Stephen Miller - The Last Train to Kazan

‘Your name is Ryzhkov, Pyotr Mikhalovich, I know this from your file. This is your photograph from your identity card as a member of the Tsar’s terror police. These are your evaluations, your recruitment letter, your grades at the gymnasium. I have everything. We have known about you all along.’ Zezulin’s voice had begun to rise, then he bit it off. They looked at each other for a long moment. ‘I am sure you can remember a great many details. Do you remember, for instance, the name of your Okhrana supervisor at the time?’

With an almost involuntary shrug, Ryzhkov shook his head. What was he supposed to say? Everything was whirling. He felt the sharp curl of nausea, swallowed to keep the world upright.

‘Can’t remember? I’ll save you the trouble. His name was Zezulin, Velimir Antonovich. Like you, a paid butcher for the Tsar, the head of a death squad. A terrorist and probable double agent. You will be interested to know that he was executed in the first days of the revolution. This is his photograph. You remember working with this man, don’t you? Admit it.’

Ryzhkov’s head jerked up. He was looking at a photograph of a dark-haired mask, staring at the camera, as dead as a fish. It could have been anyone, anyone at all. An anonymous face, someone off the street. It vanished back into the dossier.

‘Good. You signify that you knew him, fine. Now we’re getting somewhere. Do you want a cigarette? Some water? You don’t look that well. Perhaps we’ll have some food brought in. Do you feel like answering any additional questions or would you like to go back to your cell?’

Not only had he changed his identity, Zezulin had taken on a completely different personality. Gone was the slovenly drunk, the slurred voice, the fragmentary memory. Now, instead of staring out the window at the street outside their section house, his eyes were locked on Ryzhkov, the hypnotic glare of a poisonous snake deciding exactly where to strike.

‘If I blink, you die,’ Zezulin said softly across the table – the voice of a parent explaining an unpleasant and complicated reality to a child. Ryzhkov suddenly realized that fresh tears were running down his face. Lost, lost again. Life was just a vortex of loss…He shrugged again; it was all he could do – make the gesture reserved for cowards or those who couldn’t think of a quick comeback.

‘Fine. Please, you will tell me about your work with the French Secret Service. In 1914 you escaped and travelled to Paris…’ Zezulin had relaxed somewhat, the eyes were softer. ‘You do know that I have all the travel documents.’ Zezulin fussed through the dossier. ‘Yes…You went to Paris, you were recruited into the Foreign Legion, served here and there, and then at Verdun, and from there – ‘

‘I knew…languages, so I went to the signals.’

‘Yes, yes. I’m sure it was all very helpful, listening to the Germans in the trenches…help the artillery find their targets. Then you were wounded, court-martialled…’

‘I was paroled.’

‘Paroled, yes. I know all of this. But they had something on you, so they made you come back to Russia and work for the French. Don’t feed me this translation nonsense. We had you followed. It’s all right here.’ The wolverine’s paw slammed down on the dossier. ‘So. You can’t run any more.’

‘No.’

‘Cigarette?’ Zezulin put a box on the table. ‘Tea?’

Ryzhkov reached to take out the cigarettes. Zezulin watched while he fumbled with the box, dropped it, dug out a cigarette, dropped it too, and finally gave up and left it on the table, unlit.

‘Here it is,’ Zezulin said. ‘There have been a series of decisions regarding persons like yourself. Chickens. Chickens who serve the farmer…’ Zezulin began. ‘People like you, who under the former government were responsible for heinous crimes. Killers, thugs, terrorists. Some of them are psychologically distressed. Well, that’s understandable, so many have had it hard what with the war…but my biggest question is why? Why did you come back, Ryzhkov?’

‘I didn’t have a lot of choice.’

‘Mmm. But why did you decide to throw in your fate with the French? Do you like their cooking? Their certain something? I mean, a man like you made it out of the trenches, you performed with a certain amount of gallantry. Millions have performed such things, but you did more. A lot more. You’re a warrior, Ryzhkov, a spy. A man who survives. Survives beyond the limits of most men in the business. You don’t love it. You’re not obsessed with the enemy, it doesn’t seem to make you happy, but here you are. Back home. The question is why? What do they have on you, eh?’

The question hung in the room. Ryzhkov tried to look him in the eye but failed.

‘Tell me. What is it? Who is it?’ Zezulin’s hand wavered, settled on the dossier and the thick fingers began to pat it, like a baby he was trying to burp.

‘“Mother, dead. Father, dead. Brother, died as a child…”’ He looked over at Ryzhkov and shrugged. ‘You didn’t come back to Russia because you’re in love with the rooftops of Paris, and you owe them something. You already took your revenge, I suspect. No, you came back for a fellow human being. Maybe your wife? Mmmm…I don’t think so. You hadn’t lived with her since 1912. It’s not her. She’s safe in Portugal, the last anyone cared. So who is it, Pyotr?’

Ryzhkov looked up at him. He just wasn’t a good enough actor.

‘Was it her?’ The photograph slid out of the dossier like a knife stroke curving towards his chest.

Vera Aliyeva curled to a stop, looking up at him.

It was a commercial portrait. Something she had commissioned for publicity in Petersburg. Shot with soft gauze and a backdrop meant to suggest clouds. In it Vera was innocent, looking aloft at some more radiant possibility. So young. A century ago.

‘What about that, Monsieur? You say you don’t have a choice? You didn’t get to choose? Oh, I’m sorry about the unfairness of everything. That’s what the revolution is all about, of course. Rectifying things. By the way, did you know that Lena Hokhodieva is still alive?’

He could not help but look up. Kostya’s wife had been dying with cancer, almost a complete ghost when Ryzhkov had last seen her. ‘No.’

‘Yes. She’s made a complete cure. It’s a miracle. Defied the gods. She’s fat, you wouldn’t recognize her. Good for her, eh?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s just luck, Pyotr Mikhalovich. Someone has to be found to do certain things. You’re not the first person who is a victim of a government or…governments, or the lack of them. It won’t buy you any special favours around here.’ Zezulin was smiling. ‘Someone has to do these things. It’s bloom or die, eh? And while you don’t care about your own death, maybe you’d even welcome it, you would care about someone else’s…about this woman here.’ The finger gestured towards the photograph; a cheap thing, unmistakably banal, bound in a yellow pasteboard frame with an advertisement for the Nevsky Prospekt photographer she’d charmed into giving her a deal.

‘Ah yes. Good. You have indicated that you recognize her. Excellent. Once more we are getting somewhere. Now we have decided to be grown-up friends and we’ve put down our last secret, eh?’ Zezulin was saying. The voice of a happy man. ‘I’m so sorry, but you can’t keep the picture.

‘Look, my friend,’ Zezulin leaned in close. There was the smell of pickles on his breath. ‘This is not some common theatrical, this is not boys playing games in the barracks. This is real.’ He patted the dossier on the desk. ‘We both know you’re going to do what I say. I can use you to kill, or I can use you for bait. Let’s not waste any more time. These are the trenches too. I know you have courage, and all that.’