MARKEVICH WAS SMALL AND QUIET; he kept to himself. Like me he was a political prisoner — a former accountant who had done too much work in imports. One day, Fyodor decided that Markevich was an informer. Something had happened to one of Fyodor’s friends, a lunkhead with the habit of tearing pages out of library books; he was taken away and didn’t come back. The criminals had friends among the guards; they said the paper ripper had been transferred to another prison. Fyodor was furious. He was certain someone had squealed about tattered dictionaries, shredded Pushkin. He blamed Markevich, from whom the goon had once snatched a book. It was arbitrary and petty. I know now that it also betrayed Fyodor’s naiveté: we might all be transferred to other prisons, before long. But Fyodor raged, hissing at Markevich, threatening him, stealing his shoes at the showers. “Leave off,” I said finally, at once regretting it.
Fyodor pivoted toward me, eyebrows raised. “Oh yes, Lev? What’s that? Have some advice? Some helpful advice?”
I shrugged and turned away, but it was too late: now Markevich and I were united in Fyodor’s eyes. I went to a corner, slid down with my back to the wall. Then Fyodor was standing at my toes. He was angry, jumpy. Ears hovered behind him.
“So you’re a rat too, friend?”
“No,” I said patiently. Fyodor reached down and slammed the back of my head into the brick. I heard a clunk and the room skewed. For one white moment I wanted to vomit. Then I was swallowing and breathing slowly and looking into Fyodor’s pupils. He was smiling. He ruffled my hair. He sauntered away. My vision fogged with tears but across the cell I saw the Rebbe, watching.
So now Fyodor and Ears sat on their bunks and spat at me, spat at Markevich. Someone threw a piece of shit at me in the night. Every morning they crouched beside me, claimed my food. It was even worse for Markevich; they regularly shoved him around, bloodied his face. Gradually everything outside our little drama seemed to disappear. It was as if the cell had become smaller, closer, like a tunnel. I saw Fyodor, Ears, Markevich; I imagined and anticipated them. I held a book in my hands, reading and rereading the same page, distracted by a shrill fear like a ringing in my ears. I did not believe that these boys would do something horrific to me, just that they would do something small and terrible. I dreamed of soldiers, burying me alive.
It was late afternoon when the key clicked in the lock and a guard heaved the cell door open. “Fyodor Solovyov,” he shouted. Fyodor’s head jerked up. He rose. His face looked as though it hadn’t sorted out which expression to use. He shook hands with Ears and wove his way to the door, disappearing. It was from watching Ears, left behind, that I understood this was not a scheduled rendezvous. Ears was nervous. He sat on a bunk, holding his hands. I lowered my eyes to a book about fishing. I was hungry, thirsty, tired, sad. My life in New York had disappeared so easily, replaced with these two things: a book about fishing and the short story of two teenaged thugs. Sometimes it is just strength, I said to myself. The only answer is persistence. I looked at Ears. I looked at my book.
Fyodor did not return until the next day. I was not there for his arrival. I came back from the library and found him sitting on his bunk, shrunken somehow, reduced. His face seemed emptied out, with bruises on his temples. There were marks on his hands. He noticed me and raised his eyes, and I saw an unexpected, terrible hatred. I saw fury. His face flashed pink and he lowered his gaze. I went to my spot on the floor and sat, encircling my knees with my arms. I had lost interest in my book. Fyodor and Ears were murmuring to each other, just out of view. Markevich stood in a far corner, watching. I was all alone in a Moscow prison. Was Eva Emilievna in a nearby cell, I wondered. Had she been arrested in Leningrad, hauled from her apartment, brought by a Black Maria to an interrogation cell? Who is Lev Sergeyvich? Tell us about him. Did she have enough to eat? Had she been hurt?
The evening meal passed undisturbed. Before lights-out, Fyodor appeared beside me. He crouched so silently. He ran his index finger over his lower lip. “I am going to kill you, Lyova,” he whispered.
I turned to him abruptly. “What? What are you talking about?”
“I kill rats,” he said. “You think you will go on betraying your cellmates? Cowering behind your books?” He snickered. “I kill rats.”
I swallowed. “I am not a rat.”
“When you are being beaten,” Fyodor explained, silken, “there is a lot of time to consider who told who what. There is a lot of time to consider who might lie about you to the guards, who might want to lie, which zeks in their nice shirts—”
“Why would I speak to them?”
Fyodor did not like being interrupted. His lips went white. I imagined Ears in the shadows, drawing his knife. “There is a lot of time to remember the old man who is always coming and going from the cell, prim and swaggering.”
“What about Markevich?” I said, because I am a wretched human being.
“Not this time,” he murmured. “I know, Lev. I know, you shit, and I will kill you in your sleep.”
I did not sleep. All night I listened to the breath and groans and snoring. I smelled the exhalations of imprisoned men. I lay on my back, fists clenched, staring at the hideous blue light bulb, aware of every movement, every voice. There was shouting, far away, through the walls, and men crying. There was wind in the grate, sewer scents. A man rose and urinated into the latrine beside me. Fyodor was motionless in his bunk. I wondered if he had changed his mind.
Men began to stir before dawn, anticipating the competition for the shower. The patrolling guards began their reveille. I crowded with the others by the door, furtive. Fyodor had rolled to sitting. I saw him go over to Ears. For a moment I had the instinct to go over there, to explain myself, to say that I was no informer, just a scientist, a patriot, that I wished them only well. I did not go over. I watched as Ears and Fyodor began to argue, muttering with lowered voices. Fyodor marked his knee with the side of his hand. Ears shook his head. Fyodor became more and more forceful. “Fyodor,” I heard Ears say, balefully. “Come on, Fyodor.”
The guards took us away to the showers.
Fyodor made his move at breakfast. I was sitting stooped over some gruel, my back to where the guards made tea. I heard a sound behind me. I turned. Fyodor was holding a pot of boiling water. The first drops landed scalding on my ear as I swivelled, tore upward, knocking him away. The pot fell, spilling steam and scorching our toes and Fyodor roared forward, wild-eyed, with clawing hands. He was not a fighter. I shoved his arms aside, punched him hard in the side. He wheeled and came at me again. He swung. I ducked. His huge hand grabbed my shoulder and I kneed him hard in the solar plexus, shoved him again. He slipped on his heel, fell, struck his head on a concrete block. His eyes rolled. There was blood.
Where were the guards? I do not know. Why did no one stop us? Because we were all fearful of consequences. But everyone was watching when I killed Fyodor Solovyov. The Rebbe was watching. I was thinking: My second murder is not unlike my first. Blood is blood. It pushed into the steaming water.