The Secret Speech

the risk in searching for those men and women warranted the potential gain from their expertise. Declaring yourself unwell was tantamount to positioning yourself in the fringes of society, not a place any parent or guardian would want for their child. Yet his stance seemed less like caution and more like mulish stubbornness — a blind determination to be the one that fixed his family even as it crumbled in his hands. Raisa was no doctor, but she understood that Elena’s sickness was as threatening as a physical aliment. She was dying. It was primitive to hope the problem would merely pass.

The woman behind the front desk glanced up, recognizing them from previous visits.

— I’m here to see Doctor Stavsky.

Working behind Leo’s back, talking to friends, colleagues, she’d secured an introduction with Stavsky. Despite a career in treating dissidents, with all that entailed, Stavsky believed in the value of psychiatry beyond the political sphere and disapproved of the excesses of punitive treatments. He was motivated by a desire to heal and he’d agreed to examine Elena without making any official record. Raisa trusted him much as a person lost at sea would put their faith in a drifting plank of wood. She had little choice.

Upstairs, summoned in, Doctor Stavsky crouched down in front of Elena:

— Elena? How are you?

Elena didn’t reply.

— Do you remember my name?

Elena didn’t reply. Stavsky stood up, addressing Raisa in a whisper:

— This week?

— No change, not a word.

Stavsky directed Elena to the scales:

— Please take off your shoes.

Elena didn’t respond. Raisa knelt down, taking her shoes off, guiding Elena onto the scales. Stavsky peered at the display, noting her weight. He tapped his pen against his pad, running his eyes across the numbers accumulated these past weeks. He stepped back, perching on his desk. Raisa moved forward to help Elena off the scales but Stavsky stopped her, indicating that she leave Elena where she was. They waited. Elena remained on the scales, facing the wall, doing nothing. Two minutes became five minutes became ten minutes and Elena still hadn’t moved. Finally, Stavsky indicated that Raisa should help Elena off the scales.

Fighting back tears, Raisa finished tying Elena’s laces and stood up, about to ask a question, only to see Stavsky on the telephone. He hung up, placing his pad on the desk. She didn’t know how or why but she knew she’d been betrayed. Before she could react, he said:

— You came to me for help. It is my view that Elena needs professional, full-time supervision.

Two male orderlies entered the room, closing the door behind them like a trap slamming shut. Raisa wrapped her arms around Elena. Stavsky slowly approached:

— I have arranged for her to be admitted to a hospital in the city of Kazan. I know the staff at the hospital well.

Raisa shook her head, in disbelief as much to rebut his proposal:

— This is no longer up to you, Raisa. The decision has been made in the interest of this young girl. You are not her mother. The State has appointed you her guardian. The State is taking back guardianship.

— Doctor…

She spat the word out with contempt.

— You are not taking her.

Stavsky moved closer, whispering:

— I will tell Elena that she is going with these nurses to Kazan. I will tell her that she will not see you again. I am quite certain that she will not react. She will walk out of this room, with those two strangers, and she won’t even look back. If she does, will you then believe that you cannot help her?

— I refuse to accept that test.

Ignoring Raisa, Stavsky crouched down, speaking slowly and clearly:

— Elena, you are going to be taken to a special hospital. They will try and make you better. It is possible that you may never see Raisa again. However, I will make sure that you are well looked after. These men will help you. If you do not wish to go, if you wish to stay, if you wish to remain here with Raisa, all you have to do is say so. All you have to do is say no. Elena? Do you hear me? All you have to say is no.

Elena did not reply.

SAME DAY

INESSA, TIMUR’S WIDOW, opened the door. Leo entered the apartment. For several months after returning from Kolyma he’d expected that Timur would appear from the kitchen, explaining that he hadn’t been killed, he’d survived and found a way home. It was simply impossible to imagine this home without Timur. He’d been his happiest here, surrounded by his family. However, the designation of accommodation was a process without compassion. According to the system’s calculations Timur’s death meant, quite inarguably, that the family needed less space. Furthermore, their modern apartment had been a perk of his job. Inessa worked in a textile factory and the men and women she worked alongside made do with far more modest living arrangements. Using his blat, his influence, Leo had fought to keep the family where they were, requesting that Frol Panin intervene. Perhaps feeling a sense of responsibility for Timur’s death, Panin had agreed. Yet to Leo’s surprise Inessa had been tempted by the prospect of moving out. Every room was steeped in memories of her husband. They left her breathless, so sad she could barely function. Only when Leo had shown her the apartment block where she would be relocated to, a single room, shared facilities, thin walls, did she relent, and only then because of her two sons. Had she been alone, she would’ve moved out that same day.

Leo gave Inessa a hug. Separating, she accepted the loaf of bread:

— Where did this come from?

— The bakery underneath our offices.

— Timur never brought home bread.

— The people who worked there were too scared to talk to us.

— But not now?

— No.

Like the movement of a shadow, sadness passed across Inessa’s face. The homicide department had been Timur’s too. It was gone.

Her two sons, Efim, ten years old, and Vadim, eight, hurried out of their bedroom to greet Leo. Though Timur had died working for Leo, his sons bore him no ill will. On the contrary, they were pleased by his visits. They understood that Leo had loved Timur and that their father had loved Leo. All the same, for Leo, their affection was a fragile pleasure, certain one day to break. They did not yet know the details of what had happened. They did not yet know their father had died trying to put right the wrongs of Leo’s past.

Inessa ran her hand through Efim’s hair as he spoke excitedly about his schoolwork, the sports teams he was playing for. As the elder son, Timur’s watch would be given to him when he turned eighteen. Leo had replaced the cracked glass and the interior mechanism, which he’d kept for himself, unable to throw it away, occasionally taking it out and resting it on the palm of his hand. Inessa had not yet decided what story she would tell Efim about the watch’s origins, whether to lie about it being a treasured family heirloom. That decision was for another day. Addressing Leo she said:

— Will you eat with us?

Leo was comfortable here. He shook his head:

— I have to go home.

* * *

ARRIVING BACK AT HIS APARTMENT, he discovered that Raisa and Elena weren’t home. The security officers on duty remarked that the pair had left for school in the morning, observing nothing out of the ordinary.