Denouncer (18 page)

Unsure whether Brodsky was engaging in some kind of deceit, Sasha laughed self-consciously and said, “Fortunately, we don’t share a life.”

“Unless I make you privy to mine.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” pleaded Sasha, cupping his ears. “I don’t want to be an accessory.”

Lightly moving Sasha’s hands, Brodsky gently coaxed, “To what, truth? I wish to promote honesty and not betray it. Just listen, and you decide who Avram Brodsky really is.”

With this introduction, he told a convoluted story of treachery, double-dealing, and denunciation. Born in Lithuania to a herring dealer and a seamstress, he came to Russia at the age of five. His parents settled in a small fishing village north of St. Petersburg. The only Jews in the community, they worshiped in the dark, a condition to which Brodsky accustomed himself, with only a candle or two to light their way. Apprenticed to a tanner, he came to hate the sight of animal skins and the smell of tannic acid. His mother taught him to read and write, and his formal schooling did not begin until the tanner, Markus Schmidt, a kindly Bavarian whose family dated back to the German craftsmen who had helped build St. Petersburg in the eighteenth century, paid for him to attend the local school. By the time of the 1903 revolution, Brodsky was twenty-three, and he never forgot the sight of reformers and Constitutionalists strung up on lampposts, left to dangle in the wind until some brave souls in the middle of the night cut them down. The butchery and the Tsar’s intransigence led him to become a revolutionary, first a Social Democrat, then a Menshevik, and finally a Bolshevik. Given his democratic leanings, he joined the liberal wing of the Party and opposed Stalin’s ruthless rise to power, all the while subscribing to the socialist dream of a world in which wealth was shared, class and religion were abolished, and people worked for the greater good of the country and not greedily for themselves. His political group came to be known as the Left Opposition, and their leader, in spirit if not in flesh, was Leon Trotsky, born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (1879) and exiled by Stalin in 1929. Although Trotsky’s hands were not free of blood, and though he had suppressed the democratic naval uprising at Kronstadt, he opposed Stalin’s tyrannical rule and suppression of human rights.

The Left Opposition had a good friend in Avram Brodsky. In his mid-forties, when he became director of the Michael School (1925), he was fearless in sharing his ideas with his colleagues, the community, and anyone else who would listen. After Trotsky’s exile, conditions for dissenters, on the left and the right, became dangerously precarious but not perilous. Then, in 1933, Stalin introduced terror as a political weapon. Kirov’s murder in December 1934, like Hitler’s “night of the long knives,” ushered in mass arrests and shootings. Taking his cue from Hitler, Stalin purged his Party. The lucky ones were merely exiled, like Brodsky (denouncer unknown!). Uprooted from Balyk and in the company of Bogdan Dolin, he was transported in a Stolypin wagon—railroad cars divided into wire cages with shelves for sleeping quarters—to Siberia. The trip took two weeks. By the time they arrived, the slop buckets used for toilets were overflowing and the stench was unbearable. Those who had boarded the train in weak health worsened or died. Those who had boarded in good health often left the train diseased or defeated. Brodsky swore to himself that he would live, and that he would see the day that Russia subscribed to a humane socialism. In the camps and the gold mines, it was apparent that the only way to survive was to ingratiate yourself with some official and be assigned an easy duty, not cutting down trees or mining but working in the dispensary or cafeteria or camp post office. He immediately wrote his superior, the commandant, and disavowed the ideas that had cost him his freedom. He forswore the Left Opposition and wrote a scathing critique of Trotsky and his position on world revolution. Brodsky’s paper urged his readers to support Stalin’s theory of revolution in one country. That short treatise earned him a position in the dispensary administering morphine to dying patients.

Bogdan Dolin never forgave Brodsky his recantation and easy duty, having himself been brutalized by the camp criminals and having to serve a longer sentence than Brodsky. Dolin accused Avram of loving his torturers just to mitigate the conditions of his own sentence. So whenever Brodsky told stories in the town square about Kolyma, Dolin stood as a visual reminder to the apostate that he had led others to a near-death confinement and then saved his own hide by siding with the enemy. But Brodsky said that he and Stalinism were incompatible, and that his renunciation of his former beliefs had starved his conscience. When he returned to Balyk and took up his lonely residence, an old comrade contacted him to ask if he would become active in the underground of the Left Opposition. After much soul searching, he agreed. So although outwardly he was living as an internal exile and espousing the glories of Stalinism, he was secretly working for the democratic socialist opposition, writing letters, raising money from émigrés in Europe, anonymously denouncing orthodox Bolsheviks as wreckers and enemies of the people. Who was his courier? Here Brodsky paused, suspecting that Sasha would find it hard to credit the name he was about to confess. Natalia Korsakova. In 1920, during the civil war, they had fought together against the Whites and had sanctified their comradeship with an affair. Benjie was his son. But lest anyone suspect Natalia of working for Brodsky as his postal courier, he gave her no money. She was paid by agents of the Left Opposition. Her domestic work was a cover. And except for those occasions when they could meet at a deserted hunter’s cabin in the forest to pass information or letters, and perhaps even make love (Sasha’s extrapolation), he and Natalia had no contact.

What money came to Brodsky, which he shared with Benjie and Ivan Korsakov, came from . . . and again Brodsky paused knowing the effect his disclosure would have . . . came from the OGPU and Boris Filatov, to whom he was currently working as a double agent, spying on the Left Opposition, reporting to the secret police, and sharing what he learned from the secret police with the Left Opposition. Hence the periodic visits of Filatov or one of his associates to Balyk and to Brodsky’s cottage.

“As a committed Bolshevik, I want a democratic socialism, not a totalitarian one. To continue working for the Left Opposition and to remain in Balyk, I have to keep on good terms with the Party, which means I have to be perceived as helping them. And helping them means reporting on others. So I pass along harmless information. In return, Filatov pays me. For what? For trivia. He thinks, like the poet William Blake, he can see the world in a grain of sand.”

A wan Sasha, feeling as if he’d been skewed on the head of a pin, replied, “You realize, of course, that what you’ve just told me could cost you your life, as well as my own?”

“Why do you think I’ve opened my heart to you?” Sasha thought the diction rang false. “I’m not a madman hoping you’ll expose me. I want you for our own. A Left Oppositionist.”

“Of all the people to select: me! I detest politics.”

Brodsky’s coarse laughter was anything but mirthful, and in the light of the fire, the smoke issuing from his mouth and nose made him look demonic, an image that Sasha found as upsetting as the one of two decapitated men. At that moment, Sasha debated whether or not to tell Brodsky that Filatov had asked him to keep an eye on the former director. He decided against it, feeling certain Brodsky would reply that he too had been asked to spy—on Sasha. Such was life in the Soviet Union. But the one choice he could not escape was reporting to Filatov. He could repeat what Brodsky had said and thereby protect his own skin. Weren’t all patriotic citizens expected to convey to the secret police information that might prove detrimental to the state? Not to convey it made you equally guilty. For the nonce, he decided that silence was better than being a knave.

Although he had decided after the murders that he would make every effort to ingratiate himself with the law, using every linguistic and lexical trick in his toolbox—neologisms, indirection, double meanings, obfuscation, euphemism—he refused to employ the national disease of the Soviet Union, denunciation. Some means vitiated the ends.

No, denunciation was too repulsive. Although Sasha couldn’t swear to Brodsky’s trustworthiness, he knew his own. If a good conscience is a soft pillow, as the Russian proverb says, then Sasha intended to sleep peacefully. Besides, he knew that the type of information people traded in and how they represented it could reveal as much about the trader—or did he mean traitor?—as the person being denounced. There were other difficulties. Even if Brodsky had told the truth, had he told all of it? Based on what he had heard, Sasha wanted to ask him innumerable questions. Without answers to those questions, he felt that Brodsky’s narrative was incomplete. Why, for example, would Filatov continue to pay him for worthless gossip? Then, too, other people were involved, in particular, Natalia Korsakova. Sasha therefore decided that for now he would simply recount for Filatov the interesting literary discussions in which he and Brodsky frequently engaged. “Interesting” was normally a safe word when you wished to avoid a direct question: “How did you like the play?” Reply: “I found it interesting.” In short, information was a slippery business. Either you knew too much or too little. Both conditions rendered one vulnerable.

But the one truth he knew for sure was that he had unwittingly become Brodsky’s creature.

11

T
he Michael School, under Galina’s energetic supervision, began to plan for the Russian Winter Festival that would take place for two days in the school auditorium on the weekend prior to the winter solstice. Everyone was encouraged to participate or lend a hand: students, faculty, and staff. Even some villagers pitched in, contributing to the carpentry and stitchery. The auditorium became a beehive of a
ctivity, as the seats were carefully removed and stored to create a large, open area. Saws and planes, hammers and nails, chisels and screwdrivers converted the drab space into a colorful bazaar with student booths featuring different foods, a dart game, a palm reader, a crystal gazer, a shell game, a book sale, artwork, and photographic exhibits. The center area was reserved for music, dances, and songs; and the stage would hold a vaudeville routine, poetry readings, short dramatic scenes, and a play. Until Petr departed to meet Viktor in Ryazan, he worked alone in the farmhouse on sketches for the stage set, and Natalia Korsakova and Ekaterina Rzhevska actively contributed to the costume design.

The festival was scheduled to open at two on Saturday afternoon and the play, advertised as a surprise, was to begin at eight. Sunday would be dedicated to winter sports. All of the indoor activities were taking shape within sight of the organizers. Rehearsals, however, were held in another part of the school. No one but the actors and the director, Galina Selivanova, knew which play would be staged Saturday night. Whether it was a Russian masterpiece, written by Chekhov or Ostrovsky or Tolstoy or Turgenev, or an original play composed by one of the students or staff, remained a well-guarded secret. Galina would say only that “it will be quite amusing.” Not even Sasha had read the play, but knowing the author, he had expressed some reservations.

In the period leading up to the production, Galina was a whirling dervish, appearing everywhere. Her ambient electricity fired up others as they swung into action preparing scenery, sets, lighting, and props. Leading her charges, Galina, with her sleeves rolled up, seemed especially attractive and sexually alluring to Sasha. At the end of each day, he had a fierce desire to bathe with her, fondle her breasts, and then make love. But not until Petr left for Ryazan would that be possible. He rarely left the farmhouse, lying low, afraid that at any moment a policeman would come knocking at the door. Except for an occasional nocturnal walk in the woods with Sasha, he stayed close to home, so close that a few people began to ask questions about his reclusiveness. Goran, for one, wondered about this guest and often invited him into his photo lab to see some of his work.

Following a particularly satisfying rehearsal, Sasha asked Galina to remain after the others had left. Backstage, he took her in his arms and begged to make love. She agreed. As they lay on a pile of costumes, she traced her finger along his mouth and told him about Petr: his girlfriend in Kiev and Petr’s wish for her to divorce him. Alya would remain with her, of course, but Petr swore to stay in touch with his daughter. Galina then remarked on Alya’s affection for Sasha, and how well the two got along. “It’s the child in you,” she said, “and when I see that playfulness, I am reminded of my grandfather’s zest for games and fun. He and my father never saw eye to eye, but he was special to me. It was he who taught me to ride and handle horses. When he died, I was devastated.” She pressed her lips to Sasha’s and said, “Never abandon me. I would find it too painful.” Then they slipped out of their clothes and, more than ever before, made passionate love.

On opening day, booths lined the auditorium except for the stage. By early evening, strolling minstrels appeared in the middle of the room making music on puff accordions and violins and castanets. At the same time, students dressed in Tartar robes and turbans sang and danced in a manner reminiscent of Scheherazade. A few of the more athletically gifted boys juggled and tumbled and somersaulted and stood on their hands. After this introductory number, which concluded with young men dashing around the room with lighted torches, four students took the stage for a vaudeville skit. Dressed as American hoboes, with black cork smeared on their faces, they engaged in a rapid give-and-take.

FIRST: This may be a circus, but git away from that thar elephant.

SECOND: Aw, I ain’t hurtin’ him.

The next two students step forward with a chair, a scissor, and a cardboard cutout of a dog. One student sits while the other pretends to snip his hair.

CUSTOMER: Your dog seems very fond of watching you cut hair.

BARBER: It ain’t that; sometimes I snip off a bit of the customer’s ear.

The four boys engage in a rapid patter.

FIRST: This dog cost us virtually nothing. He was a real bargain.

SECOND: Oh, that’s nice. Because a bargain dog never bites.

THIRD: He’s a kleptomaniac.

FOURTH: What’s he doing for it?

THIRD: Oh, he’s taken everything.

FIRST: My wife is so irritable, the least thing starts her off.

SECOND: You’re lucky. Mine’s a self-starter.

THIRD: When did your husband lose his inclination for work?

FOURTH: Don’t ask me, we’ve been married for only six years.

FIRST: Do your daughters live at home?

SECOND: No, they’re not married yet.

The third student removes a tape and starts to measure the fourth student.

THIRD: In my line of tailoring work, sir, I must ask you: What about a small deposit?

FOURTH: Just as you like. Put one in if it’s the style.

FIRST: Where were you born?

SECOND: Moscow. Why?

FIRST: I don’t know why. I was asking you that.

THIRD: He never did a thing in his life; and he didn’t do that well.

FOURTH: I guess you might say that he belonged to the No-ability.

The audience guffawed. At the end of the teaser and before the play began, the guests descended on the food booths and stuffed themselves with cold meats and cheeses and bread and herring and cooked potatoes. During the commotion of eating, Filatov and two aides entered the room in civilian clothes. Sasha was aghast. What if the play was provocative or, worse, subversive? Who had invited them? Boris greeted Sasha warmly and introduced his two colleagues, Larissa Pankarova and Basil Makarov.

“Larissa’s a doctor who works for the service, and Basil gave up a promising career as a lawyer to work with us.”

Calling for attention, Sasha introduced his guests. A slight ripple of applause followed. He knew not to leave them unannounced, lest he be accused later of insinuating the secret police into the audience. They declined Sasha’s offer to bring them folding chairs for the play, insisting that they would join the others on the floor, cross-legged.

When the lights dimmed, Galina appeared on stage and introduced the play. “Our fare for tonight is called
Summoned
. For the moment, the playwright shall remain anonymous. I will return to that point after the completion of the play.” Galina exited the stage. After a pause, the lights in the auditorium dimmed and came up on a living-room set that served as the centerpiece for most of the play.

IVAN (
downstage
): You can’t trust anyone these days . . . not anyone. The name is Ivan Goniff, and I’m here to tell Nicholas Ostroff, “Nicky” for short, that his time has come. But please don’t confuse me with the OGPU; I take my orders from a higher source. The people I work for don’t enforce the law; we
are
the law. We are the nation’s brain and conscience. Everyone needs leadership, what with enemies of the people everywhere. In fact, conditions are so bad, I lock up the silver if my local commissar comes around. You can’t be too careful. Safety! That’s the point of government. Which is why Nicky has been summoned. He’s the chief document shredder for the Politburo. Right now, you can see him sitting in his living room, in a leather chair with a Victorian floor lamp at his elbow, an inlaid teak table at his feet, and a Finnish couch against the wall.

Anyway, until today, Nicky was an important man. After all, chief shredder of top-secret documents is an enviable position. The only trouble is, you can never be sure the shredder can be trusted. What if he squirrels away an incriminating piece of paper or two? Like a memo from you-know-who about some important political issue. Well, a paper like that could bring down the government. That’s why it’s best, if you have any doubts, and we do, to remove the shredder. Consequently, the Boss has put out an order to terminate Nicky’s association with the Politburo. When I tell him he’s been summoned, he’ll say, “Just give me a little time.” Sure, so he can run to his friends for help. Friends like Miroslav Mirnov. But I can’t give Nicky any time. His term of office is over. And now, excuse me while I knock on his door.

Ivan enters Nicky’s living room.

NICKY: Good to see you, Comrade Goniff.

IVAN: You’re looking well.

NICKY: Feeling pretty good. And you?

IVAN: Not bad.

NICKY: Why are you wearing a service revolver?

IVAN: I’m on assignment.

NICKY: Looking for enemies of the people?

IVAN: They’re everywhere.

NICKY: Sit down, Ivan. You said you wanted to see me.

IVAN: Just long enough to . . .

NICKY: A shot of vodka?

IVAN: A good idea.

NICKY: Here’s your drink. I’ll leave the bottle here. Take as much as you want.

They throw back their drinks.

NICKY: Why are you removing your service revolver?

IVAN: Nicky, I have some bad news for you.

NICKY: What are you talking about?

IVAN: A summons . . . for your arrest.

NICKY: You can’t be serious! Why me?

IVAN: You know too much.

NICKY: I’ve never violated a trust. Never gossiped.

IVAN: Admirable behavior, Nicky.

NICKY: I love the Leader and all my superiors.

IVAN: You’ll have your day in court.

NICKY: Who’s behind this? I know it’s not the Dear Leader.

IVAN: You know how these things work, Nicky. A sealed envelope arrives. Inside is an order, a summons. As for the rest . . .

NICKY (
interrupting
): Listen, Ivan, you and me, we went through the same training together. We play tennis. You wouldn’t, would you? Why just the other day I was saying to Comrade Ufa, “Of all the people I know, the one person I most admire is Ivan Goniff.” (
stands
) Look at that! You have lint all over your jacket. Just turn around. I’ll brush it off.

IVAN: Sit down, Nicky. You don’t think I’m going to fall for that old trick, do you? (
pause
) Nice apartment you have here. First floor. Elegant furniture. Outside the window an old elm tree shading the terrace. You’re lucky you don’t live in capitalist America, where the elms are being cut down. I suspect it’s the fault of their foreign policy.

NICKY (
laughs immoderately
): Dutch Elm disease! The fault . . . (
laughs harder
) of their foreign policy. That’s rich. (
laughs harder still
)

IVAN (
breathing deeply
): I love the scent of lilacs in the spring. You have several lilac bushes outside your window.

NICKY (
serious
): Planted them myself, four years ago.

IVAN: I didn’t know you liked to garden.

NICKY: You ought to look at my communal plot next door. It’s ripe with vegetables.

IVAN: Good try, Nicky. But I have things to do . . . here and now. Get your coat. You’ve been denounced.

NICKY: Believe me, Ivan. There’s been a mistake. You have the wrong person. I can prove it. Just give me a little time. A few days . . . so I can find out who’s at fault.

IVAN: Who’s at fault? Nicky, you can’t be serious? What a sense of humor! (
laughs
) Who’s at fault? (
laughs harder;
then
notices a frame on the wall
) Where’d you get that?

NICKY: The needlepoint? My blessed mother made it for me.

IVAN (
reads
): “They serve best who never question.” Well-chosen words. Classic. Sounds like Cicero. Hand me the bottle, will you, Nicky? One for the road.

NICKY: Sure, Ivan, here it is.

Nicky strikes Ivan over the head. Ivan falls to the floor.

Sorry, comrade, but when denunciation is in the air, it’s dog eat dog.

The stage is quickly cleared. We are now in Miroslav Mirnov’s office.

NICKY (
stage whisper
): Psst! Psst! Miroslav! Comrade Mirnov. It’s me, Nicky. I came in the back, so no one would see.

MIRO: You look ill, Nicky. Something wrong?

NICKY: I’ve been summoned, Miro. Somebody’s trying to get me out of the way. I need your help.

MIRO: Why me?

NICKY: You’re my lawyer, aren’t you?

MIRO: I’ll be happy to draw up a new will for you.

NICKY: Forget the will. I’ve got an incendiary document stored in a safe place.

MIRO: You didn’t shred it?

NICKY: Kept it for security . . . for a moment like this.

MIRO (
whistles
): Whew!

NICKY: Believe me, it’ll finish off the Boss if I make it public.

MIRO: Think of the danger, Nicky.

NICKY: I can’t be worse off than I am now.

MIRO: Do you know what it means to expose the Boss? You’ll be charged with slander and have to stand trial. Crowds will howl at you. The prosecutor will ask personal questions.

NICKY: For example?

MIRO: For example: (
assumes the voice of the prosecutor
) Citizen Ostroff, what do you do for a living?

NICKY: I work for the Politburo shredding top-secret documents.

MIRO: Please be specific.

NICKY: The Beloved Leader’s notes to his aides.

MIRO: What else?

NICKY: Some of Lenin’s personal papers.

MIRO: On whose orders would you shred a document that once belonged to Comrade Lenin? That’s a capital crime.

NICKY: On the Boss’s orders.

MIRO: Well, that’s different.