In for a Ruble (12 page)

“Iakov Barsukov was my guide and mentor throughout,” I said.

“That explains one thing.” Something else crept into his voice—anger or bitterness or both.

“What’s that?”

“Why you didn’t shoot the bastard when you had the chance, that night at JFK.”

“I owed him everything. That’s a tough bond to overcome, whatever the provocation.”

“He was a mass murderer. He killed Polina. He tried to kill my sister. As it was, he left her shattered.”

“I can imagine how you feel.”

“Can you?”

The anger flared in his features, then left again, almost as quickly. I didn’t want to get further into that argument, at least, not yet. “I can try.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Pointless death gets under my skin. Who do you think I inherited that from?”

I sidestepped the temptation to give the answer he was expecting—
Certainly not your mother.
Instead, I said, “Since we’re onto Iakov, let me tell you what happened next.”

The waitress brought the food, and we both ordered another a beer.

While we ate, I took him through the events of the Great Disintegration. In 1988, I was posted in the New York
rezidentura
for the second time. The
rezident
—chief of station—Lachko Barsukov, Iakov’s eldest son, was fast climbing a ladder to the top of the Cheka. He’d always been greedy and he was running a side business, ordering everything from Champagne to truffles to designer dresses on the consulate’s tab, shipping it all home, where his brother sold it on the black market. One of my agents exposed him, I turned him in. Iakov leaned on me hard not to testify. I made the worst decision of my life—and I didn’t even know how bad it would turn out to be. Honor versus loyalty. I opted for loyalty. Dumbest thing I’ve ever done. But I was screwed no matter what.

Lachko got away with a slap on the wrist. He was tainted, though, and his ascent was over. He blamed me and sought revenge. He mounted a nasty campaign of innuendo. The whispers got around to Polina. I didn’t realize how much I underestimated the depth of her insecurity. Her alcoholic father had been run out of the GRU (military intelligence) and sent to the camps. She was horrified at the prospect of her life crumbling again—and being married to a
zek,
although I left that part out for the moment. She set out to ruin me by sleeping with my fellow officers, the kind of indiscretion she knew the Cheka could not ignore. I found out what she was up to before the organization did and made a deal with the devil to save all of us. Polina could raise Aleksei, with my support. I wouldn’t interfere, I wouldn’t even be a known factor. As if I never existed, a
zek
’s destiny. I didn’t reckon on her marrying Lachko, but I’m not omniscient. In retrospect, she was grasping for security and still trying to get even. He’d always had a thing for her and he wanted to get even too. Iakov pulled some strings and I was given an assignment in San Francisco. That was a time-buyer. I was back in Moscow in two years, behind a desk, which I hated. When the opportunity presented itself to call it quits, I did, and moved to New York. Start over.

“That’s quite a story,” Aleksei said as the waitress cleared our plates. His professional tone was back.

“It’s straight—or as straight as I can remember. A difficult time. Memory plays tricks, as you know. I made a big mistake, I tried to rectify it as best I could. You were one big casualty of that. I’m sorry.”

He nodded, in acknowledgment or acceptance, I wasn’t sure which. Neither of us said anything for a few minutes while we sipped our beer. I had a sense what the next question would be—like staring at a gallows, knowing what it’s to be used for, with nowhere to run. My pulse picked up speed as I waited. I didn’t know for sure how I’d answer.

“How about your childhood? Where’d you grow up?”

Paralysis grabbed my throat. My heart raced, my breath got short.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Aleksei, I…”

He had concern on his face, no doubt over the rising panic on mine.

“The … the reason your mother said we were damned,” I croaked. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. It was all but drowned out by the pounding in my chest.

He was waiting, uncertain what to say or do. I fought for control. I told myself to get on with it. It’s only a word. A word I couldn’t speak.

“G … Gulag,” I finally managed to whisper.

He looked at me quizzically.

“That’s … That’s where I was born. That’s where I grew up. Your mother never knew—until the end. That’s the reason everything fell apart.”

He didn’t jump up. He didn’t run. He didn’t shout
NO!
He didn’t even look that surprised. He just leaned back and nodded. My heart rate slowed a little.

“Why didn’t you tell her before?” he said after a minute.

“Shame. Fear. I was ashamed of my past. Still am. I can barely tell you about it, today, five decades later. And I was scared about how she’d react. I wasn’t wrong about that.”

He nodded again and crossed his arms. “I have friends whose parents were in the camps. They don’t talk about it either. I kind of understand it, I guess. But, at the same time, there were millions of victims. All Russians share that history. It’s something we need to come to terms with if we’re ever able to confront our past. And we can’t do that without talking about it—openly.”

I could have cried, from tension and relief. My heart rate returned to normal. The shame that haunted me meant nothing to him. I’d spent the last twenty years terrified—for no reason. Maybe there was hope for Russia—if more people of his generation shared his view.

He was watching my reaction. “You were born there, you said. That means your mother…”

“That’s right. She was arrested with her parents during the Terror in 1938. Your great-grandparents were artists and died in the camps. Your grandmother was released in 1946 and rearrested in a roundup of ex-prisoners in 1948. She was sent to Dalstroi this time—Siberia. I was born there on March 15, 1953—the day Stalin and Prokofiev died. Bad timing for Sergei Sergeyevich. We were released in Beria’s amnesty, but she was too weak to make the journey home. She died on the train. I was brought up in an orphanage, got into trouble as a teenager, got sent back to the Gulag. You hate him, I understand that, but it was Iakov Barsukov who identified my language skills and gave me a chance. He got me out of the Gulag and started my career in the Cheka.”

He shook his head. He didn’t want to hear that about Iakov. “What about your father?”

“That’s less clear. The man I’m named after, Electrifikady Turbanevich…”

He was taking a sip of beer. He stopped and laughed out loud. “Say that again.”

“Electrifikady Turbanevich.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. You didn’t know?”

“She never told me. How did you get saddled with … If you don’t mind my asking.” He was still smiling.

“He was the man I believed to be my father. My mother broke with tradition and gave me the whole name. They didn’t have much time together. ’Forty-six to ’forty-eight, then a supposed reunion in Kolyma in ’fifty-two. She wanted a way to remember him, I guess.”

“Okay, but how did he get…”

“Stalinist zeal. He was born in the thirties. Lots of kids got screwy patriotic names—Ninel, Stalina, Drazdraperma. Apparently Grandpa Turba was a Stalinist with a sense of humor.”

“Unlikely combination.”

“The czars couldn’t kill Russian humor, neither could the Bolsheviks.”

“What did he do, your father?”

“He was a Chekist. On Beria’s staff.”

He started at that.

“He was a
zek
too. Arrested with my mother in forty-six. Rejoined the Cheka sometime after he was released in forty-eight. That wasn’t unheard of, by any means.”

“And it still took Iakov and your language skills to get you out?”

“I don’t think he had any idea I existed.”

“The Cheka would have.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I haven’t been able to find those records. And I’ve been looking.”

“And your Grandpa Turba—the funny Stalinist—what about him?”

“He worked for Dzerzhinsky.”

“
Dzerzhinsky!?
As in Felix, founder of the Cheka, Dzerzhinsky?”

“That’s right. Turba helped set it up. He was also an early victim—he was purged and sent to the camps to die in 1937.”

“And you
still
believe Iakov just happened to pick you out of a crowd of
zeks
?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You’ve got Cheka royalty running through your blood, and you can ask that?”

“I didn’t know any of this until after my career was over. I learned it all since I moved to New York.”

The waitress offered coffee. Aleksei declined. I did as well. He retreated to his thoughts, and I left him there.

A good ten minutes passed before he said, “We joked in New York about you being the first ex-Chekist. I almost believed it at the time. I guess I wanted to believe it, once I figured you were my father. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Why not? What’s changed?”

Another long wait before he said, “That night at JFK, with Iakov—seems to me, looking back now, the whole thing could’ve been a setup. I wandered into it, and you improvised.”

“I improvised, that’s true. To get you out of there.”

“Maybe. The Cheka cuts too deeply into all of us, I guess.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You didn’t tell Polina about your Gulag past. You say you were ashamed, you say you were scared. Now you tell me how each of my ancestors is more deeply wired into the Cheka than the next. What’s the motivation this time?”

“I don’t see what you’re driving at. I spent the last twenty years trying to find out about my past because I hoped … I hoped some day to have the chance to tell you where you came from.”

“And you thought I’d be as proud of it—the Cheka part—as you are?”

I had no idea how to respond. “I don’t see where pride enters into it,” I said after a moment.

“Don’t you?” His voice was full of feeling now. Anger, bitterness, resentment raced each other to the fore. An explosion was coming, and I was responsible. But what could I have told him differently?

“Aleksei, listen, I’m sorry. I thought … I thought you’d want to know.”

Did I sound as lame to him as I did to myself?

He answered that question by pulling a bundle of notes out of his pocket. He counted off several and tucked them under his empty beer glass.

“Maybe you thought wrong.”

He stood and left, grabbing his overcoat from the rack without stopping. I didn’t try to follow.

The waitress approached hesitantly. I held out the dish of money and ordered a vodka. Half an hour later, having ordered and drunk another, I was still trying to figure out what had happened. I’d underestimated whatever was eating at him as badly as I had his mother a lifetime earlier.

I tried calling him several times over the next two days, but he was busy or avoiding me. Then I had dinner with Sasha and he dropped the hammer about Beria. How would I ever explain that—if I got the chance?

CHAPTER
11

Beria disappeared at the South Street Seaport. I got home to find my neighbors, Tina and John, loading suitcases into a cab.

“Going skiing,” Tina piped in her eternally upbeat way. Tina’s very sweet and what Americans unkindly call an airhead. I think it’s both sexist and unfair to rank a woman’s brains ahead of her other attributes, which Tina has in abundance. Today, her coat was open and her woolly sweater and leather pants stretched tight over her full figure. I tried not to observe too closely since her husband, a former linebacker for the New York Giants, is Foos’s size and solid muscle. I told them to have a good trip and went upstairs to shower.

*   *   *

I got the Potemkin out of the garage and drove to Bedford. It’s a foolish car, especially in winter when you can’t put the top down and a rear-wheel-drive boat is useless in snow and ice. But I don’t get a chance to drive much, and I love the feel of a battleship, albeit an American battleship, on the road.

Marianna Leitz lived on East Meadow Road, a winding, empty country lane lined by old maples, white fences, and stone walls demarcating horse farms and big estates. I found her driveway between two large columns with an electronic gate and a security camera. The gate was open.

I stopped outside to check my messages. A gray Toyota Camry rolled past and disappeared around a bend. I listened to a Gatling-gun recording from Julia Leitz recounting all of the important things she was working on, none of which meant anything to me, before she said, “I might be able to do six, if this deal doesn’t blow. If that happens, all bets are off. Come here at six, but call first. I could be in crisis mode.” Sounded like crisis mode was a perpetual state she rather enjoyed, as her brother said. Nothing from Leitz’s ex-wife or brother-in-law or brother.

The Camry came back the other way. The driver turned his head as he passed. A balding man of about my age. Maybe he was lost. Or maybe he was working.

Marianna’s driveway was long, and the house, when it finally came into view, grand, white, and handsome. Big, bare-branched trees dotted the wide, snow-covered lawn. A fenced pool area to one side, tennis court nearby, and a large children’s jungle gym–swing complex opposite.

It took a few minutes before she answered the door. She would have been attractive on a good day, but good days had been few and far between in recent months. She looked like hell this morning. Deep creases marred an otherwise fine face. Gray-brown bags hung from brown eyes surrounded by roadmap-red whites. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt and had made no attempt at makeup. Her shoulder-length blond hair frizzed in every direction. She didn’t remotely resemble a rich woman living in the lap of luxury. She made a meager effort to smile hello, accompanied by an attempt at a limp handshake, which she couldn’t quite manage.

She led me through an entrance hall and a dining room that sat twenty into a sprawling kitchen. Dirty dishes filled the double sink and spilled onto the countertop.