Tell Me Who I Am by Julia Navarro
“Comrade Comte, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
“I... I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Ah, no? Well, you should. You worked for a traitor.”
“I... I... I didn’t know that Comrade Krisov was a traitor.”
“You didn’t know? That’s strange, because he thought that you were one of his best agents, one of the people he trusted the most.”
“Yes, alright, I did what Krisov asked me to do, he was my controller, nothing more. We were never friends.”
“And he never told you that he was thinking of deserting?”
“Of course not! I’m telling you, we were never friends; when he deserted I wasn’t working for him anymore, I was in Buenos Aires.”
“Yes, I know, and Comrade Krisov went to see you there. Strange, isn’t it?”
“I told my controller in Buenos Aires that Krisov had been to see me and what he said.”
“I know, I know. It’s one way of covering your tracks in case someone saw you with Krisov. You could have decided what you needed to say to your controller.”
“Of course I didn’t! Krisov turned up out of the blue and we had an argument, I even called him a traitor.”
“We want to know where Comrade Krisov is now.”
“I don’t know, he didn’t tell me.”
“You think we’ll believe that? Come on, an old agent like Krisov gets away and takes the trouble to travel to Argentina to see you and tell you that he’s decided to run away. You think we’re fools?”
“But that’s what happened... He... well, he said that he felt responsible for his agents, for all of us who worked for him. And... well, he suggested that Latin America was the best place for someone to disappear.”
“Krisov the traitor has lots of friends among the Trotskyites.”
“I didn’t know it, we never spoke about personal questions, I don’t know who his friends are...”
“Comrade Comte, I want you to refresh your memory and tell me where the traitor Krisov is to be found. We know how to reward you for this information... And how to treat you if we don’t get it...”
“But I don’t know!”
“We will help you remember.”
The man got up and left the room, leaving Pierre shuddering in his seat. A minute later two men came into the room and took him back to the cell where he had spent the previous three days. Pierre tried to complain, but a strong punch to the stomach stopped him from talking. And he cried on the cold floor of that Lubyanka cell.
The first night that Pierre did not return to his uncle’s house, Amelia stayed up until dawn; when she could bear it no longer, she woke up Mikhail.
“Your cousin hasn’t come home.”
“Why are you waking me up? He’ll be out getting drunk with some friend, or some girl, French people are like that,” Mikhail replied grumpily.
“I know Pierre, and if he hasn’t come back it’s because something happened to him.”
“Don’t worry, try to get some sleep, you’ll see how he comes home with a great story to tell you.”
Amelia went back to the mattress where she slept and counted the minutes until she heard Uncle Georgi getting up.
“Uncle, Pierre hasn’t come home, I’m worried.”
“Irina and I haven’t slept a wink. I’ll try to find out what happened to him.”
Amelia didn’t want to go to work, she thought that she would go to the Lubyanka and ask for Pierre, but Irina disabused her of that idea.
“Don’t be stupid, the best we can do is wait.”
“But he should have come home!” Amelia sobbed.
“Yes, he should have, but in Russia nothing is normal. Wait for Georgi to tell us something, and... well, I’ll ask Mikhail to try to find out what’s happened as well.”
In the afternoon when Amelia came home from work she prayed to find Pierre safe at his uncle’s house. But Irina told her that they had had no news, so the two women waited in silence until Georgi came home, but he too said he had been unable to find out anything. He had telephoned a friend whose brother-in-law worked in the Lubyanka, and when he’d said what it was about the man hung up, threatening him and telling him never to call him again.
Mikhail and Anushka arrived a little later. He surprised Amelia by telling her that he had had lots of work to do and hadn’t been able to worry about Pierre’s absence.
“How can you be like this?” Amelia shouted at him. “Pierre is your cousin!”
“And why should I worry about him? He’s old enough to look after himself. If he hasn’t come back it’s because he doesn’t want to. And if he’s done something then he should accept the consequences.”
Amelia left the apartment, slamming the door behind her. She had decided to go to the Lubyanka and ask for Pierre at the door. Uncle Georgi left after her, trying to tell her to be careful, if she wasn’t then the whole family could be in danger.
“There are families that have all suffered reprisals because one of their members is considered a counterrevolutionary. They send them all to labor camps, to the salt mines, to hospitals that only let them out once they’re completely mad. Don’t put us in danger, Amelia, I beg you.”
But she did not listen to him and rushed out into the street, determined to go to the Lubyanka. She walked quickly, full of fear and anger, when she realized that a man was walking alongside her.
“Please, turn down the next street and follow me. I want to help you.”
“Who are you?” Amelia asked in shock.
“Ivan Vasiliev. I’ve been hanging around the house all afternoon, I didn’t dare come up.”
Amelia followed the man, regretting having not thought earlier about going to see him. If anyone could tell her where Pierre was it would be Vasiliev.
She followed him a good distance, all the way to a dark apartment building, which the man entered and climbed the steps quickly to the second floor. He opened a door and went into the apartment, followed by Amelia.
“We can’t be here long,” Ivan Vasiliev warned.
“Isn’t this your house?” Amelia asked in puzzlement.
“No, it belongs to a friend who’s out of Moscow at the moment. We can talk freely here.”
“Where’s Pierre?”
“He’s been arrested, he’s in a cell in the Lubyanka.”
“But why? He hasn’t done anything. Pierre is a good Communist.”
“I know, I know, you don’t have to be a bad Communist to get arrested. They want Krisov and they are sure that Pierre knows where he is.”
“But he doesn’t know! Krisov didn’t tell him!”
“Igor Krisov is one of my best friends, we fought together and... Well, we have a very special friendship.”
Amelia looked at Ivan Vasiliev in astonishment. Krisov had confessed his homosexuality to Pierre, and Vasiliev’s words seemed to suggest that he could be a homosexual as well. Vasiliev seemed to read her mind.
“Don’t get me wrong. We were good comrades, just that, then he went to London. He had a perfect cover, one of his grandmothers was Irish. He had perfect English, and spoke French and German well, he was good at languages. Pierre told me that you are too. Well, in spite of our separation we have always remained the best of friends, even though they think we hate each other.”
“They?”
“Yes, the bosses of the INO, the Foreign Department of the NKVD. Igor said that the best way for us to protect ourselves was to pretend to be irreconcilable enemies, and it was a farce that we kept up for years. It was I who told him that he’d lost the confidence of his bosses.”
“I know, he told Pierre. Why is Krisov so important?”
“He was one of the main agents in Europe and knows a lot: names, codes, bank accounts, operating practices... They’re scared he’ll sell all this information to someone.”
“Why?”
“Because they are assassins and scoundrels and it’s the sort of thing they would do, so they think that ot
“And who would buy this information?”
“Anyone, the Soviet Union has many enemies. England would be ready to pay a good price for the names of the agents who work there. The British government is worried about Communism being on the rise in its universities.”
“But Krisov...”
“Igor was disgusted by what was happening here, just like anyone else who has a normal sense of decency. Overnight, anyone can become an ‘enemy of the people,’ it’s enough if there’s a report, a suspicion. They are killing people with no mercy.”
“Who?”
“They do it in the name of the revolution, to protect it from its enemies. And it’s not just the bourgeoisie to whom they show no mercy, no one is safe from being accused of counterrevolutionary activity, even the peasants are being persecuted. Do you know how many kulaks have been killed?”
“I don’t even know what a kulak is...”
“I’ve told you, peasants, small landowners who are attached to their farms and who don’t want to leave them and make way for stupid plans organized by party committees.”
“What will they do with Pierre?”
“They will interrogate him until he confesses whatever it is they want him to confess. Or else he’ll manage to convince them he knows nothing about Krisov. Nobody leaves the Lubyanka.”
“Pierre is French!”
“And Russian, his mother is Russian.”
“There are lots of people who know we are here, ‘they’ wouldn’t want people to know that people disappear in Moscow.”
“And who’s going to believe that? How will they show that he’s in the Lubyanka?”
“You...”
“No, my darling, no! I will deny having said anything to you, and if it’s necessary I’ll go as far as saying that I met you in this apartment for an amorous encounter.”
Amelia looked at him in horror and read in Ivan Vasiliev’s eyes that he was prepared above all things to survive; he didn’t care what he had to do or whom he had to sacrifice.
“What can I do?” Amelia asked with a note of desperation in her voice.
“Nothing. You can’t do anything. With luck they’ll sent Pierre to a camp; if it’s not for many years and if he manages to survive, it’ll be a blessing.”
They fell silent. Amelia wanted to cry and shout, but she held herself back.
“What will happen to me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Pierre will be enough for them. In their report it says that you are a devout Communist and a ‘blind’ agent, so it may be supposed that you don’t know anything.”
“I don’t know what they want, but I know things about them they never would have wanted to be known.”
“When you’re young, you’re arrogant enough to think you can change the world and... Look what we’ve done here, turned our country into the front hall of hell,” Ivan Vasiliev tried to cheer up Amelia.
“They’ve betrayed the revolution,” Amelia said prudishly.
“Do you really think so? No, Amelia, no. Lenin and all of us who followed him believed firmly that there was no way to create a revolution without blood, without terror. Our revolution sprang from a single premise, that human life is nothing extraordinary, and it is the job of religion to sanctify it; we have declared the death of God.”
“Will they arrest me?”
“I don’t know, I hope not. But follow my advice, when you speak with your work colleagues, make yourself out to be a fanatical Communist, certain that everything that doesn’t follow Stalin down to the letter needs to be gotten rid of. Don’t have any doubts, just be convinced that the party is always right.”
“Will they let me leave?”
“I don’t know, they might or they might not.”
“You’re not giving me an answer.”
“I don’t have an answer.”
“What can I do for Pierre?”
“Nothing. No one can do anything for him.”
They agreed to meet each other a week later in the same place. Ivan promised that he would try to bring some news of Pierre.
While she walked home, Amelia thought about what Pierre’s uncle and aunt would say, what Mikhail and Anushka would say. The only thing she knew for certain was that she could not tell them she had spoken to Ivan Vasiliev.
When she got home, Aunt Irina was making dinner, and Uncle Georgi was arguing with his son Mikhail, while Anushka was painting her nails and pretending to be indifferent to it all.
“Where did you go?” Mikhail asked without hiding his anger.
“For a walk. I needed to get some air.”
“Did you go to the Lubyanka?” he insisted.
“No, I didn’t go. But I will go tomorrow, someone has to try to find something out about Pierre.”
“Maybe he’s not like you think he is,” Mikhail said mysteriously.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say... ,” Amelia replied.
“Maybe my cousin is not a good Communist. Maybe he’s betrayed the party.”
“You’re mad! You don’t know Pierre, he’d sacrifice us all before he betrayed the party.”
“Don’t be so sure, Amelia,” Mikhail insisted.
Aunt Irina was upset to hear her son talk like this.
“Mikhail, how dare you question your cousin? What do you know that you can talk like this about him?” the woman asked.
“Nothing, I don’t know anything. It’s just a hypothesis. The Soviet Union has many enemies, Mother, people who don’t understand just how far our revolution reaches now. But we won’t worry, maybe Pierre has had to go away on business and will be back in a few days.”
“It’s not possible, Mikhail. Pierre would never have left without telling me.”
“You’re a little naïve,” Anushka snapped.
“Maybe I am, but, you know what, I think I might know something about the man for whom I abandoned my family and my son, and I can assure you that Pierre is not a drinker, nor is he someone who wouldn’t come home if it weren’t for a good reason.”
“Maybe this ‘good reason’ really exists, but let’s not worry, he’ll turn up,” Anushka insisted.
“And if he doesn’t?” the young woman asked.
Mikhail shrugged and sat down next to his wife.
“Mikhail, where is Pierre?” Aunt Irina asked, planting herself firmly in front of her son.
He said nothing, wondering whether he should answer his mother, and then shrugged again.
“I don’t know, Mother.”
“But he went to work like he does every day, and went to the Lubyanka. We should ask about him there. If he has had to go away on business then they’ll be able to tell us there.”
Anushka looked at her nails, happy to have them painted. She seemed to be outside the conversation, except in those moments when she caught Mikhail’s eye, and then you could see him urging her to maintain this distance.
“I will go to the Lubyanka tomorrow. I want them to tell me about Pierre, I want to see him,” Amelia announced.
“It would be a useless errand, dear Amelia. Don’t start doing these things that lead nowhere and might even be prejudicial to the family,” Mikhail replied.
“Prejudicial? Why? To ask about Pierre? If I can hurt you by doing that then I’ll leave this house. Tomorrow. I’ll find a room to live and I won’t prejudice you by my presence here any longer.”
“Come on, Amelia, don’t be melodramatic!” Anushka interrupted. “I’m the actress here, I’m the one with talent. Mikhail is right; if you turn up at the Lubyanka asking for Pierre then you could cause us problems, and he’s already told you he knows nothing. What more do you want?”
“I want to know where Pierre is.”
“Haven’t you thought that there might be another woman?” Mikhail said, laughing.
Amelia was about to snap, shout, and let out all her disgust, but she managed to hold herself in. She couldn’t tell them w
She knew that Mikhail would not hesitate to accuse her of anything at all, if he could turn her into a counterrevolutionary and an enemy of the people. She was surprised that he still had not denounced his parents; in those days it was normal for children to denounce the “ideological swerving” of their progenitors. It was not rare for the police to burst into a factory, a house, anywhere at all, to arrest someone who had been denounced by a family member, a friend, a husband, a wife, a lover.
And in Irina and Georgi’s house, many things were spoken about with absolute freedom, and Amelia thought it was only a matter of time before Mikhail or Anushka denounced Irina and Georgi.
So Amelia swallowed and made light of things in order not to let slip the words she really felt like saying.
“Look, it’s better for you to stay here, it’s what Pierre would like. And don’t worry about us, you don’t cause any problems,” Aunt Irina said.
“Thank you, and what with the circumstances and the fact that I am working, I should like to contribute to the household running costs,” Amelia said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Uncle Georgi said.
“Amelia is right, she should help, that’s why she’s working. You know what, you’re a bit more clever than you appear at first sight,” Anushka said.
10
After Pierre’s disappearance, the days were just endless. Amelia learned to hide her feelings, to pretend in front of Mikhail and Anushka. She never offered her opinion in any of the arguments that Irina and Georgi had with their son Mikhail. She kept her distance, as if she had no interest in what was going on around her. She also ignored the provocations thrown her way by Anushka, who seemed not to trust her.
A week later she met Ivan Vasiliev again. He seemed more worried than the previous time.
“I came because I was worried that you would try to be in touch with me, and I have to say that we can’t see each other again, I think they’re watching you, and me too.”
“How do you know?”