Y.T.

1984

‘So when did you figure out they were playing along?’

‘Almost immediately. We’d explained the rules—’

‘And they got interested?’

‘Sure. What else were they going to do? Interrogate us? Bang on for two months about the same thing? They understood perfectly well without our help. I mean, really, was someone suddenly going to blurt out that he got the rules to the game from a cousin who’d moved to Boston five years ago? Just as an example.’

‘No one could have said that.’

‘I said it was just an example. That would have given them something to root around in. But as it was… Well, I suppose they could have manufactured a trail leading to the Mossad and given us mind-altering drugs so we’d have told them any old crap… only they didn’t want to.’

They let us go at the end of May. Already the lilacs were in bloom and the chestnuts had nearly finished flowering. It was a lush Kiev summer. Kurochkin and I sat on Castle Hill, the oldest of the hills overlooking the Dnieper. In the authoritative opinion of the academic Peter Tolochko, this is where it had all begun—Olga, Vladimir, Yaroslav, Yuri Dolgoruki, Muscovy and the Tsardom of Muscovy, Russia and the Soviet Union—although the cautious Tolochko did not look as far ahead as the present day. He contented himself with Vladimir and Yaroslav.

We were sitting in the high grass of Castle Hill. The sky above us, not yet leached of color by the summer heat, was like a weightless sail full of wind; while down below bulldozers were excavating the ancient potters’ and tanners’ district of Gonchari-Kozhumyaki, turning entire streets into heaps of broken brick. Some of the brick and debris was carted away, the rest simply mashed into the boggy, shaky soil of the historical terrain, adding yet another cultural layer. Whatever the culture, there was the layer. But at the time we weren’t up to Gonchari-Kozhumyaki. We’d been set free exactly the way we had been arrested—suddenly and unexpectedly. It was all we could talk about or think about. What had happened and what would happen next.

‘So, then, Alexander…’ Sinevusov had begun the evening before, his forehead dry and smooth. The Bakin air conditioner drove a powerful stream of cold air into Sinevusov’s office. ‘Don’t you think you’ve outstayed your welcome?’

He’d been calling me Alex for a long time, but he slipped in an Alexander now to emphasize the importance of the moment. I shrugged. ‘You know better than I do.’

‘Ho-ho,’ he chortled in agreement and pointed up at the ceiling. ‘We can see everything upstairs. Here’s your pass.’ He took a piece of cardboard from a folder and put it down in front of him. ‘You’re going home today. You’d like to go home, wouldn’t you? We’ve had quite a few conversations with your mama. She’s a lovely lady.’

‘Uh-huh,’ I said, nodding my head. He’d never said he was talking to my mother. There’s a right bloody swine for you. ‘You mean she’s been here?’

‘Sure she has, and more than once,’ he let slip. He realized he had gone too far with his gossip and immediately steered the conversation in another direction. ‘Let’s get down to business. Alexander, for two whole months you and I have got to know each other quite well. We’ve grown close. We have nothing against you here. Go back to university, back to your studies, and make up for lost time.’

‘Right. And just what am I supposed to say to the rector? “Sorry, I’ve been detained by the KGB for the past two months. Please record my unavoidable absence as sickness. Here’s my certificate.” ’

For two months I had controlled myself, but suddenly I lost it. If only I’d known my mother was coming here, to this building, registering for passes and waiting hours to be admitted, begging for favors—she had probably wanted to give me some parcels. It was just like a slow fan being turned on behind my back, its propellers slowly beginning to knock, ratcheting up the rotations, flashing grey shadows. I realized acutely just how much I hated Sinevusov. Apparently he sensed something.

‘Alex, Alex… What’s the matter? Everything has turned out so well. You and I have understood each other perfectly.’ His brow glistened faintly with oil. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief, but it only became oily again. ‘You have nothing to worry about. All the right people in the chancellor’s office and the rector’s office have been advised. Nobody’s going to ask you any awkward questions. So? Better now?’

Sinevusov poured me some water. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s just your nerves.’ He laughed cautiously. ‘Better now? Let’s finish with the formalities. And part as… friends.’

I don’t know how I would have handled the so-called formalities if he hadn’t made me so angry. I really don’t. Maybe I would have signed whatever he wanted me to sign. If it had got me out of that office, that building, never to return to the damp, hollow silence of its cells. Maybe we really would have parted as ‘friends.’ And met up from time to time—he would have asked me certain questions, and I probably would have answered those questions. Once you say ‘A,’ you spend the rest of your life saying ‘B.’ I don’t know what I would have done if we’d parted company as ‘friends.’ But already the invisible fan behind my back was driving the long grey shadows along the office wall with all its might. A glass of water wasn’t enough to stop the raging machine. The shadows were running before my eyes. The fan was droning its way, officiously and monotonously, up to a clangor that curdled the very air in Sinevusov’s office. Rotation upon rotation it pumped out fury. How do you measure fury? In atmospheres? In pascals? In millimeters of mercury?

He warned me that we were forbidden from playing our game, and should we come across any documents not turned up in the course of the search I must pass them to 33 Volodymyr Street. And to hold my tongue, not talk. I was released the same day. But we did not remain friends. This soon became obvious—and not only to me.

At the same time Kanyuka and Korostishevski got out and Kurochkin and Reingarten. Later on we found an auditorium on the fourth floor of our department and got together to talk. There was a lot to talk about. Although Kurochkin and I had met up immediately, just as soon as we could, without waiting for the others. It was literally the next day. Pallid and plumped up on government grub—they didn’t stint on the portions they brought us from the cafeteria—we lay on Castle Hill in grass already grown high, succulent still and green and unmown. We warmed ourselves in the sun and looked out at Old Kiev Hill, where, according to the academic Tolochko, ancient Kiev had spread from Castle Hill (and not vice versa) sometime in the eighth century. And talked about this and that.

‘It was only the first two weeks.’

‘I thought it was longer.’

‘No, really, it was only the first two weeks that they were serious. By then they could see there was nothing going on. Actually they knew before then. They were just making sure… Ryskalov was straight with me.’

I had Sinevusov; Kurochkin had Ryskalov.

‘Great. You mean they just wanted to play?’

‘Of course. Otherwise they wouldn’t have held on to us for two months. Their usual is two weeks. They toy around with you for fifteen days, and then if it’s not serious they just give you a kick up the ass and off you go.’ Kurochkin made it sound macho somehow: ‘toy around’ and ‘kick up the ass.’ From the heights of Castle Hill our late prison didn’t look quite real. A bit sinister perhaps but not real. And already just a little bit forgotten.

‘Couldn’t they have managed without us? I mean, the rules are easy enough. A schoolboy could learn them in a couple of hours.’

‘Sure they could have,’ Kurochkin laughed merrily. ‘But they’re not schoolboys. They’re secret police, dogs of sovereigns. They’re at work, getting paid by the state. It wasn’t for the game, not the way you understand it. They thought: Hey let’s play with them. And sent a report upstairs: “Everything is under control. We’re conducting a counter-intrigue. We’re investigating the specifics, getting into character.” ’

I remembered how Sinevusov kept nudging my arm at first. ‘Alex,’ he said, ‘come on, let’s get them. We’ve got a bomb, so let’s get them. It’ll be too late when they’ve made a bomb of their own. The time is right.’

Sinevusov always wanted to fight Ryskalov. They were friends. Kind of like Kurochkin and me.

‘They’d better return Itil,’ said Sinevusov, who was trying to wear me down. ‘I mean, it’s our ancient capital, where our roots are and the graves of our ancestors. Or aren’t you Russian, Alex.’

‘We’re Zaporozhians, Citizen Major,’ I reminded him with satisfaction.

‘Whatever,’ he said, dismissing my comment with some irritation. ‘Are we going to get them or not?’

But I ducked it. I had a strategy of my own, and it worked. I didn’t fight, I traded. For example, Slovenorussia was fighting the Holy Russian Empire. I sold tanks and anti-aircraft guns to one, airplanes and self-propelled artillery to the other. An American tactic. I used the money I made to buy up all the plutonium on the world market and build atomic weapons. Not for sale but for me. So no one would think about getting hold of my anti-aircraft guns and airplanes without paying for them. Sinevusov understood soon enough that on my team he wouldn’t get to fight, so instead he incited Kurochkin’s and Kanyuka’s interrogators to fight Korostishevski. In the past this wouldn’t have been possible: Kanyuka/Caliph Al-Ali always sided with Korostishevski/Emperor Karl XX. They had signed a peace treaty. They were allies. But obviously Kanyuka’s interrogator was able to pressure him. He’d found Kanyuka’s Achilles’ heel. The Caliphates invaded the Holy Roman Empire simultaneously in two places, beginning a war for La Mancha and Andalusia while also landing troops in Sicily. Then Kurochkin/Betancourt dispatched twenty-five tank divisions into Gorizia and Aquileia.

Our officers weren’t kidding around; they were really drawn into the game. Sinevusov sat for hours with the cards, working out alternative scenarios on his calculator. His little grey suit jacket from Kiev’s Maxim Gorky clothing factory would be lying on the window ledge, his tie somewhere else—a dark-blue tie with a dash of marine, a gift from his colleagues. Sinevusov would snap his braces, sweat under his arms, wipe his brow and keep on asking, ‘What would you do if they did this? And what would you do if they did that?’

I don’t know how it was with Kurochkin and Ryskalov, but I was the only one playing for the Khanate. Sinevusov may have been afraid to assume personal responsibility even in a game, or maybe there was some other reason, but he only advised. And did he ever advise—obstinately, tediously and wearyingly. But the decisions were made by me. I didn’t fight. I traded. Everything with everyone. The Khanate grew rich and highly developed. However, even though I observed my customary neutrality in the war with the Holy Roman Empire, I supplied arms more willingly to Korostishevski than Kanyuka. I sold him my new anti-aircraft systems on condition that they not be used against Slovenorussia. Only against the Caliphates. Weapons trading was a confidential business, but Sinevusov was sitting there right next to me ensuring that Ryskalov and his comrades were kept up to date. There was nothing I could do about it. I helped Korostishevski however I could; it looked like they were giving him a really hard time. And not just in the game. Above all, not just in the game. But he was withstanding the blows.

And in that war, predatory and unjust, the war of the three majors, Korostishevski only lost Aquileia. That town went to Slovenorussia. Whereas Kanyuka put his people on the Iberian Peninsula in vain. He had wasted his money buying my two rocket cruisers.

Later, sitting up on Castle Hill and looking down at Kiev in May, I knew, with a distinct and vivid certainty, that our biggest problems were behind us and nothing worse would happen. Could there really be something worse than the prison inside the KGB building? Surely not. So it could only get better. There was nothing to fear. But within a week, my recent optimism abandoned me. One week later I knew that anything could happen. And that things could get even worse.

I haven’t been back up Castle Hill since then. Probably for no good reason. The view from there is marvelous. Marvelous and very precise—no aberrations, no distortions. Now, twenty years on, I can see that the hill was right and I was wrong. But what can you take from me now? I’m just a peddler of fizzy drinks. Who cares if I perish in a red-and-white peddler’s tent in the cold of winter or whether in that same tent I sweat the caustic sweat of labor in the summer. I’m now a peddler of fizzy drinks, and my affairs no longer take me to Castle Hill. But back then… Then, Istemi was behind me, and we were equals. Not in everything, but in some ways we were. And Castle Hill knew it.

Perhaps it’s only because of Istemi that I managed to get out of the gloomy, grey-granite building on Volodymyr Street in a way that didn’t cast a dark shadow over the rest of my life. It was Istemi who brought Sinevusov to heel, Istemi who refused to collaborate, Istemi whom they set free. Noses pressed against the part-open door, they observed him going out on to Volodymyr Street and standing there, renewing his acquaintance with the May sunshine and deciding which way to go—left towards Opera Street or right towards the park on Volodymyr Hill. They observed his first steps as a free man, and the oil mingled with the venom and trickled down their cheeks and from their chins. And when he reached Malopidvalna Street and disappeared from view, they carefully drew their breath and wiped away the oil and venom. They let Istemi go, and along with Istemi I left, too.