— Comrade Senior Lieutenant, are you all right?
Kostya reminded himself to focus and then ask for Ippolitov’s paperwork without mentioning Ippolitov. —Not enough sleep. What have you got for me?
She gave Kostya a thin dossier and stroked the back of his left hand with her fingers, perhaps by accident.
Startled by the touch, Kostya jerked away, then told himself his arm often twitched like that.
Evgenia clasped her hands together atop her desk. —Would you like some tea?
Some mornings, Evgenia took first pour, despite that privilege belonging to the department head. The latest head, however, not expected to last much longer, likely wouldn’t arrive until noon, only then in a cloud of vicious words and wine fumes, and Evgenia saw no point in wasting good tea. When Kostya had asked Arkady about the department head and his deplorable state, Arkady murmured, A Yagoda man. Genrikh Yagoda, their former chief, languished in a cell beneath their feet, and his absence pressed them all. As Yagoda’s imprisonment wore on, and time and expectation hauled him towards a show trial and brutal execution, other officers drank themselves to oblivion and choked on vomit, crashed their cars into walls and trees, jumped from windows, shot themselves in the head. Each officer understood the escalating brutality inflicted on prisoners because each officer practised it. If Yagoda could fall from grace, then so might any officer, policeman to prisoner at any moment, any moment. Dread, and truth.
Arkady had always spoken well of Yagoda. So had Vadym.
Yet they carried on as though nothing bothered them, and so must Kostya.
Tea. —Yes, please, Comrade Ismailovna. Strong.
As Evgenia got up, Kostya noticed the closed door of the office where a colleague —Bogdanovich — the one with the big grey eyes — Bogdanovich, Maksim Maksimovich Bogdanovich, one year older than me — had shot himself with his own weapon — a Tokarev, fucking ugly pistol — his blood and brain matter staining the walls. And his paperwork. The office, like the flat of someone arrested, had been sealed.
A pity, several officers had said, we need the space.
— Sugar, Comrade Senior Lieutenant?
Kostya broke out of his stare. —We have sugar?
A racket of steel buckets dragged over floors interrupted. Clutching the dossier to his chest, Kostya turned around. Three men armed with brooms, chemicals, brushes, and mops identified themselves as a work crew here to perform a Special Clean.
Evgenia held up a typed memo. —I didn’t expect you until this afternoon, comrades. See? Special Clean, 14:10.
The foreman, a man in his sixties, spoke to Evgenia as though addressing the most troublesome pupil in the classroom. —Look, young comrade, I’m sure you mean well, but you must understand that we were told to come here right now. You requested a Special Clean, and Special Cleans are urgent.
— Comrades, I don’t have a key to the office in question, and the department head’s not yet here. Surely you can return after lunch?
Sighing, the foreman detailed the tasks in other buildings scheduled for after lunch and then, of course, the need to get any amendments to this schedule approved by the Special Tasks Committee, which did not meet for another three weeks, and the further need to report first to the Works and Procurement Committee in a special liaison meeting with the Central Schedules. —So you see, young comrade, if you do not let us in, then you cannot have a Special Clean.
— No, don’t go. That office needs a Special Clean.
— Then show us where and get out of the way.
— I don’t have a key!
Kostya recalled his own new keys, those tokens of promotion, one of them engraved with an initiaclass="underline" a master key? —Can I help?
Despairing over the folly of young people, the foreman shook his head. —We’d need a commanding officer, Comrade Sergeant.
Kostya passed the dossier back to Evegenia and showed his ID. —It’s Comrade Senior Lieutentant.
After reading the ID card and peering at the insignia, the foreman cleared his throat and spoke with a new respect. —Which office, Comrade Senior Lieutenant?
— This way.
Boot soles tapping, face impassive, Kostya strode to the sealed door
Odour seeped past the tape.
The key fit; the lock turned. Some of the tape gave way, and the odour thickened.
Kostya nodded to the foreman. —You’ve brought some bleach, yes?
Ignoring Kostya, feigning deafness, the foreman studied the door and discussed with his workers how best to remove the tape and leave no residue on the door.
Kostya returned to Evgenia’s desk to collect his dossier and glass of tea. Evgenia held out a small plate of hard sugar pieces cut from a loaf, picked up a piece with little tongs, and then dropped it into Kostya’s hand. —Thank you, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.
He tucked the sugar into his mouth. —It’s nothing.
In his office, relieved to be alone and away from the racket of tape, Kostya unwound the dossier’s red string.
A confiscated wristwatch fell out.
He picked up the watch and rubbed the face between his fingers, noticing a brand name on the face in the Latin alphabet and feeling something odd on the back. Turning the watch over, he found two engraved initials, Latin alphabet, MB. He read Ippolitov’s summary. Reason for detention: passport irregularity. Site of arrest: Hotel Lux. Comintern member, British passport.
Maybe I can practise my English.
Another officer passed Kostya’s open door and called out a greeting: Matvei Katelnikov.
Kostya nodded acknowledgement and resumed reading. The sunlight through the window warmed the back of his neck, and he turned away from his desk. In this moment, with the sky so blue, the tea so sweet, paperwork didn’t matter. His wounds didn’t matter. Bogdanovich and Yagoda and the ever-changing department head, even Arkady’s fears and the uncertainty of Kostya’s own position in NKVD, none of it mattered. A delicious lassitude took him, for lassitude it must be, some relaxation of standards and morals, and he wanted to share this pleasure of existence, of being alive.
You sound loose, Boris Kuznets had said.
The dossier fell from his hand.
Kostya took up the dossier again and then rubbed his eyes with the pads of his fingers. If he pursued Ippolitov’s note of passport irregularity, then he would involve whoever at Intourist signed off on Comrade Britisher here, and then that poor Intourist bastard might get arrested for that connection with Ippolitov, and that would only make the case against Ippolitov worse…
The British passport peeked out from beneath page 3 of the arrest report.
Sipping tea, Kostya took up the passport, admired the cover, opened to the photograph.
Almost spat.
Swallowing the tea, telling himself he felt nothing, he compared the travel documents to the information in the passport, checked the translations: English and Russian all fine, no irregularity here. Ippolitov, like any other officer, had simply filled his quota and needed an official reason for the paperwork.
Kostya stared again at the photograph of Margaret Bush.
A simple explanation, he told himself, yes, everyone has a double, somewhere in the world.
He tucked the British woman’s passport, travel papers, and wristwatch into the pouch on his portupeya. The last of his tea scalded his throat, and ‘Ey, Ukhnyem’ echoed in his thoughts. As he left the dossier with Evgenia, he refused to think about that British nurse in Spain, because thoughts of her invited thoughts of Misha.