Tatiana and Alexander. Paullina Simons
documents accusing you of espionage and treason to your mother country. What say you to these charges?”
“They’re baseless and unfounded,” said Alexander. “Anything else?”
“You are accused of being a foreign spy!”
“Not true.”
“We are told you have been living under a false identity,” said Mitterand.
“Not true, the identity is my own,” said Alexander.
“In front of us we have a few words we would like you to sign, to the effect that we have informed you of your rights under the Criminal Code of 1928, Article 58.”
“I am not signing a single thing,” said Alexander.
“The man next to you in the hospital told us that he thought he heard you speaking English to the Red Cross doctor who came to visit you every day. Is that true?”
“It is not.”
“Why did the doctor come to visit you?”
“I don’t know if you are aware of why soldiers go to the critical ward of a hospital, but I was wounded in action. Maybe you should talk to my superiors. Major Orlov—”
“Orlov is dead!” snapped Mitterand.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Alexander, momentarily flinching. Orlov was a good commanding officer. He was no Mikhail Stepanov, but then who was?
“Major, you stand accused of joining the army under an assumed name. You stand accused of being an American named Alexander Barrington. You stand accused of escaping while en route to a corrective camp in Vladivostok after having been convicted of anti-Soviet agitation and espionage.”
“All bald-faced lies,” said Alexander. “Where is my accuser? I’d like to meet him.” What night was it? Was it at least the next night? Had Tania and Sayers gotten out? He knew that if they had, they would have taken Dimitri with them, and then it would be very difficult for the NKVD to maintain that there was an accuser when the accuser himself disappeared like one of Stalin’s Politburo cabinet ministers. “I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do,” said Alexander with a helpful smile. “Probably more so. Where is he?”
“You are not to ask questions of us!” Mitterand yelled. “We will ask the questions.” Trouble was, they had no more questions. Rather, they had the same question over and over again: “Are you an American named Alexander Barrington?”
“No,” would reply the American named Alexander Barrington. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Alexander could not tell how long this continued. They shined a flashlight into his face; he closed his eyes. They ordered him to stand up, which Alexander took as an opportunity to stretch his legs. He stood gleefully for what seemed like an hour, and regretted being told to sit back down. He didn’t know it was precisely an hour but to keep himself occupied during the repetitive questioning, he started counting the seconds it took for each round to be completed from “Are you an American named Alexander Barrington?” to “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It took seven seconds. Twelve if he drew out his response, if he tapped his feet together, if he rolled his eyes, or if he sighed heavily. Once he started to yawn and could not stop for thirty seconds. That made the time go faster.
They asked the question 147 times. Mitterand had to take a drink six times to continue. Finally he passed the reins to Vladimir, who needed less to drink and fared much better, even asking Alexander if he wanted a drink. Alexander politely declined, grateful for the diversion. He knew he must never accept anything they offered him. That was their invitation into his graces.
Still not diverting enough. One hundred and forty-seven times later Vladimir said, with naked frustration in his voice and on his face, “Guard, take him back to his cell.” And then he added, “We will make you confess, Major. We know the accusations against you are true and we will do all it takes to make you confess.”
Usually, when the Party apparatchiks interrogated prisoners with the intention of convicting them as soon as possible and sending them to a forced labor camp, everyone knew the charade being played. The interrogators knew the charges were bogus, and the stunned and dazed prisoners knew the charges were bogus, but in the end, the alternatives presented to them were too stark for them to continue to deny the obvious fallacies. Tell us, you-who-have-lived-next-door-to-an-anti-proletarian-revolutionary, that you are in collusion with him, or it will be twenty-five years in Magadan for you. If you confess you will get only ten. That was the choice and the prisoners confessed—to save themselves, or to save their families, or because they were beaten, degraded, broken-down, paralyzed from thought by the barrage of lies. But Alexander wondered if this was the first time since these sham interrogations began decades ago that the prisoner was accused of the actual truth—that he indeed was Alexander Barrington—and the interrogators for the first time were armed with truth, and truth stood in front of them, truth that Alexander had to deny, truth that Alexander had to bury under a barrage of lies if he were to live. He thought about pointing this out to Mitterand and Vladimir but he didn’t think they would either understand or appreciate the grim irony.
After he was taken back to his cell, two guards came in and, with their two rifles pointed at him, ordered Alexander to undress. “So we can launder your uniform,” they said. He undressed down to his BVDs. They asked him to remove his watch and boots and socks. Alexander was unhappy about the socks, for the floor in his cell was numbingly cold. “You need my boots?”
“We will polish them.”
Alexander was grateful for the foresight that had made him move Dr. Sayers’ drugs from his boots to his BVDs.
Reluctantly he handed over the boots, which they snatched from him and left without a word.
After the door had closed and he was left alone, Alexander picked up the kerosene lamp and held it close to his body to warm himself up. He didn’t care about losing oxygen any longer.
The guard saw and yelled not to touch the lamp. Alexander did not put the lamp down. The guard came in and took the lamp out, leaving Alexander cold and in darkness again.
His back wound, though having been bandaged thoroughly by Tatiana, was throbbing. The dressing was wrapped around his stomach. He wished he could wrap his whole body in the white bandage.
He needed as little of his body touching the cold as possible. Alexander stood in the middle of his cell, so that only his feet were on the icy floor. He stood and imagined warmth.
His hands were behind his head, they were behind his back, they were in front of his chest.
He imagined …
Tania standing in front of him, her head on his bare chest, listening for his heart, and then lifting her gaze at him and smiling. She was standing tiptoed on his feet holding on to his arms, as she reached up with her neck extended and lifted her head to him.
Warmth.
There was no morning and no night. There was no brightness and no light. He had nothing to measure time with. The images of her were constant, he could not measure how long he had been thinking of her. He tried counting and found himself swaying from exhaustion. He needed to sleep.
Sleep or cold? Sleep or cold?
Sleep.
He huddled in the corner and shook uncontrollably, trying to stave off misery. Was it the following day, the following night?
The following day from what? The following night from what?
They’re going to starve me to death. They’re going to thirst me to death. Then they will beat me to death. But first my feet will freeze and then my legs and then my insides, they will all turn to ice. And my blood, too, and my heart, and I will forget.
Tamara and Her Stories, 1935
There was an old babushka named Tamara who had lived for twenty