Peter Petrovich was punished for his scandalous speech. They gave him a new job and transferred him to the Far East—basically sending him into exile—where he was less likely to cause trouble. At first he pined, and life in the remote provinces bored him; but then he resumed his activities. He organized a union of like-minded people who, like him, wanted to get the entire lopsided, meandering country back onto the straight and narrow (as Lenin had envisioned) again. This underground activity, with secret meetings, and even leaflets, didn’t last long. Peter Petrovich was arrested. First he was kicked out of the Party, then he was tried in a closed court and given a paltry three years. By way of additional punishment, he was demoted to the rank and file. The condemned general was stripped of his title, his military decorations, his pension, and all privileges conferred on him by dint of his former services, now rendered null and void.
And so began Peter Petrovich’s new biography. He gradually shed, along with extra pounds, his ramshackle, down-at-heel notions about life. He spent three years in prison, was released, and was thrown in prison again. He recalled his former, “academic” life, as he now mockingly termed it, and deemed it juvenile.
The general had a good head on his shoulders. It was not for nothing he had once headed the Department of Military Tactics at the academy. But he had entered into an unequal battle with the authorities, which fought not with brains, but by brute strength. What use were tactics, not to mention strategy, here? Wherever the authorities, humiliated and scorned by a former general, sent him—prison, the labor camps, exile, a psychiatric institution—he always emerged from the ordeal and picked up where he had left off.
In the spring of 1972, he was given a little respite—he was freed. By this time, he was no longer part of the rank and file, but had become a true general of the small army of dissidents. Some people are born generals.
Nichiporuk knew that the authorities never forgave domestic enemies, and realized that he didn’t have long to kick up his heels in freedom. He enjoyed to the hilt his home life, socializing with people, even a little stroll through the city. Freedom! Sweet freedom!
But this freedom was an illusion. All the while his telephone was tapped, and the shadowing had never stopped. Peter Petrovich decided to go to Minsk. He had business to attend to there. He didn’t tell his wife, Zoya, what kind of business it was—and she, an experienced friend, didn’t ask.
He bought a ticket for the evening train, came home, and packed a few things—a change of underwear, shaving kit, the two last issues of Novy Mir, already dog-eared, and a stuffed animal for the granddaughter of a friend.
They had just sat down to dinner when the doorbell rang. It was Zoya’s friend Svetlana, dear to both of them. She came bearing news: yesterday there had been a search at Kharchenko’s, and at Vasilisa Travnikova’s. They had taken Kharchenko away but left Vasilisa behind.
Peter Petrovich shrugged; there was nothing at home to incriminate them.
“They don’t know that. They’ll come and turn the whole place upside down,” Svetlana said.
“Oh, wait!” Peter Petrovich had just remembered something. “My decorations! They stripped me of them on paper, but all the medals are still here. I don’t want to give them away. We’ll have to do something about it, Zoya. Could you get them out of here, Svetlana?”
“We’ll get rid of them. But I’d rather send my girls. It’s safer. This evening.”
And, true to her word, that evening, after Peter Petrovich had already left to catch his train, two girls, both of them about fifteen, arrived. One was called Tonya. She was plump and had chubby cheeks. The other was called Sima, and she was very plain. Both of them were wearing identical caps and scarves. Svetlana was a teacher, and these were her pupils.
They shuffled awkwardly in the doorway. Zoya Vasilievna told them to take their coats off, and she prepared tea and cookies. They sat in the kitchen, both of them still in their blue caps, and didn’t say a word. Zoya Vasilievna placed a heavy bundle on the table. The soft fabric parcel was wrapped with newspaper and tied up with string. She put the parcel in a homemade fabric grocery bag as they watched. Then she placed on the table a note, which read: “These are military decorations that need to be kept safe.” The girls read it and nodded amiably. Then Zoya took a match and set the note on fire. She put the remains of the paper under a stream of water, and threw it in the garbage pail.
The girls exchanged glances: this was serious.
They went out the main door, and looked around. Outside it was quiet and deserted, and a vacillating April ambiguity reigned. They walked to the metro, not talking. They arrived at Belorussky Station, and Tonya walked Sima to the metro entrance. Next to the entrance Sima held out the bag to her friend.
“Listen, I’m scared. What if Mama finds it? You take them home to your house, okay?”
“All right,” Tonya said agreeably. “But where should I hide them? Maybe in the broom closet? We have one under the stairs. Though the lock gets broken off pretty often, so people can steal firewood.”
“But what’s the firewood for?” Sima said, surprised.
“Nothing. No one has stoves anymore, but the firewood’s still there. And people steal it.”
“But it’s almost summer now…”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
Tonya took the trolleybus from Belorussky Station almost to her front door on Dzerzhinsky Square.
* * *
As if on cue, she arrived when there was no one home. Vitka, her nephew, was at the neighbor’s; his mother, Valka, was out living it up; and her older brother, Tolya, was doing time.
Her mother wasn’t home, either; she was working the night shift.
Pressing the parcel to her stomach, Tonya walked through the apartment. Should she put it in a box on top of the wardrobe? There were no empty boxes—only three, stuffed full. In the lower drawer of the wardrobe there were tools. Sometimes her mother opened it to get out a hammer or some nails. They were left over from her father. The underwear was all folded in little piles; only on the bottom shelf was there a messy clump of them. There were old underpants with a nap, at one time blue and peach-colored, and with faded, worn-out crotches. Her mother had cut pieces of fabric that was a bit sturdier, and, in multiple layers, from the inside, had patched the ones that still had some life in them with crude hand-stitching. Tonya took the most ragged pairs and wrapped them around the parcel, then stuffed them right up against the back wall of the wardrobe. The parcel took up almost half the drawer. She took the parcel out again and unwrapped it. There were eleven fancy boxes inside. They contained military decorations of enamel and gold, very lovely to look at, and surprisingly heavy. Tonya decided to get rid of the boxes, since they took up a lot of room. She removed the decorations, and hooked or pinned each piece to the fabric, then rolled it up into a large sausage and again stuffed it into the drawer, right up against the wall. She decided to store the boxes separately, in her own little corner on the top shelf. Empty boxes—what did they matter? The decorations were the important thing.
* * *
Early in the morning on May 9, Vitka, Tonya’s pesky nephew, discovered the parcel in the wardrobe. The other kids in his courtyard had told him that moms hide money in the wardrobe, in the underwear. You just had to look hard for it. He started with the lower drawer. He didn’t find any money there, but his hands felt the lumpy parcel by the wall right away. He pulled it out and unwrapped it—and what did he see there but decorations and medals pinned to his grandmother’s old underpants! What a find! And it was just the right day for decorations and medals: Victory Day. He unfolded the underpants, full of amazement. There were lots of decorations and medals. He counted five; then five more. And there was still another one. They were pinned and hooked every which way, and he slowly and methodically freed them all from the worn-out rags. Then, not worried in the least about his own shirt, he began sticking them on both sides of it, from the shoulders down. Their weight pulled down the fabric, and they sparkled with gold and silver and Kremlin stars. He went out into the courtyard to show the other kids. He had forgotten all about the money he had promised to look for in the underwear in the wardrobe. But the kids had forgotten about it, too, and had already left. While he was wondering where to find them, three big boys appeared out of nowhere: Artur the Armenian, Sevka, and Timka the Stump. They immediately descended on him and started ripping off the decorations. Vitka hollered and made a dash for the gates.