Adr watched it too.
“Can you see the screen clearly?” I asked him.
“Yes. And you?”
“I can’t see anything.”
“We’re probably sitting too close,” he decided. “Let’s move farther away.”
We got up and moved to the last bench. But for me nothing changed: I still could read the captions, but I couldn’t make out anything else. Adr thought that I simply had bad eyesight. When another caption appeared on the screen, he asked, “What does it say?”
“In the White Guard headquarters,” I read.
He grew thoughtful. Next to us a tipsy couple sat kissing. I began watching them. The lust of those corpses seemed so bizarre to me. Watching them kiss was like watching two mechanical dolls. The woman noticed my look.
“Whadderya gawkin’ at? Look thata way!” She pointed to the screen, and the man groping her pudgy body laughed.
I turned my eyes toward the screen. Petka was telling Anka how a machine gun worked. All I could see was two quivering dark spots.
“What’s this?” Anka asked.
“Those are stocks,” the invisible Petka answered.
And the two spots merged.
The audience laughed.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, standing up.
Adr and I left. It was a dark southern night. The cicadas chirped. Under the heavy darkness of the acacias and chestnut trees, the odd light shone out of the resort building. We entered the lobby.
Two concierges dozed behind the counter. On the wall above them hung a large picture of Stalin. I had never noticed it before, but something made me look at the portrait. Instead of Stalin in his white tunic, a white-and-brown splotch flecked with gold floated inside the frame.
I stared at the portrait and moved closer. The splotch shimmered and swam.
I squinted, shook my head, and opened my eyes again: it was still the same.
“What’s the matter?” asked Adr.
“I don’t know.” I shook my head.
The concierges had woken up and were watching me with curiosity.
“Who is that?” I asked, staring at the portrait.
“Stalin,” Adr answered tensely.
The concierges exchanged glances.
“Varya, let’s go to sleep, you’re tired.” Adr took my arm.
“Wait a minute.” I leaned on the counter and fixed my eyes on the portrait.
Then I turned my gaze to the concierges. They looked at me apprehensively. I noticed a pile of postcards lying on the counter. I picked one up. At the bottom of the postcard “Greetings from the Crimea!” was written in dark blue. Above the caption there was a clump of something greenish red.
“What is this?” I asked Adr.
“Roses,” he said as he took me forcefully by the elbow. “Let’s go. I beg of you.”
I put the postcard down and obeyed.
Climbing the stairs with Adr, I heard the concierges whispering.
“They come here to get drunk.”
“What do you expect — the bosses are in Moscow, there’s no one to keep them in line.”
In the room, Adr embraced me. “Tell me what’s happening to you?”
Instead of answering, I got out our passports. I opened them. In the place where the photographs were glued on I could see only gray ripples. But I could read all the words normally.
I took a little mirror out of my purse and looked at myself. The features of my face swam and merged in the reflection. I directed the mirror toward Adr’s face: it was the same. I couldn’t see his face in the mirror.
“I can’t see pictures. Or reflections,” I said, tossing the mirror aside. “I don’t know what’s happening...”
“You’re just tired,” said Adr, embracing me. “The last two months have been very hard.”
“They were wonderful.” I flopped down on the bed. “It’s much harder for me to wait and do nothing.”
“Khram, you understand that we can’t take the risk.”
“I understand everything,” I said, and closed my eyes. “That’s why I’m putting up with it.”
I fell quickly into a deep sleep.
From the moment my heart had been awakened, I hadn’t had any dreams. The last vivid, though short, dreams I had had were in the train when we were being transported like cattle from Russia: I dreamed about Mama, Father, the village, and noisy village holidays when we were all together and happy. But everything always broke off in the middle of what was closest and dearest to me, and I would awake in the same terrible train car.
My very last dream had been one night in the filtration camp: I dreamed of a fire — a huge, terrifying fire. Everything was burning all around, people ran hither and thither like shadows. I was looking for our dog Leska. I loved her a great deal. The longer I looked for her, the more clearly I understood that she had burned alive because none of the adults had thought to untie her. They were saving all kinds of sacks, trunks, and horse yokes. The most awful thing in that dream was the feeling of impotence, the impossibility of turning things back. I awoke in tears, crying out, “Leska! Leska!”
Then, that night in the sanatorium, I dreamed again for the first time in eight years. Or, not exactly dreamed, because I didn’t see the dream in my head; instead I felt the dream.
I was sitting in the garden near the House and touching sister Zher, who was sleeping. It was summer, and the weather was warm and windless. We had just finished speaking with our hearts. I loved Zher’s heart. It was agile and active, and it was quicker than mine. After two hours of heart conversation my mouth was dry, as always, and my arms were numb and ached a bit. Zher was sleeping like a baby — spread out on her back with her mouth slightly open. Her face exuded a tired bliss. I began touching her small chin. It was covered in tiny freckles. There were even more of them on the bridge of her nose. I touched her nose. Zher’s strawberry-blond eyelashes didn’t even flicker: her sleep was deep. Suddenly I heard a weak whimper behind me. With my heart I felt that my dog Leska stood behind me. I looked around. Furry gray-and-black Leska stood there, panting joyfully, her pink tongue hanging out. Her greenish eyes were bright with joy. My heart trembled with happiness: my beloved Leska was alive, she didn’t perish in the fire! A piece of the rope hung around Leska’s neck, and the fur on her right side was singed.
“Leska, you’re alive!” I exclaimed and stretched toward her.
But the dog suddenly cringed and ran toward the House. I jumped up and followed her at a run, calling her name. Leska ran up the steps, darted into a partly opened door on the south porch, which was entwined with wild grapevines. I ran after her. The porch was empty. It was dim and cool there, as it always was in summer. In the middle there was an armchair, and the old man Bro sat in it. Leska sat nearby. She looked at me attentively. Bro pointed his finger; I turned my head and saw my full-length reflection on the opposite side of the terrace. It was neither a painting nor a photograph, but something striking in its perfectedness: an absolute copy of me. I walked toward my double. But the closer I came, the more strongly I felt the EMPTINESS inside the copy of me. It was pure image, a surface that copied my form. There was nothing at all inside the image. I went closer. The copy of Varka Samsikova was absolute in its exactitude. I examined the smallest pores on the face, the little scar over the eyebrows, the moisture at the corners of the blue eyes, the golden fuzz under the cheekbones, the cracks in the lips, and the birthmark on the neck. My copy also studied me closely. Finally we both turned to Bro. Leska stood up; she whimpered excitedly and her ears perked up as she looked at us.
“Call the dog,” Bro said.
“Leska!” I called.
“Leska!” called my copy.
The dog ran first to the copy, sniffed it, yelped, and, growling, shrank back and came to me. I sat down and ran my fingers through her fur with pleasure. My copy stood there, smiling, watching us. Leska growled at her again. The copy disappeared.
“Why did the dog recognize you?” B
ro asked.
“She felt me,” I answered.
“Yes. The dog is alive, as are all animals. She saw you with her heart, not her eyes. But the living dead see the world with their eyes, and only with their eyes. The world that the heart sees is different. Khram, you are ready to see the world with the heart.”
I awoke. I opened my eyes.
It was morning.
The world was the same as yesterday. I lay in our bed. Adr wasn’t in the room. I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Then I took a shower, pulled myself together, dressed, and left the room.
I went downstairs and walked into the cafeteria where visitors ate breakfast, and froze in astonishment: instead of people, MACHINES MADE OF MEAT sat at the tables! They were ABSOLUTELY dead! There was not a drop of life in their ugly, gloomily worried bodies. They devoured food: some in glum concentration, others in an energetic flurry, some with mechanical indifference.
A couple sat at our table. They were eating living fruits: pears, cherries, and peaches.
But these marvelous peaches could not confer even the teensiest bit of life to their bodies!
Why were they eating them? It was so amusing!
I began to laugh.
Everyone stopped eating and stared. Their faces turned toward me. For the first time in my life I didn’t see human faces. These were the muzzles and snouts of meat machines.
Suddenly the mass of dead meat was pierced by a ray of light: Adr was crossing the cafeteria, heading toward me. He was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! He was alive. He was not a machine. He was my BROTHER. He had a HEART. It shone with the Primordial Light.
I moved to meet him. And we embraced amid the world of monsters.
Snickers crawled across the bodies of the meat machines like worms. One of the machines that was chewing opened her mouth and spoke in a loud voice: “And they say that no one in the MGB knows how to love!”
The cafeteria filled with the greasy laughter of meat machines...
From that day on, I began to see with the heart.
A veil fell from the world, a veil stretched over it by meat machines. I no longer saw only the surface of things. I could now see their essence.
This doesn’t mean that I was blind. I saw objects and was perfectly well oriented in space. But images of any kind — paintings, photographs, movies, sculpture — disappeared from my life forever. Paintings became merely canvases covered with paint; on the movie screen all I saw was the play of splotches of light.
I could see a person or a thing from the inside with my heart. I knew their history.
This revelation was equal only to the awakening of my heart from the blows of the Ice hammer.
After those blows, however, my heart simply awoke and began to feel; but now I knew how to KNOW.
I calmed down.
There was no reason for me to worry.
The month of vacation passed.
In Moscow, Ignatiev was appointed to replace the arrested security minister Abakumov. He was a Party functionary completely new to Lubianka and therefore he was very unpredictable. But his first deputy was Golidze — one of Beria’s protégés and an old friend of Kha’s. That reassured us. Under Golidze’s cover we would be able to complete the search operation for the living in Karelia.
Kha recalled us from the Crimea. We flew into a wet, September capital, ready to accomplish new feats in the name of the Light...
But the unforeseen happened.
Ignatiev, who began investigating “Abakumov’s criminal activity,” received a denunciation from the deputy director of the camp where the precious Tungus Ice was extracted. MGB Lieutenant Voloshin wrote that Abakumov established “Camp No. 312/500 for the extraction of ice no one needs, under inhumanly hard conditions of permafrost, in order to provide for Japanese spies who made their way into the territory of the USSR and caused harm to our toiling people.”
Most likely, Voloshin simply decided to use another purge to receive a new appointment or promotion for his “vigilance.”
Despite its obvious absurdity, the denunciation had its effect: work in the camp was directed to cease. Fortunately, Ignatiev appointed an investigatory commission headed by Colonel Ivanov from the Interior Ministry’s Main Financial Directorate. Ivanov was indebted to Kha, who had saved him from arrest in 1939.
Kha made Ivanov include Adr and me in the commission, as secretaries.
Just before the trip, Kha called Ivanov and us into his office.
We stood before his massive desk.
“Fly, eagles, fly,” he directed us, thrusting an unlit cigarette between his stern, handsome lips. “Sort it out — the what and how of it. You are meticulous guys. Dig down deep into the earth, like wild boars.”
“But Comrade Lieutenant General, it’s the permafrost zone,” said Adr, smiling tactfully.
“What a fucking joker.” Kha pierced him with a quick glance, and struck the table with his finger. “I want everything turned inside out! Is that clear?”
“Yes sir!” we answered in unison.
“I have a suspicion” — Kha looked out the window, squinting, holding the pause — “that this Lieutenant Voloshin is himself a Japanese spy.”
“Do you...really think so, Comrade Lieutenant General?” asked Ivanov cautiously.
“Just a hunch. He’s muddying the waters, the fiend. While he himself is up to his dirty old tricks. There’s a shitload of them out there in the tundra. That samurai breed is entrenched. So many agents, even a lazy SOB could rack them in. In the ’40s we arrested so many, and they just kept crawling over from the Far East, the bastards. So keep your eyes open, Ivanov. Don’t make a mistake.”
Kha gave Ivanov a significant look. And Ivanov made no mistake.
He knew that Vlodzimirsky was Beria’s man, and not the fallen Abakumov’s. And Beria was closest of all to Stalin. That meant it was worth obeying the hint.
As soon as we arrived at Camp No. 312/500, buried in snow and strafed by icy winds, Ivanov ordered Lieutenant Voloshin arrested.
In the middle of the deep polar night, under the light of three kerosene lamps in a log barracks, Voloshin was placed naked on his back on a bench and tied down. Ivanov, a thorough man, had brought along two of his broad-shouldered lieutenants, strongmen from the operations department. One lieutenant sat on Voloshin’s chest, while the other one set about lashing his genitals with a small whip.
Voloshin howled in the night.
His howl was heard by 518 prisoners hiding in their barracks and awaiting the verdict of the Moscow commission: they hadn’t worked for a month at that point. This scared them.
The camp director had been drinking in his house for the last month.
“Tell us what you know, Voloshin, tell us everything,” said Ivanov as he calmly worked on his well-groomed nails with a little file.
I sat with a piece of paper, ready to write down the testimony of the accused. Adr walked back and forth along the wall.
The pockmarked lieutenant took pleasure in whipping Voloshin on his fast-swelling groin, muttering, “Talk, you fucker...Talk, you fucker...”
Voloshin howled for about three hours. He lost consciousness a number of times and we brought him to by pouring water on him and rubbing him with snow. After that, he admitted that back in 1941, as a fifteen-year-old youth in a remote Siberian village, he was contacted and recruited by Japanese counterintelligence. When, choking on tears and mucus, he signed the “statement” compiled by Ivanov and transcribed by me, his hand shook and I could see his essence with my heart. His entire meat-machine being was filled with the image of his mother. He knew he was signing his own death sentence. At that moment, the meat machine in him was filled with the image of his mother — a simple Siberian peasant. His mother sat in his head, like a stone core, repeating the same thing over and over: “I borned you in torture, I borned you in torture...”
With that stone mama in his head, he would have signed anything.
The next morning a troika of horses wrapped in blankets
drove a handcuffed Voloshin, two prison escorts, and a lanky field warden with a briefcase. The briefcase held the report of the investigating commission and the testimony of Lieutenant Voloshin.
We stayed on in the camp, awaiting the arrival of a comfortable automobile with a heater.
Ivanov and the lieutenants went on a drinking binge with the director of the camp, who was so elated that things had turned out well that he was ready to kiss their feet.
Adr and I ordered the sleigh to be readied, and we went “for a ride.” In fact, it was clear where we were drawn.
Leaving the gates of the camp, Adr directed the horse along the big road leading to the place where the ice was mined. The road along which the columns of prisoners transported the mined Ice was covered in snow; no one had cleared it for a month. The camp director’s well-fed horse had no trouble pulling the sleigh, and we rode along, covered with a bearskin. It was sunny and frosty.
Adr and I felt the ice with our hearts even in the camp. But now the feeling grew with every step the horse took.
All around lay low mounds covered with sparse growth. The local forest had been destroyed by the blast in 1908 when the meteorite fell, and the new forest was growing in poorly, in clumps. The snow sparkled in the bright sunlight and squeaked under the sleigh runners.
From the camp to the site of the fall was seven versts.
We drove about three versts and my heart began to quiver. It sensed the ice, like a compass senses iron ore.
“Faster!” I squeezed Adr’s hand.
He lashed the horse. The horse took off and the sleigh whizzed along.
The big road forked around the mounds, crawling in a wide ribbon to another mound and then descending to the pit. We rushed along it.
I closed my eyes. I could already see the ice with my heart. It loomed before me like a Continent of Light.
Ice Trilogy Page 47
