from Plekhanov. Everyone in this cell's a Marxist of one persuasion or another. What you all have in common is that you're deaf to poetry. You don't know a thing about it.'
It was a strange business. It especially upset Krymov to think that- as far as the sentries and duty officers were concerned – there was no difference between a sick old man like Dreling and a Bolshevik, a commissar, like himself.
At this moment – though he had always loved Nekrasov and hated the Symbolists and the Decadents – he was ready to side with Bogoleev. And if the bony old man had said a word against Yezhov, he would without hesitation have defended everything – the execution of Bukharin, the banishment of wives who had failed to denounce their husbands, the terrible sentences, the terrible interrogations…
Dreling didn't say anything. Just then a guard appeared, to take him to the lavatory. Katsenelenbogen turned to Krymov and said:
'For ten whole days there were just the two of us in here. He was as silent as the grave. Once I said: 'It's enough to make a cat laugh – two middle-aged Jews in the Lubyanka whiling away their evenings without exchanging a single word!' And he didn't say a word. No, not one word! Why? Why's he so scornful? Why won't he speak to me? Is it some way of getting his revenge?'
'He's an enemy,' said Krymov.
Dreling really seemed to have got under the Chekist's skin. 'It's quite unbelievable,' he went on. 'It's certainly not for nothing that he's inside. He's got the camp behind him, the grave ahead – and he's as firm as a rock. I envy him. The guard calls out: 'Anyone whose name begins with D?' And what do you think he does? He just sits there, he doesn't say a word. Now he's got them to call him by name. And even if they had him shot then and there, he still wouldn't stand up when the authorities come into the cell.'
After Dreling had come back, Krymov said to Katsenelenbogen:
'You know, all this will seem insignificant before the judgment of history. Here in prison both you and I continue to hate the enemies of Communism.'
Dreling glanced at Krymov with amused curiosity.
'The judgment of history!' he said to no one in particular. 'You mean its summary proceedings.'
Katsenelenbogen was wrong to envy Dreling his strength. It was no longer a human strength. What warmed his empty, desolate heart was the chemical warmth of a blind, inhuman fanaticism.
He seemed uninterested in the war or anything to do with it. He never asked about the situation in Stalingrad or on any of the other fronts. He knew nothing of the new cities and the power of the new heavy industry. He no longer lived a human life; he was merely playing an abstract, never-ending game of prison draughts, a game that concerned no one but himself.
Krymov was intrigued by Katsenelenbogen. He joked and chattered away, but his eyes – for all their intelligence – were tired and lazy. They were the eyes of someone who knows too much, who is tired of life and unafraid of death.
Once, when he was talking about the construction of the railway line along the shores of the Arctic, he said:
'A strikingly beautiful project! True, it did cost ten thousand lives.'
'Isn't that rather terrible?' said Krymov.
Katsenelenbogen shrugged his shoulders.
'You should have seen the columns of zeks marching to work. In dead silence. The blue and green of the Northern Lights above them, ice and snow all around them, and the roar of the dark ocean. There's power for you.'
Sometimes he gave Krymov advice.
'You should help your interrogator. He's a recent appointment. It's hard work for him too. And if you just prompt him a little, you'll be helping yourself. At least you'll avoid the 'conveyor-belts' – the five-day interrogations. And it will all be the same in the end – the Special Commission will just give you the usual.'
Krymov tried to argue, but Katsenelenbogen answered:
'The concept of personal innocence is a hangover from the Middle Ages. Pure superstition! Tolstoy declared that no one in the world is guilty. We Chekists have put forward a more advanced thesis: 'No one in the world is innocent.' Everyone is subject to our jurisdiction. If a warrant has been issued for your arrest, you are guilty – and a warrant can be issued for everyone. Yes, everyone has the right to a warrant. Even if he has spent his whole life issuing warrants for others. The Moor has ta'en his pay and may depart.'
He had met a number of Krymov's friends – several of them when they were being interrogated in 1937. He had a strange way of talking about the people whose cases he had supervised. Without the least hint of emotion he would say: 'He was a nice guy…'; 'An interesting fellow…'; 'A real eccentric…'
He often alluded to Anatole France and Shevchenko's 'Ballad of Opanas', he loved quoting Babel 's Benya Krik and he referred to the singers and ballerinas of the Bolshoy Theatre by first name and patronymic. He was a collector of rare books; he told Krymov about a precious volume of Radishchev he had acquired not long before he was arrested.
'I'd like my collection to be donated to the Lenin Library,' he once said. 'Otherwise it will just be split up by fools who've got no idea what it's worth.'
He was married to a ballerina, but he seemed less concerned about her than about the fate of his volume of Radishchev. When Krymov said as much, he replied:
'My Angelina's no fool. She knows how to look after herself.'
He seemed to understand everything but feel nothing. Simple things like parting, suffering, freedom, love, grief, the fidelity of a woman, were mysteries to him. It was only when he spoke about his early years in the Cheka that you could sense any emotion in his voice. 'What a time that was! What people!' He dismissed Krymov's own beliefs as mere propaganda. He once said about Stalin:
'I admire him even more than I admire Lenin. He's the one man I truly love.'
But how could this man – someone who had taken part in the preparations for the trial of the leaders of the Opposition, someone whom Beria had put in charge of a colossal camp construction project inside the Arctic Circle – feel so unperturbed about having to hold up his buttonless trousers as he was taken along at night to be interrogated in his own home? And why, on the other hand, was he so upset by the punishment of silence inflicted on him by the old Menshevik?
Sometimes Krymov himself began to doubt. Why did he turn hot and cold, why did he break out in sweat as he composed a letter to Stalin? The Moor has ta'en his pay and may depart. All this had happened to tens of thousands of Party members in 1937 – men as good as him or better than him. The Moor has ta'en his pay and may depart. Why was he so appalled now by the word 'denunciation'? Just because he himself was in prison as a result of a denunciation? He himself had received political reports from his informers in the ranks. The usual thing. The usual denunciations. 'Soldier Ryaboshtan wears a cross next to the skin and refers to Communists as atheists.' Did he survive long after being transferred to a penal battalion? 'Soldier Gordeev doesn't believe in the strength of the Soviet armed forces and considers Hitler's final victory to be inevitable.' Did he survive long in a penal company? 'Soldier Markeevich said: 'The Communists are just thieves. One day we'll prong the whole lot of them on our bayonets and the people will be free.'' He had been sent to a firing squad by a military tribunal. And he had denounced people himself. He had denounced Grekov to the Political Administration of the Front. If it hadn't been for the German bombs, Grekov would have been shot in front of the other officers. What had all these people felt, what had they thought when they had been transferred to penal companies, sentenced by military tribunals, interrogated in Special Departments?
And how many times before the war had he done exactly the same? How many times had he listened calmly while a friend said: 'I informed the Party Committee about my conversation with Peter'; 'Like an honest man he summarized the content of Ivan's letter to the Party meeting'; 'He was sent for. As a Communist he had to tell all. He said how the lads felt and he mentioned Volodyas's letters'?
Yes, yes, yes.
And had any of his written or oral explanations ever got anyone out of prison? Their only purpose had been to help him keep his distance, to save him from the quagmire.
Yes, Krymov had been a poor defender of his friends – even if he had hated these affairs, even if he had been afraid of them, even if he had done all he could not to get entangled in them. What was he getting so worked up about now? What did he want? Did he want the duty-officers in the Lubyanka to know about his loneliness? Did he
