The Big Green Tent

THE DRAGNET

Getting out of the taxi, Ilya glanced at his watch—three minutes past five.

Being late by three minutes is not being late, he said to himself.

By the hotel entrance he slowed down his pace. It was drizzling rain, and the air felt stuffy.

I’ve gone nuts! Since when did I ever worry about being late? He stopped directly in front of the doorman, who looked like an opera singer, with his double-barreled chest and muscular neck. The doorman eyed him suspiciously.

After the search, Ilya had been detained at Malaya Lubyanka for eighteen hours. The three interrogators took turns. First, two of them tried to confuse him, then the third crudely but convincingly tried to win him over to their side, to persuade him to become an informer. They parted with the understanding that they would meet again. Now, a week later, they called him on the phone and set a time to meet in a public building: Hotel Moscow, seventh floor, room 724.

Now Ilya bemoaned his own stupidity. He didn’t have to answer the phone, he didn’t have to show up for the appointment, he could have insisted they send a summons. And he definitely didn’t have to show up right on time.

I don’t owe them anything, Ilya thought, reasoning with himself. They’ll throw me in prison anyway, if they want to. I have to stop being afraid. It’s essential. I’m carefree and unconcerned, I’m flighty, I’m lighter than air … and a bit thick in the head. Pardon me? What was that you said? No! It can’t be! Really? I never would have guessed! Ilya prepped himself for the meeting.

The doorman admitted him, but another person, a beanpole in a gray suit, bounded up to him.

“Excuse me, whom are you here to see?”

“Room 724.”

“This way, please,” he said too quickly, then grinned, baring his teeth.

Ilya, practicing being an idiot, replied jovially:

“Good day to you!”

There were two Frenchwomen in the elevator with him. One, a real grande dame, was wearing a luxuriant fur of some unknown kind that was inappropriate for the season. The other was younger, with a pale, narrow little face, also inappropriately dressed in some sort of white muslin raincoat. They chattered animatedly with each other, and every other word was très bien, très bien. Meanwhile, the younger one kept looking at Ilya with mild feminine interest. And he got so carried away by these glances that he forgot why he was going up to the seventh floor.

When he got to the door, he looked at his watch. He was ten minutes late, and now this fact buoyed him up: Yes, what of it? I’m always late, and this is no exception. Or do you consider yourself to be more deserving than others?

He knocked and opened the door to enter.

“Come in, come in. Good afternoon … or evening.”

The man was sitting at a desk with his back to the light, his face a shadow.

“You’re late, Ilya Isayevich, you’re late. Like a debutante for a rendezvous,” the man said patronizingly.

“I know, I know,” Ilya said, smiling. “It’s a bad habit of mine; I’m always late.” He sensed that he had struck the right tone, one that betrayed no fear or servility.

“Well, a free spirit and artist can allow himself that luxury. I have an official position. I’m beholden to both time and circumstance.” He spoke with irony and decorum, in an old Moscow manner rare in a KGB agent. “Please, take a seat. Let’s sit here, otherwise it’s all too formal.” And he came out from behind his desk and pulled up an armchair.

The room was known as a “semideluxe” variety; a Soviet invention, which featured two connecting rooms. The door to the bedroom was slightly ajar. A stiff tapestry curtain hung in the doorway.

In the living room, besides the desk, there was a round table, two chairs, and a painting. Ilya glanced at the painting. It was crude Soviet art, with thick swathes of oil paint and a gilded frame, depicting two boys up to their knees in water pulling a dragnet.

“Let’s get to know each other,” the KGB agent said, extending his hand. “Anatoly Alexandrovich Chibikov.”

Ilya shook the hand offered to him, sensing that he was beginning to lose this game. He had not intended to shake anyone’s hand.

Chibikov was thin, but his face was bloated, and he had bags under his eyes. He grabbed an already opened pack of Bulgarian Suns. His forefinger and middle finger were stained yellow with nicotine.

He’s a smoker, and he smokes my brand, Ilya thought. He doesn’t look Russian—black hair, shiny, falling onto his forehead; a cowlick on his crown. His eyes look a bit Asian. It’s an interesting face, as though it’s been washed and shrunk like a wool sweater. And he has some sort of pouch, maybe a goiter, under his chin.

“You and I share a common interest, Ilya Isayevich.” Anatoly Alexandrovich said this perfunctorily, without any preamble. He paused, assuming, apparently, that Ilya would be intrigued by this.

Ilya took the bait, but was quick to spit it out.

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, but we do. Collecting. I’m not referring to your collection of Futurism, a valuable collection, indeed. I’m talking about the field of history. Yes, yes, modern history. I’m a historian by training, and I have my favorite subjects, including those which exceed the bounds of modern history. In the field of current trends, if you will!”

Ilya felt his head growing heavy. Something pulsed at the back of his head, and his eyes seemed to tense up in their sockets. This had to be about Mikha, or about the magazine they published with Edik. Or maybe it was about the Chronicle?

He forgot instantly about his intention to play the fool. They both lit up their unfiltered Suns simultaneously.

“Common interests, common tastes.” Chibikov grinned, placing his pack of cigarettes next to Ilya’s.

“As for tastes, that’s open to debate,” Ilya parried, and felt himself relax a bit. He felt satisfied with himself: it was a noncommittal, even bold reply.

“Have it your way,” the KGB man said with a sigh. “You see, I occupy a position in my profession in which routine operations fall outside the purview of my interests. Nevertheless, the materials confiscated from you ended up on my desk.”

He’s a colonel, at least, Ilya decided.

“I read your juvenilia with great interest. I must admit, the history of the LORLs touched me. In a way, you’re fortunate that times have changed, and that your preoccupation with literature didn’t lead you to a deep place where one works with pickaxe and shovel instead of a fountain pen or quill.

“But these minutes of the LORLs’ meetings from 1955 to 1957, the photographs, the reports, the essays—this is the work of a professional historian and archivist, and I can’t help but admire the fact that it was all done by a child, a schoolboy. Remarkable! And your teacher—what a striking figure! I knew him slightly in my own youth. Do you continue to see him, to see your former classmates?”

“Almost never,” he said, not so much warding off a blow as returning a ball. Now he’ll start in on Mikha.

“It’s actually very interesting to observe how the fates of people unfold. Even those who were in the same class at school, or lived in the same courtyard…”

He’s definitely working his way around to Mikha. Or to Victor Yulievich, Ilya surmised. Naturally, correspondence with a prisoner and packages sent in a prisoner’s name … but the agent continued to hold forth, never coming around to the subject of Mikha.

“All through 1956, your club studied the Decembrists. You boys wrote brilliant essays. Everything depends on the teacher, of course. My daughter is now in her junior year of high school. Their teacher is an old woman who doesn’t really have a grasp of these things. As a result, the kids don’t have the slightest interest in the subject.”

“Yes, a great deal depends on the teacher,” Ilya agreed.

“But you were lucky with your teacher!”

Pause. Take a deep breath. Maybe I should ask about the typewriter? All the same, they’ll never give it back.

The “colonel” looked pensive.

“In my time I also had a keen interest in the Decembrists. I was primarily interested in the investigation. The notes of the investigative committee are fascinating.

“In the Decembrists’ own memoirs there’s a great deal about their incarceration in Peter and Paul Fortress, about their transport to Siberia, about hard labor and banishment. But there’s almost nothing about the interrogations. All the Decembrists, except perhaps for Trubetskoy and Basargin, are silent on the subject. Why do you think that is, Ilya Isayevich?”

Ilya wasn’t in the least concerned about the Decembrists; his concerns lay elsewhere. He was wondering where all this talk about hard labor and banishment might be leading.

“And were many accounts left behind by those who were interrogated in the thirties?” Ilya said, trying to wriggle out of the first question.

“There is an enormous amount of material on the Stalin-era trials. And, by the way, the Decembrists were not required to sign nondisclosure agreements, a practice that became nearly universal a century later. I’ve read everything that is available in the investigative committee archives, and I can tell you why the Decembrists avoided mentioning the interrogations.”

The bags under his eyes trembled, and he broke into a sad smile.

“They all testified against one another. Yes, it’s true. And not out of fear, but out of a sense of honor. However strange it may sound in our day, they were governed by the belief that lying is dishonorable and wrong.”

Son of a bitch, now he’s telling me that lying is wrong! He’s spinning these intricate tales and arguments just to throw me off.

But Ilya maintained his composure.

“In school we were taught that the Decembrists behaved heroically, that their conspiracy was doomed to failure because it was a palace coup, and none of the conspirators had any connection with the people, with the peasants…” Ilya said feebly.

Chibikov frowned.

“Yes, that’s what the textbooks tell us. But that’s not the point. Unfortunately, the results of all that heroism completely contradicted its intentions. The actions of the Decembrists delayed the very reforms that the Tsar was already about to implement. Those who tried the Decembrists—and they were their own relatives, their fellow soldiers, their friends—were trying to fortify the government, while the Decembrists tried to undermine it. Everyone knew that reforms were necessary. However, the ones who put them into practice were not the Decembrists, but their opponents. History is dialectical, like life itself, and at times even paradoxical. It was the conservatives who made government policy, not the radicals!”

Again. What is he driving at? Did he call me here to theorize about all of this? Be careful, be careful. Pay attention. Ilya’s presence of mind didn’t desert him.

“Russia has never been as strong as it is now, in our day. There is only one period of Russian history that stands up to comparison with our own: the Russia of Alexander the Second, the Liberator. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Russia liberated Europe, as it did in the middle of the twentieth century. The uprising of the Decembrists set Russia back decades. But history bestows glory on Muravyov-Apostol, while it reviles Muravyov the Hangman. Yet they were from one family, one social circle! Are you aware that Prince Sergei Bolkonsky, the Decembrist, when he was an old man, after returning from exile and before he went abroad, went to say farewell at the grave of Benckendorff, his friend and comrade-in-arms, moreover the head of the Third Division, the Tsar’s secret police?”

Chibikov’s speech was refined and intelligent, his diction as well as his intonation. Could he really be a colonel? This was getting serious.

“You and your friends have misunderstood Russian history and the Russian state.”

The history of the Russian state was the last thing that interested Ilya at the moment. He was thinking about the collection of portraits that had been confiscated. Some of these photographs had been sent to the West and published there in newspapers and magazines. If the KGB got their hands on these publications, his authorship would be revealed. Of the many photographs that had sailed or flown their way over, at least eleven had been published. Maybe twelve. There was no way he could deny it.

Ilya sighed.

The “colonel” seemed to read his mind.

“It’s possible that the portrait gallery that was taken from you will be published in history textbooks a hundred years from now. Like the portraits of Karakozov and Kalyaev. Or maybe it won’t. In any case, it all belongs to history.”

It was still unclear whether they had traced the origin of the photographs in the Western publications back to his archive. Fine, if you’re so smart, see what you make of this …

(Alas, Ilya had long forgotten his intention to play the fool.)

“History is one thing, and the KGB another. You can’t just lump them together. It’s my personal collection; and the portraits were not meant for the secret police, by the way,” Ilya said.

“I’m afraid, Ilya Isayevich, that you don’t have the slightest idea what the function of the secret police is. Exhibits disappear from libraries, personal archives, from museums. They are stolen, sold, exchanged, sometimes consciously destroyed. But I can assure you, in the archives of the secret police nothing is ever lost. True, the number of people granted access to them is extremely limited. But, believe me, there is no place more reliable for safekeeping. Nothing ever goes missing there! Moreover, it is the very place where historical truth is preserved.”

“I’m sorry, but I would prefer to safeguard my collection in my own home.”

“You should have thought of that before. Now it’s no longer yours to safeguard.” The “colonel” rose from the deep armchair with a painful grimace—radiculitis or hemorrhoids—and, flinging back the theater curtain, went into the next room.

Ilya looked at the clock. Almost two hours had passed without his noticing it. Between them they had smoked half a pack of cigarettes, and a cloud of smoke hung just below the ceiling. Poor ventilation. The boys in the painting, withdrawing further and further into shadow, were still pulling their net out of the water.

From the next room came papery sounds that were still not quite paper—and Ilya realized, somewhat belatedly, that someone else had been sitting in the other room from the very start. Lying in wait. After a minute Chibikov returned, carrying a file in his hands.

“Is this an ambush?” Ilya asked, suppressing nervous laughter.

Anatoly Alexandrovich smiled and shook his head.

“The police, Ilya Isayevich, are a vine with tendrils and runners reaching into every part of the government. A certain clever person decreed that the secret police would operate thus. And that, in there, is a little tiny shoot, one might say.” He nodded in the direction of the bedroom.

Out of the file he pulled a copy of an émigré publication in Russian. On the first page was a portrait of Anatoly Marchenko.

“How interesting it all is! A photograph from your archive. One must admit, history is quite idiosyncratic. A very active girl managed to reproduce flyers in defense of this very Marchenko whom you photographed. She started a whole campaign to obtain the release of an ordinary criminal. But, just imagine, this nice young girl left her bag containing the packet of flyers and all her documents, behind in a taxi. She’s the one you should have photographed. She was a formidable conspirator! But the picture of Marchenko is a good one. Have you known him for long? This photograph is quite an early one, isn’t it? Between 1966 and 1968? He went into hiding after his first term in prison. A fine photograph! Of course, the quality of a newspaper reproduction leaves something to be desired. Here are a few other examples of your work, of varying quality. But there are no grounds for complaint, are there? In Stern magazine the quality is better.”

This has nothing to do with Mikha. It’s far worse. Novoye Russkoye Slovo and Stern. What else does he have on me?

The cover of the file was fairly stiff and thick, and it was impossible to see whether it was full, or whether it had contained only these two pages.

“In some strange way your photographs have ended up in Western publications. Perhaps your Belgian friend Pierre Zand was responsible for it? He’s a very slippery character, by the way; he works for Western intelligence. And sometimes he lends us a hand, too.”

I’m sunk! As for Pierre—he’s lying, of course. But they’ve managed to connect all the dots, the bastards. Like an idiot, I thought they’d overlook things. Those guys in the Lubyanka were rank amateurs compared with this fellow. He’s the cream of the crop.

“But no, that’s not what really interests me. What concerns me is something else. These materials must be preserved at all cost. What has already been taken from you will remain safe. It will be preserved for all eternity. Or most of eternity, at any rate. But what will become of the work you do tomorrow, or the day after, or a year from now? Of course, if they don’t throw you in prison tomorrow. I must admit that I like you, Ilya Isayevich. I wouldn’t want you to have to experience prison, or the camps. But this is your own choice. In the space of a very short time it will be decided. It is, strictly speaking, already decided.”

* * *

Ilya sat motionless. He didn’t frown, but the back of his head was pounding again. He felt his heart stop beating, then scramble into motion with renewed force. I must have a heart defect. The thought flashed through his head. They can pin anything on me, even espionage. And that gets you more than three years. What’s the most incriminating thing there? Perhaps the portrait of Sakharov? I didn’t keep it at home. When he sent out his Memorandum to the Soviet Leadership I gave the photograph to Klaus. It never made it into the German newspapers. But maybe it was printed somewhere after all?

“But, I’ll be honest with you, I have a few special means at my disposal. I’m going to make you a proposition that I want you to think about. It’s possible that it will take you by surprise. I don’t rule out that you may be offended by it at first. But think about it before you give me your answer.”

Pause. For thinking?

“You have a wrongheaded view of our organization. It’s no longer what it was during the thirties and forties. There are new ideas, new forces, new people. Profound changes are taking place in the country, which not everyone can sense yet. And the changes might be much more profound and radical than you imagine. Things aren’t as simple as you imagine them to be. I don’t want this portrait to be the last one you do. I’m talking about the portrait of Sakharov. I want you to continue your work. I’m prepared to back you up, to vouch for you. My conditions are that everything you do, you should do in two copies. One for yourself, and another for me. And, I stress, for me. Consider this to be my personal archive of your work. This is in the interests of history, if you will. Not to mention your own interests.”

I’m caught. It’s not about the typewriter anymore. It looks like they’re not even interested in the manuscript of the Gulag. It’s me they’re after, lock, stock, and barrel.

His head was no longer pounding. He needed to have a clear head to find some way out of this. Ilya’s face remained calm while he pondered these matters; but his palms were sweating.

“You are playing a dangerous game, and I respect you for it, though I’ve told you my views on the radical movements of our society. After the 1917 Revolution, all of them are doomed to fail, and, what’s more, are devoid of meaning. This is simple dialectics. You’ll understand it in time, I hope not too late. Frankly speaking, I’m not terribly worried about how you will go about your work in the future. As I explained, routine operations are not my domain. If you accept my proposal, you can do a great deal of interesting work. Moreover, I understand that a person who is able to create such a magnificent archive at the age of fifteen—I’m talking about the LORLs—is capable of working on a much more serious level.”

He looked at the clock.

“I hope you understand that our conversation must remain strictly confidential. This is in your interests, as well as mine.”

“It’s hard to consider our conversation to be confidential, Anatoly Alexandrovich.” Ilya swallowed, and gestured toward the slightly open door.

“Don’t let that worry you. No one has seen you. And no one will see you. Stand up, please, and turn toward the window. Yes, that’s right.” Anatoly Alexandrovich, in a loud, commanding tone, said: “Vera Alekseevna, you may leave.”

He heard the click-click of high heels, then the door to the corridor opened with a creak, and the lock snapped shut.

“It’s not all as simple as it appears to you, Ilya Isayevich,” Chibikov said sadly.

Ilya said nothing.

“You must decide today. Today I can still do something for you,” the “colonel” said in a dark, velvety voice. “Tomorrow it will be too late.”

So if I say no right now, they won’t let me out of here. And they have all my things, anyway. If I agree, I can continue to live as before—but I will be working not for myself, but for them. No, I can’t imagine this kind of life …

“Moreover—and here I just want to convey the full picture—if I don’t intervene right now and the matter resumes its…”

Pause.

“… former course, you and your wife will be held liable. We can say that you brought the books into the house single-handedly; but the typewriter is hers. And Solzhenitsyn’s manuscript was in her possession. You’re putting not just yourself in jeopardy, but her, too. Just between ourselves, you were the one who dragged her into this risky business. And that’s a serious argument. While I still have the wherewithal to intervene in the matter.”

They’ve got me. There’s no way out. It’s a Fool’s Mate. My dear girl, I will never betray you.

“This is a gentlemen’s agreement. I’ll give you my phone number. At home. We won’t keep up regular contact. You will call me when something interesting arises. You will print as many copies as you consider necessary for your work, and you will hand over the negatives to me.”

“The negatives! That’s asking too much,” Ilya said sharply.

But the “colonel” already knew he had won. He laughed.

“You’re twisting my arm!” he said.

“No, if we’re talking about a gentlemen’s agreement, I have to defend my interests,” Ilya insisted.

Chibikov looked at him with new respect.

“All right. You keep the negatives. The last thing I need is your signature.”

“But it’s a gentlemen’s agreement!” Ilya protested.

“I have to defend my interests, too,” Anatoly Alexandrovich said, smiling.

Between them they had smoked both packs of cigarettes. The boys were still pulling on their nets behind the shimmering pall of smoke.

When Ilya left, it was already dark. And the autumn rain, an insistent drizzle, was still falling.