'So that's what happened,' said the investigator. His face became human again. He closed the file, but without tying up the curling tapes.
'Like a shoe with the laces undone,' thought the creature with no buttons on his trousers.
Very slowly and solemnly the investigator pronounced the words, 'The Communist International.' Then, in his usual voice: 'Nikolay Krymov, Comintern official.' And then, slowly, solemnly: 'The Third Communist International.' After that he remained silent for some time, apparently lost in thought.
Then, with sudden animation, in a frank, man-to-man voice, he said:
'That Muska Grinberg's a dangerous woman, isn't she?'
Krymov blushed, surprised and deeply embarrassed.
Yes! But what a long time ago that had been – even if he was still embarrassed. He must have already been in love with Zhenya. He had dropped in on an old friend after work. It must have been to return some money he had borrowed to go on a journey. After that he could remember everything clearly, without any 'must have's'. His friend Konstantin had been out… But he had never really liked her – a woman with the hoarse voice of a chain-smoker, whose judgments were always sweeping and assured. She was the Deputy Party Secretary in the Institute of Philosophy. She was, admittedly, beautiful -'a fine figure of a woman'. Yes, he had indeed pawed Kostya's wife on the couch. They'd even met a couple of times afterwards…
An hour before, he had thought that his investigator knew nothing about him, that he had recently been promoted from some village. But time passed and the investigator kept on asking questions about the foreign Communists who had been Krymov's comrades; he knew the familiar forms of their forenames, their nicknames, the names of their wives and lovers. There was something sinister in the extent of his knowledge. Even if Krymov had been a very great man, whose every word was important to history, it would still not have been worth gathering so many trifles, so much junk, into this great file.
But nothing was considered trifling.
Wherever he had been, he had left footprints behind him: a whole retinue had followed on his heels, committing his life to memory.
A mocking remark he had made about one of his comrades, a word or two about a book he had read, a comic toast he had made on someone's birthday, a three-minute telephone conversation, an angry note he had addressed to the platform at a conference – everything had been gathered together into the file.
A great State had busied itself over his affair with Muska Grinberg. Meaningless trifles and empty, careless words had become intertwined with his deepest convictions; his love for Yevgenia Nikolaevna didn't mean anything – what mattered were his most casual, shallow affairs. He himself could no longer distinguish between what was important and what was trivial. One disrespectful remark he had made about Stalin's knowledge of philosophy appeared to mean more than ten years of ceaseless work on behalf of the Party. Had he really, in 1932, in Lozovsky's office, told a visiting comrade from Germany that the Soviet Trade Union Movement represented the State more than the proletariat? A visiting comrade who had informed on him?
Heavens, what a tissue of lies it all was! A cobweb that was gumming up his mouth and nostrils.
'Please understand, comrade investigator…'
'Citizen investigator.'
'Yes, of course – citizen. Please – this is just a lie, a fabrication. I've been a Party member for more than twenty-five years. I incited soldiers to mutiny in 1917. I was four years in China. I worked day and night. Hundreds of people know me… In the present war I volunteered for the front. Even at the worst moments, people trusted me and followed me… I…'
'Do you think you're here to receive a testimonial?' asked the investigator. 'Are you applying for a citation?' He shook his head. 'And he even has the nerve to complain that his wife doesn't bring him any parcels. What a husband!'
That was something he had mentioned to Bogoleev in their cell. Oh God! He remembered that Katsenelenbogen had once joked: 'A certain Greek once said, "All things flow"; we say, "All people inform".'
Inside the file, his life had somehow lost its proportions, lost its true scale. The whole of his life had coagulated into grey, sticky vermicelli and he no longer knew what mattered: his four exhausting years of underground work in the sultry heat of Shanghai, the river-crossing at Stalingrad, his faith in the Revolution – or a few exasperated words he had said at 'The Pines' sanatorium, to a journalist he didn't know very well, about the wretchedness of Soviet newspapers.
And then, in a quiet, good-natured tone of voice, the investigator said:
'And now tell me how the Fascist Hacken inveigled you into sabotage and espionage.'
'You don't mean that seriously, do you?'
'Don't play the fool, Krymov. You've already seen that we know every step of your life.'
'But, that's just why…'
'Cut it out, Krymov. You can't fool the security organs.'
'But the whole thing's a lie.'
'Listen, Krymov. We've got Hacken's own confession. He repented of his crime and told us of his criminal association with you.'
'You can show me ten of Hacken's confessions. They're all forgeries. It's madness! And if you have got this confession of Hacken's, then why was I, a spy and a saboteur, trusted to act as a military commissar, to lead people into battle? What were you doing then, where were you looking?'
'So you think you've been called here to teach us how to do our work, do you? You want to supervise the work of the organs?'
'What's all that got to do with it? It's just a matter of logic. I know Hacken. He couldn't have said he recruited me. It's not possible.'
'Why not?'
'He's a Communist, a fighter for the Revolution.'
'Have you always been certain of that?'
'Yes,' answered Krymov. 'Always.'
Nodding his head, the investigator leafed through the file, repeating to himself in apparent confusion: 'Well, that does change things, that does change things…'
Then he held out a sheet of paper to Krymov, covering part of it with the palm of his hand. 'Read through that.'
Krymov read what was written and shrugged his shoulders.
'It's pretty poor stuff,' he said, raising his eyes from the page.
'Why?'
'The man's neither brave enough to declare firmly that Hacken's an honest Communist, nor is he cowardly enough to level accusations against him. So he worms his way out of saying anything.'
The investigator took his hand away and showed Krymov his own signature next to the date, February 1938.
They both fell silent. Then the investigator asked sternly:
'Perhaps you were being beaten then and that's why you gave such testimony.'
'No, no one beat me.'
The investigator's face broke up into separate cubes: his eyes watched Krymov with exasperated contempt, while his mouth said:
'And so, during the time you were encircled, you left your unit for two days. You were taken by air to the German Army HQ where you handed over important information and received your new instructions.'
'Raving nonsense,' muttered the creature in the soldier's tunic with the unbuttoned collar.
The investigator carried on. Now Krymov no longer saw himself as a man of high principles, strong, clear-minded, ready to go to the scaffold for the sake of the Revolution. Instead he felt weak and indecisive; he had said things he shouldn't; he had allowed himself to mock the reverence of the Soviet people for comrade Stalin. He had been undiscriminating in his associates: many of his friends had been victims of repression. His theoretical views were totally confused. He had slept with his friend's wife. He had given cowardly, dishonest testimony about Hacken.