The Secret Speech

  Leo clutched his small tin cup, fingers clamped tight around it, remaining in the exact same position. The gelatinous surface of the pine needle and rose syrup quivered as his hand trembled. He’d lost the ability to think or strategize. The camp commander called out, in good humor:

  —You there! Friend! Flower lover! Drink! It will make you strong!

  Leo brought the cup to his lips, tipping the thick black liquid down his neck. Intensely bitter, it lined his throat like tar, making him want to cough it up. He closed his eyes, forcing it down.

  Opening his eyes, he watched Lazar finish his duties, returning to the barracks, walking at an unhurried pace. Even as he passed by he didn’t look back, showing no sign of agitation or excitement. Commander Sinyavksy continued to speak for some time. But Leo had stopped listening. Inside his clammy fist, he’d crushed the dried purple flower to powder. The prisoner standing to his right hissed:

  —Pay attention! We’re moving!

  The commander had finished talking. Introductions were over; the convicts were being shepherded from the administration zone into the prisoner zone. Leo was near the back of the line. Evening had set, extinguishing the horizon. Lights flickered in the guard towers. No powerful spotlights searched the ground. Except for the dull glow of the hut windows, the zona was completely dark.

  They passed through the second barbed-wire fence. The guards remained at the border of the two zones, guns ready, ushering them toward the barracks. No officer entered this zone at night. It was too dangerous, too easy for a prisoner to smash their skull and disappear. They were only concerned with maintaining the perimeter, sealing the convicts in and leaving them to their own devices.

  Leo was the last to enter the barracks—Lazar’s barracks. He would have to face him alone, without Timur. He’d reason with him, talk to him. The man was a priest: he would hear his confession. Leo had much to tell. He had changed. He’d spent three years trying to make amends. Like a man walking to his execution, he climbed the flight of steps with heavy legs. He pushed on the door, breathing deeply, inhaling the stench of an overcrowded barracks and revealing a panorama of hate-filled faces.

  SAME DAY

  LEO HAD BLACKED OUT. Coming around, he found that he was on the floor, dragged by his ankles, submerged beneath waves of kicking prisoners. His fingers touched his scalp, finding the skin sticky with blood. Unable to focus, unable to fight, helpless at the epicenter of this ferocity, he couldn’t survive for long. A glob of spit hit his eye. A boot slammed into the side of his head. His jaw hit the floor, his teeth scratching against each other. Abruptly, the kicking and spitting and shouting abated. In unison the mob pulled away, leaving him spluttering, as though washed up by a storm. From roaring hatred to silence, someone must have intervened.

  Leo remained where he was, afraid that these precious seconds of calm would end as soon as he dared to look up. A voice sounded out:

  —Get up.

  Not Lazar’s voice, but a younger man. Leo unraveled from his fetal position, peering up at the figures looming over him—there were two, Lazar and, standing beside him, perhaps thirty years old, a man with red hair and a red beard.

  Wiping the phlegm from his face, the blood from his lips and nose, Leo awkwardly rotated himself into a sitting position. Some two hundred or so convicts were watching, perched on the top bunks, standing close by, as though attending a theatrical performance with different grades of seating. The new arrivals were in the corner: relieved that attention wasn’t focused on them.

  Leo got to his feet, hunched like a cripple. Lazar stepped forward, examining him, circling, before returning to the spot directly in front, eye to eye. His expression flickered with tremendous energy, taut skin trembling. Slowly he opened his mouth, closing his eyes as he did, clearly in terrible pain. The word he uttered was less than a whisper, a tiny exhalation of air, carrying on it the faintest sound:

  —Max… im.

  Everything Leo had planned to say, the story of how he’d changed, tales of his enlightenment, the entire edifice of his transformation, disintegrated like snow on hot coal. He’d always comforted himself that he was a better man than most of the agents he’d worked alongside, men who fashioned themselves a set of gold teeth from the mouths of their interrogated suspects. He had not been the worst: not by far. He was in the middle, perhaps even lower, hiding in the shadows of the monsters that had murdered above him. He had done wrong, a modest kind of wrong—he was at best a mediocre villain. Hearing that name, the alias he’d chosen himself, he began to cry. He tried to stop, but to no avail. Lazar reached out and touched one of these tears, collecting it, holding the drop on the end of his finger. Peering at it for some time, he returned it to the exact spot he’d taken it from—pressing his finger hard against Leo’s cheek and smearing it down contemptuously, as if to say:

  Keep your tears. They count for nothing.

  He took hold of Leo’s hand—palm scarred from the chase through the sewers—and placed it against the left side of his face. His cheek felt uneven, like rubble, a mouth full of gravel. He opened his mouth again, wincing, closing his eyes. As though the laws of physics had been reversed, smell traveling faster than light, an odor of decay struck Leo first, teeth rotten and diseased. Many were missing altogether: the gum deformed, black streaks with patchy, bloody stubs. Here was transformation, here was change: a brilliant orator, thirty years of speeches and sermons, turned into a stinking mute.

  Lazar closed his mouth, stepping back. The red-haired man offered Lazar the side of his face as though it were a canvas to be painted upon. Lazar leaned so close that his lips were almost touching the man’s ear. As he spoke his lips hardly seemed to move, tiny movements. The red-haired man delivered his words:

  —I treated you as a son. I opened my home to you. I trusted you. I loved you.

  The man didn’t translate first person into third, speaking as though he were Lazar. Leo replied:

  —Lazar, I have no defense. All the same, I beg you to listen. Your wife is alive. She has sent me here to free you.

  Leo and Timur had speculated as to whether Lazar might have already been sent a coded letter containing Fraera’s plans. However, Lazar’s surprise was genuine. He knew nothing of his wife. He knew nothing of how she’d changed. With a gesture of irritation he waved at the red-haired man, who sprang forward, kicking Leo to his knees:

  —You’re lying!

  Leo addressed Lazar:

  —Your wife is alive. She is the reason I’m here. It’s the truth!

  The red-haired man glanced over his shoulder, awaiting instructions. Lazar shook his head. Taking his cue, the red-haired man translated:

  —What do you know of the truth? You’re a Chekist! Nothing you say can be trusted!

  —Anisya was freed from the Gulags three years ago. She’s changed, Lazar. She has become a vory.

  Several of the vory watching laughed, ridiculing the notion that the wife of a dissident priest could enter their ranks. Leo pressed on regardless:

  —Not only is she vory, she’s a leader. She no longer goes by the name Anisya. Her klikukha is Fraera.

  The cries of incredulity soared. Men were shouting, pushing forward, insulted at the notion that a woman could rule them. Leo raised his voice:

  —She’s in charge of a gang, sworn upon revenge. She is not the woman you remember, Lazar. She has kidnapped my daughter. If I cannot secure your release she’ll kill her. There’s no chance of you ever being released. You will die here, unless you accept my help. All our lives depend upon your escape.

  Outraged by his story, the crowd fermented into a second fury of abuse, standing up and closing around him, ready to attack again. However, Lazar raised his hands, ushering them back. He evidently had some standing among them, for they obeyed without question, returning to their bunks. Lazar ushered the red-haired man to his side, speaking into his ear. The man nodded, approving. Once Lazar had finished, the red-haired man spoke with an air of self-importance:

&nbs
p; —You are a desperate man. You would say anything. You are a liar. You always have been. You have fooled me before. You will not fool me again.

  If Timur had arrived he would’ve offered Fraera’s letter as proof that she was alive. She’d written it to answer these exact doubts. Without the letter, Leo was helpless. He said, desperate:

  —Lazar, you have a son.

  The room fell silent. Lazar shook, as if something inside him was trying to break out. He opened his mouth, a twisted motion, and despite his outrage, the word he muttered was almost inaudible:

  —No!

  His voice was as deformed as his cheek, a cracked sound. The pain of projecting even that one word had left him weak. A chair was brought and Lazar sat down, wiping the perspiration from his pale face. Unable to speak anymore, he gestured at the red-haired man, who, for the first time, spoke as himself:

  —Lazar is our priest. Many of us are his congregation. I am his voice. Here he can speak about God and not worry that he’s saying the wrong thing. The State cannot send him to prison if he is already here. In prison, he has found the freedom they would not give him outside. My name is Georgi Vavilov. Lazar is my mentor, as he once tried to be yours. Except that I would rather die than betray him. I despise you.

  —I can get you out too, Georgi.

  The red-haired man shook his head:

  —You thrive on men’s weaknesses. I have no desire to be anywhere but by my master’s side. Lazar believes that it is a divine justice that you have been sent to him. Judgment shall be passed upon you and by men you once passed judgment on.

  Lazar turned to an elderly man standing at the back of the barracks, so far uninvolved in the proceedings. Lazar indicated that the man should step forward. He did so, slowly, walking crookedly. The elderly man addressed Leo:

  —Three years ago I met the man who’d interrogated me. Like you, he had been sent into the prisons, a place where he’d sent so many. We devised a punishment for him. We composed a list of every torture we, as a group, had ever suffered. The list details over one hundred methods. Every night we inflicted one of those tortures on the interrogator, working our way down the list, torture by torture. If he could survive them all, we would allow him to live. We did not want him to die. We wanted him to experience every method. To this end, we stopped him from hanging himself. We fed him. We kept him strong so that he might suffer more. He reached the number thirty before he deliberately ran toward the edge of the zona and was shot by the guards for attempting to escape. The torture that he inflicted upon me was the first torture on the list. It is the torture you will face tonight.

  The elderly convict rolled up his trouser legs, revealing knees that were purple, blackened, and deformed.

  KOLYMA

  THIRTY KILOMETERS NORTH OF

  THE PORT OF MAGADAN

  SEVENTEEN KILOMETERS

  SOUTH OF GULAG 57

  10 APRIL

  THE CLOUD LEVEL HAD SUNK a thousand meters, obliterating the view. Silver-gilded droplets hung in the air—a mist part ice, part water, part magic—out of which the drab highway appeared meter by meter, a gray, lumpish carpet unraveling in front of them. The truck was making slow progress. Frustrated with the additional delay, Timur checked his watch, forgetting that it was broken, smashed in the storm. It clung uselessly to his wrist, the glass cracked, the mechanism jammed with salt water. He wondered how badly it had been damaged. His father had claimed it to be a family heirloom. Timur suspected this was a lie and the way in which his father, a proud man, had disguised giving his son a battered secondhand watch for his eighteenth birthday. It was because of the lie, rather than despite it, that the watch had become Timur’s most treasured possession. When his eldest son turned eighteen he intended to hand it down to him, although he’d not yet decided whether to explain the sentimental importance of the lie or merely perpetuate the mythology of its origins.

  Despite the delay, Timur took great comfort from the fact that at least he’d avoided being sent back across the Sea of Okhotsk on the return voyage to Buchta Nakhodka. Yesterday evening he’d been on board the Stary Bolshevik, the ship had been ready to depart: repairs had been made to the hold, the water pumped out, and the newly released prisoners loaded in, their faces knotted in contemplation of freedom. Unable to see a way out of his predicament, Timur had stood on deck, paralyzed, watching as the harbor crew unfastened the ropes. In another couple of minutes the ship would’ve been at sea and he would’ve had no prospect of reaching Gulag 57 for another month.

  In desperation, Timur had walked into the captain’s bridge, hoping sheer force of circumstance would compel him to come up with a plausible excuse. As the captain had turned to him he’d blurted out:

  —There is something I have to tell you.

  An inept liar, he’d remembered it was always easier to tell a version of the truth.

  —I’m not actually a guard. I work for the MVD. I’ve been sent here to review the changes being implemented into the system following Khrushchev’s speech. I’ve seen enough of the way in which this ship is managed.

  At the mere mention of the speech, the captain had paled:

  —Have I done wrong?

  —I’m afraid the contents of my report are secret.

  —But the journey here, the things that happened, that wasn’t my fault. Please, if you file a report describing how I lost control of the ship.

  Timur had marveled at the power of his excuse. The captain had moved closer, his voice imploring:

  —None of us could’ve foreseen the partition wall would smash. Don’t let me lose my job. I can’t find another. Who would work with me? Knowing what I’d done for a living? Running a prison ship? I would be hated. This is the only place for me. This is where I belong. Please, I have nowhere else to go.

  The captain’s desperation had become embarrassing. Timur had stepped away:

  —The only reason I’m telling you is because I can’t make the return voyage. I need to talk to Abel Prezent, regional director. You’ll have to manage the ship without me. You can offer some excuse to the crew for my absence.

  The captain had smiled obsequiously, bowing his head.

  Stepping off ship onto the harbor, Timur had congratulated himself on chancing across such a potent excuse. Confident, he’d entered the administrative section of the prisoner processing center, climbing the stairs to the office of regional director Abel Prezent, the man who’d assigned him to the Stary Bolshevik. As he knocked and entered, Prezent’s face had scrunched up with irritation:

  —Is there a problem?

  —I’ve seen enough of the ship in order to write my report.

  Like a cat sensing danger, Prezent’s body language had changed:

  —What report?

  —I’ve been sent by the MVD to collect information about how the reforms are being implemented since Khrushchev’s speech. The intention was for me to remain unknown, unidentified, so that I might more accurately judge the way in which the camps are being managed. However, since you reassigned me to the Stary Bolshevik, against my orders, it has forced me to come forward. Needless to say, I’m not carrying identification. We did not think it necessary. We did not anticipate that my duties would be challenged. However, if you need proof, I know the exact details of your employment record.

  Timur and Leo had carefully studied the files of all the key figures in the region:

  —You worked at Karlag, Kazakhstan, for five years, and before that—

  Prezent had interrupted politely, raising a finger, his voice constricted, as though invisible hands were squeezing his thin, pale throat:

  —Yes, I see.

  He’d stood up, considering, his hands behind his back:

  —You are here to write a report?

  —That is correct.

  —I suspected something like this would happen.

  Timur had nodded, pleased with the credibility of his improvised cover story:

  —Moscow requires regular evaluations.

/>   —Evaluations… that is a lethal word.

  Timur had not anticipated this meditative and melancholic reaction. He’d tried to soften the implied threat:

  —This is fact-gathering and nothing more.

  Prezent had replied:

  —I work hard for the State. I live in a place where no one else wants to live. I work with the most dangerous prisoners in the world. I have done things no one else wanted to do. I was taught how to be a leader. Then I was told those lessons were wrong. One minute it is law to do a certain kind of thing. The next minute, it is a crime. The law says I should be strict. The law says I should be lenient.

  Timur’s lie had been swallowed whole. Mere reference to the Secret Speech had them cowering. Unlike the captain, Prezent did not implore, or beg for a favorable report. He’d become nostalgic for a time gone by, a time where his place and purpose had been clear. Timur had pressed his advantage:

  —I need immediate transport to Gulag 57.

  Prezent had said:

  —Of course.

  —I must leave right now.

  —The journey into the mountains can’t be made at night. —Hazardous or not, I would prefer to make it now.

  —I understand. I’ve delayed you. And I apologize. But it’s simply not possible. The first thing tomorrow, that is the earliest. There is nothing I can do about the darkness.

  TIMUR TURNED TO THE DRIVER:

  —How long till we’re there?

  —Two, three hours—the mist is bad, three hours, I say.

  The driver laughed, before adding:

  —I never heard of anyone being in a hurry to get to a Gulag before.

  Timur ignored the joke, channeling his impatient energy into reassessing his plans. Success required several elements to slot into place. Out of their control was Lazar’s cooperation. Timur had in his possession a letter written by Fraera, the contents of which had been read and reread, checking for a warning or some secret instruction. They’d found none. As an additional persuasive measure, unbeknownst to Fraera, Leo had insisted they bring a photo of a seven-year-old boy. The child in the photo wasn’t Lazar’s son, but he had no way of knowing that. The apparent sight of him might prove more powerful than the mere idea of him. Should this fail then Timur had in his possession a bottle of chloroform.