Elvira Baryakina - The Prince of the Soviets

“I won’t be going there again this year,” he said, looking at me pointedly. “You understand what I’m saying? There’ll be nobody there.”

It’s amazing but true: even the most fervent supporters of the Bolshevik regime are prepared to carry out good deeds when they get the chance so long as there is no danger their bosses will catch them displaying a love for their fellow man.

This weekend, Weinstein’s neighbors out at his dacha observed a curious sight: a group of foreigners piling out of a couple of embassy cars, flinging off their jackets, and setting to work breaking up the old shed with sledgehammers. The logs and boards were then sawed up and dispatched in a number of consignments to the Lutheran church.

Magda, fresh from a recent trip to Central Asia, has also taken the plight of the Germans to heart. Traveling around Turkestan, she saw so many cases of ill-treated women and children that the “sin of wellbeing” has become unbearable to her.

Now, she goes out to the Church of St. Michael every day, taking Friedrich along too.

He tells us that the residents of the Comintern hostel are out of their minds with fear. If you knock on somebody’s door, a strange voice will shout out, “He’s sick!” If you ask, “When will he be better?” the answer will be “Never!” Everybody is keeping themselves to themselves, burning their personal documents and drinking vodka to help themselves sleep.

Friedrich says he has had enough of all this hole-in-corner business. He has decided to help the refugees, “consequences be damned.”

He has friends who receive vouchers for horse meat because they breed guard dogs for the Soviet border patrol. Friedrich gives them cigarettes in return for the meat, so now our displaced Germans are able to make hot broth to feed their sick children.

None of us has any idea how this adventure of ours will turn out. When Friedrich was in Berlin, he met Seibert, who told him that the German government does not intend to give any money to the refugees.

As I expected, we have not found any benefactors willing to take on a whole village. Worst still, Seibert has no time to search for a Good Samaritan for us. So far, he hasn’t managed to find a job and has had to go freelance. Of course, the national papers are happy to buy up his articles, but they pay badly. Seibert spends all his time in the quest for the money.

Well, I suppose we’ll keep dashing to and fro so long as we have the strength. No harm in trying after all.

1

Alov was furious with Galina.

“You told me Rogov was on holiday!” he scolded her. “But he’s been back in Moscow for ages! I had a call from the Central Aerodynamic Institute: there’s a church on their territory, and Rogov has set up a shelter for vagrants there. What’s more, he’s inciting foreigners to help him.”

“I didn’t know anything about it,” said Galina, flustered.

Her eyelids burned, and she had a lump in her throat. Why hadn’t Klim rung her? Why hadn’t he told her he was back?

“There’s something fishy about all this,” Alov kept saying, wagging a crooked yellow finger. “I want you to go to see Rogov, and I want you to bring me back a thorough report.”

Dazed, Galina made her way to Chistye Prudy.

“Just look who it is!” cried Kapitolina, opening the door to Galina. “You’ll never guess who’s dropped in to see us, sir!”

Galina shivered at the thought that she was now no more than a guest who “dropped in.”

Klim was sitting at his Underwood typewriter, typing out an article—without her help.

“Wait a second,” he said. “I have to finish up here.”

He thumbed through a dictionary and wrote in his notebook while she sat opposite him, pulling at the cloth strap on her bag, which eventually came loose.

I’m a complete stranger to him, she thought, gazing at Klim, who was working with an expression of intense concentration.

“The OGPU know what you’re doing in the Lutheran church,” she said.

Finally, Klim looked up from his papers. “What business is it of theirs? It’s a private charity. That’s all.”

“There are no charities in the USSR!” Galina cried. “The state helps everyone who needs it.” Forgetting herself, she sprang to her feet. “What I want to know is why are you helping Germans? They killed so many of our people during the Great War!”

“These Germans are Soviet citizens. They didn’t kill anyone.”

“I don’t care! How can you help them when there are Russians in need of help?”

Klim folded his arms across his chest. “So, you’re jealous? Is that it?”

“Yes, I’m jealous!” replied Galina hotly. “You go off somewhere without a word, and then it turns out—” She pressed her hand to her mouth to stop herself from dissolving into tears.

Klim frowned. “I didn’t want your real bosses to find out about it all.”

“Is that why you kept me out of everything?”

He nodded.

“Then I’ll resign from the OGPU!” exclaimed Galina passionately. “Just say the word! I don’t need their vouchers or their salary. I don’t need anything from them at all. I would never betray you!”

Klim looked at her reproachfully. “Well, it’s a fine sentiment… but if you resign, you’ll be in trouble.”

“I don’t care! I love you.”

Galina waited for Klim to answer, but when he spoke, he said something quite different from what she had been hoping to hear.

“Make sure Kitty doesn’t eat chocolate. That’s what’s been making her ill.”

“Should I come in to work tomorrow?” Galina asked after a pause.

“Yes,” Klim pointed to a pile of envelopes on the table. “All these have to be delivered.”

2

On the way home, Galina hatched a new plan. She would resign from the OGPU. Soon, Kapitolina would be getting married, her little cubbyhole would be free, and Galina could move in with Klim.

I’ll become his servant if I have to, she thought selflessly, and this idea seemed to be the answer to all her worries.

When she got home, she saw that the door to her room was open, and a note in Tata’s handwriting was lying on the table.

To my deer Mommy and Comrades,

Let my deth be a wepon in the war against semeteries and religious superstishion as graves use up lots of land and are no use to anyone. Instead of semeteries, we should have parks with sports grounds so peeple can play volleyball.

Long Live the Great Lenin!

Tata Dorina

Galina looked at the note, bewildered. Where had it come from? Where was Tata? What had happened to her?

Then she heard a quiet sniffing from inside the wardrobe and threw open the doors.

Tata was lying on her mattress, her hands behind her head.

“How did you get here?” Galina gasped.

“I stowed away on suburban trains,” said Tata in a small voice.

“What? You ran away from school? Why?”

“They told me they’d throw me out of the Young Pioneers.”

“What for?”

“Because of my cross.” Tata’s face screwed up, and she began to wail. “I told them my daddy was a commissar and that he only left me two things, an ashtray and this cross, and that’s why I wear it. But they didn’t believe me. They said I was making up stories about my father to hide the fact that I was religious. I won’t let them throw me out of the Pioneers—I’d rather die! Only I want you to send my body to the new crematorium, the one where the church of Serafim of Sarov used to be. They have new ovens in there now from Germany. After two hours, all that’s left of you is a kilogram of calcium phosphate. That’s what the lecturer from Friends of Cremation Society told us.”

Galina sank down wearily onto her bench. The story about the cross had been her own invention. Otherwise, Tata would have refused to wear it.

It was quite impossible to move into Klim’s house now.

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re back,” Galina said in a dull voice. “I’ve missed you terribly.”

Tata was so astonished that she sat up on her mattress and got her head tangled up in the clothes hanging in the wardrobe.

“So, you’re not angry with me at all?” she asked. Moving aside the hems of the dresses, she climbed out and went to sit with her mother on the bench.

The two of them sat for some time, hugging one another and crying.

“I thought you were going to get married to Uncle Klim,” sobbed Tata. “I didn’t want to get in your way.”

“You silly thing,” said Galina. “We never spoke about that, did we?”

“I’m glad you’ve realized what a rotten capitalist he is. We need to fight his sort! And we have to get Kitty away from him. How do you think we can do it? Why don’t we write to the authorities and ask to be allowed to adopt her?”

Tata was incorrigible.

What on earth shall I do now? Galina wondered. She would have to sacrifice either her own life or that of her child. If she sent Tata back to the school, the cruel Pioneers would make her life a misery. On the other hand, if she let her daughter stay in Moscow, she could forget about having any personal relationship.

There was a knock at the door.

“Galina!” came the voice of Mitrofanych. “Some work for you. This letter came from the Nizhny Novgorod archive today.” And he thrust a large, battered envelope under the door.

3

Galina went to the bathroom and lit the boiler but did not run a bath. She sat on the floor under the hot pipe, which was hung with drying clothes, and pored through the documents from the archive, sobbing bitterly.

The man she loved more than her life had been lying to her all along. Born into the family of a public procurator, he was a member of the nobility and heir to a large fortune. In 1917, he had come to Nizhny Novgorod, and at that time, he had been an Argentinian citizen, not an American. There was a document to prove it from the police station where he had registered his arrival. In 1919, he had worked on a paper called the Nizhny Novgorod Commune—among the documents was a record of his union fees payment.

And here was a certificate of marriage to Nina Vasilievna Kupina dated December 1918. They had been married in the Church of St. George, and that was why Klim had mourned the loss of it.

There was another document showing that at the height of the White Army offensive, Comrade Rogov had left for the front, heading up a team of Red political agitators. Then the trail went cold.

This could only mean one thing. Klim had gone over to the Whites, emigrated, and then came back to the USSR to look for his wife, but she had turned him down. That explained the events of Christmas Eve and everything that had happened after.

Now, it was clear that Kitty was Klim and Nina’s adoptive daughter.

Galina’s first thought was to run to Alov and hand him Klim’s head on a platter. The papers in her hands were enough to doom Mr. Rogov even if he had had no connection with any White Army organizations.

The image of Ibrahim cheerfully hosing down the blood-stained Black Maria floated into Galina’s mind.

Alov would be delighted, she thought. He would probably give her a voucher for a couple of pounds of jam or a length of good cloth, and Tata would be happy.

Galina got to her feet, opened the door in the side of the boiler, and began to thrust papers into the burning coals. The flames leaped up, and the smell of burning paper hit her in the face.

Her neighbor, Natasha, knocked on the door. “What are you doing in there? The whole corridor stinks of smoke!”

“Just a minute… just a minute,” Galina kept repeating in a daze.

She did not care if Klim was a member of the White Army conspirators. He could be a terrorist for all she cared. She could not live without him.

4 ^{BOOK OF THE DEAD}

It seems I’m in a real quandary now. I can’t dismiss Galina, or she will end up on the streets, literally. She will be thrown out of the OGPU house for failing to do her job properly, and if she comes to live with me on Chistye Prudy, I will end up on the streets myself because it will be the only way to get away from her meddling.

She has taken to looking at me in a new way as if she was afraid of something, and each time, I remember Seibert saying just before he left, “Watch out for Galina!”