“Then your poor father had to make his way home in the early hours. Did no one help him?” she asked with alarm.
“Not that we know of,” replied Natasha.
“What are comrades for?” Irina said loudly, but to no one in particular.
Razan sat sipping his tea, fascinated by Irina’s probing of the dunghill that was Pyotr. Anna, though, felt the air charged with suspicion, and took care not to fall into some Bolshevik trap designed to catch the unwary. She knew these officials for prigs, and wondered whether her having shared her bed with Razan before marriage would render her morally unfit in the eyes of the party, which paid lip service to proper behavior.
“You must have been worried to death when he didn’t return,” Irina continued, “especially when the inn closed at midnight and at one o’clock he still wasn’t home. You did say that it was shortly after one that you put on your coat to look for him along the road?”
“Yes,” Anna said, volunteering no more than a syllable.
“The creek, I gather, isn’t very deep. But how does one cross it? There’s no footbridge.” She extinguished her cigarette.
Pavel answered, “We step on the rocks.”
“In spring, when the water is high, are the rocks covered?”
“No,” Pavel said, as Irina watched Anna’s face, “but they are slippery when wet.”
“Presumably a slick rock caused the accident.”
“It was winter,” Pavel replied. “The rocks were icy.”
“And you, Mrs. Shtuba, do you agree?” She lit another cigarette.
“Yes.”
As Natasha began removing the dishes, her mother rose to help.
“Permit me, Mrs. Shtuba, to ask your opinion about one point.” Anna resumed her seat. “Might the poor man have been alive but unconscious for some length of time?” Smoke issued from her nose.
While Anna pondered the question, Pavel rushed in to dispel the silence. “Not with his head face down in the freezing water.”
Losing patience, Irina asked, “And if his head had originally been face up, is it possible that someone turned him over?”
“Why in the world,” Anna said heatedly, standing up, “would anyone do that?”
“Ah! The very question I’ve been asking myself.”
Razan, fondly devoted to his wife, finally spoke. “Are you suggesting a murder was committed?”
“Your use of the passive voice suggests your unwillingness to give the murderer a name.”
“Murderer!” several people said in unison.
Spreading her hands and stroking the air, Irina tried to indicate that she had no family member in mind. “I am still concerned that a comrade would let this man leave drunk without accompanying him home. And if a tovarishch was at his side, which one, and why did he not extricate the poor man from the creek? Comrades do not let other comrades suffer.” She paused, clearly struck by an idea. “Perhaps then that explains what happened. The drunken man was so badly hurt that his fellows could not stand to see him suffer, and turned him over so that he would die without pain.”
“Is this the way prosecutors split hairs and shave facts?” asked Razan. “Because if it is, then no man is safe from the law.”
“Charles Dickens said the same thing,” Irina observed, with a knowing smirk, and put out her cigarette.
That night, as Razan and Anna lay in bed, neither could sleep. He kindly tried to comfort his wife by assuring her that just as a barber wants a face to shave, a prosecutor wants a case to solve. But Anna kept returning to the fact that for some reason, Irina Vostoyeva refused to use Pyotr’s name.
“She must have a reason,” said Anna, rolling over to face her husband, “and I can’t get to sleep until I’ve worked it out.”
* * *
The chistka took place on the second floor of a storehouse, smelling of grain dust and exhibiting a large picture of Stalin. No one had thought to remove the cobwebs or to sweep the floor. In the stifling air, the light from the one window illuminated the millions of motes and admitted from outside the constant sound of chatter and animal noises, reminiscent of a scene from the Middle Ages. A long table covered with a green felt cloth that Basil supplied—he thought it gave the provincial proceedings an air of authority—rested in the center of the room. Three chairs stood behind the table, for Irina, for Party Secretary von Fresser, and for Natasha, who was present to record the proceedings on her typewriter. Two chairs faced the table: one for the party member and, if needed, one for his witness. The party secretary had arranged for the hammer and sickle, like the sword of Damocles, to hang from the ceiling, while another flag fluttered outside the building.
In the front yard, dozens of people waited to be called. Some had come with their families, some with witnesses, some with a faithful pet, like a dog or goat or pony or pig. Dressed in khaki green, Irina evinced austerity, while Natasha wore a flaming red dress and colorful babushka. For the occasion, Basil had brushed his brown gabardine suit, polished his black shoes, and oiled his hair.
Irina had looked over the list of party members the night before, noting the absence of last names. How was the party to tell one Ivan from another? When she asked Basil this question, he had replied: by their village, their street, or their occupation. Ivan the mason, with his immense hands, now stood before them, tipping his cap and waiting for his superiors to tell him to sit.
“We are all comrades here,” said Irina, striking a note of equality. “Sit and relax. I have just a few questions to ask you.”
Ivan perched on a chair, twisting his cap in his hands.
“May I see your party card?” she asked, as the typewriter began its interminable clicking.
“Which one?”
“Yours.”
“I have several. From my dead father and uncle and brother.”
“Your own.”
“Why do I need my own when I have three others?”
“Please give me all three cards.” Ivan passed them across the table. “Thank you.” Turning to Basil, she said peremptorily, “Strike his name from your membership list.” Straightening her back, she said to Ivan, “As you leave, please send in the next person.”
The tanner, Jury Stas, smelling of some chemical, explained that he had lost his party card and had been too busy to request a new one.
“Comrade Stas, tell us,” said Irina, “who was Karl Marx?”
“Sounds German to me.”
“He was.”
“Maybe a friend of the kaiser. Yeah, I think I heard that from my wife. He was the kaiser’s friend.”
Disgusted, Irina baited him. “Which one, Wilhelm the first or second?”
Basil held up two fingers on the side of his cheek farthest from Irina and mouthed the word “second.”
“The second.”
“Good. To have your membership card restored, you will have to take classes in socialism. Please take note, Secretary von Fresser.”
“Right. We will offer courses starting next month.”
Stas exited dispirited but not completely discouraged. In no time, word spread that to pass the purge a person would have to identify Karl Marx and answer questions about socialism. Outside, the few literate peasants shared what they could with the others, as fear gripped the group.
“What was your father’s occupation?” Irina asked the next man, Ivan Merski, who had lost his left thumb in a sawmill.
“A farmer.”
“Did he own his own farm?”
He laughed. “Peasants don’t own anything.”
Irina shuffled some papers in front of her and replied, “According to local land deeds, your father owned sixty acres.”
“My father? He never told me.”
“He was a kulak.”
“What’s that? I never heard the word.”
“A landowner, a moneylender, a parasite, an enemy of the people.”
“If he owned land, how come I have to work in a sawmill?”
“The government confi
scated his property. Hand over your card.”
Natasha couldn’t keep up, though she kept typing as rapidly as her fingers could cover the keys. Taking one sheet of paper from the machine, she quickly replaced it with another, dropping the finished sheet in a wooden box, bearing an official seal.
Bogdan, a drunkard with a long-suffering wife, asked Irina to repeat her question, as he slouched in his chair.
“You are accused of passivity. How do you plead?”
“My papers are all in order,” answered the red-faced and bulbous-nosed former shoemaker, passively ignorant of the word.
“Yes, I can see that for myself, but the party secretary tells me that you show no enthusiasm for party activities and, in fact, you have never attended a party meeting. Slackers and shirkers forfeit their rights, unless of course . . . you can identify any Trotskyites, Mensheviks, White Army officers, or Tsarist police among the local population.”
Bogdan sneezed, held a forefinger to his nostril, blew the mucus on the floor, and considered Irina’s offer. “I can point out some drunks and womanizers, but those other kinds I don’t know.”
“Give us the names of the drunks and womanizers, and don’t fail to include yourself.”
Bogdan reeled off several names and rose to leave.
“Your card, please,” said Irina.
“You said I would get to keep my card!”
“Only if you become active in the affairs of the party.”
He handed her his card and spat on the floor.
“Basil,” Irina ordered loudly for Bogdan’s sake, “I want that man punished for a lack of hygiene. Understand?”
“By all means,” said Basil, putting a black mark next to Bogdan’s name. “For starters, I’ll require him to sweep out this warehouse.”
Before Arkady Ivanovich entered the cavernous room, Basil said, to the surprise of Natasha, who looked up from her typewriter and gaped, that Arkady’s membership card was probably forged.
“How do I know?” he asked rhetorically, troubled by Irina’s comment in private that the books failed to balance. “Isn’t the man a printer, with ink-stained hands, and didn’t you imply, Comrade Vostoyeva, that the local membership rolls were padded?”
When confronted by Secretary von Fresser’s accusation, Arkady Ivanovich stared at him incredulously. But when Irina pressed him with questions, Basil repeatedly winked at Arkady behind her back.
A moment later, Arkady admitted his forgery and added, “Now that I got that off my chest, I feel much better.”
“How many cards have you forged?” asked Irina.
Behind her back, Basil held up both hands and opened and closed them three times.
“About thirty or so,” Arkady said.
“I want the names,” Irina ordered, nearly touching him as she reached across the table with an extended arm and pointed finger.
Basil interrupted. “Arkady, get someone to record them tonight, and I’ll collect them in the morning.”
“Your card!” Irina demanded.
Arkady passed it to her, apologized, and bowed out of the room.
“Thirty forgeries still doesn’t account for the discrepancy between members and dues.”
“Brovensk,” said the secretary, “is not without thieves. Though I am reluctant to admit it, we have our fair share.”
“How many people have keys to the files?”
He could have implicated his wife and Natasha, but he chose to limit the damage. “I have the only key.”
That evening at dinner, Irina Vostoyeva imbibed plum brandy far more potent than her usual glass of white wine. In a slightly tipsy state, she told the family that she loved them and asked Anna and Razan to join the Communist Party.
“I’ll spoon . . . sor you. No one would drear . . . dare doubt my word.” Her eyelids drooped, and her jaw sagged.
Razan pleaded that he was a foreigner, and Anna said she would think it over.
“What’s to wink over, what with all the prib . . . ledges you’ll . . . an-joy.” She would have continued had she not slipped from her chair to the floor and passed out.
Pavel lifted her onto his huge shoulders, as a child might a rag doll, and put her to bed. A short time later, Anna crept into her room and removed her briefcase, which she searched and then returned to its former place. In the morning, Irina complained of a migraine, but she managed nonetheless to take her briefcase and stagger off to the warehouse.
Party Secretary Basil von Fresser had spent the evening in the company of Arkady Ivanovich, the two of them composing fictitious names in faraway villages and hamlets. Basil also assured his good friend that after the woman from Moscow had left, Arkady would be given a real membership card, one from the dozens stacked neatly on his desk.
Irina’s foul mood colored her questioning. Poor Petrovich, the tailor, had the misfortune of facing her first. Fingering a thimble, his constant companion and, until then, unfailing talisman, he faced Irina’s withering interrogatives.
Previously, he had counted his worst moments as those coming from Razan, who had hounded him for months to make an overcoat that would be the envy of all. Money, the barber had said, was no object, and insisted that the coat be fashioned from sable and reach his knees, with a fur collar of marten, a hood lined with velvet, and a thick padding of calico wool sewn with fine double seams of heavy silk thread. The tailor could hardly believe his ears. In front of him stood a Jewish barber who had taken up with Anna Lipnoskaya and was now requesting an overcoat fit for a Tsar. When the tailor tried to dissuade him, Razan had answered, “I found it in a book.” Although Razan was Albanian, he believed, like most literate Russians, that the ideas found in books enjoyed a divinity not found anywhere else.
Agreeing to make such a coat, Petrovich had opened the door to the very devil. Hardly a day passed that Razan did not stop to ask about the progress of the great creation or insist on yet another fitting. The coat, after all, had to be perfect. Nothing less would satisfy this crazy barber. What could explain Razan’s obsession?
How could Petrovich have known that as a young boy, Razan had been given a blue snowsuit—the talk of his friends—made from the skin of a bear, with a zipper running from neck to knee? But one day, after the school bell had sounded, when he slid back the door of the cloakroom, he discovered that his coat had been stolen. So distraught was the little boy that he swore to himself that someday he would own the grandest overcoat in Kishinev. But living now in Brovensk, he would settle for the handsomest work that Petrovich the master tailor could make. And so it was that Razan hounded the poor man until he had produced what Petrovich himself admitted was his masterpiece.
“Identify Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, V. I. Ulyanov . . .” Two other names, forbidden names, flowed from Irina’s lips, though she couldn’t remember summoning them forth: “Ivan Bunin and Osip Mandelstam.” She attributed this slip to the plum brandy. To protect herself, she said, “Forget the names and tell me about the socialist theory of value. Is it the labor that goes into the manufacture of an object that determines its worth, or supply and demand?”
At a complete loss, Petrovich started to explain patiently how he fashioned trousers and dresses. “After measuring the person, I make a pattern, which I lay on the cloth and copy with chalk. Then I take my scissors . . .”
Irina interrupted. “Answer the question!”
A terrified Petrovich replied weakly, “I don’t always get what I think I deserve, but then the customer is always right.”
“So you believe that the buyer and not the worker determines the worth of a thing?”
“I know only what I know. If I ask for too much, I don’t get paid.” He shrugged. “So I take what’s given to me.”
“Under socialism a worker should be paid a fair exchange for his labor. If you are not, you should complain to the party, which will act on your behalf. That is one of the glories of socialism.”
“If I complained, no one would come to my shop. You see . . .” He pau
sed. “What you say sounds good, but in practice . . .”
Irina rounded on Basil, wanting an explanation. “How could you allow any man or woman to be exploited?” She lit a cigarette. “In addition to having inaccurate records, you permit capitalism to flourish here in Brovensk. The Central Committee shall hear of this!”
A cowed Basil said that Irina’s presence would serve as a prod to purge from the party double-dealers, moral degenerates, exploiters, the undisciplined, and party officials who had been turning a blind eye to malfeasance and worse.
“Thank you for the wake-up call,” Basil said.
She studied him for several seconds, particularly his bull-like neck, which brought to mind fragments from Ivan Bunin: “The stud pinched the sagging skin under his chin, strangling him . . . his eyes shone from exertion . . . his face was livid . . . he saw his ridiculous self in the mirror.”
“Comrade, have you ever looked at yourself? Have you ever honestly assessed your behavior? I ask because I may have to recommend that you be removed as party secretary.”
Natasha stole a glance at Basil, who was shaking his head sadly and looking like a beaten dog. Even with all his posturing, he had tried to improve the lot of his town. She felt sorry for him. No one should have to suffer public humiliation. Couldn’t Irina have told him in private about her reservations? Why speak in front of others?
Kirill the baker had about him the sweet smell of cinnamon. His buns were a delicacy in Brovensk and carried by horse cart to nearby villages. Wisely, he came prepared, offering a sweet roll to each of the three people seated at the table. At first, Irina resisted, but the aroma finally drove her to enjoy the tastiest pastry she had ever eaten. Her mood immediately brightened.
“Tell us about your origins: your parents, their occupation, their house. According to the land records, a wealthy family, a noble one, owned thousands of acres not far from here. The family had six children, one of whom was christened Kirill. Kirill Glebovich Antsyforov, to be exact. You wouldn’t be the same person?”
The baker knew that the party had access to the church registry of births and deaths. He would just make matters worse if he denied coming from a noble family. To the shock of Basil and Natasha, he declared, “I am a bastard son, who has renounced his family. I even paid to have a personal statement printed in the newspapers.”
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