Constant Nobody

by Michelle Butler Hallett

  Temerity opened her door; the telephone’s jangle fell silent.

  Temerity started in German and finished in Russian as she followed Ursula into her room. —I’m sorry. I was thousands of miles away.

  Closing the door and pointing to a rickety table where the backgammon game waited, Ursula smiled. —I’m glad you enjoy backgammon. I thought I wouldn’t find another partner.

  Ursula’s first backgammon partner had disappeared, arrested by NKVD on the last night of May, the same night Temerity had arrived at Hotel Lux. Ursula spoke of her friend’s arrest in a roundabout way, almost a code, because she feared hidden microphones. How else, she’d argued in fierce whispers, could NKVD know so much?

  Temerity wanted to scoff, yet as each day passed, she, too, could believe more in the hidden microphones. Ursula preferred hidden microphones as an idea, as an article of faith, to any acknowledgement of NKVD using torture. Her adherence to communism an exercise in intellect and empathy after the spectacular worldwide failure of capitalism in the early 1930s, Ursula struggled to avoid the gall of truth: revolutions betrayed. The Great Purge, she reasoned, cleansed away only the guilty, the traitors, the filth of society. Those who disappeared must, on some level, deserve such treatment. Otherwise, nothing made sense.

  Struggling with these thoughts, Ursula sought distraction. She found it in Temerity’s wafting perfume. —You smell so nice.

  Temerity smiled as she dropped dice into the leather-edged cup. Before leaving London, she’d purchased a bottle of Shalimar perfume and a Stratton compact, both luxuries, as potential bribes. Now, she wanted to keep them, wield these expensive pleasures in — what, defiance? No, certainty of self, or at least an attempt at it. She’d worn Shalimar back in England, if against her father’s wishes; she would wear it in Russia. The chip in the stopper, a souvenir of rough seas, hardly mattered.

  Ursula tapped a pencil, rhythms random, against the table edge. This action, she’d explained, disrupted sound waves; any eavesdropper must struggle to listen. Temerity doubted the power of a pencil against eavesdroppers and hidden mics. Still, like Ursula, she now kept a pencil in her handbag.

  Temerity rattled dice in the cup.

  Ursula dropped the pencil.

  Temerity shook the dice some more.

  On her knees, Ursula retrieved the pencil and used it to point to the east wall, where she suspected microphone placement. Then she stood up and commented in a clear voice on how much she’d enjoyed the sugar in her coffee. Temerity agreed, yes, the sugar had been lovely, too bad it’s been scarce, but surely next week the hotel would have plenty of sugar.

  As the dice clattered on the table, Temerity considered how best to ask a cold and cynical question: did NKVD have quotas? Could these arrests and disappearances, supposedly the workings of law and justice, of crime and punishment, truly be nothing more than a tool of terror? Too soon, she told herself. Even if Ursula suspected quotas, she’d dare not say so. Not yet.

  Ursula pitched her voice a little too high. —Good roll.

  Temerity nodded, smiled a little, then moved her token.

  Ears keen, ready for car engines and booted footsteps, for knuckles and fists on doors, they played the round.

  And then another.

  Kostya lit a cigarette and glanced up at the building, a block of flats, unusually high with its seven floors and only a few years old, much like the one where he now lived. Arkady had bribed, or threatened, the right people. Arkady himself still lived in a two-storey house inherited from his parents, and he’d raised Kostya there from age twelve. Never married, Arkady now lived alone. When first released from hospital, Kostya had stayed with Arkady, sleeping in his old bedroom, these days made over into a study that Arkady never used, and he felt great surprise at how much he wanted to stay. He could not explain it. Not long before leaving for Spain, he’d argued with Arkady, both men shouting, about his need to live on his own, free of Arkady and Vadym’s supervision. Now he wished to return to this house and bask in its familiarity.

  Change, Arkady said over and over, things had changed while Kostya was in Spain, deep and drastic change. Arkady’s new anxiety, the way he cautioned Kostya against vague menace and then deflected questions, the way he ordered that poor bastard Dr. Scherba around, all made Kostya worry about the old man’s sanity. Then again, Arkady treated all doctors and intellectuals with a Chekist’s contempt. When Kostya demanded concrete examples of this mysterious change, Arkady changed the subject to Kostya’s new independence and flat, throwing Kostya’s own words back at him. You’re thirty-two years old, Tatar. You should have moved out long ago. You don’t need me breathing down your neck. When Kostya learned that Dr. Scherba, of all people, would also be his flatmate, Scherba no doubt under pressure to report to Arkady, Kostya gave Arkady an exasperated look. Arkady shrugged. It’s a complete coincidence, he’d said. Well, you both need a place to live, don’t you?

  So, Kostya reassured himself, after a detention, a hospital stay, and a recovery, he now had a modern flat just a few minutes’ walk from Vasilisa Prekrasnaya on the new metro line, a promotion with a raise in pay and prestige, and a promise that the Spanish boys would be looked after. Life looked good. At his new Lubyanka desk, one with a locking drawer, Kostya had faced his first task with vigour, then irritation, then rising dismay: the review of junior officers’ paperwork. He corrected spelling and grammar. He double-checked quotas. He asked himself how reliable NKVD records could be with so many errors. He also chewed his nails down to the quick and discovered he could not sleep for visions of ink-smutched forms spewing like steam from the wounds in his shoulder.

  After a few days of this disorienting misery, of new questions and doubts about NKVD procedure and possible reasons for it, Kostya had scraped up the courage to ask the acting department head — the second man to fill this position in a week — when he might expect a return to more active work. Within the hour, he received an order to report for night duty. Arkady, visiting Kostya’s office when the order arrived, read it and just shook his head. Be careful what you wish for, Tatar. At least it’s not poligon duty.

  Night duty: a tiresome chore and one which did not rotate across departments as often as it should. Junior officers carried out much of the work of raid and arrest under the supervision, often nominal, of a slightly senior officer, while the more senior officers relished their day shifts of paperwork and interrogation assistance. The younger and fitter men did much of the physical work in an interrogation, though exceptions occurred. Sometimes an old Chekist took over, eager to prove, if only to himself, his vigour and zeal. Kostya, as yet unsure what his injured shoulder could handle, had told himself to hide behind his new rank and order subordinates to carry out the beatings. Besides, his expertise lay elsewhere.

  Still staring up at the block of flats, Kostya sighed, and a long stream of cigarette smoke wafted round his head. Electric lamps burned in various windows, giving the block the broken appearance of a censored document. In some of the lit rooms, people stood behind curtains, reduced to shadow and silhouette. Some shapes darted away; others kept their place.

  Guardians, Kostya thought.

  Gleb took another swallow from his flask. —Did I tell you about the ass I hauled in last week? When I knocked on the door, he greeted me with a smile so big I could see his tonsils. ‘Where have you been, comrade?’ he said to me. ‘Why, I’ve been waiting for weeks now, my bags all packed and ready to go.’ I played along, asked him what he’d done. ‘Nothing at all,’ he told me, ‘which is precisely why I’ve been expecting you.’

  Aware that Gleb might be shot for such a careless utterance, such a recognition and acknowledgement of the absurdities of the Purge, Kostya feigned distraction. Another NKVD car arrived, and two more officers joined Kostya and Gleb. The last shapes at the lighted windows flitted away.

  Kostya tapped his watch. —You’re late. And you left the garage first.

  — Construction, Comrade Senior Lieutenant, detours.

&n
bsp; Gleb smirked.

  Kostya took papers from the pouch on his portupeya and passed them around. —Here are your lists. They’re…

  He noticed a pattern: even-numbered floors, odd-numbered flats.

  Coincidence.

  Such a pattern, if it existed, would signal, in a written record, a deep and hurried cynicism: citizens arrested to fill a quota.

  Quotas he double-checked.

  No, we’ve not fallen that far. No.

  Gleb’s voice reached him. —Nikto, we’ve got more names here than room in the cars.

  Kostya lit another cigarette. —So I see. Just pick one each. We’ll send the other names back for another squad.

  Gleb noticed a tremor in Kostya’s hands and spoke in his old manner, teacher to student. —You smoke too much.

  Exhaling, Kostya looked Gleb in the eye and then mimed drinking from a flask. —You have a better regimen?

  — At least I’ll die old and well-preserved. Those little chimneys of death will kill you before you’re fifty.

  — Make it forty. I’ll take the top floor, Gleb Denisovich. I wouldn’t want you to get winded on the stairs.

  Gleb raised the back of his hand in mock-threat. —Get out of my way, child.

  The other two officers looked mystified. That old workhorse Kamenev, pretending he’d strike a commanding officer, even in banter? What a night, what a night.

  Grin fading, Kostya yanked open the lobby door, noticed the absence of a watchwoman — it was so often a woman, older, perhaps widowed — resumed an expression of stern officialdom, and loped up the stairs. His boot soles gave a gentle tap. Harsh smoke trailed behind him.

  At the fifth floor, glad to be alone, Kostya slowed down to catch his breath. A pit of pain yawned open in his bad shoulder, and little jolts shot down his arm. He leaned on the railing, almost bending too far back to keep his balance — not that he recognized how he nearly fell. Pain stupefied him. He reached into the pouch on his portupeya, fearful he’d forgotten Arkady’s long-ago gift of the amber worry beads. Amber met his fingers, reassured him, and as he rubbed the beads, his heartbeat slowed and his shoulder pain eased.

  Below, his colleagues banged their fists on doors.

  Kostya walked the final flight of stairs and emerged from the stairwell. Dim lights burned in the ceiling, naked bulbs dangling from shoddy fixtures. A third of the way down the corridor, the builders had run out of wallpaper, and the papered section ended on a crisp line: a border. Beyond it, the exposed plaster, grimy from the touch of many hands, seemed to shimmer in the poor light. It reminded Kostya of fever dreams, and he fell into the long stare. That’s what he called them now, those spells when he seemed to sleep with his eyes open. One of the doctors at the hospital said Kostya had suffered concussive shocks from bombardment and must expect difficulties as his brain adapted. Breathe, the doctor instructed, making it sound so easy, always remember to breathe, because you start to hyperventilate in this state. Pinch yourself, bite your lip, break the spell. Stay in the present. Your past is your enemy, and your enemy attacks you. Do not surrender to your enemy.

  The racket of his own heartbeat cramming his head, he pinched his left forearm. Hard.

  Electricity hummed.

  Stay in the present, good, good. The list, what did it say? Even-numbered floors, odd-numbered flats? Oh, just pick one.

  He dropped the beads into his pouch and raised his fist to knock on flat number sixty-seven. Something seemed to shift in the air, as though several people moved at the same moment in the start of a dance.

  Five bangs of his fist: he beat the tattoo. —Comrade!

  Lights flicked on within number sixty-seven.

  — Comrade, please, don’t make me knock again. I’ve no wish to wake up the entire floor.

  A small man in his fifties wearing striped pyjamas opened the door.

  Kostya showed his identification, an extra step he considered a basic courtesy. Last year, before he left for Spain, his peers mocked him for such behaviour when, surely, the uniform sufficed. Kostya had insisted, saying there was no need for incivility. He now lowered his voice to a murmur, arrest, for all its theatre, being private, intimate. —Come with me.

  Eyes glittering, the man looked up. —Why?

  — A small matter. It shouldn’t take long to straighten out.

  — But why? What’s the charge? What is it you think I’ve done?

  — If I make a note of belligerence in your file, then the other officers will be harder on you.

  — Wait, please, my granddaughter just moved in with us. Her mother has disappeared. My daughter. Please don’t do this to us.

  — Get dressed and pack a small bag.

  — A bag? How long…

  Kostya’s voice took on a comforting tone, one a nurse might use with a seriously ill patient. —Just a few things, comrade. Then come outside. I’ll wait here. Please, I don’t want to disturb anyone else.

  Nod slow, automatic, eyes wide and fixed on the wall behind Kostya, the man eased the door shut.

  Waiting, Kostya smoked a cigarette.

  Raised voices, male and female, reached him from the flat as he tapped ash onto the floor. Adults spoke quickly in raised voices. A child asked a question. Then all voices ceased.

  The flat door opened. Clutching the handles of a tatty overnight bag in both his hands, the man emerged. He wore a tan coat atop striped pyjamas, and his bare ankles showed over the edges of his shoes. Someone else closed the door behind him.

  Kostya took him by the upper arm, and they descended the many flights of stairs.

  Outside, Gleb waited by the car. His prisoner, a pretty woman of maybe twenty, sat in the back, head bowed. Kostya guided his prisoner to the seat next to her, then climbed in behind the wheel. The woman shifted and writhed; Gleb told her to keep still. The other team of officers sat in their car, engine idling, waiting for Comrade Senior Lieutenant Nikto’s signal.

  Ignition, headlights.

  Car doors slammed outside Hotel Lux. Ursula, fiddling with backgammon pieces and no longer trying to play, cried out.

  Temerity spoke in English. —Steady the Buffs.

  Not understanding the words, Ursula raised her eyebrows. Then, parsing the tone, she smiled.

  Temerity smiled back, though her mouth twitched. And what shall you do, the Right Honourable Lady Temerity West pretending to be Margaret Bush, if NKVD knock on Ursula’s door? Protest? Scream? Demand a cup of tea?

  Machinery rumbled and squeaked.

  Temerity rolled the dice. —At least the lift is working again.

  Ursula stifled a giggle.

  Down the quiet hall, to the right of Ursula’s room, NKVD officers knocked on doors. Their low voices carried, and though walls and doors muffled the words, Ursula and Temerity knew the script. First, the naming ritual of Are you Comrade So-and-so? Then, the quiet orders to get dressed, pack a small bag, and wait in the hallway for the officer to return.

  Two rooms to the right now, five bangs on a door, where the French couple with the baby boy who smiled at everything lived. The husband answered the door, and the NKVD officer ordered him to pack a small bag and wait outside his door.

  Boot soles tapped; the officer strode past Ursula’s door.

  Temerity closed her eyes, only then aware of the dryness, the grit.

  Ursula tightened her hand over the mouth of the dice cup.

  An officer knocked maybe three doors to the left.

  Temerity’s room lay four doors to the left.

  No one answered it.

  Another door opened, and a high and girlish voice, speech rapid and pressed, answered the officer: Nina Fontana. She’d welcomed Temerity to the floor, showed her how the plumbing worked, asked if she needed anything. The night of her husband’s arrest, she’d cried in Temerity’s arms.

  — No, I am not Comrade Bush. The Britisher hides in number twelve with the German, Ursula Friesen, right there.

  Ursula scowled as Temerity struggled to understand.r />
  Boots soles tapped, and a fist banged five times on Ursula’s door. —Comrade Bush, are you there?

  Ursula rose from the game table. Still, a moment for hope, and a moment within that moment as she opened the door: a mistake, perhaps? Voice polite and a touch surprised, as if ready to calm a lost child or a savage dog, she greeted the officer. —Yes, comrade?

  — Are you Comrade Bush?

  Flushed in the face, Temerity stood up and plucked her handbag from the back of the chair. —I am.

  — Come here.

  Ursula stepped aside; Temerity walked to the threshold.

  The NKVD officer, tall and thin, the shoulder sling of his portupeya buckled on the last hole, galife pants baggy at the knees, looked her up and down. A flicker of regret revealed itself in his eyes. Perhaps the light played tricks. —Good, you’re already dressed.

  — My things are in my own room. Down the hall. We were playing backgammon.

  — Wait here.

  — But my things.

  His voice sounded steady and certain. —You’ve got your papers.

  — Yes, in my handbag, but—

  — Then you will wait here. That is all.

  Temerity stepped into the hallway, and, behind her, Ursula shut the door. The tall officer conferred in murmurs with his colleagues.

  Temerity sagged against the front of the door, unaware that Ursula did the same against the back. Ursula sobbed; the door shook.

  Temerity took a deep breath. Field training in the Service had included mock arrest and interrogation. Three times Freeman ordered such exercises for Temerity, without warning her. The arrests themselves — abductions, really, once from a train platform — offered little violence, more a menace of body language and words. The interrogations might not even start for hours. Temerity would have no idea how much time had passed, because her captors always confiscated her wristwatch. After a long confinement in either darkness or bright light, the questions began, voices perhaps soft and polite, or brutal and cold from the first words. As taught, Temerity accepted the disorientation and so managed to root herself. She clung to her cover stories, answering contradictions between what she said and what her interrogators said with feigned confusion.