The Russian interpreter sitting on the bench across from him was as nervous as a pickpocket at a policeman’s ball. He gnawed on a fingernail already into the quick, then stared at the sliver of nail still remaining. He pushed on the raw quick experimentally and grimaced. He crossed and recrossed his feet and stared morosely at the filthy paint on the wall and the dirty floor. He carefully avoided looking at any of the other people slumped on the wooden benches.
Yocke wondered about this desire to avoid even eye contact. After sweeping each of the other eight people in the room, his gaze returned to the uncomfortable interpreter, Gregor Something, Gregor followed by five or six Slavic syllables that sounded to Yocke’s American ear like a pig grunting. Two days ago Gregor jackrabbited away from Soviet Square, yet the following morning he showed up at Yocke’s hotel as if nothing had happened.
Still glowing with the virtuous warmth of his new-found heroism and curiously eager to make this gutless wonder squirm a little, Yocke asked, “Why did you run?”
“My wife was ill.”
Gregor didn’t blink or blush, didn’t look away, even when Yocke sneered.
To be able to lie outrageously and shamelessly was an asset, Jack Yocke told himself, one that would of course stand Gregor in good stead here in this workers’ paradise of poverty and desperation, but it would also be a cheerful bullet for his résumé even in brighter climes, such as the U.S. of A. Across the pond in the land of the free and home of the brave he could lie like a dog to clients and customers, cheat on his spouse, steal from his employer, write creative fiction for the IRS, and in the unlikely event he ever got caught he could fool the lie detector and skip away with a happy smile. This multilingual grunter would fit right in, as red, white and blue as a telephone solicitor hyping penny stocks to shut-in geriatrics. Once he got his fastball high and tight he could even become a politician.
This morning in the waiting room of Butyrskaya Yocke asked Gregor, “Have you ever thought of emigrating to America?”
“My wife’s cousin lives in Brooklyn.”
Yocke stared.
“Brooklyn, New York.”
“I’m trying to recall if I ever heard of Brooklyn. It’s out west, isn’t it? With cowboys and Indians and tumbleweeds?”
“Perhaps,” Gregor said softly. “I don’t know. My wife’s cousin drives a taxi and earns many dollars. He likes America.” He shrugged.
“America is a great country.”
“He drives a Chevrolet. Only five years old.” He glanced at the other people in the room to see who was listening. One or two had glanced up at the sound of a foreign language, but now all but one had retreated into their self-imposed isolation.
“Umm,” said Jack Yocke, looking hard at the young man who was looking at them. He had longish hair and an air of quiet desperation. His gaze wavered, then fell away.
“Petrol is cheap there, my wife’s cousin says. Every day he drives many many miles. All the streets are paved.”
A door opened and a man passed through the waiting room. Jack Yocke caught a whiff of the prison smell. He had smelled it before in the jails of Washington, a devil’s brew of urine, body odor and fear. Yocke delicately inhaled a thimbleful as Gregor regaled his listener with the adventures of his wife’s cousin in his Chevy on the paved boulevards of Brooklyn.
Two minutes after Yocke reached saturation, a man came through one of the doorways and spoke to Gregor, then led the way along endless dingy corridors. The warden’s corner office was big and had a carpet. A dial phone straight out of the 1930s sat on the wooden desk.
The warden came around the desk to shake hands, then trotted back around the desk and arranged himself in his chair. He was a sloppy fat man with a heavy five-o’clock shadow that made his skin look dingy gray.
Gregor and the warden nattered a while in Russian, then Gregor turned to Yocke. “He welcomes the correspondent for the American newspaper Post to Butyrskaya.”
“Thank him for taking the time to see me.” Of course Yocke had an appointment, arranged by an official with the Yeltsin government, but he was willing to pretend this was a social call.
More Russian.
“Ask your questions.”
“I am here today at the request of the editor of my newspaper, the most influential newspaper in the United States. Everyone in Washington reads my newspaper every day, from Hillary Clinton right on down. Everyone, including all the people in the Senate and House of Representatives. Tell him that.”
After an Uzi-burst of Russian, Yocke continued. “I am here to interview Yakov Dynkin, a Jew who was convicted of arranging the sale of a private automobile for profit. I understand he was sentenced to five years in the gulag at hard labor.”
The warden’s face lost its friendliness as Gregor translated. Yocke didn’t understand the words, but he understood the tone. The interpreter said, “Yakov Dynkin is not here. No Jews are here.”
“Has he been shipped to the gulag?”
“No,” was the answer that came back. Just no.
Yocke thought about it. Dynkin wasn’t here and he hadn’t been shipped to the gulag. “Have they turned him loose with a pardon or probation?”
The warden merely frowned.
Yocke extracted a press clipping from his jacket pocket. He handed it to Gregor and pointed at the appropriate paragraph. “Two weeks ago Tass said Dynkin was here. There it is in black and white.” Gregor stared at the clipping. “Go on! Show him that and tell him I wish to see Dynkin and write about what wonderful treatment he is receiving here at Butyrskaya even though he was convicted of violating a law that was repealed a week before he was arrested.”
Slowly, as if this were costing him a major portion of his pension, Gregor passed the piece of paper across the desk. The warden refused to touch it, so it came to rest in the empty spot on the desk in front of him. He bent over and looked at the English words without showing the slightest glimmer of comprehension.
After a few seconds the warden picked up the offending paper and handed it back to Yocke, who accepted it. Another spray of words.
“He says you are wrong. Dynkin is not here. No Jews are here.”
“Where are they?”
“He doesn’t know. Is there anything else he can help you with?”
“Couldn’t he consult his records or something and tell me if Dynkin has ever been here? Or when he left. Or where he is.”
Gregor considered.
“These people do have records, I assume, something scribbled somewhere to tell them who is rotting in what hole…”
Gregor spoke to Yocke as if he were a small boy incapable of understanding the obvious. “He is not here.”
“Who are you working for? Him or me? Ask him the question.”
“But he has told you the answer. What more could he possibly say? The warden is a powerful senior official. If he says the man is not here, then he is not. That is all there is to that.”
Jack Yocke smiled at the warden. He then turned the grin on Gregor. “This fat geek is lying through his teeth. These greasy Commie bastards railroaded Dynkin for making an honest ruble just because he’s a Jew. They’ve got him locked up somewhere in the large intestines of this shit factory. This pompous son of a bitch knows the whole prosecution was a farce to fuck Jews and embarrass Yeltsin and his people, make them look like lying hypocrites when they go begging in America and Europe for foreign aid. Dynkin sold a car for a profit and these old Commies are grinding him into hamburger.”
Gregor’s face was frozen, immobile. Even his eyes were blank.
“Ask him if it’s true that about a hundred and twenty thousand people are still imprisoned in labor camps for doing business that is legal in Russia today. Ask him.”