Mostovskoy was no longer afraid of anything. Now he knew where his doubts led: they didn't lead into a swamp – they led to the abyss.
Liss picked up Ikonnikov's papers.
'How can you have anything to do with people like this? Everything's been turned upside down by this accursed war… If only I could unravel this tangle!'
There is no tangle, Herr Liss. Everything's very simple and very clear. We don't need to ally ourselves with Chernetsov and Ikonnikov to overpower you. We can deal with both them and you…
Mostovskoy realized that everything dark and sinister was embodied in Liss. All rubbish heaps smelt the same; there was no difference between one lot of splintered wood and crushed brick and another. One shouldn't look to garbage and debris in order to understand similarities and differences; one should look to the thoughts, the design, of the builder.
Mostovskoy found himself gripped by a joyful, triumphant rage – against Liss and Hitler, against the English officer with the colourless eyes who had asked him about criticisms of Marxism, against the sickening speeches of the one-eyed Menshevik, against the mawkish preacher who had turned out to be a police agent. Where would these men ever find people stupid enough to believe that there was the faintest shadow of resemblance between a Socialist State and the Fascist Reich? The Gestapo officer Liss was the only consumer of their rotten goods. Now, as never before, Mostovskoy understood the inner link between Fascism and its agents.
And wasn't this the true genius of Stalin? He had hated and annihilated these people because he alone had seen the hidden brotherhood between Fascism and the Pharisees who advocated a specious freedom. This thought now seemed so obvious that he wanted to explain it – to bring home to Liss the full absurdity of his theories. But he contented himself with a smile: he'd been around a long time; he wasn't like that fool Goldenberg who'd blathered to the Public Prosecutor about the affairs of 'People's Will'. [42]
He stared straight at Liss. Then, in a voice that could probably be heard by the guard on the other side of the door, he said: 'The best advice I can offer you is to stop wasting your time on me. You can stand me against the wall! You can hang me! You can do me in however you like!'
'No one here wishes to do you in,' Liss answered hurriedly. 'Please calm down.'
'I'm quite calm,' said Mostovskoy brightly. 'I've got nothing to worry about.'
'But you do have something to worry about. You should share my sleeplessness. What is the reason for our enmity? I can't understand… Is it that the Fuhrer is a mere lackey of Stinnes and Krupp? That there's no private property in your country? That your banks and factories belong to the people? That you're internationalists and we're preachers of racial hatred? That we set things on fire and you extinguish the flames? That the world hates us – and that its hopes are centred on Stalingrad? Is that what you people say…? Nonsense! There is no divide. It's just been dreamed up. In essence we are the same – both one-party States. Our capitalists are not the masters. The State gives them their plan. The State takes their profit and all they produce. As their salary they keep six per cent of the profit. Your State also outlines a plan and takes what is produced for itself. And the people you call masters – the workers – also receive a salary from your one-party State.'
Mostovskoy watched Liss and thought to himself: 'Did this vile nonsense really confuse me for a moment? Was I really choking in this stream of poisonous, stinking dirt?'
Liss gave a despairing wave of the hand.
'A red workers' flag flies over our People's State too. We too call people to National Achievement, to Unity and Labour. We say, "The Party expresses the dream of the German worker"; you say, "Nationalism! Labour!" You know as well as we do that nationalism is the most powerful force of our century. Nationalism is the soul of our epoch. And "Socialism in One Country" is the supreme expression of nationalism.
'I don't see any reason for our enmity. But the teacher of genius, the leader of the German people, our father, the best friend of all German mothers, the brilliant and wise strategist, began this war. And I believe in Hitler. And I know that Stalin's mind is in no way clouded by pain or anger. Through all the fire and smoke of war he can see the truth. He knows his true enemy. Yes – even now when he discusses joint military strategy with him and drinks to his health. There are two great revolutionaries in the world – Stalin and our leader. It is their will that gave birth to State National Socialism.
'Brotherhood with you is more important to me than territory in the East. We are two houses that should stand side by side… Now, teacher, I want you to live for a while in quiet solitude. I want you to think, think, think before our next conversation.'
'What for? It's all just nonsense. It's absurd and senseless!' said Mostovskoy. 'And why call me "teacher" in that idiotic way?'
'There's nothing idiotic about it,' replied Liss. 'You and I both know that it's not on battlefields that the future is decided. You knew Lenin personally. He created a new type of party. He was the first to understand that only the Party and its Leader can express the spirit of the nation. He did away with the Constituent Assembly. But just as Maxwell destroyed Newton's system of mechanics while thinking he had confirmed it, so Lenin considered himself a builder of internationalism while in actual fact he was creating the great nationalism of the twentieth century… And we learnt many things from Stalin. To build Socialism in One Country, one must destroy the peasants' freedom to sow what they like and sell what they like. Stalin didn't shilly-shally – he liquidated millions of peasants. Our Hitler saw that the Jews were the enemy hindering the German National Socialist movement. And he liquidated millions of Jews. But Hitler's no mere student; he's a genius in his own right. And he's not one to be squeamish either. It was the Roehm purge that gave Stalin the idea for the purge of the Party in 1937… You must believe me. You've kept silent while I've been talking, but I know that I'm like a mirror for you
– a surgical mirror.'
'A mirror?' said Mostovskoy. 'Every word you've said from beginning to end is a lie. It's beneath me to refute your filthy, stinking, provocative blatherings. A mirror? You must be crazy. But Stalingrad will bring you back to your senses.'
Liss stood up. In painful confusion, feeling both hatred and ecstasy, Mostovskoy thought, 'Now he's going to shoot me. That's it.'
But Liss seemed not to have heard Mostovskoy. He bowed from the waist.
'Teacher,' he said, 'you will continue to teach us and continue to learn from us. We shall think together.'
Liss's face was sad and serious, but his eyes were laughing.
Once again the poisoned needle entered Mostovskoy's heart. Liss looked at his watch and said: 'Well, time will tell.'
He rang a bell and said quietly: 'You can have this back if you want it. We shall meet again soon. Gute Nacht!'
Without knowing why, Mostovskoy picked the papers up and thrust them into his pocket.
He was led out of the administration building and back out into the cold night. Cool damp air, the howl of sirens in the gloom before dawn
– how pleasant it all was after the Gestapo office and the quiet voice of the National Socialist theoretician.
A car with violet headlamps passed them as they reached the sick-bay. Mostovskoy realized that Liss was on his way home. Once again he was seized by a deep melancholy. The guard took him to his cubicle and locked the door. He sat down on the boards and thought: 'If I believed in God, I would think that terrible interrogator had been sent to me as a punishment for my sins.'