Two for the Devil. Allen Hoffman

disconsolately.

      “No.” The prisoner responded so softly that Grisha couldn’t hear him, but he could see the man shaking his head in humiliation that he had disappointed once again.

      The prisoner’s extraordinary humility saved Grisha from the collapse of his own exuberant expectations of interrogating Trotsky. Grisha experienced surprise and disappointment, but almost no embarrassment before this new prisoner, who seemed to lack any defiance or mistrust. The man even seemed somewhat relieved to find himself standing across from the NKVD director of investigations.

      “Sit down,” Grisha said, not uncharitably, and the man responded quickly but with slow, careful movements. The effect was strange and further aroused Grisha’s interest. The man seemed to be in good health. There were no signs that he had been beaten. He wore his belt and shoelaces. Obviously, he had not been processed as a formal prisoner. Grisha assumed that he was being held in one of the special cells where accommodations and diet were more like those of a comfortable hotel than a prison.

      And yet, as frightened as the man was, he didn’t seem afraid so much of Grisha as of himself. He seemed to look to the NKVD officer for help, but without the usual righteous indignation of the innocent. The man had an aura of self-professed guilt about him. His strange eyes trumpeted it. They were preternaturally large and filled with both shame and innocence. Where had Grisha seen something like this—the pale, wide eyes, the slow movements, the innocent fear and complete vulnerability? He was reminded of the small, furry creatures of the night, who lived in the treetops and relied on their large eyes and inaccessible habitat to survive. Once an adversary discovered them, they were helpless. At the zoo, Grisha had liked them at once. And only them. Tigers, snakes, crocodiles, he had recognized them all as enemies of the revolution. On battlefronts and in interrogation rooms he had struggled against their counterrevolutionary claws, poison, sharp teeth, and voracious jaws. At the zoological garden, Grisha was fascinated but tense. He knew them all from the cages of the Lubyanka—beasts whose very nature was to prey upon the Great October Revolution. He always insisted that his cadets spend time in serious study at the zoo. The grasping, scampering monkeys, shameless profiteers and speculators. The kulak birds sang so beautifully but were the first to steal grain from another’s harvest. And the ugly nonparty owls, sleeping by day and screeching by night. A comrade could learn a lot from the brutal world of nature, all right. But one creature always drew him to its cage in wonderment. He had seen them all before in the Lubyanka except for the large-eyed, slow-moving, nocturnal lemur. Fearful and trusting, an investigator’s dream.

      “You are?” Grisha inquired imperiously.

      “Dmitri Cherbyshev,” the man answered meekly.

      “Would you like to tell me in your own words why you’re here?” Grisha asked. Stressing “in your own words” suggested clearly that the NKVD interrogator most certainly knew all and was merely being kind.

      The prisoner’s large eyes filled with a fright and a horror that threatened to paralyze him. Although the eyes did not close in the least, they no longer focused on the questioner. The effect was as if out of embarrassment the prisoner had looked away or lowered his glance. Had he done so, Grisha would have been offended and doggedly pursued the prisoner. This strange inward retreat, however, did not offend Soviet justice. Grisha was reminded of Svetkov’s term “delicate.” Here was an extremely delicate prisoner. Sensitive to the man’s plight, Grisha sat up attentively.

      “It’s difficult, isn’t it?” Grisha suggested sympathetically.

      The prisoner looked at his NKVD interrogator and nodded. Although Grisha didn’t think the man would burst into tears—the wide eyes seemed beyond tears—Grisha was concerned that the man might sink within their wet white surface as if into a moist fog.

      “I understand,” Grisha said with studied sincerity. “Perhaps I was a little too sudden. I can see that you want to tell the truth, don’t you?”

      Dmitri glanced at Grisha and nodded.

      “Sometimes it’s not easy. We understand that, but it’s always the best way. It’s the only way. After all, we’re here to help you. Maybe we should get to know one another. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself. Dmitri, where do you work?”

      Dmitri’s eyes focused. “At the Lenin Library,” he said.

      “That’s a wonderful place to work. A wonderful name, too. Of course, with my activities here, I just don’t have the time to visit it the way I would like to. It’s one of the world’s largest collections, isn’t it?”

      The prisoner merely nodded.

      “What do you do there?” Grisha asked buoyantly.

      “I am in charge of some of the foreign collections,” Dmitri answered.

      “What foreign languages do you know?” Grisha inquired.

      “Polish, English, French, German—all rather well, and I read several others,” the prisoner answered simply.

      “You’re obviously very talented,” Grisha commented respectfully. “Do you enjoy your work, Dmitri?”

      Dmitri squirmed uncomfortably in the large leather armchair without being able to formulate an answer.

      “You don’t enjoy your work?” Grisha suggested.

      “I don’t know.”

      “Why not?” Grisha asked politely.

      Dmitri looked at Grisha. “Since I’ve had these difficulties, I just don’t know.”

      The man put his hand to his forehead in desperation and shook his head. Grisha was sure now that he was about to cry.

      “Would you like a drink of water?” he suggested.

      The man removed his hand from his head and fell back into the deep upholstered leather chair, gripping the armrests. Grisha picked up the phone and heard the new secretary’s crisp “Yes?”

      “May we have a pitcher of water, please?” The voice responded, “Immediately,” and Grisha regretted not having been more imperious in his order. She probably would have respected him more if he hadn’t said please. That’s not the way things used to be.

      “Where do you live?”

      “In the Arbat. Close to the library,” he answered.

      Grisha nodded. “Married?”

      The prisoner shook his head. Grisha thought he detected a telltale sign of guilt.

      “Have you been married?” he asked casually.

      Again Dmitri shook his head with the same telltale signs.

      “Engaged?”

      A third time the prisoner shook his head. The fact was that this timid Dmitri didn’t look like a ladies’ man, but the Cheka had been fooled often enough on that score. Even after the revolution, sex remained a mystery. Somewhere in Moscow there must be a woman who would thrill to Dmitri Cherbyshev’s wide, frightened eyes and clutch him close. Not that much would happen between them with the man’s debilitating fear, but then, Grisha thought, who knows; there seem to be enough of those frightened furry little lemurs to populate the jungle and the zoos, too.

      A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. He buzzed Tatiana in. She entered with a tray containing a large, heavy cut-glass pitcher and two heavy glasses. Grisha had seen them before in this office, but he wondered anew whether they weren’t left from tsarist times. Still, he couldn’t imagine that glassware could survive so long anywhere in Bolshevik Russia, especially in the Lubyanka, where things were destined to be broken. Imperiously he raised his arm and silently pointed to the portion of the desk directly in front of the prisoner. Tatiana primly put the tray down and turned to leave.

      Grisha watched her mannish walk, all shoulders and arms, no hips at all. Who would find anything like that attractive? Maya Kirsanova came to mind. She had Bolshevik steel in her heart, but she had hips and human needs, too.