Blind Date (7 page)

Romarkin, director of the whole operation, attentive and efficient, handsome in his official Festival suit, a model of the young activist, reigned in the main room. In the adjoining room, Levanter presided, attending to the foreign dignitaries' various needs, which ranged from providing a doctor for an ailing French film star, to sending flowers to a Hungarian soprano, to politely pointing out to the effete Arab poet that if word spread that he had spent the night with two British male delegates his reputation might be hurt.

The Robot remained in the bedroom, free to leave at any time, but apparently incapable of doing so without a command. From time to time, Romarkin casually strolled across the room, walked down the hall, and quietly entered the bedroom. Any office worker would assume that he was leaving through the rear service door to avoid reporters. When Romarkin came out to return to his desk, Levanter took his casual stroll to the bedroom.

What intrigued Romarkin and Levanter most was the Robot's lack of response. As they made love to her, they watched for signs
of emotion or hints of feeling. But she was like a person in a trance, her body almost immobile, her face impenetrable. Not once during the days and nights she remained in the bedroom did she indicate that she objected to anything or that she wanted to leave. Always complacent, she ate whatever they brought her.

The last evening of the Festival, they slipped the Robot out of the hotel as inconspicuously as they had brought her in, sat her between them in the car, and drove to the Chinese delegates' compound. Suddenly she began to embrace and kiss both men, clinging to their chests, necks, thighs, crying and sobbing quietly like a hurt and disappointed child. They returned her kisses, tasting the salty tears that poured from the narrow corners of her eyes. Romarkin pulled himself free and stepped out of the car, holding the door open for her. The young woman took this for a command. All at once, she stopped crying and dried her tears. Like a disciplined soldier, she stepped from the car, bowed her head, and, without looking back, walked straight to the main entrance of the compound.

A few weeks after the Festival concluded, the Lomonosov University in Moscow had called a compulsory Party-sponsored meeting for all students as part of a national celebration to mark the publication of Stalin's latest book, a treatise on Marxism and linguistics. Romarkin and Levanter were sitting together near the middle of the university's largest auditorium, filled with thousands of students, professors, Party officials, and security officers. A member of the Central Committee was halfway through a grandiloquent speech, full of praise for Stalin's achievement. Stalin, he declared, had now laid the Party's philosophical foundation for ridding the country of reactionary linguists, who, until they were exposed by Stalin, were posing as true Marxist-Leninists. When the speaker finished his address, he received prolonged applause and a standing ovation.

During the question-and-answer period, carefully planted people in the audience, Party members as well as non-Party members who were considered trustworthy, asked seemingly spontaneous questions that allowed the speaker to restate some of his major arguments.

Levanter was bored. He surveyed the auditorium, trying to find in the sea of faces around him someone who looked as bored as he was. On his right, Romarkin sat looking intently at the officials on the dais.

Suddenly, in the midst of the public tribute to Stalin and to his book, Romarkin raised his hand high above his head. Levanter saw what was happening out of the corner of his eye and could not believe it. For the last three years he and his friend had been virtually inseparable. They shared a dormitory room, studied together, spent vacations together. But now Levanter wondered why Romarkin had not told him that he had been selected to ask a question. Had he surrendered the bonds of their friendship? Had he told Party officials about their escapades? He must have, because here he was, calm and imperturbable, his hand raised high as though in surrender, as rigid as the Robot, patiently waiting to be called on. Levanter panicked. Had the Party found a way to get through to Romarkin — and thus to him as well?

The speaker gestured toward Romarkin. “Yes, young Comrade, tell us what's on your mind. Go ahead!” he urged with exaggerated cordiality. “Speak up.”

As Romarkin rose, Levanter sank deeper into his seat.

“I have read with great interest Comrade Stalin's treatise on Marxism and linguistics,” Romarkin announced in a loud steady voice. “This very work,” he said, “unmasked the ideological errors of our leading linguists, and has led to their expulsion from the Party and from university teaching positions. Yet until Comrade Stalin's book appeared last week, our Party considered these men to be eminent Marxists and authorities in the field of linguistics.” He stopped, glanced around, then continued matter-of-factly. “Of course, in no way do I question the wisdom of the Party's decision. But no official biography of Comrade Stalin mentions that he was ever a scholar in the highly specialized field of linguistics. My question is: Would you, Comrade, tell us when and for how long Comrade Stalin studied linguistics?” Romarkin sat down, an engaging smile on his face.

A stillness fell over the audience. Levanter felt thousands of eyes
on him and his friend. The speaker said nothing. He did not thank Romarkin for having spoken. He did not even look directly at him.

No one coughed, sneezed, whispered. The whole audience seemed to have kept its attention riveted on the dais; the people on the dais stared fearfully at the speaker.

“This is no time to dwell on what is obvious,” he announced anxiously. “If, in his wisdom, Comrade Stalin has chosen to write on the subject of linguistics, he clearly has earned the right to do so. Any other questions?” He looked over the auditorium, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

The smile still on his face, Romarkin sat bemused. He seemed to be unaware of what he had done. Afraid to think of what had happened, afraid to glance at his friend, Levanter could not move. Romarkin must have lost his mind.

The meeting ended. People rushed to the exits. Levanter was walking beside Romarkin, and everyone else drew away from them. Outside, as he and Romarkin were about to turn into a side street, they were suddenly stopped by a group of KGB agents. Romarkin was taken away in a car and Levanter was escorted back to the dormitory. There, one KGB agent searched their room while another questioned him. Levanter was asked about his family, about Romarkin, and about their mutual friends. He was ordered to identify faces in photographs and names in address books, letters, and lecture notes belonging to both of them. When the questioning was finished, the agent demanded that Levanter sign a statement labeling Romarkin a subversive.

“You're here to help us,” the agent lectured Levanter. “But if you refuse to sign, you will rot for years in Siberia — in the dungeons — and you still won't save Romarkin. He was doomed the minute he raised his hand in that auditorium.”

Levanter could not take his eyes from the agent's face. “I will never sign such a statement,” he said. His own voice came to him as if from behind a thick curtain. “Never. But remember this: one day, in Siberia, I shall voluntarily admit that when I was at the university I was indeed a member of a conspiracy dedicated to wrecking the Party apparatus. I will produce facts and name
names. And when I do, you — who will probably be a captain by then — will be accused of failing to obtain important information about the conspiracy from me during this investigation. You will be denounced for negligence. Perhaps even for being sympathetic to our cause.”

The agent studied Levanter carefully. In his years of interrogations, he must have looked into the eyes of hundreds of people, tortured to the point of death, who would not break. Perhaps that is why he sensed Levanter's determination not to sign anything. The agent frowned, then tore up the unsigned statement. “You liar,” he thundered, stamping toward the door. “If you so much as whisper —” He slammed the door behind him.

After the Romarkin incident, the university decided to put Levanter out of the way for a while. It was thus arranged for him to be drafted into the army for six months' service in a unit wholly composed of delinquent students.

At the camp, Levanter was ordered to report to the correctional unit's new commander, Captain Barbatov. A young sergeant escorted Levanter to the captain's office, announced him, saluted the squat figure behind the huge desk, then turned smartly on his heels and left the room, closing the door behind him. Barbatov did not acknowledge Levanter's presence. He merely opened a folder and began to examine its contents.

Levanter studied the captain, who seemed to be moving his lips slowly as he read. His head drooped over his chest, as if engaged in a losing battle with gravity. Above the right breast pocket of his well-tailored uniform were a row of ribbons and a battered Red Star.

Barbatov closed the file, pushed back his chair, and stood up. As he walked around the desk, Levanter noticed that he wore the high-topped boots and revolver of a cavalry officer, in flamboyant disregard of infantry rules. An army knife with an ornamental handle hung from his belt in paratrooper-commando fashion.

“It says in your dossier, Private Levanter,” he said good-naturedly, “that you were not a bad student and were even one of
the organizers of the Youth Festival. But it also says that you befriended some very bad people.” His bulging eyes glared at Levanter. “I have no education. I was sent to do combat with the Nazi vipers so that your kind could study in peace.” Barbatov spoke with a pronounced lisp and paused often. “That's why your experience from the Festival can be very useful to me,” he continued. “That's why I have decided to put you in my office.” He sniffed, blew his nose, then leaned back against the wall. He looked at Levanter with a mocking grin.

“I'll be glad to be of service,” said Levanter, snapping to attention.

Barbatov handed Levanter a document that had no name filled in but had already been signed by the regimental commander. “Type your name in the blank, and you will become my aide-de-camp,” he said. “Keep this paper on you. It's your pass, and it frees you from all field exercises. Report for duty immediately.”

Levanter examined the document. He folded it carefully and put it in his pocket.

His first official assignment was to prepare the complete training schedule for the unit, coordinating staff with available equipment and assigning field training areas. To make certain that he was indispensable to Barbatov, Levanter made the schedule in his own secret code and posted a giant visual reproduction of it over one whole wall in Barbatov's office.

The mass of numbers, symbols, and colored cardboard arrows impressed the captain enormously. “They'll never be able to accuse us of revealing our training plans to the enemy!” he exclaimed with pride.

The captain was barely literate. Whenever he had to read a dispatch or memorandum, he read aloud, laboriously sounding each word, syllable by syllable. Yet, Barbatov had an outstanding military record. He had fought throughout World War II and was one of the most decorated national heroes.

Recognizing Levanter's value, Barbatov chose to segregate him from the other inductees, assigning him a comfortable room connected to his own quarters, having his meals delivered from the
officers' mess along with Barbatov's, and issuing special permission for him to use the regimental officers' facilities and to witness regimental troop maneuvers.

Levanter soon learned how to space out the paperwork over most of the morning. Toward midday, Barbatov would start drinking his vodka. Alcohol made him drowsy, then irritable, then drowsy again, and by midafternoon he stopped paying attention to what went on in his office.

As the new unit commander, Captain Barbatov was anxious to demonstrate that he could teach discipline and instill fear. Determined that the student inductees be spared no training hardship, he established a daily reprimand quota, requiring that at least three to five soldiers be censured every day.

Late each afternoon, when Barbatov was usually in a stupor, a recruit brought in the sick list and the unit reports. It was Levanter's duty to prepare the master roster of the day's reprimands and praises to be read before the regimental colors were struck that evening. He kept track of all the reprimand sheets so that he could be sure to remove the name of any student for whom further censure could mean transfer to a harsher correctional unit. He managed to fill the quota by inserting names of men who were no longer in the company, or were en route to a new location, or had recently been released from the army. Since Barbatov signed everything without reading it, Levanter's alterations were not discovered.

One day a week, when Barbatov's superior, the regimental commander, was absent from camp, Barbatov would visit the commander's secretary, the only woman on the base. He would stroll into her office and talk about the weather or tell her how pretty she looked that day, meanwhile sidling over to the commander's desk and stealing one or two blank passes, already signed but not yet stamped. Back in his own office, in full view of Levanter, he would slowly and painfully fill in his own name on a pass. Next, he would get a warm hard-boiled egg from the officers' mess, shell it, and roll it over a stamped army document, picking up enough ink from the regimental imprint to transfer the seal onto the blank pass. After
dark, he would leave the camp and drive to the neighboring village to round up his peasant cronies for a night of carousing.

The mornings after his drinking bouts, Barbatov usually stumbled back an hour or two before reveille. Later, his eyes glazed from so little sleep, he would stagger into the office and down more vodka straight from the bottle. Sometimes he would sit on Levanter's desk and stare at him for as long as an hour.

“You think I'm an alcoholic numskull, don't you?” he asked one day.