David Bezmozgis - The Free World

— Not permitted, the clerk had said offhandedly.

— I shed my blood for those, Samuil had said.

— So you say.

— Here are the papers, Samuil had said, and presented the old typed documents.

— This is of no interest to me. I am not an expert in forgery. The directives are plain: the medals belong to the Soviet Union.

— Look me in the face when you speak, Samuil had commanded.

— What for? You think I don’t see enough traitor Jew faces every day?

The customs agent swept the medals like scraps from the table into a bin containing other items designated as contraband: silverware, medical instruments, brooches, rings, and bracelets. His medals landed with a clatter, and he saw, burning like embers at the top of the heap, his Order of the Red Star and his Order of the Patriotic War — the so-called Officer’s Set. Because of this, Samuil paid close attention to the decorations he saw other men wearing. He saw one man with an Order of the Red Banner, extremely rare for a Jew if it was authentic. He saw another man with a chestful of campaign ribbons, attesting to a prolonged, near-miraculous, frontline tenure. Most, however, possessed the standard commendations that accrued to anyone who survived the war: combatant medal, bravery medal, victory over Germany medal, and the commemorative decorations issued to mark the jubilees of triumph: one decade, two decades, a quarter century. Samuil’s eyes were always primed. He saw a small, one-legged man with an Order of the Red Star. This same man seemed to be everywhere. He saw him mixing with the others at Piazza Marescotti, and he saw him also wearing his Red Stars and playing the violin for spare change in front of a café at the beach. He felt, too, as if he had also seen him at Club Kadima, reading the newspaper. This was confirmed when he saw him at Club Kadima a second time, sitting, his crutch propped against his chair, at the table beside Samuil’s. The man was laughing at something he was reading in a way that denoted a prelude to conversation. Peripherally, Samuil saw the man look up from his paper and turn his face this way and that in search of an interlocutor. As there was nobody else nearby, Samuil did not doubt that he would be singled out.

— Are you a chess player? the man asked.

— I wouldn’t call myself one, Samuil lowered his newspaper and said.

— Do you follow the game at all?

— No more than anyone else.

— But you’re aware of the championships in the Philippines?

— Naturally.

— Do you side with Karpov or Korchnoi?

— Korchnoi is a defector.

— Perhaps I misunderstood you, but you sound as if you disapprove.

— You didn’t misunderstand me.

— Ah, I see, the man said. But I like this Korchnoi. Even if he did beat Tal.

— Are you from Latvia?

— No, Kiev.

— I thought since you mentioned Tal.

— Only as an admirer. Besides, he is one of ours. Though so too is Korchnoi, on his mother’s side.

— I happen to know Tal. After he became world champion in 1960 I helped organize his heroic return to Riga.

— Wonderful man, Tal. A true genius. Although he is in Karpov’s entourage in the Philippines. What can I say, it’s hard to be consistent with one’s allegiances.

— For some, yes.

— It’s certainly been true of me. If I settle on an allegiance it is guaranteed that new and compromising information will emerge. I revere Lenin, I learn he’s a German agent. I venerate Stalin, Khrushchev tells me he killed Mandelstam and a few million others. I tell you, if I worshipped the sun, we’d all end up in the dark.

— During a turbulent revolution some mistakes are inevitable. But Stalin was a great leader.

— Believe me, I understand how you feel. It’s not my intention to start a debate. It remains a delicate subject for people. My tongue, once it starts walking, sometimes wanders where it shouldn’t.

— Criticism is easy. The young generation is quick to criticize. It is easy to criticize if you never experienced life before communism.

— Of course, anything is better than a pogrom.

— That is your commentary on communism?

— I consider it no small compliment. In 1920, the Poles came through our shtetl and behaved like animals. You don’t think my father greeted the Red Army like liberators, even if they took our last crust of bread?

— You said you were from Kiev?

— I lived there since after the war. Before that I was from Olebsk. Not far from Zhitomir. Not that far from Kiev, either. In Volhynia.

— I know it. I was born in Rogozna. Though my mother moved me and my brother to Riga when I was still a boy.

— Yes, I know Rogozna as well. I said goodbye to my leg in western Poltava. I imagine it is still there.

— I have seen you wearing your Red Star.

— Yes? They gave it to me in exchange for my leg.

— Who did you serve with?

— First Ukrainian Front. I was a sapper with the Twenty-third Rifle Corps. As you can see, I am a small man. When they needed someone to crawl ahead, I volunteered. I didn’t want them to say that a Jew was a coward. There are mines to be cleared. Who will do it? Corporal Roidman requests the honor, comrade Sergeant!

— You’re called Roidman?

— Is the name familiar to you?

— I don’t believe so.

— I’m actually a relation of a famous person. Only by the time she became famous she had already changed her name.

— Whom do you mean?

— Do you recognize the name Fanny Kaplan?

— Fanny Kaplan? The one who shot at Lenin?

— History remembers her as Fanny Kaplan, but she was born Feiga Roidman. We’re mishpucheh. My father was her cousin.

— I don’t suppose this was the sort of thing you publicized in Kiev.

— You’re right, of course. But I am a musician. I play the violin. I am an amateur, no formal training mind you, but I have been told that I have a certain knack. For some time now, in secret, I have been composing the opera of Fanny Kaplan. Her story is a modern tragedy. Do you follow music?

— No more than I follow chess. My brother played in a military band, but I never took it up.

— Ah yes, chess, Roidman said. Which is where we started. Now I am back to what I wanted to tell you originally about the curious incident at the chess match. The game was played to another draw, you see, but Korchnoi lodged a formal protest because, during the match, Karpov’s supporters brought Karpov a cup of blueberry yogurt. Korchnoi claims that this could have been a signal agreed upon by Karpov’s team. A secret tactic. They bring a cup of blueberry yogurt and it means: accept the draw. Or they bring strawberry and it means: knight to rook four. It’s wonderful. There is no limit to human intrigue, is there?

The room where Lyova slept was always inundated with sunlight. At first Polina was reluctant to venture out in the morning for fear of disturbing him, but she soon discovered that Lyova didn’t sleep much and always rose before they did. If he was still home when she and Alec awoke, Polina would most often find him reading at the table. He had collected a great number of books that he stacked up near his bed. He also had a large archive of an English-language newspaper that he purchased once a week. It was from Lyova that they heard, on the morning of their medical examination, about the testimony of Shcharansky’s neighbor.

PROSECUTOR: Did Shcharansky arrange meetings with the American journalist by telephone?

IRINA: We do not have a telephone at the apartment.

PROSECUTOR: How would you describe Shcharansky’s character?

IRINA: He was a polite, well-mannered, cultivated man — though not a careful dresser.