Then he became angry with himself, angry for having so recklessly and stupidly fallen into their trap. Why hadn’t he stayed away from Marusia? Why did he have to look for her yesterday evening after work and walk her home? And why didn’t he just go to Katia Street right away as he had originally intended? Why? Why? Why? All these questions piled up inside him and he tormented himself with them. Staring out the window without seeing anything, he was hit by a cold reality:
Sobakin! It was Sobakin who was behind this!
He knew that he was now completely penned in without any hope of escape.
The main gates of the prison were open, as if expecting them. The car drove into the courtyard and stopped at the side of the building with its motor running. A young guard in army uniform holding a rifle, immediately came to the car and opened the back door. Signaling to Kulik with his head, he poked the barrel of his rifle between his shoulders, and prodded him toward a side door. Kulik took a deep breath, and tried to strengthen himself to face whatever pain and humiliation awaited him there.
Walking down a broad, darkened corridor, Kulik could feel wafts of cold air seep through the stone floor. Odors of mold mixed with rust and mildew filled his nostrils. At a rickety wooden table pushed against the hallway wall, a snub-nosed officer with a shaved head, perhaps twenty-five or thirty years old, sat writing in a notebook. When he noticed the men standing there, he rose and pulling a Nagant revolver from his holster, announced to the guard, “I’ll take over from here.” Then pointing to a staircase at the end of the corridor, he gave Kulik a shove and ordered, “Hands behind your back! Get going! That way!”
Kulik started up the steps, not daring to turn his head or look back. The walls, black and roughly plastered, exuded a damp, pungent smell. He felt as though he was in a long, dark, endless tunnel. When finally he reached the second floor, the guard kicked him to one side and commanded, “To your left!”
Passing door after door, all painted the same drab, musty brown, they came to the end of the corridor, where there was a door much the same as the others, but with an iron gate in front of it. Both the door and gate were ajar and Kulik was shoved inside. He saw a bookcase, several wooden chairs, a desk and various other pieces of government furniture. At the back of the room was a closed door, undoubtedly leading to other rooms. A balding NKVD man of about forty-five was standing at his desk talking on the phone. Kulik could hear the words da, nyet spoken alternately, and it struck him at once that the man was taking orders from some higher-up. Upon seeing Kulik, the man quickly ended his conversation and hung up. He offered Kulik a seat opposite his desk, dismissed the guard and closed the door. Opening a small tin box on his desk, he pulled out a makhorka cigarette, lit it and handed it to Kulik, who realized this was a calculated gesture, one commonly used at the start of most interrogations. He took the cigarette, and inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs, felt a brief moment of relief.
The interrogator tapped his fingers on his desk and drilled his eyes into Kulik. “We’re detaining you today because we need to get a few things clarified.”
Kulik tried to remain calm. He thought, “This is how it almost always starts. First they begin with something inconsequential, then before you know it, they’ve got you pinned on some trumped-up charge.” Trying his best to stay in control, clearing his throat, he said, “This morning I was on my way to the Gosbank to collect wages for the teachers of the Hlaby Village Soviet, when for some reason I was intercepted by your men on the street.”
The interrogator examined some papers on his desk and appeared not to be listening. Without looking up, he started coldly on a line of questioning.
“With whose money did you obtain your education in Vilno?”
“My own. I worked as a laborer and paid my tuition from my wages.”
“What about when you were in the gymnasium, whose money did you use?”
“I completed my classes at the gymnasium by night, and by day I repaired houses and did odd jobs around town. Later it was the same with university.”
There was a long pause as the interrogator thumbed through some files. He kept this up for several minutes. Kulik knew this was just another tactic intended to fray his nerves.
“Did you belong to the Polish fascist organization, Legion of Youth?”
“No organization ever interested me. I kept mostly to myself.”
As he carefully recorded these answers in a notebook, the interrogator’s tone grew more menacing. “Did you belong to the Ukrainian National Student Movement in Vilno?”
Kulik froze. He struggled with himself to find something to say. After a moment, he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. “A moment ago you asked if I belonged to the Polish Legion of Youth and now you ask if I belonged to some Ukrainian student movement. Asking me these questions, well, you might as well be mixing oil with fire.”
“How so?” The interrogator didn’t seem to understand.
“Well, first of all, there would have been no sense in starting a Ukrainian movement in Vilno, because, as you know, Vilno is a Lithuanian city and was under Polish occupation with a very limited Ukrainian population. Secondly, the Poles have always sought out and persecuted Ukrainians, and to support one of their organizations would be sheer treachery on my part.”
The interrogator bent his head over his notebook. He was obviously ignorant of the goings-on in Vilno, especially between Ukrainians and Poles. But it did not take him long to fire more questions.
“Can you give me a guarantee that when you were in Vilno you did not belong to a Ukrainian movement of any kind?”
“The only guarantee I can give you is my word. I lived a very quiet and peaceful life. I was interested only in my studies.”
“Did you keep company with other Ukrainian students?”
“As I’ve already mentioned, there weren’t many of them. The few that were there were studying medicine or law or engineering, and because my major was in history, we weren’t in any of the same classes. So we didn’t get to know one another. I only knew several by name or in passing.”
“Do you know what became of any of them?”
“No.”
“How did you come to live in Vilno? Did you move there with your parents?”
“No, when I was a boy, at the age of nine, I had a few run-ins with the police, the Polish police, that is, and they sentenced me to a reform school, which happened to be in Vilno. That’s how I came to live there.”
“What about your parents?”
“They remained in the village. The police never told them where I was. I never saw my parents again until I was twenty.”
The interrogator raised his eyebrows, and a thin smile strayed onto his lips. “So, in other words, you rebelled against Polish oppression, and from such an early age! And even after being sent to a reform school at the age of nine, you decided to earn your living and make something of yourself. Commendable, very commendable.” Then slapping his hand against his thigh, as if having just thought of it, “Hah! Why, your life almost sounds like the life of our great, most revered writer, Maxim Gorky!”
Kulik, startled by the comparison, looked at his interrogator in astonishment. He said, “I suppose you could look at it that way. From a very early age, like Gorky, I had to overcome a harsh life and fight overwhelming odds.”