Searching for Wallenberg (12 page)

He was feeling at loose ends; what was he doing here now? What was this mad lady’s relation to Raoul? Was there one, in some bizarre way? In Moscow would he be able to dig up some hard facts, a counter to this mystical adventure? Who could have imagined such a scene? Here in the broad sunshine, in his little cart, he felt himself driven, heading somewhere. But where? Toward further mystery, further illusion, or toward real explanation, a surprising truth? …

And should he not try for a pit stop in Stockholm—he thought, darting around and heading back—and try to meet with the living Wallenbergs? To ask some hard questions about the dead one, and their family’s role in Raoul’s ordeal? What did those rich uncles and powerful cousins know, or remember and lock away? And how in the world might Detective Gellerman pursue those secrets? Clearly, whatever “scenes” the professor/scriptwriter had invented, or would invent, were to be equaled or eclipsed by the dark actualities, if they could be unearthed … Just consider the fantastical Zsuzsanna Wallenberg here in Budapest, and go from there …

Before heading back, he stopped for an ice cream at a stall, and realized there were more parts to this plot, and maybe more surprising characters, than he could have imagined …

Picked up at Sheremetyevo airport by an appointed driver who held up a placard with his name on it, he had an immediate impression of Moscow as he rode away from the airport and slowly passed a huge truck on fire, blazing away, the heat visceral, creating a massive traffic jam on the incoming road. Where were the fire engines to pour water on the spectacular blaze? he wondered aloud, and his driver shrugged, smiled wanly, and said, “Russia.”

At the hotel he was too exhausted to go outside; he dove into bed, woke up in the middle of the night, read for an hour and a half, and returned to sleep.

In the morning, after a full breakfast, he was picked up, along with two other conference participants from Prague and Paris, and driven through the gray vast city to Moscow State University, a huge place. Soon, on the podium before about 150 people, he waited his turn along with four colleagues, and gave his little speech. He explained how Hungary’s coming entrance into the EU might help erase the heavy stain of recent history and politics, its self-betrayals and its persecutions, especially if the economy was prodded upward. He spoke about the literary and musical culture in the old Central and East Europe, especially during its years of Communist oppression, and emphasized how cultural expression was probably the best outlet for politically oppressed people. Did culture flourish as well in democratic societies? he asked rhetorically.

He listened to the next two speakers drone on about contemporary politics, and prayed for lunch. The last lecturer was a hefty Russian, and, speaking in a thick émigré accent, he jolted Manny alert with his talk. Concerning the Cold War, his talk also touched upon the case of Raoul Wallenberg; this Vladimir R. made the argument that RW was a rich dandy in his normal life, but in Budapest in 1944 was most probably a double spy who was at the center of the East-West political game. As he lumbered on, pumped by his conspiratorial theories, Manny came to understand that this was the fellow who had written the long unpublished essay that he had heard about, early on. Though he provided certain circumstantial notes for evidence, Manny remained skeptical but interested. Finally, after running fifteen minutes over his time, he was shut down by the moderator, and the call for lunch intermission was given.

As they moved toward the cafeteria, Manny sidled up alongside him, introduced himself, and said he’d love to read the unpublished manuscript.

“Of course, of course,” he said, taking Manny’s arm, enthused. “Where are you, England?”

“No, in New Hampshire.”

“Oh, well, that makes it very easy indeed. I will send it to you as an e-mail attachment when we return, all right? And you must give me your opinion on it please.” He paused and took out a pack of cigarettes. “I still need to complete the last section, but don’t worry, it will be worth it! I am hoping Harvard will publish it as a monograph. And now I must step outside for my smoke— American ways are sneaking into the Soviet—rather, Russian—state, sad to say.” Before departing he added, “I hope I didn’t offend you with my interpretation. But, you see, a lot of people think otherwise about Wallenberg; but what can you expect from a charming Swedish playboy?”

He smiled and shook his head. That last phrase played in his head.

In the cafeteria, an impoverished wood-paneled room, he took soup and a cheese and ham-style sandwich, and found a table.

A brown-haired middle-aged woman appeared, introduced herself, and said, “Please, I am Natasha Davidoff, you recall, yes?” and she handed him a card.

“Oh, yes,” he said to the would-be interpreter he had hired through e-mail. “Please join me.”

As they proceeded to chat, he was impressed by her English, her soft manner. He asked, “Have you had any luck with any of the names I gave you?”

“Not yet,” she acknowledged, “but I am still trying. You will be here longer than the conference, yes?”

“For a few days, that’s right.”

“Good. Maybe I can come up with someone of interest before you leave. Meanwhile, perhaps you would like to see a few of the relevant sites later today and tomorrow?”

They agreed to meet after the afternoon session, and he returned to the conference.

Fortunately, it ended about 3:15 p.m., and he was able to sidestep Vladimir and meet up with Natasha, who was waiting.

“Do you mind the metro? Much faster at this hour.”

They walked the ten minutes from the outsized university to the red-line stop, passing cheap kiosks selling sodas, chips, and chocolates, and rode down on the old escalator into the deep recess to catch their train. (“The Moscow subway system was built much farther down than the Western ones because of the fear of Nazi attacks,” she explained.) Within a minute it rumbled in, and they were whisked off.

In a half hour they were alighting from the red-line Lybianka metro stop, and in the cool gray air, Natasha headed them across the wide street. “Here is the monster itself, Lybianka Prison, home of the old KGB, where all the best secrets—and acts—of Soviet horror have been kept and preserved.” A huge fortress of a building, a large square block of cement and stone, with small windows peering out over the square.

“What is it now?”

“Home of the new security force, the FSB.”

As they ambled by, a Russian guard eyed them beneath his absurd thick cap, and Manny felt the first chill of the legendary infamy.

“So this is where Wallenberg was kept,” he observed. “And killed.”

She nodded. “Or perhaps they transferred him at the very end to Vladimir Prison, a few hours away, for his finish.”

They strolled around the mountainous fortress in the somber light, and he was gripped by the Stalinist force of the architecture, an authoritarian block of death.

“No file was ever found on the case. Do you think it still exists somewhere?”

She gave him a skeptical look, and indicated the lower part of the building. “Down there, in the basement, there remain files locked away, but it’s so off-limits that most of today’s officials have no access, and they don’t even know what they have. That ‘lost’ file may very well be there, and probably is. No file is ever lost, just conveniently misplaced.”

They walked up the street a few blocks, found a café, and sat for a coffee. Moscow was no Budapest for elegant cafés. He checked the list of four or five names he had given her and told her the priorities, and she explained her progress with each.

“Come, at 6 p.m. I am introducing you to a friend of mine who works at night at a very interesting place. He is an archivist and historian, and knows a good deal about all sorts of Soviet matters.”

Memorial House, later, was in another part of town, but the efficient crowded subway got them there in a half hour. They alighted at Pushkinskaya, walked fifteen minutes to an undistinguished side street, and halted at a modest three-story house. If Lybianka Prison was a lethal Mount Rushmore in the city, this Memorial House was a small, shabby triple-decker that belonged in South Boston. They entered, walked up to the first floor, saw posters on the walls of various Soviet political prisoners and noble dissenters, and rang at the door. They were buzzed in, and met a fellow who said to follow him down a small narrow corridor, off of which were pigeonhole rooms attended by researchers invariably smoking and poring over papers and computers.

“Ah, there you are,” Natasha said, finding her man. “This is Nikita, Nikita Petrov.”

Manny shook the man’s firm grip, gave him his name, and Nikita asked if he wanted tea or coffee. He chose tea, and Nikita went to make it. The room was not more than a cubbyhole, with a few computers on small desks. A man in shirtsleeves worked at one. On the walls were portraits of Gulag survivors and Soviet dissenters. In a minute Nikita returned, with tea in teacups for them, and he asked if Manny wanted to look around. Nikita was a black-haired man, handsome, in his late forties, and wore a Levi jacket and dungarees. Not exactly your Western historian dress code. Manny nodded and they proceeded. The house was divided into small rooms, mostly filled with research scholars working.

“Everything to do with Stalin’s murders we try to document here. Letters about missing people, records of deaths, camp names, family inquiries, unknown victims, everything.” There seemed to be plenty of work to occupy this many people, as they walked about, finally entering a small room of odd objects in cases and bookshelves.

Nikita explained their presence to the librarian, and said, “Our museum and library.”

Manny walked amidst the windowed cases, noting a wooden nameplate from Perm, a pair of old shoes, a homemade knife, a deck of cards, a striped prisoner’s uniform, an abstract wooden sculpture made from twigs, pages from a tattered diary, a lined torn notebook, an old rusted wristwatch … These everyday objects were the poignant remains that had been retrieved and saved from the long horror show. Their simplicity moved him.

“And once a year we have a contest for high school students across Russia, asking them to write an essay on some aspect of the Stalin years. Then we bring the winner and his parents for a week to Moscow, where they have never been. You see, many or most of them have never learned anything in the high schools about the Gulag. Or the truths about Stalin.”

Presently they sat in his office and chatted some more. It was amazing to Manny that the entire building of researchers was devoted to the One Great Ordeal: Stalin’s purges, prisons, and murders. It turned out that it was the Germans and Americans who supported Memorial House. “The present regime tolerates us, since we don’t go after them; but for how long?”

Before leaving, Manny showed Nikita the list of people he would like to see. He nodded at one, said he’d never get to see that one (RW’s interrogator), crossed off another as useless propaganda, and said another was of dubious use; he added a name, in case Manny went to Vladimir Prison. “And please forget all the nonsense about those later witnesses of Wallenberg, who claimed to see him in the Gulag somewhere; none has ever been verified or documented.” At the end of another forty-five minutes they said good-bye to the amiable fellow, who rose and said that if he could be of help, Manny should e-mail or call him.

“Quite a place,” he commented.

“Yes, it is very special. Most citizens do not know of it, even Muscovites.”

Following the local tradition, they hailed a citizen taxi in the street—several cars immediately pulled over when they put out their hands—and went back to his hotel. Natasha and he parted, agreeing to see each other the next day, or else talk on the phone if she couldn’t make the conference. “I may be busy trying to find one of your spies to talk to,” she said. He nodded and went inside. He read the
Moscow Times
, thought about that Budapest woman, and took notes before falling off.

The next day at the conference he drank coffee and tried to concentrate on the next set of speakers, realizing why he hardly ever attended such meetings. Too many speakers, too much to hold in your head at one time. At the intermission he was found and collared by the Soviet émigré bear and conspiracy specialist of the day before, who took him to the cafeteria and proceeded once again to play the same tune. RW was a Swedish playboy and dandy, and worked for the American OSS as well as probably the Germans. He said this with unassailable authority, no doubts or qualms. “I am trying to publish my long essay at Harvard. Do you happen to know Rick Lansing there? He has held my paper for over a year now, and I need to get him nudged a little!” I told him, happily, that I didn’t know Rick, and couldn’t help. Sagging perceptibly, he said, no matter, he’d send Manny the piece and he might be able to suggest another place to send it. When the afternoon session began, he felt relieved.

In the evening he found Natasha at his hotel, waiting in the lobby. “I have found out that this one fellow, the KGB interrogator Daniel Pagliansky, is still alive and lives not far away from here, a short walk from Pushkinskaya, and I have found his phone number and called him; but his wife, who is actually alert and nice, says he is ill and doesn’t really want to speak with anyone. As for the others, this Dmitri is off somewhere, and …”

He nodded, realized it was pretty futile, and invited her to dinner to reward her for her trouble. They went to a classy restaurant, The Pushkin, a fifteen-minute walk; and inside, over some superb borscht with sour cream and a wild boar entrée, they chatted more. This Nastasha was truly civilized, and had spent a few years at Indiana University, where she had honed her English. “I even taught two summers at Middlebury, a charming college and town.” She added, “Well, we still have two days before you leave, so maybe we can turn up something.”

Two days later, his last day in town, he and Natasha decided to give it a shot, and simply go show up and knock on the door of the Pagliansky apartment. After asking their identity through the closed door, a bulky gentleman of about sixty opened the door, asked them in cordially, and took their jackets. He inquired what they wanted. Natasha explained that Manny was an American writer who was working on a novel about World War II and the old days in Moscow in the 1940s. Just then there was a calling out from the other room, in Russian; the son smiled, used to such screaming, and said it was his father, who was angry that they had come after he and his wife had clearly refused Natasha’s requests twice on the phone!