The Anonymous Novel

by Alessandro Barbero

  (These index cards clearly could not be bought in the shops: one day a neighbour who worked in a printer’s had given Tanya four shoeboxes full of them. She still kept them under her bed, and she hadn’t even finished the first shoebox: she had calculated that they would last her for her whole life).

  Two piles of cards were now also growing in front of Tanya on the table made of cheap wood, whose varnish had almost entirely disappeared: on this side the ones who had stood in front of a table and were dead, and on that side the ones who possibly were still alive and had sat behind a table, their backs resting comfortably against the chair and a pistol in a holster attached to their belts. The holders of the yellow cards, shall we call them, were entirely unknown to Tanya, but she was soon recognising a few names that were coming up more regularly. One, in particular, was continually turning up and very soon became sinisterly familiar: Alyev, G.A. It would seem that he had signed the majority of the interrogations; this officer in the Cheka had been working hard, and who knows if his superiors had noted his zeal. Suddenly Tanya realised that there was good reason for that surname to appear familiar; even the initials of forename and patronymic, she thought with a shudder, are the same as those of our Alyev, I mean the Politburo member, who is in fact called Geydar Alyevich. And everyone knows that he comes from a KGB background. Right, everyone knows, but all the same, I’m telling you, it made her shudder to find in her hands the transcripts of interrogations typed on very poor quality paper with ink that tended to fade, and read at the bottom again and again that same signature (an illegible flourish, to tell the truth, but always punctiliously transcribed in brackets by the typists, God bless them), while knowing that the same man who had signed them now sat amongst the powerful of the Kremlin.

  So when Svetlana Aleksandrovna came down in person to inform her that they were about to close the archive and assure her that tomorrow she would find all the material on the table, her first impulse was to close it all up and cover it with her arms so that no one could notice what was inside – or the names that were coming out of that box. She restrained herself with great difficulty, and just as well – the other woman might have become suspicious! But then perhaps she did anyway, and to no small degree. The panic in Tanya’s eyes and the maternal embrace of her papers – to protect them from what danger exactly? – must have been the cause of everything that followed.

  The next day when Tanya entered the restroom in the basement, she discovered that there was someone else sitting at her table: a woman, little more than a teenager, intent, it appeared, upon copying statistics from a pile of black books. She was a chubby blonde with long, straight hair, and was chewing gum. When Tanya came down the last step of the narrow creaking stairs, she raised her eyes and smiled. She’ll be a technician, thought Tanya, or perhaps an engineer. They say that here they sell degrees and not under the counter but quite openly. Those responsible are the professors themselves or even the institute directors: Would you like a degree? Please take one, only ten thousand… To avoid appearing churlish, she returned the smile and sat at her place. Who knows why, came the pang of irritation, this woman had to sit at my table; she must have seen that there was already someone here, and over there she would have had all the space in the world. There was an unopened box in front of her, number 31; 32 had been returned to its cabinet, and she had not even signed the form showing that she had consulted it.

  There is no record anywhere that I ever saw it – and this realisation comforted her, given what she had found in it.

  But another surprise awaited her that morning, because once she had untied the ribbons that held the box file together she did not find the disorderly jumble of papers in its dusty shell she had expected, but a neat pile of yellowed files. She caught her breath for a moment. This is not the same collection; they’ve changed it! But she was soon reassured: on the first file someone using a pen had written in an inelegant hand: Investigation No. 119. She rapidly looked through the next ones: 120, 121, 122. This is the same collection; it is just that, by some miracle, a whole series of case files are still intact and unopened since the time of the move. Numbered one after another like the loculi of an ossuary. A stroke of luck, thought Tanya. Half a day saved; if all the others are like that, I’ll get through at least another ten of these boxes today. Maybe the numerical order corresponds to the alphabetical one. In that case, the collection has been ordered in sequence, all forty cartons: more good fortune! She opened the first file, given that there was only the number on the cover, and looked for the name of the accused; the first thing she found was an identity card made out to Panina Viktoriya Yosifovna. It corresponds, that’s fantastic… But then she realised that in this case, there should be someone else whose name started with a P.

  Troubled by that idea, she started to open the files one at a time and when she got to the last but one, she saw that inevitably she was right. For a moment her heart stopped, because there on the police record was a photograph of her grandfather – the same one that her mother had somehow managed to keep and which Tanya, for as long as she could remember, had always seen hanging on the wall in the kitchen, in a little, silver frame. Under the photograph they had written the surname and forenames of the arrested man: Parsamov Aleksandr Ivanovich and further down, the place and date of birth: Baku, 31 December 1899. Tanya felt dazed by the memories. Of course, he was born on the last day of the century… rockets were whistling into the night, other fireworks were exploding and people were madly dancing in the street as champagne was being uncorked: a new century is beginning and it can only bring us marvels and progress. Grandfather was staring at her severely from that familiar photograph. Today he would be eighty-nine years old, and could still be alive. She looked at the card for a long time, picked it up and turned it over, but there was nothing else written on the thin but rigid card.

  The next sheet of paper was the “Transcript of the interrogation of prisoner Parsamov, A.I., 2-3 July 1949, investigating officers: Alyev G.A., Yusuf-zade Z.M.” So Grandfather also passed through Alyev’s hands; he too was buried under the road that led to the Kremlin… As for this other guy, the Devil alone knows who he is, but he can’t have gone very far; he wasn’t even sharp enough to change his name – to Russify it: Yusufov is pretty ugly, but would have been more acceptable…

  Question: You are under arrest for betrayal of the Soviet State.

  Do you plead guilty? Reply: No.

  Question: How do you reconcile this declaration of innocence with the circumstances of your arrest?

  Reply: I believe my arrest to be a mistake.

  Oh Granddad, so many others must have given that answer!

  Her eye runs to the bottom of the page, where the accused’s signature also appeared. It’s the first time that she has seen it, and now she is flicking through the file but without reading, as she is hypnotised by the scribble that reappears in identical form on the margin of every page. Once she has got to the end, she puts it aside. She will take another look and will deal with her records and notebooks later: first she was to see everything – everything. A form filled in by hand in the first person, and this too written by her grandfather: “I was born in Baku in 1899. Engineer. Member of the Party since 1941. Russian. Last place of employment: Azerneft, Baku. Education: higher, Technical Petroleum College of Baku. Family background. Father: Parsamov Ivan Aleksandrovich, businessman, died in 1917. Mother: Livanova Ekaterina Vasilyevna, died in 1934. Wife: Bute Anna Mikhaylovna, 44 years, clerk at the Ministry of Petroleum. Children: Olga, 14 years; Lidya, 12 years.” So Aunt Olya is two years older than Mum, but she says she is only one. Now I know her secret… Tanya can no longer see the paper, as tears have blinded her. She has to rummage around for a handkerchief in her bag and dry her eyes before carrying on. She looks around suspiciously. No, the other woman has not noticed anything and is still immersed in her statistics: she does not know that Tanya is labouring with pick and spade up to her armpits in cold damp earth, as she attempts to exhume a de
ad man.

  The next document is an envelope – handwritten: To the Chief Prosecutor of the Republic. Inside the envelope, there is a sheet of coarse paper: “I believe it to be my unavoidable duty to inform you of the following. On the evening of 1 May at my home, the engineer Parsamov, Deputy Director of the Azerneft Trust, criticised the resolution passed by the Republic’s plenary meeting in October on the drilling of new oil wells. He asserted that the errors, as he defined them, contained within that resolution should be brought to the attention of the authorities in Moscow, and added: ‘But then what do they know about petroleum up there?’ Parsamov is a member of the Party and is considered to be a senior Soviet figure. But behind these words there hide the hideous features of an enemy. I believe, for example, that if he were really a Soviet, he would never have dreamt of unleashing such an attack, even though he had been drinking, as we all had been doing that evening. There to listen to his words were Comrade Novgorodov and the engineer Manayev, both employees of Azerneft. I considered it my duty to report this incident. Signed: Mozhaisky, Temporary Deputy Director of Azerneft.” Tanya had told herself that she would not consult her records and notebooks until she had read everything, but now she cannot stop herself. She picks up the green notebook, and rapidly turns to the page in question: L. M. Mozhaisky is not there; too little a fish, even though he knew how to bite! No point in looking in the pile of green cards, as so far all the files have started with a P. But one of the boxes, perhaps 28 or 29, must contain the letter M, and sooner or later they will come my way. Well, I’m looking forward to getting my hands on you, Mozhaisky, and I hope that one fine morning they knocked on your door, you bastard! Meanwhile, let’s get a move on…

  The next document is another transcript; the date changes to the 14 July, but the investigators remain unchanged:

  Q. So you were preparing a terrorist act against Comrade Bagirov.

  R. Yes, I confess. Before the Soviet people and, in particular, the citizens of Baku, I am guilty of having plotted against Bagirov.

  D. And who was aware of your intentions?

  R. Only one person inside the factory: that was Comrade Mozhaisky.

  D. It could not have been just one person! Think again!

  On the paper, there are no pauses; it is all typewritten, one line after the other: if the fancy takes you, you could try imagining the grandfather seated in an armchair with a cigarette between his fingers and staring at the ceiling, while the investigating officer patiently awaits his answer! Ah, here we are, something does come to mind:

  R. Now I remember, we spoke about it to Mirzayev, of the personnel department, and Kostoglotov, of the same department, and Glebov…

  Tanya wanted to be sick – not metaphorically, but really sick. You put a man in the meat mincer, and everything comes out: flesh, blood, shit… For a moment, she felt that she couldn’t go on – and it’s suffocating down there in the basement. Besides why go on? Perhaps that was enough!

  But it was not enough, there was page after page to come, all of them signed, and she would have to read every one of them. The indictment was very short; the signatures beneath took up more space, and they included that of the Chief Prosecutor of the Republic, Salimov. Underneath the signatures, a note communicated to the accused on the 9 August. In accordance with the law… The transcript of the trial was equally short, and dated on the following day, the 10 August. The military tribunal was constituted as follows: presiding officer, military lawyer in the Army Corps, Maslov; members: divisional military lawyer Sofronov and brigade military lawyer Rayzman; secretary: military lawyer (first grade) Tkach. The court was in session from 17.45 to 18.00: quarter of an hour.

  Q. Do you plead guilty?

  R. Yes, without reservations.

  Q. Do you confirm your statements?

  R. I do.

  Then the sentence: “In the name of the Soviet Union,” Tanya read it, but she might as well have not read it, because it was identical to all the others; Case No. 135 exactly like all the other one hundred and thirty four ones, “you are condemned to death by firing squad. The sentence is final and shall be executed immediately.” But it is not the last document; the last one is a pink sheet. “10 August 1949. The sentence has been carried out… Commander of the 10th Unit of the 1st Special Detachment, Sergeant Recht.”

  XXI

  The red wolves

  Baku, August 1988

  The following day, Tanya worked until late; at six in the evening she was still there with her joints aching from being continuously seated. There was no one left in the basement, even though there was still an hour until they closed up.

  The girl-engineer had sat in front of her copying statistics on petroleum production until the mid afternoon. An attendant came dragging her feet to take away the black books with the stamp of the Ministry of Petroleum; she gave Tanya a look under the feeble light of the bulb hanging from the ceiling, and went back up to the floor above with her usual insouciance. Tanya listened to the sound of her steps up the metal stairs and the dull thud of the door closing, and then silence. Fighting off her tiredness, Tanya was obliged to lower her head over the papers scattered across the table.

  The letters began to swim before her eyes, because once again she had gone without lunch. During the last few days, she had stayed there until they closed, and had then rushed out in search of some takeaway food: since she had got her hands on those files and above all, since she had – absurdly!

  – found her grandfather’s file, she had lived in terror of not finishing in time – in fear of Svetlana Aleksandrovna one day withdrawing her permit or simply that one morning she would find all the papers vanished and the attendant coming back empty-handed from the store, without even the pretence of having to work hard… Tanya worked without even lifting her eyes from the papers, and her fingers were covered with dust and ink. She stopped to change the cartridge in her fountain pen, and heard thunder: a summer storm was on its way. How could it be otherwise in this heat, and down there you could hardly breathe… Another half hour, and then the attendant will come down to announce the closure of the offices – depriving her of a quarter of an hour as usual. The passage of time made her feel insecure and unable to work methodically. She closed the file and opened another, without even blowing away the very fine dust that covered it, and started frantically to transcribe the data onto the green and yellow cards.

  In that particular moment she had the sensation of no longer being on her own. She looked around furtively and was almost ashamed of herself, but the basement was deserted and there was no one in the shadowy corners behind the bookshelves. She picked up the file she had been transcribeing, but she continued to feel that something was not quite right. When you read ghost stories in the evening, the slightest creak of a door can take on sinister emphasis, and when you close the book and switch off the light, it is no use: you cannot get to sleep. In the same way, once anxiety has opened a breach in the mind, it is impossible to drive it away, especially if you are alone and in a strange and badly lit environment. Ghosts in an archive! Tanya thought it might be a very appropriate place. She really was in company there – the company of the dead who lived again in every box brought to her table, with every ribbon untied by her hurried and fumbling fingers, and at the end of every confession deciphered under the inadequate light of the bulb. Tanya allowed her imagination to run wild, which for her was very unusual. She imagined that all those dead people were at her shoulders, invisible and leaning forward to read along with her those fatal words, with unextinguished astonishment at having been able to pronounce them, but also clenching their fists in the air with desperation and hatred on finding the names of their tormentors on paper.

  But others, of course, would only find satisfaction with a job well done in those yellowed transcripts, while still others would sense the malign pleasure of a successful intrigue, and perhaps even the flavour of the salami they chewed between one interrogation and another, of the tea that they drank and the ciga
rettes they smoked together with the jailers before getting back to their work. And then she realised that amongst all those ghosts, one was more powerful than the others, and imposed his presence without a care for those who crowded around him, and now he stood behind her and staring at her with his pipe in his mouth and smoothing his moustaches: the man without whom all those papers would not have existed, so that if God’s finger were to touch him and make him disappear from the history of the world, all those papers would instantly transform into dust; the man of many names and never mentioned by any, whose shadow had been cast over so many corners of Baku:

  Sosso the seminarist, Koba, the Leader.

  Tanya stiffened her resolve and managed to shake off that vision, just as when, sleeping, we feel the proximity of a nightmare and through a supreme effort, we force ourselves to wake up before it strikes. She swallowed her saliva; she was sweaty and felt that her mouth was foul, just as if she really had been asleep. She could not resist turning round just once more, driven by an apprehension she could not conquer; then she jumped because the little door at the top of the stairs had opened with a sinister squeak – but it was only the attendant coming down to remind her forcefully that they were closing. Tanya quickly gathered her cards together, fearful of lingering too long under the hostile stare of a woman impatient to be on her way: clearly a husband and a swarm of kids were waiting at home, as well as a supper that had to be cooked. In the meantime, she was straining her ears to discover if the throng of shadows from the past had melted away on the arrival of this intruder, but in the dark she could hear nothing except the groan of the metal stairs under the not inconsiderable weight of the Azeri woman as she came down them.