Constant Nobody

by Michelle Butler Hallett

  — Help. First, however, I will help you. I’ve found you a flat. I’m sure you’d prefer that to sleeping at the youth hostel. Moscow’s housing shortage is worse than Leningrad’s, but you were promised a flat as part of the job.

  A nurse opened the door and peeked in. —Comrades, why do I smell something burning in here?

  Arkady ignited his lighter. —I smoke.

  She studied him, then backed away and let the door ease shut.

  Efim thought he noticed Arkady smirk as he tucked his lighter into a pocket. —Major Balakirev, when can Olga join me?

  — Who is Olga?

  Efim suspected, hoped, dared not believe, that Arkady teased him as he had on the train. —Olga Nikolaieva Aristarkhova, my wife.

  — Kept her own name, then? A modern woman. And Scherba: Jewish?

  Blaming the stench of melted film and not his clammy fear, Efim thought he might vomit. —Latvian.

  — Pardon me. Doctors and the like, I thought…

  — Secular Latvian.

  — Secular Latvian it is. Scherba is also a kind of soup. Dr. Soup. It might go well with doktorskaya kolbasa. Never thought to change it to Scherbakov?

  — No.

  — Why won’t you treat Nikto with phage therapy? You’re an expert.

  Now Efim felt dizzy. Did official interrogations progress so, like some map with palsy, borders twitching? And who the hell was this patient called Nobody? A prisoner? —Phage therapy is no use here. The patient has no infection, by some miracle.

  — Miracles ceased to exist in 1917. And what has infection got to do with it?

  — It’s what phage therapy fights. Phage means devour. What preys on a bacterium? A virus. What drives a virus? Reproduction. And they’re hard to kill, if they’re even alive. A virus can lie dormant in permafrost until thawed and still swarm a patient. So we learn the language of the virus, whet its appetite for specific bacteria, inject it into the patient who’s already ill, and let it hunt the infection.

  — Civil war in the patient’s body?

  — The end result is a cure.

  Arkady nodded. —Justifies the means. Can you set these phages on a different target? On healthy cells, for example?

  Efim saw the teeth of the trap. Oh, this Major Balakirev understood phage therapy well enough. —In theory, yes.

  — But in your heart, no?

  — Comrade Major, I’m a doctor.

  — A doctor assigned to Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two. A specialist in your field.

  — Now, wait—

  — What did you say your wife is called?

  Shutting his eyes, Efim thought he could smell Olga’s perfume, Krasnaya Moskva. He didn’t bother to answer.

  Arkady spoke, and the borders twitched again. —Tell me, is it true about you and the train?

  — Is what true?

  — You served on a medical train in the civil war?

  — Yes.

  — And made it a point of honour to treat any patients you encountered, Red or White?

  — When I could.

  — Once jumped off the train to do so?

  Efim opened his eyes and met Arkady’s gaze. —Well, it hadn’t got up to speed.

  Arkady laughed, the way he might at a precocious child who’d interrupted a party to share wisdom, and the sound woke Kostya, who, too weak and drugged to move, simply lay there, working to open his eyes. Neither Arkady nor Efim noticed.

  Efim waited for Arkady to finish laughing. —You mentioned a flat.

  — Yes, yes, the housing shortage. I’ve looked into your case, and I made some arrangements. Twelve square metres per person is the ideal, and we can’t always meet that. At first, Comrade Doctor, they had you listed to share a sixty-square-metre flat with a family of six. Here, take the chair, you look like you need to sit down. As I said, sixty square metres with six other people, make it seven in total, that’s, oh, just over eight square metres per person, less walls and furniture and the rest of it. I flagged this in your file as unacceptable. Your work will be difficult, and you will need your rest. So I’ve found you a ninety-square-metre flat, new building, fresh paint, partly furnished, two bedrooms, a front room, a kitchen, a bathroom with a shower and hot running water, which you must share with only one other person.

  — One other person being my wife?

  — No. Don’t go so pale; it’s not me. It’s him. And now that I’ve helped you, here’s how I want you to help me. Look after this man and keep him fit for duty.

  Efim glanced at Kostya, then looked back at Arkady. —I can’t do that.

  — Why not?

  — He’s ill, exhausted, and injured. He needs to convalesce.

  — I’ve just explained, he needs to work, and you need a flat where you can rest. All I want is for you to keep your doctor’s eye on the one person, one, with whom you share these ninety square metres. Understand me yet?

  You don’t give a damn about my rest. You want me to run a creche. Despite telling himself to shut up and not antagonize the NKVD major, not get himself shot, Efim continued. —If he’s so precious, then why can’t he live with you?

  — He did, once. We argued.

  — Is he your son?

  — No.

  Efim took a deep breath. —And my wife?

  — We can discuss it again in a few months, if your work goes well. Arrangements for Aristarkhova would be out of my hands, though I can put in a word. Meantime my colleagues in Leningrad will keep an eye to her. She’s alone there, I understand. Her sister died not long ago, and, of course, you have no children.

  — You know all of that?

  Arkady raised his eyebrows, tilted his head to one side.

  Embarrassed, Efim nodded and acquiesced. —There was a mistake on the X-ray film. What’s his name?

  — Nikto.

  Efim took a deep breath, said nothing.

  Kostya still couldn’t open his eyes or speak. It’s true, he tried to say. My name is Konstantin Arkadievich Nikto, and I can’t fucking move.

  He managed a grunt. The sound got lost beneath Arkady continuing to instruct Efim on the pragmatics of Moscow life.

  [ ]

  HOMO SOVIETICUS

  Friday 4 June–Sunday 6 June

  Standing before a dozen children aged five to twelve in a tiny room in Moscow’s Hotel Lux, Temerity spoke in English. —Dismissed.

  The students stood up in unison, inclined their heads to their teacher, and replied in English. The accents of their parents faded more each day. —Thank you, Comrade Bush.

  Courtesy and discipline displayed, the class broke into two groups, girls and boys. The girls gathered to talk among themselves, while the boys ran off, shouting of games. They’d all switched to Russian, obeying the standing order, sometimes dipping into German or French for this word or that, and improvising a new vernacular. This had long been the hope: the children of Comintern unified in their ability and desire to overcome language barriers. When first gathering at Hotel Lux, Comintern members wasted no time setting up language classes. The Kremlin regarded these classes with increasing suspicion. For now, the children’s language studies could continue, so long as the children spoke Russian outside class.

  Restriction after restriction: many of Comintern’s hopes had stalled. Comintern members had come together from all over Europe, devoted to the ideals of revolution, ready to work for economic justice and world peace. Herded into Hotel Lux, which soon became its own tiny world, they met their comrades from other countries, shared stories of the struggle to get to the Soviet Union, of terrible fights with their families and financial ruin. Yet for all their conviction, their devotion to world socialism, restrictions now fell on them like snow, until Hotel Lux earned a nickname: the Golden Cage of Comintern. Security reasons, comrades. It won’t last long. It’s all for your own safety. Comintern members accepted these restrictions, sometimes with grumbling, sometimes with a shrill or hissed reminder of the dangers of traitors and spies. Radio Moscow
assured listeners that the Kremlin reeled from act after act of treason, espionage, sabotage, and other depravities fit only to file under the shameful labels of Trotskyism and anti-Soviet activities, and so the Kremlin must, with both sadness and steely resolve, examine loyalties. The members of Comintern — now called not comrades but foreigners — found themselves high on the list. Day by day the air in Hotel Lux seemed to sour. Hotel staff, so many of them, appeared from corners and shadows, saying nothing, just listening, their faces often stern.

  For all the sternness, Temerity also saw emotion, mostly fear, flicker in the hotel workers’ eyes, and she wondered what the penalties for hotel staff might be if Comintern members misbehaved. She’d gone outside the hotel herself only twice since arriving on the thirty-first of May, both times to visit the nearby food store Gastronom, and both times facing many questions from hotel staff when she returned.

  Grateful for the open door and some fresher air, Temerity collected the exercise books. Go, she wanted to tell the girls, run, play. She thought of their parents. The adults often gathered in the communal kitchen and talked, standing around, sometimes drinking tea — mostly women, far fewer men. Rumours among the Comintern members suggested that NKVD considered fathers the easiest prey, docile in prison and submissive under interrogation, all to protect wife and children.

  Radio Moscow broke past her thoughts. Speakers blessed every hallway and room, and these speakers lacked a switch. Until the station signed off at night, one could only reduce the volume, never extinguish the sound. Temerity had just taught a class on various English greetings over a muffled yet insistent report on oppressive conditions in the British Empire. Now, the announcer gave the time and introduced a Tchaikovsky recording. Temerity rolled her eyes. This huge country and its embarrassment of riches when it came to composers, and yet Radio Moscow played Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky.

  A child collided with her and then spoke startled English as he retreated a few steps. —Comrade Bush, I am sorry!

  Mikko Toppinen, Temerity’s brightest student, and, if she must choose, her favourite. Aged ten, Mikko already spoke excellent Russian alongside his native Finnish, and he could manage good French. He craved language the same way Temerity did, breathed it, and in his spare time he worked on a large drawing of a complex series of staircases that curved, intersected, overlapped, and sometimes twisted into diacritical and punctuation marks. Babel Interior, he called it.

  — Comrade Bush, are you hurt?

  — No, I’m fine. You carry on.

  He ran off, joining the other boys in a noisy game.

  A hotel worker, carrying linens in her arms, gave Temerity a long look.

  Temerity nodded acknowledgement. —Comrade.

  Ursula Friesen emerged from behind the hotel worker and greeted Temerity in loud Russian. Strands of her greying blond hair fell loose from her bun and framed her face, and her Berlin accent, which strengthened when she got tired, reminded Temerity of childhood visits to the Weihnachtsmarkt and, therefore, ginger cookies. When Temerity told her this, Ursula had first frowned, then chuckled. So I am a Britisher’s gingerbread woman? —Margaret, there you are. All done with language class, comrade?

  Temerity offered Ursula her arm, and they walked together down the corridor to the stairwell. They didn’t bother trying the tiny yet stylized lift that Temerity called the art deco coffin. It rarely worked.

  Ursula, almost the same height as Temerity, leaned in to murmur in her ear. —Laugh when I finish, as though I’m telling you a joke. Tell Mikko he must take greater care and speak only Russian outside the classroom.

  Temerity gave a soft laugh, hoping it sounded genuine.

  Another hotel worker watched them until they passed the threshold to the stairwell.

  On the stairs, Temerity thought Ursula looked old, much older than forty, tired, and starved for sunlight. She’d not ventured outside Hotel Lux for almost three months.

  — Ursula, Mikko was just showing off.

  — Yes, and it could get us all in trouble. He should understand that. If he doesn’t, then you must make him understand.

  As Temerity opened the stairwell door, she revealed yet another hotel worker, standing there as if by design. The three women nodded acknowledgement and continued on their paths.

  Ursula sounded cheerful. —Shall we freshen up and make some supper?

  The communal kitchen, where diapers might boil in one pot and fowl in another and still not cut through the lingering stench of vinegar, cabbage, and lard, left Temerity with little appetite. —Not hungry, thank you.

  — At least have a cup of tea. You Britishers always want some tea.

  — The samovar baffles me.

  — I’ll do it. You go sit down, maybe write some letters.

  Temerity almost laughed. —So I can give the hotel staff something new to read?

  Ursula pretended not to hear.

  Temerity told herself to be more considerate of her friend’s fears. —Thank you, Ursula. I’d love some tea.

  NKVD Garage Number One. Same old spot, same old racket of execution’s gunfire, same old cars, Ford Model As, manufactured under license in Moscow, painted matte black and nicknamed ravens. Kostya nodded to the older officer in the passenger seat, Gleb Denisovich Kamenev, checked his watch — shortly before two in the morning — and eased the vehicle into the night.

  Kostya’s latest argument with Arkady, days old now, still rattled about his head. The old man murmured about the machinery of revolution, gears loose and cogs jammed, purges misled. Arkady dared not mention the arrest of former NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda, and Kostya, feeling at once loose and jammed himself, ignoring his memories of Spain, craved order and refused to think of Yagoda. He wanted to bury himself in work, as he’d always done, so he might silence not just Arkady’s sudden doubts but his own. You’re getting paranoid, he told Arkady. I’m out of hospital, and I just got a promotion. No one is out to get me. Or you.

  Under the car’s wheels, asphalt surrendered to cobblestones. Contradictory signage, warning of construction and offering impossible detours, interrupted the headlight beams.

  Kostya braked the car and peered through the windshield. —What the barrelling fuck is this?

  Gleb gave the barest of grunts. Nonsensical road signs, an everyday occurrence, merited nothing else.

  — That’s no help, Gleb Denisovich.

  Shadows fell on Gleb’s thin face, hiding his drunkard’s flush. —If we turn left and take the alley behind the…no, wait, it’s blocked at one end.

  Kostya closed his eyes and bowed his head. —Signs should make sense. I just want the signs to make sense. Am I asking too much?

  Gleb grunted again, his tone disapproving. Smart officers knew better.

  Kostya accelerated. Ignoring Gleb’s warnings of rough road and narrow ways, his doubts of just what punishment the car’s suspension could take, Kostya drove around the various signs and navigated by memory. Apart from knocking over a detour sign shaped like an arrow, he encountered no difficulty. Either the workers had completed the signalled construction, or, more likely, they’d not yet begun. Perhaps they waited on a permit.

  Gleb studied Kostya a moment. He’d known Kostya Nikto for years, teaching him as a cadet. He’d considered young Nikto a most promising student then and a most promising officer now, and he’d remarked several times this week that he felt no surprise at Nikto’s promotion to senior lieutenant. The wounded ear and shoulder, the sunken face: Nikto had earned a reward. Besides, Gleb now added to himself, sneaking a nip from his flask and tasting his limp moustache, with NKVD in such flux, the ranks might yet change again, and an experienced and overlooked longtime sergeant like Gleb Kamenev should soon find himself drawing more pay and respect.

  Kostya accepted the scrutiny and ignored the flask. Gleb’s dedication, loyalty, and, above all, results meant no one wished to examine his drinking. Besides, it seemed all the old Chekists drank.

  Gleb checked his watch as Kostya p
arked. —Two o’clock. Dead on time.

  — We are, yes. Where the hell is the rest of the squad?

  Ursula tapped on Temerity’s door. —Margaret? Are you awake?

  Temerity flicked on a lamp, relieved to find electricity still flowed. Then she checked her watch, which read two in the morning, and freed herself of the bedsheets. —I am now.

  — I can’t sleep. Would you play backgammon with me?

  Ursula had extended this same invitation on Temerity’s second night at Hotel Lux, explaining how backgammon calmed her. Many nights I don’t sleep well.

  None of the hotel residents slept well. While one could almost smell NKVD paranoia, one could not predict a date for the raids, only the likely time: the hours of deep sleep, between one and four in the morning. Those left behind by the arrest of a loved one, sleep wrecked, might then sit up for the rest of the night or stumble back to bed and doze, fear now shot through with relief and guilt: not me, not me, not me.

  Temerity freshened her perfume. Despite the warm and stuffy air, she felt chilled. She recalled a night during her first social season in London when she’d ducked the supervision of her Aunt Min and joined several other debutantes to visit a nightclub. The clock struck two as she sneaked back into the family’s London flat, and Min, still sitting up, provided a thorough tongue-lashing. That night, too, had been warm, and Temerity had shivered in dread, though not, she told herself, of Min’s anger. She shivered the way she had when, as a child, she’d pushed the book of Russian fairy tales from her father’s hands. When the book fell to the floor, pages up, Baba Yaga’s hut, half-hidden by trees, still lurked behind Vasilisa. Something, it seemed, waited for Vasilisa and Temerity.

  Ursula called again. —Margaret?

  — Give me a minute.

  Down the hall, in a room not used by Comintern guests, a telephone rang, rang, rang.

  Scowling, Temerity rolled on her stockings and recalled Neville Freeman’s definition of a Londoner: born within the sound of Bow Bells. Temerity, he would add, being born on the Kurseong House estate, could not call herself a Londoner. Moscow, like London, had once kept time by church bells; Moscow’s bells belonged to memory. Shoved from belfries, many bells cracked, even shattered. Some survived their crash. The condition of the bells hardly mattered past the gesture, the theatre of the fall. The rougher pragmatics of fire took over as smiths melted the bells and reforged them into more useful items, like parts for locomotives and strong locks for heavy doors.