The Case of Comrade Tulayev (42 page)

Kondratiev said:

“I have almost forgotten about it … I never suspected then that the value of human life would fall so low among us twenty years after our victory.”

It was not an aggressive remark, but Popov knew very well that it was the most cogent comment possible. Kondratiev smiled.

“Yes … At dawn we marched for a long time over wet sand … It was a green, silent dawn … We felt monstrously strong — as strong as dead men, I thought. And we did not have to fight; day broke on bitter foliage which we chewed as we marched on — forward with wild joy … Yes, old man.”

“Now that you are over fifty,” Popov thought, “how much of that strength can you have left?”

Afterwards Kondratiev was in charge of river transport, when abandoned barges rotted along the banks; he harangued crafty and discouraged fishermen in forgotten settlements, got together teams of young men, appointed captains seventeen years old, whom he put in command of rafts, created a School of River Navigation which principally taught political economy, became the chief organizer of a district, quarreled with the Plan Commission, asked to be put in charge of the Far Northern Fur Depots, was sent to China on a mission to the Red Dragons of Szechwan … Not a man to flinch, Popov thought; psychologically a soldier rather than an ideologist. Ideologists, being susceptible to the supple and complex dialectics of our period, give in more easily; whereas seven times out of ten, the only thing to do with a soldier, once things get started, is to shoot him and say nothing. Even if he finally promises that he will behave before the judges and the audience, you're never sure, and what's to be done then? Experiences, secret investigations, closed trials, trials that might be opened, memories, dossiers — these things and many more, formless, jumbled, instantly clear when clarity was needed, lived for a moment in Popov's brain while he considered imponderables … Kondratiev had forgotten his own life for the moment, but he almost divined all the rest, and he wore a hard half-smile that was like an insult, he sat straight and massive in his chair. Popov sensed a great aggressiveness in him. Nothing could be got from him, it was most annoying. Ryzhik's death had scuttled 50 per cent of the trial; Kondratiev, the ideal defendant, was scuttling the other 50 per cent — what was he to say to the Chief? Something had to be said … Could he wriggle out of it, leave the job to the Prosecutor, Rachevsky? A donkey, Rachevsky, with nothing in his head but dragging off one cartload of culprits after another … He would pile blunder on blunder — and to kill him afterwards, like the stupid beast he was, would help nothing … Popov, feeling that he had been silent a few seconds too long, raised his head just in time to receive a blow straight from the shoulder.

“Have I made myself clear?” Kondratiev asked, without raising his voice. “I have told you a great deal in a few words, I believe … And, as you know, I never go back on what I have said …”

Why was he so insistent? Could he know? How? Impossible that he should know. “Certainly, certainly,” Popov muttered. “I … we know you, Ivan Nicolayevich … We appreciate you …”

“Delighted,” said Kondratiev — absolutely insufferable. And what he did not say, but thought, Popov understood: “And I know you too.”

“Well, so you're going to Serpukhov?”

“Tomorrow, by car.”

Popov could think of nothing more to say. He put on his falsest smile of cordiality, his face was never grayer, his soul never shabbier. A telephone call delivered him. “Good-by, Kondratiev … I have to hurry … Too bad … We ought to see each other oftener … Hard life, mmm … It's good to have a frank little talk …”

“Good indeed!”

Kondratiev followed him to the door with unseeing eyes. “Tell them that I'll yell at the top of my lungs, that I'll yell for all those who didn't dare yell, that I'll yell by myself, that I'll yell underground, that I don't give a shit for a bullet in my head, that I don't give a shit for you or for myself, because someone has got to yell at last, or everything is done for … But what has come over me, where do I get all this energy from? From my youth, from that dawn at Innokentievka, from Spain? What does it matter? I'm going to yell.”

That day at Serpukhov passed in a region of lucidity that bordered on dream. How could Kondratiev feel sure that he would not be arrested that night, nor in the C.C. car, which was driven by a Security man? He knew it, and he smoked calmly, he admired the birches, the russet and gray of fields under flying clouds. He did not go to call on the local Committee before the function, as he should have done: Let me see as few administrative faces as possible (though there must still be some decent people among these provincial bureaucrats). He dismissed the astonished chauffeur in the middle of a street, stopped in front of the display windows of co-operative groceries and stationery stores, immediately discovered little placards reading “Samples,” “Empty” (the latter on biscuit boxes …), “No notebooks”; set off again, wandered through the streets, read the newspaper posted at the door of the Industrial Survey Commission, a paper exactly like the papers of all provincial towns of the same size, no doubt supplied with news by the daily circulars sent out by the C.C.'s Regional Press Bureau. He read only the local items, knowing in advance the entire contents of the first two pages, and he at once found the oddities that he had expected. The editor of the local column wrote that “Comrade President of the ‘Triumph of Socialism' Kolkhoze, despite repeated warnings from the Party Committee, persists in his pernicious anti-cow ideological deviation, contrary to the instructions of the Commissariat for Kolkhozes …” Anti-cow! What a wonderful neologism! God almighty! These specimens of illiterate prose made him angry and sad at once … “Comrade Andriuchenko would not allow cows to be harnessed for plowing! Must we recall to him the decision of the recent conference, unanimously voted after the most convincing report by Veterinary Trochkin?” Somewhere under the immense sky of the steppes, Kondratiev remembered, he had once seen a cow drawing a cart on which there was nothing but a white coffin and a heap of paper flowers; a peasant woman and two small children followed it. Well — if a cow can pull a poor devil's coffin to a cemetery on the horizon, why shouldn't a cow pull a plow? The director of the dairy can always be sent to court afterward, if milk production falls below the Plan quota … We lost between sixteen and seventeen million horses during the period of collectivization — between 50 and 52 per cent. So much the worse for the Russian cow — since obviously we can't make the members of the C.C. pull plows! There was nothing in the rest of the paper. Nicholas I had his official architects design models of churches and schools, to be followed by builders throughout the Empire … For our part, we have this press in uniform, edited by fools who think up “anti-cow ideological deviations.” It is a slow process, the rise of a people, especially when you put such heavy burdens on their shoulders and so many shackles on their bodies … Kondratiev thought of the complex relation between tradition and the mistakes for which we ourselves are responsible. A tall young man in the black leather uniform of the Tank School came hurrying out of a shop, turned, suddenly found himself face to face with Kondratiev; and surprise and hostility appeared in his fresh young cold-eyed face. “Eyes which are determined to reveal nothing …”

“You, Sacha!” Kondratiev exclaimed softly, and he felt that, from that instant, he too would force himself to reveal nothing — nothing.

“Yes, Ivan Nicolayevich, it is I,” said the young man, so embarrassed that he blushed slightly.

Kondratiev almost said, idiotically: “Nice day, isn't it?” but that evasion was not permissible … A virile face, regular features, the high forehead and wide nostrils of a Great Russian — a handsome face under the leather helmet.

“You make quite a fine-looking warrior, Sacha. How's your work getting on?”

Sacha sternly broke the ice, with unbelievable calm, as if he were speaking of perfectly commonplace things:

“I thought that I would be thrown out of the school when my father was arrested … But I wasn't. Is it because I am one of the top students, or is there a directive that forbids throwing the sons of executed men out of special units? What do you think, Ivan Nicolayevich?”

“I don't know,” said Kondratiev, and looked at the sidewalk.

The toes of his boots were dirty. A red, half-crushed worm writhed in the muddy space between two paving blocks. There was a pin on the pavement too, and a few inches from it, a blob of spit. Kondratiev raised his eyes again and looked straight into Sacha's face.

“What is your own opinion?”

“For a while I told myself that everyone knew my father was innocent, but obviously that doesn't count. And besides, the Political Commissar advised me to change my name. I refused.”

“You were wrong, Sacha. It will be a great handicap to you.”

They had nothing more to say to each other, nothing whatever.

“Are we going to have war?” Sacha asked in the same unemotional voice.

“Probably.”

Sacha's face barely lit up with a restrained smile.

Kondratiev smiled broadly. He thought: Don't say a word, lad. I know. The enemy first.

“Do you need any books?”

“Yes, Ivan Nicolayevich. I want German books on tank tactics … We shall have to meet superior tactics …”

“But our morale will be superior …”

“Right,” said Sacha dryly.

“I will try to get the books for you … Good luck, Sacha.”

“Good luck to you too,” the young man said.

Was there really that strange little gleam in his eyes, that implication in his tone, that restrained vigor in his handshake?

“He would have every right to hate me,” Kondratiev thought, “to despise me, and yet he must understand me, know that I too …” A girl was waiting for Sacha in front of the wax figures of the “Scheherazade” Hairdressers' Syndicate Co-op (“permanents 30 rubles” — one third of a working woman's monthly wage). Kondratiev made more serious calculations. According to the no longer up-to-date statistics of the C.C. Bulletins, we have eliminated to date between 62 and 70 per cent of Communist officials, administrators, and officers — and that in less than three years. In other words, out of some two hundred thousand men representing the Party cadres, between 124,000 and 140,000 Bolsheviks. It is impossible, on the basis of the published data, to determine the proportion between men executed and men interned in concentration camps, but to judge from personal experience … It is true that the proportion of men executed is particularly high in government circles, which doubtless gives me a wrong perspective …

A few minutes before the hour set for his speech, he found himself under the white colonnade of Red Army House. Worried secretaries came running to meet him … the secretary of the Executive Committee, the secretary of the General Staff, the secretary of the local Commandant, and yet others — almost all dressed in uniforms so new that they looked as if they had been polished, with yellow knee leathers, shining holsters, shining faces too, and obsequious handshakes; and they made an impressive escort as he mounted the great marble stairway and young officers threw out their chests to salute him, magnificently immobile. “How many minutes before I am to speak?” was the only question he asked. Two secretaries answered simultaneously, their freshly shaven faces bowing eagerly. “Seven minutes, Comrade Kondratiev …” A voice which respect made almost hoarse ventured: “Will you take a glass of wine?” and added in a humble and casual tone: “We have a remark-a-ble Tsinondali …” Kondratiev nodded and forced a smile. It was as if he were walking surrounded by perfectly constructed manikins. The group entered a sort of drawing room and buffet in one. Two heavily framed pictures faced each other from cream-colored walls, on either side of the edibles: one represented Marshal Klimentii Efremovich Voroshilov on a rearing charger, his naked saber pointing to a murky spot on the horizon; red flags surrounded by bayonets hurried to overtake him under a sky of dark clouds. The horse was painted with extraordinary care, the nostrils and the dark eye, to which a highlight lent animation, were even more successfully rendered than the details of the saddle; the rider had a round, slightly foreshortened head which might have come out of a popular picture book; but the stars on his collar glittered. The other large portrait showed the Chief, in a white tunic, delivering a speech from a platform, and he was pure painted wood, his smile a grimace, the platform looked like an empty buffet, the Chief like a Caucasian waiter saying, in his pungent accent: “Nothing left, citizen …” On the other hand, the real buffet gleamed white and opulent, with caviar, Volga sturgeons, smoked salmon, glazed eels, game, fruits from the Crimea and Turkestan. “Gifts of our native soil,” Kondratiev joked cheerfully, as he went to the buffet to receive the offered glass of Tsinondali from the plump hands of a dazzled blonde. His joke, the bitterness of which no one divined, was greeted by obliging little laughs, not very loud because no one knew whether it was really permissible to laugh in the presence of such an eminent personage. Behind the waitress who had been given the honor of serving him (photogenic, 50-ruble permanent, and decorated with the Medal of Honor of Labor), Kondratiev saw a broad red ribbon garlanding a small photograph — of himself. Gilt letters proclaimed:
WELCOME TO COMRADE KONDRATIEV, DEPUTY MEMBER OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
… Where the devil had they unearthed that old snapshot, the bootlickers? Kondratiev slowly drank the Caucasian wine, waved away smiles and sandwiches with a stern hand, remembered that he had barely glanced at the printed outline of his speech, supplied by the Division for Army Propaganda. “Excuse me, comrades …” His escort instantly fell back, leaving him in the center of a six-foot circle of emptiness. He drew several crumpled sheets from his pocket. An enormous white-eyed sturgeon pointed its minute carnivorous teeth at him. The bulbs in the chandeliers were reflected in the amber jelly. The printed speech discussed the international situation, the battle against the enemies of the people, technical training, the invincibility of the Army, patriotic feeling, loyalty to “our inspired Chief, guide of peoples, unique strategist.” Idiots! they've given me the standard speech for Morale Office representatives with the rank of general! … “The Chief of our great Party and of our invincible Army, animated by a will of iron against the enemies of the Fatherland, is at the same time filled with a profound and incomparable love for the workers and all upright citizens. ‘Think of man!' That unforgettable phrase, which he propounded at the XIXth Conference, should be graven in letters of fire in the consciousness of every commander of a unit, of every political commissar, of every …” Kondratiev thrust the dead clichés back into his trousers pocket. Scowling, he looked around for someone. A dozen faces offered themselves, hastily assuming dutiful smiles: We are here, absolutely at your disposal, Comrade Deputy Member of the C.C.! He asked: