Ilya gave him some wise advice.
“Don’t continue the magazine; make a new one, Mikha! Change the name. Think up some sort of bird, it could even be fun. You’ll be able to manage the poetry yourself, and I’ll introduce you to some artists. I know some art historians; they’re really great. It’s the new avant-garde. I’ll help you make new connections. I know many amazing people. It will be an arts journal. As for politics, it will take care of itself.”
* * *
Three months passed. Just when Mikha had grown tired of waiting to be called in by the KGB for his activities surrounding the magazine, he found a summons from them in his mailbox.
Alyona wasn’t feeling well. She suspected she might be pregnant, but she decided not to tell Mikha for the time being. She had been silent for days, which was not unusual for her. He, on the other hand, talked nonstop: about Edik, about the lawyer some friends had found, about the magazine, old version and new, about Sanya Steklov, who had suddenly turned up and invited them to the Conservatory, though they hadn’t heard a word from him in six months …
He babbled on about everything under the sun, but didn’t say a word about the summons from the KGB in the pocket of his checked shirt.
There were two possible reasons that they wanted to see him. One was that they had given Doctor Zhivago a good shake, and the piece of paper with the Tatar demographics fell out; the other was that Edik had informed on him as an accomplice, which seemed improbable to Mikha.
He was not vexed by the summons. What he felt was closer to embarrassment that he had managed to do so little: nothing, really! He had only written a few articles, and selected and edited some poetry.
When he told Ilya about the summons, Ilya was very upset.
“It was to be expected. I was actually surprised that they had left you alone for so long. And I’m at fault for dragging you into this magazine business. We’ll have to figure out how to extricate you from it now. Edik has a strong character, I don’t think he’d set you up. They’re going to put you through the wringer for those Tatar statistics. You’ve got to think up a good alibi—you bought Zhivago a long time ago from a street vendor, because you’d heard a lot about it. But you hadn’t had time to read it, or even look at it, yet. You don’t know anything about any sheet of paper covered with numbers. And anyone in Moscow can buy the book near the secondhand bookshop on Kuznetsky Bridge; by Pervopechatnik there are street vendors, and it’s even easier at Ptichka, by the entrance. And describe the guy who sold it to you in detail. Say he had long hair, with greasy long locks hanging down from the sides of his head, and a really long nose that reached right down to his lip. And black eyes. And he spoke with a Ukrainian accent. And he wore a vest with spangles…” Ilya looked at his friend searchingly. “Or, let’s say, he was really small, with curly hair and curly sideburns. He had a down-turned nose, light-colored eyes, and small, womanish hands … and he spoke with a burr. Or how about this: He was a nervous, high-strung type, skinny, rather tall, yellowish, with a high, balding forehead, a scraggly beard. And he seemed to walk like a wind-up toy…”
Then Mikha jumped in:
“No, he was a big, burly guy with a massive beard, dressed like a peasant. And a mustache. I’d say he was kind of a slob; an old-timer. And he carried his books in a sack, and wore felt boots with galoshes over them! A giant of a man, indeed!”
They were almost rolling on the floor in laughter.
“No, a woman would be better. A tall, elderly, buxom lady, aristocratic-looking. Wearing a hat and carrying an umbrella. She took the book out of her handbag, and she was wearing gloves. And the strange thing was that it looked like she was wearing them on the wrong hands … The gloves are what made me remember her…” Mikha was getting completely carried away by the game.
“Well, Mikha, what can I say to you? Just say no to everything they ask you. That’s the best way to deal with the situation. I know from experience.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Yes. But I got out. The best thing is not to say anything at all. Remember, every word you say will work against you. No matter what it is. We’re just amateurs—they’re professionals. They have their methods, and they know how to make you take the bait, how to trip you up. The best thing is not to talk. But I’ve heard from other people that this is nearly impossible. They could make a deaf-mute talk.”
The mention of a “deaf-mute” seemed to sear Mikha. It was January. For three years in a row he had been with the boarding-school kids, with his deaf-and-dumb children, during these deep-winter days. They had gone cross-country skiing, first departing from the school gates and walking about a hundred yards into the forest, where a ski track had been made the night before. Usually he went first, followed by the children, with Gleb Ivanovich bringing up the rear. How long had it been since he’d visited them? A year? Two? Suddenly, he wanted desperately to see them. It was urgent. And he spontaneously signed the word to himself with his hands—urgent!
He didn’t say anything to Ilya. There were still two days until Monday, and he decided that on Sunday morning he would get up early and go to the boarding school to spend the day with the children. After all, they let parents visit. He had worked with them for three years. Who would dare try to stop him?
They arrested Mikha at Yaroslav Station when he was getting on the commuter train. He already had one foot in the train when two men yanked him off so adroitly that it seemed at first as if he had stumbled and fallen off the steps himself.
“Easy now, keep quiet!” one of them, wearing a rabbit-fur cap, barked in his ear.
“Quiet—if you know what’s good for you!” said the second one, wearing nutria.
Mikha had a cold. He wanted to reach into his pocket for a handkerchief, and he jerked his hand. He felt a sharp pain in his wrist.
Only then did he understand fully what had happened to him: they were afraid he would take to his heels, so they had intercepted him. That meant they had been following him.
He sniffed loudly.
“Let me just wipe my snot,” he said, and laughed.
“You’re fine the way you are!” roared the rabbit-fur hat again.
“What do you need with a snot-nosed wimp?” Mikha said, and seemed to grow completely calm, even apathetic. He was under arrest.
* * *
The first days were the hardest. He was determined to carry out to the letter all of Ilya’s urgings. On the third day they charged him, and he realized it was all over. The mousetrap had snapped shut, and he couldn’t get out. He fell into a depression then. All his thoughts were with Alyona, and an enormous sense of guilt, one he had known since childhood, gripped him. He didn’t know how she was; he had no connection at all to his life outside prison. The first familiar face he saw, in the second week, was the pale, haggard face of Edik Tolmachev.
They hadn’t agreed on a common strategy, but their actions in prison coincided remarkably. Edik denied Mikha’s participation in the magazine, Mikha refused to answer any questions at all. The only evidence they had against Mikha was the sheet of paper in the volume of Doctor Zhivago, or, more precisely, Musa’s addendum at the bottom addressed to “Red.”
It turned out that this was enough. Besides Edik Tolmachev, two more people, whom Mikha truly didn’t know, had been brought in about the case of the unsanctioned journal Gamayun. Despite some shortcomings in his management, Edik knew the basics of conspiracy—not all the participants in the publication of the magazine knew one another.