Exactly what he had said nearly twenty years ago when the first reports from Afghanistan arrived. And in those days, when Olga was young and optimistic that a war could be won, she was only too happy to comply. She purposefully reported inaccurate numbers of casualties, citing figures that did not even remotely correspond to the numbers of actual wounded. This fell not too far afield from the beloved and well-intentioned vranyo, a type of fib one told purely for entertainment purposes. In the town where Olga grew up, vranyo masters, able to put the best possible spin on any awkward or embarrassing situation, were highly esteemed. And this type of lie was told with the expectation that everyone would immediately recognize the fib for what it was and know not to believe a word. The usual and polite response was to leave the vranyo unchallenged and undiscussed, like the discovery of a sudden turd dropped from the sky. The stink was unmistakable, but the custom was to simply step around it without comment and, with a wink, get on with business.
But over the years of reading endless reports of how little had been accomplished in each of these wars and how much lost, Olga had grown more and more uneasy with her work at the Red Star. She saw the names of people she knew—neighbours, their sons and brothers. She saw her cousin's name and the name of a boy who had kissed her in the tall grass when her mother wasn't looking. So many names! And how, she'd like to know, do you lie about a name, which is all that was left of some of these people? And how do you decide which names to cross out, when, as her mother taught her long ago, no name should ever be forgotten? It's bad enough to die, but to die and not be mourned? Unthinkable.
Again the teletype spluttered. Arkady and Olga sat listening to it spit and spew. When, at last, the machine fell silent Olga ripped the message from the carriage.
This time, a letter.
In days not too long ago the Russian military was considered the best in the world. It shames the Russian military, and every Russian citizen, to be so soundly defeated in our first assault on Grozny. So completely such an important city as Grozny. We must act. But we must have more soldiers.
To this end we, the undersigned who wish to preserve Russian honour, urge the President and the central committee to reinstate compulsory re-enlistment of former service personnel.
'I can't believe what I'm reading.' Olga slid the copy across the desk. Arkady read the report, his lips moving. When he finished he pushed the report across the desk with the end of his pencil, as if he could not bear to actually touch the paper with his finger.
'Burn it with a bright blue flame,' Arkady said, his voice tight as a wound coil.
'As if one humiliating defeat weren't enough, now these military geniuses want to empty every academy and re-recruit every returned vet for a second assault.' Olga squeezed her eyes shut. She thought of Zvi. She considered how lucky she was really, for all her losses, that she still had her son when so many mothers didn't. Then she thought of all those names she could not remember, and all the names of boys she would not be allowed to print.
Olga felt fear taking on an animal quality inside her stomach, moving hard and dark behind her ribs. Loss diminished, loss denied, was still loss. And what purpose did all this loss have if they were not allowed to record it, to remember it properly? What good was their simple sorrow, these raw husks that rattled emptily in their hands? What good when those who perpetuated the loss denied the loss and were later helped along in their denials by people like her? This is what bothered her most: that their generational sorrows were daily diminished. By her. That as a matter of routine, of editorial policy, their suffering had been made meaningless and that she'd helped make it that way—unbearable.
No. Olga shook her head. No. She said it, quietly, then louder, NO. She would not participate. Not anymore. Olga pounded the desk and Arkady's teacup jumped.
'Grozny! Chechnya is full of Groznys! Next it will be Pervomaisk, Arshty, and after that another village, and after that another, and another. Because if you say three attacks, then you are suggesting a fourth, and if you suggest a fourth, most certainly a fifth is implied. And if we say five we may as well admit six or seven. For every village and city in Chechnya is a Grozny.' Olga took a deep breath and glanced at the oversized window. Did she say that aloud? It seemed so, for the pneumatic tubes stopped their howling as if sensing her indiscretion. Arkady passed gas quietly, and then that shrieking from the tubes recommenced.
'This job,' Olga said quietly, 'turns each one of us into liars.'
'So tell the truth.' Arkady scratched savagely at his forearm.
Like putting ashes in a cellar, it might bring badness, but things couldn't possibly get any worse, Olga reasoned. 'It would represent a great triumph over ourselves. That we could openly discuss such things. Don't you think?'
'Not at all the perpetuation of historical sediment to which we have become so accustomed,' Arkady said, all the while scratching savagely at his arm.
Olga's stomach lurched. They could not help reverting to clichés even in moments of high-profundity content. Olga took a breath, held it, and then she started typing: everything she'd read from the generals and the report and the letters to the newspapers, everything she'd heard from Yuri, everything she knew to be true from Vera.
When she was done, Olga rolled the waxy paper into a tight scroll and stuffed it into the canister and secured the hasp. The wind howled through the tubes. She swallowed hard, then slid the canister into the receptacle, holding it there until the next big gust carried it away.
Two minutes passed. Then three. Arkady unplugged the hotplate and Olga sat drinking tea, her eyes fixed on the dull spots of illumination cast by the unambitious banks of overhead lighting hung over the work floor. A great torrent of snorting and braying trumpeted through the pneumatic tubes. And then Chief Editor Kaminsky materialized at the threshold, his usually florid face pale as alabaster. His eyebrows seemed more peaked than usual and his forehead was a jumble of deep furrows. With the demeanour of a man just back from a wake, Chief Editor Kaminsky studied his hands for a moment. 'Oh, Olga Semyonovna. Olga. Olya. You know how Editor-in-Chief Mrosik feels so very passionately about punctuation, how serious he is down to every last comma and full-stop.'
Olga pinched her face into a contortion of concentration.
And you know how much I like you and you know how rare it is for me to like anyone. As a personal favour to your father I hired you against the advice of my colleagues. Never did any of us imagine how brilliant you were, translating the most difficult military reports and memos and turning them into such pieces of diaphanous gossamer fragility that they've even become suitable for inclusion in children's variety shows. But this latest report of yours'—a measure of starch crept into Chief Editor Kaminsky's voice—'is rendered so transparently, well, it will give everyone a heart attack! What people want is security and stability. They want to feel good about this new Russia which needs them to feel good about it.'
Olga squinted at Chief Editor Kaminsky's hair standing tall to attention, pointing the way to the pneumatic tubes, which she now associated with every trouble, real or imagined. Oh, how she wanted to clip those ridiculous strands off his head and knit them into something she could selclass="underline" a foot warmer, a tea cosy, a sweater for a dog.
Instead Olga nodded her head with an exuberance she herself did not feel but hoped her body would find convincing enough to believe, if only on a muscular level.
'You are the head of the translation division. The head of the head, the heart and the brains. What will we do if we lose you? We will flounder, that's what we'll do. Flounder and sink and drown. Drown and die. Is that where you want to leave us? Drowning and dying?' Chief Editor Kaminsky wrung his hands. 'Oh, please, I beg you. Nothing like this again, or I'm afraid we'll have to find another department for you—obits, or translating approved recipes from the Ministry of Meat and Dairy, or perhaps something even worse.' Chief Editor Kaminsky's gaze settled on the children's primer for a moment.