The Great Game

by D. R. Bell

  “Let’s see, what happens after? She hosts the Great Ball, welcoming the worst characters from Hell. After she fulfills her duty, Woland offers Margarita one wish. He expected she would ask for the Master because that’s what she wanted the most. But instead she asks that Frieda be forgiven.”

  “Who is Frieda?”

  “A woman she meets at the Great Ball. Frieda was raped by a man she worked for, gave birth, and suffocated the baby with a handkerchief. Every morning she wakes up in Hell, and the handkerchief is there. She tried burning it and drowning it, but every morning it’s there.”

  “What happens?”

  “Woland forgives Frieda. But he gives Margarita another wish and reunites her with the Master. And Woland restores the manuscript that the Master burned.”

  “Is that the end?”

  “Not quite. Woland takes their physical lives but brings them to the place of peace, where they can spend eternity together. And Pontius Pilate is reunited with Yeshua after 2,000 years.” Maggie shook her head. “Just saying all this, I realize what a poor job I am doing in trying to explain the book.”

  “Do Yeshua, Pilate, the Master, and Margarita all end up together?”

  “No, Pontius Pilate joins Yeshua in the place of light, but the Master and Margarita only get to the place of peace.”

  “Why?”

  “I think both Pilate and the Master were guilty of cowardice. Pilate paid his due, but the Master has not. Yet.”

  “Why was the Master guilty of cowardice?”

  “Perhaps because he did not conquer his own fear, stopped dreaming, stopped believing in himself and in Margarita, gave up.”

  “But Pilate was a hundred times guiltier. He sent an innocent man to his death!”

  “True, but he paid for it. He earned forgiveness. At least that’s how I see it.”

  “And why didn’t Margarita get to go to the place of light?”

  “Because she loved the Master, and there is a price for that. She had to share his fate.”

  “I presume that Margarita was your favorite character?”

  “My mother always loved the character for her devotion, her daring, her lack of fear. A coward wouldn’t sell her soul to the Devil in order to rescue her lover.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I love her most for forgiving Frieda. But to be honest, Woland is my favorite character.”

  “Woland?”

  “I know, I know. Sounds horrible when you like the Devil most. But in the book he is a fallen angel: sympathetic, with a cynical but powerful insight into human hearts. Compassionate …”

  “Compassionate?”

  “He is almost sad, sitting in judgment but forgiving. He gives people opportunity to sin, but always provides a choice. I sense that he hopes you’ll choose the right path. And if you don’t, it’s usually not death but some comical slap that he administers. I think Bulgakov wanted to remind us that, while we don’t choose our circumstances, we are free to choose how we act.”

  “I thought Yeshua was the most likable.”

  “Perhaps. I just don’t believe in forgiveness and mercy quite as much.”

  David mulled it over and concluded he was out of his league and should read the book again, from the beginning to end, in order to have an intelligent discussion. He changed the topic. “Do you miss Kiev?”

  “Less than before. I grew up there. I miss some of my friends, but I’ve been gone for nine years now and people forget about you. ‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ as you Americans say. I miss Khreshchatyk Boulevard and its beautiful chestnut trees. Young people’s favorite pastime during summers was to walk the boulevard and try to pick up members of the opposite sex. I miss Dnieper and its parks, where we would go cross-country skiing in the winter and sunbathing in the summer. And most of all, I miss my parents. But I feel like my home is in California now. At least I thought it was. Now I’m not sure where it is.”

  Monday, 5/2/2022, 5:16 p.m. EEST

  They landed in Borispol’s airport, smoothly glided through customs (“Welcome to Ukraine, Mr. and Mrs. Brockman”), and took a cab to the hotel. The ride was only about forty minutes. David looked out the cab’s window with curiosity. They checked into the hotel around 6:30 p.m. local time. It was located on a large square, the building reminding David of some of the New York hotels from the mid-twentieth century. After dealing with a crabby clerk downstairs, Maggie made flight reservations to Moscow for the next morning. They made their way to their tenth floor room. Neither felt sleepy, it was morning in San Antonio.

  David stood by the window, there was still enough light to see the square in front of the hotel. “This feels like a pretty old hotel.”

  “Yes, it’s been here for at least sixty years. Old Soviet architecture. Used to be called Moskva for Moscow, but after the independence it was renamed into Ukrayina for Ukraine.”

  “And what is this square?”

  “This is Independence Square, or Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Ukrainian. It became known abroad as Maidan Square, although ‘maidan’ actually translates as ‘square,’ kind of silly.”

  “So when you were telling me about demonstrating on Maidan Square at fifteen, this is where it was?”

  “Yes.” Maggie pointed to the right of the tall column in the middle of the square. “That’s where I was. We’d been there for days. We did not want to leave, or else the authorities would close it down …” Her voice trailed off.

  “You miss that time?”

  “I miss the feeling I had. There was passion, there was hope. Years later, some people were cynical about the Orange Revolution, talking of CIA, of bribes. I think that’s nonsense. Common people were bringing us food, clothes, tents because they wanted to. We fought against fraudulent government and we did it peacefully, without bloodshed. Yes, I miss it.”

  “You grew up close to here?”

  “My parents live pretty close, only about a twenty-minute walk. Say, I know you must be hungry—do you mind if we go see them now? They would feed us.”

  “We can’t just drop by for dinner!”

  “Don’t be silly. They will get offended if we refuse to eat.”

  They walked out of the hotel into the square. Maggie pointed to the column in the middle. “This is Independence Column, with a statue of Mother Ukraine on top.” The square was crossed by a broad street lined up with stately chestnut trees. Maggie explained, ”This is the famous Khreshchatyk Boulevard. This was all destroyed during the war and rebuilt afterwards.”

  They crossed Khreshchatyk, went by a beautiful fountain on the right, and started winding their way up. Maggie pointed to a church at the top of the hill. “Andreevskaya, or St. Andrew’s Church. It was built in the eighteenth century, so it’s relatively new by our standards.”

  They made a couple of turns and found themselves in front of an old five-story-tall brick house. “This is it,” Maggie said. David followed her up the stairs to the third floor where she rang the bell of the first flat on the left.

  Monday, 5/2/2022, 7:27 p.m. EEST

  “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened

  than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

  — Alexis De Tocqueville

  They heard sounds of someone coming to the door, and a man’s voice said, “Kto tam?”

  “Eto ya,” Maggie responded.

  There was an involuntary gasp, the door swung open, and an elderly gentleman rushed out and hugged Maggie. “Ritochka! Ritochka!” He must have been tall when younger, but now he was stooped, frail, and mostly bald but for a circle of white hair. He was wearing a jacket, a flannel shirt, khakis pants, and slippers.

  There was another “Ritochka!” call from inside the flat, and a short woman came rushing out and hugged Maggie from the other side. After a couple minutes of hugging, crying, and kissing, they noticed David standing behind, let go of their daughter and looked from him to Maggie expectantly.

  Maggie introduce
d them. “David—my parents.”

  The man extended his hand to shake David’s and said in an accented but good English, “Eugene Sappin. Nice to meet you.”

  The woman clearly did not have the same command of English. “Hello. Maria.” Maggie explained that her dad spoke English, but her mom did not, and that Ritochka was a diminutive for Rita, which was a shortened form of Margarita.

  They went inside. The flat was not large—it looked like it had a living room, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom—but comfortable, with Persian rugs, pictures and portraits on the walls, a couch and a reclining chair. Outsized cherry-wood bookcases bulged with rows of books. In the middle of the living room was a large round table. Without asking, Maggie’s mother rushed to the kitchen, and plates of food started appearing on the table: borsht, cutlets, potatoes, herring, a couple of salads, a bottle of wine. She gesticulated to David to sit down and eat. “Please, please.” She kept lightly touching Maggie as if to make sure she was not dreaming, her daughter was really here.

  Maggie told David, “Why don’t you eat, and I’ll tell my parents some of the story in Russian, so my mother can understand.”

  David nodded. In the ensuing conversation between Maggie and her parents David understood a few words and names, such as Brockman, but for the most part he just concentrated on the food. Whatever she was telling them must have been both scary and flattering to David, because the parents were simultaneously gasping in horror and looking at David with admiration. As David was done eating, Maggie finished her story.

  Eugene said, “David, thank you so much for saving our daughter’s life.”

  David blushed and replied, “She saved my life, too.”

  Eugene continued, “So you are going to Moscow to confront these people?”

  “Yes, we are. Do you think it’s a mistake?”

  “No, not if what Rita is telling us is correct and you have stored the information securely. It’s better to be on the attack. They won’t expect it. Do you know what you are dealing with?”

  David admitted that his knowledge of the KGB and its successors was generally limited to James Bond movies.

  “These people are ruthless but pragmatic. They are like mafia. You have to act and think like them, too.”

  Maria suddenly broke into a long and emotional tirade in Russian. David understood that Stalin’s name was mentioned a few times. Eugene and Maria had a short but heated discussion. Eugene sighed and turned to David. “My wife wants me to make sure that you truly understand the history of the organization you are confronting. They are descendants of KGB and NKVD. Over the past century they killed tens of millions of their countrymen. They terrified and suppressed hundreds of millions. Our parents grew up in fear of a knock on the door in the middle of the night. These people are running Russia now. They have big ambitions; they want more.”

  Maria broke in again, pointing to David and saying something. Eugene got up, went to one of the bookcases, rummaged there, and came back with a thick old-fashioned photo album. He started showing David black-and-white pictures, yellow with age. “Maria’s grandparents. Died in 1930 from the famine that Stalin engineered. They confiscated food supplies from the Ukrainian peasants, did not allow them to move, condemned millions to die from hunger. This is my aunt, killed with her child by the Nazis in Babyi Yar in 1941, turned in by the neighbors jealous of her large flat. My uncle, denounced and arrested as an enemy of the people in 1952, died in Siberia during his first winter there.” He paused. “There is more, but each family here has such an album. A hundred years of power-hungry people running this country, turning neighbor against neighbor, corrupting everything.”

  Eugene stopped to catch his breath and gathered himself. “I think there is something you Americans don’t understand. Even at your worst times, you gave us a reason for hope. It’s not that you were perfect or always right. But in the end, in things that mattered, you tried to do the right thing. I remember when I was still a young man in 1974, you fired your president. Do you realize how shocking it was to us, those who had only one candidate to ‘vote’ for in any election? The president was like our party chief, and the American people said ‘You are still not above the law!’ We grew up with the knowledge that the law is different for them and for us, that ‘some animals are more equal than others’—and you said ‘Not here, not in America!’ And then Reagan came and said ‘Tear down that wall!’ and the wall came down. You gave us hope that we could be like that, too, the country that was both free and strong. And now that hope is fading because once again you are tearing yourself apart, but this time not for a cause, this time because you have gotten too complacent and greedy and became just another country.”

  David protested. “But we are not special. We are just another country, a group of people thrown together, carrying similar passports.”

  “No, you are not.” Eugene shook his head. “Of course you say you are not special. And others will tell you that you are not. You choose to be what you want to be. I don’t know if Rita told you, but I am half-Jewish from my mother’s side. Being a Jew in this world is a blessing and a curse. Many years ago God honored us with his laws but gave us a heavy burden to carry. It’s the same for you. I don’t know if it was God or fate or your wise founders—we can’t know God’s ways—but you were blessed with freedom and opportunity, and also given a burden to carry. You can beat your chest ‘I am special’ and be an arrogant ass. Or you can quietly whisper to yourself: ‘The people that founded this country stood for something and I will act to honor that.’ Not special, not imperial, but righteous and strong.”

  “Please, Dad,” Maggie whispered, “don’t put it on him. I lived in America for nine years. They are tired, they don’t want the burden, they don’t want to take care of others.”

  Eugene was looking at David, as if David was somehow representing America. “God bless you, you did carry the burden for many years. You destroyed communism, you helped to destroy fascism. Perhaps you are tired and you want someone else to carry the load. But there is nobody else. Look around. There is no other country that is both strong enough and imbued with the spirit of democracy and freedom to do this. If you don’t, nobody will. People tell you that you are weak; they write books about it and you believe them. It’s easy to see the weaknesses of democracies; it’s not as easy to see their strengths. America is not a cult or a religion; democratic people don’t need holy causes. Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, that’s all. From Darius and Xerxes to Hitler and Tojo, tyrants underestimated democracies. You might be underestimating yourselves now.”

  Eugene glanced briefly at his wife and then continued. “There are many that will delight in your comeuppance. But also many that will grieve. Our lives are almost over. It’s not for us, it’s for the young people that I hope that you don’t give up, that what one of your presidents described as a shining city on the hill will still be there.”

  He stopped, overcome with emotion. “What I am trying to say is, please do what you have to do. We are not afraid of them anymore. We don’t want to be afraid of them ever again. Thank you for letting us see our daughter one more time.” His voice broke. Maria was crying already.

  They said a long good-bye at the door, with lots of hugs, kisses, and tears. David got hugs from both Eugene and Maria.

  Tuesday, 5/3/2022, 4:16 a.m. EEST

  She is lying on a dirty gravel path, face down, her body screams. A heavy boot hits her left kidney, and she exhales a howl of horror and pain. Then another boot slams into her spinal cord, shattering vertebrae, and this pain is like a white blizzard covering her eyes.

  Maggie woke up, hyperventilating, even though she realized this was a dream. It was perhaps only a mile from here. She could run there in ten minutes. Twelve years, but being so close physically still terrified her. Thank God her parents did not ask. David did not know. He could not understand why she had to go slowly on the way back to the hotel, as she had to force her legs to move. He could not understan
d why in bed she gently pushed him away earlier tonight. She hid behind jet lag, but it was a mixture of an old fear, anxiety, and the guilt, the guilt …

  Maggie stood up, walked to the window, and tried to peer through the darkness in the direction of Dnieper. As if she could see into the past. As if she could change it. September 14, 2010 fell on a Tuesday. Pavel had asked her out. They went together once during the summer. He was twenty like she was, a skinny boy that dreamed of becoming a pilot. She was not interested, she was involved with another man, but Pavel’s eyes lit up so much when he saw her, she did not have the heart to say no. After a cheap dinner, they followed Khreshchatyk towards the river and started aimlessly wandering through the park. Pavel led her off the beaten path. She knew he was collecting his courage to kiss her, and she was trying to make up her mind whether to kiss him back.

  Two men stepped in front of them. Maggie did not see where they came from. In the dark, she couldn’t see them well. They just stood menacingly. Pavel and Maggie stopped and tried to go back. Two other figures emerged from the dark.

  Pavel pushed her and screamed, “Run!” And she started running. She’d always been a good runner, and because this was not a real date she was wearing comfortable shoes. She heard screams behind her, but her mind was focused on the heavy breathing of her pursuers. She could hear them getting closer, so close that she could smell the alcohol on their breaths. Then one of them stumbled and fell with a yelp, but the other kept going. Just as she thought that her heart was going to explode out of her chest, the steps behind her has gotten fainter. She kept running as hard as she could and then someone was calling to her, and she realized she was surrounded by people, and two policemen were making their way to her.

  Once she could talk, she told them what happened. She went back with them to look for Pavel. Other policemen were called. It took an hour to find him, bleeding and unconscious. A policeman asked her why she did not call for help earlier. She was running; she had to put as much oxygen as she could into her lungs so she could outrun the men chasing her. Didn’t they understand that you can’t run and call for help at the same time?