— Yes, I understand. On one of my visits, I met an extraordinary young man. Timur. I don’t recall his surname.
— Neizvestny?
— No.
— We’ve no one called Timur here.
— I’m sure he must have graduated by now. I remember him because he’d decided to keep an archive.
Her fingers tightened; her voice sounded airy and unconcerned. —An archive?
— Yes, records of each of the boys, their pasts, how they ended up here. Their stories. I thought it showed initiative and compassion. I’d like to see it.
— Comrade Officer, I have no idea what you mean.
— He wrote…
— Yes, I understand that, but I promise you, we have no archive. You may search the classrooms, if you wish.
— No, I—
— Please. Search them. We have nothing to hide.
— That’s not why I’m here. The one Timur, can you tell me where he is?
Sweat shone on her forehead. —We have no one called Timur.
— Yes, so you said. Right here, right now, you have no Timur. But he did live here. Could you check your files? Ask another worker? Perhaps he’s gone into the army.
— I can ask, but…
Kostya put his cap back on his head, tugged it into place. —Show me the files.
— Comrade Officer, please.
— Look, I first met him in ’33, and he told me he’d arrived in ’31. You must have records going back at least that far.
— Yes, of course, but—
— Then let me see them!
She paled.
He cleared his throat, softened his voice. —Please, comrade.
He followed her up the stairs to the room where in 1933 he’d once interfered with a French lesson. He’d noticed the teacher’s error on the blackboard in a sample sentence. Timur had noticed the same error. His back to the door and the presence of a visitor, Timur raised his hand, stood in all courtesy, and asked about it. The teacher abused Timur for his presumption and called him names, finishing with dirty Tatar bezprizornik. Sergeant Nikto, his boots tapping on the floors, those taps like cracks of ice in the sudden silence around him, strode to the blackboard, praised Timur’s knowledge and courtesy, erased the teacher’s sentence and rewrote it without the mistake. Then he left the room. After telling stories to the younger boys, Kostya sought Timur, only to discover that Timur also sought him. Outside in the cool air, shielded by the racket of the younger boys at play, Timur and Kostya smoked, Kostya supplying the cigarettes, and Timur told Kostya about his archive.
The floor showed scars from bolts and screws; no student desks remained. A new portrait of Stalin hung above the blackboard; another portrait, identical, faced the first, hanging on the back wall above the door.
The woman cleared her throat, and Kostya flinched. He’d forgotten her. Then she opened the left-hand drawer of the teacher’s desk and showed him the stack of ledgers within. —Our registers.
He knelt and lifted out all the ledgers at once. —Thank you, comrade. I’ll come down when I am done.
As she strode away, boys in the next room recited multiplication tables along with their teacher. —Three times one gives three. Three times two gives six.
One page for each new boy, entered by year of arrival.
Nineteen thirty-seven. Nineteen thirty-six.
The pupils continued reciting. —Three times three gives nine. Three times four gives twelve.
Nineteen thirty-five: a page torn out. One page equalled one boy.
Kostya said it aloud. —Sloppy.
Nineteen thirty-four.
— Three times six…
Nineteen thirty-three, two pages torn out. Two boys.
Oh, come on.
Nineteen thirty-two.
— Three time seven gives twenty-one.
Nineteen thirty-one, one page gone. He checked the other 1931 entries, found no page for Timur.
They tore him out. They tore out every mention of him.
And at least three more boys. Disappeared.
Where? If they’d gone to the army, they’d not be torn out. If they’d died in the orphanage, there should be some record of that. Wait. Drug experiments? Kolyma? Shot?
They’re just boys.
Kostya placed his open left hand on the ledger, as if to push it away. He knew how torn pages could mean torn lives. He’d done it himself, if not with bullets then with complicities of paperwork. Until his travels to Spain, he’d not really considered the brutality of erasing names, of creating the unperson. In Madrid, staring at bomb rubble and scattered clothes and flesh, Kostya wanted to name the dead. People ran past him, infants and belongings clutched to their chests. Shifting rubble clinked and rattled; blood pooled. Still, Kostya stood there, ears filled with the snarl of engines as more planes approached. He tasked himself: if he could not name the dead, he must count the scraps of fabric. Then he discovered he’d forgotten how to count.
The boys continued. —Three times ten gives thirty.
Kostya backed away from the desk and collided with the blackboard. Stalin, Father to All the Soviet Children, gazed upon him.
— Three times eleven gives thirty-three.
Scowling, Kostya replaced the ledgers in the desk drawer. Then he spotted a small book. He remembered seeing it here before: Russian translations of selected sonnets by William Shakespeare, English on the left-hand page, Russian on the right.
He looked up.
Stalin held his stare.
— Three times twelve gives thirty-six.
And what, my orphans, gives you ’37?
He stashed the book of sonnets in his pouch and almost ran from the room.
Hands still clasped together before her waist, the woman waited for him by the front door.
Kostya nodded to her. —Thank you, comrade. You’ve been most helpful.
Jaw clenched, she nodded back.
He knew she’d not sleep well, and he wished he could explain that he’d not be sending colleagues. Pointless. NKVD well might bang on that door tonight, whatever Senior Lieutenant Nikto did or did not say.
A form darted from an upper window; someone else watched him in fear.
Kostya sighed. I swear, I meant you no harm.
FEME SOLE 3
Sunday 25 July
As Kostya eased the bedsheet away from her, Temerity looked as pale and drawn as she had the first morning in his bed. —Go to hell.
Kostya blinked a few times, squinted. —What the barrelling fuck is the matter with you?
She tugged the sheet back over herself. —Don’t touch me. I never said you could touch me.
For weeks now, he’d stroked, caressed, kissed, cuddled, nibbled, and pinched as he desired, and she’d always melted into his arms. And now, one soft touch on her shoulder, and this screech? —Hey, I’ve not once forced myself on you. You spread your legs all on your own.
— Must you be so crude?
— Well, what would you like me to call it? Natural impulses? Sexual intercourse and all its biological imperatives?
— Did you ask me, ask me even once, if I truly wanted to?
— Wanted to, what?
She made a noise of disgust and rolled over, her back to him.
His lips brushed her ear. —I think with you hiding here all safe and sound in my flat, it’s the least—
He didn’t finish his sentence; his impact with the floor interrupted him. Lying there on his back, he considered how this tiny woman had kicked him out of his own bed, when last night, delighted with the book of sonnets he’d brought, she’d wept and snuggled into his arms. Then she’d found the sonnet she’d recited at the clinic and read it to him again and again, helping him understand the tangly English.