A strange yellowish shadow began to envelop Sergei’s face. It was his lips, just his lips that wheezed out:
“No Boris, it’s too late. It’s the end… It’s you, you I feel sorry for. If you don’t die – go back there. Work. Try to make up for things, reform yourself, start over. Reform yourself, like I did. Like Yula did… Wait… I have no right… But you’ll redeem my sin with your life, your years, your work… Here, take my Soviet passport… You look like me… They won’t notice… Use it to get to Moscow… Find Yula… She’s a brave comrade… Yula will help you, she’ll understand… Only, swear to me on the memory of our mother that you won’t misuse it…”
“I swear,” mumbled Boris.
“Good… Now go… Don’t touch me… You’ll get infected… Tru–”
A sudden convulsion jerked his body and tossed him onto his side. A milky film stretched across his open eyes.
The captain reached for his flask. He wanted to pour his brother some more. It was empty.
A slender thread of dun foam and blood escaped Sergei’s mouth.
Solomin felt as though something inside of him, some string whose existence he’d never suspected, had suddenly stretched and then snapped for good. At once he felt voided, as if all the sawdust inside him was shaken out. His dull, absent gaze studied the dead face, and his mother’s nose, chin, and the horseshoe of the pain-stricken mouth pointed at him. He mechanically bent over and kissed the lips. He felt the salty aftertaste of blood. He sat there stiff and inert, like a puppet of straw.
The moon peeked out, illuminating the truck bed. The fallen, lifeless hands of Captain Solomin. In one, a crumpled wad: a booklet. What’s this? Ah, of course! The Soviet passport. Sergei had given it to him…
The captain brought it to his eyes. A little red book. Where could he have seen it before? Not so long ago… Ah yes, the Jew. The red stamp… If I don’t die, I’ll return to Russia. Reform myself. Replace Sergei. No. Too late. At this age people don’t get reformed. Hell of a communist I’d make! Why did I lie to Sergei?
The captain knelt down, gingerly unbuttoned his brother’s shirt, and placed the red booklet on the cold chest.
A vacuum rattled inside the truck, hollow like the tin casing of a transformer.
His hand stroked the barrel of his revolver that protruded obediently from the holster.
When the following morning the sanitary workers drove the black truck of corpses to the crematorium, they found the body of a White officer in uniform and epaulettes among the Bolshevik cadavers to be thrown into the ovens. An officer from Central Command recognized it as Captain Solomin.
An investigation only ascertained that on the tragic night in question Captain Solomin had left the restaurant in a state of severe intoxication, heading in an unknown direction.
On orders from Central Command his body was cremated separately, with full military honors.
VIII
The blinds were still drawn in Mr. David Lingslay’s antique salon, and in the trembling twilight, against the backdrop of bright red wallpaper, the motionless, upright silhouettes of Rabbi Eliezer ben Zvi and his corpulent companion in American eyeglasses seemed like a pair of wax figures some pranksters had brought in from the Grévin Museum.
“May I help you, sirs?” David Lingslay asked his peculiar guests, fiddling with his necktie. “Unfortunately, I’m just rushing out the door to a meeting and have only ten minutes to spare.”
The hunched man with the gray beard and the unsightly, shabby frock coat said something in Yiddish to the corpulent man in the horn-rimmed glasses. David Lingslay studied the delicate Semitic, patriarchal features of the man in the frock coat with curiosity. The round man in glasses, clearly brought along as translator, repeated in faultless English:
“Our business won’t take too much of your time. Please have a seat and give us your full attention.”
“Go ahead,” responded David Lingslay, planting himself in an armchair.
The strangers exchanged a few words, after which the man in eyeglasses translated:
“Our business shall be brief. You may choose to go along with it or not, it’s up to you. Before we speak of it, however, you must swear to us that not a single word of our conversation will go beyond the four walls of this room.”
“I generally dislike secrets, particularly with strangers,” Lingslay responded dryly. “But if it is so terribly important to you, I will give you my gentleman's word of honor that I will not mention our conversation to anyone.”
“Literally to no one,” emphasized the man in the eyeglasses. “It is of the utmost importance to us. Not even to your friend, Miss Dufayel.”
Lingslay furrowed his brow:
“I see that you are splendidly informed on my private life,” he said in an icy tone. “I’m starting to catch a whiff of blackmail in all this. I am not the slightest bit interested in your business, and I think it best if you both left my apartment, keeping your secret to yourselves.”
The man in eyeglasses seemed not the slightest bit disconcerted.
“Our business is simple and should interest both you and ourselves. We have come here to ask: Would you perhaps like to leave Paris and make it back to America?”
Lingslay stared at the speaker in astonishment.
“What do you mean by that? Speak more clearly, please.”
“I mean that we are capable of facilitating your escape from Paris and return to America in the immediate future,” repeated the man in eyeglasses.
Mr. David Lingslay blinked in disbelief:
“And how, if I may ask, do you plan to do that? I might tell you that all the members of our zone have already tried pulling every string they could imagine to achieve exactly that, without, as you can see, any results.”
“That’s beside the point,” the man in eyeglasses responded calmly. “We ask for your reply: Yes or no?”
“But of course!” Lingslay said, somewhat forcing a smile. “I will give any sum of money to consummate this transaction. I simply don't understand why you've come to me alone with this enticing proposal. I assure you there are a good few hundred gentlemen who would pay any price to get out of here. Or maybe you have in mind some mass enterprise to take prosperous people across the cordon for an established sum? An extremely lucrative scheme! I'm in, no questions asked.”
“We'll take no fee for the transport. On the contrary, we'd be willing to pay you any sum of money, should you require it. We know all too well, however, that you don't need it.”
“So I see that the two of you are clearly philanthropists, or you are offering me this for my good looks – because surely I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you before?”
“We are not offering you this for your good looks,” the man in eyeglasses continued unflappably. “We are simply offering you a favor for a favor. We take you out of Paris and help you get to America. You promise us another favor in exchange.”
“You have intrigued me, gentlemen. You have my undivided attention.”
The man in eyeglasses turned to the gray-bearded old man in the frock coat and they spoke with each other for a short while in Yiddish. Mr. Lingslay listened impatiently.
A moment later the man in eyeglasses slid his armchair nearer to his host’s and, leaning in toward him, said emphatically:
“We have come to you as delegates from the Jewish town.”
“How did you manage, sirs, to get into the Anglo-American territory?” Lingslay cried in alarm.
“No matter. Please listen carefully. The Jews of the Jewish town are leaving Paris in a matter of days.”
“How will you manage that?”