Elvira Baryakina - The Prince of the Soviets

Nina heard the door creak and saw Gloria standing on the threshold.

“Here, take this,” the old woman said. “I’ve made a likeness of you.” She held out a pot decorated with eyes with handles for ears and curls around the top.

Nina looked inside the pot. There was a tiny mousetrap with a piece of sheep’s cheese.

“That’s what’s in your head at the moment,” said Gloria. “If you don’t like it, you can put something else inside.”

It is true, Nina realized, horrified. All she thought about, regarding Klim, were lures and traps. I wanted to deceive Klim and at Kitty’s expense. What kind of prize I am being a schemer like that?

Gloria was watching Nina’s face with amusement. “Have fun tonight,” she said, closing the door behind her.

Nina could not get to sleep. She was itching to do something, to make some momentous decision, and to act completely differently from now on.

She pondered for a long time what she might put into the pot as a symbol of her new life but had still not thought of anything when she began to doze off.

In the morning, she saw that Kitty had filled the pot with her spillikins.

1

Ever since Klim had left, Galina had felt weak and listless as if all the life had drained out of her. Something very wrong was going on: Klim had sent Kitty off God knows where with God knows who, and Galina had only received a single telegram from Arkhangelsk: “Away on leave. Will call on return.”

She could forget her ideas of a dacha outside Moscow or a trip to the South. And it seemed she had sent her daughter to Leningrad for nothing. Still, Tata was not complaining: she had joined the Young Pioneers and was in seventh heaven.

While “Mr. Prince” was away on his work assignment, Kapitolina had started up an illegal trade in dairy produce, smuggling in butter, cream, and milk from the countryside. Her customers were all close to hand on the ground floor of the building. The League of Time had been evicted, and now, instead of penniless students, respectable members of the organization Proletkult had taken up residence there. Their job was to destroy the old aristocratic and bourgeois culture and create a new, proletarian one. This meant attending art exhibitions and theater performances to ensure that the work on offer reflected the class struggle, collectivism, and solidarity among the laboring masses. The Proletkult employees had plenty of money as the government regarded their work as highly important and funded it lavishly.

Kapitolina was weighing out bags of curd cheese on a spring scale.

“Galina, you’ll never guess what!” she said. “I put a love charm on this man I know, a machine operator. I said a special prayer I learned from a wise woman—it’s called a ‘sticking charm.’”

It turned out that the machine operator had already taken Kapitolina to the cinema twice and once even treated her to sunflower seeds.

“You have to look at a photograph when you say the prayer,” Kapitolina instructed Galina. “My Terentiy is on the Wall of Honor right next to the factory entrance, so I went up to it, waited till I heard the church bell chime, and said,

Dead one, rise upon this hour.

Give to me your cursed power.

Let God’s servant, Terentiy, be

now and ever bound to me.

Neither eat nor sleep shall he,

Suffer him my face to see.

This word is the lock that binds,

And the devil has the key.

Amen, amen, amen!”

“And you think it worked?” asked Galina doubtfully.

“I’m certain of it. There was another photograph on the Wall of Honor, an old fellow called Arkadiy Ivanovich, a foreman. And now he’s started giving me the eye. So, it worked on him too.”

When Kapitolina went out, Galina stood for a while in the corridor in a state of indecision. To practice witchcraft was a desperate step, she told herself. But the temptation was too great, and in the end, she went to look for a photograph of Klim.

Kitty had an album in which she kept postcards and photographs. Galina remembered that among them were one or two snapshots of Klim taken for official documents. On opening the album, however, she was thrown into confusion when she discovered a picture of a woman she recognized—the woman who had come to visit Klim and who had gotten a job at Elkin’s store afterward.

Galina stared for some time at the stranger. Where had this photograph come from? Why had Kitty put it in her album?

Galina turned the picture over and was still more amazed to see the name “Nina Kupina” scored out and over it, in Klim’s handwriting, the words “Mrs. Reich.”

So, this was the woman he had tried to find out about. The same woman who had stayed a night with him and seemed to have completely shattered his peace of mind.

Who was she? There was something very familiar about that surname, Reich, but Galina could not remember where she had heard it before.

She took Nina’s photograph as well as Klim’s so that she could cast a spell on both of them. Having resolved on the sinful course of action, she felt she had nothing to lose.

2

Galina wrapped Nina’s picture in paper, and the next time she went in to the Lubyanka, she asked Ibrahim to put it into the pocket of one of the dead prisoners. This was the best way to get rid of a rival—the main thing was for the dead man to take the picture to the grave with him, or if that wasn’t possible, to the crematorium.

Ibrahim was only too happy to oblige. He often helped to load dead bodies onto the meat wagon, and it was easy for him to carry out Galina’s request.

She thanked him and ran off to see Alov.

“Well, is your employer back yet?” he asked and then began to complain of how he and Dunya were fed up of being cooped up in a corner in the room belonging to Valakhov, the Drachenblut’s assistant.

Back in the civil war days, Valakhov had managed to secure a large room for himself in the former lawyer’s apartment. But he had too many square meters of living space, and during one of the many campaigns against bourgeois values, he had been forced to “consolidate.”

He had registered Alov as a tenant, and then Alov had brought along his young wife. The old friends had fallen out so completely that they could no longer stand the sight of one another. Valakhov had no success with women, and it was galling for him to see Alov, old and ill as he was, enjoying a personal life while he did not.

Galina still felt awkward that she had taken the room on Bolshoi Kiselny Lane.

“Maybe you should ask Drachenblut to put you on the housing list?” she suggested, but Alov pulled a face.

“I’ve asked him a hundred times already.”

He took his amber beads out of his sleeve and began to count them off one by one.

“Drachenblut has ordered us to prepare ourselves for a purge,” Alov said. “After that, there is bound to be some free living space, so we have to redouble our efforts. Do you have any news?”

Galina shrugged. “I met Seibert the other day. He’s just back from Archangelsk, and he asked me to go to the casino with him.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him to get lost. I think he’s angry with Klim about some article he wrote.”

Alov tossed the beads up and caught them. “Pidge, I think you should agree to go out with him.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Galina said, taken aback. “It’s not me he’s after. He just has a score to settle with Klim.”

Alov looked at her sternly. “Don’t go putting on airs! Just do as you’re told. Go with him to casino and listen to what he has to say. Maybe you’ll find out something useful.”

He took a voucher for the OGPU shop from his pocket and handed it to Galina. “Here—take this. You can get Tata some felt boots for the winter. And don’t cry! We all have to serve the Revolution in whatever way we can.”

On the way back out, Galina met Ibrahim again.

“I did what you asked,” he reported. “They just took three of ‘em down to the crematorium.”

Galina thanked him and hurried off. So, now, the deed was done. All that remained was to read out the prayer for the “sticking charm.” But where should she do it? Churches were closing down one after another, and if one stayed open, the priests did their best not to draw attention to it.

Galina skirted the Kremlin and set off along the bank of the Moscow River. The golden dome of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior gleamed far away in the setting sun.

The bells would almost certainly ring there, she thought. After all, it was such a huge cathedral that nobody would ever try to close it, surely.

Galina walked slowly toward the shining dome as if toward her own death. She was ready for hell and endless torment if only Klim would love her!

The chiming of a bell rang out over the river. This was it! Galina took out the piece of paper in which she had wrapped Klim’s photograph, and a moment later, she froze in horror.

In her hand was the photograph of Nina Kupina. She had given Klim’s photograph to Ibrahim by mistake.

3

Galina met Seibert under the gleaming clock in the square by the Triumphal Arch. It was drizzling, and Seibert held a large umbrella over her head.

“Don’t be embarrassed—take my arm,” he said. “My dear, your perfume is delightful.”

Galina had never worn perfume in her life. The only smell that might have clung to her was that of the boiled cabbage she had made for dinner.