Magomet Timov - Argentine Archive №1

“On the contrary, you have excellent pronunciation,” Ivan said, encouraged by a delay in his punishment for absenteeism. “The real Español Castellano!”

“I know,” the guest replied with unexpected sadness. “This is bad.”

“Why?” snapped Sarmatov.

“Because, my dear Ivan Petrovich, should you meet all the requirements our service makes of candidates and we end up working together, we’ll need to go exactly where my ‘Castellano’ is poorly understood. Well, I can see in your eyes you’re astonished. I’ll repeat the approach, as our pilots say. Let me introduce myself: Sergey Vladimirovich Kotov, Major of State Security. Glad to meet you. And I came here precisely for your undoubtedly immortal soul, Ivan-sunshine-Petrovich. To make you one most interesting proposal, from my point of view. I want to invite you to serve with us.”

Ivan was incredulous. He looked at Kotov as if expecting a trick:

“I don't understand. For the authorities, or what?”

The major nodded.

“Exactly. At the MGB. Ministry of State Security. Just let's make a reservation right away,” he raised his hand, stopping Ivan, who was ready to jump up from his overwhelming feelings. “If you agree to cooperate with us, then immediately after passing your state exams, you’ll go to our school to take a special course. If, after what you have heard here and now, you refuse – wait, don’t interrupt your elders! – then, you’ll immediately forget about our conversation forever and ever. As they say, we talked and went our separate ways without consequences. I will ask you to sign the corresponding papers later. So?”

“I agree.” Ivan nodded quickly and caught Kotov's mocking glance. “What now? Did I say the wrong thing again? Was it necessary to sign an oath in blood or something?”

Kotov suddenly became serious.

“Don’t talk nonsense. I don’t care about your blood. Somehow, we’ll manage without it. But you have to sign something.”

He took out from somewhere from under the chair a voluminous briefcase, clanked the copper clasps, and pulled out a thin folder from its voluminous interior. It contained only one sheet of paper with neatly printed text. He took it, stared at it for a while as if it was a window. He then put it on the coffee table, which was next to the sofa, and pushed it over to Ivan.

“Read and sign. Do you have a pen, student?”

Ivan took out of his inner jacket pocket a fancy 'Parker' – a gift from his father and an object of his classmates’ envy. Without reading it, he signed the document with a flourish. Kotov grunted and took the paper. He looked with regret at the fresh signature, and with a sharp movement, tore it up.

Ivan jumped up:

“What are you doing! I signed that document!”

“But you haven't read it.” Metal rumbled in the Major's voice, which made Ivan's nose seem to freeze like the Arctic suddenly rose.

“You broke two commandments of the Chekist at once,” Sergey Vladimirovich continued, “you didn't follow my orders and didn't read what you were signing. You can consult your friends at the Moscow University Law School about the perniciousness of the latter fact, even in everyday life. They’ll explain everything to you.”

“But I…”

“I understand. You trusted me. Flattering, but it doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for your actions. Seems I have to do everything with you more than once.”

From somewhere, the major took out a second sheet of the same kind – the twin brother of the first – and handed it to Ivan.

“Read and sign.”

Sarmatov nodded and read the paper, which turned out to be a statement that he undertakes to keep state secrets, not to communicate with foreign citizens or inform the relevant services about inevitable contacts, and so on, and so on. After reading to the end, he looked up at the grinning Kotov.

“All clear?” he asked sarcastically. Ivan nodded.

“It seems like it, yes. Can I sign?”

“Go ahead,” the major said as he nodded. “The most important thing is that you have no questions now. Questions that arise, we’ll answer elsewhere.”

From the face of Sarmatov, who signed the paper, it was clear that he had a lot of questions, but they were all irrelevant. After handing the sheet to the major, Ivan asked anyway.

“And where am I going to work? You hinted at a Hispanic country.”

Kotov put the sheet into a folder, the folder into the briefcase. He snapped the locks shut and, putting the leather monster aside, said:

“The hot Spaniards will be both mulattos and creole. In the meantime, we will assign you to Bureau № 1, kid. This is your main workplace, after you pass the exams, of course. And any outstanding tests, by the way. I can’t cancel your ninety-four hours of truancy, so I’ll have to correct the situation myself. In terms of study, of course, if we find you skipping out, so be it, we’ll write you off.”

Ivan nodded once.

“Thank you. But at the bureau, I’ll shift papers or do translations there, right? Bureaucracy, in a word.”

“Whatever the authorities say, you will do.” Kotov raised his finger instructively. “And to the point. From now on, you don’t belong to yourself. By the way, how will the venerable Pyotr Alekseevich, your old man, react to your choice? Will he approve?”

Ivan shuddered: in this mess, he forgot about the attitude of the venerable academician to the gloomy service, which was supervised by Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria himself. Sarmatov senior was extremely disloyal to the authorities. Well, he’ll have to face it, and he will have nowhere to go. Ivan is already an adult, and he has almost graduated from the institute, so it will all be figured out somehow.

Ivan expressed himself in a similar vein. Kotov just shrugged his shoulders, as if saying, do as you know. Picking up his briefcase from the floor, he remarked to Sarmatov:

“Sarmatov is from the word…”

“The Sarmatians were a Scythian tribe in antiquity,” Ivan hastened to explain.

He was already rather tired of explaining the origin of his surname to everyone, as many strove to find some Tatar or Uzbek trace in him, even though Ivan had no external resemblance to these peoples. Even though he had somewhat darker skin and dark hair, he looked more like an Italian or a Greek. The blood of his ancestors, of course, had an effect. Some of them lived in the foothills of the Caucasus, like his maternal great-grandfather, the wise Vakha, about whom legends circulated in the Sarmatian family.

“Scythians, you say,” the major muttered to himself, then smiled. “And what a glorious tribe. How did Blok put it? 'Millions of you, we are darkness, and darkness, and darkness! Try it, fight with us!’ It’s decided: you will be Skiff from now on, forever and ever. Amen, as they say, kid. See you in another life.”

“What is it like?” Ivan did not understand. The major shrugged his shoulders.

“You will see in due time. Greetings to Yakov Naumovich.”

The young man watched in amazement as the high door inched shut behind this mysterious man. Then the dean entered it, and Ivan lost all his sentimentality.

As predicted, a storm broke out at home. Sarmatov the elder, perching like a granite block behind his desk and raising an academic beard to the portraits of leaders hung on the walls of his study, shook the air with tirades that would have done honor even to the great orators of antiquity, like Lysias and Demosthenes.

He recalled his ancestors, who laid their heads on the altar of science, refusing, however, the modest offer of his wife, dearest Olga Arsenovna, to list them. And to her remark that the great-grandfather of the great academician and the beacon of anthropological thought was, in fact, a Yaitsk Cossack, he only blushed more and walked the Bolshoi Petrovsky Bend throughout his dynasty from the twelfth generation, who did not realize at one time the greatness of the victory of the Great October Revolution and that's why it was nearly the end of his, Pyotr Alekseevich's, career, almost ruined by their non-proletarian origin.