The Black Maria

by Rupert Colley

  ‘Well done,’ whispered Claudia as she leant over and kissed Ella on the cheek.

  Ella tried to catch her breath. ‘I feel sick,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Claudia. ‘It’s over, you’re still with us.’

  Rosa noticed that Boris had turned around and was smiling at Ella. But his face was struck with terror at the sound of his name echoing across the hall. ‘Boris Gershberg – you will be first in line tomorrow morning,’ announced Pletnev.

  Chapter 9: The Lion

  ‘I don’t believe it, I don’t fucking believe it.’ Dmitry threw himself into his armchair. ‘I mean, how dare that old sod pronounce on things he has no idea about. Pornography? I’ll give him pornography, if that’s what he wants.’ He sprang up from the chair and paced up to the window and glanced out before turning back to face me. ‘He wouldn’t know a work of art if it bit him on the arse.’

  ‘It’s only his opinion.’

  ‘Yes but that’s quite an opinion, the man has influence, so no one’s going to dare contradict him. I’m finished; I’m done for. I can expect a knock on the door any moment.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Or they’ll bide their time and watch me.’ He went back to the window and looked out. ‘I’m surprised there’s not someone out there already, lurking outside, ready to follow me wherever I go.’

  ‘Surely not while you still have Mikhail’s support.’

  ‘Perhaps for now, but once Trifonov’s slit-eyed prejudice is accepted then Mikhail will have to step down in order to save his own skin. I suppose you can’t blame him for that, but – but where does it leave me?’

  He was right of course and I couldn’t find the words to comfort him. His initial contempt for Comrade Trifonov was replaced by a deep anxiety bordering on paranoia, a justified paranoia. If Trifonov decided to take it further, then, as Dmitry said, his artistic and political future was in jeopardy. I remembered how Dmitry had told Petrov that his apartment and material belongings were his in name only. If Dmitry fell foul of the authorities, everything would go. I wanted to say he could start again and come to me, but of course, I was still a married woman.

  Without a word, Dmitry disappeared into the bedroom and I sat in his living room wondering whether to follow him. I realised at that moment how unsure I was of where I stood in his affections. From the evening of the dinner, I had felt a longing for him that had taken me unawares. But at times like this, I thought that perhaps I was simply being fanciful. Was I reading too much into it? Dmitry, I had learnt, could be annoyingly enigmatic. Sometimes, the way he looked at me, I believed he felt the same way and that the only thing that held us back was Petrov. And I believed that had we met at a different time, in different circumstances, things would have been so much clearer. But at other times, I doubted my own convictions. I’d come to accept that he was unreachable once he had a paintbrush in his hand and that the only important thing was what was on the easel in front of him. Was I simply an occasional model and a woman he felt sorry for, or did I mean something to him? I sat there listening to him rummaging around maniacally in the bedroom and I decided I needed to find out there and then.

  ‘Dmitry,’ I said, pushing open the bedroom door. ‘What are you doing?’ A wicker chair in the corner of the room was piled high with various clothes.

  ‘I’m packing – just in case.’

  ‘In case they come?’

  He nodded, and with a folded shirt in his hand, sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. ‘I had a friend once. He was also called Dmitry, a sculptor, and a fine one at that. He used to do sculptures of all the big men, past and present – Lenin, Marx, Stalin, Bukharin...’

  ‘Bukharin?’

  ‘Yes, before his downfall. And after Bukharin’s arrest, they came for him. His work of Bukharin was enough to ensure his own downfall.’

  ‘But he couldn’t have known...’

  ‘That’s what one would have thought, but you can see the twisted logic in there, can’t you?’

  ‘But you can’t compare his case to yours?’

  ‘No? How can you tell? You might be right; it’ll just be a fuss over nothing, but you can’t be sure.’ He played with a button on the folded shirt. ‘I fear I may have compromised you as well, Maria.’

  ‘It’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’

  ‘You should go,’ he said, standing up. ‘Go back to Petrov. If they come for me, it would look bad for you if they find you here.’

  ‘That’s another risk I’m prepared to take,’ I said, looking into his dark, worried eyes.

  ‘No, it’s too risky. Go back to him. I’ll say I forced you into it, that you had no idea I was painting you like that. You’ll be safe with Petrov.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back to him. Who would want the deer when one can have the lion?’

  He smiled. ‘Even if the lion exposes you to the poacher?’

  He placed his fingers against my cheek. He made to lean towards me, a tiny movement of his head. But then, he paused as if seeking my assurance. It was one of those moments when time seems to stand still, when, far away through the windows, you can hear life going on at its usual frantic pace, spinning around you at dizzying speed, but where you find yourself in the middle of the vortex where everything is totally still and deathly silent. The most minute of gestures could sweep away a mountain. I tried to speak but the words, soundless, caught in the tangles of my throat. He pulled me in and kissed me, a moment’s hesitation, then with an urgency that was all-consuming. I closed my eyes and drifted away. I seemed to drift above the bedroom, the block of apartments, and beyond the city. In the darkness of my closed eyelids, I was aware of a new light pouring through my heart. His kiss seemed both conscious of its illegitimacy and aware that it was right. I tried to reassure him with my response, to let him know I wanted his kiss, his touch, his intimacy. My hands around him, pulled him tighter, my fingers bit into his back, down the length of his spine. I felt his hands clutching clumps of my hair, his fingernails catching on the ruffled strands. His hand grappled at my blouse, freeing it from my skirt, his cold hand against my shivering skin. I gripped his buttocks, my fingernails implanting themselves firmly into the seat of his pants. While his hand fumbled with my brassiere, I slipped my hand beneath his chemise and slid them up and down his ribcage, catching the hairs on his chest. Together, we eased ourselves down, our lips still firmly against one another’s, as if our very lives depended on the continual contact, too frightened to let go. In a whisper so hoarse, I scarcely recognised my own voice, I uttered, ‘Fuck me.’

  *

  Some time later, maybe an hour, we were lying on his bed with the sheets and blankets wrapped over us. A single lamp shone dimly on the wooden table by his bed. Within the shadows, a small smile of contentment lay on his lips – I knew exactly how he felt. I was thirty years old and had never felt such a depth of passion, such an urgency of longing. Indeed, I doubted for years whether I was capable of passion. When one’s whole life has been a matter of mere existence, when one’s past consists of pain, then love is as inconsequential as a fistful of roubles to a rich man. But not now.

  ‘Paint me,’ I whispered.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘No, I mean now.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, now. You said you wanted to paint the nude, so I’m offering myself to you. Paint me now.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Don’t you want to paint me?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  *

  Dmitry worked quickly – this was a different process entirely from before. Once done, we returned to bed and made love again. Afterwards, as we lay there, he ran his fingers through his hair and I noticed the stains of paint on his skin – mixtures of yellow and pale red. The same paint-stained fingers that had explored my body, slid down my back, cupping my breasts, gripping me tightly and engulfing me in his warmth. I lifted the sheet and saw the same combinations of blotchy colours smeared on my skin.


  In the corner, my clothes lay in a heap on the wicker chair, and in front of us lay my naked full-length portrait. Having previously watched Dmitry’s methodical approach to his work, I was amazed he was able to conjure up a coherent form in such a small amount of time. But this was, after all, a doodle in comparison, with broad brushstrokes and crude mixtures of colours. And yet, it still seemed so real. My features, so haphazardly drawn, stared back at me like a reflection in a steamy mirror – blurred but still very much me. But it was the pose and the attitude that I didn’t recognise. I was standing with my hands behind my head, purposely accentuating the curve of my hip. I wasn’t sure if I felt proud or embarrassed by such a display of lustful arrogance. A few hours before, I would not have thought I had it in me. Was it sex that had made me stand like that? Or the sudden sense of freedom? I had felt intoxicated as the layers of inhibition were stripped away in a flurry of excitement and empowerment. Dmitry the Artist had brought out Maria the Woman.

  Dmitry reached over and kissed me. ‘I’ve worked under various states of mind but that was a first.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve painted when so drunk I could hardly stand; I’ve painted after a three-day fast and even after a self-imposed period of sleep deprivation, but never under the influence of... of lust.’

  ‘It’s good, and it’s certainly...’

  ‘Provocative?’

  I laughed. ‘Yes, provocative.’

  ‘What do you think old Comrade Trifonov would make of it?’

  I looked at my image and felt those fleeting moments of empowerment and arrogance drain away. The thought of another set of eyes seeing my flesh made me shiver. ‘I think you should tear it up.’

  Dmitry propped himself up on his arm and looked at me. ‘I thought you liked it?’

  ‘I do, really. But it’s not safe.’

  ‘I’ve never destroyed any of my work, I don’t think I could do it.’

  I leaned against his chest and ran my finger across his jaw line and down his neck. ‘I don’t think you have much choice. What do you think they’d say if they found it here?’

  ‘Well, my reputation as a pornographer would be sealed.’ He guffawed to himself.

  ‘And so would be your fate,’ I said, trying to be serious, but he merely laughed louder. I thumped him playfully on the chest. ‘It’s not funny, Dmitry.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  My naked image stared at me from across the room and I tried to look back at her. But the harder I tried, the more she seemed to mock me. She was no longer me, no longer representational, and she knew it. Already, she belonged to an unreal moment of euphoria when everything seemed possible. She had a future; I merely had a past. ‘What time is it?’

  Dmitry leant over to the bedside table and picked up his watch. ‘Just gone ten.’

  ‘God, I should go,’ I said, swinging my legs out from under the sheets.

  He sat up. ‘What, now?’

  ‘Petrov will be furious with me.’

  ‘You can’t go now, how will you get back? Let him stew.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  He placed his hand reassuringly against my back. ‘It’s too late to go back now; might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Stay the night and tomorrow morning we’ll think of something.’

  ‘No, Dmitry, I have to get back, I can’t stay – as much as I’d like to.’

  ‘You don’t have to do it, Maria, you don’t have to go back to him.’

  But I did. It wasn’t Petrov’s choice, nor Dmitry’s; it was mine. And that left me with no choice at all.

  *

  I travelled home on the tram, my head in a daze - I had committed adultery. The law did not impose any legal obligation on conjugal faithfulness but the consequences of infidelity, I knew, were still potentially disastrous. I was convinced that nothing would be the same again – and the thought was not necessarily a welcome one.

  It was approaching eleven at night by the time I got home. ‘Where in the fuck have you been?’ said Petrov as soon as I stepped in the apartment. Rosa was there too, sitting in Viktor’s chair. She looked embarrassed by Petrov’s outburst.

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Where?’ He was standing in the middle of our living room, a newspaper rolled up in his hand as if he’d been squatting flies.

  ‘Just out; does it matter?’

  ‘What’s that smell?’ He sniffed me. ‘Oh, good God, you’ve been to see that brother of your friend, that Dmitry, I can smell that turpentine stuff. What the hell are you doing seeing him?’

  ‘He wants to use me as a model – for his painting.’

  ‘You? A model? Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve got better things to do. I hope you said no.’

  ‘I said yes.’

  ‘Well, you can bloody well go down to the phone now and say you’ve changed your mind.’

  ‘Don’t you want to support your local artist?’

  ‘My “local artist”? I think not. Not until he finds himself some proper work, man’s work. I refuse to allow my wife to indulge in his little artistic fantasies.’

  ‘Hello, Rosa, love. Have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘Yes, I – ’

  ‘I hope that’s all he’s asked of you,’ said Petrov, now pacing up and down, swinging his rolled-up newspaper.

  ‘Is your father OK?’

  ‘He’s asleep – as usual.’

  Petrov slammed the newspaper against the table edge. ‘Why are you ignoring me? You’re not to see him again. Is that understood?’

  ‘You can’t tell me who I can and cannot see.’

  ‘Oh but I can. You and I both know that, Maria. And don’t you forget it.’ With that, he stormed into our bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

  Rosa looked sympathetically at me. I tried to smile. ‘Are you all right, Rosa?’ I said, remembering that the poor girl was having to run the gauntlet of a purge.

  ‘Yes. Are you all right?’

  ‘Don’t worry; he’ll get over it. How’s it going at college? Have they started?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Oh, Maria, I don’t know what to think any more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I always believed they were a necessity. But it was so frightening. Now I just don’t know what to think.’

  ‘You can’t be too careful, Rosa, the hidden enemy is far more a threat than the outside foe. They have to do these things. Vigilance is the watchword.’

  ‘You sound like one of the purgers; it’s exactly what they said and what I believe in but... You should have been there. There wasn’t a person who was not petrified for their own skin. And they pounce as soon as they sense blood.’

  ‘It’s a way of protecting themselves. It’s a matter of self-preservation.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘You still believe, don’t you, Rosa?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but I wonder whether Comrade Stalin realises what these bureaucrats get away with under his name.’

  Her faith in the apparatus of the Party machine was disintegrating before my eyes. Perhaps it was a good thing – everyone had to believe but it was safer if one only believed on the outside. That way, you knew how to look after yourself; you were more attuned to the danger signs. You knew what to say, how to think, how to laugh in the right places. Those who really believed had the furthest to fall; they were the ones who were unaware of the minefield that lay at every turn.

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ said Rosa. ‘You got a telephone call. I took a message for you.’

  ‘Really? From whom?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say but the man said you’ve been given an extra appointment, at least I think that’s what he said.’

  My heartbeat quickened.

  ‘He said you would know what he was talking about. You have to attend a meeting at the usual place tomorrow at midday. Does it make sense?’

  A shiver ran down my spine. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it m
akes sense.’

  Chapter 10: The Purge, Day Two

  Boris handed his internal passport to Comrade Pletnev and then gingerly sat down. The Chairman glanced at the card and placed it to his side. Boris stared at it and realised that never before had he wanted something back so dearly, for the card meant survival; without it he was finished. He waited while Pletnev scanned his eyes over the notes in Boris’s file. It was strange, thought Boris, what large amounts of documentation existed of which one had no idea. The lamp on the table was tilted slightly at an angle giving Boris the sensation of being under a spotlight. He had never felt so frightened, and was aware that his right eye was twitching ever so slightly. Around him were almost two hundred people, all of them pitying him for they knew it could be their turn next. But equally, he knew they were all eager to see him purged. The Commission couldn’t purge everybody, so the more people purged at the beginning, the greater their own chances of survival. It was like being a gladiator – but worse, because here, everyone was a participant, each person, a potential victim. The Chairman, still studying Boris’s file, was the emperor with the power to decide, the man with the thumb. Aware of the hot sweat tickling down his back, Boris wasn’t sure how to sit – he crossed and uncrossed his legs. He rubbed his palms against his thighs and realised how wet they were.

  He wanted to turn around to see Rosa – she was probably the only person willing him to survive, but he didn’t dare move. He had prepared and rehearsed his life story, including the confession – he had been friends with a student whose father had signed a pro-Trotsky declaration. It wasn’t much of a confession, at least he hoped it wasn’t, but it was generally accepted that it was best to say something self-incriminating. As for his other secret, he was sure he was safe. Yes, his father had been a rabbi, but his father had died twenty years ago when he was still only five. Since then, his mother had remarried and moved to Moscow. His original birth certificate had been conveniently lost and replaced with another where his step-father was declared his biological father. He had never told anyone, so unless there was someone who remembered him as a five-year-old, five hundred miles away in Kirov, or Vyatka as it was known until the year before, his secret was safe. Yet, his eye continued to twitch and the sweat on his back itched like a many-legged insect.