— No one wants to say it. He tried. Those children were too far gone. They couldn’t even swallow water.
Efim glanced at the door, saw no shadow on the frosted glass. —The food difficulties must have been particularly acute there.
Anna read the poster on the wall behind Efim: Only Those Who Work Deserve to Eat. She’d seen many copies. —Yes, particularly acute. An exceptional scene.
Neither spoke for a moment.
Then Anna lowered her voice. —My problem, Comrade Dr. Scherba, is that here, in this place, I can ease no pain. I can’t even acknowledge it. I do harm. So I must resign.
Efim let out a long breath. —Anna Nikolaieva, please reconsider. If you resign, the act may be perceived as ingratitude on your part, and it will affect…your future career prospects.
She passed him an unsealed envelope. —My letter.
Efim stared at the envelope in his hands. He must pass it along to Yury Stepanov. Oh, dear God. Anna, no. No. He gave the envelope a little shake. —Take it back, and I’ll say nothing further on the matter.
Anna stood up. —I take nothing back, for I cannot do this work. I will not.
The low heels of her shoes clicked and tapped on the floor, fading out until swallowed by the creaks of the main doors and the sounds of the streets outside.
Her letter said nothing of diphtheria.
I, Dr. Anna Nikolaieva Novikova, resign from my position at Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two.
Efim tucked the letter back into the envelope. So brief. In his younger days, such a letter might need an entire page for deferential greeting alone. She had done what he could not: said no. Declined. Refused. Walked away.
Her life now?
Efim dug for a handkerchief and dabbed sweat from his face.
So brief.
Evgenia glanced up as a white-haired officer from another department approached her desk. —Good morning, Comrade Major. My name is Ismailovna. How can I help you?
He flipped open his red wallet. —Minenkov, Vadym Pavlovich.
— Comrade Major Minenkov, welcome. Is Comrade Captain Kuznets expecting you?
— No, I’m looking for Senior Lieutenant Nikto.
— I’ve not seen him yet.
— Oh. I thought—
A wretched thud.
A male voice: —I’ve told you a hundred times!
Another thud.
Vadym followed Evgenia’s wide-eyed line of sight: an older officer slamming a younger one against a wall. The older man, a sergeant in his late forties, looked tired and unwell, cheeks sunken, moustache limp, face ruddy from drink. The younger man, another sergeant, struggled beneath the hands pinning his shoulders. A third thud: the younger man’s head hit the wall. The older man grasped him by the jaw and crumpled up the flesh of his face.
Boris Kuznets ran out of his office. Spotting the conflict, he strode up to the officers and clapped a hand on the older man’s shoulder. —Sergeant Kamenev!
All the background racket of voices and movement ceased.
Boris’s voice, though quieter, still carried. —Gleb Denisovich, what is this?
Gleb’s words came frothed with spittle. —He harangues me. This young one. He would tell me how to do my job. Me, a Chekist who shared a dinner table with Felix Dzerzhinksy!
Vadym remembered. Yes, they’d all shared a table one night. Kamenev. He taught Kostya and Misha when they were cadets.
Boris clicked his tongue in sympathy with Gleb. —The younger officers sometimes show such disrespect for their elders. Deplorable.
— I fill my quotas like anyone else, and this, this infant who has infested my office, who’d not know a hammer and sickle if I drove them up his arse, wants to show me new and better ways.
— His face is gone dark red, comrade. Ease your hand a bit. No, don’t let him go. Just let him breathe. There we are.
— Tells me my methods are antiquated and not good enough. Me, a career Chekist! Everything I’ve given…Everything I am is Cheka.
— Comrade Katelnikov’s parents would be ashamed of his discourtesies.
Tears shone on Gleb’s face. —Saying he’ll report my paperwork for inspection and review.
The silence deepened as everyone considered the implications of this dire threat.
Matvei sounded hoarse. —I saw him lie about his quotas. I know he’s behind.
Gleb dropped his arms from Matvei’s body, took a few steps backward, and spat at his junior’s feet. Then he strode to their shared office and slammed the door.
Boris looked Matvei up and down. —Quite a stunt you just pulled. If, if you’ve got proof of something so terrible as that, you come see a superior. You report your concerns through proper channels. You never confront and humiliate another officer. Is that clear?
Water rushed through pipes.
— Clear, Comrade Captain Kuznets.
— Report to my office at once and wait for me there, so we may discuss your discipline. I—
Gunshot.
Heavy thud.
Matvei stared at the just-slammed office door, looked back at Boris, then ran to the office, shoving people aside. He could only get the door open a few centimetres; something barred the way. —Gleb Denisovich! Gleb Denisovich, no, no, no.
Evgenia murmured into her telephone receiver, asking the switchboard to send for an ambulance.
Blood and other matter seeped beneath the door and around Matvei’s feet.
Vadym wished someone could knock Matvei out, force his silence. He nodded to Evgenia, signalling he would come back at a better time; standing up, Evgenia nodded back. Boris took Matvei by the upper arm and guided him to a chair; they both tracked blood. Evgenia took some old rags from a filing cabinet and placed them at the office door, managing to dam the leak. The others retreated to their own offices.
Wishing Evgenia had been more shocked, wishing that of himself, Vadym made for the stairwell and descended. He took great care to watch where he placed his feet.
— Dima.
He looked up. Kostya loped toward him.
— Dima, are you all right? You look terrible.
— A man in your department just shot himself.
— Fuck, not again. Who?
After some difficulty, Vadym could speak. —Kamenev.
The shadows of the crisscrossed wire enclosing the staircase fell across Vadym’s face, making Kostya think of a map in Vadym’s office. A winter’s day in early 1936, Vadym had pointed on a map of Russia marked with lines of latitude and longitude, pointed to the far northeast: Kolyma. Misha and Kostya had feigned polite interest as Vadym spoke of the Ice Age discoveries there. Dwellings. Subterranean dwellings. Signs of civilization, even anthropomorphic art, so old, so very old, and yet so human. That night Kostya had dreamt of a thin black line on the map, this line enlarging to a long queue of people marching on a gunpoint pilgrimage. Then the line shrank back to a strand thin as a barb on a feather, only to shrink some more as the feather pricked out beneath a shirt cuff — the shirt cuff of the terrible man Kostya saw on his fevered 1918 journey to Moscow. Black feathers on his arms, black feathers on the back of his neck, he stood on the train platform, watching. Kostya had recognized him for what he was: a demon.
One could no longer see demons in 1937, Kostya told himself. Nor, unless poisoned with morphine, cocaine, alcohol, bloodlust, and fear, could one see angels. —Dima, what’s happening to us?
A door creaked below, and another senior lieutenant started up the stairs. Kostya and Vadym parted to leave him enough room to pass; he regarded them both with some suspicion.
Kostya said it loud enough for the other senior lieutenant to hear, so he might understand how the strange meeting and the silence on the stairs meant not treachery but dismay. —An ambulance on the way?