lack the discipline imparted by the NKVD spend every day improvising competence. You are not one of those. Your skills are now ingrained and natural.”

How, Dimitri asked himself, had his stepfather fallen out of favor with Stalin? Perhaps, in fact, he hadn’t but was merely another person close to the Boss who, for safety’s sake, had to be suppressed. In Stalin’s circle, familiarity bred more than contempt; it made one privy to Stalin’s life, thus rendering the Supreme Leader vulnerable to anyone wishing him harm. Even if Razan was devoted to the Bolshevik cause, he had obviously become too familiar with the Vozhd and his inner sanctum. Virtually everyone close to Stalin eventually perished, and those who remained were each day more likely to disappear. But what if Razan had been stamped a pariah for another reason? The possibilities were almost endless. Perhaps he had inadvertently insulted Stalin, told a joke that was taken the wrong way, scared him by nicking his neck during a shave, talked to the wrong people, read banned books, viewed uncensored films, perhaps even credited Trotsky with contributions to the October Revolution. Dimitri would have to find out the reason for the trumped-up charges, but first he’d have to find an excuse to delay the investigation until he could fashion some plan to save his parents.

“I can see that you are mulling over your new assignment,” said Beria. “Silence lends itself to different interpretations. It can be taken for consent, or can betray one’s guilt, or can be a forewarning of conspiracy.” He banged the desk. “What am I to make of yours?”

Dimitri played a card that the secret police normally ridiculed in others: personal feelings. “I find your information so shocking that I ask for time to digest it and decide how to proceed.”

“In the event that you decide not to cooperate with us, let me remind you that on these very premises, we have a laboratory for testing poisons. You didn’t know that, Comrade Lipnoskii, did you?”

“No.”

“It’s a new addition. My idea. We test our poisons on both animals and traitors.” He removed a sheet of paper from his desk drawer. The stationery bore the NKVD imprint. “Let me read one doctor’s report, ‘We administered the poison in the prisoner’s food. Although he was a healthy, strong man, he rushed about the cell as his stomach pains worsened. From his execrations against us and the Supreme Leader, it was clear that he understood what had happened to him. He ran to the steel door, blood pouring from his eyes, beating the door with his fists and his feet. He shoved his hand into his slobbering mouth, gagged, slid to the floor, and died.’”

Of course, Dimitri knew that Beria’s description was intended to unnerve him, so he summoned his sternest look and posture and militantly announced, “Enemies of the people deserve worse.”

This reply disconcerted the “prosecutor,” who was, in light of the cunning of Dimitri’s reply, all the more inclined to believe that Dimitri had told Suzdal to run away. Furthermore, the file in front of him suggested collusion. But for now, to silence his doubts, he stoically repeated his earlier command. “We want you to collect evidence that will enable us to convict Razan Shtube and his wife, Anna, for traitorous acts against the state. Do you understand me?” Beria stood. “If you wish to prove your loyalty to Stalin and the Soviet people, you will succeed in this task. If you do not, well, I have already shared with you the work of our secret poisons lab.”

For hours, Dimitri aimlessly walked the streets, stopping periodically for a schnapps. By the time he fell into bed, he was thoroughly drunk and absolutely convinced that he would not betray his own family. What remained to be decided was how to proceed. Should he shoot Beria or poison him? As a secret agent, he too had access to some of the more baneful tinctures. But as sleep overtook him, he dreamed that he was flying. He had launched himself off a promontory, backward, as if doing a flip, and seconds later was airborne. Righting himself, he flew over the familiar Moscow landscape. Below lay the Kremlin, and the river, and Saint Basil’s, and Red Square with its redbrick buildings and mausoleum, and crowds waiting to see the embalmed body of Lenin. That his entire family sat comfortably on his back seemed perfectly natural to him and, in fact, made him smile.

Sobriety returned to Dimitri accompanied by a fierce headache. He took his dream as an omen and decided that his next step would be to talk to his mother, whose common sense was anything but common.

They met in a stand of birch trees at the forested Izmailovo Park, arriving, as arranged, after dark and on different trains.

“Why did you want to see me alone? Is Razan in trouble?”

Dimitri ran his hand across his eyes.

Anna kindly said, “You used to make that same gesture when you were a child and found yourself in hot water. What’s the matter?”

As she reached out to touch him, he stepped back and replied plaintively, “It’s bad. Gregori is in prison, and you are suspected.”

After Dimitri had recounted his meeting with Beria, Anna lit a cigarette. “Poor Gregori. I knew that one day his need to believe in something or someone greater than himself would ruin him.” She inhaled deeply.

“Can you think of any anti-Soviet activity that my stepfather might have engaged in, even inadvertently?”

“Razan, anti-Soviet? He’s an uncritical fool. Oh, he takes precautions, like everyone else, but underneath he trusts people. I’ve told him a hundred times, ‘When talking to the Vozhd repeat how much you admire him.’ But he thinks it’s enough to tell Stalin how beautiful his daughter is. He says that she’s his favorite, but I tell him to praise both.”

“You’re right. Stalin treasures adoration.”

They walked in silence as Anna lit one cigarette after another, discarding them after only a few puffs. In the approaching dark, her lucubrations led her finally to say, “Although I can prove I didn’t commit a crime, how can I prove I was not thinking about doing so?”

Dimitri nodded in agreement and added, “Anti-Soviet thoughts, though unprovable, are punishable. That’s why the government engages in thought control: to prevent subversive ideas.” Anna stridently laughed. “In fact, one has a much better chance of escaping the charge of a material crime than an abstract one.”

Anna nodded and then made an astonishing suggestion. “Tell Beria that your parents are Zionists, and they’ve frequently said that Palestine is paradise, not the Soviet Union.”

Coming to a dead stop, Dimitri turned and stared at his mother, fearing she’d lost her senses. “Are you mad?”

“If you have a better idea,” said Anna, lighting her last cigarette, “tell me. If you don’t, I suggest that we meet Razan in a safe place to talk. I’m sure he can tell us how to make it work.”

* * *

The NKVD had begun to patrol the Moscow parks where people escaped to speak freely. As Dimitri and Anna left Izmailovo, they passed two men in raincoats whom Dimitri knew to be secret policemen.

“What if they ask why you were in the park with your mother?”

“I have the perfect excuse. Comrade Beria told me to use any means to uncover incriminating evidence against you and my stepfather. I was just following orders. But we cannot meet here again.”

The next day, Anna suggested that Dimitri commandeer a taxicab in the name of the NKVD and slowly drive it through the city. They could speak freely in the car. Dimitri liked that idea, since he normally used one of the cab drivers as an informant; and his taxi, with its missing front grille and dented right fender, resembled the other worn vehicles. A borrowed cab would be easy to explain, and if stopped, readily explained.

As warm breezes carried the scents of August, Dimitri carefully removed the listening device in the overhead lining above the backseat and drove slowly around the Ring Road. Traffic was light.

“Mother says that you can clarify this zany idea of hers,” said Dimitri.

Sitting in the backseat, Razan leaned forward and explained that given the number of Jewish doctors in Moscow, and given their reputation for competence, their departure for Palestine would be an immeasurable loss. “Not that they’re thinking of leaving; they’re not. But the mere suggestion of inducing them to leave, particularly in the name of Zionism, would drive Stalin crazy and get your mother and me sent to an insane asylum.”

Dimitri nearly drove off the road.

“In all my life, I never heard such a lamebrain idea. Are you trying to get yourselves killed?”

“With all the talk in the west of anti-Semitism, German concentration camps, and pogroms, Stalin won’t kill us. He’ll arrest us. I know that much about the man from my barbering.”

Touching her son on the shoulder, Anna said, “Have the secret police report that we belong in an asylum. You can then suggest we be sent to the same one as Alexei. From there we shall make our escape.”

Dimitri shook with laughter. His eyes teared. “My dear mother, I have heard about some great escapades in my life, but this one tops them all. It simply won’t work. I’ll try, but you’ll see.”

* * *

“Palestine!” Beria bellowed. “A paradise!”

“They hope to persuade our Jewish doctors to leave the country.”

Beria, who had been bent over his desk studying Dimitri’s report, slowly lifted his head, adjusted his glasses, and hissed, “They are Zionist wreckers!” He paused. “It’s nothing less than an attempt to sow religious dissension!” Beria ran a hand over his mouth to wipe away the foaming saliva. “The next thing you’ll tell me is that they intend to parade in the October celebration dressed as Kaganovich or Molotov or as Stalin’s double.” But the moment he used the word “double,” he withdrew it. “Forget what I just said. How could anyone try to be a stand-in for our Great Leader or want to parody him?”

“Agreed, but nonetheless . . .”

Beria paced between his desk and the window. He stared mutely into the street. The word “double,” so fraught with recondite meaning, confirmed for Dimitri what he had long suspected but wouldn’t dare utter: Stalin used political decoys. At that moment, he realized how great a danger Razan posed to Stalin, and why he, like the barbers before him, had to be removed, not to mention the pogrom that Stalin was putting in place. Now he understood what lay behind Beria’s order to unearth damning evidence. But when the exhilaration of his insight had passed, he felt sick, knowing that only he stood between his family and a firing squad.

An irate Beria thundered, “We must create a cordon sanitaire around these conspirators. Find out who they are. If this Jewish plot spreads, it could prove lethal. The western press is already accusing us of anti-Semitism.”

Without thinking, Dimitri replied, “Well, aren’t we?”

Beria shouted: “Idiot! Don’t you see the implications?” He rubbed his jaw. “Find the network. We must isolate the traitors.”

Dimitri edged forward in his chair. “Comrade Beria, such a plot will be seen for what it is: preposterous. As much as I dislike betraying my own family, those behind it are obviously ill.”

Beria studied Dimitri and, with feigned sympathy, replied, “I am disappointed in you, Comrade Lipnoskii. Don’t you see the greater danger? Surely when you entered the service of the secret police, you were schooled in how peasants think.” Dimitri nodded. “As you know, the people put more store in faith than in fact. Myths, legends, superstitions—this is the stuff of religion. Faith, not fact, captures the imagination, precisely because it is not amenable to proof. An exodus of Jewish doctors! What could be more dangerous than the belief that God was calling them home to Palestine? It would undoubtedly appeal to the enemies of the people, who would twist the meaning to their own purposes. Now go out and get me names, thousands of them—after all, they are merely statistics—and we shall rid our beloved country of this pestilence.”

“Wouldn’t it be best just to exile the barber and his family to Voronezh, and assign them to a mental institution? I know one.”

“Out!” Beria roared.

Dimitri staggered from the Lubyanka Prison, followed by a police agent who made no effort to conceal himself. Dimitri had now become the servant of two masters, the state and his family. On the sidewalk, he mumbled to himself, “Antigone revisited.”