by James L. May
“Is there something I’m forgetting, Yakov Petrovich?”
“No,” said the old man. “Go on.”
When I’d finished, Terekhov said he was sorry to hear about my friend. “But I don’t know anything that might help you.”
Petrovich took over again after that. What about Terekhov’s sentence? Ten years, because of his taking up arms against the state. And his arrest? He’d turned himself in at one of the Cheka’s local offices in ’22, naïvely believing that the published terms of an amnesty for White partisans would be adhered to. The man’s suspicion and fear returned as he was asked questions about himself. His answers grew shorter and shorter.
It transpired that the position in the workshop had been acquired for him by military colleagues; he had no experience working stone. He admitted to being acquainted with three or four men whose names Petrovich read from a list he took from somewhere, but resisted saying anything about them. Petrovich didn’t push, only went on in the detached manner he’d adopted from the beginning. At last he said: “Fine. One more thing: there are rumors of an escape attempt being planned. Heard anything about that?”
Terekhov inhaled sharply. It surprised me, too. Admitting to knowledge of anything of the sort, even discussing it as a possibility, might be more than a zek’s life was worth. I could see the other man’s tongue working nervously where his teeth had been, behind his left cheek.
“No,” he said. “I’ve heard nothing of the sort. It would be a stupid idea. Nothing I’d want to be involved with or be told about.”
Petrovich fixed Terekhov with his gaze for another long moment, but I thought I caught him glancing at me out of the corner of an eye. “All right,” he said. “That will be all, Prisoner Terekhov. We’ll be in touch, if there are more questions.”
Outside, after the noise of alabaster being sawed and turned on the lathe, it was quiet. The air was no warmer than it had been when we went in.
The old man directed us south, towards the rendezvous with the Chekist. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Did you learn anything from that? What was that list?”
Petrovich didn’t answer immediately. “Tell me,” he said after a minute. The functionary-of-Infosec approach had apparently been left behind in the workshop, but he still didn’t sound quite normal. “Did that seem to you like a man who was nervous to be talking to us?”
I thought about it. “He was nervous,” I said. “But not more than I’d expect anyone to be, being interrogated about a murder.”
We went on a few more steps without Petrovich saying anything. Then he stopped. When I turned, his look shut my mouth—the same fixed blue stare as in the workshop.
“That man,” he said slowly, “was on a list of zeks Infosec is interested in in connection with this case. Our friend gave it to me yesterday.”
“That’s why you had to interview him before our meeting?”
Petrovich only said: “Can you think of any reason the Cheka should be so interested in him?”
“Can I?” I was surprised by the question. “No. No, I can’t say I understand it. Do you?”
Petrovich watched me for another moment. Then he shook his head and wrinkled his mustache, as if there were something caught in its hairs he wanted to be free of. “They don’t tell me everything. Only wondered whether you saw anything in it. But there’s no reason you should. No reason at all. Come on, let’s go see our boss.”
The interior of the Chekist’s cabin consisted of one bare room, with three shuttered windows and a chair in the middle of the floor. Not the sort of place a zek would usually be anxious to find himself. Two lamps gave yellow light, however, and the stove in the corner emitted welcome heat and the black smell of coal.
Petrovich had taken the chair. Standing behind him, I tried not to let the warmth make me drowsy.
“Gone well enough so far,” he was saying. “Only, the guards at Nikolski didn’t like us looking at their records. Their boss threatened to make trouble. Doesn’t want anyone bigger than him involved in his business. Maybe you can send word to tell them we’re not to be interfered with.”
The Chekist sat at a table along one side of the room, his leather jacket and cap hung over the back of his chair, a collection of notebooks and folders in a neat stack at his elbow. Beside those, three pens had been lined up in careful parallel, along with a bottle of ink. He had the same air of quiet menace as before—a boyish menace that made you picture punishments that involved trampling with soccer cleats.
“Perhaps,” he said. “First tell me how you’re progressing.”
Petrovich began with the examination of the body. The pattern of bruising and the lack of water in the lungs indicated the victim had been killed by a blow to the back of the head, then disposed of in the bay. This was old news, of course; the Chekist had been there. Still, both men seemed to regard it as the appropriate start to their review of evidence.
The old man continued. On the night of the killing, Antonov had left the kremlin at a quarter past five, showing the guards there a pass from the museum director, Nikolai Vinogradov. We’d gone to ask Vinogradov about it, only to be told he’d departed on an expedition earlier the same day. No one left at the museum knew why Antonov might have been given the pass.
“What do you mean, an expedition?” said the Chekist.
“Hell if I know,” said Petrovich. “They tried to explain. Some kind of stone circles out on Kostrihe. Apparently he’s an archeologist.”
“He’s camped there?”
“Evidently. It’s not so far as a straight shot, but with the roads as they are, I suppose he doesn’t feel he can be making the trip back and forth all the time. Better part of his day would be eaten up traveling.”
“Is Vinogradov one of your suspects?”
Petrovich made a face, considering it. “His leaving just before the murder is quite a coincidence. We need to talk to him.”
“Nogtev thinks he’s reliable. The museum gets special privileges.”
Nogtev was SLON’s administrative director, the Northern Camps of Special Significance’s highest authority. Petrovich didn’t flinch. “You think he’s not a good suspect?”
“The opposite. If he keeps secrets he shouldn’t, it would be interesting to know.”
The old man gave a judicious nod, then went on. Everything about Antonov’s work had seemed normal. The only irregularity involved a requisition order for icons—they were being broken up for planks. But we’d looked into it, and no one who’d been involved admitted to having seen Antonov since the collection. More pressingly, our search of Antonov’s desk had turned up a note that suggested he was involved in an affair of some kind. The old man explained what we’d done to track down the “V” of the note, and about the two women we’d discovered at the hospital.
“We need authorization from you if we’re going to look at their files.”
The Chekist had listened impassively to everything Petrovich said, making notes in shorthand. Now he put down his pen. “You haven’t mentioned the matter we discussed yesterday.” I thought his eyes flicked to me.
“I interviewed Nail Terekhov,” said Petrovich. As if correcting himself, he added, “We both went. He claimed not to know anything. There was no sign of the connections you wondered about. For now, I think the women are more promising.”
“Only Terekhov? What about the others on the list?”
“Been busy. Start of a new investigation. Takes time to lay out basic facts.”
“There’s no indication these women are connected to the killing. You should be following the leads I gave you.”
“Listen, I told you yesterday, my methods are different than yours. Otherwise what was the point of bringing me in? I have to learn what Antonov was involved in, what he was trying to hide. That’s how I work.”
“My organ works by taking vigilant action against threats,
Yakov Petrovich. I am not the only member who adopts this attitude—my superiors do as well. I am taking a risk, bringing you on board like this.”
“I understand that.”
“And do you understand that your authorization is temporary? After a week, you go back to KrimKab, Bogomolov back to wherever he came from. If I see no progress in your reports, I may not bear with you so long as that.”
“We’re making progress. These women are progress. The talk with Terekhov didn’t go anywhere, but I’ll keep on with your list. I’ll find out for you who the men on it may or may not be connected to. But if that’s all you wanted out of our arrangement, you might as well have started on your own investigation.”
The Chekist’s face darkened. “Perhaps I’ll do that still.”
That gave Petrovich a pause. He spent a moment chewing his mustache. “I tell you, if I learned anything from Terekhov, it’s that whatever you hoped I would find wasn’t there.”
“Even so.”
“Fine. You’ll do what you’re going to do, even if it gets you nothing. But if you want me to continue with my investigation, I need to see those women’s files.”
The Chekist tapped his pen slowly against the table top. In the stove, burning coal hissed. Finally, the younger man gestured for Petrovich to go ahead.
As Petrovich gave Veronika Fitneva and Varvara Grishkina’s names, the Chekist turned over a new page in his notebook to write them down. Thinking it would spare us another hostile audience later on, in a low voice I reminded the old man that we’d intended to look at Antonov’s file as well. “Remember?” I said. “We wondered whether the person who wrote that note might have been an acquaintance in Yaroslavl.”
The Chekist laid down his pen and stared. Meeting his eyes, I stifled a cough; where he’d hit me yesterday, my sternum still ached. Sweat prickled under the collar of my coat. The heat of the room, so welcome at first, had become stifling.
Petrovich said: “It’s true. We discussed seeing Antonov’s file.”
“You discussed it?”
“My eyes aren’t so good,” Petrovich explained. “Yesterday in the hospital went much faster with two to examine.”
There was another long pause.
“No,” said the Chekist finally. “The two women’s files. No others. Absolutely not Antonov’s. And I warn you not to try anything clever. If I hear you’ve even craned your neck to look at anything other than the two files listed here, it will go badly for you. Revoking your investigation authority will only be the first step.”
Having written the authorization, he handed it over without saying anything else. When we reached the door, however, he called us back.
“One more thing. Once you’ve read these files, leave a note for me at the Infosec offices describing your plans for the rest of the day. I want to be able to find you if I need you.”
Petrovich nodded stiffly, and we left.
It did not escape me that something about the conversation had been strange: the way their negotiations oscillated and changed trajectories suggested the existence of some hidden variable. But now that I come to it, I find it hard to recover exactly how much I guessed or feared. I did learn, in the end, what it was they were struggling over—learned it to my misfortune. Knowledge marks itself on my mind, writing over any memories of what I knew then.
Yet this is not the moment in my narrative to reveal what I know: it is a moment to withhold, to husband surprise and suspense. If I am to write the story I intend, I cannot emulate Chekhov’s honesty. And so I collude with the other two, Petrovich and the Chekist, keeping the secret from myself.
The main administration building brooded over the quay, a pedimented and dingy white slab. A hostel for pilgrims under the monks, now it was offices, with several rooms devoted to housing Infosec’s archives. Across from it was the Gleb Boky, which must have docked sometime during the night. The ship was for the most part white and dingy as well, but on its funnel had been painted a large red star.
Prisoners loading goods aboard the ship swarmed over the spot where the Chekist had shown me Antonov’s body. No trace remained. I wondered where they’d moved him.
“Who are the men on that list?” I asked as we climbed the stairs to the door. “Why is the Chekist so intent on your investigating them?”
Petrovich shook his head. “I don’t know myself. But he’s the one we report to. It will have to be done at some point.”
Inside, after showing our papers and being admitted to Infosec’s offices, we were directed to a room on the first floor. What might once have been a dining hall was now packed with racks of dossiers. Our note from the Chekist got us two thick files from the attendant at the desk. We were required to read them there, at a table set up under a lamp for the purpose.
Thanks to the pulpy, acidic cheapness of Soviet paper and the tendency of our adhesives to disintegrate, the dust you breathed in that room was made up of material assembled by the State against its prisoners. Given the relatively short period of their existence, the decay in SLON’s archives by 1926 was remarkable. The earliest files were nine years old at most, yet even the most damning accusations had commenced rubbing themselves to bits. Surveillance records had yellowed and faded, ideological mistakes were pulverized by the cardboard flaps of the dossiers containing them. The fug had a smell not unlike dry kasha, but unappetizing and headache-inspiring—largely mildew, I suppose. Powder filmed every surface, eddied visibly in the air.
At work in that brown, jaundiced light, we learned the following:
Varvara Grishkina had entered the Cheka’s official consciousness only at the moment of her arrest, when she attempted to sell a pair of sapphire earrings to a Polish jeweler’s factor (also arrested; he was the one who’d been under observation). Interrogation revealed her to be a minor member of the hereditary nobility, married to a count with an estate in Byelorussia. The two had lived separately for many years—in fact, he’d fled to Bulgaria in 1917, just before his lands were redistributed, and thence to Paris.
Grishkina had remained in Minsk. At first she continued to live in their townhouse. As her circumstances became more difficult, she’d moved with her lady’s maid into a succession of less dignified arrangements. She had evidently been supporting them both with regular sales of pre-Revolutionary luxury goods—things like the earrings.
The agents who’d arrested her and the maid were congratulated for apprehending rampant female speculators and looters of Russian heritage objects. Little else was to be expected from the socialist state’s class enemies.
That was in 1922. For several months after her arrest she’d been housed in a small remand prison outside of Moscow. At her trial she got five years. The first two of those she served in Lefortovo prison. Towards the end of 1924, she was transferred to Solovki, then a fairly new camp.
The note had referred to a package from V’s mother. The file said nothing about Grishkina’s parents, but Petrovich noted that she was forty-eight, just young enough to have a mother living who might send her something. There was little else in the file to suggest she could be connected with Antonov. Most of the material referred to her medical complaints; she’d fainted often during her initial round of interrogations, and her constitution did not seem to have improved since then. She’d had several hospitalizations before the most recent. Since 1925 she had been categorized as Class 2 Fit. Two months before her typhus infection, she’d been transferred to the camp laundry, and she worked there still.
By contrast with Grishkina, Veronika Fitneva, a Petersburg intellectual in her late twenties, had been under surveillance for some time before her arrest. Fitneva had been one of those irregular bohemians that our present regime, like the tsars’ before it, is pleased to accuse of decadence and antisocialism. Until 1924 she worked occasionally as a translator of unpopular French novels, sharing an apartment at the bad end of Garden Street with her broth
er, a young man burdened with similar literary tendencies. In 1924 he was arrested for being a parasite on society. After that she lived alone and cleaned other people’s houses.
What the file called her “counterrevolutionary cadre” was filled with poets and painters. It characterized the poetry as “puerile sexual drama,” but its language concerning the paintings was surprisingly knowledgeable. Most were “post-Suprematist efforts, elaborating a modern and general fourth-dimensionism.” I concluded that in this case the Cheka’s bohemian spy was a painter.
Fitneva had been arrested in November 1925, six months before me, on a charge of hooliganism. For a woman, this meant prostitution.
Here is one of socialism’s perversities: then, as now, our State could not be brought to admit that the exchange of sex for money might occur within its utopian borders. It refused to so much as acknowledge such a crime with an article in the criminal code. Thus its agents were denied one of the insults they might wish to use against state enemies. When they wished to dirty the characters of those they arrested, they had to resort to euphemisms.
This seemed clearly to be their motivation in Veronika’s case. Her dossier contained evidence of her having taken lovers, but there was no evidence of her having accepted a kopek from any of them.
After her arrest, the file’s cornucopia ceased to overflow. Formerly prodigal with implicating detail, the story her jailers told about her suddenly became thin and tenuous: from the various prisons where she’d lodged there came a series of pink intake slips and gray exit slips, followed by a pink with no matching gray. This memorialized her arrival on Solovetsky. At some point before she came to the island, a brief statement had been taken from an informer with whom she’d shared a cell: “Veronika Fitneva, a woman of loose morals, speaks callously of the Party and the project of her rehabilitation. She does not provide the names of associates.” There was a record of her assignment to a peat-cutting squad during her first months on Solovki, then a note of her removal from it in July, when she was hospitalized. Where she had been assigned upon her release from the hospital, the file did not say.
