The Case of Comrade Tulayev (38 page)

“The November seventh and May first celebrations gradually died out during those black years. A deadly certainty lighted the prisons, as with the blaze of salvos at dawn. You know of the suicides, the hunger strikes, the final, despicable — and useless — betrayals, which were suicides too. Men opened their veins with nails, broke bottles and ate the glass, flung themselves on guards so that they would be shot down … you have heard of all that. The custom of calling on the dead in the isolator courtyards. On the eves of the great anniversaries, the comrades formed a circle during the exercise period; a voice hoarse with distress and defiance called out the names, the greatest first, the rest in alphabetical order — and there were names for every letter of the alphabet. And each man present answered in turn: ‘Dead for the Revolution!' Then we would begin singing the hymn to the dead ‘fallen gloriously in the sacred struggle,' but we could not often sing it through because the guards would be summoned and come running like mad dogs; the comrades made a chain to receive them, and so, arm linked in arm, they held together through the scuffle; under the blows and the curses and the icy water from the fire pumps, they went on shouting in rhythm: ‘Glory be to them, glory be to them!”'

“Enough,” said Ryzhik, “I can see what came next.”

“These demonstrations died out within eighteen months, although the prisons were more jammed than ever. Those who maintained the tradition of the old struggles disappeared underground or into Kamchatka, we never knew exactly; the few survivors were lost in the new crowds. There were even opposing demonstrations — prisoners shouting, ‘Long live the Party, long live our Chief, long live the Father of his Country!' It did them no good, they were doused with icy water too.”

“And now the prisons are quiet?”

“They are thinking, Comrade Ryzhik.”

Ryzhik formulated “theoretical conclusions, the chief thing being not to lose our heads, not to let our Marxist objectivity be perverted by this nightmare.”

“Obviously,” said Makarenko in a tone which perhaps meant exactly the contrary.

“First: Despite its internal regression, our state remains a factor of progress in the world because it constitutes an economic organism which is superior to the old capitalist states. Second: I maintain that, despite the worst appearances, there is no justification for classifying our state with fascist regimes. Terror is not enough to determine the nature of a regime, what is basically significant is property relations. The bureaucracy, dominated by its own political police, is obliged to maintain the economic regime established by the Revolution of October '17; it can only increase an inequality which, in its own despite, becomes a factor in the education of the masses … Third: The old revolutionary proletariat ends with us. A new proletariat, of peasant origin, is developing in new factories. It needs time to reach a certain degree of consciousness and, by its own experience, to overcome the totalitarian education it has received. To fear that war will interrupt its development and liberate the confused counter-revolutionary tendencies of the peasantry … Do you agree, Makarenko?”

Lying on his bunk, Makarenko nervously tugged at his little beard. His owl eyes were dimly phosphorescent.

“Of course,” he said, “on the whole … Ryzhik, I give you my word of honor that I shall never forget you … See here, you must try to get a few hours' sleep …”

Awakened at dawn, Ryzhik had a few moments in which to say good-by to his companion of the night: they kissed each other. A detachment of special troops surrounded Ryzhik in the open truck, so that no one should see him; but there was no one in the street. At the station he found a well-equipped Prisons Service car awaiting him. He surmised that he was probably on the main line to Moscow. The basket of provisions which was put on the seat beside him contained luxurious foods that he had long forgotten — sausage and cream cheese. He could think of little else, because he was very hungry; his strength was ebbing. He decided to eat as little as possible, only enough to sustain himself; and, because he was something of a gourmet, to confine himself to the more delectable and uncommon viands. Lying on the wooden seat amid the clattering of the express train, he savored them pleasurably and thought, without the least feeling of fear, and indeed with a certain relief, that he was soon to die. It was a restful journey. Of Moscow, Ryzhik saw only a freight station by night. Distant arc lights lit the network of rails, a vague red halo hid the city. The police van traveled through sleeping streets, in which Ryzhik heard only the hum of the motor, drunkards quarreling drearily, the magical chimes of a clock letting a few musical, shattering notes fall into the silence. Three
A.M.
Some indefinable atmosphere enabled him to recognize one of the courtyards of the Butirky prison. He was taken into a small building which had been recently made over and then into a cell painted gray up to six feet from the floor, as cells were painted under the old regime — why? There were sheets on the cots, the electric bulb in the ceiling gave a weak light. It is nothing, it is only the real Brink of Nothing …

He was taken to be examined early in the morning. It was only a few steps down the corridor. The doors of the adjoining cells stood open — an unoccupied building. In one of these cells, which was furnished with a table and three chairs, Ryzhik immediately recognized Zvyeryeva, whom he had known for twenty years, since the days of the Petrograd Cheka, the Kaas plot, the Arkadi case, the Pulkovo battles, the commercial maneuverings at the beginning of the N.E.P. Hysterical, crooked to the marrow, devoured by unsatisfied desires, had she outlived so many valiant men? “I might have known it,” Ryzhik thought. “The last touch!” It brought a wry smile to his face. He did not greet her. Beside her, a round face with oily, carefully parted hair. “The dirty bureaucrat who keeps tabs on you, you old whore?” Ryzhik said nothing, sat down, and looked at her calmly.

“You recognize me, I suppose,” said Zvyeryeva quietly, with a sort of sadness.

Shrug.

“I hope that your transfer was effected under not too uncomfortable conditions … I had given orders. The Political Bureau does not forget your service records …”

Another shrug, but less pronounced.

“We consider your period of deportation finished …”

He did not stir. His face became ironical.

“The Party expects you to display a courage which will be your own salvation …”

“Aren't you ashamed of yourself?” said Ryzhik with disgust. “Look at yourself in a mirror tonight — I am sure you will vomit. If it were possible to die of vomiting, you would die …”

He had spoken in an undertone: a voice from a tomb. White hair, pale face, shaggy beard — weak as an invalid and hard as an old lightning-blasted tree. For the baby-faced high official with the pomaded hair, he had only a brief look, a scornful curl of the nostrils.

“I should not allow myself to become angry — you are not worth it. You are below shame. At most, you are worth the proletarian bullet that will shoot you one day if your masters do not liquidate you beforehand, tomorrow for example …”

“In your own interest, citizen, I beg you to restrain yourself. Here insult and violence serve no purpose. I am doing my duty. You are charged with a capital crime, I offer you a way to exonerate yourself …”

“Enough. Take due note of this: I am irrevocably resolved neither to enter into any conversation with you nor to answer any questions. That is my last word.”

He looked away at the ceiling, at nothingness. Zvyeryeva put up her hand and patted her hair into place. Gordeyev took out a handsome lacquered cigarette case, with a design of a troika dashing through snow, and held it out toward Ryzhik:

“You have suffered a great deal, Comrade Ryzhik, we understand you …”

His answer was a look so scornful that he lost his composure, pocketed the cigarette case, looked at Zvyeryeva for help, only to find her as abashed as himself. Ryzhik half smiled at them, calmly insulting.

“We have ways of making the most hardened criminals talk …”

Ryzhik spat heavily on the floor, rose, muttered, “What stinking vermin!” for his own ears, turned his back on them, opened the door, and said to the three waiting special service men: “Take me to my cell!” and returned to his cell.

No sooner was he gone than Gordeyev took the offensive. “You should have prepared this examination in advance, Comrade Zvyeryeva.” Thus he declined all responsibility for the setback. Zvyeryeva stared stupidly at her painted fingernails. Half of the trial swept away? “With your permission,” she said, “I will break him. I have no doubt of his guilt. His attitude alone …” Her words placed Gordeyev face to face with his responsibility again. “If you do not give me carte blanche to force this man whose confession we must have, it will be you who has scuttled the trial …”

“We'll see,” Gordeyev murmured evasively.

Ryzhik threw himself on the cot. He was shaking all over. He could feel his heart beating heavily in his chest. Thoughts in shreds, like rags scorched in a fierce fire, fragments of broken syllogisms whose edges momentarily glittered and hurt, swirled in his brain — yet he felt no need to put them in order. Everything was probed, weighed, concluded, finished. This tempest within him had arisen despite himself. It began to die away when he noticed his daily ration on the table — the black bread, the mess-tin of soup, two lumps of sugar … He was hungry. Tempted to get up and smell the soup (sour cabbage and fish, no doubt!), he restrained himself. For a moment he felt a desire to eat for the last time, the last time! … It would do him good … No. Get it over with! It was that act of will which restored him to complete self-control, which brought him to a decision, irrevocably. A stone slides down a slope, reaches the edge of a precipice, drops — there is no comparison between the slight impulse which first set it in motion and the depths to which it falls. Calmed, Ryzhik shut his eyes, to think. Several days would probably pass before these vermin made their intentions clear. How long shall I hold out? At thirty-five, a man can still be somewhat active between the fifteenth and the eighteenth days of a hunger strike, provided that he drinks several glasses of water each day. At sixty-six, in my present condition — chronic undernourishment, fatigue, will to nonresistance — I shall go into the final phase in a week … Without water, a hunger strike brings death in from six to ten days, but is extremely difficult to keep up after the third day because of hallucinations. Ryzhik decided to drink in order to suffer less and to keep his mind clear, but to drink as little as possible in order to shorten the process. The great difficulty would be to cheat the vigilance of his guards in the matter of destroying his rations. At all costs he must avoid the loathsome business of forced feeding … The flushing apparatus of the toilet worked well; Ryzhik found no difficulty until it came to destroying the bread, which he had to crumble up, and it took a long time, the smell of fermented rye rose into his nostrils, the feeling of that doughy substance which was life itself entered into his fingers, into his nerves. In a few days it would be a trial which his weakening fingers, his overstrained nerves, would find it more and more difficult to surmount. The thought that that filthy creature Zvyeryeva and the vermin with the greased hair had not foreseen this made Ryzhik burst out laughing. (And the guard on duty, who had orders to look at him every ten minutes through the bull's-eye glass in the door, saw his pasty face lit up by a great laugh and instantly transmitted his report to the assistant warden in charge of Corridor II: “The prisoner in Cell 4 is lying on his back, laughing and talking to himself …”) Usually a hunger striker remains lying down, since every movement means an expenditure of strength … Ryzhik decided to walk as much as he could.

Not an inscription on the freshly repainted walls. Ryzhik sent for the assistant warden and asked for books. “Presently, citizen.” Later he came back and said: “You must make your request to the examining judge at your next hearing …” “I shall read no more,” thought Ryzhik, surprised that his farewell to books left him so indifferent. What were needed today were books like thunderbolts, full of an irrefutable historical algebra, full of merciless indictments, books which should judge these days, every line of which should breathe implacable intelligence, be printed in pure fire. Such books would be born later. Ryzhik tried to call to mind books which, for him, were connected with his sense of being alive. The grayish newsprint of the papers left him only a memory of insipidity. From a very distant past there came back to him with great intensity the image of a young man stifling in his cell, pulling himself up on the window grating to a position from which he saw three rows of barred windows in a yellow façade, a courtyard in which other prisoners were sawing wood, a beautiful sky which he longed to drink … That faraway prisoner (myself, a self which I really don't know if it is alive or dead, a self which is actually more of a stranger to me than many of the men who were shot last year) one day received certain books which made him joyfully renounce the call of the sky — Buckle's
History of Civilization
, and a collection of decorous
Popular Tales
which he looked through with irritation. But toward the middle of the volume the type changed, and it was
Historical Materialism
by G. V. Plekhanov. Until then, he thought, that young man had been nothing but primitive vigor, instincts, trained muscles which effort tempted, he had felt like a colt in the fields; and the sordid street, the workshop, fines, lack of money, worn-out shoes, prison, had held him like a tethered animal. He suddenly discovered a new capacity for living, something inexpressibly greater than what was commonly called life. He read the same pages over and over, pacing up and down his cell, so happy to understand that he wanted to run and shout, that he wrote to Tania: “Forgive me if I hope I shall stay here long enough to finish these books. At last I know why I love you …” What is consciousness? Does it appear in us like a star in the pale twilight sky, invisibly, undeniably? He who, the day before, had lived in a fog now saw the truth. “It is
that
, it is contact with truth.” Truth was simple, near as a young woman you take in your arms and say “Darling!” and then you discover her eyes, where light and darkness blend. He possessed truth forever. In November '17 another Ryzhik — yet was it the same? — went to a great printing plant in Vasili-Ostrov with the Red Guard, and requisitioned it in the name of the Party. Before the great machines which produce books and papers he exclaimed: “Now, comrades, the days of falsehood are done! Mankind will print nothing but the truth!” The owner of the plant, a fat, pale, yellow-lipped gentleman, cruelly put in: “That, gentlemen, I defy you to do!” and Ryzhik wanted to kill him on the spot, but we were not bringing barbarism, we were putting an end to war and murder, we were bringing proletarian justice. “We shall see, citizen; in any case, I inform you that there are no more gentlemen, now or henceforth …” The man he had been in those days was over forty, a hard age for a worker, but he felt himself an adolescent again: “Coming into power,” he said, “has made us all twenty years younger …”