Wave of Terror (34 page)

“This school is in appalling condition. It’s worse than a pigsty. There’s scribbling on the walls and the floors are filthy. The benches are all scratched up and dusty, and the blackboards look like they’ve never been cleaned. All that’s missing in this dump is a broken window.”

Dounia caught him up at once. “Actually, one of the little monsters broke a window just last week and I had to send a peasant especially to Pinsk to get it fixed. Why, it cost me almost thirty rubles!”

Paspelov wrote several lines in his notebook, looked up at her briefly, and wrote some more. Then he asked to see her lesson preparations.

“Lesson preparations?” Dounia shrugged. “What do you want with lesson preparations? Do you think I’m so stupid that I have to record everything on paper?” After briefly examining her nails, rolling her eyes, she pointed to a small wooden table with a lopsided pile of papers on one side and a stack of copybooks on the other. “If you feel you must do something, go right ahead, get it out of your system. That’s the work of the children over there. Take all the time you want.”

Paspelov promptly made for the table. He thumbed through the papers, and leafed through the copybooks, all the while shaking his head, muttering under his breath. He could hear Dounia humming at the other end of the room, and saying, “Oh, grammar, arithmetic. Trying to teach these little delinquents is an absolute horror.”

Waving a copybook in his hand, Paspelov came toward her. “This work is dreadful. This is not writing, it’s scribbling! And
there are hardly any teacher’s corrections anywhere, and if there are, they’re either too sloppy to make out or just plain wrong. How do you expect the children to learn anything?” He turned his attention to a pile of papers that appeared to be arithmetic homework. “Why, you don’t even know your fractions! This is an outrage!”

“What do you mean?” Dounia was offended. “Of course I know my fractions. I’ll prove it to you. Here, for example, is an apple. If I cut it in half, I get two halves. And if I cut the half in a half, I get a quarter. Simple!” She faced him with her hands on her hips. “Hah, and you say I don’t know my fractions?”

“And how do you add a half and a third? How do you multiply an eighth by a quarter? And what’s a common denominator?”

“Common denominator? Hmm …” Dounia scratched her head and thought a while. Finally she shrugged. “Quite honestly, it slips my mind for the moment. But it’s no big deal, these little monsters could do very well without these common denominators of yours. Besides what do they need to know them for anyway? Look at me, I’m doing just fine and I’m even a teacher, not to mention the soon-to-be Deputy of the Village Soviet.”

She looked at him with contempt. “Your attitude is terribly hostile and imperialistic, Comrade Inspector. You’re putting on airs as if you’re well-read, but you don’t fool me, you’re a fake. I wouldn’t be surprised if you never went past grade five. Do you always attack women as if you were a general?”

Paspelov was completely unprepared for her degree of insolence. “Do you realize whom you are speaking to? This, Dounia Avdeevna, could cost you your job! I am the school inspector and I was sent here by the People’s Commissariat of Education.”

Dounia rushed back at him. “School inspector, hah! You’re nothing more than a flea! You were born a flea and you’ll die a flea!”

“How dare you!” Paspelov could not believe his ears. “You’re an illiterate and vulgar creature, you have no place in a school, let alone becoming a candidate for Deputy of the Village Soviet. I will be certain to brief Yeliseyenko, the school superintendent, on the mess here. Then we’ll see who the flea is!”

At this fiery moment, to Boris’s great surprise, as if out of nowhere, two government officers entered the room. They were both in official army uniforms and their chests and lapels were heavily decorated. Revolvers dangled from their holsters. The taller of the two, Paspelov noticed, was carrying what appeared to be a bottle wrapped in brown paper.

“Dounia!” Kokoshin rushed to her, and looked into her face with concern. “What’s going on in here? We heard all the racket from outside. Is everything all right? Have you been waiting for us long?” Then catching sight of the inspector standing against the wall, he raised his brows suspiciously. “Who’s that?”

“His name’s Boris Paspelov. And he’s been harassing me all afternoon. It’s a good thing you came when you did. He was just about to hit me.”

At that moment Paspelov felt rather dizzy. It was precisely then that he realized whom he was dealing with and how dangerous the situation was that he had created for himself—it hit him like a ton of bricks. He had battled with the wrong person; it was now obvious Dounia Avdeevna had friends in high places, and these friends, with just a wave of her hand were capable of bringing him down. Wiping his forehead, swallowing hard, he gathered his belongings quickly and made for the door. In a faint voice, he bade farewell and hastened to his car.

Dounia shouted after him sarcastically, “Good day to you too, Comrade Paspelov. Who’s the flea now? Hah! Hah! Hah!”

The sun was setting, and a harsh and bitter wind coming in from the north piled the snow in large heaps against the schoolyard fence. It was so cold outside one could hardly breathe. With his hands trembling upon the steering wheel, the snow-covered countryside rushed past Paspelov, who felt he was having a bad dream. He knew it was the beginning of the end for him. His ascent up the Party ladder had stopped before it had gotten started, thanks to Dounia Avdeevna, future Deputy of the Village Soviet of B.S.S.R.

O
ne day Ohrimko Suchok’s grandmother appeared in Hlaby and took him to her house in a faraway settlement somewhere beyond Kolodny, in the heart of a deep forest. She brought him there to make him a winter coat from wool she had spun herself. Although Ohrimko’s grandmother was planning to bring him home in just a few days, Kulik already found himself missing the boy. He had an empty feeling, and he thought how glad he would be to see the boy come breezing through the door of the school, his big bright eyes shining and a broad smile on his face.

But thoughts of the boy became intertwined with other thoughts, grave and serious, and he began to feel uneasy. He could not understand or put into words what was troubling him. He missed Ohrimko, and felt as if the boy’s absence would trigger something horrible and disastrous.

When Ohrimko had been gone for two days, Paraska came out of her small wooden house some time before noon, and crossed the road to the school. The day was cold and blustery. It was late March, but it felt more like the middle of January. Dressed in a ragged overcoat two sizes too large for her, and with a crudely spun shawl wrapped around her head, she suddenly stopped in the road and strained her ears to listen. There was a peculiar sound coming from the near distance—it was the rumbling of a motor car, coming closer and closer, toward her. What she saw made her heart thud. It was a car, but not just an ordinary car. It was an enclosed black police car.

“It’s the NKVD!” she screamed. Scared out of her wits, she ran headlong into the school. “Director! Director! They’re coming! They’re coming! Lord have mercy on us!”

Kulik, jumping up from behind his desk, hurried to the window. Peering outside, he whispered in a voice that was not his own, “It’s the Black Crow.”

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Paraska clutched her chest. “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse! My Philip’s slipping in and out of consciousness. He’s at death’s door. My life’s a living hell and there’s no end in sight. What misfortune! What misfortune! And now of all things, the Black Crow!”

With each passing second the rumbling grew louder. At last the car swerved to the right and came to a screeching halt by the schoolyard fence. The front and back doors flew open and out came six NKVD men, all in long gray army coats with rifles strapped over their shoulders. One of them Kulik recognized immediately: Simon Stepanovich Sobakin. As he watched the men, he was convinced they had come for him. Why else would they have stopped at the school?

The NKVD men grouped together a moment, then hurriedly broke up into two groups: the first, under the command of a sergeant-major, started for the village, while the other, led by Sobakin, did not turn into the school as Kulik had expected, but made for Paraska’s house. When she saw that, Paraska’s face filled with dread and she shook like a leaf. A fearfully unnatural cry ripped from her throat, and half-hysterical, she threw herself outside, crying out the names of her children: “Lida! Maria! … God, no! Don’t harm my children!” Lifting her overcoat up to her knees, running through the deep snow, somehow she managed to catch up to the men just as they were about to open the door of her house. Weeping violently, she tried to push her way in front of them. “What do you want from us? We’re law-abiding citizens. We’ve done nothing wrong. My children! Please don’t harm my children!”

“Out of our way!” A heavy hand landed on her shoulder and pushed her aside. The alarm on her face intensified when she recognized the man standing over her. It was Sobakin.

“Why do you look so shaken up, my dear?” He gave her a mocking grin. “No need to be scared. Nothing is going to happen to you. Now come on, grab hold of yourself. Besides, we’re forever grateful to you. Remember on our last visit when you gave us that fine feast? That was most kind and generous of you.”

Clearing his throat, he spat between his feet, and motioned to his men to follow him inside.

Paraska’s children, seeing the strangers enter the house, were frightened and tried to hide. Three-year-old Danilo crawled under the table and screamed for his mother.

Sobakin walked across the room without saying a word. Slipping his hand into his leather shoulder bag, he brought out a piece of paper and read harshly, “
Philip Semionovich Braskov
! Does he live here?”

At the sound of her husband’s name, Paraska’s agony was indescribable. Looking frantically from one NKVD man to another, she said, “Philip, that’s my husband. He’s over there on the sofa. As you can see he’s very sick. I don’t expect him to make it to the morning.” Then with tears gushing from her eyes, her voice breaking, “Please, don’t harm him, I beg you. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

Sobakin stepped up to the dying man and poked him in the ribs with the butt end of his rifle. He said roughly, “Come on, get up, Philip Semionovich. Why haven’t you been reporting to work at the Bugsy-Dnieprovsky Canal? Our records show you’re deliberately trying to thwart its construction.”

“Lieutenant Sobakin,” pleaded Paraska, “he’s not conscious anymore. He doesn’t know what’s going on around him.”

A sneering voice shot out from across the room, “Not to worry, Paraska. Your Philip will be fine. We’ve prescribed the perfect remedy for him and you should be grateful to us. We’re sending him off to a health resort. I hear there are several really good ones in Siberia. Hah! Hah! Hah!”

With a wave of his arm, Sobakin ordered the two officers to remove Philip from the sofa. One grabbed hold of his legs, while
the other slipped his hands under his shoulders. The dying man stirred slightly and let out a low moan. The movement was too much for him. Blood oozed from the corners of his mouth and his eyes rolled from side to side. Six-year-old Svetlana, who had been crouching behind a chest of drawers jumped out, and with a look of terror on her face, clutched at her father’s arm. “Papa! Papa! Wake up!”

Paraska rushed to her daughter’s side, and scooping her up in her arms, kissed her face repeatedly. She cried, “He’s dead! Dear God, your father’s dead!”

Sobakin came forward, and touched his heels. He said matter-of-factly, “He’s cold, stone cold.”

The officers dragged the dead man across the floor, and threw him outside into the snow. Sobakin called after him, laughing, “Well, Philip Semionovich, you’ve gone and outsmarted us. You son-of-a bitch.”

Finished with Paraska’s house, the NKVD men, accompanied this time by Iofe Nicel Leyzarov, jumped into their black car and headed for the other side of the village, to the home of Hrisko Suchok. As they entered the gates of his yard, Hrisko, who had been splitting wood by the side of his shed, dropped his axe, and took several steps back. His heart beat wildly; he knew that something dreadful was about to happen to him. His only choice was to try to run. He turned and headed to the threshing barn. He frantically jumped over a low wattle fence, and rushed toward a grove of alders, hoping to lose himself in the thicket. The men ran after him, and, before he knew it, Suchok was surrounded. A single bullet ripped through the air and struck him in the nape of the neck. He fell to the ground dead. A red stain seeped into the snow. Sobakin stepped up to the corpse and kicking it onto its back, shouted to his comrades, “We just got ourselves another son-of-a-bitch!”

In the meantime Iofe and one of the officers stormed into Hrisko’s house, where they found his wife hiding behind the stove. She was frozen with fright, scarcely able to stand, looking like a cow about to be taken to slaughter. The officer pulled her out by the
hair, and dragged her, screaming, into the Black Crow. Over and over she cried out the name of her son.

Inside the Black Crow it was dark. Sobbing and praying, it was not long before she realized she was not alone. Someone else was there, mumbling and whimpering. It was a woman in great distress, and she sounded very much like Marsessa Kunsia, who, disoriented as she was, had grasped the horror of her situation. Seeking the warmth of each other’s bodies, the women huddled together and wept.

A shroud of doom had fallen over Hlaby. The village was silent, but tense and restless. Paraska, pale and emaciated, moved like a zombie, and was no longer of any use to herself or to anyone around her.

For the next several days the villagers busied themselves washing the bodies of the dead, preparing them for eternity. Two pine boxes were quickly constructed and the dead men were laid inside. Twelve stocky young peasants with round pink faces, lifted them up on their shoulders, and slowly walked to the cemetery. The villagers trailed behind, chanting softly and weeping. Some carried long sticks with icons framed in colorfully embroidered cloths, while others clutched at crosses hidden inside their coat pockets. Once in the cemetery, standing over the freshly dug graves, one elderly villager took it upon himself to speak. He began in a low, doleful voice: