The Anonymous Novel

by Alessandro Barbero

  The bus was empty.

  “When does it leave?”

  “In ten minutes,” the man confidently asserted without looking at the clock. Nazar went back out into the square with his suitcase and assessed the situation. There was no one close to the bus. No passengers, no baggage. With a sigh, he turned around and wandered back towards the station, hoping that in the meantime a taxi might turn up.

  And there his fortunes changed: a small man with a black moustache signalled to him from a distance and then hurried towards him.

  “Nazar Kallistratovich?”

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m the driver; come with me. You got here early!”

  The man led him through the parked cars. He was thin and wriggled through without a problem, but the judge with his suitcase had difficulty in following him. They finally came to a halt next to a black Volga. Its bodywork had been well polished and shone in the sunlight, and the car might have appeared just out of the factory, if it weren’t for the rear window which was badly cracked from a stone or perhaps a bullet, and held together with some sellotape.

  “Please get in!”

  Nazar’s suitcase ended up on the back seat, and the judge sat next to the driver, who switched on the engine, threw it into gear with a grinding sound and left the car park in reverse, perhaps at a slightly excessive speed, or so it seemed to Nazar.

  “I was about to take the bus,” the judge said, and the man looked at him with surprise.

  “It’s better not to. The buses are always full, and the drivers – well, words fail me! They don’t know how to drive, and they don’t care a damn what happens.”

  Nazar scrutinised the man. He was very young, cleanshaven and rather well dressed in jacket and tie, but he did not appear to be an educated person from the way he spoke, and he certainly wasn’t a Russian. Who knows, if you asked him, he might define himself as a Muslim. He would probably have lied to Nazar, who knew from a study carried out by the Institute of Sociology that the majority of people in such republics would declare themselves above all to be Muslims if asked to define their own identity. Not that this had anything to do with the observance of religious rites or perhaps even belief in God, but it was a stronger identity than the one certified by the red cover of a Soviet passport.

  Was this perhaps the reason why the driver addressed the passenger from Moscow with deference, it is true, but also a kind of resentment? Or perhaps he was offended because he hadn’t shaken his hand?

  “We haven’t introduced ourselves,” Nazar wanted to remedy the situation. “Lappa Nazar Kallistratovich.”

  “Kandayev Dzhafar Alyevich.”

  When the car in front suddenly slowed down, the driver first sounded the horn and only afterwards put his foot on the brake. The Volga skidded for an instant, as though some mechanism had not held, and then it slowed down just in time.

  “Look where you’re going, a fine fucking cuckold you turned out to be!” Kandayev snapped in fury, and then blasted the horn for an extended period. But when he put the gear back in first before setting off again, the clutch let out a suspicious sound.

  “I hope it’s not going to break down just now,” said the driver nervously.

  “I think it’s running wonderfully,” Nazar rejoined; it appeared that the driver had an overriding need to be reassured.

  “Oh, you never know,” said the other, and the clutch continued to complain every time he changed gear. The heat was oppressive and Nazar lowered the window, but exhaust gases invaded the car’s interior, forcing him to close it again.

  The traffic was chaotic; at the first significant crossroads, the traffic lights had restricted themselves to continuously and rather sorrowfully flashing the amber light, so they were imprisoned there for about ten minutes before they eventually got across. The traffic warden’s glass booth was empty and just next to it on the pavement, there were two soldiers with Kalashnikovs at their shoulders, but of course they were doing nothing to ease the flow of traffic; they were there for very different reasons. While he was waiting, Nazar had the opportunity to observe the soldier closer to him: he was wearing a camouflage jacket and a shirt with an open collar to reveal the naval vest with white and light blue stripes, but above that bellicose attire was the round and shorn head of a large, lumbering youth from Penza or Saratov. On seeing such a familiar and typically Russian face, Nazar quite absurdly felt reassured. Even without taking into account all the arguments he had heard on the train, the innumerable black moustaches he had encountered in the last hour had started, for some peculiar reason, to make him feel uneasy. In that moment, an old man of olive complexion and in shirtsleeves passed in front of the soldier: he was short and bowed with age, so he barely reached up to the soldier’s chest. His cheekbones protruded from his grey beard. On his head he wore an embroidered prayer cap.

  He did not lift his eyes to look at the soldier with his machine gun and, who knows why, Nazar did not feel that the old man found that Russian presence equally reassuring.

  Why would he indeed, Nazar thought with bewilderment, how many kilometres are there from here to Saratov?

  Then he pulled himself together: what are you thinking of?

  Saratov or anywhere else, are we not here too in the Soviet Union?

  God willing, they had passed the crossroads, and they continued without further problems for about three or four hundred metres, but then had to come to an abrupt halt once more. The road crossed a tree-lined avenue, whose plane-trees were already covered with leaves, and there the judge saw a traffic policeman standing next to his motorbike and waving his arms about in the midst of a sea of cars.

  Kandayev braked at the last moment: a column of armoured vehicles with their headlights on under the blinding midday sun was working its way towards them up the road opposite. The military hardware crossed the avenue slowly and then turned to the left into its interminable lines of plane-trees that stretched until they lost themselves on the slopes of the hills. Lappa counted six of the vehicles, all identical and all with conspicuous red stars on their metal plate surfaces. Once they had passed, the policeman mounted his bike and was off, and the crossroads returned to the chaos of motor cars attempting to proceed in all directions while their drivers sounded their horns to little effect. On the other side of the avenue above the branches of the plane-trees, Marx, Engels and Lenin looked down with vexed expressions from an immense scarlet poster that covered the whole of a building’s first floor. “Marx … The Revolu … Internat …” was all that Nazar could read, as the driver triumphantly pushed down on the accelerator and shot over the crossroads, miraculously avoiding a collision with a Lada.

  “Right, so where do we want to go?” Kandayev enquired cheerily, as he increased the speed to a disturbing level.

  But what a question, thought Nazar. Take me wherever you’re meant to!

  “Because,” the other continued, “it’ll take no time to go for a swim. The beach is just down there. There are kebabs to die for! My brother-in-law has a beach hut, and he cooks them himself on his barbecue.”

  The judge was perhaps tired from his journey and drained of all energy by the unexpected heat. He seemed to be lurching from one surprise to the next. So that’s how it goes! he marvelled to himself. Without wanting to, he could already see himself wallowing in the water, tasting the meat and shaking the brother-in-law’s hand…

  “It would be better to go to the hotel,” he said as he recovered his composure. “And then, the Prosecutor’s Office would be a good idea. But first to the hotel to leave the suitcase. Besides, I haven’t brought my swimming costume.”

  “Oh, that’s hardly a problem. They rent them out,”

  Kandayev hurriedly reassured him.

  “All the same, I would prefer the hotel,” Nazar reiterated.

  The other man shrugged his shoulders, “As you wish.

  You’re the boss.”

  He’s made me feel guilty, thought Lappa; it’s as though I’ve offended him
, but there’s nothing I can do… What people! Let’s hope they’re not all like this!

  “Tell me,” he tried to get some information, “how long will this take?”

  “Oh, five minutes,” the driver reassured him.

  Once more they were stationary, the car-horn concert was deafening, and there wasn’t a policeman to be seen.

  Nazar was learning and told himself that those five minutes would mean a quarter of an hour, or perhaps even half an hour, who knows (in fact they would take forty minutes). He closed his eyes to avoid conversation, and to while away the time, he tried to go over everything he knew about the murder of Ayatollah Pashayev in his mind. But they knew more or less nothing… That had been the objection he had raised with his immediate superior, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Stepankov, when the latter had summoned him in order to assign him the investigation: Many thanks! They cut his throat and left him to bleed to death in the street. Not that it would have taken long – no more than three or four minutes with a deep gash like that. There is only one official theory, on which the current investigations are based, and it is not even questioned in the light of recent events. And that theory is that it was an Armenian vendetta. Well if that’s the case, Nazar had said with surprise, they should be able to catch them by themselves. Why do we have to go down there and make ourselves enemies? Because we all know how happy they will be at the Prosecutor’s Office in Baku to see a federal judge appearing in the city to take an investigation off their hands. But on seeing the sombre expression on the Deputy Chief Prosecutor’s face, Nazar understood that there was a great deal more to this whole affair.

  “Let’s be absolutely frank, Nazar Kallistratovich,” Stepankov started to explain, “we have some doubts about the investigation being carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office in Baku. Down there the situation is highly volatile, and we must not expose ourselves to any criticisms. On the other hand, they are arresting people at the drop of a hat, but they’re only arresting Armenians… You can imagine what would happen if the people of Baku were persuaded that the Armenians really had murdered the ayatollah. For Christ’s sake, I’m not saying that you should go there to prove that it was somebody else, but we have to set up an investigation.

  That much is perfectly clear. We have to be careful of provocations, as we cannot allow another Sumgait, particularly in Baku, where there are two hundred thousand Armenians.”

  Nazar removed his glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief. “Don’t you think,” he said calmly, “that before leaving, I should know a little more about what going on down there? Because I only know what they tell us on the television and print in the newspapers.”

  Stepankov shrugged. “The things that are going on down there… At the moment absolutely nothing is happening because, as you know, there is a curfew.” (Nazar Kallistratovich would remind himself of that, as he contemplated the city’s traffic through the car window: in the distance, a minaret stood out against the blue sky; well of course, and Nadya Stepanovna? “They’re beating people up,” the little woman had said, “it’s frightening!” – but Stepankov was sure: nothing was happening… What bullshit!) “But three months ago,” the Deputy Chief Prosecutor continued while he opened his briefcase, “all hell was let loose.”

  And as though to demonstrate the trust he put in Nazar, he opened a file and showed it to his junior colleague. It was a typewritten report rubber-stamped on each page with the words TOP SECRET.

  “Here you are,” he said. “Clearly I cannot give you a copy, but you are authorised to read it now.” It was the file on the secret investigation into the Sumgait incidents carried out on orders from the Politburo, the same incidents that the press and the television had considered to be the work of a small group of hooligans. In fact, these incidents “had caused a small number of deaths as the result of a deplorable failure of the troops to take action promptly” (Tass). The report included a transcription of witness statements made to the investigators in the days that followed. Nazar read for more than an hour, occasionally looking up at Stepankov …

  KONSTANTIN PKHAKADZE, 31 YEARS, ELECTRICIAN AT THE SUPERPHOSPHATES FACTORY

  … As early as 21 February they had told me in the factory that there would be a large demonstration against the Armenians. I thought it was a joke. Of course, I knew about the Karabakh business. But I didn’t think for a minute that something would happen to the Armenians in Sumgait. In any event, I felt certain that the police and the authorities would guarantee order. I have been a non-commissioned officer in the Soviet Army and I served for three years in Hungary. I was therefore sure that they would look after our security, just as I had done when I was a soldier. Then when I was going home from the factory on the 26th, I encountered forty or fifty people shouting in Lenin Square in front of a platform. They had installed microphones on the platform – but who had installed them? It must have been the authorities; no one else has any microphones. I have a good comprehension of Azeri, as I was born in Sumgait, and I heard the crowd shouting: Karabakh! Karabakh! Hands off Karabakh! Meanwhile more people had arrived, and there must have been more than a hundred of them. A tall, thin man with very pronounced high cheekbones, a goatee and a moustache climbed up onto the platform. He wore a leather cloak and a fur shapka – an expensive one. He started to shout, “My brother Muslims, I have just come from Ghapan where the Armenians have cut the throats of my brother-in-law, my father-in-law, my mother and many of my friends and relations,” and so on in that fashion. In Ghapan, he said, the Armenians broke into a female dormitory, raped all the Azeri girls and cut off their breasts. I didn’t believe a word of it, because these sorts of things are done by fanatical Muslims who want to punish prostitutes. But it did concern me, because although I am a Georgian, my wife is Armenian…

  BARMEN BEDIAN, 53 YEARS, CARPENTER

  … I had been admitted to hospital. That Saturday, I saw them from the window – they were setting fire to some cars. It was about five o’clock or half past five, and the streets were packed with the crowd and the banners and flags. The people were shouting, “Down with the Armenians”, and throwing stones at all the cars, even the buses and trolleybuses. You could hear very clearly what they were saying, “Armenians go home! Kill them all!” A heavily built man of medium height and dressed in black was marching at the head of the crowd. He was stirring them up, “Come on, shout ‘Hurrah’! Drive away the Armenians! Exterminate them!” There were at least twenty or thirty thousand people on the road between 45th Street and Lenin Street. Then everything seemed to calm down. I went back to the ward and said, “The demonstration must be over.” But the people in the beds next to mine were Azeris and they replied, “You haven’t seen anything yet. You should see what comes next!” I asked, “What comes next?” “They’ll kill all the Armenians.” I could not believe it. “And why would they do that?” I said, and then from the window, I saw that they had grabbed hold of an Armenian, but the guy managed to escape and ran for his life. Then one of my fellow patients said, “It doesn’t matter. In any event, he has only one more day to live. Tomorrow they’ll dispatch him from this world.” Another Azeri added, “Today they will attack all the Armenians in the street and they’ll burn all their cars, and tomorrow they’ll go to kill them in their homes and burn everything.” I asked him, “But how do you know this?” He replied, “I can’t tell you that, but I know what I’m talking about.” …

  ROMAN GAMBARIAN, 32 YEARS, MASTER BUILDER

  … We saw a boy running away from the crowd close to the bus station. He fell and before he could get back to his feet, they were kicking him like a football. Then I recognised him; it was Vaghif, a friend of my brother-in-law. That evening my brotherinlaw went to see him at his home; fortunately he was still alive. My brother-in-law came home crying and said, “I cannot believe that such a thing could happen in the Soviet Union. They beat him so badly, he can hardly breathe.” In the meantime, I went towards my mother’s house to check that nothing had happened, as she lives
close to the bus station. That’s where I saw the crowd rushing the blue and white police van, which had just arrived, probably from Baku. When the crowd came close, the police ran off towards the train that was standing on the other side of the station. They ran off! Just think of that! I could not believe my eyes: the Soviet police running away from the mob! The hooligans went up to the van and broke its windows. They climbed on its roof, shouting as they did so, and then tried to tip it over. In the meantime, the policemen stayed close to the train and witnessed the entire scene…

  IRINA SARKISSIAN, 17 YEARS, SECONDARY-SCHOOL STUDENT

  … In my hospital ward, there was a girl from Baku, a fifth-year student at the Teachers Training Institute. That day she was travelling by coach to Baku to collect some documents. Some of these thugs stopped the coach and went on board. They looked at the passengers and said, “That girl there is Armenian.” The man sitting next to her asked, “Are you frightened?” and she said she was. So he tried to protect her as best he could, but those bastards came up, took her school book and read her name: Alvida Shabazian. They dragged her out of the bus and started to beat her, and she suffered concussion. They wanted to burn her and even sprinkled petrol over her. They also wanted to burn my cousin Aida. As they didn’t have any more petrol, they tried with alcohol, but they failed to ignite it. As for my cousin Karina, she is only still alive because of another tragedy. She’s been left with a large scar running from one side of her stomach to the other. She survived because they burnt Artur, one of our neighbours. They placed him on Samuel’s motorbike and then set it alight. Then they all ran over to see what a burning man looks like. How can they claim to be men and enjoy such a sight? They’re animals, sadists! Worse than the fascists! And while they were looking, Karina was able to make her escape…

  LYUDMILA MURADIAN, 61 YEARS, DOCTOR

  … Gugasian asked me to assist him in drawing up a list of the victims, deaths, missing people, etc. We made six or seven lists. I dealt with the dead people. All the documents were handed over to Vezirov, the Party’s First Secretary. I don’t remember how many names there were on the list of fatalities, but I can still see Gugasian coming back from the hospital, prey to a terrible and uncontrollable anger. Stuttering with rage, he told me, “The savages, the criminals! You’ll never believe it: they’re claiming that they’ve lost the list of those who died. Demichev, a Politburo member, has just arrived from Moscow, and they were supposed to hand it over so that he could have an idea of the seriousness of those events. And they claim that they’ve lost it!”