The nitrate film burned and melted faster than Arkady expected. He manoeuvred the remnants beneath the water stream. Smoke rose.
Efim decided not to warn the major that his actions could well clog the drain. Instead, he tried to fan smoke away from the patient. —What do you want from me, Comrade Major?
— Help. First, however, I will help you. I’ve found you a flat. I’m sure you’d prefer that to sleeping at the youth hostel. Moscow’s housing shortage is worse than Leningrad’s, but you were promised a flat as part of the job.
A nurse opened the door and peeked in. —Comrades, why do I smell something burning in here?
Arkady ignited his lighter. —I smoke.
She studied him, then backed away and let the door ease shut.
Efim thought he noticed Arkady smirk as he tucked his lighter into a pocket. —Major Balakirev, when can Olga join me?
— Who is Olga?
Efim suspected, hoped, dared not believe, that Arkady teased him as he had on the train. —Olga Nikolaieva Aristarkhova, my wife.
— Kept her own name, then? A modern woman. And Scherba: Jewish?
Blaming the stench of melted film and not his clammy fear, Efim thought he might vomit. —Latvian.
— Pardon me. Doctors and the like, I thought…
— Secular Latvian.
— Secular Latvian it is. Scherba is also a kind of soup. Dr. Soup. It might go well with doktorskaya kolbasa. Never thought to change it to Scherbakov?
— No.
— Why won’t you treat Nikto with phage therapy? You’re an expert.
Now Efim felt dizzy. Did official interrogations progress so, like some map with palsy, borders twitching? And who the hell was this patient called Nobody? A prisoner? —Phage therapy is no use here. The patient has no infection, by some miracle.
— Miracles ceased to exist in 1917. And what has infection got to do with it?
— It’s what phage therapy fights. Phage means devour. What preys on a bacterium? A virus. What drives a virus? Reproduction. And they’re hard to kill, if they’re even alive. A virus can lie dormant in permafrost until thawed and still swarm a patient. So we learn the language of the virus, whet its appetite for specific bacteria, inject it into the patient who’s already ill, and let it hunt the infection.
— Civil war in the patient’s body?
— The end result is a cure.
Arkady nodded. —Justifies the means. Can you set these phages on a different target? On healthy cells, for example?
Efim saw the teeth of the trap. Oh, this Major Balakirev understood phage therapy well enough. —In theory, yes.
— But in your heart, no?
— Comrade Major, I’m a doctor.
— A doctor assigned to Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two. A specialist in your field.
— Now, wait—
— What did you say your wife is called?
Shutting his eyes, Efim thought he could smell Olga’s perfume, Krasnaya Moskva. He didn’t bother to answer.
Arkady spoke, and the borders twitched again. —Tell me, is it true about you and the train?
— Is what true?
— You served on a medical train in the civil war?
— Yes.
— And made it a point of honour to treat any patients you encountered, Red or White?
— When I could.
— Once jumped off the train to do so?
Efim opened his eyes and met Arkady’s gaze. —Well, it hadn’t got up to speed.
Arkady laughed, the way he might at a precocious child who’d interrupted a party to share wisdom, and the sound woke Kostya, who, too weak and drugged to move, simply lay there, working to open his eyes. Neither Arkady nor Efim noticed.
Efim waited for Arkady to finish laughing. —You mentioned a flat.
— Yes, yes, the housing shortage. I’ve looked into your case, and I made some arrangements. Twelve square metres per person is the ideal, and we can’t always meet that. At first, Comrade Doctor, they had you listed to share a sixty-square-metre flat with a family of six. Here, take the chair, you look like you need to sit down. As I said, sixty square metres with six other people, make it seven in total, that’s, oh, just over eight square metres per person, less walls and furniture and the rest of it. I flagged this in your file as unacceptable. Your work will be difficult, and you will need your rest. So I’ve found you a ninety-square-metre flat, new building, fresh paint, partly furnished, two bedrooms, a front room, a kitchen, a bathroom with a shower and hot running water, which you must share with only one other person.
— One other person being my wife?
— No. Don’t go so pale; it’s not me. It’s him. And now that I’ve helped you, here’s how I want you to help me. Look after this man and keep him fit for duty.
Efim glanced at Kostya, then looked back at Arkady. —I can’t do that.
— Why not?
— He’s ill, exhausted, and injured. He needs to convalesce.
— I’ve just explained, he needs to work, and you need a flat where you can rest. All I want is for you to keep your doctor’s eye on the one person, one, with whom you share these ninety square metres. Understand me yet?
You don’t give a damn about my rest. You want me to run a creche. Despite telling himself to shut up and not antagonize the NKVD major, not get himself shot, Efim continued. —If he’s so precious, then why can’t he live with you?
— He did, once. We argued.
— Is he your son?
— No.
Efim took a deep breath. —And my wife?
— We can discuss it again in a few months, if your work goes well. Arrangements for Aristarkhova would be out of my hands, though I can put in a word. Meantime my colleagues in Leningrad will keep an eye to her. She’s alone there, I understand. Her sister died not long ago, and, of course, you have no children.
— You know all of that?
Arkady raised his eyebrows, tilted his head to one side.
Embarrassed, Efim nodded and acquiesced. —There was a mistake on the X-ray film. What’s his name?
— Nikto.
Efim took a deep breath, said nothing.
Kostya still couldn’t open his eyes or speak. It’s true, he tried to say. My name is Konstantin Arkadievich Nikto, and I can’t fucking move.
He managed a grunt. The sound got lost beneath Arkady continuing to instruct Efim on the pragmatics of Moscow life.
HOMO SOVIETICUS
Friday 4 June–Sunday 6 June
Standing before a dozen children aged five to twelve in a tiny room in Moscow’s Hotel Lux, Temerity spoke in English. —Dismissed.
The students stood up in unison, inclined their heads to their teacher, and replied in English. The accents of their parents faded more each day. —Thank you, Comrade Bush.
Courtesy and discipline displayed, the class broke into two groups, girls and boys. The girls gathered to talk among themselves, while the boys ran off, shouting of games. They’d all switched to Russian, obeying the standing order, sometimes dipping into German or French for this word or that, and improvising a new vernacular. This had long been the hope: the children of Comintern unified in their ability and desire to overcome language barriers. When first gathering at Hotel Lux, Comintern members wasted no time setting up language classes. The Kremlin regarded these classes with increasing suspicion. For now, the children’s language studies could continue, so long as the children spoke Russian outside class.
Restriction after restriction: many of Comintern’s hopes had stalled. Comintern members had come together from all over Europe, devoted to the ideals of revolution, ready to work for economic justice and world peace. Herded into Hotel Lux, which soon became its own tiny world, they met their comrades from other countries, shared stories of the struggle to get to the Soviet Union, of terrible fights with their families and financial ruin. Yet for all their conviction, their devotion to world socialism, restrictions now fell on them like snow, until Hotel Lux earned a nickname: the Golden Cage of Comintern. Security reasons, comrades. It won’t last long. It’s all for your own safety. Comintern members accepted these restrictions, sometimes with grumbling, sometimes with a shrill or hissed reminder of the dangers of traitors and spies. Radio Moscow assured listeners that the Kremlin reeled from act after act of treason, espionage, sabotage, and other depravities fit only to file under the shameful labels of Trotskyism and anti-Soviet activities, and so the Kremlin must, with both sadness and steely resolve, examine loyalties. The members of Comintern — now called not comrades but foreigners — found themselves high on the list. Day by day the air in Hotel Lux seemed to sour. Hotel staff, so many of them, appeared from corners and shadows, saying nothing, just listening, their faces often stern.