On the stairs, he ran into Galina, who had also come to collect her paycheck.

“Hello, Pidge,” he said gloomily. “Did you get your check? How about lunch in the canteen to celebrate? My treat.”

There was no point trying to economize; he would still end up in debt before the month was out.

3

The canteen was in one of the basement rooms, and they had to cross the yard to get to it. On the other side of the yard, beyond a wooden fence, was the OGPU’s holding prison, its windows partially screened with plywood panels. A guard was posted at the gate and beside him stood a battered Black Maria van, its doors wide open. The driver—a young, dark-browed man by the name of Ibrahim—jumped out as they passed.

Alov shook his hand. “How’s it going?”

“I was working the night shift,” said Ibrahim. “Wish I could sleep, but I can’t. Got to clean up the car.”

Alov peered inside the van—the floor, which had clearly been hurriedly wiped, was covered with brownish smears.

“Is that blood?” Galina gasped.

“Oh, no, Miss,” said Ibrahim with a smirk. “That’s fruit juice.”

“Have you been beating someone again?”

Alov was annoyed at Galina acting the innocent when she had no qualms about accepting her OGPU paycheck or the vouchers for the organization’s cooperative store.

Alov pulled at her arm. “Come on. Let’s go. Otherwise, all the pies will have gone from the canteen.”

Galina trailed obediently after him. Alov was sure she was already lost in some idiotic daydream: she was probably wondering about who had been arrested the night before and what he had done.

As they climbed the worn entrance steps, Galina could control herself no longer.

“I don’t see why people have to be beaten when they’re arrested,” she burst out. “We’re not savages after all!”

“We’re surgeons. Spilling blood is part of what we do,” growled Alov. “If nobody took it upon themselves to operate, our society would die from hidden diseases.” He stopped and fixed Galina with a stern gaze. “You do see that, don’t you?”

She nodded hurriedly. “Of course I do.”

They entered a large echoing hall with tiled walls. All the tables were already occupied, but Alov was given a reserved place on the condition that they eat quickly before any of the management arrived.

A minute later, the waitress, Ulyana, came up to their table.

“What can I get for you today? We have rice and sausages. But the vodka and pies are gone. The Special Department finished the last of them this morning.”

Ulyana’s full lips were painted a bloodred, and her low-cut dress showed off her plump breasts and spectacular cleavage to full advantage.

Alov squinted across at Galina; beside Ulyana, she looked like some pale yellow moth beside a peacock butterfly. And not so long ago, Galina had been a good-looking girl herself, he thought. Where had it all gone?

She needs feeding up, thought Alov, and with a heavy sigh, he ordered a double portion of sausages.

When Ulyana had flitted away, Galina moved closer to Alov. “Listen, I was wondering, could you find out if we have a file on a certain woman? Her name’s Nina Kupina.”

Immediately, Alov remembered the young lady with the camera he had seen that day of the parade on the 7th of November. The Chinese guests on the tribune had recognized her; they had told him she was a White émigré from Shanghai. But at the time, all the OGPU officers had been taken up with the Trotsky supporters, and Alov had forgotten all about her.

“And what is she to you?” he asked Galina.

“Well, she’s my… friend’s neighbor, and she was asking, you see—”

“Pidge,” said Alov gently, “I can see right through you. You’re a terrible liar. Who’s been asking you about this Nina Kupina?”

Galina looked at him sheepishly. “He asked me not to tell anyone.”

“And who is he?”

As usual, it did not take long for Galina to cave in under pressure.

“Klim Rogov asked me to find out. But you mustn’t think anything of it. He’s on our side. He takes a very objective view of things… at least for the most part—”

Alov began to drum on the table with his fingers.

Very interesting, he thought. Both Klim Rogov and Nina Kupina had lived in Shanghai, and they clearly knew one another. What might this mean?

4

After lunch, Alov took Galina into his office and asked her to wait a minute. He told her he was going to check the archive, but instead, he headed to the office of a group of employees he referred to jokingly as “Their Royal Highnesses.” These women were all from aristocratic families and knew several languages. Their job was to read through all the foreign papers and magazines to keep an eye on what was being written about the Soviet Union and by whom. Alov had specially picked out widows with children for the job, and they were among some of the most responsible employees of the OGPU. They were so afraid of losing their jobs that they would go to any lengths to please their employers.

“Do you have the file on Klim Rogov?” Alov asked Diana Mikhailovna, a tall woman of fortyish, her hair piled into an old-fashioned bun on top of her head.

“We’ve just been adding a new cutting to it from an English paper,” she answered. “Have a look at this.”

Alov began to read.

In the space of the last ten years, the soldiers of the revolution have grown slowly older and more infirm, and now, they have begun to stare death in the face—not a heroic death on the battlefield but the most ordinary passing away in a hospital bed. Now that the romance of their youth has come to nothing, the Bolshevik leaders have begun to succumb feverishly to every temptation forbidden them. After all, the specter of communism may remain forever out of reach; must they forgo all life’s pleasures in the meantime?

The members of the old guard have acquired beautiful young wives, elegantly furnished apartments, German automobiles, and French wines.

It is both sad and comical to compare the grand aims of the Bolsheviks with the reality to which they are now resigned. They dreamed of building a society in which everybody would have more than enough, but it seems they are incapable of doing more than feathering their own nests.

Alov was less surprised at the tone of the article than he was at the brazen cheek shown by its author. Klim Rogov had signed the piece with his own name.

“What’s the matter with the man?” he asked. “Is he out of his mind?”

Diana Mikhailovna shrugged her stately shoulders. “I suppose he didn’t think we’d read it.”

Alov took Klim Rogov’s file. According to the completed form, Rogov had emigrated from Russia some time before the revolution and received American citizenship and had spent several years in China. A few months ago, he had come back to the country of his birth as a tourist and found work with the United Press agency. That was all the information they had on him.

Alov stamped Rogov’s file with the words “enemy journalist.” Inadvertently, this reporter had hit a raw nerve with this article. Alov could recall how, as an impassioned young man, he had felt nothing but contempt for the hard-hearted, immoral, corrupt old bureaucrats he had seen around him. For him, these men were symbolic of the bourgeoisie that had to be wiped from the face of the earth. And now, he had become just like one of them, the only difference being that while the Tsar’s officials had been well-off, Alov was condemned to a life of unrelenting poverty.

Alov never showed his feelings in front of “Their Royal Highnesses,” but with Galina, he had no such qualms.

“What is this?” he yelled from the doorway, flinging the newspaper cutting in her face. “Why didn’t you keep a closer watch on this Rogov? How could he have sent this article to London?”

Galina burst into tears on the spot. “I don’t know!” she wailed.

“Oh, you don’t know!” Alov mimicked sarcastically. “You mean you don’t know how to do your job? Do you think we’re paying you to do nothing? I want you to get to the bottom of this. I want to know everything about this Rogov—who his friends are, where he goes, and what’s between him and Kupina! Is that clear?”

Galina sniffed. “I’ll try. So, we do have a file on her, do we?”

“No, we don’t! Now get out, and don’t you dare come back without something to show for yourself.”

Ten minutes later, there was already a file on Nina Kupina: Alov opened a new one, noting down his impressions from his own encounter with her and what he had heard from the Chinese people with whom she had crossed the Soviet border.

It was all a bit flimsy, but Alov decided that from now on, he would be on the alert and keep a close watch on Klim Rogov and his young lady friend.

5 BOOK OF THE DEAD

Galina brought me two pieces of news, one good and one bad. The good news is that the OGPU doesn’t have a file on Nina. The bad news is that now I have been labeled an “enemy journalist.”

Galina was so upset on my behalf that she started to cry. “Why did you do it? Now they’re going to make life difficult for you in every way they can!”

She asked me how I had managed to get the article out of the country, but I lost my temper and sent her away.

I feel sorry for her; really I do—I know she’s only trying to protect me, but her persistent solicitude drives me crazy.

I went to the censors’ office to find out how much trouble I’m in and what they’re planning to do about it.