— Just make sure any woman you give it to merits such a gift.
As Kostya tucked the bottle into the pouch on his portupeya and then took out his matches and cigarettes, he pleaded in his thoughts with Vadym: Don’t ask if she cooked the mushrooms. Don’t mention her. Please, don’t.
Vadym chuckled, and his eyes, while still sad from thoughts of Misha, twinkled. He took a breath to speak.
Arkady spoke first, clapping his hand on Kostya’s good shoulder. —As if such a woman could even exist. You smoke too much, Tatar.
Boris smiled as he stood up to join Yury and Matvei at the other table. —Nikto, Stepanov, Katelnikov: you younger men would do well to learn what your elders, Arkady Dmitrievich and Vadym Pavlovich, with their sacred vows of chastity as priests of Cheka, already understand. A man might drown in women.
Arkady, Vadym, Yury, Matvei, and Kostya, each annoyed for his own reasons, suppressed frowns.
Boris finished his warning. —Cunt may ruin us all.
Yury nodded, and soup dribbled from the spoon onto his chin. —Amen.
Blowing out a long stream of smoke, Kostya stood up, stepped over to Yury, and chucked him on the chin. Then he shook a shred of carrot from his finger. —From each according to his ability, to each according to his work. You’ll never get to drown in women with lunch on your face.
Blushing in misery, Yury joined the laughter of the men.
He is the true heir of the Tatars, not I.
Kostya lifted his gaze from the prisoner, slumped in a chair before a desk, and took in the pocked and peeling walls, the damp floor, and the caged electric light. Then he looked the other two NKVD officers in the eye. —Neither of you speak Kazakh?
— Not a word, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.
— I thought it was gibberish, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.
Kostya glanced again at the prisoner: bruised, bleeding, handcuffed. Nearly five hours had passed since Yury asked Kostya to look in on this prisoner. Cuffed all that time, if not longer. Can’t be helped. —It’s a gorgeous language, and you wouldn’t know beauty if it gave you a blow job and then chewed off your cock. Free his hands.
— But he’s dangerous.
Kostya glared at them. —I just gave you an order. Oh, I must show identification, yes? Stand at attention when I speak to you! Look at my collar. Look at my card. What do you see? Hey?
The guard who wouldn’t know beauty stared straight ahead. —I see, ah, the rank of senior lieutenant.
His fellow glanced at the identification and nodded. —Yes, I see it, too: Senior Lieutenant Nikto. That’s what it says.
— Right. Now free his hands and get out. Tell the guard outside I will bang on the door and call out when I am ready.
— Yes, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.
The heavy door clunked shut; the lock clacked into place.
As the sobbing man moved his stiff arms until his hands lay in his lap, Kostya walked behind the desk, pulled out the chair with minimal noise, and sat down. Think. Think in Kazakh. —Good day.
Battered and swollen eyelids allowed only a slit for vision. Tears leaked.
Kostya passed him a handkerchief. —My accent is heavy, I know, but do you understand me?
— Yes. Your accent is fine.
— Thank you. I’m out of practice.
— No, no, it’s beautiful.
— What’s your name?
— Abdulin. Nurasyl Abdulin.
Green eyes, like mine. —How long have you been in Moscow, Abdulin?
— Three months. What is your name, officer?
— How old are you?
— Nineteen last week.
Kostya noticed the date of birth in the dossier. —Happy belated. Why are you in Moscow?
— I can’t hunt. I can’t ride. I can’t farm. I can no longer be a burden on my father. I came by train. Some of the way I walked.
— And where do you work?
— Shanghai.
Kostya nodded, recognizing the nickname for the city-within-a-city in Proletarsky District of tents, barracks, and dugouts for factory workers. —What is your job?
— I told the other men, I told them, I told them—
— Hush, hush. The other men cannot speak the language. The other men are gone. I won’t hit you. You’ll tell me now, yes?
Shaking, Nurasyl gritted his teeth against a wave of pain. —The Stalin Works. I polish headlights for automobiles.
— The other officers say you wrecked something.
— No.
— Did you drop a headlight?
— No!
— An accident. Glass is slippery.
Nurasyl grimaced. —I hate the noise of glass. Even when I got tired, I never dropped a light. If I break a light, I don’t get paid, and if I don’t get paid, I can’t eat. And I’m hungry. I came all this way to work and become a good citizen. Why am I still hungry?
— If you can’t manage your money, that’s your own problem.
— I line up for hours for bread that’s not there.
— Abdulin…
— I sleep on the bare ground. Where can I cook? I was better off starving at home.
— Abdulin.
— And you, officer, you speak the language, yet you understand nothing.
The chair scraped on the floor as Kostya stood up; Nurasyl cried out, clenched his eyes shut, and covered his face with his arms.
— Abdulin, take your arms down from your head.
Sobbing, Nurasyl obeyed.
Kostya returned to his chair. —Now, tell me what you wrecked at the Stalin Works.
Nurasyl detailed an impossible list of acts of sabotage. Had even a fraction of it been true, the works would have shut down. Kostya knew this. Nurasyl knew this. Yet Nurasyl confessed it, and Kostya wrote it down.
— Can you read, Abdulin?
— Of course I can read. I am not your savage of the steppes.
— Write?
— No.
Kostya turned his written notes around, and Nurasyl turned his head to peer at the page with his less-swollen eye, studied the pages. The Russian officer’s written Kazakh, in the Latin alphabet, looked angular, shattered.
Nurasyl frowned. —I can’t read it.
— Why not?
— The letters — no!
Kostya needed a moment to recognize why pleasure shot to his penis and why the prisoner screamed. His patience had frayed, and he’d aimed his Nagant at Nursayl’s forehead, still held it there. He had no memory of drawing the gun, or of deciding to draw the gun. —I did say I’m out of practice.
Nurasyl stared at the muzzle, the chamber, the hand, the officer. Then he bowed his head.
Feeling sweat break out on the back of his neck, Kostya holstered the Nagant. His behaviour would provoke little comment, certainly no rebuke, from his colleagues, yet Kostya felt like a failure, a fool. So easily insulted by a comment on his handwriting? Drawing his weapon without thought?
He rolled his pen across the desk to Nurasyl. —Make your mark.
— How did you do it?
— The speed of the gun? Just target practice.
Nurasyl looked up, the green of his eyes almost hidden now as the swelling worsened. He trembled. Many prisoners at this point of an interrogation sounded craven, miserable. Nursayl sounded mystified. —No, I mean…the other men could have beaten me to death, spoken any language they liked, and I’d have died knowing I’m innocent. You made me believe I’m guilty. I believe it. I know I’m not, yet I believe it.
— Mark on the bottom line, please.
— You turned me against myself. I betrayed myself. How can this happen?
— Your mark.
— I hate you.
Kostya lit a cigarette; his hands shook. —Just make your damned mark.