Secretary to the Committee on Internal Morale and Propaganda, which sounded harmless enough, but this was not a harmless man. Either through flattery or blackmail, he always picked his protectors well and for many years now he had been under the ægis of the powerful Minister of Internal Affairs, Boris Bunin, which explained his presence but not his purpose in the MVD Headquarters. Bunin at 65 was young enough to have very large ambitions. Serebrianikov with his vast store of knowledge and his still strong KGB connections must have been, and might be again, a tremendous help to him.
Chislenko bowed in his direction.
‘It is an honour and privilege to meet you, Comrade Secretary,’ he intoned.
‘Thank you, Comrade Inspector,’ replied the old man. ‘Now in the matter of this trivial and absurd incident at the Gorodok Building, you are perhaps wondering what my interest is? Let me tell you. I am old now, and should (you are perhaps thinking) be spending my time in my dacha at Odessa, watching the seagulls. But some old horses miss their harness, as perhaps one day you will find, and the Praesidium – in their kindness and to satisfy an old man’s whim – permit me to preserve the illusion at least of still serving the State.’
This was dreadful, thought Chislenko. No man could be so humourously self-deprecating except from a base of absolute power.
‘What I do is sometimes watch and sometimes listen and sometimes read, but mainly just sniff the air to test the mood of the people. Internal morale is the fancy name they give it. I watch for straws in the wind, silly rumours, atavistic superstitions, anything which may if unchecked develop into a let or hindrance to the smooth and inevitable progress of the State.’
‘But surely this silly business at the Gorodok Building could hardly do that!’ burst out Chislenko, winning an angry glare from the Procurator, but an approving smile from Serebrianikov.
‘Possibly not, in certain circumstances,’ he said. ‘Had, for instance, the initial response not been so attention-drawing. I do not hold you altogether responsible for the other services, but is it not true that your policemen surrounded the building and arrested everyone trying to leave?’
To explain that this had not been his idea at all was pointless; only results counted in socialist police work.
Instead Chislenko countered boldly, ‘Had we not done that, Comrade Secretary, we should not have apprehended the witness, Rudakov.’
‘True,’ said the old man. ‘But with hindsight, Comrade Inspector, do you not think it might have been better if you hadn’t caught Comrade Rudakov?’
This precise echo of his own feelings was perhaps the most frightening thing Chislenko had heard so far.
‘At least the Comrade Engineer appears a man of discretion,’ continued Serebrianikov. ‘Unlike Muntjan who is a drunken babbler, and the woman, Lovchev, who is a garrulous hysteric. Yet there might have been means to restrain these, too, if you had avoided conducting the initial interrogation in public!’
‘In public! No!’ protested Chislenko.
The old man took out a small notebook and held it before him, like a Bible aimed at a vampire.
‘Would you like me to recite a list of those who admit to overhearing the whole of your initial interviews, Inspector.’
Chislenko remembered the firemen and the medics, the corridor draughty with open doors, the stairways crowded with curious ears.
I wish I were dead! he thought.
‘I apologize most sincerely, Comrade,’ he said formally. ‘My only excuse is that I was misled into thinking a serious incident had taken place in a government building.’
‘I should have thought that those circumstances would have urged greater discretion, not less,’ murmured the old man.
‘No, Comrade, what I meant was that, realizing I had been misled, perhaps even hoaxed, I momentarily lost sight of the need for discretion. Indeed, Comrade Serebrianikov, with permission, I would like to say that even now I am at a difficulty in understanding what all the fuss is about. I mean, if there had been an incident and there had been any need to hush things up, well, not to put too fine a point on it, I’d have made damn sure that everyone in the entire building, in hearing distance or not, knew that if they didn’t keep mum, they’d have their balls twisted till they really had something to make a noise about!’
The transition from formal explanation to demotic indignation took Chislenko himself completely by surprise, and made the Procurator close his eyes in a spasm of mental pain.
Serebrianikov only smiled.
‘You are young and impetuous and see your job in terms of fighting the perils of visible crime,’ he said. ‘That is good. But when you are as experienced and contemplative as age has made me – and the Procurator here –’ this came as an afterthought – ‘you begin to appreciate the perils of the invisible. Let me give you a few facts, Inspector. It is now a week since this alleged incident. What will you find if you visit the Gorodok Building? I will tell you. So many of the personnel working there refuse to use the lift in question, which is the south lift, that long queues form outside the north lift. When a directive was issued ordering those in offices on the south side of the building to use the south lift, many of them started walking up the stairs in preference. Furthermore, this incident is still a popular topic of conversation not only in the Gorodok Building but in government offices throughout the city, and presumably in the homes and recreational centres of those concerned.’
Chislenko started to speak, but Serebrianikov held up his hand.
‘You are, I imagine, going to dismiss this as mere gossip, trivial and short-lived. I cannot agree. Firstly, it panders to a particularly virulent strain of superstition in certain sections of our people who, despite all that education can do, still adhere to the religious delusions of the Tsarist tyranny. But there is worse. All families have their troubles and these can be dealt with if kept within the family. Our sage and serious Soviet press naturally do not concern themselves with such trivia, but several Western lie-sheets have somehow got wind of the story and have run frivolous and slanderous so-called news items. And only last night at a reception to celebrate the successful launching of our Uranus probe, I myself was asked by the French ambassador if it were true that ghosts were being allowed back into the Soviet Union. The man, of course, was drunk. Nevertheless …’
The pale blue eyes fixed on Chislenko. He felt accused and said helplessly, ‘I’m sorry, Comrade Secretary …’
‘Yes,’ said Serebrianikov. ‘By the way, Comrade Inspector, you’re not related to Igor Chislenko who used to play on the wing for Dynamo, are you?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Chislenko.
‘A pity. Still, no matter,’ said the old man with sudden briskness. ‘Procurator Kozlov, I think we understand each other, and I have every confidence this young officer can establish the truth of this matter, explode the lies, and bring the culprits to book. I shall expect his report by the end of the week, shall we say? Good day to you.’
With a benevolent nod, Serebrianikov left the room, his step remarkably light and spry for a man of his age.
The Procurator remained at his desk, his head bent, his eyes hooded. Chislenko remained in the posture of attention to which he had belatedly snapped as he realized the old man was leaving. After perhaps a minute, he said cautiously, ‘Sir?’
Kozlov grunted.
‘Sir, what is it precisely that the Comrade Secretary wishes us to do?’
The Procurator’s head rose, the eyes opened. The voice when it came was almost gentle.
‘He wishes you to scotch all those wild stories about what happened in the Gorodok Building,’ said Kozlov. ‘He wishes you to show that not only was there no supernatural manifestation, but also that the whole affair has been stage-managed by subversive elements, encouraged and supported by Western imperialist espionage machines operating