by Leo Perutz
The patrol commander hurried to his side. He picked up the dead man's hand and examined it.
"I thought as much," he said. "A landowner's son - an officer in the White Guards. Well, he saved us the trouble. Very thorough, he was." He turned to the others. "Go through his pockets."
No one took any notice of Vit¬torin. He could have fled, but he stood there stunned, gazing in horror at the young Russian officer sprawled in the snow with bloodless cheeks and eyes closed, dreaming the dream of the earth.
"He was only a youngster," said one of the soldiers. "You can almost smell the mother's milk, but he had a sweetheart already. Look, he kept her picture next his heart."
He tossed the photograph into the snow.
"What shall we do with this one, comrade?" the soldier went on, jerking his thumb at Vit¬torin. "Another spy - the officer's orderly, maybe. Shall we send him to join His Excellency?"
The patrol commander strode up to Vit¬torin.
"We'll let the CO decide," he said. "Take him to the rear for questioning."
Vit¬torin, shut up in a barn immediately behind the front line, waited in vain to be summoned for interrogation. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about him. The Red sentry detailed to guard him left his queries unanswered, as did the man who relieved him at noon. An hour later Vit¬torin was marched off to Berdichev.
Brooding silence reigned in the streets of the town. It was growing dark by the time Vit¬torin and his escorts got there, but no lights were visible anywhere. In the local flea market, people were trying to sell such personal possessions as they could spare. A timid-looking girl was offering a dealer some kitchen utensils and a yellow silk curtain. Elsewhere, a bent old man was shuffling around with a Chinese vase in one hand and a pair of patched canvas shoes in the other. Dealers and sellers scattered in panic as the escorting soldiers neared the marketplace, all except the old man with the Chinese vase, who tried to hide behind a stall.
The raised boardwalks had been broken up for fuel that autumn. A woman in a tattered black silk dress was sitting on the steps outside the church. Without raising her head, she held out both hands when she heard the soldiers pass by. A sentry emerged from the shadows and shone a flashlight on Vit¬torin and his guards. Townsfolk conscripted for work on the frontline fortifications were silently, dejectedly mustering in a courtyard. Doors, walls and fences were plastered with notices from the local soviet requesting every inhabitant to contribute three sets of undergarments for the Red Army's use.
At Grigorov Prison, Vit¬torin's name was entered in the register. He gathered from what his escorts said that he was suspected of spying for the counter-revolution, but the words made little impression on him.
It was not until the cell door closed behind him that the pressure under which he had laboured all day began to ease. He saw by the meagre light of an oil lamp suspended from the ceiling that the cell housed a dozen men or more, some lying on plank beds or on the bare floor, others huddled up on bales of straw, and one seated on a broken crate. The sight was somehow reassuring; alone no longer, he was one of many companions in misfortune.
His fatigue was compounded with an urge to sit down and ponder his predicament in peace — to put what had happened in its proper perspective. Slowly and cautiously, he slid down the wall into a sitting position. Just as he did so, someone close beside him emitted a wild, shrill cry that ended in a hiss like the snarl of an enraged cat - a cry fraught with anger, fear and despair.
"Don't touch me! Be careful, don't touch me! Can't you see I'm dead?"
Startled, Vit¬torin made out an unnaturally contorted figure lying stiff and motionless on a plank bed facing the wall.
"It's outrageous, quite outrageous," the figure moaned softly. "Holy and Almighty God, they won't let me sleep."
An old man rose from his place beside the window and came over to Vit¬torin, picking his way carefully between the prisoners on the floor.
'Take no notice of him," he said. "Those folk upstairs have driven him out of his mind. He ought to be taken to a hospital, but the sick have no claim to preferential treatment here. Come with me. I'm in charge of this cell - I'll show you a place."
There was more room near the window. The prisoners had crowded together in the middle of the cell to avoid the snow-laden wind that whistled through the broken windowpanes. The old man sat down beside Vit¬torin.
"You don't come from this town, do you?" he said. "What are you accused of? Me, I'm a profiteer. My wife and I had a little flour and sugar left. She baked some cakes and I sold them in tea-rooms and on street corners. That's my crime -that's why I'm here. They arrested me when the hunt for Artemyev began. Artemyev - don't you know the name? Arte-myev, a veteran Social Revolutionary, a terrorist, a subversive of the Tsarist era. He's reputed to be on his way to Moscow to get even with Zinoviev, Lenin, Kamenev - all of his former friends - on instructions from the Mensheviks' executive committee in Paris. Our new rulers fear Artemyev more than all the White Guard generals put together. He knows how to fight, you see. He doesn't issue proclamations, he uses dynamite and infernal machines ..."
Vit¬torin clenched his teeth to stifle a groan of rage and despair. He, too, had a score to settle, but he was detained here by an absurd mischance. Fate had treacherously sided with his enemy.
"I haven't been questioned yet," he whispered angrily. "When will I be summoned for interrogation?"
"If you're lucky, not for a long time," the old man told him. "They may even forget about you."
"But I want to be interrogated, don't you understand?" Vit¬torin exclaimed. "I want my rights, that's all - my human rights."
The old man raised his hand in a weary, disconsolate gesture.
"Human rights?" he said. "Don't talk nonsense. Anyone sent here has forfeited his human rights. As for being interrogated, you'd be wise not to expect too much. Your interrogation will last two minutes, they won't listen to a word you say, and if the examining magistrate takes a dislike to your face he'll have you shot out of hand. That's all interrogation means."
Vit¬torin stared silently at the barred window.
"Human rights?" the old man went on. "Look at poor Bobronikov there, the self-styled corpse who startled you just now. Before the Revolution he had his own jewellery store. They brought him here - maybe he'd done a little black-marketeering - but he wasn't downhearted. 'Many's the time I've entertained the commissars at my home,' he said. 'My wife, Iraida Petrovna, will take the necessary steps.' For the first few days he amused himself by making raffia shoes and weaving little baskets out of wicker brought him by the Red Cross nurse. Then the prison governor had a bright idea. 'Citizen,' Bobronikov was told one day, 'come with us for questioning.' He was marched off to a cellar containing the bodies of two men shot a few hours before. 'Well, Citizen Bobronikov,' said the governor, 'now it's your turn. You've had it too good for too long, stuffing yourself with our bread and fish soup.' He made him kneel down, came up behind him with his revolver, and fired two shots past his ear. Then he said - it was his idea of a joke - 'All right, that'll do for today.' Bobronikov just lay there groaning. He wouldn't budge, so they had to carry him back here. Since then he's been in the world hereafter. He doesn't worry about his human rights; he keeps calling for a priest and a choir and begging to be buried."
There was silence in the cell for a while.
"Now he's asleep," the old man resumed. "He's probably dreaming that he's in the next world, weaving little baskets and raffia slippers in the presence of God. By the way, there's a pitcher of water in the corner. You won't get any bread tonight."
He blew out the oil lamp and groped his way back to the window. While settling down for the night he pointed at the ceiling.
"Hear that?" he whispered. "It's the governor. He paces up and down his room all night. He can't sleep - the dead give him no peace."
Toward seven in the morning the door was flung open. A warder came in and shone his acetylene lamp on the face of the man lying nearest him.
"Citizen Bobronikov," he shouted, "get your things ready. You're off to the station."
Bobronikov, the "Corpse", leapt to his feet with a shrill cry and fled into a corner, where he threw himself down and lashed out with his fists and feet. The old man tried to pacify him but was bitten on the finger for his pains. Hysterical screams and cries for help issued from the cell next door, which was crowded with women prisoners. Two soldiers, alerted by the commotion, hurried in and put an end to it. They pounced on the demented man and dragged him outside.
No one even contemplated going back to sleep. A bleak, cheerless day was dawning. Vit¬torin found the remains of some bread and cheese and two cigarettes in his pocket. He had just begun to eat when a tall man came over, gave a courteous little bow, and stated his name and profession. He was Leonid Vassilich Avdokhin, an attorney who owed his imprisonment to denunciation and intrigue on the part of his domestic servants. According to custom, he informed Vit¬torin in a soft, melodious voice, it was the latest arrival's job to swab the cell floor. With a covetous glance at Vit¬torin's cigarettes, he added that he hadn't smoked for a week and would gladly relieve him of that chore.
Having pocketed the cigarettes, Avdokhin politely but firmly insisted on keeping his part of the bargain. A little exercise would do him good, he said. While he was kneeling on the floor and wielding a damp swab, a bald-headed little man planted himself in front of Vit¬torin and addressed the cell at large.
"Just look at our new boy! See what a prince he is, getting someone else to do his work for him? It's disgraceful - I wonder he isn't ashamed!"
The bald man, a former employee of the local soviet, had been jailed for persistent embezzlement and bribe-taking. He was permanently at odds with all the inmates who could not lay claim to a proletarian background. The attorney came to Vit¬torin's aid.
"You should stay in your corner and keep quiet, Ivan Sergeevich - very quiet. Everyone knows what kind of a worker you were. Don't expect me to kneel in awe before the likes of youl You took your fellow citizens' roubles with one hand and pocketed them with the other - that was your idea of an honest job!"
The former Soviet clerk went white with rage and showered Avdokhin with abuse, calling him a dirty profiteer, a mangy rat, a louse to be crushed underfoot. Then he castigated a young man with carefully parted hair, an actor from Kiev, for having given the lawyer an approving nod.
Hostilities became general. Semyon Andreevich, a teacher from the municipal girls' school, turned on his immediate neighbour, an elderly tramp.
"Stop crowding me!" he bellowed, digging him in the ribs. "Keep your distance, you filthy old scarecrow, or I'll break every bone in your body. The way you spread yourself, anyone would think you had two backsides. Clear off, get lost! I never want to see you again."
The cell senior turned to Vit¬torin and shrugged.
"It's like this all the time. They've forgotten how to coexist like human beings. They yap at each other like dogs."
The altercation was cut short by the arrival of the Red Cross nurse, who was bombarded with questions from all sides. To the inmates of the cell she represented their sole link with the outside world and a happier previous existence, but she was forbidden to engage them in conversation. Silently, she handed out the day's bread ration and administered some drops from her medicine chest to Storoshev, a former landowner who lay on his bunk, racked with fever and wrapped in a blanket. The tramp, who had retreated into the darkest corner of the cell to avoid his neighbour's attentions, complained of lumbago and asked for some cranberries to rub into his back. Cranberry juice, he assured the nurse, was a sovereign remedy for consumption and bee stings as well as backache. He had been prescribed it by a monk in the Yakovlev Monastery named Amfilogi, or Beloved of God.
The actor sidled up to the attorney. Stroking the reddish beard he'd grown while in prison, he glanced at the nurse's departing figure and addressed Avdokhin in an undertone.
"Did you notice the way she looked at me, Leonid Vassilev-ich? She's in love with me, I've known it for days now. She only comes here for my sake."
Meanwhile, the old tramp had waxed garrulous.
"This Amfilogi, this Beloved of God," he said, "-he lived at the Yakovlev Monastery, which has many saintly relics. People come to see them holding lighted candles. In the old days I used to be given a consecrated loaf, some tea, sugar and dried oatmeal, and forty kopeks. When I turned up there this autumn I found that the monks had nothing themselves - they were going around the villages begging. There's another monastery nearby containing the relics of some other great and holy martyrs. They don't give you much there, but everyone gets twenty kopeks. However, I said to myself, it's an age since you visited the monastery at Berdichev, so I trudged all the way here, and what did I find? The pious monk had been driven out to make room for some commissars, as they're called, but commissars are no good. They don't do pilgrims any favours."
"They arrested you, the Reds - the Communists," said the actor. "They did you that much of a favour."
"I'm not sure if it was the Reds or the Communists, Your Excellency," the old beggar replied. "How would I know a thing like that? God alone can tell them apart. Other people have customs you can recognize them by. For instance, I've been in the land of the Germans and the Tatars, who are also called Kalmucks. The Germans put tobacoo in their homemade brandy, that's how you can tell them. The Tatars shave their heads and live on fish. Tatar habits, those are."
He went on to describe the hospitality and gifts he'd received at various monasteries, but he was talking to himself alone. His voice sank to a drowsy, monotonous murmur. Only isolated words could be picked out- "stockfish", "groats and honey", "dumplings", "cheese pancakes", "eighty versts", "Father Porphyri, God bless him!", "the Deacon Aristarch" - so everyone soon stopped listening to him.
That evening the former Soviet clerk was summoned to the governor's office "with his things". He turned pale when he heard his name called, but rose without a word and bundled up his belongings. The little palliasse he'd brought with him to the prison he bequeathed to his neigbour, a fishmonger from Shmerinka. Then he said goodbye to his cell-mates, even to the attorney and the actor with whom he'd been on such bad terms.
The fishmonger sat down on the palliasse at Vit¬torin's side. "He says it's because he quarrelled with his boss," he whispered, "but he took bribes. He won't be back, you mark my words. The same goes for the others in here - they'll be lucky to survive. Me, I've been promised my release by the governor if I denounce six counter-revolutionaries." He subjected Vit¬torin to a speculative stare. Then he said softly, "I've already got four."
Two more prisoners arrived the following day, a Red army deserter and a civil engineer from the Berdichev machine-tool factory, which had been shut down for lack of fuel and raw materials. The engineer, a clean-shaven, bright-eyed young man, promptly introduced himself to the other inmates and gave them a grimly humorous account of the reason for his arrest.
"I subverted the authority of the Soviet regime, comrades -that's the kind of devil I am. I told my works manager there was only one can of kerosene left in Russia, and that belonged to Lenin."
He went on to report that the Cheka hadn't yet managed to capture their mortal enemy, the veteran terrorist Artemyev. House searches were in progress day and night in Berdichev, Zhitomir, Ovruch and Kiev.
"They questioned Comrade Vera Zhedoeva, his partner in the attempt on General Prince Urussov's life seven years ago. She admitted going to Kiev to meet Artemyev, but he never turned up - he must have seen they were watching her. He is in Kiev, though, that's for sure. Someone spotted him in a suburban lodging house two days ago, but he'd gone by the time they came to arrest him. Well, they'll get their hands on him sooner or later."
"Why should they?" said the schoolmaster. "He doesn't go around with his identity written all over him."
"Yes he does," the engineer retorted. "It's easy enough to pick out a hawk in a flock of jackdaws. I saw Artemyev in
Moscow before the war, at the trial of the 'Seventeen'. I'd recognize him anywhere. One look at his face and you know at once who he is."
Conversation proceeded until the attorney, who was standing beside the window, gave a low cry.
"God Almighty!" he exclaimed. "What have they done with Bobronikov? They must have shot the poor fellow."
Pale as death, he pointed to a young man sauntering across the prison yard with a riding crop in his hand, spurs jingling.
"That's the governor's deputy, and he's wearing Bobroni-kov's fur coat and cap ..."
When evening came, the cell's population was swollen by eight peasants taken as hostages from villages in the neighbourhood, one of them an old man of eighty-two. It was no longer possible to lie full length, so the prisoners sat crowded together. "It's only for tonight, citizens," were the warder's parting words. "The governor says he'll attend to your comfort tomorrow."
The landowner, who had been ejected from his prison bed, sat swathed in a blanket near the door. No one had heard him utter a word in the previous days. He had awaited his end in silence, but now he began to speak in a sepulchral voice.
"The Starets, the great saint who lies buried at Tsarskoe Selo, has put a curse on us. There's no more sun in Russia now, no more light or life. Poison failed to lay him low and bullets failed to kill him, so they strangled him with their bare hands. In God's kingdom, where the righteous take their ease, he raised his voice in accusation against the land of Russia, and the Almighty hearkened unto him."
"Enough of your saint!" the schoolmaster snapped. "Rasputin was a fraud, everyone knows that - he led a disgraceful life. Besides, there isn't a God, there are only devils, and Russia's swarming with them."
The old tramp shook his head.
"You've studied books, Your Excellency, and you must be one of the wisest and best-educated men alive, but it can't be true that there isn't a God. There's a God all right, as sure as Christ is lord of us all, and I can prove it. Judge for yourself, Excellency. I'm walking along the highroad with eighty kopeks earned from a farmer for working in his fields. Then I see an inn. 'It's hot,' I say to myself. 'Go in and quench your thirst, but with tea, not strong drink.' However, the landlord brings out some homemade vodka and I leave the inn without a kopek to my name. 'Perdition take all inns and taverns,' I tell myself. 'Old Satan has bewitched me yet again, may I be thrashed for yielding to temptation!' And now, Your Excellency, listen to what happens next. I'm almost on the outskirts of town when two fellows come my way. They pick a quarrel with me and beat me with their sticks like a post-horse. Well, I got the thrashing I asked for, so who if not God heard me ask for it? There is a God, Your Excellency, you can see that yourself."
