Wave of Terror

by Theodore Odrach

  The interrogator examined some papers on his desk and appeared not to be listening. Without looking up, he started coldly on a line of questioning.

  “With whose money did you obtain your education in Vilno?”

  “My own. I worked as a laborer and paid my tuition from my wages.”

  “What about when you were in the gymnasium, whose money did you use?”

  “I completed my classes at the gymnasium by night, and by day I repaired houses and did odd jobs around town. Later it was the same with university.”

  There was a long pause as the interrogator thumbed through some files. He kept this up for several minutes. Kulik knew this was just another tactic intended to fray his nerves.

  “Did you belong to the Polish fascist organization, Legion of Youth?”

  “No organization ever interested me. I kept mostly to myself.”

  As he carefully recorded these answers in a notebook, the interrogator’s tone grew more menacing. “Did you belong to the Ukrainian National Student Movement in Vilno?”

  Kulik froze. He struggled with himself to find something to say. After a moment, he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. “A moment ago you asked if I belonged to the Polish Legion of Youth and now you ask if I belonged to some Ukrainian student movement. Asking me these questions, well, you might as well be mixing oil with fire.”

  “How so?” The interrogator didn’t seem to understand.

  “Well, first of all, there would have been no sense in starting a Ukrainian movement in Vilno, because, as you know, Vilno is a Lithuanian city and was under Polish occupation with a very limited Ukrainian population. Secondly, the Poles have always sought out and persecuted Ukrainians, and to support one of their organizations would be sheer treachery on my part.”

  The interrogator bent his head over his notebook. He was obviously ignorant of the goings-on in Vilno, especially between Ukrainians and Poles. But it did not take him long to fire more questions.

  “Can you give me a guarantee that when you were in Vilno you did not belong to a Ukrainian movement of any kind?”

  “The only guarantee I can give you is my word. I lived a very quiet and peaceful life. I was interested only in my studies.”

  “Did you keep company with other Ukrainian students?”

  “As I’ve already mentioned, there weren’t many of them. The few that were there were studying medicine or law or engineering, and because my major was in history, we weren’t in any of the same classes. So we didn’t get to know one another. I only knew several by name or in passing.”

  “Do you know what became of any of them?”

  “No.”

  “How did you come to live in Vilno? Did you move there with your parents?”

  “No, when I was a boy, at the age of nine, I had a few run-ins with the police, the Polish police, that is, and they sentenced me to a reform school, which happened to be in Vilno. That’s how I came to live there.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “They remained in the village. The police never told them where I was. I never saw my parents again until I was twenty.”

  The interrogator raised his eyebrows, and a thin smile strayed onto his lips. “So, in other words, you rebelled against Polish oppression, and from such an early age! And even after being sent to a reform school at the age of nine, you decided to earn your living and make something of yourself. Commendable, very commendable.” Then slapping his hand against his thigh, as if having just thought of it, “Hah! Why, your life almost sounds like the life of our great, most revered writer, Maxim Gorky!”

  Kulik, startled by the comparison, looked at his interrogator in astonishment. He said, “I suppose you could look at it that way. From a very early age, like Gorky, I had to overcome a harsh life and fight overwhelming odds.”

  The interrogator rose from behind his desk, and paced the room. Pausing to look the window, he asked without turning around, “Are you familiar with out Soviet literature?”

  Kulik was determined not to say too much; he thought this was the best course for someone in his position. But he could not resist the challenge. Literature was his forte, all literature, and in between his studies he had in fact taken a keen interest in Soviet writing. He started to mention all the names he could think of, taking care, however, not to let slip those who had fallen into political disfavor: Zoshchenko was the greatest satirist of all times; Mayakovsky was unparalleled as a poet, and his “Ode to Revolution” had great mass appeal; and Alexsei Tolstoy, with The Road to Calvary, was a true spokesman of his times.

  The interrogator stared at him, and asked curiously, “Where, may I ask, did you come to learn about these authors?”

  “Mostly in Vilno when I lived under Polish occupation. Some of them I read legally and others illegally.”

  The official walked back to his desk, and looked sternly at Kulik. Two hours of questioning had gotten him nowhere. Time was running out. His sole aim now was to discredit Kulik, break his spirit and produce a confession of some kind. He needed something, anything to take back to his superiors. He began another line of questioning: Why was Kulik promoting Ukrainian in his school? Did he belong to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists? Was he anti-Semitic? Why did he allow the incident involving the Jewish schoolteacher, Haya Fifkina, to get out of hand? Barely waiting for answers, he started in on Kulik’s personal life: How old was he? Who were his parents? How many siblings did he have?

  As Kulik answered question after question, he had a strong premonition of worse things to come. This was all just the beginning, a prologue to the drama. Before long he would be in the hands of more sophisticated interrogators, with more elaborate cross-examination methods, who would try to link him to some ludicrous crime and, without a scrap of real evidence, convict him. A cascade of lies would soon descend upon him and he would have to find a way to ward them off and stay on top of things. He needed to muster his moral strength and prove himself capable of enduring the impending physical and psychological torture.

  After several more hours of grilling, the interrogator reached for his notes, read them aloud, and told Kulik to sign them. When Kulik readily complied, the interrogator pressed a button on the wall beside his desk.

  Almost instantly the same guard appeared on the threshold, this time wearing a blue government overcoat, his shaved head covered by a black cap with a visor. From his insignia Kulik noticed he was a sergeant-major. As Kulik was escorted down the same flight of stairs they had come up, he indulged in a wild hope. “Maybe they’ll spare me. Maybe this guard with the holstered Nagant will show mercy and lead me into the courtyard, and out the gates.”

  They reached the landing, then the corridor, and there to the left was the door that led outside. Kulik felt his body being pulled in that direction as if by a magnet. With all his heart he had to believe he was about to be released. Then from behind him the stiff, harsh voice of the guard, “Keep moving! To your right!”

  In one flash all hope died, and he found himself being prodded into another wing of the building. It was completely empty, and except for the clicking of the guard’s boot heels against the hard concrete floor, there was silence. A few more steps and he came upon a double doorway guarded by a young sentinel armed with a rifle. The sentinel flung the door open, then snapping his fingers three times, signaled Kulik with his head to move forward. A steep narrow staircase shot straight downward, to the underground. Kulik descended, bracing himself to face the worst.

  “My time has finally come. It’s over.”

  At the bottom of the staircase, several paces to the right he was ordered to stop before a huge steel door. There was the grinding of a key, and the creaking of rusted hinges. He was pushed into a large, square room with a bare cement floor and slimy green walls, permeated with the stench of sweat and urine. The only light came from a tiny barred window.

  About a dozen men in tattered, dirty clothes, were huddled in a corner, staring vacantly before them.
Every few minutes the silence was broken by terrible fits of coughing. Kulik found his way to a narrow makeshift bench against the far wall and sat down. After a while, he began to feel the chill of the cold, damp air. As he shivered, he felt something warm and comforting fall around him. Someone had slipped a coarse prison blanket over his shoulders and had even tucked it in at the sides. When he looked up he saw one of the prisoners standing over him. The man pointed to the tiny window.

  “It’s probably a fine sunny day out there,” he said, “the kind that makes you want to jump into the Stryy River and go for a swim.”

  Kulik was struck by his strange accent, and his broken Ukrainian. He listened to him, trying to guess where he was from. The man said he had been in this cell for eight days. His eyes shifting from side to side, he leaned forward and whispered, “These men are afraid of me because I speak my mind. I’m not one to make propaganda speeches, no, I say what I feel. At first the prisoners thought I was an informer; as a matter of fact, some of them still do. But I’m no informer, no, not I. I am Aristotle Kasparidos, the Greek! I was born on the great Greek peninsula, where with a lot of hard work, I became a man of means. Ah, the Aegean and Ionian Seas, to bathe in them just once more!”

  Kulik listened in astonishment. A Greek? In a Soviet prison? “How on earth did you ever land here?”

  “A very good question, young man. I like people who are interested in the stories of others. We Greeks like to talk, we like to talk more than we like to listen. The southern temperament, it can’t be helped.”

  He said that he was a very shrewd businessman, “but hopeless when it comes to politics. And for this I paid a very high price. I’m a calculator, not a strategist. It all started a few years back when I was in London looking around to invest in wilderness property. I was urged by my colleagues to go to the Canadian embassy, but the Devil took me to the Polish one instead. And it was there that I found out about your Pinsk Marshes.”

  Kasparidos told about his life in painstaking detail, for nearly an hour. His story ended with the Bolshevik invasion. “One night the NKVD came and arrested me. And now here I am with no hope of ever getting out. They made me confess to some ridiculous charge. I’m not even sure what it was. Then they threw me into this cell.”

  He turned and walked away. He kept circling the cell, repeating his story, half to himself, half to the other men. He started with London, then the Polish embassy, how he met his wife, his villa in the Pinsk Marshes and finally, his arrest. He repeated himself again and again. The prisoners paid no attention; he might have been talking to the four walls.

  The long day was finally beginning to take its toll on Kulik. He slid to the floor from exhaustion. Fragments of thoughts and images floated through his mind. For the next hour or so he dozed off and on. Suddenly someone was kicking him in the back and tugging at his arm. A uniformed warder was standing over him, signaling for him to get up. Before he knew it he found himself outside the cell door being prodded up the same staircase he had come down hours before. He passed the first floor, the second, all the way to the top. Scarcely conscious of where he was, he stumbled down one corridor, then another, making his way more and more deeply into the belly of the prison.

  In the administrative wing, from behind one of the doors came a series of painful, despairing cries. Muffled noises followed, then more cries. Kulik fell into a state of panic; his nerves were completely frayed. The sound of someone being tortured was more than he could bear; it tore at his very core. He continued down the halls, barely able to move his feet.

  Finally they stopped at a door marked “Tarnovetsky, Major-General” in bold black letters. The warder gave several vigorous knocks and almost immediately a man of about fifty appeared, heavy-set, with dark blue eyes and a bulging forehead. He was dressed in full uniform with high leather boots and decorations on his chest. He summoned Kulik inside and ordered him to sit on a wooden stool opposite his desk. Kulik did as he was told; he was sure that this Major-General would finish him off in just a few minutes.

  Tarnovetsky put on his glasses and carefully scanned Kulik’s deposition papers. Shaking his head, making notes, he muttered under his breath. Kulik tried to prepare himself for a hopeless conflict. When finally Tarnovetsky began, Kulik was surprised that he did not initiate a sophisticated line of questioning, one that might trip him up and push him into corners from which he could not escape. Tarnovetsky proceeded to reel off routine questions almost identical to those Kulik had been asked that morning. What was his date of birth? Who were his parents? How many siblings did he have? Did he belong to any subversive organizations?

  Kulik dared to believe that his fate had not yet been sealed after all. He listened for what was to follow, holding his breath.

  Tarnovetsky rose and paced the room with his hands behind his back. “We’ve verified your social origin and naturally it’s to your advantage. We also know you spent five years in a reformatory for boys under Polish occupation and that later, without help from anyone, you earned a university degree in Vilno. I must admit, that’s all good, very good. But what concerns us is your anti-Soviet behavior. Yes, some serious accusations have been building against you. Our sources tell us you’ve been making unwise choices in direct conflict with the regime. To date, we’re aware of everything.” A crafty look came to his eye. “You’ll be happy to know we’re in the position of giving you another chance because we’re confident your behavior will improve and in time you’ll correct these mistakes. In short, we’re willing to overlook everything, for now.”

  Kulik was completely at a loss. The words for now spun around in his head. What did Tarnovetsky mean by them? Did he really intend to release him? Or did he intend to release him only to arrest him again, tomorrow or the day after ? Was he trying to further jangle his nerves, to wear him down completely? And where did this charge of anti-Soviet behavior come from, and how was he in conflict with the regime? The accusations against him were so vague that a part of him felt they were laughable. This could not really be happening. But it was really happening and it was happening to him. Tarnovetsky was tricking him, testing him, and he was sure that any minute now the Major General would abruptly change his mind and accuse him of some serious crime. His heart sank, and he knew he could not possibly hope to be released, never in a million years.

  Only the creaking of the floor broke the silence in the oppressive room. Several minutes went by: it must have been well past midnight. Almost in a feverish state, Kulik waited for Tarnovetsky to at last finish him off. But, incredibly, Tarnovetsky seemed to have another purpose. An unexpected glimmer came to his eye and his face softened; for a brief moment he seemed to betray a kind of humanity. Handing Kulik a cigarette, he said in a low voice, “In future, comrade, I don’t advise you to get into conflict with us. You’ll only lose.”

  Kulik swallowed hard. All this was pure madness; this last remark was meaningless. He knew he must not fall into their trap. Determined not to say the wrong thing, almost without being aware of what he was doing, he began spewing political platitudes:

  “There’s no reason why I should even think of getting into conflict with the regime. After all, I’m a citizen of the great Soviet Empire and my job as a teacher is to educate the young about our exciting new system and everything it has to offer. Glory to the October Revolution! Glory to Stalin!”

  Tarnovetsky applauded enthusiastically. “Very well said! Yes, you have a formidable job ahead of you. You must set a precedent for others and your behavior must be exemplary. A Soviet teacher has to be a model citizen. Socialism is the goal of all workers’ movements, and it will succeed only when we stand united and work toward the common goal. Long live the World Communist Revolution!”

  He walked back to sit down at his desk, opened a dossier on top of a stack of files and studied it intently.

  Kulik clenched his fists and kept very quiet for fear of irritating him. An endless stream of thoughts rushed at him: was his prosecutor going to come up with some w
ild accusation and charge him with it? Was he going to throw him back into the dungeon? Was he intending to finish him off right then and there? Tarnovetsky was behaving as if he had already made a decision. In a flash Kulik understood that there was a plan for him, a plan that had been in the works from the very beginning. It was just a matter of time before his nerves snapped.

  Tarnovetsky rose slowly from behind his desk. Incredibly, he closed the dossier and said, “I’m done with you for today. We’ll call upon you again soon. But you have nothing to worry about. When we do, it will be just a formality as it was today. You’re free to go.”

  Kulik sat, dumbstruck. The investigation was over. He was free to go. Free to go! He felt like a man condemned to death who was suddenly pardoned. Escorted down to the first floor, to the exit doors, he was handed several documents and some personal items. A uniformed official led him along the cobblestone courtyard to the main gate, where he unlocked it, and set him free, like a bird from a cage

  Stunned and bewildered, still trying to make sense of what had just happened, Kulik walked swiftly along the road, and then quickening his pace, broke into a run. His freedom was nothing short of a miracle.

  He made his way through the dark streets, past large stone houses, and a stretch of warehouses and factories. When at last he caught sight of the Roman Catholic church tower, he realized that he was just moments away from Market Square. He had to keep moving, running away from everything, and there was no time to lose. The NKVD had let him go just to hunt him down again. They might already be on his trail and moving in on him. He must get off the streets and out of sight as fast as possible. He decided the best place for him to go would be the Park of Culture and Rest. He ran for ten or fifteen minutes. At last, entering the park gates, within seconds he found himself lost in the depths of the park’s thick pine forest. Groping his way through the dark, he could hardly discern the objects around him. Twigs and dried leaves snapped and rustled beneath his feet, and every now and then he could see long black shadows with their random outlines stretching and disappearing into the emptiness. He listened for the sound of the river. Just at that moment came the whistling of an engine, then the clanking of chains. A freighter was sailing down the great Pina, probably on its way to Kiev or Dnepropetrovsk. And at that moment he made a decision. He would follow the river, then move along its tributary, Stryy, go south, in the direction of the Carpathian Mountains, then over the mountains, to the west. It would be a long journey, some five hundred kilometers, and it would be almost entirely on foot.