The Incorrigible Optimists Club (56 page)

3

I
t was a vast, anonymous, three-storey block in the northern suburbs of Leningrad, ten minutes from the Devyatkino métro station. On a metal panel on the wall at the entrance read two lines: ‘Municipal Department – entry forbidden'. It had been rebuilt at the end of the war. No one would think of entering it or asking what went on there. Young people could be seen going in and leaving. They didn't have the usual gaiety and exuberance of students who shout and call out to one another at college doors. These were silent and discreet. It was an administrative building to judge by the red flag that hung at the end of a mast. For reasons unknown, a white band split the flag outside into two halves, which was why the place was nicknamed ‘the Red Banner', since it resembled the decoration of the same name. You entered through triple security doors. The interior was as austere as a Benedictine monastery and was partitioned like a prison. There were metal gates everywhere. Officials dressed in the uniform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs stood behind reinforced concrete sentry boxes. They checked the passes against their huge ledgers, and opened and closed the iron gates on arrival and departure by means of electric buttons, which they activated after twice carrying out inspections. Some people, though not many, were astonished on arrival by this wealth of precautions and pointed out to the wardens that they came past morning and evening and that it was pointless checking their authorizations every time. The wardens said nothing. Perhaps they were deaf or dumb? The students came to understand that the very first rule was silence. Delays sometimes meant that students' names were not mentioned on documents. The official made a phone call to someone who either authorized entry or did not. You quickly adapted to this rule. It meant time was wasted, but it guaranteed absolute security. Time was of no importance here. Security, on the other hand, was their profession. You entered classrooms according to the same procedure. The teacher
entered by a different door to the one the students used, activated from inside, which implied that there was a system of internal corridors which doubled the amount of access routes.

The day began with one hour of gym. The lessons started at seven in the morning and ended at midday, with a fifteen-minute break at ten o'clock. The students took their meals in a dining hall situated in the basement. The lessons, which were often practical exercises, started again at one o'clock and ended at seven in the evening. After dinner, there was another hour of physical activity. On Sundays the students were allowed to revise. In this place, the principles that governed the rest of the country did not apply. The staff was huge. The means were limitless. They were in an institute run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. There were two others, one in Moscow and one in Kiev. The Leningrad institute was the only one to include on its study programme such important subjects as propaganda, disinformation and manipulation. These were regulated by the Ministry's celebrated second division, which concerned itself with internal enemies. To be entitled to this teaching, you had to have passed highly selective exams during the first two years. This was the reason why the Red Banner had its reputation for excellence. Only the best students were given access to the best professors, who were not teachers, but experienced practitioners, some of whom carried out their principal activity in the south and west wings of the building. The top students in each year were entitled to express where they would like to be posted. With a little luck or a lot of connections, they would join the third or fourth bureau of this second division. The Propaganda department was considered the most prestigious. This meant that they never left the building. They entered and left by another door and would work under the authority of their professors until the day they replaced them.

Eight soldiers in uniform, and five men and three women between the ages of twenty and thirty were waiting for the photomontage class to begin. The door at the back opened, and Commandant Sacha Markish entered. Well disciplined, the students got to their feet, stood to attention and saluted. At the back of the room, a Staff-Sergeant operated a slide
projector, showing slides which corresponded to the point Sacha, on the podium, had reached in his talk. With a wooden stick, Sacha indicated the details that should be taken note of.

‘… Your work will consist in eliminating the enemies of the people from all photographs in which they appear: class or group photos, family reunions or banquets. We're not interested in individual photographs. They are destroyed. The person who has been sentenced must vanish completely. Not the slightest trace of his existence must remain. In order to falsify a photo, you can splice two images from the negatives and make them into one before enlarging them on the positive. It's a delicate operation that requires negatives having the same exposure and the same contrast. You have to create a game of hide-and-seek to make up the two images. On the first negative, you colour in the person whom you wish to remove, on the second: you do the reverse. You expose the positive with the two negatives one after the other; since the coloured portions have no effect on the negative, the two collated parts will be brought together. In this way you remove from the photo the person who shouldn't be there. The film used should have a coarser texture than the original. It will conceal the fine grain and the image will be clearer. In certain cases, I will teach you how to use sulphite solutions; it's simpler. Frequently, we don't have the negatives. The easiest way is to work on the developed photograph. With a sharp scalpel, you make an incision, meticulously following the contours of the person or face to be got rid of. In order to stop yourself shaking, you can place your hand on a pencil laid sideways. With the help of a tube of glue, you superimpose the cut-outs. You just need to put a little paint or ink on the joined up bits and background for the illusion to be complete. Before sticking it down, colour the cutout paper thoroughly. If the person needs to be placed against a grey or black setting, you should paint the background with an identical colour, otherwise you will have a white edge that will be detectable. For a good job and to hide imperfections, use the airbrush. A compressor squirts a light drop of ink through a spray gun operated by a compressed air cylinder whose flow you control. The paint should be thinned as much as possible and the pressure must be as low as possible. Once again, you
have to go from the palest to the darkest colour and not hesitate to use a mask. The finer the spray, the better the result. This enables you to obtain impressions of aging, staining, shadows, light effects or movement. It is recommended that you apply several layers and shade them off. You can also spray the person or object on the photo directly, but you need practice. You will obtain slightly ethereal and unreal effects. We shall see how this can be significant in some cases. It is recommended you wear a mask and glasses to avoid spray projected by the solvents. The finishing-off near the borders and joins must be done by hand and with a brush. It is vital that this retouched photograph be converted into a negative. There is a twofold benefit: this will enable it to be reproduced ad infinitum, and it will prove its existence. If you have done everything meticulously and skilfully, no one can prove the negative is false. Why?…'

Sacha questioned his students. His gaze went from one to another. They were struck dumb and searched for the answer. They looked down and consulted their notes without finding the solution.

‘Why?… You haven't understood a thing, you bunch of idiots! Because a negative is always true! It's what has been exposed over it that has been adjusted. Thanks to your contribution, questions as to its veracity will not be asked. What is true is what you see! Now, you must ask yourself about the usefulness of this photo, its political significance. What message do you wish to get over? If it's a matter of sticking on a double chin, or a roll of flesh, or a wrinkle, the work must be invisible, like that of the retouchers in Hollywood. You can replace hair that has disappeared with age, make grey hair dark, you can wipe out the ravages of time. It is not acceptable for unflattering photos of our leaders to appear in the newspapers. Retouching a lined, pockmarked or puffy face, removing spots or getting rid of scars, requires experience. They must be credible and reassuring. The subject must not look younger, he must simply age more slowly than us. Ideally, one adds a smile or a glint in the eye. Our department has been blamed for producing conspicuous, even crude retouches. It's a technical and practical application of historical materialism. I have often been asked to restore photos that have been touched up perfectly and to make the retouching blatant. We could have done it artistically, like genuine
forgers, and no one would have seen a thing. But it's about sending out a clear message: this is what happens to traitors! They disappear. They are eradicated. As though they had never existed. Those photos that are faked crudely are intentional. It encourages friends and relatives to follow the right example, to demonstrate their affection for the revolution by mutilating photos of traitors themselves, by removing them from family albums and from drawing room frames. How many thousands of women have erased their arrested husbands or brothers? How many sons have expunged their fathers for ever? All that remains of them are shadows, holes, voids, hacked out by a razor. At best, a hand, a shoulder, a boot: not much. In this way they prove what side they are on and their lives are safe. Otherwise, how can one forgive them for having married an enemy of the people? How can one trust the son of a scoundrel? Those who forget to tidy up must disappear. Keeping photographs of an enemy is a proof of guilt. In our schools, children are taught by their teachers to use scissors to cut out criminals who have not yet been removed from schoolbooks. When one is young, one understands better, and the new generations will be more efficient. In the end, the only photos that will remain of those who have disappeared will be those that we have taken full-face and profile. The moment they are placed under arrest, we do a clear-out. We retrieve photographs, letters, exercise books, notebooks, pieces of identity and we burn everything in the boilers at the ministry. Not a single trace of our enemies must remain. We can't be satisfied with killing them. Their names must be obliterated. No one will remember them. They shall have lost and we shall have won. It's the ultimate sanction. Their books are removed from the libraries. Their thoughts no longer exist. Neither must we forget to remove the books of enemies who fought against them. Had Trotsky not existed, the anti-Trotskyites would have no reason to survive.'

4

W
hen Colonel Yakonov put down the phone, his hand was shaking and he was sweating. You didn't receive a threatening call at night from your minister without having palpitations. How could this business have got back to Moscow without his having been informed of it by his department? He was certain of only one thing. It was not an accident. This did not happen in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or in the Ministry for State Security any more than it did in the time of the NKVD troikas or the State Political Directorate, and neither would it happen in any future ministry should he live long enough to see it. You did not spend a thirty-year career in Soviet security departments, living through the turnarounds, party lines and alliances, purges and coteries, without mastering the basic rules of survival. He would deal with this malfunctioning later. It was time for the right decision. He had a few moments in which to make it. His life depended on it. When Abakumov, who only received his orders from the Little Father of the Peoples in person, took the trouble to speak to you for twenty minutes on the phone, giving you details that you were supposed to know, you might be regarded as an imbecile or an incompetent, which was not in itself a handicap if you wished to survive in this administration. When he employed this icy, sepulchral tone and ended the conversation with an ambiguous: ‘I give you forty-eight hours to rectify this matter', it was a bad sign. You didn't need to have studied at length to know that the countdown had begun. He picked up his phone.

‘It's Yakonov. Is Commandant Markish in the building or has he left the department?'

‘One moment, Colonel, I'll check… Commandant Markish is at his post.'

He hung up. He felt ill at ease. Yakonov was an instinctive man. He sensed and he knew. He had no degrees. He had risen through the ranks and had climbed to the top. This sixth sense was his strength. He owed his
rise to it as well as his escape from the numerous traps into which his superiors and colleagues had fallen. He had known Sacha Markish for a long time. They were not friends. You didn't have any when you worked at the MVD or the MGB. Only old acquaintances, fellow-survivors. There were not many officials of this rank who had over twenty-five years' length of service. Markish was a conscientious and honest officer. Yakonov would have staked his life on his being innocent and not having done anything wrong, and it was a waste of time investigating him. You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of those who worked until ten o'clock at night without being obliged to do so. But he wasn't being asked for his opinion. They required a result. Too bad for him. Markish would not be the first or the last to be reprimanded for nothing. Did he have a choice? It was his neck or that of the head of the photomontage department of the fourth bureau of the second division of the ministry. He had to play his cards close to his chest. Markish was too experienced to allow himself to be caught in the usual traps. He grabbed hold of the Aeroflot file, which would give him an excuse to justify his arrival and would allay any suspicion. He summoned two sergeants from the security department and ordered them to accompany him. They could be useful for the arrest. Yakonov could not risk any mistake.

In the photographic laboratory, lit by a faint yellow light bulb, Sacha, who was wearing a grey apron, was bent over a group photograph. About fifteen men and women in white coats were spread out over three steps in front of a wooden building. It looked like a gathering of doctors and nurses. It might have been the Tarnovsky Hospital on a fine June day. With their hands in their pockets, they were smiling and relaxed. Some of them had cigarettes at their lips, others had their arms round their neighbours' shoulder. Igor Markish appeared on the second step, third from the left, with a stethoscope round his neck, a cigarette in his right hand, which he was holding up, as if he had just removed it from his mouth, and his left hand on Nadejda's shoulder, who was also smiling, her hair blowing in the breeze. Sacha put a magnifying glass to his right eye. Igor's face appeared, enlarged. He picked up a scalpel and checked
the tip, which he stuck into the collar of Igor's coat. He drew it along the neck, cutting out the face. The incision was so fine it was invisible. The blade slid down the coat as far as the step and was then turned in the opposite direction. He lifted up the photograph and pressed on the cut-out part, which dropped out. Igor's silhouette lay on the board. Sacha opened a shoebox. He put his hand inside and brought out dozens of cutout faces. He chose five, which he positioned behind the photograph, in place of Igor's face. He grimaced slightly. He brought out other faces and tried again. None of them was suitable. He put the cut-out faces back in the box. He placed the photograph on a marble plate and, with the scalpel, cut it widthways. He set about cropping the two sides without Igor. He scraped and he brushed, removed an overlapping foot, and aligned the two sections. With a fine brush, he pieced them together, adjusted them until everything fitted, and he breathed over the glue. He took a slightly thicker brush, which he dipped into a pot of white paint. He covered the splicing with a steady stroke. With another brush, which he inserted into a tube of black paint, he set about reconstructing the wooden step and the side of the door that featured in the background. When he stood up straight, the two parts of the photograph were joined together. The door was at the right distance. The step was replaced. Nadejda had her hand on another doctor's shoulder. He placed the reconstructed photo on an upright easel and switched on several lights, which he arranged to create a cross-effect. He regulated the speed and distance on a box Rolleiflex and took several pictures. He took hold of the photograph. He picked up a cardboard folder and slipped the two prints inside: the original and the retouched version. He opened an enormous black register and, following on from the last name, he wrote in Cyrillic characters over ten columns on both pages. He closed the register which he put back in its place in the filing area where dozens of metal shelves about three metres high, open on both sides, stored the thousands of grey cardboard folders with straps around them, each with its label on the edge. He was about to file Igor's dossier away when he heard knocking at the door.

‘Who is it?' he asked.

‘It's me, Yakonov.'

He unlocked the door. Yakonov came in on his own, a folder under his arm.

‘You seem surprised, Sacha Emilievitch?'

‘You don't often come here, Anton Nikolaïeveitch. Especially at such an hour. What's going on?'

‘Can't you guess?'

‘About what?'

‘It's your brother.'

‘Igor?'

Yakonov nodded, without replying.

‘What's happened to him?'

‘Don't you know?'

‘We're not on good terms, as you know.'

‘He managed to escape before his arrest.'

‘I didn't know. I'm not in touch with my family any more.'

‘Really?'

‘We haven't seen one another for years. Once, we bumped into each other by chance, at the reopening of the Kirov. We hardly exchanged three words. He's never forgiven me for standing up for my country and belonging to the NKVD.'

‘He's escaped! He's disappeared! Do you realize what that means?'

‘I'm not responsible for my brother. I parted company from him a long time ago.'

‘He received a phone call warning him of his arrest.'

‘I had no idea he was going to be arrested. How would I have known? You know very well that a decision like this is not up to our department. And even if I had heard about it, I would have had no reason, no interest, no desire to warn him. You know my loyalty, Anton Nikolaïevitch.'

‘The nurse who took the call wasn't able to tell us whether it was a man or a woman. She had the impression it was a woman.'

‘Ah, you see.'

‘You could have found a woman to make the call.'

‘Who would pass on a message like this?'

‘Your wife.'

‘My wife is six months pregnant. Do you think I'd let her run such a risk? You'd have to be crazy! They can get themselves arrested, him and his lot, for all I care.'

‘At the moment he received this call, you were out of the building. You could have distorted your voice.'

‘You know me. If I had made this call, I would have arranged to have an alibi.'

‘There's a doubt. And in our country, a doubt is a certainty.'

‘You know who I am. You know what I've done. I was recruited in 1927 and I've given a thousand proofs of loyalty to the regime.'

‘One more is required, Sacha Emilievitch.'

‘What more can I do?'

‘Give evidence at the Doctors and Nurses trial.'

‘I'm not a doctor. What would I testify to?'

‘To your brother's guilt and that of others charged. To the fact that these doctors were plotting against the regime and were preparing to get rid of several important people who trusted them with their treatment. Their leader was preparing to poison our First Secretary in person. You could say that you overheard conversations, that you carried out your own investigation and that you informed your superiors of the result of your enquiries.'

‘I see no objection. I've told you that we had broken off all relationships. That means that this man is no longer my brother. One has no right to betray one's country.'

‘You would be ready to testify? At the trial? In Moscow?'

‘Of course, Anton Nikolaïevitch. It's the duty of each one of us to expose traitors.'

‘Are you quite sure?'

‘As you've often said: we are soldiers, we fight and we obey orders.'

‘I'm going to refer this back to the top level. Abakumov thought you wouldn't agree. I'll call him tomorrow morning. He'll be pleased. This decision will make life easier for us. There wasn't much evidence in the folder. I'm relieved that you're taking things this way. It's a weight off my shoulders.'

‘Does the fact that I'm a commandant in the Ministry of Internal Affairs not risk making my testimony less convincing in the eyes of the judges?'

‘The important thing is that you're his brother and that you'll give evidence spontaneously, without constraints. We'll discuss it again tomorrow. Ah, I forgot: the Aeroflot file has come back. There were some omissions.'

Sacha took the bound folder and looked carefully at a note attached to it.

‘I see, the folder was dealt with by the second branch. This incident will not occur again. I'll deal with it immediately.'

‘Another day won't make a difference.'

‘I must correct the department's error. I'll adjust it right away.'

‘Ah, if only everyone had your professional conscientiousness, Sacha Emilievitch, things would be better in this country,' said Yakonov as he left the laboratory.

For reasons impossible to fathom, following some rigging or unfortunate confusion, or a series of human errors or incompetence, the winner of the 1948 Aeroflot staff chess tournament always featured in a photograph in which competitors were shown wearing their pilots or stewards uniforms, or in their civilian clothes. This individual should have disappeared from the group portrait several years ago. He was standing in the front row. The president of the company was awarding him the winner's cup. The appended note, which came from the director of internal security in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, provided no information about the offence committed or the verdict. It stated that the declared winner was the person who came second. It was logical that the original winner should be made to disappear on ideological grounds. It was a complicated job. If he had had the time, Sacha would have cut out the silhouette of this Leonid Krivoshein and shifted a row of twenty or so people from left to right. But he hadn't a minute to spare. He made do with cutting out a square containing the man's face. He groped around in the shoebox for some anonymous person to replace him. He couldn't find any face that fitted. He smiled, took out his wallet and pulled his party card out. He removed his passport-sized photograph in which he was shown full-face, wearing
his MVD cap, and he stuck it down in place of the face that had been removed. He added a few dabs of black paint with his brush. It belonged to a different period and was not touched up, but it would not be the first or the last time a photograph had been tampered with so as to be not what it seemed. He sealed the note with the department's red rubber stamp, signed it and scribbled down: ‘Photo: the head of department of the fourth bureau', and placed the folder in the ‘Return to sender' pigeon-hole. He took off his grey apron. From a drawer, he picked out a couple of dozen notebooks and exercise books. He placed them in a bag which he stuck on his shoulder and put on his officer's uniform jacket and his overcoat. No one could see that he had concealed something beneath his coat. He put on his cap, switched off the light and left the laboratory for ever.

For reasons equally incomprehensible, this photograph continued on its journey. It was printed in the Aeroflot catalogue, which was distributed for the 1952 tournament. Nobody asked a single question about this officer with the impenetrable expression who was holding the 1948 cup. Sacha wanted to leave a memento before his departure. For him, it was a reckless little joke, a derisory wink. He could never have imagined that this photograph would pursue him all his life and would earn him Leonid's unremitting hatred.