— The scars on the ear?
— They’re fine.
— When I turn your arm like this, what do you feel?
— Nothing.
— Nothing at all? Nikto, strange as it is, I’m your doctor, and you need to trust me.
— I don’t trust anyone. It’s against regulations.
Each man looked at the other and almost smirked.
Then Efim pressed some of the scars. —Now what do you feel?
— It tingles, and it hurts. It always tingles and hurts. Look, would it not be your medical opinion that a man who’s been working all night should go lie down?
— Well, yes, but—
— The only obstacle between me, a hot shower, and my bed is you.
After a moment, Efim stepped aside, commenting on his need to get to work, and deciding not to inform his flatmate that the building’s plumbing had, once again, proved insufficient for demand. Nikto’s shower would be a cool trickle.
Outside the flat, Efim avoided eye contact with the NKVD officers now finishing their work. As he headed for Vasilisa Prekrasnaya, thinking of how trains now ran underground, he collided with memories of the hospital train he’d served on in 1918.
Served at gunpoint.
In the station, he paused to study the mosaic of Vasilisa in Baba Yaga’s yard. His eyes, however, took in not the tiles but the darkness between them.
Coerced on the hospital train then, coerced into Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two now. He shook his head. At least in 1918, I could still call myself a doctor.
The metro train rumbled in approach.
The telephone’s ring collided with the jolt of pain in his shoulder and the shatter of glass in his dreams. Kostya clutched his wounds, at once protective and surprised. He’d dreamt that his scars hosted a flower, some cross between a rose and a geranium, petals fleshy, stalk veined and erect, roots tangled. It smelled of iris. Efim Scherba marvelled at this growth and refused to cut it out. Too deep, he said, which Kostya could just understand, but then, much worse: too beautiful. Kostya shouted at him, insulted him, called him a country doctor. The wound had yawned wider and wider until glass broke and bells rang.
Grateful for the interruption, Kostya staggered down the hall and snatched the telephone receiver off the hook. —Yes? Yes, this is Nikto.
An operator from the Lubyanka switchboard connected him with the secretary for his new department, Evgenia Davidovna Ismailovna. —Comrade Senior Lieutenant Nikto, I apologize for disturbing you. Comrade Senior Lieutenant Ippolitov cannot come to work today. We need you to take his place. You can take the sixth off instead.
Kostya almost smiled. —Weaseling out of a double shift, is he?
— Yes, this line is bad. I said, Comrade Ippolitov cannot report in, and we need a senior lieutenant for the paperwork.
Kostya deciphered the warning: Ippolitov had been arrested. —Of course, Comrade Ismailovna. I’ll be there soon.
Evgenia thanked him and ended the call.
Kostya glanced at his reflection near the edge of the bathroom mirror: dark circles beneath the eyes, sharp frown lines at the mouth.
I look like hell.
He recalled shaving at the hospital before a tiny mirror and the startling moment of not recognizing himself. Long hair, black beard, strong cheekbones, chapped lips: yes, his face. Scars on his left ear and neck pointed to the deeper scars on his left shoulder. His big green eyes had looked like those of a prisoner, a man arrested, beaten, and, with his full knowledge, about to be shot.
This morning his eyes looked calmer: not panic, but vigilance.
The tap water ran with ferocity now, almost too hot for Kostya’s hands. He swished the shaving brush over the soap, then over his face and throat, and graced the blade over his Adam’s apple, thinking of Pavel Ippolitov’s two sons, twelve and ten. Ippolitov bragged about them all the time. Now? Sometimes adolescents followed their parents to the camps, or to the poligons to be shot — acorns falling close to trees, enemies of the people, a family affair, everyone shot. And yet the state also prepared to welcome many more Basque refugee children, to keep them safe.
Why Ippolitov?
Kostya rinsed his face, checked for missed stubble, slapped on some Shipr cologne.
This makes no damned sense.
The Moscow Metro engineers had encountered strange difficulties building Dzerzhinskaya: an underground river, and the forgotten dead. Some said a medieval church and graveyard once stood there, before layers of dirt elevated Moscow closer to the sky. Pressure from the river, and then from the dig, destabilized the earth, and so migrating bones seized the engineers’ time. The startled engineers, aware of circled days on the calendar and the brutal truths of Soviet schedules, pried loose the dead. Then they added reinforcements and filled the ancient graves with rocks and mud. The hurry and extra expense to finish Dzerzhinskaya resulted in less money and attention spent on final decoration. Compared to the other stations, opulent in lighting, design, marble, and gold, Dzerzhinskaya felt bare. Kostya, thinking of paperwork, strode from the train car and hurried up the steps.
Once inside Lubyanka, Kostya discovered he’d lost his way. The building, overcrowded and designed for an insurance firm, blended turn-of-the-century elegance and decorations with utilitarian purpose. Many corridors looked the same. Taking a wrong turn in Lubyanka had become such a cliché that most department heads refused to accept it as an excuse for tardiness.
As Kostya stopped walking, imagining a compass and seeking north, a man’s voice, bass, rich and clear, sang out: —Now we fell the stout birch tree!
NKVD choir practice.
Kostya followed the voice as the singer performed the second verse of ‘Ey, Ukhnyem.’
Kostya slipped into the practice room, too small for so many men, and, as he expected, he recognized the conductor. Annoyed, that officer turned to face the interruption keeping his hands in the air. Then he smiled. —Kostya!
The singers, eyes and mouths wide, held their note.
Laughter soft and apologetic, Vadym Pavlovich Minenkov lowered his hands and gestured to the choir to relax. His blue eyes shone, and, as one of the mysterious Lubyanka drafts blew, his fluffy white hair, protruding from beneath his cap, stirred and fell. —Final verse. Comrade Kuznets, if you please.
Kostya felt surprise, then told himself to keep it from his face. The soloist: that beautiful voice belonged to Boris Kuznets. The choir roared behind him, louder and louder, as the men, rhythm and progress certain, reached harmonies at once delicate and robust: Hey, haul the towline! Haul the towline!
Vadym laughed in joy. —Excellent, excellent. We’ll stop there today, comrades. I can hear a big improvement on enunciation, but we still need to work on the rhythm for our other showstopper, yes? That phrase, Yezhov’s iron fist, it’s causing us some difficulty. The new metre. If we sing with faith, we can overcome any flaws and limitations of earlier versions. When you practise on your own, remember: strength, yes, but above all, clarity. Dismissed.
As the men filed out of this tiny room, Boris giving Kostya a nod, Vadym picked up a clipboard and filled out a form, and Kostya apologized for interrupting. —It sounded wonderful.
Vadym laughed again, very pleased. —The new soloist drives the others to sing harder. He’s a treasure. Just give me a moment so I can finish the paperwork. The form’s changed again.