The Secret Speech

Leo was the last to enter the barracks — Lazar’s barracks. He would have to face him alone, without Timur. He’d reason with him, talk to him. The man was a priest: he would hear his confession. Leo had much to tell. He had changed. He’d spent three years trying to make amends. Like a man walking to his execution, he climbed the flight of steps with heavy legs. He pushed on the door, breathing deeply, inhaling the stench of an overcrowded barracks and revealing a panorama of hate-filled faces.

SAME DAY

LEO HAD BLACKED OUT. Coming around, he found that he was on the floor, dragged by his ankles, submerged beneath waves of kicking prisoners. His fingers touched his scalp, finding the skin sticky with blood. Unable to focus, unable to fight, helpless at the epicenter of this ferocity, he couldn’t survive for long. A glob of spit hit his eye. A boot slammed into the side of his head. His jaw hit the floor, his teeth scratching against each other. Abruptly, the kicking and spitting and shouting abated. In unison the mob pulled away, leaving him spluttering, as though washed up by a storm. From roaring hatred to silence, someone must have intervened.

Leo remained where he was, afraid that these precious seconds of calm would end as soon as he dared to look up. A voice sounded out:

— Get up.

Not Lazar’s voice, but a younger man. Leo unraveled from his fetal position, peering up at the figures looming over him — there were two, Lazar and, standing beside him, perhaps thirty years old, a man with red hair and a red beard.

Wiping the phlegm from his face, the blood from his lips and nose, Leo awkwardly rotated himself into a sitting position. Some two hundred or so convicts were watching, perched on the top bunks, standing close by, as though attending a theatrical performance with different grades of seating. The new arrivals were in the corner: relieved that attention wasn’t focused on them.

Leo got to his feet, hunched like a cripple. Lazar stepped forward, examining him, circling, before returning to the spot directly in front, eye to eye. His expression flickered with tremendous energy, taut skin trembling. Slowly he opened his mouth, closing his eyes as he did, clearly in terrible pain. The word he uttered was less than a whisper, a tiny exhalation of air, carrying on it the faintest sound:

— Max… im.

Everything Leo had planned to say, the story of how he’d changed, tales of his enlightenment, the entire edifice of his transformation, disintegrated like snow on hot coal. He’d always comforted himself that he was a better man than most of the agents he’d worked alongside, men who fashioned themselves a set of gold teeth from the mouths of their interrogated suspects. He had not been the worst: not by far. He was in the middle, perhaps even lower, hiding in the shadows of the monsters that had murdered above him. He had done wrong, a modest kind of wrong — he was at best a mediocre villain. Hearing that name, the alias he’d chosen himself, he began to cry. He tried to stop, but to no avail. Lazar reached out and touched one of these tears, collecting it, holding the drop on the end of his finger. Peering at it for some time, he returned it to the exact spot he’d taken it from — pressing his finger hard against Leo’s cheek and smearing it down contemptuously, as if to say:

Keep your tears. They count for nothing.

He took hold of Leo’s hand — palm scarred from the chase through the sewers — and placed it against the left side of his face. His cheek felt uneven, like rubble, a mouth full of gravel. He opened his mouth again, wincing, closing his eyes. As though the laws of physics had been reversed, smell traveling faster than light, an odor of decay struck Leo first, teeth rotten and diseased. Many were missing altogether: the gum deformed, black streaks with patchy, bloody stubs. Here was transformation, here was change: a brilliant orator, thirty years of speeches and sermons, turned into a stinking mute.

Lazar closed his mouth, stepping back. The red-haired man offered Lazar the side of his face as though it were a canvas to be painted upon. Lazar leaned so close that his lips were almost touching the man’s ear. As he spoke his lips hardly seemed to move, tiny movements. The red-haired man delivered his words:

— I treated you as a son. I opened my home to you. I trusted you. I loved you.

The man didn’t translate first person into third, speaking as though he were Lazar. Leo replied:

— Lazar, I have no defense. All the same, I beg you to listen. Your wife is alive. She has sent me here to free you.

Leo and Timur had speculated as to whether Lazar might have already been sent a coded letter containing Fraera’s plans. However, Lazar’s surprise was genuine. He knew nothing of his wife. He knew nothing of how she’d changed. With a gesture of irritation he waved at the red-haired man, who sprang forward, kicking Leo to his knees:

— You’re lying!

Leo addressed Lazar:

— Your wife is alive. She is the reason I’m here. It’s the truth!

The red-haired man glanced over his shoulder, awaiting instructions. Lazar shook his head. Taking his cue, the red-haired man translated:

— What do you know of the truth? You’re a Chekist! Nothing you say can be trusted!

— Anisya was freed from the Gulags three years ago. She’s changed, Lazar. She has become a vory.

Several of the vory watching laughed, ridiculing the notion that the wife of a dissident priest could enter their ranks. Leo pressed on regardless:

— Not only is she vory, she’s a leader. She no longer goes by the name Anisya. Her klikukha is Fraera.

The cries of incredulity soared. Men were shouting, pushing forward, insulted at the notion that a woman could rule them. Leo raised his voice:

— She’s in charge of a gang, sworn upon revenge. She is not the woman you remember, Lazar. She has kidnapped my daughter. If I cannot secure your release she’ll kill her. There’s no chance of you ever being released. You will die here, unless you accept my help. All our lives depend upon your escape.

Outraged by his story, the crowd fermented into a second fury of abuse, standing up and closing around him, ready to attack again. However, Lazar raised his hands, ushering them back. He evidently had some standing among them, for they obeyed without question, returning to their bunks. Lazar ushered the red-haired man to his side, speaking into his ear. The man nodded, approving. Once Lazar had finished, the red-haired man spoke with an air of self-importance:

— You are a desperate man. You would say anything. You are a liar. You always have been. You have fooled me before. You will not fool me again.

If Timur had arrived he would’ve offered Fraera’s letter as proof that she was alive. She’d written it to answer these exact doubts. Without the letter, Leo was helpless. He said, desperate:

— Lazar, you have a son.

The room fell silent. Lazar shook, as if something inside him was trying to break out. He opened his mouth, a twisted motion, and despite his outrage, the word he muttered was almost inaudible:

— No!

His voice was as deformed as his cheek, a cracked sound. The pain of projecting even that one word had left him weak. A chair was brought and Lazar sat down, wiping the perspiration from his pale face. Unable to speak anymore, he gestured at the red-haired man, who, for the first time, spoke as himself:

— Lazar is our priest. Many of us are his congregation. I am his voice. Here he can speak about God and not worry that he’s saying the wrong thing. The State cannot send him to prison if he is already here. In prison, he has found the freedom they would not give him outside. My name is Georgi Vavilov. Lazar is my mentor, as he once tried to be yours. Except that I would rather die than betray him. I despise you.