A Single Spy

by William Christie

  Alexsi didn’t move. The man’s other hand pawed at his pockets. Since he didn’t resist, the hand at his throat relaxed a bit. The man’s other hand moved down his trousers, then began to feel his shoes to see if they were worth taking.

  Alexsi shot up out of his seat. The hand, without any leverage since its owner was bent over, came off his throat. Alexsi pinned the thief against the wall and punched the knife up under his ribs.

  The thief let out a cry as the blade went in, and Alexsi twisted the knife. The thief didn’t make another peep. It was just like the Shahsavan had said. If you wanted no noise and not a lot of blood, then up and into the heart, and twist.

  Alexsi held him there against the wall until the body went limp and the raspy breathing stopped. He withdrew the knife and stuffed the thief’s shirt into the hole to keep it from leaking all over the place. He arranged the body in the corner against the wall. He wiped his knife off on the dead man’s clothes, folded the blade, and slipped it back into his underwear. That first shove when he’d entered the cabinet had alerted him for trouble, and while still bent over and fumbling for his seat he’d slipped his hand into the waistband of his trousers and retrieved the knife. Only a fool counted on anyone’s goodwill.

  Alexsi went through the thief’s pockets. No knife. Well, if he was going to start something he should have had one. There was a pocket watch. And a fountain pen. Obviously stolen. Alexsi thought about keeping them to barter down the line, but decided to remain true to the tenets of socialism: Own nothing individually. And then no one can take anything away from you.

  In another pocket was about five hundred grams of bread wrapped in a cloth. Someone else’s bread, no doubt. Alexsi sniffed it. It seemed all right.

  As the Black Maria bounced along, he propped his feet up on the dead man’s lap to keep him from falling over, and leisurely ate his bread.

  4

  1936 Baku, Azerbaijan

  The Black Maria came to an abrupt stop, brakes squealing, which slammed Alexsi into the steel wall. Good thing he still had his feet braced on the dead thief or the carcass would have fallen over onto him. The Maria turned about, then backed up quickly. An instant after it stopped, a flash of bright light through the cracks in the cabinet door indicated that the rear door was open. The inside guard began flinging open the cabinets, shouting, “Out! Out!”

  Alexsi positioned himself next to the door. As soon as the lock clicked and the door came open he was out and over the bumper of the van.

  The Black Maria had backed right up to the door of a railway car. A guard on each side filled in the narrow gap between the two vehicles, brandishing bayonets and yelling, “Move! Move!”

  Alexsi took a quick look around as he grabbed the rail and pulled himself into the car. They weren’t anywhere near a station. The prisoners were being loaded out in a railroad switching yard.

  Inside the car he shouldered his way past other prisoners who were still blinking at the light and trying to get their bearings. If he upset the order there was always a chance they’d forget who had been in which cabinet.

  From the outside it looked like a regular baggage car. Inside the compartments were separated from the central corridor by a grating of intersecting diagonal bars, so the guards could see inside.

  More shouting guards funneled them down the corridor and into an open compartment.

  Alexsi quickly took stock. No windows, of course. There were no seats, just shelves. Two on top, a middle row that went all the way around the compartment except for a climbing space near the door, a bottom row, and the floor. One glance told him the difference between the criminal and the political prisoners. The blatnye, the thieves, were on the middle row. The politicals were all soft, citizens yanked out of their homes, moist eyes searching about for someone to tell why it was all a mistake, they weren’t supposed to be there. And the blatnye were hard and cold as iron, from the streets, marking out the weak and looking around to see who had anything worth taking.

  Clearly that middle row was the most desirable place. Alexsi was sure they were going to pack them in asshole to navel, and he doubted that the trip would be short. But he also knew that if he wanted a space in the middle row he’d have to fight for it. And he didn’t want to attract any more attention until he found out just how seriously they were going to take the body in the Maria.

  Just then a whistle blew, and there was shouting in the corridor. The guards crashed into the compartment, clearing the prisoners out of their way with truncheons.

  The sergeant with the folder of papers strolled in behind them. “All right,” he shouted. “Who likes to play with knives?”

  Alexsi had already wormed his way into a corner behind a tall scarecrow of a political holding a suitcase out in front of him like a shield. If they didn’t know, then all the better. Maybe someone else had a knife and was feeling guilty about playing with it.

  Silence reigned as the guards stared at the prisoners, and the prisoners tried hard not to look the guards in the face. This lasted until they brought the inside guard from the Black Maria into the compartment.

  “Well?” the sergeant with the papers said to him harshly. “Are you going to tell me you don’t know who was in your vehicle?”

  Alexsi casually rested his hand over his mouth.

  The guard looked them over, clearly uncomfortable because all the other guards were looking at him. And they were pleased they wouldn’t be the ones held responsible.

  “That’s the one,” he said finally, pointing at Alexsi.

  As a last resort Alexsi tried the “What are you talking about, I’m just a kid?” expression, but the guards thrashed everyone out of their way, grabbed him, and dragged him out of the compartment. Alexsi knew his Russians, and his cops. They only cared about having someone to pin it on. And now that they had him in their hands they certainly weren’t going to complicate their lives trying to figure out whether or not he’d actually done it.

  They were about to drag him off the train when the sergeant with the papers said, “Wait.”

  Two guards slammed Alexsi face-first against the grating and held him there.

  The sergeant thumbed through his folder. He found the page he wanted. “Turn him around.”

  The guards twirled Alexsi around and slammed his back into the grate.

  The sergeant held a card with a photograph pinned to it up to Alexsi’s face. He made a gesture, and they spun him around again and smashed his face back into the grate.

  “You can’t have him,” the sergeant said.

  “I have a dead man back in the van,” said a voice behind them. “Regulations categorically state that prisoners committing additional crimes while in custody must be removed from transport and detained at the scene of the incident in question.”

  “I know all that,” the sergeant said tiredly. “But look here.” A rustling of paper. “We have to send him on, no delays permissible. They’ll decide what to do with him there.”

  “But what am I going to do about this now?” the voice from behind demanded, quite upset.

  “Complete the paperwork and forward it along,” said the sergeant. “That’s my advice to you.”

  “Fuck me,” said the voice from behind.

  “Put him in the punishment cell,” the sergeant said. “And search him properly this time before he sticks one of us.”

  They frisked Alexsi again while he was up against the grate, and once again they missed the knife. They pushed him down the corridor.

  The punishment cell. Thirty men to a compartment was a regular cell. Alexsi wasn’t looking forward to the punishment cell.

  Just before the corridor stopped at another grate that Alexsi guessed separated the prisoner from the guards area, they unlocked a barred sliding door.

  “Take your shoes off,” one of the guards ordered.

  They’d probably guessed his knife was hidden in there, and were going to search them thoroughly. Once they were off, and while he was still bent over, they
shoved him through the door.

  Once Alexsi picked himself up off the floor, he saw he was in a narrow compartment with an upper and a lower berth. All to himself. Unbelievable. The prisoners in that other cell would have fought each other to death to be in here, if only they’d known.

  The train began moving. An instant later the compartment door slid open with a clanging of steel and a guard threw Alexsi’s shoes inside. The sole lining had been torn out, and one of the heels was detached. Alexsi looked at it in his hand. Not a bad idea. A little whittling and inside that heel might be a good place to hide his knife. Especially since they’d been kind enough to loosen the nails for him. But that could wait until dark.

  A little while later the grate opened again and the guard passed him in a chunk of black bread, a cup of water, and a shiny piece of dark-colored fish. Alexsi gingerly touched his tongue to it. Smoked Caspian carp. Shit. And the salt would make him go mad from thirst. If this was all he’d be eating during the trip, no fish until he saw how much water they’d be dishing out.

  Over the next day his judgment was confirmed. Only dry bread and fish, a few cups of water, and two trips to the toilet.

  As the days passed, he tried to keep track, but there was no bulb in the compartment and the only light came from the corridor. They blended into frequent stops and constant thirst. Locomotives were switched; cars were coupled and uncoupled; they sat immobile for incredibly long periods.

  Alexsi thought of what it must be like in the other cells and told himself to count his blessings. Knifing that thief had been incredible good luck.

  5

  1936 Somewhere in the Soviet Union

  They took him off the train in the dead of night. And as they walked him down that central aisle to the door, Alexsi was astounded to see the other compartments empty through the grates. Every other prisoner had been removed along the way. His stomach tightened up. Where could they be that was just for him and no one else?

  What he could see offered few clues. It was just another railroad switching yard. But it was enormous.

  Expecting another Black Maria, or worse, Alexsi was again shocked to find himself pushed into the backseat of a regular automobile, pinned between two hulking plainclothes secret policemen. Of course they said nothing, and of course he knew better than to ask any questions.

  In this first small space after the train he was immediately conscious of just how badly he smelled after so many days of not washing. His escorts acted impervious to it, though they both lit cigarettes almost in unison.

  It was freezing cold, worse than the desert at night. They bounced across an untold number of train tracks and finally left the yard through a guarded gate in a fence. And then they were in a city that was all bright lights and huge buildings. Much bigger than Baku. With no idea in which direction the train had traveled, he was at a loss. He knew prisoners went to Siberia, so he thought over his geography lessons. Karaganda? Krasnoyarsk?

  No, there was more city and more city, and they couldn’t be traveling in circles. They went over a river, but it could have been any river. The buildings and street signs told him nothing, since he knew only the streets of Baku. Then the car took a turn around a corner and in the far skyline an image popped up before him that he had only ever seen in books. The onion domes of the Kremlin. They were in Moscow. Moscow. And in an automobile just for him?

  Back in the train’s punishment compartment he had been feeling prepared for whatever might occur. Now his stomach was swimming in a sea of fear.

  October Twenty-fifth Street. He had heard of that. And a big yellow building. Another street sign, and another turn around the side of that building. Malaya Lubyanka Street. Lubyanka? Oh, no. Everyone in the Soviet Union knew the name of the central headquarters of State Security.

  The car stopped and they pushed him out. One of the plainclothesmen pushed a button on the wall and a door opened from the inside. They turned him over to two State Security enlisted men in full uniform and gleaming boots, wearing pistols.

  Alexsi was walked down a long straight corridor that was all white: walls, ceiling, and floors. It was lit by those same caged 200-watt bulbs they had in Baku. A white painted door stood open, and they shoved him inside. The room was all white tile, and otherwise completely bare.

  “Undress,” one of the uniforms ordered.

  His little knife now was in his shoe heel. If these guards found it he was prepared for the beating. But if they didn’t it might come in handy.

  As he handed over his clothes they took razors and cut open the lining in his trousers and jacket. And immediately found his five hundred rubles.

  “Why do you have money hidden in your jacket?” one demanded.

  “There are thieves everywhere,” Alexsi replied.

  They just narrowed their eyes at him while he tried to look wide-eyed and innocent.

  After that they went over his clothes inch by inch. Opened the lining of his shoes, but they didn’t pull the heels off. Alexsi just stood there naked and stared at the wall, so they wouldn’t catch him stealing glances over at his shoes.

  “What is this?” they said, pointing to the homemade knife pocket in his underwear.

  Alexsi shrugged. “I kept money there after my pocket was picked one day.”

  They cut all the metal buttons off his clothes and threw his belt to the other side of the room.

  When they were finished they clicked on a battery torch and examined his hair and scalp. Then his nose and ears. One guard put on a pair of thick black rubber gloves.

  “Open your mouth.” He poked his gloved finger into every crevice of Alexsi’s mouth, lifting up his tongue with thumb and forefinger like it was a curtain blocking his view.

  “Hands against the wall, spread your feet apart.” And at that Alexsi nearly puked all over the tile room. It took every last bit of willpower to choke it down. It wasn’t the finger rammed up in his ass, searching for hidden contraband there. It was that the rubber glove sheathing the finger up his ass was the very same glove that had just been in his mouth. And while the guard had been considerate enough to check his mouth first, Alexsi was dead certain his mouth and ass were not the only ones that glove had ever been inside.

  He was still trying to shake that thought out of his head when they handed him a piece of soap that had the consistency of a grinding wheel and told him to take a hot shower. If they’d been between him and the water he would have trampled them both, even if it meant getting shot. He rushed under the stream, soaped his fingers, and scrubbed out his mouth, in his haste totally oblivious to the pleasure of his first wash in a long time.

  When he was finished, they told him to get dressed. No towel was offered. So Alexsi shook himself off like a dog and, still wet, climbed back into his now ripped and tattered clothing.

  They led him out a door and across an open interior courtyard to another part of the building, and in his damp clothes he thought he might freeze to death. He was shivering uncontrollably once they were inside again.

  They took his photograph and his fingerprints and put him in a dark gray cell with two other men. There were three iron beds, with mattresses, but no other furniture in the cell. His cell mates were sleeping, or trying to. Once every minute, the metal cover over the peephole rasped open to examine them. Steel doors constantly slammed like artillery fire down the corridor outside.

  Alexsi took his shoes off, put them under his head, and draped his coat over his eyes as if to give some relief from the burning lightbulb. In a few minutes he had the knife out from the cavity in his heel, and back inside the pocket in his underwear.

  It seemed as if the door opened every few minutes the rest of the night. His cell mates were taken out and new ones put in their place. This happened over and over again.

  In the morning the cell door opened with the shout, “Get up!”

  Alexsi shot up from the bed and the guard threw a broom at him. “Sweep out the cell and be quick about it.”

  Alexsi put
his shoes on and stamped his feet to set the loose heel back into place.

  When he was finished sweeping the guard marched them all down to the toilet and stood there shouting, “Hurry up! Hurry up!”

  Back in the cell they received a soggy hunk of black bread and a mug of tea that might as well have been hot water. But at least it was hot.

  That was the high point of the day. Alexsi sat in the cell while a parade of different prisoners was brought in and out. No one was allowed to sleep during the day and if a prisoner drifted off a guard came shouting in during one of his every-minute peephole checks and threatened them all with a beating.

  For lunch they were given tripe soup. Based on the quality of their now-razored clothing it seemed like his two current cell mates had been important men. They were twice his age, in their thirties. One of them started crying out loud at just the sight of the soup in its dirty plate and dirty spoon. Alexsi only shook his head and shoveled it down. The crybaby should have waited until he tasted it to start bawling—now that was something to cry about. But at least it wasn’t smoked carp. And the spoon might not have been clean, but he was fairly sure it hadn’t been up someone’s ass.

  In the afternoon the guard came in and pointed to Alexsi. “Out!”

  Alexsi stepped out into the corridor and put his hands behind his back without being told. Two guards walked him down the corridor, through two doors, and into his very first electric elevator. It went up, and the sensation when it began moving was so startling he nearly fell over.

  The ride was much too short. Down another corridor, waiting for steel doors to be opened, and then another cell.

  This one was bigger. It had a table and stools in addition to the beds. And he could instantly see there was going to be a problem. Because along with two cowering politicals were three thieves.

  They were well muscled and wearing only their undershirts to display their lavish tattoos. The leader was short but with shoulders and arms like a gorilla, and a sneer that showed off two dull steel replacement teeth. No gold for the blatnye. Someone would only try to rip it out of your head.