Denouncer

by Levitt, Paul M.

  “Did you write science fiction, realism, fantasy, children’s stories, fairy tales, what?”

  Normally, Brodsky could talk and smoke at the same time, exhaling plumes from both nose and mouth. But Sasha observed that the more animated Brodsky became, the less inclined he was to light up. Before Sasha had posed his last question, Avram had reached for a cigarette, but on hearing the question, he put it down and launched into an aesthetic explanation of writing for radio as sight unseen.

  “It relies on imagination, which is richer than any photographic realism. Your own mind sets the stage and pictures the action.”

  Avram said that most people prefer realism, with which they can identify. “They prefer feeling to thinking. Nonrepresentational art may work for painters, but not for writers, nor for Stalin. When characters represent ideas, as they did in classical and medieval drama, and fail to express their pain and suffering and confusion and happiness, listeners can’t see themselves in the characters, an identification that most people want. Tearful stories rank higher than ethical dilemmas, unless the latter show the anguish that the characters feel from having to make a Hobson’s choice. Admittedly, the best writers can describe sentiment without crossing the line into sentimentality, but there are more poor writers than good ones. The result: bathos, mawkishness, nostalgia, romanticism, mendacity. Just add music and you have melodrama and soap operas.”

  Sasha was well aware of Soviet realism, plays written to please the Vozhd. He remembered one in which poultry farmers lost their animals to diseases, like fowl pox, influenza, infectious bronchitis, and Newcastle’s, until a Soviet veterinarian appeared on the scene and saved the day, that is, the animals.

  Eventually, after talking about radio drama and the power of the unseen on the imagination, Brodsky asked whether Sasha had suffered any more denunciations. Having shared his fears at the time with the older man, Sasha appreciated Brodsky’s concern. Avram hazarded that the truth-telling curriculum was probably no better than the Soviet one, and that the students, having been cowed in elementary school, were unlikely to ask embarrassing questions. Pausing to stroke his chin in a reflective attitude, he changed the subject. What did Sasha know about a Goran Youzhny who wanted to take Avram’s picture? And what did he think of the Radek essays? Surely he had an opinion about them.

  Equivocation in the Soviet Union had become a national disease, but Sasha had beheaded two men without hesitation. When he thought about this paradox, he shuddered at the bloodthirsty contradiction that ran through his veins. Perhaps he was one of the untold descendants of Genghis Khan. It certainly felt that way to him on occasion, like now. Summoning his courage and suppressing his suspicions, he went straight for Brodsky’s last question.

  “Like Radek, I would rather die for the country than against it. I admit that politics fail to arrest my interest. In Russia, they are either too unsophisticated or too ruthless. If at one time I believed that the best ideas eclipse the poorer ones, I no longer do. But I believe in the country. If at times I may wish to separate myself from it, I cannot. I am a Russian, even when my countrymen behave absurdly and abominably, and all too often barbarously. We live in a country where surgery is performed not with a scalpel but an ax. Radek would probably disagree, believing the Party is all, sick and degraded though it is. Frankly, I do not wish to die for it, as he seems willing to do. But he does recognize that the more the Party kills its critics and detractors, the more it kills itself.”

  As Sasha spoke, Brodsky devoured several cigarettes. Now he handed the vodka bottle to Sasha and said, “You are only partially right. Take a drink.” He snuffed out his cigarette and immediately lit another. “When you have lived your whole life for the Party, as I have, you accept its judgments, even when those include exile or death.” He paused to exhale a stream of smoke. “Not to accept is to nullify your whole existence.”

  Sasha warily noticed that Brodsky had said, “as I have,” not “as I did.” Was he saying, then, that he still supported the Party—after Kolyma, after all the innocent men and women who had frozen or starved to death, and the many yet to die in the future?

  With the room growing dark and the embers fading, Brodksy’s cigarette shone like a firefly. For a moment, Sasha imagined Brodsky not as a man but as a floating, bodiless red spot, a distant star, a Cyclopean eye. “The country has about it,” said Avram, “the feel of a snowball gaining momentum and size as it hurtles to the bottom. One falsehood leads to another. Suddenly the Russians believe they have discovered the North Pole, and Darwin’s theory of evolution has been eclipsed by Lysenko’s theory of hybridization. We have already put Mandelstam and Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva on the black list. What will come next? Will Marx and Lenin replace Plato and Aristotle in the pantheon of philosophers? Or have they already? How many more people will be expunged from Soviet history and become non-persons? When we finish rewriting history, our textbooks will tell not of continuous human effort but only of Soviet exceptionalism.” He threw back another shot of vodka. “As a teacher I cannot deny the facts. For better or worse, Comrade Sasha, the original snowball, which is now an avalanche, is hurtling toward us. A mountain is threatening to engulf us. Surely, you see that? We have been trained and educated to serve this regime. What else do we have? We are its creatures, its misbegotten children. Don’t you understand what has happened—don’t you see? That’s why you, too, Sasha, must be loyal!”

  Brodsky’s appeal brought the discussion to an end. In the darkened room, the loudest sound was the crackling of dying coals. The pause gave Sasha time to think, and he suddenly regretted his outburst, knowing full well the cost in Russia of truth telling; but he also felt relieved. Brodsky said nothing.

  ✷

  On his way back to the farmhouse, Sasha stopped at his office. Turning on the hall light, he saw immediately on the bulletin board the large poster: “Trotsky Lives!” How many others had seen it? If no one, he was safe. The fat was in the fire if word got around. He removed the poster, folded it in four parts, and pocketed it to study later. Perhaps the handwriting would look familiar, though he doubted having such luck. The poster and the red crayon used to letter it might be traceable. Such supplies were not easily obtained in a country suffering from a shortage of paper and pencils.

  Deep in thought when he arrived home, he almost missed seeing the light in the photo lab and Goran at work. Sasha stopped to ask him about his interest in photographing Brodsky.

  “All the other directors of the school,” said Goran, “have their pictures in the main hallway. Only Brodsky’s is missing. I thought I’d add it to the collection.”

  According to Filatov, Avram’s face had for many years been among those framed in the hall, but once he joined the Left Opposition, down came the picture. Oppositionists did not deserve remembrance. To replace his picture was tantamount to heresy.

  “Perhaps not now,” said Goran, “but in fifty years a new government might want a complete record. If no photographs of Brodsky exist, then the record can never be complete.”

  Sasha impatiently said, “I understand your point, Goran, but where do you suggest we store the picture until that rosy time in the future? Brodsky, you know, is considered a non-person. He is out of favor, so how can he exist?”

  “In print and on celluloid.”

  “Not if his plays are banned and pictures erased.”

  An archive of the damned, thought Sasha, would make for remarkable reading, especially if it included not only what the pariahs had written, but also what others had written about them. Vice made better reading than virtue. Such a collection would be a gold mine. He wondered about all the people who had fallen out of favor with Stalin. Did their photographs still exist? Perhaps one day, historians would find in old attics all manner of materials: diaries, letters, address books, manuscripts, photographs, paintings, wood carvings, metal works. The list of possibilities was virtually endless. Then, too, there were the radio and
screen interviews and appearances. Where would those archives be kept, or had they already been destroyed? Again the question of history and what it means came to Sasha’s mind. If you destroy the record of an event does that mean the event never took place? Were we back to the old philosophic chestnut: If a tree falls in the forest and no living person is present is there a sound? Sasha had heard that question asked innumerable times in school, but not until this moment did he have an adequate reply. There may not be a sound (if perception is reality), but there will certainly be a downed tree.

  Goran handed Sasha a portfolio and invited him to look at the pictures. The first, taken in the Balyk marketplace, showed a dour Bogdan Dolin. “Did you know,” said Goran, “I interviewed him. He’s unusually reticent, but he’s not stupid. His Kolyma tales are worth recording. As a historian, Director Parsky, I think you would find them valuable.”

  “I’m sure I would.” Sasha pointed at a new piece of equipment. “What’s that?”

  “An enlarger. It brings out finer details, like the features of people in the background of pictures.”

  “From your uncle and our mutual friend?”

  “Yes, they made it possible, and even had it delivered.”

  “By special courier?” asked Sasha ironically. “I never saw the postman deliver it.”

  Goran merely shrugged.

  As he flipped through the pictures in the portfolio, Sasha had to concede Goran’s artistic abilities. His sense of design and detail were impeccable, highlighting this man’s beard or that woman’s apron, thus giving definition and character to a picture. Sasha had heard indirectly that the townspeople loved being photographed, most of them issuing from peasant stock and never before being treated as persons of interest. Goran gave them copies of his photographic portraits, and they in turn blessed him, hung religious medals around his neck, and invited him to share their meals.

  Without asking Goran, he pondered why Bogdan Dolin and Avram had captured his attention. Hearing the horrors of a work camp held no fascination for Sasha, but perhaps Dolin had more than Avram to offer about how abominably people treat one another.

  ✷

  Petr’s delicious stew kept discussion to a minimum, as the party of four lost themselves in the savory tastes. Judging from Petr’s diary, Sasha would never have guessed that the soldier loved to cook. His thoughts drifted to the locked chest in which he kept the diary, as buried as the unrecognized but meaningful skills of Petr Selivanov.

  “Have you ever tried working as a chef?” asked Sasha.

  “During the time I was gone, when the occasion warranted, I would fill in for an absent cook.”

  In jest, Sasha replied, “Ukraine could use you. From what I hear, the food there is awful: day one herring and borscht; day two borscht and herring.”

  “You forgot to mention potatoes,” Galina added.

  Suppressing a chuckle, Petr remarked that while he was traveling, he came across a great many peasants who believed that potatoes were the fruit with which Eve tempted Adam, and therefore they refused to plant or eat them.

  “I gather,” said Sasha, “that the government’s attempt to stamp out religious ignorance hasn’t been completely successful.”

  “Nor has their attempt to quash reverence for the Tsar.”

  Here was Sasha’s opening. He took from his pocket the folded poster and opened it. “What do you think of this? I found it pinned to the school bulletin board.”

  Alya read the words out loud, “‘Trotsky Lives.’ What does it mean?”

  “Good question,” said Sasha. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing. Maybe someone here can tell me.”

  Galina immediately made it clear that she had left her school office early and had not seen the poster.

  “Are you worried?” asked Petr.

  “If others have seen it, yes. Otherwise, no.”

  Alya sat wide-eyed.

  “It is either a prank or a serious protest,” Sasha said. “But how can one know?”

  Petr recounted similar experiences in the army. Drafted soldiers would post statements intended to embarrass or hurt senior officers. Hardly a single culprit was ever caught. “But,” Petr added, “I can tell you what the officers did. They posted their own notices pointing out the error or malice of the first one. You might want to do the same. In these troubled days, defensive action is often called for.”

  “Who is Trotsky?” asked Alya. “I thought it was a swear word, like when one kid calls another a Trotskyite.”

  The three adults at the table exchanged glances before Sasha ventured an explanation. “Our Supreme Leader and Trotsky disagreed, so Stalin sent Trotsky to live and work in a faraway part of the country. But some people think that Trotsky’s ideas were better than those of the Vozhd. And nobody likes to be thought of as second best. Right?”

  Alya shrugged, but her indifference vanished when she asked excitedly, “Where did the person find crayons?”

  Galina shook her head in agreement, remarking, “It might be a clue to the poster’s author. Don’t you think so, Sasha?”

  For the first time since learning about the murders taking place at the Parsky farm, she’d called him “Sasha,” instead of “you.”

  “So too might the poster cardboard, which is hard to find.”

  Petr nearly leapt from his chair. “Goran has thin cardboard.”

  “How do you know?” asked Galina.

  “The other night, he was working late, so I strolled over to see him. You know I’ve always been interested in photography. He was using cardboard for backing on a picture he intended to frame.”

  Sasha mumbled to himself, “The uncle in Moscow.”

  “What’s that?” asked Petr.

  “Nothing.”

  Alya deepened the mystery when she remarked, “I sometimes see an old man go into the studio. He’s from town, not the school.”

  “You know him?” Galina asked.

  “No, but I’ve seen him in the village square. He’s sort of scary.” She waved her hands and described his mushroom-like hair. “You’ve seen him, too, Mamma.”

  Although Petr knew nothing of the “death cap,” Sasha and Galina did. At that moment, Sasha knew whom to ask about Dolin: Brodsky. Goran had photographed Bogdan Dolin, and, in fact, had volunteered that he found him worth talking to. Bogdan had served time in the Arctic wastes, where many ex-prisoners married and remained, and yet he had returned to Balyk. Why? Was he from this town or area? Given his antipathy toward Brodsky, Bogdan may have crossed swords with Avram, in which case Brodsky could tell him about this man. Sasha leaned over the table and patted Alya’s hand.

  “You may have solved the riddle.”

  Gleefully, Alya said, “Have I?”

  “I think I know the person.”

  “Tell me!”

  “In this country, Alya, you never name names unless you are absolutely certain, and even then you have to think twice.”

  Sasha had come close to sharing his suspicions, but in the current environment the least said the better.

  ✷

  Wednesday nights, Galina conducted her male chorus in patriotic and classical songs. Four of the twelve young men actually had promising voices, two tenors, a baritone, and a bass. She had never learned music formally in a conservatory, but from her grandmother who played the balalaika and a beautiful accordion inlaid with ivory. The older woman had taught her granddaughter to read music, play a violin, and sing. Galina most enjoyed voice lessons because she could sing in virtually any venue, whereas she could hardly carry around a violin with her to play when she felt in the mood. Her pitch was perfect and her ear unerring. If a singer failed to hit the note perfectly, too sharp or too flat, she could immediately identify the offending voice.

  Benjamin Korsakov, a countertenor, was one of the “tin ears.” He keenly loved to sing and
had a bellows for a chest, but he could never quite land on the note. “Benjamin Korsakov,” she would say, “if you must sing flat, then sing softly.” Although the other students snickered, they loved “Benjie” for his passion. They also loved him for his uncomplaining nature, despite a feckless father who treated learning as the devil’s dung, and a sickly mother so thin you could see through her nearly transparent skin to her ailing arteries. An only child, Benjie stuttered, except when he sang; and then, as if to dispel his frustration, he sounded like Gabriel’s horn. When the chorus performed for the public, Benjie’s mother was sure to be found front and center. His father attended only once, dozed off, snored, and was led from the room objecting to having been awakened. Benjie’s classmates pretended that the incident never happened.

  Neither a slow student nor a particularly gifted one, Benjie had been admitted to the Michael School for mysterious reasons. His parents had no money, and, as Devora Berberova knew, the state wasn’t paying. So who was? Benjie’s father never worked, spending his days producing ash. He was a prodigious pipe smoker. Yet another mystery was who provided his tobacco money. The only saving grace was that the bronchitic and stenotic Ivan Korsakov suffered from narcolepsy, which meant that his habitual smoking was regularly interrupted by sleep. How he had found time to father Benjie was a standing joke.

  Natalia Korsakova, Benjie’s mother, who had once cooked and cleaned for Avram Brodsky during his tenure as director of the school, performed domestic duties around Balyk and worked as a midwife, a skill that had been passed down in her family from mother to daughter. It was rumored that she had delivered Benjie without assistance while her husband slept. Needless to say, Benjie was the apple of her eye, and she had sung to him from his first day in the cradle. As a young boy, he had a high-pitched voice that remained with him well into adulthood. Before the Balyk church had been closed and services banned, Benjie’s soprano-like voice had gained him a place in the choir, and everyone in town looked forward to hearing his soaring countertenor, even though his pitch was frequently off. It was suggested by more than one person that the Michael School had admitted Benjie for his voice, but Galina knew that the townspeople had so little music training themselves that they wouldn’t know a flat from a sharp. Tutoring him, as she often did, she treated him as a surrogate son, inviting him to dinner and watching him make loneliness less familiar to Alya, who never forgot him.