“I knew a Kolstov once,” said Beria absently, neglecting to add that the man he remembered had been a journalist whom Beria had tortured to death at Sukhanov Prison. The Sukhanovka was Beria’s personal prison in Moscow, where those he had singled out for an extra measure of cruelty, or women he had decided to rape before handing them over to be shot, were sent.
The guards returned, dragging a naked man in shackles, and stood him roughly in front of the NKVD chief. Beria looked closely at the prisoner, who stared back at him with undisguised hatred. “But there’s hardly a mark on this man,” he objected. “Who questioned him?”
“I did, Comrade Beria,” said Koltsov.
“What did you hit him with? A feather duster?”
“I can assure you, sir, I used the utmost severity.”
Beria touched a couple of bruises on the prisoner’s face and arms and laughed. “The utmost severity? Koltsov, you wouldn’t know the utmost severity if it fucked you up the ass. You’re an executioner, not an interrogator.” Looking straight into the prisoner’s eyes, Beria continued: “Big difference. You see, it takes a certain kind of person to beat a man with a club for thirty minutes. I can see you know what I’m talking about. I can see it in your eyes. Killing a man, putting a gun to his head and pulling a trigger, is nothing. Well, maybe the first time it feels like something. But when you’ve killed as many as a hundred, a thousand, then you know how easy it is. Like something you do in an abattoir. That’s just killing, it means nothing, and any fool can do it.”
Even as he spoke, Beria turned quickly, pointed the revolver, and shot Captain Kolstov in the head. Before the captain had hit the floor, Beria had returned his cold, merciless stare to his Ukrainian prisoner.
“See what I mean? Nothing. It means nothing. Nothing at all.” Beria handed the pistol to Vertinski, who took it in his shaking hand. Then, nodding down toward the dead captain, Beria told the prisoner, “Look at him. Look at him,” and he took hold of the Ukrainian’s hair, pulling his head down. “Imagine it. He was one of mine. Not a traitor like you.” Beria snorted, then turned and spat onto the dead man’s head. “No, he was just incompetent.”
Beria let go of the man’s hair and, taking a step back, turned his sleeves up another few inches and selected a rubber rod that was hanging from a shiny new nail in the wall. “All I have for you, my friend, is a promise. That before I’m finished, you will envy this”-Beria kicked the dead man’s face, negligently-“this piece of shit.” Beria glanced meaningfully at Vertinski and Melamed. “This clown, Koltsov, who was too soft for his own good. Because there’s only one way to deal with an animal like a Ukrainian peasant. You beat him. And then you beat him again.
“You.” Beria snapped his fingers at one of the other NKVD officers in the torture chamber. “Put that chair up on the table.” Then he clicked his fingers at the two men holding the Ukrainian. “You two. Sit him up in that chair and tie his feet to the legs. The rest of you pay attention. This is how we amuse the spies and traitors in our midst. This is what we do. We tickle their feet.” And seeing that the prisoner was now securely bound to the chair, Beria brought the rod down hard on top of the man’s toes. Raising his voice over the Ukrainian’s howl, Beria said, “We tickle their toes until they beg for mercy.” Beria struck the prisoner’s feet again, and this time he screamed aloud. “Like that! And that! And that! And that!”
Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria took off his pince-nez, placed it safely in his trouser pocket, and then licked his lips. He wasn’t a fit man despite the frequent games of volleyball he played with his bodyguards, but he was strong enough, and he inflicted the beating with an economy of effort that spoke of years of practice, and some considerable enjoyment. “Energetic” was how people usually described Beria, and for the officers witnessing this beating it would have been difficult to disagree. Mamulov, Beria’s secretary, had always thought vegetarians were weak and listless and held human life in awe, until he worked for Beria. Beating a man on his bare feet for a full thirty minutes was something awful to behold. A lesson from the deepest pit in hell that was not lost on any NKVD in that room.
At last Beria threw aside the rubber rod and, taking hold of the towel that Mamulov had thoughtfully fetched for him, wiped his face and neck. “Thank you,” he said, quietly. “By God, I needed that, after the journey.
“On the floor with him,” he ordered the two men holding the now unconscious prisoner, still bound to the chair. “Idiots,” he snarled, as they tried to lift the chair down. Beria sprang onto the table like a cat. “Not like that. Like this.” He placed his foot on the chair and pushed it off the table so that the prisoner fell heavily onto the floor. “It’s not a fucking ambulance service. You,” Beria pointed at Melamed. “Get a bucket of water and some vodka.”
Beria threw the bucket of water onto the Ukrainian’s head and then tossed it aside as the man, whose feet were the size and color of two pieces of raw beef, started to revive. “Pick him up,” said Beria.
The guards straightened the chair, and Beria, taking the vodka from Vertinski, pushed the neck of the bottle into the prisoner’s mouth and tipped it up, so that the man could drink. “Watch and learn,” he told his men. “You want a man to tell you something, don’t beat him about the head and mouth so that he can’t talk. Beat him on the feet. On his ass. On his back, or on his balls. But never interfere with his means of speech. Now, then, who sent you on this mission, my friend?”
“Schellenberg,” whispered the prisoner. “General Walter Schellenberg, of the SD. There are two teams. A North Team and a South Team. The South Team is commanded by…”
Beria patted the man on the cheek. “See what I mean? This bastard’s not only talking but we’ll have a hard job to shut him up now. He’d tell me Charlie Chaplin sent him on this mission if that’s what I wanted to hear.” Beria wiped the neck of the bottle and took a long swig of vodka himself. “Well, don’t just stand there,” he yelled at Melamed. “He’s ready to split like a pomegranate. Get a pencil and paper and take down every stinking word that comes out of his mouth.”
Still holding the vodka bottle, Beria collected his jacket and went back upstairs, followed closely by Mamulov. He handed his secretary the bottle. “Where are Sarkisov and Nadaraia?” These were the two NKVD colonels who acted as his unofficial pimps and procurers.
“They’re at the summer embassy, Comrade Beria.”
With Stalin occupying the winter embassy in the center of Teheran, it had been decided that Beria would have the run of the summer embassy in Zargandeh, about five miles outside the capital.
“They’ve got women?”
“Quite a variety. A couple of Poles, several Persians, and some Arabs.”
“Very Rimsky-Korsakov,” Beria said, and laughed. “Let’s hope there’s enough time, and that our guests don’t arrive too early. I’ve never fucked an Arab bitch before. Are they clean?”
“Yes, Comrade Beria. Comrade Baroyan has examined them all thoroughly.”
Dr. Baroyan was the director of the Soviet hospital in Teheran. He also worked for the NKVD, and in that capacity he sometimes murdered troublesome patients with neglect, unnecessary surgery, or overdoses of drugs.
“Good, because I’ve only just recovered from that syphilis. I wouldn’t want to go through that again. It was that actress, you know. What’s her name?”
“Tatiana.”
“Yes. Her. Which camp did we send her to? I’ve forgotten.”
“Kolyma.”
The camps at Kolyma, a three-month journey from Moscow, were the most wretched places in the whole Soviet Gulag system.
“Then she’s probably dead by now,” said Beria. “The bitch. Good.”
Beria went into Melamed’s office, ignoring the pretty secretary who was the local security commissar’s gatekeeper, and threw himself down on the sofa. He farted loudly and then ordered Mamulov to “tell the girl” to bring him some tea. “And some wine,” he yelled after Mamulov’s retreating figure. “Georgian wine, too. I don’t want any of the local piss.”
He closed his eyes and slept for almost half an hour. When he opened them again, he saw Melamed standing nervously over him. “What the fuck do you want?” he growled.
“I have a transcript of Kosior’s statement, Comrade Beria.”
“Who the hell is Kosior?”
“The Ukrainian prisoner you interrogated downstairs.”
“Oh, him. Well?”
Melamed handed him a typed sheet of paper. “Would you like to read it?”
“Fuck, no. Just tell me what you’re doing about it.”
