Elvira Baryakina - The Prince of the Soviets

They sat in the waiting room for another hour before they were called into the booth again.

“So, what’s going on?” Seibert kept asking impatiently.

Galina held the receiver to her ear with her shoulder and took a notebook and pencil from Seibert.

“Hello, Moscow!” shouted the distant voice. “Murmansk has received your message. All hands are on full alert!”

Seibert could tell from Galina’s horrified face that something quite unexpected had happened. She threw down the receiver and left the booth without a word.

“Wait!” wailed Seibert. “What did he say?”

But Galina was not listening; she was already heading for the door.

It was dead of night, and the streets were deserted with only the odd horse-driven cab rattling past once in a while.

Seibert clutched at Galina’s sleeve. “Could you please just tell me what happened?”

“It was a bad line,” she told him. “They misheard me in Murmansk. They thought I had told them that ships were on their way from Norway. They thought the call from Moscow was to warn them of an attack. The whole town is on alert.”

Seibert’s jaw dropped. “Still,” he began slowly, “I think we might be all right. After all, they probably didn’t hear my name.”

“Your name is on the check,” said Galina. “You paid for the telephone call.”

“But they heard a woman’s voice!”

Seibert took a large handkerchief from his pocket, took off his hat, and mopped his bald head.

“Galina…”

“What?”

“Let’s go back to my place. Lieschen isn’t at home. She’s gone to see her parents, and we can—”

Galina gave a stiff little laugh. “You don’t even care to find out whether I like you or whether I have other plans.”

Seibert hesitated a moment. “Nobody ever asked you about that sort of thing. Even your oh-so-wonderful Klim Rogov.”

“Unlike some, he’s not a womanizer or a liar,” retorted Galina.

“He lies to you far more than I do,” said Seibert. “If you actually listened and thought carefully about what he says, you’d realize that he’s no American and has never been to New York in his life.”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“Just try asking him what side of the road they drive on in the States—he’ll tell you they drive on the left. He calls the New York subway “the underground” like in London, and he can’t name two stations if you ask him.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing!”

“Is that so? Then ask him what were the most popular songs when he lived over there or who were the most famous actresses in the city or who stood for election as governor or president. Go and ask him about all the little things that a person would only know if he’d actually lived in New York. Ask him what Ellis Island is! He has no idea that it’s a gateway for immigrants coming to New York.”

“Do you think he has a fake passport?” Galina asked, trembling inside.

“Of course he does.”

“Go to hell!” Galina shouted and went running off.

Her head was spinning. The curse she had put on Klim had already started to take effect.

Could he be a spy? But who was he working for? What was he trying to find out? And why had he made such a poor job of disguising his identity?

Galina collapsed feebly onto some steps and hid her face in her hands. I don’t care why you came to the Soviet Union, she thought. I still love you.

That dirty scoundrel, Seibert! He hadn’t been trying to lure Galina away from Klim; instead, he had hoped that she would report what he said to her boss at the OGPU. Klim was beginning to be seen as the top foreign expert on Soviet Russia, and Seibert wanted to get him out of the way.

Galina clenched her fists. “He’ll be sorry he ever got me involved in his little schemes!” she said to herself.

In the morning, she came in to the Lubyanka and wrote a report in which she stated that Seibert had put together a network of agents that included the employees of the Radio Broadcast company. They had arranged an act of military sabotage at Murmansk with the aim of creating instability and wasting government resources.

Alov was over the moon and told Galina that she could expect a bonus.

5

Galina was doing the washing. It was high time she boiled the bed linen, which was already gray. The tenants used a primus stove for cooking, but to heat up water in the tub that was big enough to hold sheets, she had to use the range, which used up a stack of coal at a time.

The frugal Mitrofanych had asked to heat up a small panful of soup on the range and offered Galina the use of his washing line in the bathroom in return—as it was his day to dry laundry there.

He took out a loaf wrapped in a cloth and carefully cut off two pieces. Galina thought he was going to treat her to a slice, but after thinking a while, he sighed deeply and put both pieces in his pocket.

“Who’d have thought we’d live to see times like these,” he said ruefully. “There was a riot at the labor exchange today—and all because of the Jews.”

He began to sing a popular song, which Galina had heard several times before from beggars on the street:

The USSR has got it bad—

There’s no flour for our bread,

And there a no yid without a job,

No job without a yid.

“What have the Jews got to do with it?” snapped Galina, annoyed. “The police are rounding up seasonal workers and sending them out of Moscow by the trainload. That’s why they’re rioting.”

“A likely story!” Mitrofanych snorted. “And who put them up to it? I’d like to know. A true Russian never riots—not for anything.”

He tested the soup and took his pan from the range.

“Make sure you don’t leave any hairs in the tub. Last time, your Tata didn’t clear up after herself. It’s irresponsible—that’s what it is.”

Galina looked him up and down gloomily.

I wish I was at home with Klim, she thought for the hundredth time.

But Klim had gone somewhere far away, and without him, the apartment in Chistye Prudy felt like an abandoned nest.

The more Galina thought about what Seibert had told her, the more convinced she became that he was telling the truth. Klim definitely had some secret life of his own. It was the only explanation for his sudden disappearances, for all the things he left unsaid, and for the strange connection with Mrs. Reich.

Galina felt dizzy just thinking about it. She went over everything she knew about Klim. Most of all, she was bothered by what he had once said about his “native town of Nizhny Novgorod.” There was something odd there!

Galina rinsed out the sheets, hung up the washing, and, quite worn out, went to her room.

Mitrofanych’s door was open. He had already finished his soup and was now deeply engrossed in the paper.

“This is quite a puzzle I’ve got here,” he said when he saw Galina. “‘Using just four cuts of the scissors, divide the picture into eight pieces, which, when put together, will make up a picture of the greatest enemy of the working people.’ How should I cut it, I wonder.”

“Do you have a cigarette?” asked Galina plaintively.

Mitrofanych took out a packet of Kazbek cigarettes and, choosing the most crumpled, held it out to Galina.

“I thought you’d given up smoking,” he said.

“I wish I could.”

Galina went out onto the landing and stood for some time, drawing in the pungent smoke. All her resolutions were pointless now.

Mitrofanych came out on the landing too.

“Are you lonely?” he asked. “If you like, you can come in to my room, and we can do puzzles together. I was really stumped by one the other day. You had to put the ink blots together to make the silhouette of a Red Army soldier with a gun. But no matter what I did, I got either a toad or a teapot.”

Galina looked at his worn slippers, moth-eaten jacket, and pants, which had gone baggy at the knees.

“Do you still work in the archive office?” she asked. “Would it be possible for you to arrange a search for me? I need to find something in the Nizhny Novgorod archive.”

Mitrofanych puffed out his chest. “What exactly do you need?”

“I need information about a certain Klim Rogov. His birthday is July 4, 1889. If you can find out anything about him, I’ll give you a voucher for felt boots.”

Mitrofanych’s face brightened at the suggestion. “That’s very kind of you. My shoes are falling to pieces. Maybe I can do something else for you?”

Galina thought for a moment. “Yes, you could ask them to look for any mention of Rogov in the St. George Church archive in Nizhny Novgorod.”

Back in her room, Galina collapsed onto her bed. She did not know what was worse: to live in ignorance or to find out the truth.

“Whatever will be, will be,” she told herself.

She did not dare say a prayer. After her witchcraft, false accusations, and treachery, she felt that any prayers she said would only be heard by the devil himself.

1

After the dark and rainy north, Crimean sun seemed dazzling to Klim. Jumping down from the footboard of the railroad car, he caught sight of Nina and Kitty straight away. They were hurrying to meet him, both in identical flowered muslin dresses and white crocheted berets.

“Daddy’s here!” squealed Kitty in delight.

He lifted her up and kissed her. “Well, how are you enjoying yourselves here?”

Kitty immediately began to tell him about how she and Nina had been to the cinema to see a film called Tip-Top in Moscow, which featured a little cartoon black boy against a real city backdrop.