Denouncer

by Levitt, Paul M.

  FIRST: Do your daughters live at home?

  SECOND: No, they’re not married yet.

  The third student removes a tape and starts to measure the fourth student.

  THIRD: In my line of tailoring work, sir, I must ask you: What about a small deposit?

  FOURTH: Just as you like. Put one in if it’s the style.

  FIRST: Where were you born?

  SECOND: Moscow. Why?

  FIRST: I don’t know why. I was asking you that.

  THIRD: He never did a thing in his life; and he didn’t do that well.

  FOURTH: I guess you might say that he belonged to the No-ability.

  The audience guffawed. At the end of the teaser and before the play began, the guests descended on the food booths and stuffed themselves with cold meats and cheeses and bread and herring and cooked potatoes. During the commotion of eating, Filatov and two aides entered the room in civilian clothes. Sasha was aghast. What if the play was provocative or, worse, subversive? Who had invited them? Boris greeted Sasha warmly and introduced his two colleagues, Larissa Pankarova and Basil Makarov.

  “Larissa’s a doctor who works for the service, and Basil gave up a promising career as a lawyer to work with us.”

  Calling for attention, Sasha introduced his guests. A slight ripple of applause followed. He knew not to leave them unannounced, lest he be accused later of insinuating the secret police into the audience. They declined Sasha’s offer to bring them folding chairs for the play, insisting that they would join the others on the floor, cross-legged.

  When the lights dimmed, Galina appeared on stage and introduced the play. “Our fare for tonight is called Summoned. For the moment, the playwright shall remain anonymous. I will return to that point after the completion of the play.” Galina exited the stage. After a pause, the lights in the auditorium dimmed and came up on a living-room set that served as the centerpiece for most of the play.

  IVAN (downstage): You can’t trust anyone these days . . . not anyone. The name is Ivan Goniff, and I’m here to tell Nicholas Ostroff, “Nicky” for short, that his time has come. But please don’t confuse me with the OGPU; I take my orders from a higher source. The people I work for don’t enforce the law; we are the law. We are the nation’s brain and conscience. Everyone needs leadership, what with enemies of the people everywhere. In fact, conditions are so bad, I lock up the silver if my local commissar comes around. You can’t be too careful. Safety! That’s the point of government. Which is why Nicky has been summoned. He’s the chief document shredder for the Politburo. Right now, you can see him sitting in his living room, in a leather chair with a Victorian floor lamp at his elbow, an inlaid teak table at his feet, and a Finnish couch against the wall.

  Anyway, until today, Nicky was an important man. After all, chief shredder of top-secret documents is an enviable position. The only trouble is, you can never be sure the shredder can be trusted. What if he squirrels away an incriminating piece of paper or two? Like a memo from you-know-who about some important political issue. Well, a paper like that could bring down the government. That’s why it’s best, if you have any doubts, and we do, to remove the shredder. Consequently, the Boss has put out an order to terminate Nicky’s association with the Politburo. When I tell him he’s been summoned, he’ll say, “Just give me a little time.” Sure, so he can run to his friends for help. Friends like Miroslav Mirnov. But I can’t give Nicky any time. His term of office is over. And now, excuse me while I knock on his door.

  Ivan enters Nicky’s living room.

  NICKY: Good to see you, Comrade Goniff.

  IVAN: You’re looking well.

  NICKY: Feeling pretty good. And you?

  IVAN: Not bad.

  NICKY: Why are you wearing a service revolver?

  IVAN: I’m on assignment.

  NICKY: Looking for enemies of the people?

  IVAN: They’re everywhere.

  NICKY: Sit down, Ivan. You said you wanted to see me.

  IVAN: Just long enough to . . .

  NICKY: A shot of vodka?

  IVAN: A good idea.

  NICKY: Here’s your drink. I’ll leave the bottle here. Take as much as you want.

  They throw back their drinks.

  NICKY: Why are you removing your service revolver?

  IVAN: Nicky, I have some bad news for you.

  NICKY: What are you talking about?

  IVAN: A summons . . . for your arrest.

  NICKY: You can’t be serious! Why me?

  IVAN: You know too much.

  NICKY: I’ve never violated a trust. Never gossiped.

  IVAN: Admirable behavior, Nicky.

  NICKY: I love the Leader and all my superiors.

  IVAN: You’ll have your day in court.

  NICKY: Who’s behind this? I know it’s not the Dear Leader.

  IVAN: You know how these things work, Nicky. A sealed envelope arrives. Inside is an order, a summons. As for the rest . . .

  NICKY (interrupting): Listen, Ivan, you and me, we went through the same training together. We play tennis. You wouldn’t, would you? Why just the other day I was saying to Comrade Ufa, “Of all the people I know, the one person I most admire is Ivan Goniff.” (stands) Look at that! You have lint all over your jacket. Just turn around. I’ll brush it off.

  IVAN: Sit down, Nicky. You don’t think I’m going to fall for that old trick, do you? (pause) Nice apartment you have here. First floor. Elegant furniture. Outside the window an old elm tree shading the terrace. You’re lucky you don’t live in capitalist America, where the elms are being cut down. I suspect it’s the fault of their foreign policy.

  NICKY (laughs immoderately): Dutch Elm disease! The fault . . . (laughs harder) of their foreign policy. That’s rich. (laughs harder still)

  IVAN (breathing deeply): I love the scent of lilacs in the spring. You have several lilac bushes outside your window.

  NICKY (serious): Planted them myself, four years ago.

  IVAN: I didn’t know you liked to garden.

  NICKY: You ought to look at my communal plot next door. It’s ripe with vegetables.

  IVAN: Good try, Nicky. But I have things to do . . . here and now. Get your coat. You’ve been denounced.

  NICKY: Believe me, Ivan. There’s been a mistake. You have the wrong person. I can prove it. Just give me a little time. A few days . . . so I can find out who’s at fault.

  IVAN: Who’s at fault? Nicky, you can’t be serious? What a sense of humor! (laughs) Who’s at fault? (laughs harder; then notices a frame on the wall) Where’d you get that?

  NICKY: The needlepoint? My blessed mother made it for me.

  IVAN (reads): “They serve best who never question.” Well-chosen words. Classic. Sounds like Cicero. Hand me the bottle, will you, Nicky? One for the road.

  NICKY: Sure, Ivan, here it is.

  Nicky strikes Ivan over the head. Ivan falls to the floor.

  Sorry, comrade, but when denunciation is in the air, it’s dog eat dog.

  The stage is quickly cleared. We are now in Miroslav Mirnov’s office.

  NICKY (stage whisper): Psst! Psst! Miroslav! Comrade Mirnov. It’s me, Nicky. I came in the back, so no one would see.

  MIRO: You look ill, Nicky. Something wrong?

  NICKY: I’ve been summoned, Miro. Somebody’s trying to get me out of the way. I need your help.

  MIRO: Why me?

  NICKY: You’re my lawyer, aren’t you?

  MIRO: I’ll be happy to draw up a new will for you.

  NICKY: Forget the will. I’ve got an incendiary document stored in a safe place.

  MIRO: You didn’t shred it?

  NICKY: Kept it for security . . . for a moment like this.

  MIRO (whistles): Whew!

  NICKY: Believe me, it’ll finish off the Boss if I make it pu
blic.

  MIRO: Think of the danger, Nicky.

  NICKY: I can’t be worse off than I am now.

  MIRO: Do you know what it means to expose the Boss? You’ll be charged with slander and have to stand trial. Crowds will howl at you. The prosecutor will ask personal questions.

  NICKY: For example?

  MIRO: For example: (assumes the voice of the prosecutor) Citizen Ostroff, what do you do for a living?

  NICKY: I work for the Politburo shredding top-secret documents.

  MIRO: Please be specific.

  NICKY: The Beloved Leader’s notes to his aides.

  MIRO: What else?

  NICKY: Some of Lenin’s personal papers.

  MIRO: On whose orders would you shred a document that once belonged to Comrade Lenin? That’s a capital crime.

  NICKY: On the Boss’s orders.

  MIRO: Well, that’s different.

  NICKY: Oh, I could tell you a thing or two.

  MIRO: Didn’t you once work for the secret police?

  NICKY: It was the worst experience of my life.

  MIRO: Please explain.

  NICKY: The former Cheka head was shot, also several of his aides. A member of the investigative office was caught bankrolling a drug operation. The new Cheka head is a rapist and, to boot, a dwarf.

  MIRO (normal voice again): Forget it, Nicky. Court’s no place for you. The judge will order you put up against the wall.

  NICKY: Is there no justice in this country?

  MIRO: If I were you, I wouldn’t ask questions like that. What about seeing Teodor Tolstoi, your old army mate. Maybe he can help you.

  NICKY: Of course, Teodor! I saved his life once.

  The stage is quickly cleared. We are now in Teodor’s flat, where he is pedaling a stationary bicycle.

  TEOD: Comrade Ostroff! How are you? It’s been too long since we last saw each other. Sit down. I have to do my forty miles a day on the exercycle. So don’t mind me, I’ll just pedal while we talk. What brings you here? Are you in a mood to crush some heads, like before?

  NICKY: I’m in trouble, Teodoro, and I need some assistance.

  TEOD: Whatever you need, just say it. You can always count on Teodoro. He’ll never let you down. After all, you did save my life when you dragged me to safety under fire.

  NICKY: You’re a noble comrade, Teodoro. I knew that of all my friends, you’d be the most steadfast.

  TEOD: What are comrades for? Old army men. I hate a man who’s all talk and no action. What’s your problem?

  NICKY: You won’t believe it. After all my years of faithful service, instead of giving me a gold watch, they gave me a summons.

  TEOD: Who delivered it?

  NICKY: That apparatchik Ivan Goniff.

  TEOD (pedaling slower): My old friend, Ivan . . . an apparatchik?

  NICKY: A snake in the grass.

  TEOD (stops pedaling): A snake!

  NICKY: A viper. Now here’s what I’d like you to do for me.

  TEOD (pedaling again): I’m listening.

  NICKY: Hide me, let me sleep in the spare room, until I can get to the bottom of this business.

  TEOD (alarmed; stops pedaling): The spare room?

  NICKY: Why not?

  TEOD: You’re asking a lot, Nicky.

  NICKY: Just for a little while.

  TEOD: You’d need sheets and pillowcases and blankets.

  NICKY: A pillow and a blanket would do.

  TEOD (stops pedaling): Like the time in the Crimea when we stayed at Irina’s place?

  NICKY: Exactly.

  TEOD: Remember the women at the beach? They knew what a good time was, right?

  NICKY: If not the spare room, maybe the basement.

  TEOD: I can still see those two dames from Minsk. They were great. Blonds! Bam! Bam! Two scores in one night. What dames!

  NICKY: Maybe the toolshed.

  TEOD: And afterward we got roaring drunk. And then we went to the other side of town and cracked a few heads until the military police came. What a night! (pedals quickly)

  NICKY: Teodoro, I don’t think you’re listening to me.

  TEOD (pedals slower): You were really something, Nicky. The women loved you, and the men feared you.

  NICKY (ironically): Yes, that’s me, a man with a chest full of medals.

  TEOD: As much as I’d like to help you, Nicky, my mother’s coming to stay with me. Tomorrow. So the spare room is out. Also the basement and toolshed. They’re already occupied with drifters from the countryside. If I could, I would but . . .

  Nicky exits. The stage is quickly cleared. We are now in Sergei Tangenital’s flat. His secretary/girlfriend, Dina, sits on his lap.

  TANG: Nicky, what a surprise. You know my secretary, Dina. What can I do for you?

  NICKY: When a man’s in trouble, the first person he thinks of is relatives. Right? And I said to myself who better than Cousin Sergei Tangenital to come to for help.

  TANG: Get that down, Dina. You don’t mind, Nicky, if Dina takes down our conversation? You know, just for the record.

  NICKY: No . . . go right ahead.

  TANG: So what is it you need? As you know, I . . . well, I’ve always been overly fond of you, Nicky. Your father and my mother . . . brother and sister. Blood is thicker than water. Relations, that’s what counts.

  DINA: That’s . . . what . . . counts.

  NICKY: Cousin Tangenital, I’ve been summoned.

  TANG: Summoned? What in the world for? You have a chest full of medals.

  NICKY: I have no idea. I’ve done nothing.

  TANG: That’s the trouble with this modern generation. They always want something for nothing. (to Dina) Get that down.

  DINA: Some . . . thing . . . for . . . nothing.

  TANG: No regard for hard work and decency. They think they can just walk into your house and strip the medals from your chest.

  NICKY: I need travel money to get out of Moscow. I’ll pay you back. You can trust me.

  TANG: Trust. Now there’s a fine word.

  DINA (stage whisper): Ooh, Serge. Your hand!

  TANG: Who can we trust? That’s the question. Your wife?

  DINA: Or your secretary! (stage whisper) A little lower!

  TANG: Which one matters most?

  NICKY: You know very well I’ve been divorced for two years. I couldn’t stand Eva’s nattering.

  TANG: That doesn’t for one minute lessen the need for someone who can give you good advice about trust.

  DINA: Good advice. (whispers) That’s better.

  TANG: Remember Socrates, henpecked of the historical Xanthippe. Remember Job, whose wife had nothing to offer for his carbuncles but violent doses of profanity.

  DINA: Remember those two. (moves Sergei’s hand to her derriere) And remember this.

  TANG: I can think of a thousand such men married to unworthy wives, termagants, who scold like a March wind. On this sea of matrimony, where so many have wrecked, am I not right, Nicky, in advising expert pilotage?

  NICKY: Are you advising me, Cousin Tangenital, to take a wife? The last one laughed at any inanity.

  TANG: Nicky, I think our choices are so many and so varied, it’s no wonder we are swindled. Consider Adam for a moment.

  DINA: Consider Adam.

  TANG: Adam, as you know, did not have a large group of women from whom to select a wife. It was Eve or nothing. And judging from the mistakes that Eve made afterward, I think nothing might have been the better choice. All sorts of mistakes occurred because Eve was made out of a rib from Adam’s side. Nobody knows which of his twenty-four ribs was taken for the nucleus. Which means, Nicky, that if you depend entirely upon yourself in this matter, the possibilities are twenty-three-to-one that you have selected the wrong rib.

  DINA: The wr
ong rib.

  NICKY: You know, Cousin, you’ve given me an insight. Perhaps I picked a bone with the wrong person.

  TANG: Just wait here a few minutes, Nicky. Dina and I will be right back.

  NICKY: Cousin, why are you and Dina going into the bedroom?

  TANG (from afar): Just a minute, Nicky, I’ve got my hands full.

  Nicky exits. The stage is quickly cleared. We are now in Father Kadaver’s flat.

  KADAV: Nicky, I’m surprised word hasn’t already gotten out. I denounced my calling as a priest, denounced the church, and took a job with the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

  NICKY: I need some advice, Father Kadaver, but if I’m interrupting . . .

  KADAV: Sit down, Nicky. I remember you as a child. Your mother used to bring you to church. Before you knocked, I was reading the story of the Good Samaritan—in a Soviet light.

  NICKY: I’m only vaguely familiar with it.

  KADAV: Although some old believers treat ignorance of the Bible as a grievous sin, I do not. My own opinion in the matter is that given the Soviet attitude toward religion, the less a person knows about the Bible, the less chance he has to be arrested. Don’t you agree?

  NICKY: You’re looking at a man on the run, trying to avoid arrest. That’s why I need your advice.

  KADAV: Of course, what’s the problem?

  NICKY: I’ve been summoned, so I’m trying to get to the countryside. Can you let me stay a few nights?

  KADAV: You want advice? Here, let me read to you from the Good Samaritan. “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.” Et cetera. “But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion on him.” Do you see the point, Nicky?

  NICKY: Not exactly. If you try to help the stricken man and you make things worse, he’s liable never to forgive you. But if you walk away, he’ll probably hate you. Either way you lose. So what are you supposed to do?

  KADAV: It’s a difficult moral question, one not easily answered.

  NICKY: Now, if you help me, Father, isn’t that like the Samaritan helping the man attacked by the robbers?

  KADAV: Not at all, Nicky. Let’s look at the text again. It says: “Which . . . of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? And the lawyer said, ‘He that showed mercy on him.’ Then said Jesus unto him, ‘Go and do thou likewise.’” Although some Bibles use the word “pity,” and others “mercy,” the meaning of the story is clear. We must pity those less fortunate than we, and have mercy on those who would ignore us in our hour of need. Therefore: It is for me to show pity and for you to be merciful.