In the Shadow of Mordor

Chapter 1

Frantic barking shattered the silence from somewhere in the semi-darkness ahead. Olga Vladimirovna Polyanskaya pasted herself against the wall with a half-desperate glance over her shoulder toward the brightly lit hallway and the raised voices behind her. Vovchik was arguing loudly with the people in the other room, and Pasha was jamming the video recorder in their faces as he peppered the American diplomat with questions.

She slipped farther down the dark corridor looking for any object she might use against the dog when a dirty little mongrel about the size of a cat sprang from the open door of the office. It regarded Olga with bulging eyes half hidden under shaggy hair with that mixture of stupidity and vulgarity common in lapdogs. Without warning it started bouncing and barking without moving toward her.

“Scat!” she hissed as she sidled into the room. It took only a moment to locate the switch, and bright light spilled over the narrow space of the office. The entire room was lined with metal racks with neat rows of shelves containing cardboard folders. The folders held decades-old, dog-eared documents with names, black and white photos and other excerpts from peoples’ lives typed tersely into the spaces of forms.

Olga selected a file at random and began to untie the ribbon, but the shriveled cardboard crumbled under her fingers to reveal a stack of photocopies of court decisions and yellowed newspaper clippings. “27 OCTOBER 1937, RED ARMY SOLDIERS VIKULOV AND GRIGORIEV WHILE SERVING IN THEIR UNIT CONDUCTED COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY AND SLANDEROUS AGITATION DIRECTED AGAINST THE POLICIES OF THE PARTY AND GOVERNMENT CONCERNING WORKERS’ LIVING CONDITIONS. THEY ATTEMPTED TO DISCREDIT THE STALINIST CONSTITUTION AND THE INVESTIGATIVE ORGANS OF THE RED ARMY. IN ADDITION, VIKULOV SPOKE OUT IN FAVOR OF ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE WHO EARLIER WORKED AT KRASNOYARSK STATION…”

This wasn’t what she was after.

She grabbed another clipping but it, too, concerned times long past. “THE SUPREME COURT OF THE USSR PRONOUNCED ITS JUST VERDICT AGAINST A GANG OF HEINOUS CRIMINALS, TRAITORS TO THE MOTHERLAND. THE SENTENCE OF THE SOVIET COURT SERVES AS A WARNING TO THOSE WHO SHARPEN THEIR SWORDS AGAINST OUR MIGHTY SOCIALIST MOTHERLAND. THERE IS AND WILL NEVER BE MERCY FOR THE ENEMIES OF THE SOVIET PEOPLE AND THE ENEMIES OF SOCIALISM. MAY THIS NOW AND FOREVER BE A REMINDER FOR THE CAPITALIST BARBARIANS. LIKE AN ENDURING WALL, WE RALLY AROUND COMRADE STALIN AND HIS FAITHFUL COMPANIONS.”

She was wasting precious time. Olga withdrew a camera from her bag and snapped quick shots of the shelves, one after another, hoping the lens would pick out something overlooked in her rushed search. At the rear of the office she spotted a desk with a new computer. Beside it was a printer that still smelled of recent use. Like a hunter who spots his prey after a long pursuit, she rushed to the desk and rifled through the papers, her heart beating a tattoo. She couldn’t believe her luck. “REPORT TO THE AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR THE CURRENT QUARTER” was right there in her hands in black and white.

The barking from the hallway reached a crescendo, drowning out even the cries of the old woman. Olga turned from the report to the open office door suddenly wishing Pasha were there with his video recorder. Where was he? Forget the damned American.

She called out for him and tried to calm the dog, which at last fell silent. Instead of Pasha a tall, thin old lady with a wrinkled face appeared in the doorway. She affected an aristocratic bearing and spoke antiquated Russian in a high voice. The old fashioned clothing and manners seemed ridiculous, like an old Shapoklyak cartoon.

This was the granddaughter of hereditary Russian nobility, Marya Fedorovna Golovina. When her parents were sent to the camps to die, a great aunt took her in. But in 1968 while still a 20-year-old student she was arrested “for anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation.” Ten years in the Gulag followed, and she returned to find herself in the midst of Soviet end of times stagnation, disgraced and needed by no one.

For the next ten years she worked as a janitor, living in a small set of rooms on the same street in Maliy Karetniy Pereulok, in the heart of old Moscow, not far from the Hermitage Gardens. When Perestroika began she devoted her life to the collection of information on victims of repression she hoped might be rehabilitated. She converted her old janitor’s quarters into a sort of registry of victims of political repression and soon received the first foreign grants from an educational society with vague human rights inclinations. Despite this, Marya Fedorovna remained eccentric, like someone released from prison only yesterday.

Golovina’s dramatic history didn’t impress Olga. She didn’t obsess about Stalinist repression. What bothered Olga was the way this old, overdressed hen drew parallels between Soviet totalitarianism and life in today’s Russia. For that matter, Olga had nothing in particular against Stalin, but the subject was controversial, and comparisons with the current president could not be tolerated. As far as she was concerned the president had transformed a country devastated and impoverished during the Yeltsin years into a strong and prosperous state.

Golovina simply could not be appeased. She went from one institute or university after another spreading her poisonous opinions. Even worse, she did this for American money. It was as if the old lady was offended by the entire world and truly hated Russia. She wanted only one thing — to destroy her country and grind it to dust just like she and others like her destroyed the Soviet Union. And so, when the chief told her there would be a meeting today between Golovina and a representative of the American Embassy, Olga happily volunteered to participate in a provocation.

And now here was Golovina right in front of her staring at the report in Olga’s hand. The old lady took a step toward her with a shriek. “Put that down immediately, and get out of here, all of you.”

Olga was at once amused and frightened. What might a crazy old woman do?

“Where is Pasha?” she asked, “Let’s see how much money you spent on anti-Russian activities last month.” She began turning the pages of the report. “So, showing a film about the political prisoner Sergey Litvinov at the Colosseum Theater. Well! Seven hundred dollars. Was that to rent the hall, or was it that Litvinov wouldn’t take less?”

An amused voice sounded from behind the old woman. “And since when was Litvinov a political prisoner?”

Olga breathed a sigh of relief. It was Pasha.

He sauntered into the office, unceremoniously shoved Golovina aside and stuck the video recorder in her face.

“And how do you explain Litvinov’s theft of ten million dollars when he worked for an oil company? The court confirmed this. And his speeches calling for revolution in Russia? Do you really think someone calling for the violent overthrow of the legally elected authorities is a political prisoner? Or did the guy in the next room from the American Embassy teach you to talk like that?”

Pasha was a big man and could be overpowering. The old lady reddened before turning on him with unexpected fury.

“You’re just children, nothing but children. Someday you’ll be ashamed of what you’re doing here. You think your little camera gives you the right to interrupt a private meeting? Have you learned nothing from life, from suffering and loss? You’re not worth even the little finger of the people you bully.”

Olga felt a fleeting vestige of shame and pity. But the hysterical notes in the rights activist’s voice had no such effect on Pasha. He took a determined step to Olga’s side, snatched the report from her hands, and laid it out on the desk. He began photographing the document all the while cursing under his breath. With a yelp, Golovina threw herself at him and tried to grab the papers. With a guffaw, Pasha easily shoved her away and resumed taking pictures while the old lady circled him, trying to retrieve the report from behind his broad back.

Despite herself, Olga was embarrassed. “Pasha…”

But the big man was ranting as he read parts of the document. “This is best of all. The organization and training of election observers. Elections! Just tell me where there is any repression. Now we can show how so-called human rights activists plan to interfere in politics with foreign money.”

“It’s nothing like that.” Golovina’s voice was thin and shrill as she continued to hop around Pasha like an animated scarecrow. “We don’t participate in elections. Observers only monitor the integrity of the procedure.”

“To hell with you and your Americans. Go to America and observe elections there.”

He was interrupted by Vovchik’s voice from the corridor. “Guys, let’s get out of here. One of her friends arrived and called for reinforcements. They’ll arrive any minute.”

Pavel froze for a beat to assess the situation. He shot a hard look at Olga who was staring at the old woman. “What’s the matter with you?”

She turned to him and thought she detected a hint of suspicion in his eyes. The very idea that her friends might suspect her of sympathizing with the enemy was unacceptable.

“You old witch,” she yelled as she ran after Pasha to the exit. She almost tripped over the dog and stretched out a hand to one of the metal racks to regain her balance. The fragile structure swayed, but she didn’t notice. She turned in the doorway in time to see the entire row of racks topple, bringing others down with it in a flurry of paper and crumbling cardboard.

The room was instantly obscured by a cloud of dust as yellowed photos and death sentences performed a macabre ballet in the air. Olga raced down the corridor and up the stairs, out of the dark basement back into the warm embrace of a late summer day in Moscow.