The Crime of Julian Wells

24

Mikhail Soborov’s residence was more of a cottage than a house, and it was in an area that was mostly rural, a part of the Ukraine that had once blossomed with small, independent farmers, the famed kulaks that Stalin had so despised and all but exterminated through planned famine. Julian had made the point that Chikatilo was beaten for bedwetting and for almost every other offense, but the Great Famine was the traumatic event in the Rostov Ripper’s life; its tales of cruelty and cannibalism were ones to which the young Andrei responded not with horror or repulsion, but with a vicarious throb of pleasure and excitement that surely must have flooded his soul with dark surprise.

There was nothing at all surprising about Mikhail Soborov, however. In fact, he looked so much the way I expected that in a book he would have been a caricature of the boisterous, big-bellied Slav, hard-drinking and jolly, a Russian version of Falstaff.

“Thanks for talking to us,” I said as I took the hand he quite cheerfully offered.

The old man laughed robustly. “In old days, I would have hidden in the woodshed,” he said, “or had you killed en route.”

“In that case, I’m pleased that things have changed,” I said.

“Oh, yes, they have changed,” Soborov said with an air of jollity that now struck me as somewhat false, something other than Santa Claus underneath the bright red coat. “In those days my ideals were young, and a man takes on the look of the god he worships, is that not so?”

Rather than wait for me to answer, he turned swiftly to Loretta. “Now, here we have one who has not been aged by disenchantment,” he said as he took Loretta’s hand and gallantly kissed it. “Now, please. We shall have vodka, the three of us.”

But before reaching for the vodka, he cast a hard look at Yuri. “We don’t need extra set of ears,” he said sternly, and with that closed the door in his face.

When he turned back to us, he was frowning. “They say we are free now in Russia to say what we wish, but I do not trust such ‘guides’ as this one who comes here with you.”

“Why would they want an agent with us now?” I asked Soborov once we’d taken seats in his small living room.

“Because repression is a snake that grows back its head,” Mikhail answered in a way that clearly closed the subject. “So, what did Julian tell you about me?”

“Nothing at all,” I answered. “I learned about you from Irene, as I said in my letter.”

“Irene, yes,” Soborov said. “You know that in Budapest, during the war, she shot Jews in hospital beds, no?”

“My father hinted at something like that,” I answered. “And when we met her, she showed us a picture. It was quite sad. She feels-”

“Guilt, yes,” Soborov interrupted. “Julian once called it the false consolation of those not really harmed.”

“What an unforgiving thing to say,” I told him.

“For most, time wears guilt away, like wind and water,” Soborov said, “but perhaps time more forgiving than should be, yes?”

“Perhaps,” I said, since I could think of nothing else.

Soborov peered at me closely. “We never meet, you and I?”

“No,” I answered. “At least, I don’t think so.”

Soborov laughed. “Too bad. You might have learned one of our tricks.”

I looked at him quizzically.

“How to make meeting look not planned,” Soborov said. “This how it looks with Julian and me. I am just a man at next table. I rise to leave, but I leave keys on table. Julian picks up keys and gives to me. I take keys and say to him that I am like Borges. Blind, like old poet.” He laughed. “Code is passed, just like in movies.” He looked at me with an almost impish expression. “Too much like in movies, yes?” He waved his hand as if dismissing the subject, and with that gesture, his features became more serious. “This not how I meet Julian, of course.”

“How did you meet him?” I asked.

The old man smiled widely. “You always in big hurry, you Americans, but we have not yet had vodka.”

With that he left the room, then returned to it a few seconds later with the glasses and a bottle encased in a square of ice.

“Do you know what we say in Russia?” he asked.

We shook our heads.

“That drink only second most important thing in life,” Soborov said. “Of first importance is breathe.” He laughed loudly. “You get it, yes?”

We nodded.

He poured each of us a glass, then offered his toast. “To peace.”

We touched our glasses, and with that the old man sat down in a large chair opposite us.

“So, to Julian,” he said. “Because you are Americans, I will tell you quickly. He came to Soviet consulate. He was looking for girl. She had disappeared and he was looking for her. He gets nothing from Casa Rosada, and so he comes to us.” His smile was that of an old man being mischievous. “The Reds.” He shrugged. “We did not know where this woman is, but perhaps we know someone who does.” He appeared briefly reluctant to say more and waved his hand. “Ah, what difference does it make now?”

With this Soborov clapped his hands together.

“All right, then,” he said. “So. Have you ever heard of the Dogo Cordoba?”

I had no idea what this was and said so.

“It is dog,” Soborov told me. “Especially bred in Argentina.” He leaned forward and rubbed his hands together vigorously. “It is fighting dog that is famous for not to back down. The Dogo Cordoba bred to endure great pain. They are champions in the dogfights.”

“What does this have to do with Julian?” Loretta asked.

“Because this is where we send him,” Soborov answered. “To a dogfight.”

I could scarcely imagine Julian at such an event, but by then there were many aspects to Julian’s life that were equally hard to imagine.

“They illegal, these fights,” Soborov continued, “but there are places, hidden places, or maybe not hidden, but protected by police.” His smile was incongruously warm. “And we know what Argentine police doing in other places, no? Things that make dogfights look like country dance.” He drew out a handkerchief and swabbed his neck, as if he had returned to the heat and humidity of an Argentine summer. “It was July,” he said. “Very hot.” Now he turned to Loretta. “They very secretive, of course, the people who go to Dogo Cordoba fights. It is like a secret society. Important people in Argentina come to these special fights. High in government. But also thugs, and of these thugs there is one we keep eye on. He is called El Arabe.”

“The Arab?” I asked.

“That is what he is called, yes,” Soborov said. “Because he is brown, almost like the peasants. He was very low sort of fellow. He had not much intelligence, but low cunning, this he had much. In this way, like Stalin. He had worked himself into a good job running whole network of escuelitas. We knew that some of our people were in his custody, but we did not know where they were. El Arabe was very hard man, maybe impossible to break, we thought, even under stress. But he had weakness.” He laughed at the nature of this weakness, then revealed it. “He was like little child when it comes to Americans. A young man like Julian would attract his attention. This is what we think. A young American. Smart. Good-looking. Maybe with money, maybe from good family. We know that such a one would appeal to El Arabe.”

Loretta looked as if suddenly struck by a cold breeze. “You tried to recruit Julian as a spy?”

“Not at first, because we think maybe he is spy, or maybe he is ‘spy who comes in from cold.’” He laughed. “Either way we wish to keep eye on him.”

Soborov paused to take another sip of vodka.

“There was Dogo Cordoba fight in little town outside Buenos Aires,” Soborov continued. “In pampas, but not far from city. We know El Arabe will be there because he is great lover of these fights. Can you believe this? After day of torture, this is what he does in order to relax, watch dogs tear each other apart.”

He looked at Loretta.

“And so we send your brother there,” he told her. “We give him money and he bet like rich man, and this, too, we know, will catch eye of El Arabe.”

Now his gaze returned to me.

“I was Julian’s ‘handler,’” he said, “and so I go with him there because I want to see if he makes contact and report to my superiors if this American has talent for deception we might later use.” His face soured. “It was dreadful place, where we went that night. Very dreadful place.”

Soborov described the event, how it had been conducted in the sweltering interior of a large shed, the dogs brought in on chains and lashed to the sides of a circular pit whose walls were made of corrugated tin, unpainted and splattered with the blood of previous combats. The crowd was washed with sweat and beer and they screamed to the dogs and across the pit to one another, yelling taunts and bragging about their picks of the night, waving money and sometimes knives.

“It is from hell, this scene,” Soborov said, “and at center of pit, there is El Arabe, with his black hair plastered down, yelling at dogs, laughing, and drinking beer.”

I recalled a scene in The Commissar, a moment when Julian has Chikatilo dream of being a pit master at an orgy of torture, moving about with a riding crop, dressed in a red jacket and high black boots, orchestrating the terrible performance as he strides from ring to ring.

“Julian has been shown photographs of this stupid little bastard,” Soborov went on, “and he make it his business to get near him, waving money like the others, but speaking only good American English, which catches ear of El Arabe.”

In my mind, I saw this “stupid little bastard” turn at the sound of Julian’s voice, his gaze drinking in this young American as if he were a movie star.

“I am across pit, but I see El Arabe speak to Julian, and Julian speak back, then El Arabe turn back to pit and give signal with a big wave of hand for fight to begin.”

What happened after that was a fierce struggle between two Dogo Cordobas, white dogs, Soborov told us, and so the blood that swept over their spinning flanks and dripped from their mouths and coated their teeth and ran down their throats was vivid red.

“The Dogo Cordoba is extinct now,” Soborov said at the end of this description of the fight, “because so many die in the pit and because they become so unstable, cannot be with another dog without killing it. Because of this they disappear.” He offered a rueful smile. “Life cannot be sustained by ferocity alone.” He explained: “I hear this and I like it.”

He was silent for a time, as if his last remark had come to him unexpectedly and was still resonating through his own long memory.

“Anyway, Julian meet El Arabe many times after this,” Soborov said, “in the bars and in dance halls of the tango. He is good at pretending friendship. He can make anyone believe he loves them.” He shrugged. “Once he say to me, ‘All you can offer to those who love you is the pretense that you love them back.’”

Even for Julian, this struck me as an infinitely sad pronouncement, and to avoid its sting I rushed ahead.

“Did you help him find out what happened to Marisol?” I asked.

“No,” Soborov said, “but I think perhaps El Arabe did, because Julian must have discovered something very bad. I believe this because he suddenly change. He has been a good-looking young man; then overnight he is old and looks like one who has, as we say, crossed the Styx. He still has this look when I see him last.” His gaze darkened. “A very bad man, El Arabe. Very bad. He feels no guilt, this man. Even after the junta fall, he offers no apology for his little schools. To this day, he is sometimes on television in Argentina, regretting nothing, saying that he enjoyed every minute of it.”

“Did he go to prison?” Loretta asked.

“For few years,” Soborov said. “Then he is released and after that he is home to his village near Iguazu.”

I recalled the town Julian had circled on the map he was looking at on the day he died. “Clara Vista?”

Soborov nodded. “He lives there still, makes interviews, laughs in the faces of those who still seek the disappeared.”

He let this settle in. Then, as if trying to lighten the atmosphere, he smiled quite brightly and said, “By the way, did Julian ever finish the book on Chikatilo?”

“Yes,” I answered. “It’ll be published next year. He called it The Commissar, and it’s the most thorough account of Andrei Chikatilo yet written.”

“Good,” Soborov said. “He was a hard worker, Julian. This much can be said of him, and it is not a small thing. I would like to receive a copy of this book when it is published.”

“I’ll make sure you do,” I promised him.

Soborov smiled. “So, have I said to you what you wished to know about Julian?”

“Not really,” Loretta answered bluntly.

Soborov was clearly surprised by this answer.

“Irene said that when Julian came to see her a few years ago, he already knew what happened to Marisol,” Loretta added. “You’re saying that it was this El Arabe who told him?”

Soborov nodded. “Who else could? He was Julian’s last contact in Argentina.”

“When Julian came here, did you talk about Argentina?” Loretta asked.

“Yes,” Soborov said. “We talked of the dogs, and of that girl, the one who disappeared. He said that he found her.”

“Found her?” I asked. “He found Marisol?”

“Yes,” Soborov answered. “It was the Arab who led him to her, but he did not tell me how.”

“Did Julian say anything about who Marisol was or might have been?” Loretta asked.

Soborov looked puzzled. “Might have been?”

“A Montonero, for example.”

Soborov shook his head.

“What did he say about her?” Loretta asked.

Soborov considered his answer for a moment, then said, “He said only that a trick is played upon her.”

“What kind of trick?” I asked.

Soborov took a surprisingly casual sip from his glass. “He was always speaking in. . what is the word when it is about a little thing, but it is really about big things. . what is the word for speaking in this way?”

“Metaphorically?” I asked.

“That is it, yes,” Soborov said. “Not really about one thing, about many things.” Now he shrugged. “So when I ask him what is this trick, he does not answer me directly. It is something he cannot speak about, he tell me.” He put down his glass. “So all I know is that he has a name for this trick.” His smile bore the weight of the dark view of things he seemed to have glimpsed in Julian’s eyes at that long-ago moment. “It is called ‘the Saturn Turn.’”