As he read the document, Alov felt a shiver run down his spine. Good grief. He had found out about this business in the nick of time: Klim Rogov was planning to leave Moscow tomorrow. Luckily, Drachenblut had gone off to the celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution, so today, he would not summon Alov to come to him with the report on the situation. A failure in such an important case as this could have warranted immediate dismissal from the OGPU.

Grabbing the receiver, Alov contacted the duty officer.

3

Mr. Owen himself arrived for the celebrations of the eleventh anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, and Klim handed over the documents and keys for Mashka to him. The new correspondent for the United Press was due to arrive in Moscow in two weeks’ time.

Klim arranged a farewell party for his journalist friends, went to see Weinstein and the censors, and looked in on the Volga Germans to tell Father Thomas that he could expect some good news in the near future.

Although he still had a whole day left in the city, Klim had already packed up all his possessions. His apartment was almost empty with most of the furniture taken away. A few upholstery tacks lay scattered on the floor, and there were empty medicine vials and wire coat hangers on the window sill in the living room. Kapitolina was going to sell them to a rag merchant for a few kopecks.

Klim had given Kapitolina all his linen and tableware.

“My precious angel!” she cried, dashing about from room to room. “I’ll be a rich woman now! Rockefella will have nothing on me!”

Suddenly, she stood stock still. “Oh! I’ve just thought. I’ll have to give something to Galina. Should I give her a boot brush?”

“I’ll think of something,” said Klim.

Several times, he had begun composing a farewell letter to Galina—a ridiculous missive full of pointless wishes for good luck, good health, and all good things in the future. He wondered what, in fact, the future held in store for her. It seemed unlikely she would marry again—too many men of her age had been killed in the war. What “good things” could she hope for then? A jar of jam or a tin of meat bought on some special occasion? A free ride on a tram?

Damn it all, it would be far easier not to think about it!

But Klim could not stop thinking about it. In the end, he picked up the phone and gave the operator the number for Galina’s apartment.

A minute later, he heard her say, “Hello. Who is it?”

Klim flinched at the sound of her voice, which was hoarse and dull as if she were very sick.

“Galina,” he said, “I want to say goodbye. I’m going abroad tomorrow.”

“And you’re never coming back?”

“No.”

A second past in silence, then another, and another. Then, without saying a word, Galina hung up.

Klim pulled out two hundred-dollar bills, all that he had left, and put them in an envelope. That evening he had to go to the Bolshoi Theater for a political event in honor of the anniversary of the Revolution. After that, he decided, he would call in on Galina and leave the money in her mailbox.

4

All six tiers of the Bolshoi Theater were decorated with scarlet banners. On stage, under an enormous portrait of Lenin, a long table had been set up for leaders of the Bolshevik party.

On the podium, Comrade Babloyan, his voice trembling with heartfelt emotion, was reading out greetings from workers: “We hope that before long, a wave of proletarian revolution will sweep Europe and that the twentieth anniversary will be celebrated not only in our country but also throughout a European Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

Magda, Klim, and Owen sat in the box reserved for foreign guests, observing the spectators in the stalls through opera glasses.

“There’s a whole sea of Party bigwigs down there,” Magda whispered, gesturing toward the crowd of officials in service jackets and tunics.

“Not a sea—a swamp,” said Klim. “They’re all wearing swamp-green, at any rate.”

Magda eyed his dinner jacket and his starched shirt front. “Well, hark at you, Mr. Black-and-White.”

The next to mount the podium was the chairman of the state planning department, Gosplan.

“In the next five years,” he said, “we will put an end to unemployment and overcome all the economic challenges that face us. Workers’ wages will increase by sixty-six percent. Manual workers will eat twenty-seven percent more meat, seventy-two percent more eggs, and fifty-five percent more milk products.”

Klim translated the words of the speaker for Owen’s benefit.

“I wonder,” Owen said in a puzzled voice, “where the Bolsheviks will get all these percentages from.”

“They don’t care about the result,” said Klim. “It’s the ritual that matters. You and I are witnessing a prophecy. Do you remember the words from the Revelation of St. John the Divine? ‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.’”

Owen nodded. “Yes, I see what you mean.”

“The Bolsheviks began as materialists,” Klim said, “but without even realizing it, they’ve turned into a sect. They have taken all the old teachings about the end of the world and changed the names. The World Revolution is the Apocalypse; Marx and Engels are the Old Testament Prophets, Lenin is the savior who gave his life for the people, and Stalin is the high priest. Those who believe will be saved, and those who don’t will be punished as heretics.”

Owen put down his opera glasses. “So, you think that Soviet Russia is in the grip of some new type of Christian sectarianism?”

“It’s the natural reaction of a society at the dawn of a new epoch,” said Klim. “At times like these, people want to cling on to old teachings even while they’re in the process of changing everything else. They need an infallible leader too, endowed with some mysterious power; someone who will lead them fearlessly into the ‘bright future.’ It’s a classic example of a ‘reformation’—this is what happens when an uneducated people, with more faith in seductive promises and devils than in science, starts seeking a new path in life.”

“And how will it all end?” asked Owen.

Klim sighed. “I think it will end in the same way as the Taiping rebellion in China in the 1850s. There, a group of Christians created an independent state and began carrying out ‘fair economic reforms.’ After that, it was the same old story: battles against enemies within and without, redistribution of wealth, a god-like leader, and, as a result—wholesale devastation and millions dead.”

“Surely things can’t be that bad?”

Klim gestured toward the worker who had just got up on stage. In his hands, the man held a model broom made of metallic blades.

“That’s a delegate from the factory committee,” Klim said. “Do you know what he’s proposing to the leaders of the country? To sweep away all their enemies with that broom. It looks as if there’s bound to be huge bloodshed in the future.”

5

When the speeches were over, Owen went to a banquet at the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs while Klim walked Magda to the cab rank.

The damp paving glittered in the light of the streetlamps, and the air was thick with the sharp smell of horses.

“Send me a cable when you get to Berlin,” Magda told Klim. “Friedrich and I are coming to Berlin soon, I think. We just have to get our Germans safely on their way to Canada.”

“Is Friedrich planning to defect?” Klim asked in amazement.

“He thinks that there’s been a counter-revolution in the USSR,” said Magda, “but nobody has noticed. The state has gone back to the same sort of abuses of power and bureaucracy the Russians had under the Tsarist regime. If the Tsar had never been deposed, they’d have just the same situation, only under a different banner. Friedrich thinks the revolution would have fared better in another country—one without such strong traditions of monarchy.”

“You mean he wants to start all over again?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see when we get there, I suppose.”

They embraced in parting, and Magda set off to find a cab.

Klim decided to go to Galina’s apartment on foot. He wanted to say goodbye to Moscow.

The city felt restless, like an animal about to settle down for the night, tired, weary and shivering slightly under the first snow, which melted as soon as it fell.

Klim could not believe that in a couple of days, he would be in a completely different world. Living in the USSR sometimes felt like looking the wrong way down a pair of binoculars. The “bright future” seemed close at hand while neighboring Poland seemed as distant as Mars.

Klim stopped beside a shop window made of reflective glass to see if he was still being shadowed or if his spies had gone home for the night.

No, they were still on his tail. On the other side of the street, there was a tall young man in a coat with the collar turned up, and a broad-shouldered fellow was pretending to read a poster fixed to a gate.

Klim was about to wave to them when a covered truck stopped in front of him. A man in an unbuttoned greatcoat jumped out of the back of the truck, taking his red OGPU ID out of his pocket.

“Come with me, citizen!” he said.

“Where to?” asked Klim, bewildered.

A cabbie’s horse passing them by shied away as if sensing the smell of carrion.

Two more men came out of the truck and took Klim under the arms. “Get in the truck!”

From that moment on, Klim was no longer a human being: he had become an object that can be packed away at will, transported from place to place, and kept until required.