He told me I’d broken something, and I let him hang there a while, asked him some more questions about his time in Spain. He gave me a pile of horseshit about infiltrating POUM and then coming to agree with them. At least, I think it was horseshit. Misha and his doubts…I just had to find some way to make him promise to run and be silent. I would let him go. So I got down on my knees, beneath him, and as he begged me to let him down, I begged him to forget me, forget his own name, forget everything we’d ever shared, and never to return to Russia.
Then I heard the growl. The planes. So many of them. Low. I ran outside. Junkers, the fucking Luftwaffe, in tight formation. I knew. The way I know languages. I just knew. And I stood there, and I stared at the sky, and the bombs fell.
Twenty minutes, I’ve been told. It felt much longer. I ran. I knew I had to get back to the barn, get Misha down, get him out.
The shrapnel hit my ear, my shoulder. I only felt the impact, like a really hard shove, and then everything fell on top of me. I got up, but it didn’t matter, because the barn had collapsed. I screamed, and still I could hear nothing. I screamed for Misha. I ended up in a clinic. I don’t know how. Someone pushed me part of the way in wheelbarrow, I think. There was so much fire. And that, Nadia, is how I ruined my canvas jacket and killed my best friend.
Temerity stared into her glass. —Kostya…
— So do you see it now?
She looked up. —See what?
— Why I took you from the old man’s party. All that death and waste. All that blood. I nearly shot you, and still, still, when I called for help with those damned name tags, you answered. It was you. You had every right to ignore me or scream at me or shoot me where I stood, and instead you helped me with those children.
She said nothing.
He gave a long sigh. Then he drew his palm over his scalp, pausing at the likely entry point for an executioner’s bullet. —It feels so strange.
— It looks strange.
New cigarette between his lips, he smirked. —I look old?
Smiling, wiping tears, she shook her head. Condemned.
She stood up. Pooled blood gushed. She scowled and grasped the table.
— Nadia, you’re exhausted. Please, go to bed.
Back to that bed, where she’d lain all day? His bed, the centre of her ever smaller world, all meaning there found and lost?
In the bathroom, she checked her padding.
God’s sake, how much more must I bleed?
DOGS’ HEADS AND BROOMSTICKS 3
Wednesday 28 July
Arkady embraced Kostya, careful to be gentle with the bad shoulder, kissed him on each cheek, and stroked his shorn head. —Tatar, what have you done to yourself?
— The showers at the poligon are fucked.
— Shh, we’re in a church.
Kostya almost laughed at that. The Revolution drove out superstitions of God, and bullets extinguished priests, yet here they all gathered, for the funeral on an NKVD officer. —I got material in my hair. I clipped it off. Why a church?
— Vadym’s brother insisted. Wait, poligon duty? Last night? I told Kuznets —
— I got called in. Languages.
Arkady fixed the lapels on the leather coat. —And this old thing of mine?
— I wear it out of respect.
Respect for you and Dima. Respect for what you both tried to do, that you both tried to save me. Respect for the loyalty of Pavel Ippolitov and Evgenia Ismailovna. Respect for the priests I shot last night. Respect for the truth: I kill people to survive.
Arkady’s laugh had a shakiness to it. —It will cook you in this heat. Did you remember my groceries for the reception?
— Oh, God, I’m sorry. I—
— Kostya, shh, just breathe. Breathe.
In Arkady’s arms, leaning on his chest, Kostya gasped, gasped again. —I’m so sorry, Arkady Dmitrievich. I watched him run. I watched him fall.
— I know. I know. Breathe, breathe. There, that’s it. Better?
Kostya stepped back. —Better.
Boris Kuznets cleared his throat. —Arkady Dmitrievich, Konstantin Arkadievich. My condolences.
Both men flinched, then spoke at the same moment; Kostya deferred to Arkady and stopped talking.
— Thank you, Boris Aleksandrovich.
— Please introduce me to Vadym Pavlovich’s family, so I might pay my respects.
— Of course. This way.
— Before we do that, come closer to me, both of you. I made certain that the coroner arrived at a verdict of a heart attack.
Kostya stifled a laugh.
Arkady glared at him, and he struggled to keep his voice low. —Heart attack?
Boris kissed Arkady on the cheeks. —In his confusion and pain from his heart attack, Vadym Pavlovich broke his window and fell. Easier for the family.
Arkady and Kostya both nodded, acknowledging this mercy.
Then Boris embraced Kostya and kissed him on the right cheek. —Some paperwork has gone astray. Our former secretary may be responsible. She had other paperwork snarls, quite suspicious. Uncooperative, too.
The purple silk. —Boris Aleksandrovich, do you mean Comrade Ismailovna?
Arkady took in a sharp breath.
Kostya continued. —Ismailovna is well organized, thorough, and most co-operative. With respect, Comrade Captain, I find it hard to believe you’d think otherwise.
Boris’s eyes seemed to communicate surprise, respect, and satisfaction. —I find this funeral hard to believe, in a church, no less, yet here we are.
— What the hell is she guilty of?
— Contaminating the sacred trust of confession. She showed me her templates, these ready-made confessions. It will save time, she said. ‘Why, Comrade Ismailovna,’ I said, ‘such laziness masquerading as efficiency could lead to false confessions. At no point can the NKVD tolerate such a practice. You’ve heaped a galling duty on me.’ She begged for my protection. I could protect her from nothing.
Enough! Kostya expected to shout. Instead, his voice sounded quiet and young. —She can’t be guilty. She can’t.
— You must be mistaken, Konstantin Arkadievich.
Kostya shook his head. I designed those templates. Say it. Say it’s me, not her. Then he felt Arkady’s grip on his forearm, as though Arkady tried to hold him back from a fall.
Boris’s eyes seemed to twinkle, as though he and Kostya now shared a delicious secret. —Handkerchief? Your face is wet. You’re shaking, let me help. Now, the Minenkovs.
After clearing his throat a few times, Kostya introduced Boris to Vira and Pyotr. Then he noticed how sickly Arkady looked. No hiding it here: light danced on Arkady’s cheekbones, once hidden beneath ample flesh, now sharp in defeat. Then he followed the older man’s line of sight: the pedestal, the urn.
Absence.
Vadym, Dima, gone.
And so many others.
Kostya put his arm around Arkady’s shoulders, and Arkady did not pull away or shrug him off.
The service, its old words and gestures, even the smells — incense, tobacco, cologne, perfume, stone, sweat — comforted Kostya, and that comfort startled him. Most of the women wore scarves on their heads, the ancient deference. Most of the men wore NKVD uniform. The elderly priests, eyes darting, seemed to shrink into their robes, and Kostya wondered about funerals in Kolyma.
A priest caught his eye, held his gaze.
At once moving forward of his own desire and shoved by people behind him, Kostya joined the procession out. As he saw Misha’s parents, his knees buckled. He managed to steady himself, and then Pyotr and Vira Minenkov fussed over him, so fond, asking after his wounds, his state of mind, saying how they’d recognize him anywhere, never mind the haircut, adding how much Vadym had loved him and Misha both.