The Commissariat of Enlightenment (23 page)

THEY
were met at the station in Moscow by several officers from the OGPU, formerly the Extraordinary Commission, now converted to the customary. Unmindful of the officers’ rank, Vorobev imperiously supervised the removal of his equipment from the train and insisted on riding with it in the second of the two charcoal-black Fords. In the rear of the lead car, Astapov and a colonel smoked acrid domestic cigarettes. Responding to Astapov’s searching look, the colonel whispered, “He lives,” and the two men gazed on the frozen, sullen capital. Moscow was even more hushed than Kharkov, in anticipation of the next abrupt turn of its history.

They left the city, passing through military checkpoints onto a road on which they were the only traffic. The inspection of their documents was rigorous and numerous telephone calls were made up and down the line. Astapov, who had never left Russia, not once in his life, suffered the sensation that he had crossed the frontier. In this new land, whose snow-lined birches and peasant houses produced a credible imitation of Russia, the air was more rarefied, snowflakes drier, ponds less shallow, children’s voices
more resonant, borscht thicker, ice warmer, the language’s declensions more gentle. No one lived in this country save Ilich. Drowsy and restless from his lack of sleep, Astapov half-succumbed to this fantasy and was seized by an enormous desire, inevitable among émigrés, to return home.

At the village of Gorki they reached the last blockhouse and the car was once again inspected and their documents thoroughly examined. With each stage in their approach to Ilich, Astapov sensed that he had ascended. And here they were. Ilich’s home, the Big House, was an eighteenth-century mansion that had belonged to a pro-Bolshevik industrialist. His widow had volunteered the estate to Ilich’s personal use. Its classical, two-story facade was supported by six columns flanked by large stone urns. The veranda on the second floor looked out on a frozen pond and the clearing was surrounded by birch woods in which Ilich had once hunted rabbits. The OGPU officers languidly patrolling the grounds were clad in brown greatcoats, uniforms identical to those their colleagues wore as they kept guard over the city streets.

Vorobev and Astapov were asked to wait outside while the colonel announced their arrival. The doctor didn’t seem to mind the cold. He said to Astapov, “I’ll need a medical cabinet of some kind, a place that can be kept clean. And a bathtub, preferably in a water closet adjacent to the sickroom.” Astapov nodded in agreement as he considered what should be done with the military guard’s pedestrian costume. He was startled when he heard the shouting inside the house, a woman’s voice shrilled by anger. The only word that could be distinguished was
no!
It went unanswered. Astapov had already known that there were problems, but he was shocked by the shout’s desperation. In other circumstances, he might have been moved to intervene.

The door opened and a stocky man with a pockmarked face
and a thick bristly mustache stepped through it, in tall Circassian boots but without a coat. His smile bore the heat of the summer sun. He delicately closed the door behind him. Light danced in his eyes as he embraced Astapov and kissed him on each cheek. When he stepped away, Astapov sensed, as always, that something had been taken away. The two Bolsheviks turned to Vorobev.

“Is this our doctor from Kharkov?” Stalin said. He made no sign that he recalled him from a distant railway platform. He added, ridiculously, “You are very kind to come.”

Vorobev bowed, no less ridiculously.

“That was Krupskaya, wasn’t it?” Astapov said.

A pained expression fixed itself upon Stalin’s face. “It’s a very difficult time. We all suffer, especially Nadezhda Konstantinovna. For the past two decades she’s had two fixed stars in her firmament, Ilich and the Revolution. She can’t conceive of one without the other. And who can? It’s difficult for us all…” He shook his head and raised a hand to brush away a presumed trace of moisture. “At the moment, despite her stated adherence to science, she denies the medical inevitability. She’s very emotional, you know, almost mystical. It’s better that you don’t see her now.” Stalin motioned toward the snow-filled woods, within which some small houses were scattered. “We should discuss matters in my own quarters and establish you in your own.”

“I need to examine the subject at once,” Vorobev objected.

“He lives still. Post-mortem questions should be saved…” Stalin could not suppress a grim chuckle. “…until post-mortem.”

Shaking a fist, Vorobev cried, “If you want a ruined corpse! If you want him stinking and rotted!” The doctor had turned crimson and now only marginally reined in his temper. “Comrade, if you trust in the dialectic as it applies to the life sciences, you’ll un
derstand that just as every living organism carries within it the mechanism of death, so the dead organism carries within it many of the objective biological characteristics of the living. If you truly wish to preserve Ilich’s physical manifestation, I must see him alive, now!”

Stalin was taken aback, in his way, which was—initially—to slightly widen his eyes. Then, pretending to be a normal man, he shrugged helplessly. “Nadezhda Konstantinovna won’t even discuss funeral arrangements. She was ready to throw a tea cup at my head when I told her a new doctor had arrived. How can we talk about…this other thing?”

“This other thing will be impossible unless I see him now,” Vorobev said flatly.

Stalin sighed and vigorously massaged his face. Vorobev was right about the seeds of death being carried within the living: this outburst would eventually cost him his life. Stalin hated to be contradicted and would remember it forever. At last Stalin said, “All right then. But don’t mention…Nadezhda Konstantinovna is a noble, passionate, high-strung woman, even in the best of times. Please, no more than a standard medical exam.”

The door led into a wide foyer, where the men removed their boots and coats. In the next room, a grand parlor with high ceilings, a stout, gray-haired, goitered woman sat on a straight-backed wooden chair, her arms crossed.

“Madame Comrade,” said Astapov, bowing. She was still his superior, of course, but Krupskaya knew now that Stalin had gotten to him, somehow. She wondered when. Astapov announced, “This is Comrade Doctor Professor Vorobev. He’s a specialist from Kharkov.”

“Why is he here?”

“He’s a specialist,” Stalin affirmed, affecting a tone as sooth
ing as tea with honey. “If anyone can do anything for our dear Ilich, he can.”

“Ilich already has three doctors! Professor Koyevnikov!” she called out with great urgency. “Professor Koyevnikov! Come here, I need you!”

The doctor rushed at once down the stairs, nimbly, a stethoscope in hand. He was a tall, clean-shaven man hardly any older than Astapov. “Nadezhda Konstantinovna!” he said, eyeing the two newcomers. “Please, don’t excite yourself. Ilich needs us to stay calm. What’s the problem?”

“These people.”

Koyevnikov planted himself at her side and stood at attention, his arms crossed. A snarl faintly creased his face.

“What can I do for you comrades?”

Stalin announced, “Comrade Professor Koyevnikov, I’m pleased to introduce Comrade Professor Vorobev, from the Kharkov School of Medicine.”

The snarl disappeared, replaced by measured displays of relief and admiration. “Professor Vorobev! At last!”

Stalin had gotten to him too.

Vorobev nodded. “It’s urgent that I examine the subject.”

Krupskaya interjected querulously: “What for?”

Ilich’s personal physician explained, “Professor Vorobev is a leading professor of anatomy. We’ve all agreed that Ilich deserves examination by the best doctors available, for the sake of the Revolution.”

She made no response, but stared ahead. She was lost in thought, perhaps in remembrance of the exile she had shared with Ilich, in Siberia, Paris, and Zurich, the years when Ilich was in no one’s care but her own and, to a much lesser extent, his mistress Inessa’s. With a sweep of his arm, Stalin motioned to the others to
follow him upstairs. They brushed past her as if she were no more than a piece of furniture. An irrelevant recollection flittered through her consciousness: the Count’s death, so many years ago.

Astapov was startled to be in the party without a direct invitation, only now realizing that he was about to be introduced to the leader of the world revolution. His heart pattered.

The sickroom was lit by electric lamps. Two white-aproned nurses stood at attention, their faces slack, not acknowledging the visitors. Astapov assumed that they too were from the OGPU. So dense was the odor of medicine, useless patent formulae from Germany, that it lent an almost-pinkish cast to the room.

Vorobev had entered ahead of him, blocking his view, just as he had once before, in Astapovo. When the doctor stepped aside and Astapov saw the figure in the bed, he gasped audibly and was overcome by a flush of shame. Ilich’s eyes were now even more starkly bright than they had been in the unreleased Commissariat film. His face had sunken into the skull and its skin had taken on a febrile radiance. Although Astapov had known that he was gravely ill, and knew that his illness had flung open a door through which Stalin would rush, fairly skipping, he was unprepared to witness the hero’s frailty.

“Ilich,” he whispered.

Ilich’s face was frozen in a ghastly, surprised rictus—it was not a face, but a grotesque caricature, the expression lopsided, the lines of the face drawn against the grain. Even so, his fully mobile eyes inspected the visitors. Astapov shivered beneath their cold caress. Then Ilich’s study fell upon the figure of Stalin and blazed as if the Caucasian were some strange creature discovered in Africa or the Arctic, and as if it were the first time Ilich had seen him. Stalin made no sign of being aware of the scrutiny, but took a position behind the invalid, removed from his field of vision.

Vorobev opened the black bag that he had brought with him and withdrew his stethoscope. The nurses removed the stricken leader’s bedclothes. Vorobev measured Ilich’s pulse at his wrist and pressed the device against his chest, his carotid artery on the side of his neck, and then, very unexpectedly, at his bright, capacious cranium. He placed it again at several other places on Ilich’s skull. The doctor frowned and shook his head. Unlike Astapov, he appeared unmoved in the leader’s presence. Ilich’s eyes followed his arm as he reached into the bag for a large collecting syringe. He flinched when the needle pierced his arm. The others flinched too. The blood drew into the chamber slowly.

Vorobev announced, “It’s necessary to determine the specific gravity of the intercellular fluid. Professor Koyevnikov, you don’t have a working centrifuge here, do you? Never mind, there’s a field unit with my laboratory equipment. With some assistance, I can have the analysis done within an hour.”

Astapov left Vorobev in his makeshift medical laboratory in the small house that had been given over to their use. He tramped into the snowy woods and by arrangement met Stalin there, sitting on a tree stump and contemplating his pipe’s glowing bowl. The aroma of his tobacco filled the woods. Recently named to the newly created post of general secretary, Stalin wore a military coat without decoration and did not seem cold at all.

“Koyevnikov says he can stay in this vegetative state for months. What’s Vorobev’s opinion?”

“He’s still doing the blood analysis,” Astapov replied. “He insists that the oxygen canisters be installed without delay. They should be brought to Ilich’s room. Also, he wants the windows open, to lower the temperature.”

Stalin groaned. “Koyevnikov has to clear everything with Krupskaya. She’s suspicious. I can’t take a shit without her asking about it. She has friends too; they’re saying I should go back to Moscow.”

“They’re right,” Astapov said and paused, surprised by his own assurance. Stalin was giving him his full attention now, but Astapov knew that he viewed him as a relatively minor partner in this business. Not even Stalin fully understood what was at stake. “Comrade, this is the most critical moment. You need to be seen at the Kremlin, signing papers, inspecting troops, carrying on the work of the Party.” Astapov considered the situation: here at the Big House, only Stalin could stand up to Krupskaya. “All right, that can be filmed after the fact. Let’s not worry about her friends right now. A more urgent matter: Ilich’s guard. It’s inadequate. They’re OGPU, they’re reliable, but they don’t suit the gravity of the occasion…Ilich requires an honor guard, with distinctive military uniforms. Something European-looking. Although the compound is well-protected, it has to be more visibly so. For the cameras.” Astapov paused again, in the event that he was being overly demanding. “We need to film this tomorrow. Can that be arranged?”

Stalin sucked on his pipe and stared into the woods, as if he hadn’t heard Astapov. But then he said abruptly, “Anything can be arranged.”

INDEED,
Stalin had people everywhere: in the commissariats of War, of Foreign Affairs, of State Control, of Supply, of Enlightenment, in factories and in military units, men squirreled away in obscure bureaucracies that had been left undisturbed by the Revolution. At dawn the extra troops arrived, outfitted in Teutonic costume; not precisely the effect Astapov was seeking, but sufficient for the task. The uniforms were soon followed by a film crew and a trusted director—chosen from outside Enlightenment. With Koyevnikov’s reluctant, puzzled consent, Vorobev installed the “oxygen ventilation” system, attaching the gas canisters to a series of fluted pipes at the foot of Ilich’s bed. Ilich saw the canisters and pipes being installed, left unexplained by Vorobev and as mysterious as the workings of a calliope. They hissed. Krupskaya categorically refused to allow the windows to be opened.

When Astapov asked about the results of the blood analysis, Vorobev had replied: “We have two days, perhaps three.”

Astapov knew that it would have been pointless to ask for per
mission to bring the cinematography cameras into the house, and anyway preferred filming the house from the outside, as Ilich’s sanctum sanctorum. The crew consumed thousands of celluloid meters filming the grounds, the officers at the guardhouse, and a detachment goosestepping in the road that wound through the settlement. Under Astapov’s instruction, Stalin was filmed too, shaking hands with Koyevnikov and the other doctors as he appeared to depart for Moscow. His face was shot and reshot, looking grim, determined, grieving, worried, brave, wise, and kind. His car was filmed leaving the compound. Astapov informed the director that he would make the final choice of which cinema frames to use.

That evening, after the filming had been completed and the crew had left, Stalin summoned Astapov and Vorobev to his house at the edge of the woods. He was already in a nightshirt and his housekeeper was in the kitchen preparing a pot of mushroom soup, Stalin’s favorite. The day’s newspaper lay spread out on the table beside his setting: a speech that Ilich had made fifteen years ago. Every issue of every newspaper contained at least one of Ilich’s historic writings and speeches, but nothing new. Until his latest stroke, Ilich had been dictating letters urging the radical restructuring of the Central Committee and warning of the ambitions and failings of individual Party leaders. By consensus of the Central Committee—since virtually no one was left unscathed—Ilich’s topical polemics had been published only in single exemplars of
Pravda
and sent off to his bedside. Now Stalin waited until Astapov and Vorobev had removed their coats. He invited them to join him at the table.

Stalin said, “Comrade Astapov informs me that our beloved Ilich cannot, alas, survive another two or three days.”

“Preposterous,” Vorobev shot back, nearly spitting. “He can
decline like this for weeks, for months even. But so? He’s not living in any way that he himself would have called life. Here, here is Ilich—” he gestured at the middle of the room, to the imagined shadow of an Ilich—“but he can no longer write, nor argue nor, in his condition, advance the Revolution.”

“I misunderstood then,” Astapov said. “When you told me two or three days…”

“Ah,” Vorobev interrupted, jabbing his finger in the air, recklessly in Stalin’s direction. “Two or three days…Yes, that’s the time period that takes into account the thickening of the blood platelets, the decline in electrical resistance across the surface membranes of vital tissue cells, the increasing alkalization of the subject’s body fluids. Still, there’s hope, still a spark of life left in the old boy, and it’s that spark I propose to capture and preserve! But only if we prepare to act now. Tomorrow, if not tonight.”

Stalin groaned softly and looked longingly into the kitchen. “Gentlemen, comrades, can I interest you in some mushroom soup?” Neither Astapov nor Vorobev replied. Astapov was just beginning to understand. Stalin said, “Look, professor, forgive a poor working man his ignorance. My dinner’s nearly ready. What we need to know is what preparations must be made to embalm Ilich after his death, if the Central Committee elects to do so. Comrade Astapov says that you’re a specialist and can tell us how to proceed.”

Vorobev thumped the table, rattling Stalin’s dishes.

“I
am
telling you! Embalm Ilich
after
his death and you’ll have a ruined corpse!”

The air in the room ignited, searing Astapov’s lungs and singeing his lips and eyes. The odor of the cooked mushrooms flooded his nostrils. But he was not surprised by Vorobev’s words. He
must have had a presentiment of them in Kharkov, or perhaps long before that, in a first-class rail coach leaving Tula.

Stalin’s eyes glittered, like chips of quartz in cement.

“I’ve prepared twelve liters of preserving fluid,” Vorobev said. “It must be gradually introduced into the subject’s arteries, while the heart is beating and while the capillaries are still soft and transparent to fluid. This is my most recent discovery, essential to preserving Ilich a year from now, a hundred years from now, even a thousand. But we have to begin this process today, or at least within the next two days.”

Astapov shut his eyes as if that would stop the pounding in his temples. When he opened them he saw Stalin again, almost imperceptibly rocking his head.

He hardly slept that night. He lay on his back, not smoking now, like a man who was…well, in some condition other than life. The decisive step had been taken long before: his leap onto history’s onrushing, infernally fuming, window-rattling locomotive. He suffered visions through the winter night, humanoid shadows in the room shuffling past his bed, their faces featureless but their eyes lit by wonder. Martial music played in the distance. Cold. The odor of fabric conditioner came back to him from across the years.

Several hours before dawn he noticed a figure standing statue-like at the foot of his bed, gazing down, wearing an expression of the utmost severity. The man wore a military tunic, undecorated. Astapov didn’t know how long he had been standing there.

“The tomb…” the man murmured.

“The tomb will be a crystal sarcophagus,” Astapov whispered, unable to move his limbs. “A five-sided case of glass, tinted an an
tiseptic, scientific pale green. It will be supported by classically molded bronze pillars. He will lie on a raised divan, in comfortable at-home attire, in contrast to the magnificence of his catafalque. He has dozed off while reading. A wan, concentrated beam of light will be cast on his body without illuminating the rest of the chamber, so that visitors will attend to him in nearly complete darkness. The only light will appear to belong to the body itself. By decree, the recorded music composed for this place will be an established part of the musical canon, played at all state and festive occasions. Every day a fresh bouquet of roses will be laid at his feet, left there by a medically certified virgin with an impeccable working-class family background.”

“The mausoleum…”

“The mausoleum will be constructed first in wood, then in stone,” Astapov continued, nearly singing. “Red granite and porphyry for communism, black labradorite as a sign of eternal mourning. The stone will be brought from quarries in every country of the world where there is an active Communist Party, legal or not. In Russia, the quarry that contributes its rock to the mausoleum will be designated a national monument. The mausoleum will be a perfect geometric structure, a truncated pyramid whose dimensions will be derived from the prime numbers, the calculation of pi to one thousand nine hundred and seventeen places, and the volumetric capacity of Ilich’s cranium.”

“The site…”

“Red Square. Against the Kremlin wall, near the Place of the Skull. All official processions and commemorations will parade before a reviewing stand located on the roof, the Party leaders meticulously arranged according to each man’s political power. The square will otherwise be closed to motor traffic. An honor guard consisting of designated military heroes will be issued its own uni
forms, drills, and legends. Selected workers and Party activists will receive the honor of passing through the mausoleum to pay their respects; the queues will extend for ten or twelve hours. That day will be the most memorable of their lives.”

“Streets…”

“Will be named in his honor. Cities too. Every province will have a city named for him. The old capital will take his name as well. The day of his death will be proclaimed a national holiday; children born on that day will be given his name and be celebrated forever as ‘the children of Ilich.’ His likeness shall be emblazoned on ashtrays, on tea cups, on plates, on rugs, on towels, on cigarette packs, on the shovels given to political prisoners, on bars of soap, on schoolbags, on pencil cases, on kerchiefs, on hats, on banners, on mountain peaks, on the cases of wireless radios, on cradles, on watch faces, on rifle stocks, on violin soundboards, on banknotes and ration coupons, on enamel and porcelain, on the prows of ships and the fuselages of aeroplanes. Songs will declare his love of nature.”

“And who will carry Ilich’s truth to the masses?”

“If Ilich is the wood, then he is the fire. If Ilich is the knife, then he is the cut. He’s the paper on which the ink dries, the hammer that seeks the anvil, the bullet in flight, a kiss. The man is the intent accomplished.”

After that, while the figure watched, Astapov fell into a deep sleep and did not wake until after dawn.

No one came to the Big House that day, a painfully dry, cloudless Monday, ice on everything everywhere, the air itself seemed made of ice, unbreathable. Something was going on in the other houses, their chimneys smoking furiously. Convocations. Conversions.
Conspiracies. Stalin was up to something. He was more dangerous when he couldn’t be seen.

And then in the late afternoon a procession emerged from the woods, as if from a funeral. Peering from behind the drapes, Krupskaya saw them punching their boots through the glazed snow up to the front of the house: that doctor from Kharkov, that boy Gribshin who called himself Astapov, and at the end Stalin. The doctor and the boy carried a large black trunk between them. Stalin followed at a good distance, only tagging along.

She called for Professor Koyevnikov, even though she no longer trusted him.

She lumbered down the stairs to meet them in the parlor and block their advance. The three visitors placed themselves in the center of the room, checked by her presence. No one said anything for a moment and then Stalin lunged, kissing her on a cheek that had not been rouged or powdered yet this century. She was paralyzed as if by venom. He cried, “Good afternoon, Nadezhda Konstantinovna!”

Krupskaya glared at the trunk, which she knew was the intended instrument of some new perfidy. Confused by grief, lack of sleep, and hatred of Stalin, she assumed that the trunk was empty. She suspected that Stalin, the bandit from the Caucasus, intended to have her husband abducted.

Professor Koyevnikov arrived unhurriedly. He called out, “Comrades, I’ve been waiting for you.”

The men ascended in close file, carrying the trunk to the second floor, where the oxygen ventilator sang its hissing song and Astapov thought he detected a particular sweetness in the air. Ilich was awake, as always, the same ghastly expression on his face as when Astapov and Vorobev had arrived from Kharkov. His eyes, though actively scanning the intruders, offered no evidence of rec
ognizing them. The observation that he had deteriorated even further was nearly more than Astapov could bear. Now Astapov was frightened—just
now
he was frightened? He tried to shake off the sentiment, but in the absence of Ilich’s conquering will, derived from his knowledge of the laws of history, the world had spun off its axis. Vorobev smiled coldly at his patient.

Krupskaya watched from the doorway as Vorobev opened his trunk. The doctor removed from it a cylindrical jar containing a radiant green liquid. He lifted it onto a rolling stand at the side of the bed and attached it to an intravenous drip apparatus. He hung the jar on the stand over the patient’s head. Ilich’s eyes divided their attention between him and Stalin, who was stationed in the most remote corner of the room, stroking his chin.

Krupskaya demanded, “What is that?”

“Medicine,” Stalin replied, more sharply than he had intended and much less plausibly.

Vorobev now gauged Ilich’s pulse and temperature, once more taking extra care to determine the measurements of his cranium. Although he did this in a seemingly mechanical, experienced, and professional way, his face was sweating and he breathed heavily. He too was aware, at last, that this was
Ilich.
He called off some numbers, which Koyevnikov entered into the notebook Vorobev had handed him. By some mysterious process Koyevnikov had become Vorobev’s assistant. Krupskaya became aware of a suffocating hush enveloping the already quiet room, in counterpoint to the screaming that ripped through her head. Vorobev was tapping Ilich’s veins.

“What are you doing?”

No one answered this time. Sweating heavily, Vorobev inserted the intravenous needle into the artery on Ilich’s left arm. Ilich didn’t flinch now. Koyevnikov’s face had gone dark. Once among
the most promising young doctors in the Empire, he realized now the poor bargain he had made with Stalin. As the flow began, Vorobev indicated a gauge attached to the drip.

“The initial setting for the preparation is two cc’s per minute. The preparation must be introduced as gradually as possible, while the subject’s pulse is being monitored. In his present condition, I estimate that this phase of the treatment will require from eight to ten minutes.”

Krupskaya interrupted: “What’s the preparation?”

“It’s for Ilich’s own good,” Stalin sternly declared, his patience exhausted.

“Liar!” Krupskaya shrieked.

She rushed at the apparatus, her hand reaching for the needle in her husband’s arm. Krupskaya was surprisingly fast for a woman so big. The nearest to her was Comrade Astapov, who at least for a few frames watched the scene as if in a cinema. You could almost hear the clicking of the sprockets against the holes at the film’s edges. Ilich, Krupskaya, Stalin: the heroes of the Revolution! But this was not a film, and Astapov had made his commitment long before. He caught her and received the momentum she was carrying, and the two tottered over the body of Ilich, who saw everything. She was shocked that of all the men in the room, it was Astapov who had stopped her.