recited by rote.
“You didn’t believe it?” Grisha suggested.
“At first I didn’t understand it. It seemed that Comrade Stalin could do everything alone if he had to, but that it would be so much better if we helped him,” Dmitri explained in his usual timid manner. Then he fairly exploded, “They talked about Stalin all the time!”
“What were you hiding that you didn’t think they should know?” Grisha queried.
The prisoner, however, paying no attention to Grisha, continued his narrative. “You couldn’t help but think about Stalin. The more I listened to them, the more I thought about the general secretary. We were instructed to follow Stalin, even to anticipate his thoughts, but in fact it was only through Stalin that we could know what was right or wrong. I couldn’t understand our relationship to him. He needed us, and he didn’t need us. He loved us, and he hated us. I thought, What does he want from us? He wanted to be all things, but only to the parts of us he wanted. We were urged to think about the general secretary all the time.”
Dmitri suddenly turned to Grisha. His impassioned eyes still held a full measure of fright.
“Do you understand?” he pleaded.
Grisha was afraid that he did.
“Everyone claims they don’t. Even the psychiatrists. The NKVD ignored the letter I sent them. Do you understand?” Dmitri implored.
“Go on,” Grisha ordered dryly, but with a scratchy voice that betrayed him.
Obsequious, almost sycophantic rapture shone through the frightened eyes. Grisha was worried that the man would say, “Good,” for the prisoner knew that he understood. Grisha was thankful that the man merely nodded slightly and returned to his tale.
“You see, Stalin was the party. The party was the state. The state was the people. So Stalin was us. But we weren’t Stalin. How could mere little insects like us be Stalin? I admit the thought is preposterous. Poor Stalin had enemies everywhere. Not just in the wicked foreign capitals, not just in the old Russia. Stalin had an enemy in every one of us. These enemies permitted Kirov to be killed and by extension the party, and thereby Stalin himself. Stalin was building the new Soviet man, and we were trying to kill this new man. So of course he was angry. After all, hadn’t we killed Kirov? And weren’t we planning far worse acts against the Great Teacher Stalin himself?”
Here the prisoner paused.
“Were you?” Grisha asked gravely.
“How could I plot against Stalin? How could I plot against myself? How could I do such a thing?” the man fairly shouted in indignation.
He gripped the arms of the chair. His eyes burned with shame. “How could I do such a thing?” he repeated in quiet, amazed horror. His voice broke suddenly, the great open eyes blinked, and the man was crying.
Grisha pointed to the water pitcher, but the prisoner ignored the suggestion. He composed himself to continue. When he did so, it was in a calm, sober voice filled with all its former apology and embarrassment.
“I must admit that I had been warned, but I didn’t listen. The party members warned us that it seemed easy, whereas in reality nothing was more difficult. They warned us that in our most unsuspecting moments we could fall prey to counterrevolutionary anti-Soviet activity. Do you know why I didn’t listen?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I was bored. Everything was Stalin. Stalin this and Stalin that. These meetings became our primary work. We were to defend Stalin against everything. Politics didn’t interest me. I barely knew who Kirov was. How could I join counterrevolutionary activity? What could I do? It all seemed so fantastic. It was fantastic, and of course they were right. I had been warned and—” The prisoner paused. “And as I told you, it happened. I admit it was my fault.”
Not having heard the original confession, Grisha did not quite understand what this strange, bewildered, and bewildering man was supposed to have done.
“Let’s go through it again. In detail,” Grisha suggested.
“In detail?” the prisoner asked in revulsion.
“Yes, you seem to have found your tongue. We want to hear the truth, don’t we?”
Grisha paused, but Dmitri simply stared across the great expanse of desk as if he were overlooking an abyss.
“And another thing. Don’t lower your voice. You don’t have to shout either. Just speak normally.”
“May I have some more water?” the prisoner rasped. He sounded as if his tongue were sticking to his mouth.
“Yes, of course,” Grisha said.
The man poured a large glassful and began to sip it, staring alternately into the disappearing fluid and at his NKVD officer.
“You didn’t hear me the first time, did you?” Dmitri asked softly.
Embarrassed at being caught in his subterfuge, Grisha said noncommittally, “Just repeat it.”
“They never do,” the prisoner said. “No one ever has. I’m to blame. I always drop my voice in shame. It’s not your fault.”
Annoyed at the prisoner’s arrogant attempt to exonerate him, Grisha said, “Speak up, please.”
“I’ll try,” he whispered.
“Louder,” Grisha ordered.
“Is this better?” the prisoner asked in a nearly normal speaking voice.
“Much,” Grisha answered.
The prisoner nodded, but didn’t continue speaking.
Grisha stifled his rising impatience. “I know it must be difficult, but I can assure you that you will feel better once you have told me the truth.”
“I was always thinking about Stalin,” the prisoner began quietly.
“Yes, I understand that,” Grisha said patiently.
“Good. Most people don’t. I’m not sure that I do. But I think my confusion began after what happened.”
The prisoner was staring at his investigator. Grisha nodded.
“And every night I would find myself alone with him.”
“You would go home and imagine that Comrade Stalin was in your living room?” Grisha asked.
“No,” the prisoner answered, then added, “In the bedroom.”
He stopped again, a mask of anguish on his face.
“What was the general secretary doing there?” Grisha wondered.
“He was with me. We were together . . .” The man’s voice trailed off, then he closed his eyes and whispered, “like a man and a woman.”
He opened his great fearful eyes to view the reaction. It was slow in coming.
“Like a man and woman?” Grisha repeated in prudish confusion.
“As much as such things are possible,” the prisoner answered.
“Possible?” Grisha repeated uncertainly.
“Every night it’s the same. There we are together like two creatures. One mounting the other from behind. Every night. Always the same.”
He made this confession in horror, suffused with relief at having told the truth.
“This has been going on every night since Kirov was killed. You can’t imagine what it is like to live with something like that,” he added.
Grisha heard the man’s relief at having confessed to the sword and shield of Soviet society, but he himself could not believe that he had heard it right.
“You and . . . the general secretary?” he said in a tone of revulsion.
“Yes,”