Therefore when the faintest tap came on the door now, Art knew that it could not be a neighbour come to beg a quarter-loaf of black bread. As Irena sometimes joked, the only people still working at this hour were translators, prostitutes, thieves and the Secret Police. Art listened for a moment but no second knock came as if the visitor was confident that Art was merely stalling. The tap was gentle but Art knew that others in the building had heard it too. People slept as lightly as dogs, listening out for this sound they dreaded most. Last month a Finnish translator had joked about a woman answering a late-night knock only to be reassured by her neighbour: ‘No need to panic, comrade, the building is merely on fire.’ Two mornings later his colleagues discovered red seals across the door of the Finn’s room in the Hotel Lux.
The knock had been too light to wake Irena or the child who were both exhausted. Art stared at them sleeping peaceably for a second longer, then deliberately placed the Brecht proofs down where Irena would find them. He opened the door a fraction. Georgi Polevoy – the thickset policeman now working for the NKVD into which the OGPU had been subordinated – stood there. The NKVD officer looked grave and Art wondered which former colleagues in Progress House had falsely denounced him. Perhaps it was the speed of events but Art felt no sense of terror. Instead there was a curious relief as if he had been long awaiting this moment when his loyalty was finally challenged. Nobody could have estimated the number of wreckers and saboteurs unleashed by Imperialist governments upon the Soviet Union in the guise of alleged volunteers but Art’s conscience was clear and he knew he could logically refute any allegations about him. Georgi glanced past Art at the sleeping figures, then placed one finger to his lips, beckoning him out onto the bare landing.
‘No point in waking them,’ he whispered. ‘Take a coat. You won’t need anything else. This won’t take long.’
Art reached for his coat behind the door. He did not look back because that would be to admit the possibility of never seeing his family again. Brendan had once been taken away and Brendan had come back. Maybe Brendan was in Moscow and Art was being taken to meet him.
He closed the door quietly and walked down onto the next landing where the NKVD officer waited.
‘Best to let the child sleep,’ Georgi said. ‘They need their sleep. I know. I am a father three times over, though my wife thinks it is only twice.’ He gave a self-deprecating shrug. ‘Mistakes occur in life. You understand.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Follow me.’
The man gave no further explanation and Art knew not to seek one. The car parked outside had its lights off and another NKVD officer at the wheel. Georgi opened the door for Art to squeeze in beside a man and woman in the back seat, then got into the passenger seat and instructed his colleague to drive on. It was dark in the car but Art knew that he was seated beside two criminals. The woman in her fifties must have been snatched from bed because she wore only a nightgown. She was shaking but the man was utterly still. The blood on his forehead looked black in this light. The man’s breath was unnaturally loud, as if running a marathon. Maybe it was being forced to sit beside them, but as they sped through the deserted streets Art found that he was shaking as if guilty too.
The car turned into Lubyanka Square, past the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky who had established the first soviet secret police. The woman in the nightdress suddenly spoke as they drove through the gates of Lubyanka Prison which closed behind them. ‘Comrades, I demand to know what I am charged with. Why are you arresting me?’
Neither officer bothered to reply as the car stopped and a group of warders emerged from a doorway to haul the two captives inside, ignoring the woman’s increasingly hysterical protestations. Art expected to be told to join them but Georgi indicated to the remaining warders that he was to be left alone for now. The other officer followed the prisoners inside, leaving the two men sitting in the car alone in the floodlit quadrangle.
‘Always the same question: why, why, why,’ Georgi said, incredulously. ‘If people did not know why they were being arrested then they would not be brought here.’ From somewhere within the building an inhuman scream reminded Art of a badger in a snare. Georgi shook his head. ‘Sometimes I am shocked by their depth of self-delusion. They must know that in the end they are bound to confess.’
‘Why have you brought me here?’ Art asked.
The NKVD officer sighed. ‘It saddens me, Goold, to hear even a man of your intelligence engage in this same pathetic why business as an ignorant kulak. You claim to be a loyal comrade, so think why. We have all night.’
Harsh light came on in a bare room. Through the window Art saw the woman being stripped of her nightgown and bent over to receive a crude gynaecological search. Ordering her to stand back up, the female warden forced open her mouth with the same hand, examining her teeth like a horse trader at a Donegal fair. Georgi Polevoy quietly observed his reaction.
‘Even when the girls are attractive, comrade, this is not a pretty sight. You grow tired of the endless names and bodies and faces of the enemies of socialism. These are dangerous times, with so many saboteurs disrupting the Five-Year Plan. The trials you read about in Pravda are only the barest fraction of those we are forced to arrest.’
Art had followed each state trial carefully in Pravda, sickened by how traitors who had wormed their way into senior party posts kept publicly defying Stalin’s authority by bleating about their innocence. Having been allowed to put her nightdress back on, the woman was taken out to be photographed. The man was brought into the room and Art watched the same procedure begin. It seemed a long way from cosy nights with Mr Ffrench discussing The Communist Manifesto. Still, this was the distance between vague theory and cold application. Only so much could be built with words alone. But equal pain would be involved in putting into practice the words that Jesus Christ was crucified for. Several times in the Soviet Union, Art’s faith had been tested and this seemed like another test, with Georgi Polevoy playing Lucifer by tempting him into feeling pity for those who betrayed their fellow workers. Georgi was waiting for Art to speak.
‘I stand with Brecht,’ Art declared. ‘The more innocent they claim to be, the more they deserve to die.’
‘How could they be innocent?’ Georgi asked. ‘Anyone arrested and brought into Lubyanka has to be guilty. To release someone whom we arrested would result in our judgement being queried. It would lower morale among the public who depend on us to protect them from traitors. Once people enter these gates then only those of them who seek to damage the prestige of the NKVD wish to leave and that in itself is a crime.’
‘So what am I guilty of?’
‘You tell me, comrade. You are the one who mentioned guilt. What do you confess to?’
‘I have nothing to confess to. I’ve done nothing.’
‘Is that in itself not a crime? To have done nothing? The Soviet Union is infested with spies, yet you have done nothing. In all your time here how many wreckers have you denounced? Your file shows, comrade, that you have not given up one person to the police. Surely you must have seen workers disrupt morale by arriving late or claiming that a production target is unobtainable? Have you deliberately closed your eyes against traitors, selfishly cocooned in your own world? Has your wife or neighbours never made an anti-Soviet remark? How can you claim to be a good citizen when the labour camps are crying out for people to be re-educated? It is every citizen’s duty to root out this scum of parasites, yet you have done nothing. Do you still plead not guilty?’
Art lit a cigarette from the packet that Georgi proffered. His fingers shook and he tried not to think of Irena and the baby who would have woken by now. ‘I came here to help build socialism in the Soviet Union. I came to serve. If I can serve socialism better by pleading guilty, then tell me my exact crimes and I will sign my confession.’
Georgi tut-tutted softly. ‘Comrade, do you think I have time to find crimes for every person who passes through here? Have people not got a responsibility for the
ir own crimes? Sometimes it takes them just a few moments, other times it takes days, but people always find something to confess to once they leave this car and enter those doors.’ He pulled on his cigarette. ‘That is why you are still sitting out here. I can arrest you for a dozen things if you wish to step outside the car. However you still have a choice and so do I. But things change so quickly that soon the choice will be out of my hands. You were born into a despised class of parasites which left you with no useful skill. If you were an engineer or technician you would have been arrested long ago as the need arose. All you can offer as a prisoner is crude strength and we have sufficient kulaks for that. If you wish to serve the Soviet Union then I am willing to give you one last chance.’
‘To do what?’
‘Go home.’
‘To my wife and…’
‘To Ireland. You will be more useful there.’
‘But my family…my whole life is here.’
‘Do you love your wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why continue to contaminate her with your foreignness? When you are arrested your wife will have to be charged too. Think of that. When the imperialists invaded America they killed the natives with smallpox brewing in the folds of blankets. The imperialists are trying to do likewise with us, only they are sending their viruses inside people. It was a mistake to let a single foreigner in. A few like you are good comrades but most are Jews whom the imperialists are keen to get rid of, knowing that they will work their mischief here. Within a year there won’t be a foreigner left to spread discontent and counter-revolution in Moscow. Unless you leave now you will have to be arrested, along with your wife and all her family. I am giving you this chance, Goold, because I like your brother, although even he has repeatedly denounced you.’
‘Brendan would never denounce me.’ Art paused, suddenly unsure of everything as he watched the naked man through the window being casually beaten by warders. ‘What did Brendan say about me?’
‘All his life he has been jealous of you and all you stand to inherit. You must stay away from your brother in London, have no contact with him. Forget he ever existed and I will forget everything that he told me. You must think only of yourself. If you step outside the car into this prison yard there is nothing I can do to save you. Yet I am willing to give you this last chance, so why won’t you give your wife one?’
‘Can I take her with me? I love her. I can go nowhere without her and the child.’
‘It’s a funny kind of love to sign another person’s death warrant. Are you denouncing her?’
‘She has done nothing.’
‘That is a start, the same crime you’ve admitted to. She also married a foreigner, for which under the new law she can serve ten years. Furthermore your brother has already denounced her too. However if you disappear then such things may be overlooked. If not…?’ Georgi shrugged. ‘They may let her keep the child with her in prison. Then again, they may not.’
‘Can I at least explain this to her?’
‘She will understand. She understands reality far better than you.’
‘What will happen to her?’
Georgi stubbed out his cigarette and glanced around as if frightened of being overheard. He gave Art a disconcertingly honest look. ‘Comrade, I no longer know what will happen to me or to any of us. Have you no idea of the great favour I am doing you? When you reach Ireland apply for her and the child to follow. Perhaps in time, based on your performance, you can apply to return here. Your file will remain open.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that the NKVD will be watching to see how genuine your efforts are. I have studied Ireland and it puzzles me deeply, comrade. What was the point in having a revolution where absolutely nothing changes? Why did the proletariat not rise again when they saw how little was achieved? Petty bourgeois nationalism is a rust clogging the wheels of change. Our party in Ireland is small and fragmented. We have reports of renegade members attempting to find common cause with allegedly progressive elements of Republicanism, but such compromises can only lead to bastardised deviant thinking. It is important for us to have one man who will stand firm against any dilution of Comrade Stalin’s right to control party policy and to ensure no deviation from the goal of a single clear voice speaking for communism and revolution worldwide. We depend on you to educate Irish comrades seduced by petty nationalism. You will be Stalin’s rock.’
Any vulnerability was gone from Georgi’s face. The prison gates opened and a van entered from Lubyanka Square. Warders emerged to seize hold of more prisoners and shove them forward, oblivious to their protests. These deviants were going to be re-educated, to work as heroically as the prisoners who carved the White Sea Canal out of rocks with their bare hands. If a few perished, at least they would do so under a Soviet sky. Art might have stepped from the car to join them if he was unmarried. But he had a family to consider, even if Irena or the boy might never know what happened to him. In Ireland he would be Stalin’s rock. He would be a foot soldier, a missionary, John the Baptist paving the way among infidels and foreigners. He looked at Georgi who took an envelope from his pocket.
‘I’ll drive you to the station,’ the NKVD officer said. ‘In a day or two you will be in Finland. Along with your ticket here are four letters written by your father over the last year, describing the property in Ireland you still cling to. I have removed them from your file at great personal risk so they cannot be used against you.’
Art opened the envelope and removed the letters, which had been opened and officially stamped as evidence. It was hard to read Father’s writing in the car, but on the back of one envelope was a quotation from Walt Whitman:
Of Life, immense in passion, pulse and power –
Ocean of leaves of grass…
He could hear Father’s voice as he read the lines and saw his family gathered on the stone jetty that Eva had once christened Paradise Pier when he was a boy. He closed his eyes to let the image become drenched in the colours of Donegal Bay. Another scream came from within the prison. Art opened his eyes.
‘Look happy,’ Georgi said. ‘You are going home.’
Art stared at him. ‘Where are you from? Will you ever be able to go home?’
The NKVD officer started the engine, revving it angrily until the gates were opened. Ignoring Art, he drove recklessly, immersed in his private thoughts. Getting out at the train station Art asked if Brendan had really denounced him and why he could not seek out and confront his brother, but Georgi Polevoy simply ignored him and drove off. Art knew that the next suspect Georgi picked up would pay the price for his careless remark. An hour’s walk would bring Art back to the room where Irena would be pacing now, frantic with worry as she held the child. There might be time to say goodbye and catch a later train. But Art could not be sure if any of the figures outside the station had been posted there to watch him or if neighbours were primed to make charges against his wife and child if he reappeared on the landing. The ticket would get him as far as Finland. From there he would have to find the money. How could Brendan have done this to him? Taking a last glance back at the Moscow streets, Art walked into the station and turned his face towards Ireland.
PART TWO
1936
NINETEEN
Hunting and Shooting
Mayo, 1936
All her life Eva had loved nature – the billowing gales sweeping in to batter the Donegal coastline during her childhood, walking alone for hours feeling the exhilaration of winter storms where she had felt in danger of being washed away. So why did the wind oppress her now, whistling through the densely planted woodland which besieged her matrimonial home? Its inland whine increased her sense of being trapped on the cusp of her thirty-fifth birthday, running this sporting guesthouse with two small children and a husband from whom she seemed gradually more estranged.
Unable to sleep, Eva shifted in her makeshift bed in the damp basement of Glanmire House, a bed she had made for
herself that was so different from any life imagined in childhood. Sometimes she recalled her dreams of art galleries clamouring for her paintings and hilltop retreats overgrown with scented verbena where she could sketch late into the evenings, content with the company of pets. It was years since she last held a pencil for any reason except to scribble down the lists perpetually running through her head. Provisions to order, bills to try and pay, bookings to confirm by post for what few guests they could attract.
She slept naked tonight, an occasional childhood habit reverted to when Freddie was away. It was a bohemian impulse he would mistrust, another glimpse into the unorthodox character of her family. Freddie believed that only strumpets slept naked. Wives acquiesced to having their nightgowns rolled up for a surprisingly few brief thrusts, then lay awake while their husbands crumpled up asleep as though shot.
Two days ago Freddie had left for Dublin – ostensibly to attend the Freemasons and try to drum up business by letting any sporting types know about the excellent rough shooting on the nearby bogs. But Eva knew that it was also an excuse to drink more of the money they did not possess. His eyes would be bloodshot when he walked from Castlebar Station to the Imperial Hotel tomorrow afternoon for a last whiskey before retrieving his car parked on the Mall. But this was the price of married life and her lot was not bad compared to others she knew.
The two children had not drawn Freddie and her closer as she once imagined. Francis’s softness confused Freddie and sometimes Eva wished that their daughter, Hazel, had been born a boy for his sake. Hazel was stubborn, even in her prolonged birth in a Dublin nursing home in 1929 with the world’s stock markets collapsing. Looking into her daughter’s face when the nurse held out Hazel, Eva had sensed that here was a true Fitzgerald.
The Family on Paradise Pier Page 20
