by Ben Pastor
“Please.”
“Very well. I’ve got my hands full now, so I’ll run an autopsy first thing in the morning. Is that soon enough for you?”
“Thank you.”
“All right, then. Weller, come along: there’s nothing else we can do here. I’ll send an ambulance for the body.”
On the fourth floor, flies circled the landing. Bora reached it, carrying in his briefcase Platonov’s few personal items, including his women’s photo and the blank sheet and pencil he’d issued him in case the prisoner decided to add information, which had been left untouched on the table. Thorough as he was, Bora saw partial failure rather than partial success, and knew himself well enough to anticipate how he’d dwell on this failure from now on. I should have stayed in the room. I should have kept pushing him. I shouldn’t have given him a chance to escape by death. In the corridor, all was quiet. Bora hesitated at the top of the stairs before entering Tibyetsky’s room. The handful of nights he’d spent there, waiting for Platonov to talk, seemed such a waste of precious time now. He felt no sorrow whatever for the old man: only anger at knowing he’d have to deal with his wife and daughter in fifty minutes’ time.
According to the guards Khan was up and about, so Bora, who had the key to the room, knocked briefly as a formality and stepped in.
A transient, artificial ceiling of cigar smoke ebbed away upon his entrance, dissolving in a pungent wave.
“Komandir Tibyetsky.”
Flemish merchants, well-fed city dwellers portrayed by Dutch painters in their comfortable interiors: Hendrick Terborch surfaced through Khan Tibyetsky as he sat bootless, sipping soda from an inexplicably ornate tall goblet, rimmed in gold. Army Supply had found it somewhere, that remnant of pre-revolutionary splendour, and had set it aside with the rest of the mismatched furnishings for the special detention centre. Bora had never used it. It was the sort of goblet you could find in Renaissance Bruges, or in Amsterdam.
“Major Bora.”
This was a separate world from downstairs; other rules applied. Remote as their relationship might be, the two men faced each other in the unspoken awareness of a common past – theirs were the well-to-do North European cities, the solidity of aristocracy and landed gentry, a cultivated breed of men and women accustomed to seeing what they shared across and despite national borders. All Khan was doing amounted to a dipping of lips in the sweet drink, seated on the bed with a partly unwrapped chocolate ration by his side, and the photograph showing him in all his glory on the bedside table. Bora on the other hand, pale after Platonov’s death, had to seal off his turmoil in order to concentrate solely on the minor task of paying a visit to his prize guest.
“So,” Khan added, “we do meet again, and so soon.”
Bora closed the door. He doesn’t remember me, cannot remotely recognize a child one-sixth my present age in me. Yet he knows who I am, hangs from that tendril of family history, and doesn’t give it away any more than I do. He wouldn’t ask; I wouldn’t volunteer. I wouldn’t ask, either. We are as much or as little related as any two human beings on the face of the earth. “I stopped by to see if you have all you need.”
“All but a good rest. The man below was crying out half the night.”
“We had nothing to do with it.”
That wasn’t precisely true, and a hasty justification was the last message Bora wished to convey. But the words escaped him: he was for a fraction of a second merely a young man in front of an older, more experienced one.
Khan smiled without removing his lips from the goblet’s rim. “Someone without enough ideology to keep him sane?”
Any reply could be misinterpreted, so Bora avoided giving one. A few minutes and he’d have to get going to reach the train station, meet Platonov’s women. He glanced at the open trunk against the wall, whose rich lend-lease contents he’d checked the night before to make sure cans and boxes were sealed and harmless.
“An American candy bar, Major?”
“No, thank you.”
“Do sit down.”
It was Terborch inviting him, as if this were his parlour and Bora a visitor. Or else it was the brigade commander speaking. Bora sat down automatically on the stool facing the bed.
Khan studied him. “Good breeding, army breeding: you did at once what you were told.” Idly turning the goblet in his hand, so that the drink swirled a little, he was in turn unreadable and serene. He nodded towards his black-and-white likeness as a much-decorated commander. “Believe me, Major Bora, I am conscious of my preciousness. I made myself precious and my own best game piece. Young officers like yourself ought to learn this kind of chess-playing.”
Bora looked away, for fear of appearing grieved or intrigued or impatient or anything else. The morning’s events had made him numb; Khan’s confidence had cowed him somehow. His grave, he thought, his empty grave has fresh flowers every day, brought by his ancient sweetheart, my great-aunt’s age. My stepfather refused to read my research about him: he rejects the very thought of betrayal. Does a man whose grave was wept over decades ago still belong to the order of nature? Can he die? Or did he die long ago?
“Tell me, Major: did you just lose the man downstairs?”
Lying would be useless: Khan understood German and there’d been considerable confusion below a few minutes earlier.
“Yes.”
“Uh-uh. You’ll lose this war, too. For all practical purposes, it’s lost already.”
“That I doubt. You would not be coming over to us if it were.”
The goblet, with a yellow-orange residue at the bottom, came to rest on the photograph, in the middle of a bedside table that, miraculously, matched the bed. Khan sat back on the mattress with his shoulders to the wall, stretching his stockinged calves. He finished unwrapping the candy bar – a 600-calorie cocoa and oats ration – and munched on it. “Or because it is lost, and when the aftermath is over, the move will once more be worth it.”
They were still conversing in Russian; there was just enough distance between mind and spoken language to allow for some unguarded sincerity. Whatever crossed Bora’s mind, whether it was mere impulse or the need to be spiteful, he said, “The man below was Gleb Gavrilovich Platonov.” And because he tended toward punctiliousness, he removed the goblet from the photograph.
“Imagine that.” The amiable Flemish burgher sank back into Khan Tibyetsky until there was nothing left of him. Out of focus behind him, the wallpaper pattern of smokestacks and jagged roofs turned into a garble of geometric thunderbolts. His meaty head seemed to radiate pale lightning. “The vagaries of fate: isn’t that how you put it, in the paper about your relative?” He was smiling widely, which Bora found outrageous, yet fitting for the man (commander; hero; defector). “You look annoyed, Major.”
“And you look pleased.”
“We are a fatalistic race.”
“My research actually suggests you’re not Russian-born.”
Khan shook his head from side to side, like a teacher commiserating his pupil. “But that was a schoolboy’s homework, Major, by your own admission. You are standing: what, leaving already? A question before you go. How is my tank, my iron horse?”
“Safe. In a safe place.”
“As it should be. You know those ashes falling like snow by the Donets yesterday? I set fodder and stubble on fire to cover my trail. You’ll agree it doesn’t get any more Russian than that.”
“Echoes of 1812.”
“Moscow on fire before Napoleon? Of course, today is 5 May. It would come to mind on the anniversary of the Great Man’s death. No, I was thinking of the witch Baba Yaga flying in her iron mortar, and erasing her traces by sweeping behind. Baba Yaga, that’s me. It doesn’t get any more Russian than that.”
Like a chess piece, the goblet went back where Khan had originally rested it. There would be no acknowledgement: there was no real reason for Bora to stop by other than routine, and perhaps the need to buffer his distress at losing Platonov, now that Khan was so much mo
re important than the Platonovs of the world.
“I have to go, Komandir Tibyetsky.”
Khan grinned openly. “But that’s not my real name.” And he kept Bora in suspense until he added, returning the spite used to inform him of Platonov’s death, “My real name is Dobronin.”
Mina was still fidgety when Bora left, running up and down the stairs with the hackles stiff on her back. She smelt death, agitation. I’m like her right now, he thought, and have to regain my self-possession between here and the train station. As late as the point at which he started the engine, Bora considered sending someone else, to avoid facing mother and daughter with the news. But it wouldn’t do. He’d go, look them in the eye, and express his regrets. A strange word, regret: he didn’t at all regret extracting information through emotional blackmail, but he’d present his regrets formally. I’ve done worse things than telling wives their men are dead: I killed their men. What of it? They killed us by the tens of thousands, and their war against us is as filthy as ours, often filthier. All things considered (it was a short drive to New Bavaria station), he quickly consoled himself by thinking that at least Selina Nikolayevna would understand as soon as she saw his expression. She was a general’s wife after all. She’d utter something like, “Has anything bad happened to Gleb Gavrilovich?” And he’d only have to nod his head.
But if nothing had been spared the Platonov women, nothing would be spared him either. The train was late, which gave him more time to ruminate. In a day of perfect sunshine, on the platform a strong tepid breeze from the western gullies brought the green scent of trees, and pollen like ripples of gold dust. Bora stood still, busy resisting the need to pace back and forth and chasing the cowardly, small temptation to think of Dikta as he’d dreamt her, a powerful antidote to any other kind of tension. When the locomotive pulled in, delivering materiel, cattle and whatever else the quartermaster’s office or Geko Stark had still managed to sweep up in Ukraine, Bora had nearly given in to the temptation, but rapidly collected himself.
As soon as the women stepped down in their flower-print cotton dresses, such controlled hope and happiness glowed from them that he again regretted having come in person. They were even more handsome than the snapshot had promised. The girl, especially: tall, ash-blonde. At seventeen or eighteen, Dikta must have been like this. At forty, Dikta would resemble the mother. Like a Renaissance triptych – The Ages of Woman, or other allegory – two portraits missing the middle one, which was Dikta as she appeared now. Bora’s unprepared heart sank. I won’t tell her two Russian women look like her past and her future; she’d resent it. But if in years to come she’ll seem like Selina Nikolayevna does now, only more elegant, more accomplished, mine, I will be blessed.
The Platonov women had seen him. Even in German hands, under German escort, expectation made them both smile, a resiliency that was both shy and irrepressible. Bora walked toward them, deceived by that strength.
When he did give the news – quickly and in plain words, a crude merciful brevity mitigated by the concern in his voice – he wasn’t ready for the scream Selina let out, as if years of suffering and separation, terror and the titbit of hope he, Bora himself, had offered her only to take it back, were the last blow she could take. She screamed like a madwoman and fell down before he could catch her. As she crumpled, the wind on the platform lifted the light cotton dress above her knees: in a wave of cloth the whiteness of her thighs flashed bare before him. Avrora, who’d remained standing, petrified, pushed Bora back when he leant over to adjust the clothes on her mother’s limbs; and as she knelt, for a moment the wind also took her skirts, so that he was angry at himself, mortified for staring before turning away (smooth, no stockings, a glimpse at the clean shapeliness the modesty of Russian women jealously kept from sight – They’re good girls, the rare, better-minded commanders reminded their soldiers, show them respect).
If this ever happens to my mother… Bora thought, feeling revolted at the idea. How did she react when they gave me up at Stalingrad, presumed dead? I don’t want to know; I want to believe her Victorian upbringing supported her even then, will support her regardless if Peter or I should fall. He raised his hand to keep away a rifle-toting soldier who came to see what the commotion was. “From now on, you boys have no mother, no wife, no sweetheart. A man can’t keep steady if he minds his women.” It’s the sole advice the general gave us when we left for war. Why didn’t Bora think of how Dikta might have taken the bad news last December? After all, Selina Nikolayevna was Platonov’s wife, not his mother.
It seemed an endless scene, but moments actually went by before Selina came to and broke into convulsive weeping even as Bora helped her to her feet. Only then did the girl allow herself to shed tears. Bora addressed her because the mother seemed incapable of coherence. “We did not manhandle your father,” he said awkwardly, as if a German officer had to justify himself to a civilian, and a Russian at that. “His heart gave way because of previous hardship.”
The original plan had of course been to take them to the special detention centre, and then to temporarily house them at Merefa. Now, once out of the station, Bora accompanied the weeping women to his vehicle, telling himself they see nothing, notice nothing, grief does that, numbs you to your surroundings… Or else they’ll remember forever this station, this breeze, and the man who gave them the bad news. He said, “Avrora Glebovna, Selina Nikolayevna, I have arranged for you to stay at Father Victor Nitichenko’s house in Merefa until you can go back. It’s not far. We’ll return the general’s body to you as soon as possible,” he added, forgetting he’d asked for an autopsy and the corpse would be in no condition to be shown.
During the ride – thirty kilometres seemed very long under the circumstances – the women didn’t speak a word. Other than the greeting when they first met Bora, before learning of Platonov’s death, they’d only replied to what he told them afterwards with anguished nods. In the passenger’s seat, where a few hours earlier Khan Tibyetsky had been a cumbersome presence, Selina Nikolayevna still cried to herself, silently. Her daughter sat in the back; she had a tight-lipped, sorrowful, proud expression: Dikta’s face when Bora had last seen her in Prague, and told her he’d volunteer again for the Russian front. Avrora Glebovna stood in for Dikta a precious instant: their eyes met in the mirror, and he looked away with a singular stab of the heart. She’s gone even beyond hate. She’s so young, but suffering has replaced time in the process of making her age inside. Why does Dikta at times look like this, stare at me or away from me like this? We love each other but remain two single people. There’s nothing I can tell this girl to explain, comfort, justify. There’s nothing I can tell Dikta to make myself truly understood by her.
Had Platonov been a good father to her? Fathers have odd ways of showing their devotion, not always through kindness.
Bora avoided the rear-view mirror. Once in a while, he stole a glance at Selina’s hands, narrow, long-fingered: despite the years of hard labour they were fine, delicate hands. The type of hands that can be unsuspectingly strong, this he knew from Dikta: fingers and wrists capable of governing a spirited horse, of deeply stroking a man’s back while making love to him… The rear-view mirror was not safe, and neither were Selina Nikolayevna’s hands, resting slackly in her lap. He looked forward to reaching Merefa and leaving both women there. When the time comes I’ll have Kostya pick them up and bring them to Hospital 169, and then to the train station. I don’t want to see them again. It’s not my job, and I don’t like my role with them.
At the Lednoye checkpoint, manned by SS, he showed the women’s identification papers as workers, without giving details. He left the vehicle to explain briefly that he was taking them along as domestic labour, and even though the SS observed nothing openly, a look at the two beautiful passengers made them think otherwise. They were smiling when Bora drove off.
“Why did you tell them you’re taking us to your command, and not to the priest’s house?”
The question ca
ught Bora off guard, as he didn’t know Avrora Glebovna understood German; and besides, it was impossible she’d heard him from inside the vehicle. Through the rear-view mirror, she met his gaze long enough to add, “Mother was deaf for a time, after the accident. I learnt to lip-read with her. She has forgotten how, but I still can.”
“I’m taking you to the priest’s house.”
“That’s not what you said.”
Bora tilted the rear-view mirror so as not to see her eyes. To Selina Nikolayevna at his side, who stared at him questioningly, he repeated, “I’m taking you to the priest’s house, be sure.”
There were moments – this was one – when serving in the Abwehr seemed to him light years away from his nature and his education. Driving close-mouthed toward Komarevka and its brick and tile works, he considered his stepfather’s reservations about his choice of counterintelligence. Ever since we were boys, he hammered into us the importance of frankness. To him, it all amounts to spying, and anything to do with the term “spy” falls under the same rubric in his mind as conspiracy, treason and assassination. It galls him to think that a stepson of his was trained to manipulate documents and people. To him, honour means facing the enemy on the battlefield; even politics is taboo for a real soldier in his view. When I first advanced the hypothesis that Uncle Terry might have met his end quite differently from the blaze of anti-revolutionary glory we assumed had devoured him, he was incensed. The possibility that a relative of ours had crossed over – no matter how many times removed he was (and acquired by marriage besides) – sounded like anathema. He wouldn’t read my papers; he wouldn’t discuss it. To this day, it’s a subject he won’t let me broach. Great-aunt Albertina Anna says she has forgotten the whole thing, all the more since her husband (Terry’s own brother) has been dead fifteen years.
We’re like this in our family. Comportment has to match essence, or at least dress it up to the extent that good behaviour is all you see. But what about me? Lying, misrepresenting my and others’ intentions, forging communications, using my knack for languages to express anything but the truth – I’ve done all of that along with going into the field as any other first-line officer, one season of war after the next.
