Kostya adjusted the dossiers in his arm. —Why am I worried about your Kazakh, Stepanov?
Weaving and dodging, Yury followed Kostya to his office. —He’s a fucking Mongol who doesn’t speak two words of Russian. How did he even get to Moscow? We’ve probably gotten eighteen different confessions—hey!
Collision.
Eight heavy dossiers flew from Kostya’s arms and slapped against the floor. He managed to hold onto the podstakannik handle and so keep his tea.
A sergeant turned pale as he recognized not just Kostya’s insignia but also his own offence: knocking dossiers from the arms of someone important. —Oh, Comrade Senior Lieutenant, let me fetch those.
The dossiers, like those knocked over by the clerk at the poligon, were tied shut and had released nothing. Kostya knelt with the sergeant, noticing hundreds of tiny scratches and dents in the once elegant parquet flooring. Other men’s legs shading their vision, they collected the burden.
— I’m so sorry, Comrade Senior Lieutenant. I’m trying to find my way, all the corridors…
— It’s nothing.
— Senior Lieutenant Nikto? It’s me, Katelnikov, Matvei Andreivich Katelnikov.
— Yes, we’ve met. Pass me that dossier, yes, that one there, before it gets kicked to the wall.
Matvei did so. —I try to match your records in the basement.
— What?
— Target practice.
Kostya stood up, balancing burdens of dossiers and tea. —Oh. What’s your weapon?
Still on his knees, Matvei grinned and patted his holster. —Tokarev.
— I use a Nagant.
Matvei blushed. —Oh. Maybe that’s why you’re so good. I mean…
Yury rolled his eyes. —Comrade Senior Lieutenant Nikto is busy.
Matvei got to his feet, stood aside, and, in his haste, knocked into someone else. This time, tea spilled. The bearer of the tea, another new man, uttered fierce apology as he and Matvei navigated a dance of power, rank, and a puddle.
Kostya wanted to shut his office door in Yury’s face, but he knew that Yury would only open it and continue, unperturbed, implacable, steady as a river, clueless. Kostya dropped the dossiers on his desk, making the blotter rock, and suppressed a sigh. —Fine. Tell me.
— What’s to tell? He’s under arrest, he’s guilty, and he speaks a language none of us understands.
— Well, what’s he guilty of?
— Oh. Wreckage. At the Stalin Works.
Migrant labourer, Kostya thought. Came to Moscow after the ’33 famine.
Yury leaned against the doorjamb. —Nikto, you speak Kazakh.
— Some.
— It’s better than none, and I’m late for a meeting at Number Two.
— Number Two what?
Yury spat it out before wisdom could tell him that perhaps a fellow officer did not need that information. —Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two.
Kostya kept his eyes on his dossiers and sipped some tea. I must give Scherba my condolences. —And what is your business at Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two, Yury Grigorievich?
Wincing at his quick confession, Yury reminded himself that Kostya outranked him and so must be answered. That, in turn, made Yury’s lips purse together into a tight little frown. —Supervision.
— I’ll go see your prisoner once I get through these dossiers, after the department meeting.
Yury cleared his throat. —Meeting? At, ah, what time again?
— In ten minutes.
— Right. Yes, well, Special Purpose must wait. And, of course, Captain Kuznets did ask me to assist him with this meeting.
— Then perhaps you should check with him, yes? Wait, wait, before you tear off in a mad hurry—
— I am not in a hurry.
— Where will I find your Kazakh?
Shifting his weight from foot to foot like a prisoner denied urination privileges, Yury gave Kostya the cell number. Then he rushed toward the office of Boris Kuznets.
Kostya smirked into his tea.
The scents of stale tobacco, metallic sweat, vinegar, excrement, wine fumes, and resinous colognes filled Kostya’s nose as he stood still, arms crossed so he’d not jostle or nudge anyone else, getting jostled and nudged himself.
Staff meeting.
The stink of men, Kostya thought, always in the stink of men.
Boris Kuznets spoke, his voice monotonous and huge, a cloudy sky on a winter day. He quoted figures, compared charts, heaped praise, demanded better. Soon, comrades, very soon, stern word would soon come from no less than the Boss himself, yes, Comrade Stalin, about increased vigilance and redoubled efforts, the ongoing need to root out and destroy the enemy, as many heads as Zmei Gorynich, cut off one and three more grow.
Kostya shut his eyes. The story of Dobrynya Nikitich and Zmei Gorynich in the Saracen Mountains: his grandfather had told it well, as he did the story of Koshchei the Deathless, adding new details each time, so that just when Kostya thought he knew the story, it grew. Koshchei hides his death, his soul, buried beneath a green oak tree within a heavy iron chest fixed with many bolts. And within that chest lies a twitchy hare. Within the belly of the hare waits an angry duck. And within the duck waits an egg, and within this egg lies a needle. And within the eye of that needle rests the soul, the death, of Koshchei the Deathless.
Boris droned on. —Innocent people will be hurt. This is regrettable. It is also unavoidable. When a building is on fire, and we are all desperate to escape the flames, someone gets bruised. Outside, when everyone is safe, the bruises no longer matter. Our job, comrades, is to make the Soviet Union safe. Right now, Mother Russia burns, and she screams for our help.
Jostled hard, Kostya opened his eyes and glared at his neighbour.
Boris picked up a final stack of paper, instructing Yury Stepanov to ensure each man in the room received his personal copy. The crowd rippled and surged as Yury navigated. The sheets lay filed alphabetically by officers’ surnames; the officers stood at random. Each man got one sheet.
Boris announced dismissal. —Once you receive your new targets, you may leave.
Yury gave Kostya two sheets.
— Stepanov, wait.
Already wiggling through the crowd, Yury spoke in a sharp tone, much too sharp for a sergeant to a senior lieutenant. —What?
— It seems I have two sheets.
— Yes.
— Every other man received one. What, I’ve got twice the work now?
Yury shook his head and looked to the ceiling. —Your name is on both sheets.
Upper right corners: Nikto, KA. Yes, both sheets bore his name. Except the second sheet bore his name in ink, in handwriting, atop the crossed-out, typed name of another officer: Minenkov, MP.
Misha.
Ignoring the tremor in his hand, Kostya shoved the second sheet at Yury. —Ismailovna typed this?
Yury shoved the paper back. —Get off me.
Boris called out. —Nikto, stay behind a moment.
— Yes, Comrade Captain.
Waiting for the crush of men to pass, Kostya got himself to a wall and stood there to study his two sheets of paper. Targets. Quotas. Timetables. Incentives. Well, the mention of incentives, no concrete details. Then he reported to his captain.
Boris sounded jolly. —Twenty years.
What, my sentence?
— Just think on it, Nikto. In December we’ll celebrate twenty years of the Cheka.
Kostya nodded. —A milestone, Comrade Captain.
— We call ourselves NKVD now, but the soul of it, the reason our blood pumps: Cheka. There’s talk of a party, you know, a big celebration. At the Bolshoi. When were you last at the Bolshoi?