They went through the doors of the administration building. Here, instead of the stench of ammonia, was a cool smell of tobacco. Mostovskoy noticed a half-smoked cigarette on the floor and wanted to pick it up.
They climbed up to the second floor. The guard ordered Mostovskoy to wipe his boots on the mat and did so himself at great length. Mostovskoy was out of breath from climbing the stairs. He tried to control his breathing.
They set off down a strip of carpet that ran down the corridor. The lamps – small, semi-transparent tulips – gave a warm, calm light. They walked past a polished door with a small board saying 'Kommandant' and stopped in front of another door with a board saying 'Obersturmbannfuhrer Liss'.
Mostovskoy had heard the name 'Liss' many times: he was Himmler's representative in the camp administration. Mostovskoy was amused: General Gudz had been annoyed that he had only been interrogated by one of Liss's assistants while Osipov had been interrogated by Liss himself. Gudz had seen this as a slight to the military command.
Osipov had said that Liss had interrogated him without an interpreter; he was a German from Riga with a good knowledge of Russian.
A young officer came out, said a few words to the guard and let Mostovskoy into the office. He left the door open.
The office was almost empty. The floor was carpeted. There was a vase of flowers on the table and a picture on the walclass="underline" peasant houses by the edge of a forest, with red tiled rooves.
Mostovskoy thought it was like being in the office of the director of a slaughterhouse. Not far away were dying animals, steaming entrails and people being spattered with blood, but the office itself was peaceful and softly carpeted – only the black telephone on the desk served to remind you of the world outside.
Enemy! That word was so clear and simple. Once again he thought of Chernetsov – what a wretched fate during this time of Sturm und Drang! But then he did wear kid gloves… Mostovskoy glanced at his own hands, his own fingers.
The door opened at the far end of the office. There was a creak from the door into the corridor – the orderly must have shut it as he saw Liss come in.
Mostovskoy stood there and frowned.
'Good evening!' said the quiet voice of a short man with SS insignia on the sleeves of his grey uniform.
There was nothing repulsive about Liss's face, and for that very reason Mostovskoy found it terrible to look at. He had a snub nose, alert dark-grey eyes, a high forehead and thin pale cheeks that made him look industrious and ascetic.
Liss waited while Mostovskoy cleared his throat and then said:
'I want to talk to you.'
'But I don't want to talk to you,' answered Mostovskoy. He looked sideways into the far corner, waiting for Liss's assistants, the torturers, to emerge and give him a blow on the ear.
'I quite understand,' said Liss. 'Sit down.'
He seated Mostovskoy in the armchair and then sat down next to him.
Liss spoke in the lifeless, ash-cold language of a popular scientific pamphlet.
'Are you feeling unwell?'
Mostovskoy shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.
'Yes, yes, I know. I sent the doctor to you and he told me. I've disturbed you in the middle of the night. But I want to talk to you very badly.'
'Oh yes,' thought Mostovskoy.
'I've been summoned for interrogation,' he said out loud. 'There's nothing for us to talk about.'
'Why do you say that?' asked Liss. 'All you see is my uniform. But I wasn't born in it. The Fuhrer and the Party command; the rank and file obey. I was always a theoretician. I'm a Party member, but my real interest lies in questions of history and philosophy. Surely not all the officers in your NKVD love the Lubyanka?'
Mostovskoy watched Liss's face carefully. He thought for a moment that this pale face with the high forehead should be drawn at the very bottom of the tree of evolution; from there evolution would progress towards hairy Neanderthal man.
'If the Central Committee orders you to step up the work of the Cheka, are you in a position to refuse? You put Hegel aside and get working. Well, we've had to put Hegel aside too.'
Mostovskoy glanced at Liss. Pronounced by unclean lips, the name of Hegel sounded strange and blasphemous… A dangerous, experienced thief had come up to him in a crowded tram and started a conversation. He wasn't going to listen, he was just going to watch the thief's hands – any minute now a razor might flash out and slash him across the eyes.
But Liss just lifted up the palms of his hands, looked at them and said: 'Our hands are like yours. They love great work and they're not afraid of dirt.'
Mostovskoy frowned deeply: it was horrible to see this gesture and hear these words that so exactly mimicked his own.
Liss began to speak quickly and with enthusiasm, as though he had talked to Mostovskoy before and was glad to have the opportunity to resume the conversation. The things he said were extraordinary -terrible and absurd.
'When we look one another in the face, we're neither of us just looking at a face we hate – no, we're gazing into a mirror. That's the tragedy of our age. Do you really not recognize yourselves in us – yourselves and the strength of your will? Isn't it true that for you too the world is your will? Is there anything that can make you waver?'
His face moved closer to Mostovskoy's.
'Do you understand me? I don't know Russian well, but I very much want you to understand me. You may think you hate us, but what you really hate is yourselves – yourselves in us. It's terrible, isn't it? Do you understand me?'
Mostovskoy decided to remain silent. He musn't let Liss draw him into conversation.
But he did think for a moment that, rather than trying to deceive him, the man looking into his eyes was searching for words quite earnestly and sincerely. It was as though he were complaining, asking Mostovskoy to help him make sense of something that tormented him.
It was agonizing. It was as though someone had stuck a needle into Mostovskoy's heart.
'Do you understand me?' Liss repeated, already too excited even to see Mostovskoy. 'When we strike a blow against your army, it's ourselves that we hit. Our tanks didn't only break through your defences – they broke through our own defences at the same time. The tracks of our tanks are crushing German National Socialism. It's terrible – it's like committing suicide in one's sleep. And it might well end tragically for us. Do you understand? Yes, even if we win! As victors we would be left on our own – without you – in a world that is alien to us, a world that hates us.'
It would have been easy enough to refute all this. Liss's eyes had now drawn still closer to Mostovskoy's. But there was something even more dangerous than the words of this experienced SS provocateur. It was what stirred in Mostovskoy's own soul – his own vile, filthy doubts.
He was like a man afraid of an illness – of some malignant tumour – who won't go near a doctor, tries not to notice his indispositions and avoids talking about sickness with anyone close to him. And then suddenly someone comes up to him and says: 'Say, have you ever had such and such a pain, especially in the mornings, usually after…? Yes, yes…'
'Do you understand me, teacher?' asked Liss. 'A certain German -I'm sure you know his brilliant work – once said that Napoleon's tragedy was that he embodied the soul of England and yet in England herself found his most deadly foe.'
'If only they'd start beating me up!' thought Mostovskoy. And then: 'Ah, now he's on about Spengler.'
Liss lit a cigarette and held out his cigarette case to Mostovskoy.
'No,' said Mostovskoy abruptly.
He felt somehow calmed by the thought that all the policemen in the world – the ones who'd interrogated him forty years ago and the one talking about Hegel and Spengler right now – should use this same idiotic technique of offering their victim a cigarette. Yes, it was just that his nerves were weak – he'd been expecting to be beaten up and suddenly he'd had to listen to this horrible, absurd talk. But then even some of the Tsarist police had known a little about politics – a few of them were really quite educated, one had even read Das Kapital. But had there ever been a moment when a policeman studying Marx had wondered, deep in his heart: 'What if Marx is right?' What had the policeman felt then…? But what of it? Mostovskoy had trampled on his doubts too. Still, that was different -he was a revolutionary.