Apricot Jam: And Other Stories (13 page)

But after the Industrial Party affair?

“
Never mind that, just tell me.
”

“
There was nothing, it could never happen!
”

The interrogator went on writing but still didn
’
t switch on the lamp. Then, without getting to his feet, he said in a firm voice:
“
You
’
ve had a good look at your cell? But you haven
’
t seen everything yet. We can have you sleep on concrete without any planks.
Or in some damp pit.
Or keep you under a thousand-watt light that
’
ll blind you.
”

Vozdvizhensky could barely prop up his head in his hands. They really could do any of these things. And how would he ever endure it?

At this point the interrogator switched on his desk lamp, rose, switched on the overhead light, and moved to the middle of the room to look at the person he was interrogating.

Though he wore a Chekist
’
s uniform, his face looked utterly simple and naive.
Broad-boned, a short, wide nose, and thick lips.

Then, in a milder voice:
“
Anatoly Palych, I know very well that you weren
’
t involved in wrecking. But even you have to understand that
from here
no one leaves with an acquittal. It
’
s either a bullet in the back of the neck or a term in the camps.
”

It was not the harsh
language,
it was the kindly voice that amazed Vozdvizhensky. He stared fixedly at the interrogator
’
s face, and saw something familiar in it. It was such a simple face. Had he seen it before?

The interrogator went on standing in the middle of the room, under the light. He said not a word.

Vozdvizhensky knew he
’
d seen him before. But he couldn
’
t recall where.

“
You don
’
t remember Konoplyov?
”
he asked.

Konoplyov! Of course!
The fellow who didn
’
t know his strength of materials.
And who then disappeared from the faculty.

“
Yes, I didn
’
t finish at the institute. On orders of the Komsomol they took me into the GPU. I
’
ve been here three years.
”

So what now?

They chatted a bit, quite easily, a normal human conversation. Just as if it were happening in
that
life, before the nightmare.

Konoplyov said:
“
Anatoly Palych, the GPU doesn
’
t make mistakes. No one ever gets out of here just like that. And though I
’
d like to help you, I don
’
t know how I can. So think about it. You have to make up something.
”

Vozdvizhensky returned to the cellar with new hope.

But also with a fog whirling about in his mind.
He wouldn
’
t be able to
make up
anything.

But then to go to a camp?
To
Solovki
?

He was struck and encouraged by Konoplyov
’
s sympathy.
Inside
these
walls?
In a place like this?

He thought about these people from the Workers
’
Faculties who were now rising through the ranks. What he had seen of them until now was something different: a crude, conceited fellow had been
Vozdvizhensk
y
’s
boss when he worked as an engineer. And in the school that Lyolka had finished, some dimwit had been assigned to replace the gifted Malevich.

And, to be sure, poets long before the Revolution had foreseen it and predicted the coming of these new
Huns . . .

After three more days in the cellar under the street, beneath the steps of unsuspecting passersby, Konoplyov summoned him again.

Vozdvizhensky still hadn
’
t thought of anything to make up.

“
But you must,
”
Konoplyov insisted.
“
There
’
s nothing else you can do. Please, Anatoly Palych, don
’
t make me resort to
measures.
Or have them give you a new interrogator. Then you
’
ve had it for sure.
”

Meanwhile, he was moved to a better cell—less damp and with bunks to sleep in. They gave him some tobacco and allowed him to receive a parcel from home. The joy over the parcel came not because of the food and clean underwear it contained, it came because his family now knew he was
here
!
And alive.
(His wife would get his signature on the receipt for the parcel.)

Konoplyov summoned him again and again tried to persuade him. But how could he dishonor his twenty years of diligent, absorbing work? Simply—how could he dishonor himself, his very soul?

As for Konoplyov, he would now pass on the investigation—
inconclusive
—to someone else.

Another day Konoplyov told him:
“
I
’
ve thought of something and made the arrangements. There
’
s a way you can be let out: just sign a promise to supply us with the information we need.
”

Vozdvizhensky recoiled:
“
How can that be
... ?
How ..
. ?
What.
. . ? And what information can I give you?
”

“
About the mood among the engineers.
About some of your acquaintances, Friedrich Werner, for instance.
And
there
’
s
others on the list.
”

Vozdvizhensky squeezed his head in his hands:
“
That I can
never
do!
”

Konoplyov shook his head. He simply couldn
’
t believe it.

“
So—is it the camps? Just keep in mind: your daughter will also get kicked out of her last year as a class alien. And maybe your possessions and your apartment will be confiscated. I
’
m doing you a big favor.
”

Anatoly Pavlovich sat there, unable to feel the chair beneath him and scarcely able to see Konoplyov right before him.

He dropped his head on the little table—and broke into sobs.

~ * ~

A week later he was set free.

<
>

~ * ~

NASTENKA

1

N
astenka
’
s parents died young, and her grandfather, Father Filaret, LKLI who by then had also lost his wife, raised her from the age of five. The girl lived in his house in the village of Milostayki until she was twelve, through the years of the German War and the revolution. Her grandfather took the place of her own father—and of her parents, in fact—and, with his gray head and bright, penetrating eyes (eyes that filled with tenderness when they fell on her), he became the dominant and unfailing figure in her childhood. Other
figures,
and her two aunts as well, came later. She learned her first prayers from her grandfather, along with moral precepts to guide her through life. She loved going to church. On sunny mornings, on her knees, she would lose herself in contemplating the rays of sunlight shining through the tiny windows of the cupola, in which she saw the solemn yet compassionate descent of the Almighty from the dome above. When
she was eleven, at St. Nicholas in the
Spring
, Nastenka walked alone some twenty-five
versts
through the fields to the monastery. At confession, she would search her conscience for something to tell and then complain that she could find no sins. Father Filaret, speaking through his stole he had placed over her, would say:
“
Now you, my girl, must repent for what is to come. Repent for what is to come, for there will be sins, many sins.
”

The times were quickly changing. The fifteen
desyatins
of church land Father Filaret and his parishioners had been allotted were confiscated and he was given four hectares, in accordance with the mouths he had to feed, which included the two aunts. But then, to ensure that all of them would work with their own hands, even those were taken away. At school they began looking askance at Nastenka, and her schoolmates would taunt her as
“
the priest
’
s granddaughter.
”
The school in Milostayki, in any case, was soon closed. If she hoped to get any more schooling, she would have to leave her home and her grandfather.

Nastenka moved the ten
versts
to
Cherenchitsy
, where four of the girls had taken a room. The boys in that school were bullies: they would line each side of the narrow corridor and let none of the girls through until each boy had felt her all over. Nastya made a quick exit to the schoolyard, broke off a branch of prickly acacia, then boldly walked back and whipped any boy who reached for her. They left her alone after that. And in fact she was red-haired, freckled, and not considered pretty. (And if one of the other girls read a passage about love from some book, she would feel vaguely troubled.)

Like all priests
’
daughters, her two aunts—Auntie Hanna and Auntie Frosya—could see no future for themselves. Just as Uncle
Lyoka
had earlier bought himself a certificate stating that he was the son of an impoverished peasant and then disappeared in some distant province, so now Auntie Frosya went off the Poltava in hopes of
“
changing her social origins.
”
Auntie Hanna, on the other hand, had a
fiance
back in Milostayki, and would have stayed on there, but she happened to find out in the town hospital that a woman friend of hers had aborted a child fathered by her
fiance
. Auntie Hanna came home, scarcely able to breathe, and within a week, out of spite, married a Red Army soldier, a communist, one of the troops then billeted in their house. And what kind of a wedding could they have? They simply went to the registry office, and she moved to Kharkov with him. Father Filaret, shattered, damned his daughter from the pulpit for not having her marriage sanctified by the church. Now he was entirely alone in the house.

Another winter passed, and Nastenka finished her seven-year school. What should she do now, and where should she go? Auntie Hanna, meanwhile, was doing rather well: she was the head of an orphanage on the outskirts of Kharkov, but she and her husband could not get on together and divorced, though he held an important post. She invited her niece to live with her. Nastenka spent a final summer with her grandfather. At his bidding she took with her a little paper icon of the Savior,
“
Persevere and Pray.
”
She hid it in an envelope and then put it inside a notebook: it was a bad idea to let anyone see it there. And when autumn came, she went off to her aunt.

Auntie had already figured out which way the wind was blowing:
“
So now what
can you
do? Work at the brick factory? Or scrub floors? You
’
ve got no
choice,
you have to join the Komsomol. Then you can come and work for me.
”
For the time being, she took her on as a teacher
’
s assistant to play around with the kids. Nastenka liked that a lot, though it was just a temporary job. But she already knew what she had to do: to tell the children
what was right
and not lead them astray, while she prepared herself to join the Komsomol. There already was a Komsomol girl,
Pava
, who was the leader of the Young Pioneers and carried around a red volume of Marx and Engels from which she never parted. Even worse were the really nasty books she had, one of them a novel about a Catholic nunnery in Canada and how they prepared the girls for consecration. Just before this was to happen, they would take the girl to spend a night in a cell where a beefy young monk would pull her into his bed. And then he would console her:
“
This is only for your instruction. The body will perish whatever you do. It
’
s not the body that needs salvation, it
’
s the soul.
”