The Case of Comrade Tulayev (37 page)

A ray of moonlight fell through the slit in the roof. It fell on bony shoulders, was reflected in human eyes that were like the eyes of wildcats. Ryzhik portioned out some of his dry bread and divided two herrings into seventeen pieces. He could hear the children's mouths salivating. The joy of the feast brightened the beautiful moonbeam. “How good I feel!” exclaimed the one who was called “the Evangelist” because he had been adopted for a time by Baptist or Mennonite peasants (then they had been deported themselves). He purred with satisfaction, lying stretched out at full length on the floor. The ashy light touched only the top of his forehead; below, Ryzhik saw his little dark eyes gleaming. The Evangelist told a good transfer story: Gricha-the-Pockmarked, a little boy from Tyumen, died just like that, without a word, rolled up in his corner. Nobody cared until he began to stink, and they decided to keep it quiet as long as possible so that they could share his rations. The fourth day they couldn't stand it any longer — but they'd had that much more to eat — talk about a show! …

Kot-the-Tomcat, the Pimp — face tilted up, mouth open, showing carnivorous teeth — studied Ryzhik benevolently and almost guessed: “Uncle, you an engineer or an enemy of the people?”

“And what do you call an enemy of the people?”

Answers began coming out of an embarrassed silence. “Men that derail trains … The Mikado's agents … The people that start fires underground in the Donets … Kirov's assassins … They poisoned Maxim Gorki …” — “I knew one once — president of a kolkhoze, he killed the horses by putting spells on them … He knew a trick to bring drought …” — “I knew one too, a rat, he was head of the penal colony, he sold our rations in the market …” — “Me too, me too …” They all knew wretches who were responsible, enemies of the people, robbers, torturers, fomenters of famines, despoilers of prisoners — it's right to shoot them, shooting's not bad enough for them, they ought to have their eyes put out first, have their balls torn off with a string, the way the Koreans do, “I'd make them do some telegraphing, I would! A bit of a buttonhole right here — see, Murlyka? — in the middle of his belly and you get hold of his guts, they unwind like a spool of thread, you hook them onto the ceiling, there are yards of them, more than you know what to do with, and the man squirms around and you tell him the best thing he can do is telegraph to his fools of a father and mother, may the devil roast them …” The invigorating thought of torture aroused them all, made them forget Ryzhik, the pale, square-jawed old man, whose face grew hard as he listened.

“Little brothers,” Ryzhik said at last, “I'm an old partisan from the days of the Civil War, and I tell you I have seen much innocent blood spilled …”

From the darkness, through which the shaft of moonlight pierced like a dagger, a discordant chorus answered him: “Innocent blood, you're right about that …” They had known plenty of bastards, but they had known even more victims. And sometimes the bastards were victims too — what could you make of it all? They discussed it late into the night, until the moonbeam withdrew into the innocent sky — but principally among themselves, because Ryzhik lay down with his head on his sack and fell asleep. Bony bodies huddled against him. “You're big, you have clothes on, you stay warm …” The slumber of the moon-drenched forest finally impregnated the old man and the grown-up children with such vast quiet that it seemed to cure all ills.

Ryzhik shunted from prison to prison, so tired that he could no longer think. “I am a stone carried along by a dirty flood …” Where did his will power end, where did his indifference begin? At certain dark moments he was so weak that he could have wept: This is what it means to be old, your strength goes, your mind flickers like the yellow lanterns trainmen carry up and down the tracks at unknown stations … His sore gums indicated the beginning of scurvy, his joints ached, after resting he could hardly straighten up his tall body, it was so stiff with rheumatism. Ten minutes of walking exhausted him. Shut up in a huge barracks with fifty human specters, some of whom were peasants (officially: “special colonists”), others old offenders, he felt almost glad when his fur cap and his sack were stolen. In the sack was the clock from the brink of silence. Ryzhik came out of there with his hands in his pockets and his head bare, bitterly erect. Perhaps he was no longer waiting for anything but the chance to spit his disgust for the last time into the face of some anonymous sub-torturer who was not worth the effort? Perhaps he had lost even that useless passion? Police, jailers, examiners, high officials — all climbers who had climbed aboard at the eleventh hour, ignorant, their heads stuffed with printed formulas — what did they know about the Revolution, had they ever known anything about it? Between him and their kind, no common language remained. And anything written vanished into secret files which would never open until the earth, shaken to its bowels, should gape under the palatial government buildings. What use would anyone have for the last cry of the last Oppositionist, crushed under the machine like a rabbit under a tank? He dreamed stupidly of a bed with sheets, a quilt, a pillow for his head — such things existed. What has our civilization invented that is better? Socialism itself will not improve the modern bed. To lie down, to fall asleep, never to wake again … The rest are all dead, all of them, all of them! How much time will this country need before our new proletariat begins to become conscious of itself? Impossible to force it into maturity. You can't hurry the germination of seeds under the ground. You can kill it, though … Yet (reassuring thought!) you can't kill it everywhere or kill it always or kill it completely …

He was tormented by lice. In the glass doors of railroad carriages he saw himself looking exactly like an old tramp still in fairly vigorous health. Now he was in a third-class compartment, surrounded by a noncommissioned officer and several soldiers in heavy boots. It was pleasant to see people again. But people hardly noticed him — “You see so many prisoners.” This one might be a great criminal, since he was so heavily escorted, yet he didn't look it, could he be a believer, a priest, a man under persecution? A peasant woman with a child in her arms asked the noncom for permission to give the prisoner some milk and a few eggs, because he looked ill — “in a Christian spirit, citizen.” — “It is strictly forbidden, citizen,” said the soldier. “Go along, citizen, or I'll have you put off the train …” — “Thank you a thousand times, citizen,” said Ryzhik to the peasant woman, in a strong deep voice which made every head in the corridor turn. The noncom, blushing crimson, intervened: “Citizen, you are strictly forbidden to speak to anyone …”

“To hell with that,” Ryzhik said quietly.

“Shut up!”

One of the soldiers, who was lying in the upper berth, dropped a blanket over him. A great pushing and tussling followed, and when Ryzhik got rid of the blanket he saw that the corridor had been cleared. Three soldiers blocked the compartment doorway. They were looking at him with rage and terror. Across from him, the noncom intently watched his every movement, ready to fling himself on him to gag him, to manacle him (even to kill him?) — anything to prevent him from uttering another word.

“Idiot,” said Ryzhik, looking straight at him. He felt no anger — only a desire to laugh, which was overcome by nausea.

Calmly, his elbows resting on the window sill, he watched the fields fly past. Gray and sterile they looked at first, but they were not really so, for soon he could see the first green shoots of wheat. As far as the horizon, and beyond it, the plains were sown with seeds of vegetable gold, weak but invincible. Toward evening, smokestacks appeared in the distance, belching black smoke. A big factory was alight with concentrated red flame. He was in the Ural industrial district. He recognized the outlines of mountains. “I came through here on horseback in 1921, it was a wilderness … What an accomplishment!” The little local prison was clean, well lighted, painted sea green like a hospital. Ryzhik took a bath, was given clean linen, cigarettes, a passably good hot meal … His body felt small pleasures of its own, independently of his mind — the pleasure of swallowing hot soup and finding the flavor of onion in it, the pleasure of being washed clean, the pleasure of stretching itself comfortably on the new mattress … “Now,” murmured his mind, “we are back in Europe, it's the last lap …” A great surprise awaited him. The dimly lighted cell to which he was taken contained two beds, and on one of them a man lay sleeping. The noise of the bolts being opened and closed wakened him. “Welcome,” he said in a friendly voice.

Ryzhik sat down on the other bed. Through the dimness, the two prisoners looked at each other with instantaneous sympathy. “Political?” Ryzhik asked. “Just like yourself, my dear comrade,” replied the man who had been asleep. “I know already, you see — I've acquired an infallible nose for that sort of thing … Isolator — most likely Verkhne-Uralsk or Tobolsk, possibly Suzdal or Yaroslavl? One of the four, I am certain. After that, the Far North. Right?” He was a short man with a little beard; his wrinkled face looked like a baked apple, but was lighted by kindly round owl eyes. His long fingers — the sort of fingers a wizard might have — drummed on the blanket. Ryzhik nodded his assent, though he felt a little hesitant about trusting this stranger. “The devil take me! How have you managed to keep yourself alive all this time?”

“I really don't know,” said Ryzhik. “But I don't think I have much time left.”

The other hummed:

“But in fact all this unpleasant business is not as fleeting as they say. Allow me to introduce myself: Makarenko, Boguslav Petrovich, professor of agricultural chemistry at the University of Kharkov, member of the Party since 1922, expelled in '34 — Ukrainian deviation — Skrypnik's suicide, and so on …”

Ryzhik introduced himself in turn: “… former member of the Petrograd Committee, former deputy member of the C.C.… Left Opposition …” The little man's blankets rose like wings, he jumped out of bed — nightshirt, waxy body, hairy legs. His absurd face puckered with smiles and tears. He waved his arms, embraced Ryzhik, tore himself away from him, came back, finally stood in the middle of the cell jerking like a puppet.

“You! Amazing! Your death was discussed last year in every prison … Dead from a hunger strike … Your political testament was discussed … I read it — not bad at all, although … You! I'll be damned! Well, I congratulate you! It's terrific!”

“I
did
go on a hunger strike,” said Ryzhik, “and changed my mind at the last moment because I believed that the regime would be going into its crisis almost immediately … I did not want to desert.”

“Naturally … Magnificent! Amazing!”

His eyes misty, Makarenko lit a cigarette, swallowed smoke, coughed, walked up and down the concrete floor barefoot.

“I have had only one other meeting as strange as this. It was in the prison at Kansk. An old Trotskyist — think of it! — on his way from a secret isolator, who knew nothing about the trials, nothing about the executions, who had no suspicions whatever, can you image that? He asked me for news of Zinoviev, of Kamenev, of Bukharin, of Stetsky … ‘Are they writing? Does their stuff get printed in the papers?' At first I said ‘Yes, yes' — I didn't want to kill him. ‘What are they writing?' I played dumb — theory is not in my line, and so on … At last I said to him: ‘Prepare for a shock, esteemed comrade, and don't think I have gone mad: They are all dead, they were all shot, from the first to the last, and they confessed.' ‘What could they possibly have confessed?' … He started calling me a liar and a
provocateur
, he even went for my throat — oh God, what a day! A few days later he was shot himself, fortunately, on an order telegraphed from the Center. I still feel relieved for him when I think of it … But you — it's amazing!”

“Amazing,” Ryzhik repeated, and leaned against the wall. His head suddenly felt heavy.

He began to shiver. Makarenko wrapped himself in his blanket. His long fingers played with the air.

“Our meeting is absolutely extraordinary … An inconceivable piece of negligence on the part of the services, a fantastic success commanded by the stars … the stars which are no longer in their courses. We are living through an apocalypse of Socialism, Comrade Ryzhik … Why are you alive, why am I — I ask you! Why? Magnificent! Staggering! I wish I might live for a century so that I could understand …”

“I understand,” said Ryzhik.

“The Left theses, of course … I am a Marxist too. But shut your eyes for a minute, listen to the earth, listen to your nerves … Do you think I am talking nonsense?”

“No.”

Ryzhik clearly deciphered the hieroglyphics (perhaps he was the only person in the world to decipher them, and it gave him an agonizing feeling of vertigo) — the hieroglyphics which had been branded with red-hot iron into the very flesh of the country. He knew, almost by heart, the falsified reports of the three great trials; he knew all the available details of the minor trials in Kharkov, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Tashkent, Krasnoyarsk, trials of which the world had never heard. Between the hundreds of thousands of lines of the published texts, weighted down with innumerable lies, he saw other hieroglyphics, equally bloody but pitilessly clear. And each hieroglyphic was human: a name, a human face with changing expressions, a voice, a portion of living history stretching over a quarter century and more. Such and such an answer of Zinoviev's at the trial in August '37 was connected with a sentence spoken in '32 in the courtyard of an isolator, with a speech full of double meanings (seemingly cowardly, but unyielding with a tortuous, calculating devotion), delivered before the Central Committee in '26; and the thought behind that speech was connected with such and such a declaration by the president of the International, made in '25, with such and such a remark at a dinner in '23 when the democratization of the dictatorship was first being discussed … Beyond that, the thread of the idea ran back to the Twelfth Congress, to the discussion on the role of syndicates in '20, to the theories of war Communism debated by the Central Committee during the first famine, to differences of opinion just before and just after the insurrection, to brief articles commenting on the theses of Rosa Luxemburg, the objections of Yuri Martov, Bogdanov's heresy … If he had credited himself with the slightest poetic faculty, Ryzhik would have allowed himself to become intoxicated by the spectacle of that powerful collective brain, that brain which brought together thousands of brains to perform its work during a quarter of a century, now destroyed in a few years by the backlash of its very victory, now perhaps reflected only in his own mind as in a thousand-faceted mirror … All snuffed out, those brains; all disfigured, those faces, all smeared with blood. Even ideas were swept into a convulsive dance of death, texts suddenly meant the opposite of what they stated, a madness carried away men, books, the history that was supposed to have been made once and for all; and now there was nothing but aberration and buffoonery — one man beating his breast and crying, “I was paid by Japan,” another moaning, “I wanted to assassinate the Chief whom I worship,” yet another accompanying a scornful “Come now!” with a shrug that suddenly opened a hundred windows on an asphyxiated world … Ryzhik could have produced a set of biographies, with an appendix of documents and photographs, covering the public, private, and ideological lives of five hundred men who had been executed, three hundred who had disappeared. What could a Makarenko add to such a detailed picture? So long as he had retained the slightest hope of surviving usefully, Ryzhik had continued his investigations. From sheer force of habit, he asked questions: “What happened in the prisons? Whom did you meet? Tell me, Comrade Makarenko … Give me your story, Comrade Makarenko …”