The Secret Speech

FILIPP BROKE THE BREAD, studying the way in which the still-warm dough pulled apart, stretching it briefly before tearing it into ragged strips. He dug out a chunk and placed it on his tongue, chewing slowly. The loaf was perfect, which meant the batch was perfect. He wanted to gorge himself, spreading a thick layer of butter that would soften and melt. Yet he was unable to swallow even this modest mouthful. Standing over the bin, he spat out the sticky ball of dough. The waste of food appalled him but he had no choice. Despite being a baker, one of the best in the city, forty-seven-year-old Filipp could only consume liquids. Persistent and untreatable stomach ulcers had plagued him for the past ten years. His gut was pockmarked with acid-filled craters — the hidden scars of Stalin’s rule, testimony to nights lying awake worrying about whether he’d been too stern to the men and women working under him. He was a perfectionist. When mistakes were made he lost his temper. Disgruntled workers might have written a report naming him and citing bourgeois, elitist tendencies. Even today, the memory caused his gut to burn. He hurried to his table, mixing a chalk solution and gulping down the white, foul-tasting water, reminding himself that these worries belonged in the past. There were no more midnight arrests. His family was safe and he had denounced no one. His conscience was clear. The price had been the lining of his stomach. All things considered, even for a baker and a lover of food, that price was not so high.

The chalk water soothed his gut and he berated himself for dwelling on the past. The future was bright. The State was recognizing his talents. The bakery was expanding, taking over the entire building. Previously he’d been limited to two floors with the top floor designated as a button factory, a cover for a secret government ministry. Locating it above a bakery had never made sense to him: the rooms were filled with flour dust and roasted by the heat from the ovens. In truth, he wanted them gone not because he needed the space. He’d never liked the look of the people who’d worked there. Their uniforms and cagey demeanor aggravated his stomach.

Making his way to the communal stairway, he peered up at the top floor. The previous occupants had spent the past two days clearing out filing cabinets and office furniture. Reaching the landing, he paused by the door, noting the series of heavy locks. He tried the handle. It clicked open. Pushing on the door, he studied the gloomy space. The rooms were empty. Emboldened, he entered his new premises. Fumbling for the light switch, he saw a man slumped against the far wall.

Leo sat up, blinking at the bulb overhead. The baker came into focus, a man as thin as wire. Leo’s throat was dry. He coughed, getting to his feet, brushing himself down and surveying the gutted offices of the homicide department. The classified case files, evidence of the crimes he and Timur had solved, had been removed. They were being incinerated, every trace of the work he’d done these past three years destroyed. The baker, whose name he didn’t know, stood awkwardly — the embarrassment of a compassionate man witnessing the misfortune of a fellow citizen. Leo said:

— Three years of passing each other on the stairs and I never asked your name. I didn’t want to…

— Worry me?

— Would it have?

— Honestly, yes.

— My name is Leo.

The baker offered his hand. Leo shook it.

— My name is Filipp. Three years, and I never offered you a loaf of bread.

Leaving the homicide office for the last time, Leo glanced back before shutting the door. Feeling an awful kind of lightheadedness, he followed Filipp downstairs where he was handed a round loaf — still warm, the crust golden. He broke the bread, biting into it. Filipp studied his reaction carefully. Realizing his opinion was being sought, Leo finished the mouthful and said:

— This is the best bread I’ve ever eaten.

And it was true. Filipp smiled. He asked:

— What did you do up there? Why all the secrecy?

Before Leo had a chance to reply, the question was retracted:

— Ignore me. I should mind my own business.

Still eating, Leo ignored the retraction:

— I was in charge of a specialist division of the militia, a homicide department.

Filipp was silent. He didn’t understand. Leo added:

— We investigated murders.

— Was there much work?

Leo gave a small nod:

— More than you might think.

Accepting another loaf to take home, as well as the remains of the one he’d started, Leo turned to leave. Filipp called out, trying to end on a positive note:

— It gets hot here in the summer. You must be pleased to be moving to another location?

Leo looked down, studying the pattern of flour footprints:

— The department isn’t moving. It’s closing down.

— What about you?

Leo looked up:

— I’m to join the KGB.

SAME DAY

THE SERBSKY INSTITUTE WAS A MODEST-SIZED building with curved steel balconies around the top-floor windows, more like a block of attractive apartments than a hospital. Raisa paused, as she always did at this point, fifty meters away, asking herself if she was doing the right thing. She glanced down at Elena, standing by her side, holding her hand. Her skin was supernaturally pale, as though her body were fading. She’d lost weight and was unwell with such regularity that sickness had become her usual state. Noticing Elena’s scarf had come loose, Raisa crouched down, fussing over her:

— We can go home. We can go home at any time.

Elena remained silent, her face blank, as if no longer a real girl but a replica created with tissue-paper skin and green pebble eyes, emitting no energy of her own. Or was it the other way round? Was Raisa the replica, fussing and caring in an imitation of the things a real mother would do?

Raisa kissed Elena on the cheek and, garnering no response, felt her stomach knot. She had no resilience to this indifference, indifference that had begun when she’d knelt down, her eyes filled with tears, and whispered into Elena’s ear:

Zoya is dead.

Raisa had expected an outburst of grief, but Elena hadn’t reacted. Five months later, she still hadn’t reacted, not in any ordinary, outward sense.

Raisa stood up, checking on the traffic, crossing the road and approaching the main entrance. The Serbsky Institute was a desperate measure, but she was desperate. Love wasn’t going to save them. Love simply wasn’t enough.

Inside — stone floors, bare walls — nurses in crisp uniforms pushed steel trolleys equipped with leather restraints. Doors were bolted. Windows were barred. There could be no doubt that the institute’s reputation as the city’s foremost psychiatric center was a point of notoriety rather than acclaim. A treatment center for dissidents, political opponents were admitted for insulin-induced comas and the latest in pyrogenic and shock therapy. It was an improbable place to seek assistance for a seven-year-old girl.

In their discussions Leo had repeatedly stated his opposition to psychiatric help. Many of those he’d arrested for political crimes had been sent into a psikhushka, a hospital such as this. While Leo agreed, as indeed he had to, that there might be good doctors working within a brutal system, he didn’t believe that