Her office was small and dim; light from a narrow window seemed to stop at the pane. Her desk, with an Olympia typewriter and two black gooseneck lamps, was half the size of Yeliseyenko’s, and its piles of papers were neat and looked well-organized. A grained pine bookcase occupied one wall and on another was a clock next to a framed photograph of Stalin.
Slipping a blank sheet of paper into her typewriter, Zena rapidly hit the keys. Ten minutes passed, then another ten. Somewhat irritated, Kulik said carefully, “Excuse me, but am I to be here much longer? I have lectures to attend.”
Zena did not answer. She made notes in a logbook, then typed a few more pages. Another ten minutes went by, and at last, without looking up, she said in Russian, without a trace of an accent, “The order for your school is complete. Exercise books, Russian dictionaries, pens, textbooks, slates …” As she leafed through the list, she raised her brows. “A magnifying glass, a telescope … hmm … strange. Are you a naturalist of some sort?”
“No, not really. Actually, history is my weakness. Greek mythology, to be exact.” Kulik was amused by her interest, which seemed to be candid and genuine. Their eyes met and she smiled. She was not the cold, oblivious government worker of just a few minutes ago. Who was this girl? What was going on in her mind? She turned away, and began to immerse herself in her papers. She avoided looking at him. Kulik felt impelled to try to get some kind of response from her. He started to talk about Greek mythology.
“Are you familiar with Greek mythology? Yes? Do you remember when Zeus, god of the sky and ruler of the Olympian gods, fell in love with the beautiful Europa, daughter of Agenor the Phoenician king of Tyre? While she gathered flowers by the seashore, he appeared before her in the guise of an exquisite white bull, and enticed her to climb onto his back. Then he sped away with her across the ocean to Crete …”
Before he could finish, Zena burst into a fit of laughter. “Oh, you really are funny, Comrade Ivan. And you’re such a cynic! I also understand you’re a bit of a hermit? According to my files here, you teach in some godforsaken place miles from nowhere.”
“I’m headmaster of the grammar school in Hlaby, that’s correct, but being a hermit — that couldn’t be further from the truth.” He was grateful that she had become more friendly and talkative. “Before I go, there’s one more thing. Comrade Yeliseyenko said you would prepare the five volumes of Soviet history for me.”
She got up from her desk, reached for the top shelf of the bookcase, and brought down several books bound in cheap cloth. Kulik made one last attempt to amuse her. He said jokingly, “Once I plough through these pages, I will most definitely embark on the road to truth. I might find myself not such a hopeless socialist after all.”
Zena gave him a stern look. Her eyes quickly moved to the door and she signaled with her head, as if to warn him that Yeliseyenko might be listening on the other side.
In that instant Kulik saw that Zena was not the loyal, unquestioning government worker she pretended to be. He believed that they understood each other.
But barely a second later, Zena said mechanically, “The cost for the books will be twenty-five rubles.”
Kulik rummaged in his pocket and paid the money, which he felt was exorbitant, thanked her and left the building.
An almost balmy wind was blowing in from the south, the sky was clouded over, and for the first time in a long time the falling snow melted as it hit the ground. The warm front brought with it a hint of spring. Kulik tried to collect his thoughts. He didn’t know whether to celebrate his freedom or to agonize over what was to come. The day that had just passed was beyond his understanding: up until almost the last minute, he had not expected it to end the way it did. He had not expected to be set free and he certainly never expected to find someone like Zena in the offices at the People’s Commissariat of Education. And suddenly he felt happy, so astonishingly happy, that it almost frightened him.
CHAPTER 13
Kulik climbed the staircase to his attic, sat on the edge of his bed and asked himself question after question: Why had he been summoned to appear before Yeliseyenko? Had he displayed disloyal tendencies somehow? Was this a test of his endurance? A battle of nerves? A joke of some sort? And what was this talk about familiarizing himself with Marxist ideology? Was he being perceived as a possible threat, an adversary, an enemy to Communism? Maybe something dark and frightful was going to happen.
But before long he felt a surge of optimism. Wasn’t he still a free man after all, free to go whichever way he chose? This freedom was worth valuing. His future even looked hopeful. Hadn’t he just proven himself innocent before Yeliseyenko? Wasn’t that why he had been released? When he had first been summoned, he was almost certain it meant his end, but things turned out differently: a stone was hurled at him and he was struck by a pebble. He began to think that maybe the new regime was not as brutal as he had believed it to be. Perhaps he had overreacted, perhaps he had not taken a true view of the situation.
But when he kept thinking about his meeting with Yeliseyenko, his reservations resurfaced and it became clear to him that he had indeed gone through an ordeal. He became upset again. He couldn’t make sense of anything that had just happened. He was apparently on the verge of being convicted of some form of anti-Soviet activity, but what was this activity? He could be found guilty of thinking differently, or even thinking at all. When the time came for his arrest, there would be no trial and no judge, no notice to family and friends; he would be cast into some deep, dark hole, and left to die. He felt trapped by the utter absurdity of the situation he was in. He was falling deeper and deeper into a psychological abyss.
He tried to calm himself, to put things into some kind of perspective, but there was no logic anywhere and the real world as it was known, no longer existed. It was like a dream. Banging his fist against the side of his leg, and with his head exploding, he shouted:
“Damn these thoughts, damn them all!”
And there was Zena: her large, black eyes, her pale complexion, her full mouth. Suddenly she seemed to him to be a greater enigma than ever. Could she be trusted or could she not be trusted? He asked himself that question over and over.
Darkness had descended and his room became pitch black. Rising from his bed, he felt an overwhelming need for some distraction. Instead of switching on the lamp on his night stand, he threw on his cap and overcoat and hurried out. The air was cold and damp. He labored through the snow to get to the front gate, but he was happy to see that the sidewalk had been cleared in either direction.
He set out for Market Square. A round moon hung over the rooftops like a large silver disc in the black sky. Adjusting the scarf around his neck and pulling his cap down over his ears, Kulik walked up Zaliznitsa Street, and then down side streets. When he crossed a small laneway, which turned at an angle, he stopped suddenly. The Zovty Prison, the newly established NKVD headquarters, loomed before him like a great fortress, tall, impenetrable and forbidding. The walls were high and made of thick yellow brick, and small, barred windows looked down onto a bare yard enclosed by a wrought iron fence with barbed wire strung along the top. Although the building was dark, Kulik imagined he could hear noises coming from within: the clicking boot heels of the NKVD making their way up and down the corridors, the thud of heavy doors, plaintive cries from the dungeons. He looked for a light to appear in one of the openings, to see movement of some sort, but everything remained black and silent. And suddenly he had a strange feeling that he was not alone, that he was being watched from one of the upper levels. Not daring to stay any longer, he took to his heels and fled down the street.