Tell Me Who I Am

  “Shut up!”

  “The purges have reached all strata of society, no one is free from being declared suspicious, not even the highest officials in the Red Army are safe. Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov is as bloody as Yagoda, and he will end up like him, because Stalin doesn’t trust anyone, not even those who kill in his name. Yezhov is getting rid of everyone who worked with Yagoda. I’m telling you, trust no one. You and I have both worked for Yagoda.”

  “No! I work for the NKVD, names don’t matter, what matters are the ideas, I serve the revolution.”

  “Yes, that’s what it was about, Pierre, serving a higher cause, but things aren’t like that, Pierre, and we are working for psychopaths. Do you know who was shot recently? General Berzin, a brilliant soldier and head of the Soviet military intelligence agency GRU. You might ask what his crime was: The answer is that there was no crime, none at all. Lots of his friends, his comrades, have been shot, the ones who were less lucky were sent first to the Lubyanka, others have been sent to punishment camps to be ‘re-educated’... Moscow is a city ruled by fear, where no one trusts anyone else, where people speak in whispers, where friends betray friends in order to win themselves a single more week of life. Intellectuals are suspicious, you know why? Because they think, and they think that they can express themselves freely, that this was why they fought in the revolution. Artists have to follow the dictates of Stalin: Artistic production can be considered counterrevolutionary if it does not hitch itself to his criteria. Do you know, my friend, that homosexuals are considered scum, perverse beings that society should get rid of?”

  “That’s your specific problem?” Pierre asked bluntly.

  “Yes, I am a homosexual. I don’t tell everyone, but I don’t hide it either, there’s no need. In the new world that we will build no one can be discriminated against for his race, for his sexual orientation, for his beliefs... When I fought in 1917, no one asked me who I was, we were all comrades with the same dreams. Being a homosexual did not stop me from fighting, from feeling hungry, from feeling cold, from killing and preparing to be killed; it’s a miracle that I am alive, a bullet went through my shoulder, and I have the scar from a bayonet that went through my leg as a souvenir.”

  Ivan Krisov lit a cigarette without asking permission. He didn’t care what Pierre might say to him, he saw him shrunken somehow, as if he were being beaten up, or as if he were a child who had suddenly discovered that Father Christmas did not exist.

  Without taking pity on him, Krisov continued.

  “Moscow is filled with fear, fear imposed by people such as Yagoda and now Yezhov, strong-arm men for Stalin’s madness. Your mother is Russian, and as far as I know she has never sympathized with the revolution, but she must still have family and friends in the Soviet Union. Have you asked her if they’re still alive?”

  “My mother thinks that all of us revolutionaries are mad, she was a petty-bourgeois, an aristocrat’s paid companion,” Pierre said, mildly censorious.

  “So you probably prefer not to know what has happened to her family in Russia and accept that they got what they deserved... Don’t disappoint me, I thought that you could think for yourself.”

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “I’ve already told you that I met Yezhov and he treated me coldly, with disgust. Do you know what his nickname is? The Dwarf, yes, Yezhov is a dwarf, but this would be no problem at all if he were a different kind of person. He asked me to give him a list of all my agents, people who have been working with me all these years for the NKVD. He wanted to know names, addresses, cover stories, who their friends and family were... Everything, absolutely everything. And he criticized me for the fact that my reports had not been more complete about my agents’ personalities, that I should have been less concise when explaining who our collaborators were. He insisted that I find out down to the last detail about everyone who has collaborated over the years with the NKVD, even as a ‘blind’ agent. You know that I have controlled a group of direct agents such as yourself, but also occasional collaborators, people whom I would never have accepted as agents but who were occasionally useful in the cause of the revolution. Moscow still has no precise information about these people or about the ‘blind’ agents, and this in particular was what Yezhov was asking me for. Ask yourself why. Yezhov told me that he was thinking of a new posting for me, in Moscow. I could tell from his look, from his gestures, from the cruel smile he was unable to hide that I was done for, that as soon as he had what he wanted he would send me to the Lubyanka where I would be tortured until I confessed whatever they wanted. I had to play for time, so I told him that all the personal details about my agents were in a safe in a London bank; some of these agents were known to Moscow only by their nicknames and the positions in which they were infiltrated. A capitalist bank is the safest place to hide Communist secrets, I told Comrade Yezhov. He didn’t believe me, but he could not risk what I was saying turning out to be true, so he changed his approach and started to be friendly in a very cloying way. He invited me to have lunch with him, and suddenly asked about you. This didn’t surprise me, because you are already a veteran agent of the NKVD. You started to work with us when we were still the OGPU. Not even Yezhov questioned that you were a valuable agent. Your cover as a bookseller has allowed you to travel all over Europe and to get in touch with the intellectual elites and collaborate usefully with them, but above all the information you provide is trustworthy. There are very few people like you who know Spanish politics in such detail.”

  “What did Comrade Yezhov want to know about me?”

  “Nothing in particular, but I was surprised by his interest in you, especially since he asked me if your Communist beliefs were solid or merely the result of intellectual dilettantism. I’ll give you my opinion: Yezhov does not like you. Later I met an old comrade, Ivan Vasiliev, who had been sidelined into one of the administrative departments of the NKVD; he was one of Yagoda’s trusted workers and he had been shunted off to one side, but he was happy not to have been shot. This friend had been the recipient of your messages from Buenos Aires until his transfer, and he said that you were making waves there because you’d managed to insert two agents right into the heart of the state apparatus, so there was no obvious reason for Yezhov to have set his sights on you. But it is impossible to understand the mind of a murderer.”

  “I think you’re trying to alarm me without any basis. I think it’s normal that Comrade Yezhov should ask about his agents, your job is to report to him.”

  “Pierre, you are not one of my agents, you are here in Buenos Aires and you have another controller. Two days later this friend of mine confirmed what I had guessed: Yezhov wanted to ‘tidy things up,’ get rid of me, put one of his trusted men in charge and get rid of anyone who seemed half-hearted in his zeal. My friend said that Yezhov didn’t like the bourgeoisie, however revolutionary they could make themselves out to be, and so you may have fallen into disgrace, just as I have done.

  “Yezhov allowed me to return to London, but I found an old colleague waiting for me at the airport when I arrived, a man with whom I’d had serious arguments in the past. His orders were clear, I had to give him all the information I said I had in the London safe and then go back to Moscow. This agent was ordered not to separate from me by day or night until I was back on the plane, and he moved into my house until that moment should arrive.”

  “But you are here...”

  “Yes, I’ve been doing the job for too many years not to think about what I should do if I needed to leave in a hurry, whether because the British intelligence services found out I was a Soviet agent or else because I lost the trust of Moscow, as has happened to other colleagues. You don’t have to believe me, but I swear to you that a lot of the comrades I fought alongside with in 1917 are now dead, victims of Stalin’s terror. Others have been sent to labor camps, and some were so scared that they didn’t dare talk to me and instead shut the door with tears in their eyes, begging me to leave and not to compromise the
m with my presence. So, before I left Moscow, I started to put my plan for desertion into action. I managed to slip away from the agent Yezhov had sent to watch me; I’ll tell you how I did it, I put a powder in his glass of wine. I was about to have to drink it myself, because he seemed to mistrust me when I proposed a toast to the glorious Soviet Union and Comrade Stalin. Once he was deep asleep I tied him to the bed and gagged him. I spent what was left of the night getting in touch with my agents and telling them to be prepared for what might happen. Early in the morning I went to my bank, asked for the safety deposit box where I kept money, false passports, and documents, and went to France, where I did the same as you, and headed off to Buenos Aires. I was at risk in dear old Europe, sooner or later they’d manage to find me, but the New World is immense and we still do not have very solid networks in place here, so Latin America was the best place for me to lose myself.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “That, my friend, is something I am not going to tell you. If I am here at all it is because I still have some of my integrity as a man and a Bolshevik, and I feel obliged to tell you that you might be in danger. I owe a debt of loyalty to those comrades who worked with me, who have given the best of themselves to spread the revolution and the idea of Communism. Men such as yourself who have given up comfortable existences because they believe that all men are created equal and deserve the best. When you fight a war you know how important it is to be loyal and to be able to trust your comrades. You are nothing without them, and they are nothing without you, so I have fulfilled my obligation by coming here. I know you well, and I believe that you would not have trusted a letter. I’ve already told you that during the long night before my departure I got in touch with my agents in London who were most in danger, who would feature sooner or later on Yezhov’s blacklist. I told them about the situation so that they could choose what they should do. Before I caught the boat I asked another agent to go to my house and untie Yezhov’s homunculus. Well, here I am. I think that you will get an invitation from Moscow some time soon; if I were you I would not go, and even less would I take Amelia Garayoa with you. In Moscow they know her as a ‘blind’ agent, but as far as I am aware they only think of her as a petty-bourgeois caprice, an excuse that lets you have an adulterous relationship with a woman. Amelia is worthless for them, so I would not put her in the way of Yezhov’s mental lucubrations.”

  “Are you saying that you’ve come to Buenos Aires simply to tell me that I have to desert?”

  “I’m not telling you to desert, I’m explaining what the situation is, I’m giving you information and now you need to decide what to do with it. I’ve done my duty.”

  “You’re not trying to tell me that you deserted but you felt the need to come and warn me before disappearing. That’s just puerile,” Pierre said, raising his voice.

  “It is an inconvenient thing to have a conscience, and I have one, my friend, for all that I’ve tried to get rid of it. I’m an atheist, and I’ve got rid of all the stories my parents told me when I was a kid, as well as the ones the priest insisted that we take as gospel truth. No, I don’t believe in anything, but I’ve got a conscience hidden away in some corner of my brain; I assure you that I would have liked to have been able to get rid of it, because it’s the worst companion a man can have.”

  Pierre was walking up and down the salon. He was beside himself, scared and irritated in equal measure. He did not want to believe Igor Krisov, but neither could he bring himself not to.

  Suddenly the two men realized that Amelia was standing on the threshold, silent and pale, with her eyes full of tears.

  “What are you doing here?” Pierre shouted at her. “Nosy! Always cropping up where you shouldn’t!”

  Amelia didn’t answer, didn’t even move. Igor got up and hugged her as one hugs a child, trying to make her feel calm and safe.

  “Come on, don’t cry. Nothing’s happened that can’t be put right. How long have you been here?”

  But Amelia said not a word. Igor helped her sit down and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water while Pierre scolded her for eavesdropping. In the end she told them that she had come to say dinner was ready and that she had been unable to avoid hearing a part of what Igor had to say.

  “It’s horrible! Horrible!” she repeated through sobs.

  “Enough! Stop being a little girl. I didn’t lie to you, it was you who wanted to be lied to,” Pierre said, scarcely able to contain the anger that Krisov’s revelations had stirred up.

  “You should calm yourself; I can see that you’re not ready to face a crisis, I thought you had more control over yourself,” Krisov said to Pierre.

  “Don’t you start preaching!” Pierre shouted.

  “I’m not preaching. I’ve fulfilled my obligations, I’m leaving. Do what you have to do... I’m sorry for you, Amelia, I know that you fell for the Communist idea full of hope, don’t let this idea be beaten down within you by the bad name that some men are giving it. But look after yourself and learn to rely on yourself, take control of your life.”

  “Where are you going?” Amelia asked, trying to control her tears.

  “You must understand that I cannot tell you. For my safety and for your own.”

  “Go now, before I turn you in!” Pierre threatened.

  “You will, I know you will, I’m sure that you’ll get in touch with the rezidentura; if you are going to carry on working for them it’s what you have to do. If you decide to think about what I’ve said, then it’s probably better that they know nothing. But the decision is yours.”

  Igor Krisov kissed Amelia’s hand and left the house without saying anything further. He was soon lost among the first shadows of the night.

  “I don’t want you to blame me,” Pierre warned Amelia.

  She rubbed her eyes to try to control her tears. She felt stunned by what she had heard. She didn’t know what to say or what to do, but it felt clear that she was waking from a dream, and the reality that now faced her was terrifying. They sat for a while in silence, trying to become calm enough to talk to one another. It was Pierre whose words broke the silence that had grown between them.

  “Nothing has to change; all that’s happened is that you’ve realized the extent of my collaboration with the Soviet Union; just by knowing it, you are now exposed to more danger. You have to forget what you’ve heard this afternoon, for your own safety, you can’t tell anyone, we shouldn’t even talk about it between ourselves. That’s the best.”

  “Just like that, so easy?” Amelia asked.

  “Yes, it can be that easy, it all depends on you.”

  “In that case I’m sorry to tell you, but it will be impossible, because I cannot forget what I’ve heard today. You want me not to give any importance to the fact that you have lied to me, and manipulated me, that you’re a spy, that your life, and mine, depends on some men in Moscow. No, Pierre, what you want is impossible.”

  “It’s what has to happen, or else...”

  “Or else, what? Tell me, what will you do if I don’t accept what you want me to do? Whom will you tell? What will they do to me?”

  “That’s enough, Amelia! Don’t make things more difficult than they already are.”

  “I’m not responsible for this situation, you’re the guilty one. You have tricked me, Pierre, and you know, I would have followed you just the same, I wouldn’t have cared who you were, I would have abandoned my husband and my child for you even if you had told me that you were the devil himself. I loved you so much!”

  “You don’t love me anymore?” Pierre asked in alarm.

  “Right now I don’t know, to tell the truth. I feel empty, incapable of feeling anything. I don’t hate you, but...”

  Pierre felt panicked. The only thing he had never planned for was for Amelia to stop loving him, for her to stop being the beautiful young woman, obedient, who always showed him absolute devotion. He had grown accustomed for her to love him and the idea of losing her seemed unbearable. At t
hat moment he realized that he loved that young woman who had followed him to the end of the earth and whom he could not imagine not spending the rest of her life with him. He went up to Amelia and hugged her, but her body was rigid, and she rejected his tenderness.

  “Forgive me, Amelia! I beg you to forgive me. My only intention was to keep you out of danger...”

  “No, Pierre, you didn’t care about that. I still don’t know why you have brought me here, but I know it was not because you felt a love for me such as I felt for you,” she replied as she extricated herself from his clutches.

  Pierre realized that this was the night on which Amelia had truly become a woman, and that the person standing before him was unknown to him.

  “Don’t doubt that I love you. Do you think I could have asked you to abandon your family and come with me if I didn’t love you? Do you think I don’t care about what my parents think? And even so...”

  “It was I who loved you, and what I thought was that you loved me with the same passion. Tonight I have discovered that our relationship is based upon a lie, and I wonder how many other lies you have told me.”

  “Don’t think that you are not important to me!”

  Amelia shrugged indifferently; she felt that there was now nothing to tie her to this man for whom she had sacrificed so much.

  “I need to think, Pierre, I have to decide what I am going to do with my life.”

  “I will never leave you!” he said as he tried to embrace her again.

  “It’s not just what you want but what I want, and this is what I am going to think about. If you don’t mind sleeping on the sofa, I will sleep here, or else I’ll ask Gloria to let me stay with her for a few days.”

  He was tempted to deny her this, but he did not, knowing that he could not oppose her in anything at the moment without losing.

  “I am sorry for hurting you and I only hope that you can forgive me. I will sleep on the sofa and I will try to bother you as little as possible. All I ask is for you to realize that I love you, to know that I cannot imagine life without you.”