Ice Trilogy (61 page)

“The first time was in the Urals. You swam out with three boys, fell behind, and at the bridge you got caught in an undertow. Some soldier saved you. He pulled you by the hand and kept saying, ‘Hold on, you horse’s prick, hold on, you horse’s prick...’ The second time you almost drowned was in the Black Sea. You dove off the piers. Swam up to the shore, as usual. You never swam out to sea from the shore. But a homeless dog dove in after you, the beach favorite. She could feel that you were afraid of drowning, and she swam nearby, barking, trying to help. This caused you to panic. You thrashed your arms about in the water and rushed toward the shore. The dog barked and swam nearby. Fear paralyzed you. You were certain that she wanted to drown you. And you began to choke. You saw your family — your wife in a chaise lounge and your daughter with a ball. They were right nearby. You swallowed salt water, let out bubbles. And suddenly your feet touched bottom. You stood up. Breathing heavily and coughing, you screamed at the dog: ‘Get the fuck out of here, you mutt!’ You splashed water on her. She came ashore, shook herself off, and ran toward the stand where one-armed Ashot was grilling shish kebab. You stood waist-high in water and spat.”

He stiffened. Horror filled his gray-green eyes. He swallowed. Inhaled. Exhaled.

“You need to — ”

“What?”

“Eat.”

And he left quickly.

For the first time I remembered about food. In the cell and the hospital they pushed bowls with something brown at me. But I didn’t eat. I was used to eating only fruits and vegetables. I hadn’t eaten bread since ’43.

Bread — is a mockery of grain.

What could be worse than bread? Only meat.

Then, I think, for the first time in these two weeks I wanted to eat. I called the nurse.

“I can’t eat kasha or bread. But I would eat some unground grain. Do you have any?”

She left without a word, to tell the colonel. Through the thickness of the brick walls I saw him, slouched over and gloomy, pick up the telephone receiver in his office.

“Grain? Well...give it to her if she asks. Only that? Give her oats.”

They brought me oats.

I lay there and chewed.

Then I slept.

That night the colonel came to see me. He closed the door behind him and sat on the edge of the bed.

“I didn’t introduce myself earlier,” he said quietly.

“There’s no need. You are Viktor Nikolaevich Lapitsky.”

“I understand, I understand...” He waved his hand. “You know everything about me. And...about everyone, most likely.”

I looked at him. He unbuttoned the collar of his tunic, sighed convulsively, and whispered, “Don’t be afraid, there aren’t any listening devices here. You...can you say whether they’ll arrest me or not?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

He was silent a moment, then he glanced to the side and whispered hurriedly, “I haven’t slept for eight days. Eight! I can’t fall asleep. If I take barbital I fall asleep for an hour and then jump up like a madman. There are big changes going on. Arrests being made. They are sweeping away everyone who worked with Beria and Abakumov. But who didn’t work with them? You also worked with them?”

“I worked for us.”

“Two of my friends from the third section have been arrested. Maslennikov committed suicide. Maslennikov! You understand? Khrushchev’s broom is sweeping clean...Hmm...”

I said nothing. My heart knew what he wanted. He broke into a sweat.

“I’ve lived through two purges — in ’37 and in ’48. It was a downright miracle that I didn’t fall under the wheel. I just don’t have the strength to live through another one. You know, I haven’t slept for eight days. Eight!”

“You said that.”

“That’s right, yes.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I...I want...I know — that you are a real spy. A real agent. For whom — I don’t know. I think it must be the Americans. But — you’re a real, genuine intelligence agent! Not like those fake ones that our strongmen are breaking by the hundreds in order to hand in their cases. I’m offering you a contract: I’ll get you out of here, and you help me to go abroad.”

“Agreed,” I answered quickly.

He was surprised. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he whispered, “No, you have to understand, this isn’t some cheap provocation and it’s not...not the fantasy of some sleep-deprived Chekhist. I am really proposing this.”

“I understand. I told you — I agree.”

Lapitsky stared hard at me. Some reason appeared in his feverish eyes.

“I was sure!” he whispered with delight. “I don’t know...I don’t understand...why, but I was sure!”

I looked at the ceiling. “I was also certain that I would get out of here.”

And it was true.

Colonel Lapitsky took me out of the investigatory isolation unit at Lefortovo on August 18, 1953.

A fine rain was falling. We drove to Kazan Station in the colonel’s official car, which he abandoned there forever. Then we got on the commuter train and rode to the Moscow suburb of Bykovo. There, in a dacha belonging to relatives of Yus’s sister, lived Shro and Zu.

They greeted me with excitement, but not as someone who had died and been reincarnated: their hearts knew that I was alive.

Having strangled Colonel Lapitsky, we spent two days in heart conversation. My pining heart was unquenchable. I drank and drank my brothers. To the point of exhaustion.

After burying Lapitsky’s corpse at nighttime, the next morning we left Moscow.

Three days later at the station in Krasnoyarsk we were met by Aub, Nom, and Re. Adr and I had awakened all of them in the cellar of the Great House.

Thus, I ended up in Siberia.

One dark December morning my heart shuddered from pain twice: in far-off Moscow Kha and Adr were executed. The meat machines had stopped their strong, warm hearts forever.

And we were unable to prevent this.

Six years passed.

I returned to Moscow.

Three brothers had died of natural causes. The old lady Yus had died as well. The Primordial Light, shining in them, was reincarnated in other bodies that had only just appeared on earth. And we were faced with having to find them once again.

The camp that mined the Ice has been disbanded. The professors who substantiated the importance of studying the “Tungus ice phenomenon” were posthumously dubbed pseudoscientists, and the secret project “Ice” was liquidated. The
sharashka
where they prepared the Ice hammers was liquidated as well.

Nonetheless, the brotherhood strengthened and grew. The stores of Ice mined during Stalin’s time were sufficient for all. In 1959 we were grateful to the prisoners of Camp No. 312/500. With their bricks they laid the foundations necessary for an ice base. Cubometers of Ice slept in refrigerators and underground storehouses, awaiting their hour. Part of the Ice was sent abroad through the old MGB channels. From the remainder of the Ice we made Ice hammers.

They were rarely used, since the search for OUR PEOPLE was narrowed. It became more local. Now, without the support of the MGB, we searched for others of us cautiously, meticulously preparing for the hammering. Train stations, movie theaters, restaurants, concert halls, and stores were the main places we searched. We followed people with fair hair and blue eyes, kidnapped them, and hammered them. But more than anywhere else, for some reason, we had luck in libraries. Thousands of meat machines were always sitting there, engaged in silent madness: they attentively leafed through sheets of paper covered with letters. This gave them particular pleasure, comparable to nothing else. These thick, worn books were written by long-dead meat machines whose portraits hung ceremoniously on the walls of the libraries. There were millions of books. They were constantly increasing in number, supporting a collective madness that made millions of corpses lean devoutly over sheets of dead paper. After reading they became even deader. But amid these petrified figures were some of us as well. In the huge Lenin Library we found eight. We found three in the Library of Foreign Literature. And four in the History Library.

The brotherhood was growing.

By the winter of 1959 there were 118 of us in Russia.

The stormy 1960s arrived.

Time sped up.

New possibilities arose, new perspectives opened.

Our people began to move up in their jobs, to occupy important positions. The brotherhood again infiltrated the Soviet elite, but this time from below. We had three new brothers in the Council of Ministers and one in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Sister Chbe became the culture minister of Latvia, brothers Ent and Bo held leadership positions in the Ministry of Foreign Trade, sister Ug married the commander of PVO troops, brother Ne became director of the Malyi Theater.

And most important — brothers Aub, Nom, and Mir organized a scientific society for the study of TMP: the Tungus Meteorite Phenomenon. It was supported by the Academy of Sciences and subsisted on government money. Expeditions were sent out to the site of the fall almost every year.

Chunks of Ice again flowed to Moscow.

We were working.

In the 1970s the brotherhood increased in strength.

Our newly acquired brother Lech became the director of Comecon. The most extraordinary thing was that his daughter turned out to be one of us, as did his grandson. This was the first time that we had a living family. Lech, Mart, and Bork became the bulwark of the brotherhood in the Soviet nomenklatura. Comecon began to work for us. Thanks to Lech we established close contacts with our people in Eastern Europe. We began to supply Ice to them directly, bypassing the complex, conspiratorial channels Kha created under Stalin.

I took a small management position in Comecon.

This allowed me to travel often to other Socialist countries. I saw the faces of our European brothers. I came to know their hearts. Speaking in different earthly languages, we understood one another perfectly.

We knew WHAT to do and HOW to do it.

The brotherhood grew.

In 1980 there were 718 of us in Russia.

And worldwide — there were 2,405.

The 1980s brought a great deal of fuss and difficulty.

Brezhnev died. Russia’s traditional redistribution of power began. Four of our people lost important positions in the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers. Three from Gosplan were demoted. Brother Yot, a well-known functionary of the All-Union Central Soviet of Trade Unions, was kicked out of the Party for “protectionism” (he promoted our people into the leadership of the union too actively). Two brothers from Vneshtorg fell during the campaign against corruption and were given long sentences. Sisters Fed and Ku lost their jobs in the Central Committee of the Komsomol for “amoral behavior” (they were caught during a heart conversation). And Shro, my loyal and decisive follower, was sentenced for assault with physical injury (one of the people we hammered ran away and denounced him).

But Lech survived.

And two of us, Uy and Im, became colonels in the KGB.

Ice was extracted and exported to twenty-eight countries.

And the Ice hammers struck hearts once again.

Andropov and Chernenko died.

Gorbachev came to power.

The era of glasnost and perestroika began.

The USSR began to disintegrate. Comecon was disbanded. And Lech died almost immediately after that. This was a huge loss for us. Our hearts said ardent farewells to the great Lech. He had done so much for the brotherhood.

The Party lost more and more power in the country. Panic began to overtake the loyal echelons of power: the Soviet nomenklatura recognized a mortal danger in the impending democratization, but could do nothing.

Private enterprise appeared. The smartest representatives of the nomenklatura began to move into business. Using their old connections, they quickly made a lot of money.

OUR PEOPLE were also able to reorient themselves quickly. It was decided to establish commercial firms, banks, and stock companies.

In August 1991 the USSR fell apart.

By an irony of fate, one day three brothers and I found ourselves on Lubianskaya Square and observed the monument to Dzerzhinsky being dismantled. When it was tied with steel cables and lifted into the air, I remembered my arrest, my refrigerator cell, the interrogations, the amber serpent, the evil faces and dead hearts of the investigators.

The dismantling of the monument was directed by a blond fellow wearing a tank-division helmet. He had blue eyes. We got to know each other, and a few hours later, in a specially equipped cellar, we hammered Sergei. And his heart spoke his true name: Dor.

Thus, Dzerzhinsky helped us to find one of our brothers.

The rapid-fire 1990s took off.

The cheerful and frightening era of Yeltsin began.

For the brotherhood it was a golden time. We managed to do what we had dreamed of: we secured positions in the power structure, established mighty financial structures, and founded a number of joint ventures.

But the main success of the brotherhood was that our brothers infiltrated the highest echelons of power.

In two years, brother Uf, whom we acquired at the end of the 1970s in Leningrad, had managed a meteoric career: from being a docent of the Engineering Economics Institute he became a vice premier in the Russian government. He directed the economic reforms and privatization of state property. The sale of hundreds of plants and factories passed through Uf’s hands. In the first half of the 1990s he was, for all intents and purposes, the owner of Russia’s real estate.

It is impossible to overestimate his contribution to the brotherhood’s quest. Thanks to the redheaded Uf we attained genuine economic freedom. The issue of money was solved for us forever. And on the planet of meat machines money moved everything.

I blessed him. Our strawberry-blond Uf.

His small but inexhaustible heart often spoke with mine.

Uf headed a radical wing of the brotherhood. The radicals tried to increase the number of brothers by any means possible in order to live to see the Great Transformation.

Unlike them, we in the mainstream were not so egotistical, and we worked for future generations.