Сергей Лебедев - The Year of the Comet

In the twilight hour, the time without shadows, he appeared, the werewolf, the perfect changeling, more Soviet than any Soviet man. Invulnerable, like a mirror, he strode across our country, absolutely “not one of us,” an invader from the world beyond who preached the destruction of the Soviet Union, living only for hatred of the USSR. He left death and destruction in his wake, fooled sentries, tricked peasants and city folk, everyone. The only thing he feared, as the books all taught me, was the gaze of a child. Only a child, an unsophisticated child, could recognize him.

That was why Mister killed children—they were a danger to him! With the military airfield nearby, everyone in the village knew the secret information that the regiment posted there was the first to be equipped with the latest MiG-29 fighters. “The regiment has achieved combat readiness,” my friends and I repeated variations on the words someone overheard at the station, repeating them like a spell. “The regiment has achieved combat readiness!” That’s why Mister was here, circling the airfield. And just like in the books, no one believes he’s a spy, they think he’s just a killer!

Could I tell the grown-ups my discovery? Why bother, the narrative required them not to believe me, not to pay heed to my warning.

I think this was the first time, with sadness and regret, that I realized the limited nature of Konstantin Alexandrovich’s power, which had once seemed boundless to me.

Konstantin Alexandrovich was a detective, he was in the MCID, but I sensed that he was helpless here. He was a policeman, he caught thieves, bandits, and killers—humans; what could he do about the elusive, otherworldly Mister? The police don’t chase spies, and if they do, they don’t catch them.

I was the grandson of Grandfather Mikhail, the secret agent, the grandson of Grandfather Trofim, the tank soldier; at last I could prove I was worthy of them. I joyfully sensed that I was on the right side, on solid ground.

I began thinking what weapon I would use against Mister.

Father kept a double-barreled shotgun in the attic; two or three times a year he would spread an oilcloth on the floor and take the gun apart and clean it. I was allowed to hold the oil, take out the dirty rag, and once, only once, to look into the barrels, separated from the butt; the two ideally round openings looked like the entrances into infinity.

Probably, I could have swiped the shotgun, but I sensed that it wouldn’t help in the hunt for Mister. Rather, if I took the gun, there would be no hunt—it would be like a flotation device, a life preserver, that would keep me from going deeper into the space where Mister was found.

In his desk drawer, Father had a German bayonet knife; Father found it when he was a boy in piles of military metal—smashed tanks, weapons, machines, platforms of armored trains, which were brought to the Hammer and Sickle Factory in Lefortovo to be melted down. Sometimes when Father was away, I secretly took it out, a patina covered darkened blade; but no other hand could be the master of this weapon, it would probably slip out of my grasp to be gripped by Mister’s fingers.

There was the Finnish knife, the one we used to play knifesies, a gift from Konstantin Alexandrovich my parents didn’t know about. But it couldn’t help me in my search for Mister or against Mister—like the German bayonet knife, it would take the side of the saboteur, the man with a thousand faces, who could pretend to be a soldier or a thief.

I was missing something, things weren’t coming together. Only a child could recognize Mister. He feared a child’s gaze.

I understood: I had to come out unarmed and recognize Mister—my death, its circumstances—someone was bound to remember where I went, someone would see me minutes before I met Mister, notice his car—would give the detectives a sign that would lead them to Mister, make me his last victim, which would destroy him, snatch him from the other world.

I quickly convinced myself that there was no other way; I was delighted by the correspondence of my plan with the Soviet faith in which I was brought up, which considered sacrifice the highest and noblest act.

Still mulling over my plan, I recalled how last year they were filming a movie near the tank trial field of an army camp in a neighboring village. They set up a scaffold made of old boards on the village square; the script called for the hanging of a partisan messenger.

The soldiers from the camp were used as extras, and dressed in German uniforms they surrounded the square; local residents were asked to wear old clothes—the ones without any were issued jackets, sheepskin coats, trousers, boots, and bast shoes. My friends and I went to watch them making a movie, but there was no film magic to be seen; however, we noticed something else: the soldiers and sergeants had very quickly gotten comfortable in German uniforms. I thought it was almost criminal to even put one on, I thought they would want to tear off the foreign uniforms before they dirtied their souls. But on the contrary, there seemed to be an evil temptation to try on “the enemy’s skin,” to be a fascist for a while.

They readily formed a perfect encirclement, they pushed people with the butts of their guns so naturally into the square, that it couldn’t be explained just by the desire to have some fun after the boredom of the barracks, by the taste of short-lived power. I imagined what it was like—to see things from inside a German—and suddenly understood the intoxicating freedom that came with the role. All the rules, all the symbols, everything that was specifically Soviet from clothing to words was supposed to elicit hatred, or a degree lower, scorn. Here was the opportunity to legally wipe their boots on the red flag—there was a scene like that, but they used a red rag rather than a flag—and that enflamed them: “protected” by the German uniform, the image of a Nazi who holds nothing dear, the soldiers probably would have burned down the village if the director told them to and forced people into the burning houses.

The locals, herded by the soldiers, also were transformed; suddenly, without the director, but by memory and instinct, the men started taking off their hats, revealing the heartbreaking nakedness of heads, the loneliness of each head before the noose. The bodies were pushed close together, and the heads seemed to be in the stratosphere, in rarified space, where the cold winds have a shade of a razor’s raven blueness; the gesture—taking off your hat, recognizing the unity of death, the unity of destiny—cut into my heart.

What happened next was no longer perceived as a film shoot, as something unreal, so I will not speak of acting and the suspension of disbelief.

The executioner’s henchmen, two Polizei , Nazi collaborators, dragged out the partisan messenger. He struggled, kicked, perhaps sensing that things had gotten out of hand, that what was unfolding was much older than an episode from the Great Patriotic War, something as powerful as rebellion, as a whirlpool—it was elemental.

The messenger was a boy, just a little older than I was—maybe thirteen or fourteen. An impulse passed through the crowd—not horror, not fear, not compassion, but the first wave of enchantment.

The director had made a good and bad choice in the actor. Fair-haired, with perfect features, they boy was too remarkable to be a messenger. There was no confusion, fear, or shyness about him, he was proud and bold and the first sentry he passed would notice him. But in another sense, it was a good choice: holding his hands behind his back, the Polizei tried to get the noose around the boy’s head, a boy born and brought up with reserves of goodness and belief in life.

The boy was sturdy, he would have grown into a tall, strong man—but his future was canceled by the execution. When they pulled his hair to get him to stretch his neck and stop resisting, suddenly, like a flood, like something observed secretly, his throat glowed with the tender light of vulnerability.