“Indulge me,” said the archivist joyfully. “What particular historical fetishes does your maniac have?”
“Coordinate number one is the area between the edge of Khodynka Field and the back of Birch Grove Park. Apparently, that part of the city is connected with some important people. And I’m talking famous historical people—from the Soviet era. Some bigwigs in the ruling party. Then there’s a fetish, which is a summer coat, or an overcoat. Light gray, no belt, made from good material, like gabardine, worn by a man of above-average height. Do you think you could help me determine the exact era and style of an overcoat? It would help me figure out who he’s fixated with. Because the bastard wouldn’t tell me. So, the overcoat is coordinate number two. Then, since we’re talking crazy people here, there’s one peculiar detaiclass="underline" with him it’s all about underage girls—white socks and all that nonsense. And that’s your third coordinate. So, what do we get at the point of intersection?”
“Well, doctor, you’re an intelligent man. You know your history. It’s not what; it’s who. Some concrete historical figure. But I’m curious. This guy—does he wear the old-fashioned overcoat and rape young girls in white socks?”
“Sergey, don’t ask questions. Who’s the psychiatrist here? Yet, indeed, you guessed it. Only the particular location is also significant here—the back of Khodynka Field and Birch Grove Park.”
“But of course, my dear doctor. Let’s begin with the overcoat. It’s probably from the postwar era. In the ’30s, the fashion was to wear military-style overcoats with a belt. Then, after that, up until the ’60s… Well, take the photographs of the Soviet party during that muddy period between Stalin and Khrushchev, and you’ll see about five overcoats like that in every picture. As for underage girls, it’s perfectly clear. I’m sure you know who was infamous for meddling with them.”
“Beria,” I said under my breath, looking down at the dark treetops from the balcony. “Lavrentiy Beria.”
“That’s right. Of course, other party leaders have been know to savor similar worldly pleasures; but schoolgirls were Beria’s particular preference. Well, not just schoolgirls; often women with specific figures and mannerisms. Am I using the correct terms?”
“Absolutely.”
“Imagine a black car driving slowly along the sidewalk behind a girl with plump calves. Two men get out of the automobile and introduce themselves to her. According to some sources, they just push her into the car and drive off to the famous house on Sadovaya Street. Across from Krasnaya Presnya, in case you didn’t know. Other sources suggest that the scenario was a little more genteel. They would talk the girl into it first. If need be, they’d dress the teenager in a school uniform, or sometimes a ballet tutu. Then they sat her on a sofa and told her to wait. Dozens of books have been written about it; and just two months ago, some TV people approached me about it. They’re going to make a program. Have I told you anything you didn’t already know?”
“The particular spot,” I reminded him. “Our entire district was built by Beria. I know this already. He, of course, always took off from the airport on Khodynka; but other people boarded planes on the other side of the field. What does our maniac know about that other, forgotten part of the field? And what does that part have to do with Beria?”
The archivist took a deep, noisy breath. “He knows something that very few people know, frankly. And I find it strange that a maniac could get his hands on such information. It’s extremely difficult to come across. What’s on that side of the field now?”
“A construction site. Just like every other goddamn neighborhood in the city… New buildings crawling up to the skies all over the place.”
“And you want to know which building stood there before?”
“Can you tell me this over the phone?” I asked after a pause.
“Yes, after Mr. Suvorov’s novel The Aquarium, I can,” the archivist reassured me cheerfully. “The Aquarium, the main intelligence directorate of the Red Army, stood there. Around it were various military fences, barracks, even tents, when the troops were training for the parades on the occasion of the Bolshevik Revolution. The area belonged to the military, in other words. That wasn’t much of a secret. The secret, for a long time, was what was there underground.”
“Do you mean catacombs, bomb shelters, underground tunnels?” I recalled the heavy metal door with the spindle wheel.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” said the archivist. “Back then they were building bomb shelters everywhere, and Beria was in charge of it. In the summer of 1953 they took him into one such bomb shelter at the far end of the airfield, just after Comrade Stalin died. That was where he spent his last days. How long exactly is difficult to say. They say that they executed him first, and prosecuted and sentenced him later, in December. It’s possible, by they way, that he was executed in that very basement, right between Birch Grove Park and Khodynka Field. The site of his final orgasm, as it were.”
“From the point of view of psychiatry, it’s interesting that you would refer to an execution as a last orgasm,” I said pompously. “Would you be so kind as to explain what you mean in more detail?”
“Doctor, not everyone’s a maniac. Could you hold on a second? I’m going to go grab something… here. A memoir of someone who loathed Beria with all his heart. For various reasons. The Bystander, by one Mr. Dmitri Shepilov, minister of foreign affairs under Khrushchev. He was also in charge of culture, arts, and ideology in the Communist Party. He was, by the way, a handsome man who loved women. Ordinary women, mind you, not underage schoolgirls. The chapter is called ‘The Battle.’ And I quote… hold on a minute, I’m going to quote him where he talks about where they put Beria. ‘And when he was told he was under arrest, his face turned green and brown from his chin to his temples and up to his forehead. Armed marshals entered the meeting hall. They escorted him to the automobile. It had been earlier agreed upon that the Beria would not be put in the internal jail in the Lubyanka or the Lefortovo detention cells: that could lead to unforeseeable consequences. It was decided to keep him in a special detention cell in one of the buildings of the Moscow Military District under surveillance by armed guards.’ He’s referring to your Khodynka; or, rather, the farthest end of it. Later the military closed some of the buildings there and gave them away. Oh, and here’s the part about orgasms: ‘He persistently from the depths of his memory recalled the most erotic scenes and relived them, voluptuously enjoying all the little details, in order to excite himself, seeking oblivion for at least a few precious moments. The supreme officers who guarded the door of his cell all day and night could see through the peephole how Beria, covered with a rough military blanket, writhed underneath it in spasms of masturbation.’ What style, doctor! Note, however, that I wasn’t quoting from the book. I was quoting from the original manuscript that I received from one of his publishers. Even though this was way after the Soviet era, the publishers had scruples about printing the piece about the military blanket, so they left it out.”
A blanket, I thought. A military blanket. And clothes.
“Sergey, do you happen to know if they confiscated his clothing, too, after he was arrested?”
“Clothing? My dear doctor, not just clothing. Shepilov very clearly states in his memoirs that they they took away his shoelaces, his belt—even his famous pince-nez, so he wouldn’t cut himself with the glass.”
“And where did they take it all?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know. Does it really matter? I doubt they would have kept that information in the archives. Although, it’s possible they might have written it all down in some official document somewhere.”
On the other hand, I thought, it doesn’t really matter. I imagined the military investigators fingering every little wrinkle of a light gray overcoat and then… then tossing it in some corner… and then…
Suddenly, I heard my mother’s voice in my head. When was it? How many years ago did she tell me about the cold day in June 1953, before I was even born? It was a story about her and my father. They were sitting alone on some stone steps by the river, cigarette butts floating past, next to a tall Stalin-era building on Kotelnicheskaya embankment. They must have felt very happy on that short June night, when the sun rose almost as soon as it had set. They felt happy until the stone steps began to tremble under their feet.
Because tanks started rolling down the boulevard next to the embankment.
And my father—who had run off to fight in the war as a boy, and who ever since had been able to tell the difference between tanks on their way to military parades and tanks going off to war (portholes shut tight, armaments at the ready)—got up from the stone steps to watch. Then he went back to where my mother was and said somberly, “I think I’d better run home.”
But it wasn’t war. It was Marshals Zhukov, Nedelin, Mos-kalenko, and others, getting ready to enter the Kremlin and arrest the omnipotent minister of national security.
And arrest him they did. The troops under Lavrentiy Beria’s command did not rise up in his defense. The door to the dungeon at Khodynka slammed shut behind him.
A cold, cold summer in 1953. A summer coat. An underground bunker that looks like a bomb shelter. Its roof, covered in moss, disappearing into the ground.
“Hello? Doctor, you still there?” said the voice on the other end. “I could tell you things that have come to light in other documents just beginning to surface nowadays. For example, Beria’s not the only one to blame for the purges and execution of prisoners. After the war, he was involved in the A-bomb and nuclear power (glory be his name), and construction, and a number of other things. There were people whose hands were just as bloody as his. They were the ones who assassinated him. Are you interested in hearing more?”
“I am,” I said honestly, “but not now. I have a crazy man walking the streets. Thank you very much, Sergey.”
What happened after 1973 in terms of maniacs in overcoats? Nothing, really. They were dormant. Why was that? And why has that suddenly changed? I remembered the construction site, all the dozens of new houses that had risen up in the past few months on Khodynka Field. The large wasteland of the former restricted airfield was no more. It was crawling with…
Construction workers.
Construction workers clambering up and down the stairwells of the new buildings, dumping garbage by the surrounding fences, excavating… and excavating some more for the foundations of new buildings.
I had one slim chance left, and I used that chance the next day.
Because the foreman of the defunct brigade of two vanished construction workers from Moldavia was still occupying a lone structure in the next courtyard.
“So they’re not coming back, eh?” I asked the foreman, and sat down on the porch next to him.
He shook his head furiously.
“Too bad,” I continued. “Say, uh, they borrowed a book from me… about space invaders. You seen it?”
“No,” replied the foreman mournfully, and again shook his head. “Haven’t seen it.”
“I understand.” I was moving closer to my goal. “I just need the book. It’s the cops who need the rapist. But the book is still mine, you see—”
“My guys are no rapists. They’re good guys,” the foreman said, finally able to muster a coherent sentence. “The book… go ahead and look around. There’s no book in there.”
I could hardly believe my luck. I went inside the little house where the construction workers had stayed. A strong, unpleasant odor from a portable toilet assaulted my nostrils. Then, in an instant, I saw a dull gray garment hanging on a coatrack right in front of me.
The rest was easy.
“By the way, I need to do a paint job,” I said. “This thing here, is this your work coat? How much do you want for it?”
“That’s no work coat,” answered the foreman. “The guys left it here. You can have it. Instead of the book. Go ahead, they won’t be needing it. They’re not coming back. Their families keep calling and calling…”
Holding the gray overcoat at arm’s length, I asked: “Where did you work before? Wasn’t there a construction site over there? On the other side of the field, by that concrete fence? I believe that’s where I met your guys.”
“Oh, sure,” said the foreman. “The finishing team arrived when we were done over there. And we moved here. And now… we’re done here too.”
I remember at one point I felt the urge to bury my face in the coat and inhale the smell of a cellar and potatoes. It took me some effort not to do so. I threw it down on the landing in front of my door. I had no intention of bringing the thing into my apartment. I went inside and found a large shopping bag, put the overcoat in it, and left it in front of the door. Then I scrubbed my hands thoroughly. In a closet I found a bottle of flammable liquid for barbecuing and dropped it into the bag as well.
I was in a hurry. It was getting late, and I didn’t want to leave the coat outside for the night. Someone might take it.
Then I was in that deserted edge of Birch Grove Park. An empty bench, and the remnants of the bunkers protruding from the ground.
I dumped the coat onto the surface of the nearest bunker, on the concrete slab covered with moss. I poured the liquid onto the coat and set fire to it with my lighter. Thick, oily smoke billowed up and gravitated to the concrete fence and beyond, where the floors of the nearby buildings mounted into the sky.
It burned very, very slowly.
“Now why did you do that?” The thin, tremulous voice came from somewhere below.
No, I wasn’t scared. Even when I noticed that someone had been sitting on a nearby bench the whole time. It was… an old lady? That’s right, just an old lady in a light summer coat and a funny straw hat trimmed with two wooden cherries. The red paint on one of them had almost completely peeled off. But her cheekbones burned with the same color, in an almost invisible network of blood vessels. When I saw those liver spots on her powdered cheeks, I thought in panic, How old is she? Why didn’t I notice her before?
Or maybe she hadn’t been there when I set fire to the coat?
“Do you think it’s about the coat?” the old lady asked in a childish—no, not childish, but teacherish—voice, high as a violin string. “It was just fabric. Good fabric too. Very durable. That was silly. Just plain silly.”
“No, it’s not about the coat,” I replied through my teeth. I had to say something, just to break the silence—and so I wouldn’t be afraid.
“You haven’t even seen him,” the old lady continued, not paying any attention to my words, and staring vaguely in the direction of my sneakers with her light gray eyes. “You weren’t even born yet in ’53. Not to mention before that.”
“Did you see him?” I asked.
“Just like I see you now,” the voice went on. “Only closer, much closer. As close as can be.”
And slowly, very slowly, she parted her thin, bloodless lips.