Elvira Baryakina - The Prince of the Soviets

“And you’re never coming back?”

“No.”

A second past in silence, then another, and another. Then, without saying a word, Galina hung up.

Klim pulled out two hundred-dollar bills, all that he had left, and put them in an envelope. That evening he had to go to the Bolshoi Theater for a political event in honor of the anniversary of the Revolution. After that, he decided, he would call in on Galina and leave the money in her mailbox.

4

All six tiers of the Bolshoi Theater were decorated with scarlet banners. On stage, under an enormous portrait of Lenin, a long table had been set up for leaders of the Bolshevik party.

On the podium, Comrade Babloyan, his voice trembling with heartfelt emotion, was reading out greetings from workers: “We hope that before long, a wave of proletarian revolution will sweep Europe and that the twentieth anniversary will be celebrated not only in our country but also throughout a European Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

Magda, Klim, and Owen sat in the box reserved for foreign guests, observing the spectators in the stalls through opera glasses.

“There’s a whole sea of Party bigwigs down there,” Magda whispered, gesturing toward the crowd of officials in service jackets and tunics.

“Not a sea—a swamp,” said Klim. “They’re all wearing swamp-green, at any rate.”

Magda eyed his dinner jacket and his starched shirt front. “Well, hark at you, Mr. Black-and-White.”

The next to mount the podium was the chairman of the state planning department, Gosplan.

“In the next five years,” he said, “we will put an end to unemployment and overcome all the economic challenges that face us. Workers’ wages will increase by sixty-six percent. Manual workers will eat twenty-seven percent more meat, seventy-two percent more eggs, and fifty-five percent more milk products.”

Klim translated the words of the speaker for Owen’s benefit.

“I wonder,” Owen said in a puzzled voice, “where the Bolsheviks will get all these percentages from.”

“They don’t care about the result,” said Klim. “It’s the ritual that matters. You and I are witnessing a prophecy. Do you remember the words from the Revelation of St. John the Divine? ‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.’”

Owen nodded. “Yes, I see what you mean.”

“The Bolsheviks began as materialists,” Klim said, “but without even realizing it, they’ve turned into a sect. They have taken all the old teachings about the end of the world and changed the names. The World Revolution is the Apocalypse; Marx and Engels are the Old Testament Prophets, Lenin is the savior who gave his life for the people, and Stalin is the high priest. Those who believe will be saved, and those who don’t will be punished as heretics.”

Owen put down his opera glasses. “So, you think that Soviet Russia is in the grip of some new type of Christian sectarianism?”

“It’s the natural reaction of a society at the dawn of a new epoch,” said Klim. “At times like these, people want to cling on to old teachings even while they’re in the process of changing everything else. They need an infallible leader too, endowed with some mysterious power; someone who will lead them fearlessly into the ‘bright future.’ It’s a classic example of a ‘reformation’—this is what happens when an uneducated people, with more faith in seductive promises and devils than in science, starts seeking a new path in life.”

“And how will it all end?” asked Owen.

Klim sighed. “I think it will end in the same way as the Taiping rebellion in China in the 1850s. There, a group of Christians created an independent state and began carrying out ‘fair economic reforms.’ After that, it was the same old story: battles against enemies within and without, redistribution of wealth, a god-like leader, and, as a result—wholesale devastation and millions dead.”

“Surely things can’t be that bad?”

Klim gestured toward the worker who had just got up on stage. In his hands, the man held a model broom made of metallic blades.

“That’s a delegate from the factory committee,” Klim said. “Do you know what he’s proposing to the leaders of the country? To sweep away all their enemies with that broom. It looks as if there’s bound to be huge bloodshed in the future.”

5

When the speeches were over, Owen went to a banquet at the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs while Klim walked Magda to the cab rank.

The damp paving glittered in the light of the streetlamps, and the air was thick with the sharp smell of horses.

“Send me a cable when you get to Berlin,” Magda told Klim. “Friedrich and I are coming to Berlin soon, I think. We just have to get our Germans safely on their way to Canada.”

“Is Friedrich planning to defect?” Klim asked in amazement.

“He thinks that there’s been a counter-revolution in the USSR,” said Magda, “but nobody has noticed. The state has gone back to the same sort of abuses of power and bureaucracy the Russians had under the Tsarist regime. If the Tsar had never been deposed, they’d have just the same situation, only under a different banner. Friedrich thinks the revolution would have fared better in another country—one without such strong traditions of monarchy.”

“You mean he wants to start all over again?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see when we get there, I suppose.”

They embraced in parting, and Magda set off to find a cab.

Klim decided to go to Galina’s apartment on foot. He wanted to say goodbye to Moscow.

The city felt restless, like an animal about to settle down for the night, tired, weary and shivering slightly under the first snow, which melted as soon as it fell.

Klim could not believe that in a couple of days, he would be in a completely different world. Living in the USSR sometimes felt like looking the wrong way down a pair of binoculars. The “bright future” seemed close at hand while neighboring Poland seemed as distant as Mars.

Klim stopped beside a shop window made of reflective glass to see if he was still being shadowed or if his spies had gone home for the night.

No, they were still on his tail. On the other side of the street, there was a tall young man in a coat with the collar turned up, and a broad-shouldered fellow was pretending to read a poster fixed to a gate.

Klim was about to wave to them when a covered truck stopped in front of him. A man in an unbuttoned greatcoat jumped out of the back of the truck, taking his red OGPU ID out of his pocket.

“Come with me, citizen!” he said.

“Where to?” asked Klim, bewildered.

A cabbie’s horse passing them by shied away as if sensing the smell of carrion.

Two more men came out of the truck and took Klim under the arms. “Get in the truck!”

From that moment on, Klim was no longer a human being: he had become an object that can be packed away at will, transported from place to place, and kept until required.

6

Tata could see that something was wrong with her mother. Before, her mother would go off to work for days on end; now, she sat about at home and ate almost nothing. She didn’t even scold Tata if she forgot to wash her plate after meals.

“Would you like some tea, Mommy?” Tata fussed around her mother.

“No thanks.”

“What can I get you?”

“Nothing.”

Her mother turned her face to the wall and told Tata to leave her alone.

Nowadays, they had no money, and Tata had noticed that things kept disappearing from their room. She guessed that her mother was selling them to the used-goods store to buy bread.

As soon as she came home, Tata would feel overwhelmed by melancholy and inertia, so she would stay late at school drawing posters and wall-newspapers even at weekends and on holidays.

Recently, she had read about a young worker who had composed a portrait of Lenin using grains of wheat and oats and had immediately been accepted into the Higher Art and Technical Institute.

Wouldn’t it be grand to do a portrait of Comrade Stalin from some material that had particular significance for society? Tata thought. For instance, she could make a huge picture out of screws and cogwheels and name it “Stalin’s factory.” Look closer, and you would see the workings of a complex mechanism, but from a distance, you would see a portrait of the smiling leader. And imagine if she could get the parts to move!

Tata had even made some sketches for this future masterpiece, but so far, she was having no luck with Comrade Stalin: every picture she drew looked like some iron monster with whiskers.

But Tata would not give up. She had to show everyone, and particularly the children from the boarding school, that she was capable of great feats for the glory of the working classes.

7

When Tata came home, it was already dark. She did not have a key and rang their bell again and again, but her mother did not come to the door.

At last, the door flew open.

“Listen now, just don’t start blubbing, all right?” Mitrofanych muttered as he let Tata into the apartment.

She looked at him bewildered. “Why would I start blubbing?”

“It’s your mother… she swallowed a whole lot of pills. I looked in on her to ask her for some tea and found her lying on the floor.”

“Tea?”

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Mitrofanych knocked with his knuckles on his head. “Your mother has tried to poison herself! If I hadn’t run out of tea, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Tata felt as if the walls of the apartment were caving in on her. She ran into their room, but there was nobody there. Only a piece of paper on the table in her mother’s handwriting:

Dearest daughter,

I feel that I am losing my mind, and I do not want to drag you down with me. I have been fired from my job and have no way of supporting you and cannot find work anywhere else.

You have talent, and it will help you make your way in the world. The Soviet state will look after you a lot better than I can. Please forgive me, and may God preserve you.

Love, Mom

“Where’s my mother?” howled Tata.

Natasha came running at the sound of her wails. “She’s been taken to a hospital.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know. Nobody told us anything.”

Tata slammed the door shut. Without taking off her coat and hat, she fell on her knees before her mother’s icon and began to pray. “Dear God, I was lying when I said I didn’t believe in you. I know you exist. I’ll go to church every day of my life and stop wearing my Pioneer neckerchief. Please just don’t let my mother die!”

Tata fell to the floor and lay there for some time, her arms flung out as if she herself had just been killed.

1

A call came for Alov from the duty room to tell him that Rogov had been arrested.

Struggling with a dreadful migraine, Alov set off downstairs to the building where arrestees were taken.

He was shown a box containing the items confiscated from Rogov on his arrest: his passport, watch, fountain pen, and two train tickets. In his wallet, apart from some loose change, there were two gold ten-ruble coins, thirty German marks, and a separate envelope containing two brand new hundred-dollar bills.

“Where’s your internal telephone?” Alov asked the duty officer.

The officer showed him an ancient wooden apparatus fixed to the wall. Alov picked up the receiver and asked for Diana Mikhailovna.

“Could you write down the numbers of some banknotes for me?” he asked her. “I want you to check them against the numbers of the notes that were stolen from Oscar Reich.”

He hung up and decided to take the pill after all. It was impossible to work with such a headache.

The duty officer took him to the cell where Rogov was being held. The spy hole on the door was low, and Alov had to lean down to look through it.

The small room, painted a dull yellow, was lit up by a light bulb protected by a metal guard. A table and two chairs were in the middle of the room, all bolted to the floor. Rogov’s coat lay on one chair, and Rogov himself, still in his hat, evening dress, and bow tie, was pacing from corner to corner.