Levanter thought of the effort he had expended collecting skis from various manufacturers to find the ones best suited for his purpose. He recalled transforming his apartment into a virtual ski and radio shop, familiarizing himself with transistorized gadgetry, dismantling and reconstructing an exhaustive array of walkie-talkies, television and radio remote-control devices, miniature calculators, and Citizens Band radios. He remembered arranging his black-market purchase of the most reliable form of moldable nitroglycerine explosives, buying an amount that was not large enough to attract the notice of any law-enforcement agency but was surely sufficient to blow himself sky-high. Finally, he recalled the tedious business of splicing open each ski, replacing its fiberglass innards with sandwiched sheets of explosives, installing the detonator and the transistorized receiver inside the bindings, then meticulously resealing both skis. Traveling in the plane with the skis as part of his luggage and claiming them at the airport in Europe — this too had been a worthwhile risk.
He felt his energy, time, and money had been well spent, but at the moment, all he wanted was to descend, to be back in ValPina, to feel the leisurely atmosphere of the resort, to mingle with the tourists crowding the sidewalks and shopping arcades, to watch the steady stream of cars from all over Europe.
He skied down, inspired and elated. He had no further use for his binoculars or the transmitter; he tossed them into a crevasse and heard them rebound against the rocks. He listened to his heart. Its beat was regular.
By the time he heard the first sketchy radio reports about the explosion that killed the Deputy Minister and his two bodyguards, Levanter was already feeling removed from the act, already feeling it was something he had done long ago.
He was elated about having finally helped the execution of justice. He thought of the anger that raged in him each time he read a newspaper account of Stalin’s henchmen who lived unscathed in the safety of retirement, fearing nobody but old age. And he thought of the Nazis, how justice had waited a decade before meting out its impersonal revenge.
Dusk fell. He was driving toward Paris alone. His headlights ferreted out sleepy villages tucked in the snow, and he felt secure, snug in a world that allowed one to slide easily between memory and deed.
Shortly after Levanter had established himself in the investment business, he went to Paris to visit a laboratory that was working on new photographic emulsions. He was leaving a shop on the Left Bank one day when a man on a scooter cut ahead of him and stopped at the curb. The man took off his helmet and glanced at Levanter as he walked by. Then he turned and looked again. Levanter couldn’t believe what he saw. But there was no mistake. They embraced.
“Rom!” shouted Levanter.
“Lev! I can’t believe it,” the man exclaimed in Russian. “How can this be?” Romarkin was laughing and weeping. “I heard you were somewhere in America, but I couldn’t find out how to reach —”
“What about you?” Levanter interrupted. “I haven’t seen you since our Moscow days twenty-five years ago! How did you get here?”
“Let’s sit down,” said Romarkin, still flushed. They went to the corner café, ordered wine, and toasted each other.
Romarkin opened his collar. “All these years, and you still speak fluent Russian,” he said. “You haven’t forgotten.”
“Never mind that. How did you get here?” Levanter persisted.
Romarkin sipped his wine. “Before I answer,” he said haltingly, “tell me something, Lev, and tell me honestly. Did you think, back then, that I was ill? Mentally ill?” Romarkin, suddenly looking anxious and intense, leaned across the table. “Remember, at the university, when I asked that question?”
“Of course I remember. How could I forget?” Levanter said. “But what happened to you after that?”
Romarkin was almost whispering. “I was shipped to Siberia. You know that. Three years of corrective labor. Then I was sent into the army. Luckily, I excelled in gymnastics, so they put me on the track-and-field team. I was good at the high jump. Very good. Last year, when the team visited France for a meet, I made my highest jump ever — right over the Iron Curtain. I asked for political asylum here, and they gave it to me. Since then I’ve been just another refugee.” He took a big gulp of wine. “But I don’t want to talk about the present. I have to know. You have to tell me, Lev.”
“Tell you what?”
Romarkin tugged on his ear, as he used to do when they were studying together. Then he whispered, “Every morning, for the last twenty-five years, I have asked myself, as a monk asks a merciless God for enlightenment — what possessed me to raise my hand and ask that question about Stalin? Surely thousands of others in that auditorium wondered the same thing. Why was I the only one to ask it? Why?”
Levanter and Romarkin had worked together at the International Youth for Peace Festival, sponsored and organized by the government and the Party. Romarkin, the son of a proletarian family and a good public speaker with an engaging manner and an impeccable academic record, was ideally qualified to run a hospitality program for the several hundred West European intellectuals, artists, and political and union officials invited to the Festival. He promptly made Levanter his second-in-command.
After the opening ceremony, Romarkin and Levanter watched as an air-force marshal was escorted to his limousine. Just as he was about to enter the sedan, a student carrying a large camera with a flash attachment stepped out from behind the police cordon to photograph the marshal. Somehow, as he snapped the picture, the flash bulb shattered with a loud crack. In a blind reflex action, two of the marshal’s security guards drew their guns and fired at the photographer. The student fell to the sidewalk. Blood poured from his neck and chest, seeping through his clothes, spattering his camera.
Without glancing at the body, the marshal and his aides jumped into the limousine and sped away. The terrified bystanders dispersed in panic. Security guards wrapped the dead man and the remnants of his camera in a blanket, dumped the body into the trunk of one of their cars, and quickly mopped up the small pool of blood on the pavement. In minutes they had all departed. Only Levanter and Romarkin remained. Levanter was trembling, Romarkin was pale and silent.
The Festival’s organizers and the press corps and radio-television crews were given a wing in one of Moscow’s largest hotels. Romarkin and Levanter shared an enormous suite on the sixteenth floor.
Early one evening, Romarkin asked Levanter to accompany him on an errand. He dismissed his assigned chauffeur and drove the official car through the poorly lit city streets, stopping in front of a large residential compound that housed several Festival delegations. Romarkin got out of the car and disappeared.
In a few minutes, he returned with a young, pretty Chinese woman. He opened the car door and she climbed into the front seat next to Levanter. Romarkin got behind the wheel again and addressed her in Russian. She smiled but obviously did not understand. Jokingly, Romarkin introduced her as Chairman Mao’s Robot. When she heard him say “Chairman Mao” the young woman nodded and smiled again.
As they drove, Romarkin told Levanter that she had become separated from her group for a moment just inside the compound, and he had taken her arm and led her away. No one had seen them. He had quickly shown her his Festival identity card, which verified in six languages, including Chinese, that he was an official. The Robot followed him without any resistance, he said, because, like the rest of her comrades, she had never been taught to reason independently. She and everyone else in her delegation automatically obeyed authority. Romarkin assured Levanter that, as most of the delegates to the Festival were ordered by their superiors to mix with the delegates of other nationalities, the authorities expected some of them not to return to their quarters for the night.
At the hotel, they took an empty service elevator and went nonstop to floor sixteen. As soon as they entered the suite, Romarkin telephoned the hotel manager and told him that certain confidential Festival files were being stored in his suite and hotel personnel
were not to enter for the remaining four days of the Festival unless summoned by him or Levanter.
Then, mockingly, Romarkin proposed a series of toasts to Chairman Mao. They all drank several large glasses of plain water in rapid succession. Romarkin and Levanter pretended that the water had made them drunk; the Robot dutifully pretended she was drunk as well. The three of them staggered to a small bedroom, down the short hall from Levanter’s room.
Both Levanter and Romarkin started to make love to her, and the Robot did not resist. She seemed resigned, as if they — her superiors — had the right to do this to her, as if she had been transported here from her homeland to do what she was told, and to do it in the spirit of Mao that she had been ordered to promote while abroad. Throughout the night, she continued to submit obediently. No matter whether she was entered hurriedly, stroked harshly, caressed gently, or kissed passionately, passing from one pair of arms to the other, her face never lost its agreeable, complacent expression. She either lacked sensation or suppressed it — they could not tell which.
In the morning, the suite again became a busy Festival office. Phones rang constantly, the calls handled by three secretaries; prominent foreign visitors and officials continually stopped to collect passes for various activities; and in the corridor outside the suite Soviet and foreign reporters milled about, hoping to corner celebrities for interviews.
Romarkin, director of the whole operation, attentive and efficient, handsome in his official Festival suit, a model of the young activist, reigned in the main room. In the adjoining room, Levanter presided, attending to the foreign dignitaries’ various needs, which ranged from providing a doctor for an ailing French film star, to sending flowers to a Hungarian soprano, to politely pointing out to the effete Arab poet that if word spread that he had spent the night with two British male delegates his reputation might be hurt.
The Robot remained in the bedroom, free to leave at any time, but apparently incapable of doing so without a command. From time to time, Romarkin casually strolled across the room, walked down the hall, and quietly entered the bedroom. Any office worker would assume that he was leaving through the rear service door to avoid reporters. When Romarkin came out to return to his desk, Levanter took his casual stroll to the bedroom.
What intrigued Romarkin and Levanter most was the Robot’s lack of response. As they made love to her, they watched for signs of emotion or hints of feeling. But she was like a person in a trance, her body almost immobile, her face impenetrable. Not once during the days and nights she remained in the bedroom did she indicate that she objected to anything or that she wanted to leave. Always complacent, she ate whatever they brought her.
The last evening of the Festival, they slipped the Robot out of the hotel as inconspicuously as they had brought her in, sat her between them in the car, and drove to the Chinese delegates’ compound. Suddenly she began to embrace and kiss both men, clinging to their chests, necks, thighs, crying and sobbing quietly like a hurt and disappointed child. They returned her kisses, tasting the salty tears that poured from the narrow corners of her eyes. Romarkin pulled himself free and stepped out of the car, holding the door open for her. The young woman took this for a command. All at once, she stopped crying and dried her tears. Like a disciplined soldier, she stepped from the car, bowed her head, and, without looking back, walked straight to the main entrance of the compound.
A few weeks after the Festival concluded, the Lomonosov University in Moscow had called a compulsory Party-sponsored meeting for all students as part of a national celebration to mark the publication of Stalin’s latest book, a treatise on Marxism and linguistics. Romarkin and Levanter were sitting together near the middle of the university’s largest auditorium, filled with thousands of students, professors, Party officials, and security officers. A member of the Central Committee was halfway through a grandiloquent speech, full of praise for Stalin’s achievement. Stalin, he declared, had now laid the Party’s philosophical foundation for ridding the country of reactionary linguists, who, until they were exposed by Stalin, were posing as true Marxist-Leninists. When the speaker finished his address, he received prolonged applause and a standing ovation.
During the question-and-answer period, carefully planted people in the audience, Party members as well as non-Party members who were considered trustworthy, asked seemingly spontaneous questions that allowed the speaker to restate some of his major arguments.
Levanter was bored. He surveyed the auditorium, trying to find in the sea of faces around him someone who looked as bored as he was. On his right, Romarkin sat looking intently at the officials on the dais.
Suddenly, in the midst of the public tribute to Stalin and to his book, Romarkin raised his hand high above his head. Levanter saw what was happening out of the corner of his eye and could not believe it. For the last three years he and his friend had been virtually inseparable. They shared a dormitory room, studied together, spent vacations together. But now Levanter wondered why Romarkin had not told him that he had been selected to ask a question. Had he surrendered the bonds of their friendship? Had he told Party officials about their escapades? He must have, because here he was, calm and imperturbable, his hand raised high as though in surrender, as rigid as the Robot, patiently waiting to be called on. Levanter panicked. Had the Party found a way to get through to Romarkin — and thus to him as well?
The speaker gestured toward Romarkin. “Yes, young Comrade, tell us what’s on your mind. Go ahead!” he urged with exaggerated cordiality. “Speak up.”
As Romarkin rose, Levanter sank deeper into his seat.
“I have read with great interest Comrade Stalin’s treatise on Marxism and linguistics,” Romarkin announced in a loud steady voice. “This very work,” he said, “unmasked the ideological errors of our leading linguists, and has led to their expulsion from the Party and from university teaching positions. Yet until Comrade Stalin’s book appeared last week, our Party considered these men to be eminent Marxists and authorities in the field of linguistics.” He stopped, glanced around, then continued matter-of-factly. “Of course, in no way do I question the wisdom of the Party’s decision. But no official biography of Comrade Stalin mentions that he was ever a scholar in the highly specialized field of linguistics. My question is: Would you, Comrade, tell us when and for how long Comrade Stalin studied linguistics?” Romarkin sat down, an engaging smile on his face.
A stillness fell over the audience. Levanter felt thousands of eyes on him and his friend. The speaker said nothing. He did not thank Romarkin for having spoken. He did not even look directly at him.
No one coughed, sneezed, whispered. The whole audience seemed to have kept its attention riveted on the dais; the people on the dais stared fearfully at the speaker.
“This is no time to dwell on what is obvious,” he announced anxiously. “If, in his wisdom, Comrade Stalin has chosen to write on the subject of linguistics, he clearly has earned the right to do so. Any other questions?” He looked over the auditorium, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
The smile still on his face, Romarkin sat bemused. He seemed to be unaware of what he had done. Afraid to think of what had happened, afraid to glance at his friend, Levanter could not move. Romarkin must have lost his mind.
The meeting ended. People rushed to the exits. Levanter was walking beside Romarkin, and everyone else drew away from them. Outside, as he and Romarkin were about to turn into a side street, they were suddenly stopped by a group of KGB agents. Romarkin was taken away in a car and Levanter was escorted back to the dormitory. There, one KGB agent searched their room while another questioned him. Levanter was asked about his family, about Romarkin, and about their mutual friends. He was ordered to identify faces in photographs and names in address books, letters, and lecture notes belonging to both of them. When the questioning was finished, the agent demanded that Levanter sign a statement labeling Romarkin a subversive.
“You’re here to help us,” the agent lectured
Levanter. “But if you refuse to sign, you will rot for years in Siberia — in the dungeons — and you still won’t save Romarkin. He was doomed the minute he raised his hand in that auditorium.”
Levanter could not take his eyes from the agent’s face. “I will never sign such a statement,” he said. His own voice came to him as if from behind a thick curtain. “Never. But remember this: one day, in Siberia, I shall voluntarily admit that when I was at the university I was indeed a member of a conspiracy dedicated to wrecking the Party apparatus. I will produce facts and name names. And when I do, you — who will probably be a captain by then — will be accused of failing to obtain important information about the conspiracy from me during this investigation. You will be denounced for negligence. Perhaps even for being sympathetic to our cause.”
The agent studied Levanter carefully. In his years of interrogations, he must have looked into the eyes of hundreds of people, tortured to the point of death, who would not break. Perhaps that is why he sensed Levanter’s determination not to sign anything. The agent frowned, then tore up the unsigned statement. “You liar,” he thundered, stamping toward the door. “If you so much as whisper —” He slammed the door behind him.
After the Romarkin incident, the university decided to put Levanter out of the way for a while. It was thus arranged for him to be drafted into the army for six months’ service in a unit wholly composed of delinquent students.
At the camp, Levanter was ordered to report to the correctional unit’s new commander, Captain Barbatov. A young sergeant escorted Levanter to the captain’s office, announced him, saluted the squat figure behind the huge desk, then turned smartly on his heels and left the room, closing the door behind him. Barbatov did not acknowledge Levanter’s presence. He merely opened a folder and began to examine its contents.
Levanter studied the captain, who seemed to be moving his lips slowly as he read. His head drooped over his chest, as if engaged in a losing battle with gravity. Above the right breast pocket of his well-tailored uniform were a row of ribbons and a battered Red Star.