SVETKOV’S UNCOUTH, BESTIAL ENERGY FLOWED out through the open office door. Grisha could hear the animated, shouting voice and sensed the appearance of the speaker. Ruddy, thick Russian features crowded onto an insufficient expanse of face. Unkempt, his rumpled tunic would be hanging like a shaggy coat. He often draped it over his chair to reveal a smudged shirt badly in need of a wash; his shirttails, like dark, dirty rain clouds, ballooned out of pants inevitably in need of pressing. Had Grisha learned that Svetkov, like the prisoners, slept in his clothes, he would not have been surprised.
The similarity to prisoners did not end there. Although both dreamed prolifically, good and bad dreams, Svetkov’s were the prisoners’ nightmares, whereas the prisoners’ dreams were the chief investigator’s nightmares. Indulging his rapaciousness, Svetkov seemed to thrive on the dark intimacy of his relationship to the prisoners. He always looked happy and prosperously well fed. There was a softness to his pink flesh, but Grisha didn’t doubt the strength in the sturdy frame. Indeed, the apparent softness gave the false impression of greater bulk. The boorish, joking selfaggrandizement disguised an untrained but clever, perceptive mind. Like Stalin himself, Svetkov was most dangerous when he was most clownish, as if his laughter unleashed within him something terrible and capricious.
For all his fear of the speaker, Grisha wasn’t listening to the bullying voice inside the office. He had been surprised to find a new secretary. The young, uniformed female officer invited Grisha to enter with a curt nod. Her hair was cut so short that it barely moved when she flipped her head. Although she hadn’t been there the day before, she seemed to know who he was and acted with an arrogant confidence that Grisha envied. Yes, that’s how it should be done! That’s how he, too, had done it once—when he and the revolution were both young and glorious. But Chekist women had never been this mannish. Certainly not Maya Kirsanova; for all her severity and dedication, a few long blond hairs had always escaped the discipline of the tightly tied bun. Grisha found nothing astray on the new secretary. Nodding vigorously for him to enter the office, she seemed oddly sexless. Grisha straightened up, smoothed his neat tunic, and stepped into the large, impressive chamber.
Occupied with the telephone, Svetkov waved him gleefully inside, inviting him with a conspiratorial wink to appreciate his performance. Although he was grinning broadly, his voice was harsh and threatening when he spoke into the telephone.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find a train, because if you don’t, we’ll have to march them over and dispose of them in your office. You leave us no choice!”
He paused while the party on the other end trembled in terror.
“I know you understand!” Svetkov bullied. He hung up the phone, turning to his live audience for approval.
On the couch sat Pechko, a junior lieutenant, who chuckled out loud at his commander’s wit. One of the new men, Pechko had been introduced shortly before Svetkov’s arrival. Grisha wanted to join in the laughter, but he felt too weary and too fearful that he might be among those marched off for disposal. Realizing that he couldn’t ignore the joke without offending Svetkov, Grisha nodded wearily in agreement. “Yes, you won’t find a larger office in Moscow than the stationmaster’s.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Grisha saw Pechko slyly examining Svetkov for the proper response. No sooner did the NKVD chief of investigations beam his approval and begin to guffaw than Pechko nodded vigorously and returned to chuckling. Grisha felt as if he were among idiots—rather boorish ones, too. But instantly Svetkov turned completely serious and motioned him to be seated. The man could switch gears with lightning speed. It made him all the more dangerous. Grisha took a seat in one of the frayed, overstuffed leather armchairs in front of the massive desk, which had once insured an empire. Like a drunk encountering a policeman, Pechko was trying to regain his sobriety; his unsuccessful attempts made him all the more ludicrous. Grisha focused on Svetkov.
“Pechko needs some information for his investigation,” Svetkov was saying.
Grisha nodded agreeably. This was how the service was supposed to function. He pivoted slightly to face the junior lieutenant, who was seated on the large couch off to the side.
“What do you know about the Jewish New Year?” Pechko asked.
It was such a surprising question that Grisha wasn’t sure he had understood correctly. In fact, he was certain that he had not. He stared in dull amazement at his questioner.
“The Jewish New Year,” Pechko muttered with slight embarrassment.
“The Jewish New Year?” Grisha repeated, wondering why Pechko should be mentioning such a thing in the office of the director of investigations.
“Yes.” Pechko nodded, a touch too aggressively.
“What about it?” Grisha asked.
“That’s what I want to know,” Pechko agreed.
“Why?” Grisha asked, befuddled and anxious.
“Why do you think! Because he has an investigation with a fanatic Jew!” Svetkov burst impatiently into their conversation.
Welcoming the interjection, Pechko nodded vigorously.
Grisha, too, had been recalled to his senses.
“Major Feldman handles religion. He’s very knowledgeable,” he informed them.
“Yes, we know, but we’re asking you,” Svetkov said bluntly.
Grisha knew that he must not give in to an investigator. The first reasonable admission always opened a floodgate of demands and accusations. “Why?” he responded with equal bluntness.
“Because Feldman’s not here, and you are,” Svetkov replied.
“Where is he?”
“Major Feldman can’t be everywhere. That’s why all of us are here to help him,” Svetkov announced sarcastically, with a shrug of disbelief at Grisha’s unreasonable hostility.
Grisha sensed that he was making a fool of himself by standing on ceremony.
“What do you want to know?” he asked defensively, knowing that the game was already lost. You couldn’t begin to cooperate and stop when you wanted to stop.
“Good,” Svetkov said buoyantly, his overlarge mouth curving into a buffoonish grin. “After all, we’re here to tell the truth,” he laughed, burlesquing the NKVD line fed to all prisoners until they agreed to absolute untruths.
Pechko laughed dutifully, but Grisha did not. It was all he could do to keep from wincing. Svetkov glanced at Pechko, who quietly controlled himself.
“I have an old-fashioned Jew, a long coat and beard. Primarily a British spy, but he also committed economic sabotage. He’s shaky, and I want the names of the other bloodsucking profiteers. Is there any way I can use the Jewish holy day to get him to tell the truth?”
“I don’t really see what we could do in the Lubyanka,” Grisha answered thoughtfully. After all, the Lubyanka was not a synagogue, was it?
“What do these Jews do on their New Year?” Svetkov asked directly.
No, Grisha didn’t like it, but he began to concentrate on Rosh Hashanah for the first time in many years. “It’s the beginning of the New Year. It’s the day of judgment for the coming year. In the synagogue they pray,
