The Secret Speech (35 page)

– Why are you drunk?

Raisa gasped, shaken awake by the shock of the water:

– Not drunk… drugged.

Leo turned the shower off, wiping Raisa’s hair out of her eyes, sitting her on the side of the bath. Her bloodshot eyes were no longer rolling shut. She stared at the puddles forming around her shoes, her speech no longer slurred:

– I knew you’d disagree.

– You took her to see a doctor?

– Leo, when someone you love is sick, you seek help. He said it would be unofficial, no paperwork.

– Where?

– Serbsky.

At the sound of the name- Serbsky -Leo went numb. Many of the men and women he’d arrested had been sent there for treatment. Raisa began to cry:

– Leo, he sent her away.

Dumb incomprehension, then rage:

– What is the doctor’s name?

Raisa shook her head:

– You can’t save her, Leo.

– What is his name!

– You can’t save her!

Leo raised his hand, arching it back, ready to strike her across the face. In a flash, diverting his anger, he grabbed the mirror from the wall and smashed it in the sink. The shards cut his skin, drawing blood, red lines rolling around his wrists, down his arms. Leo dropped to the floor, bloody mirror fragments scattered around him.

Taking a towel, Raisa sat beside Leo, pressing it against his injured hand:

– You think I didn’t fight? You think I didn’t try and stop them? They sedated me. When I woke up Elena was gone.

Leo turned the defeat over in his mind. It was complete. His hopes of a family had been destroyed. He’d failed to save Zoya’s life and failed to persuade Elena that life was worth living. Three years of honesty and trust between himself and Raisa had been wiped out. He’d lied to her, a lie forever preserved by the calamities that had followed from it. He didn’t feel any anger at Raisa for accepting Fraera’s offer, for agreeing to leave him. Raisa claimed it was tactical and nothing more, a desperate bid to save Zoya. She’d taken their family’s well-being into her own hands. The only mistake she’d made was waiting too long.

The three-year pretense had come to an end. He was no father, no husband, and certainly no hero. He would join the KGB. Raisa would leave him. How could she not? There would be nothing between them except a sense of loss. Each day he’d know that Fraera had been right about him: he was a man of the State. He had changed, but far more importantly he’d changed back. He remarked:

– There was a moment when I thought we had a chance.

Raisa nodded:

– I thought so too.

Leo wasn’t sure how much time had passed. They hadn’t moved-Raisa by his side, the two of them on the floor, leaning against the bathtub, the tap dripping behind them. He heard the front door open yet still he couldn’t stand up. Stepan and Anna appeared at the bathroom doorway. No doubt concerned by Leo’s earlier phone call, his parents had traveled over. They took in the room, seeing the blood, the smashed mirror:

– What happened?

Raisa squeezed his hand. He answered:

– They took Elena.

Neither Stepan nor Anna said a word. Stepan helped Raisa to her feet, wrapping a towel around her, guiding her to the kitchen. Anna took Leo into the bedroom, examining the cut. She dressed the wound, behaving as she had done when he’d been a boy and had hurt himself. Finished, she sat beside Leo. He kissed her on the cheek, stood up, walked into the kitchen, stretching out his hand to Raisa:

– I need your help.

Frol Panin was Leo’s most influential ally, but he was unavailable, out of the city. Although they weren’t friends, three years ago Major Grachev had supported Leo’s proposal to create an autonomous homicide department. Leo had reported to him directly for the first two years until Grachev had stepped aside, making way for Panin. Since then Leo had seen the major infrequently. However, a proponent of change, Grachev believed that the only way to govern was by making amends, seeking to admit and readdress, in moderation, the wrongs perpetrated by the State.

With Raisa by his side, Leo knocked on Grachev’s apartment door, instinctively checking the length of the communal corridor. It was late but they couldn’t wait until morning, fearful that if their efforts lost momentum a sense of crushing despondency would return. The door opened. Accustomed to seeing the major in a pristine uniform, it was a shock to see him scruffily dressed, his glasses smudged with finger-prints, his hair wild. Normally formal and restrained, he embraced Leo affectionately, as though reunited with a lost brother. He bowed affectionately before Raisa:

– Come in!

Inside there were boxes on the floor, items being packed. Leo asked:

– You’re moving?

Grachev shook his head:

– No. I’m being moved. Out of the city, far away, I couldn’t even tell you where, really I couldn’t. They did tell me. But I’d never heard of the place. Somewhere north, I think, north and cold and dark, just to make the point even clearer.

His sentences were tumbling one after the other. Leo tried to focus him:

– What point is that?

– That I am no longer a man in favor, no longer the man for the job, any job it seems, other than running a small office in a small town. You remember this punishment, Leo? Raisa? Exile. You both suffered it yourself.

Raisa asked:

– Where is your wife?

– She left me.

Preempting their condolences, Grachev added:

– By mutual agreement. We have a son. He has ambitions. My relocation would ruin his chances. We have to be practical.

Grachev stuffed his hands into his pockets:

– If you came for my help, I am afraid my situation has deteriorated.

Raisa glanced at Leo, her eyes asking whether it was worth explaining their predicament. Grachev spotted her reaction:

– Talk to me, if not because I can help, then as conversation between like-minded friends.

Embarrassed, Raisa blushed:

– I am sorry.

– Think nothing of it.

She quickly explained:

– Elena, our adopted daughter, has been taken from us and admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Kazan. She never recovered from the murder of her sister. I had arranged for her to see a doctor on an unofficial basis.

Grachev shook his head, interjecting:

– Nothing is unofficial.

Raisa tensed:

– The doctor promised not to make any records of her treatment. I believed him. When she didn’t respond to his treatment…

– He committed her in order to protect himself?

Raisa nodded. Grachev considered, before adding, as an afterthought:

– I fear none of us will recover from Zoya’s murder.

Surprised by this comment, Leo sought an explanation:

– None of us? I don’t understand.

– Forgive me. It is unfair to compare the wider consequences to the grief you must feel.

– What wider consequences?

– We needn’t go into that now. You’re here to help Elena Leo interrupted:

– No, tell me, what wider consequences?

The major perched atop a box. He looked at Raisa, then Leo:

– Zoya’s death changed everything.

Leo stared at him blankly. Grachev continued:

– The murder of a young girl to punish a former State Security officer, along with some fifteen or more retired officers hunted down and executed, several tortured. These events shook the authorities. They’d released this vory woman from the Gulags. What was her name?

Leo and Raisa replied at the same time:

– Fraera.

– Who else might they have released? Many hundreds of thousands of prisoners are coming home; how will we govern if even a fraction of their number behave like her? Will her revenge start a chain reaction culminating in the collapse of rule and order? There will be civil war once more. Our country will be ripped down the middle. This is the new fear. Steps have been taken to prevent this from happening.

– What steps?

– An air of permissiveness has crept into our society. Did you know there are authors writing satirical prose? Dudintsev has written a novel- Not by Bread Alone. The State and officials are openly mocked, in print. What follows next? We allow people to criticize. We allow people to oppose our rule. We allow people to take revenge. Authority that once was strong suddenly seems fragile.

– Have there been similar reprisals across the country?

– When I spoke about wider consequences I wasn’t merely referring to incidents within our country. There are reprisals across all the territories under our rule. Look at what happened in Poland. Riots were precipitated by Khrushchev’s speech. Anti-Soviet sentiment is stirring throughout Eastern Europe, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia…

Leo was shocked:

– The speech has traveled?

– The Americans have it. They have printed it in their newspapers. It has become a weapon against us. It is perceived that we have dealt ourselves a terrible blow. How are we to continue the global revolution when we confess to such murderous acts against our own people? Who would want to join our cause? Who would want to become our comrades?

The major paused, wiping the sweat from his brow. Leo and Raisa were now crouching before him, like children captivated by a story. He continued:

– After Zoya’s murder everyone who argued for reform, including myself, was silenced. Even Khrushchev was forced to retract many of the criticisms he made in his speech.

– I didn’t know that.

– You were grieving, Leo. You buried your daughter. You buried your friend. You were not paying attention to the world around you. While you mourned, a revised speech was written.

– Revised how?

– The admissions of summary executions and torture were cut. This document was published one month after Zoya’s murder. I’m not claiming Fraera’s revenge was the only contributing factor. But those murders were important. They made a graphic case for the traditionalists. Khrushchev had no choice: a Central Committee resolution rewrote his speech. Stalin was no longer a murderer: he merely made errors. The system wasn’t at fault. Any minor mistakes were Stalin’s alone. It was the Secret Speech, without the secrets.

His mind turning these facts over, Leo remarked:

– My department’s failure to stop these murders was the reason they closed us down.

– No. That’s an excuse. They never approved of the homicide department. They never liked me for helping to create it. Your department was part of the creeping culture of permissiveness. Leo, we moved too quickly. Freedoms are won slowly, bit by bit-they have to be fought for. The forces that desire change, myself included, marched too far and too fast. We were arrogant. We overreached ourselves. We underestimated those who want to protect and preserve power as it was.

– They’ve ordered me to rejoin the KGB.

– That would be a potent symbol. The reformed MGB agent folded back into the traditional power structures. They’re using you. You must allow yourself to be used. If I were you, Leo, I would be very careful. Do not believe that they will behave any more kindly than Stalin. His spirit lives on, not in one person, but diffused, in many people. It’s harder to see but make no mistake: it is there.

Outside the apartment Leo took hold of Raisa’s hands:

– I’ve been blind.

This was Frol Panin’s second visit to Blizhnya Dacha, one of Stalin’s former residences, now open to families of the ruling elite as a retreat. The decision had been taken that the residence was not to be closed down or turned into a museum. The dacha was to remain filled with children playing, staff cooking, and the ruling elite slouched on creaking leather chairs, ice cubes clanking as they sipped their drinks. Upon Stalin’s death it had been discovered that the liquor cabinet contained bottles filled with imitation alcohol, weak tea instead of scotch, water for vodka, so that Stalin might remain sober while his ministers lost control of their tongues. No longer needed, the imitation alcohol had been poured away. Times had changed.

Having eaten sparingly from a five-course meal, picking at three types of bloody meat, ignoring three wines, Frol’s social duties were finished for the night. He climbed the stairs, listening to the heavy rain. Loosening his shirt, he entered his suite. His young sons were in the room next door, put to bed by a maid. His wife was getting undressed, having excused herself from the end of the meal, as was expected of the wives, enabling husbands to talk of weighty matters, an excruciating routine since most were drunk with nothing to say. Entering the living room and, shutting the door, he felt relief. The evening was over. He hated coming here, particularly with his children. To his mind the dacha was a place where people lost their lives. No matter how many children now played in the grounds, no matter how loudly they laughed-those ghosts remained.

Frol turned off the living room lights, heading toward the bedroom and calling out to his wife:

– Nina?

Nina was on the edge of the bed. Seated beside her was Leo. Soaked by rain, his trousers were mud-stained, his hand was bandaged and the bandages were soaked too. Dirty water seeping from his clothes had formed a circular stain on the bedsheets. In Leo’s face Frol observed stillness belying an enormous kinetic force inside, tremendous anger bubbling under a thin sheet of glass.

Frol calculated quickly:

– Why don’t I sit beside you, Leo, instead of my wife?

Without waiting for a reply, Frol gestured for Nina to approach. She tentatively stood up, moving slowly. Leo didn’t stop her. She whispered to Frol:

– What is going on?

Frol replied, making sure Leo could also hear: