Narrow Escape
In 1948, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who was then twenty-nine and incarcerated in a Soviet facility—serving an eight-year sentence for having criticized Joseph Stalin in his private correspondence—began writing an autobiographical novel titled “Love the Revolution.” The novel, which was never completed, was published in Russia in 1999, and will come out in English for the first time later this year. This passage, adapted from the first chapter of the novel, is set in Rostov-on-Don, in the summer of 1941.
It happened like this. The availability of bread was in a phase of so-called temporary difficulties. There was a crush of many hundreds outside the bread shops. The limit was two kilos per person, and no ration cards had been instituted yet. The family of Gleb Nerzhin’s wife, Nadya, had gone three days without bread, but Gleb had grown up during the first Five-Year Plan and had mastered the art of waiting in line or in a milling crowd, of sprinting and scrounging, so he volunteered to scrounge. This entailed standing in the gateway of one’s housing block while it was still night and waiting for the dawn to break. In every gateway all along the street, similar groups were lining up for the start, casting sidelong glances at one another but not making a run for the bread shop until it was time: after all, for security reasons, no one was allowed out in the streets at night, except for night patrols and policemen. But just as electric charges gradually build up in lead-colored thunderclouds until at last the intolerable difference in potential gives violent birth to lightning, so, too—without any word of command, without a sign or prior agreement, without conscious intent, not even at the moment when dawn became perceptible—somebody stirred, someone else swayed, a third one took a step, and, from every gateway, the crowd surged toward the bread shop, merging into an avalanche. Not every war could boast of attacks like this, with no one needing to be urged on, everyone rushing forward, selflessly giving their all. On reaching the bread shop, this throng was supposed to stretch itself out into a single file, but, writhing noisily, it simply could not manage to do so, since every participant claimed to have arrived before the others. Gleb was in the midst of this seething mass. He had secured one of the first places, next to the wall, and clung with one hand to a projecting brick by the entryway, so that he was neither shoving nor making a din but patiently waiting for the bread delivery in two hours’ time and the shop’s opening in three.
Despite that fact, the policeman who arrived to restore order did not touch those who were pushing and shoving, or even those who were brawling, but picked on none other than Gleb, who stood out, with his lean and haughty, bookish air, among all the barefoot boys, cantankerous grannies, girls, and raucous women. The policeman beckoned to him. Gleb gave a look of surprise. The man then summoned him out loud, calling him “white shirt.” Gleb didn’t move. The policeman began to push aside the crowd, which had quietened down. Gleb stepped forward to meet him, asking what this was all about. The man demanded that Gleb follow him to the police precinct. Gleb made a perfunctory protest but gave in, to avoid creating a scene and being made to look ridiculous. And so they set off.
The precinct was some four long city blocks distant. At first, Gleb felt nothing but irritation at losing his place in the queue; he’d done so well to get it, and it had cost him two hours of sleep. Then, after walking for a couple of blocks, directing withering sneers at the policeman’s reddish face, which was as impassive as that of a stone idol, Gleb cooled down and succumbed to boredom. There was nothing remarkable in any of this; he would be released on the spot at the precinct, but it would be stupid to run into one of his acquaintances in such company.
Read an interview with the author’s son for the story behind the story.
Inside the precinct, there were two men at the desk. The stone idol made his report: “Comrade Lieutenant, this man was inciting panic.”
Gleb began to reply in a rapid, agitated voice. “Listen, Comrade Lieutenant, this is absolute nonsense. I was standing there perfectly peacefully. I wasn’t causing any disturb—”
“You . . . just hold on,” the lieutenant said, squinting at him coldly. “Sit.” And, raising his voice: “Sit over there, farther down!”
“Excuse me, why should I sit? I need to be going!”
“Sit down, I tell you.”
Did no one understand Russian here? Gleb shrugged, sat down on a bench, and began to examine the official furnishings of the duty room with studied inattention: the red calico tablecloth with a big ink stain, the cloudy water jug with a broken-off spout, the filing cabinet whose warped door no longer closed properly, the stacks of files inside it, the duty officer’s fountain pen, which was spattering as he wrote.
Gleb hadn’t waited fifteen minutes when two more policemen came in with another couple of detainees, registering them under the same charges:
—panic-mongering;
—rumor-spreading.
Had Gleb not been a twenty-three-year-old greenhorn philosopher, he would have understood everything by now: that, two days earlier, Stalin had given his incoherent radio speech addressing his “brothers and sisters,” almost adding “in Christ,” which was punctuated by intervals of heavy breathing and the sound of gurgling water; that the new catchwords “panic-mongers” and “rumor-spreaders” had been seized upon; that a corresponding Decree had been promulgated; and that this entailed hunting down the perpetrators, so that yesterday the police had been briefed at a meeting, and today, from first light, they’d been out on their manhunt, making sure that the number of detained suspects listed in their daily reports demonstrated their vigilance and justified their existence. But Gleb’s understanding of things was too complicated for him to be able to grasp anything as plain as that.
Twice more he protested his detention, then at last the man on duty called him forward, noted down his name and address, and released him, promising that he’d be summoned again. At this Gleb merely smiled ironically. It was clear to him, as he emerged from the duty room, with its lingering smell of tobacco smoke, into a fresh and verdant July morning: having found nothing incriminating, they were releasing him for good.
But a day later a smudged violet-ink summons was delivered to his address, stating the time that he was to appear before the investigating officer. This was now so stupid that it wasn’t funny anymore. Gleb could hardly wait for the appointed time, reached the precinct almost at a run, and entered the office, vigorously flicking back his unruly hair—it was time to rid himself of this trivial nonsense, which was clinging to him like a leech. He began impetuously rattling off his incontrovertible arguments, but the junior lieutenant with slicked-down hair who sat at the desk pointed to a chair some way off and busied himself with putting a new nib in his pen, retrieving some bloated scraps from the bottom of his inkwell, and pouring in fresh ink. He then began leafing through his papers. But what papers could there possibly be in a case like this?
Gleb’s ardor waned as the minutes passed and he ran out of words to say. Distractedly, he watched as each successive page was turned. After going through two file folders, the investigating officer took out a clean interrogation-record form and, for some reason, examined it against the light, then unhurriedly began to ask his questions: surname, given name, patronymic, date of birth, occupation, home address. To Gleb, it was grotesque that the officer didn’t seem to make the slightest effort to establish the truth but was solely preoccupied with filling out each line as evenly and elegantly as possible—and this in such tempestuous hours, when million-strong armies were clashing in the west, motorized divisions were racing through breaches in the front at a hundred kilometres per hour, whereas, here, there was only the ticking of the clock on the wall and the occasional scratching of an illiterate pen, which, moreover, was investigating a meaningless, insignificant incident. The police lieutenant appeared to be writing down exactly what Gleb was telling him, but relying upon completely different words, with the result that Gleb confirmed the fact of his participation in organizing a queue for bread at 4 a.m. outside such-and-such bread shop, where he had been detained by a guardian of the law, who had duly escorted him to the precinct. All this was set out in question-and-answer form, without appropriate syntax but with ornate flourishes; was certified at the end by Gleb’s signature; and, together with a copy of Article 206 attesting to the termination of the investigation, was entered into the file, to which the testimony of the policeman involved in the incident had already been attached.
Gleb tried to arrange a meeting with the precinct chief, but this proved impossible, and he emerged onto the street with a depressing sensation that he’d fallen victim to a stupid joke, one that was decidedly unamusing. It was all nothing! Hot air! A scrap of paper! It shouldn’t have any consequences at all, yet it had left an unpleasant taint that soured his mood.
It so happened that Gleb’s wife, Nadya, had promised Ella Dovner, one of Gleb’s old school friends, a gentle, clever girl with large circular-framed glasses, that they’d come and visit her that evening. Everyone had disbanded and scattered so swiftly that they were the only two of Ella’s large circle of friends who could come for the evening, sharing with her the now burdensome luxury of the living room, with its grand piano, plush armchairs, mirrors, and carpets (but no radio receiver, since these had been universally banned in June). The friends tried to guess what the murky future held in store and grieved softly over the past, which was so dear, as they sat, in the gathering dusk, out on the balcony above the main street of the city.
Beautiful Bolshaya Sadovaya, long since renamed Engels Street, ran straight as an arrow and was a clean, tree-lined, and gaudily populous boulevard, freed now from clattering streetcars, the only sounds being the soft swish of automobile and trolleybus tires, and the shuffling of pedestrians’ feet. This, Rostov’s main thoroughfare, wasn’t illuminated by the familiar bright glare of its many street lamps, or by light from its windows, now blacked out, but emerged from the darkness all the more gently in a milky cloak of moonlight. Beneath the balcony, this street, witness to and confidante of the entire twenty-three years of these young people’s lives, was languishing in the fragrant July night, densely thronged with strolling city dwellers even now. The abundance of typically Southern white suits bathed in white moonlight, the leisurely movement of the pedestrian groups, with no one attempting to overtake or jostle others, even the blue lamps at the kiosks selling ice cream and soda water—all this was so festive, so peaceful, so remote from the war that it made one want to pretend for this one evening that there was no war, that its jagged shrapnel had not sliced into the tender body of life, that one could still dream of a future, still sit listening to concerts. . . . But no! Even here in the Dovners’ affluent apartment, there was no pretending. Ella’s father himself was due to leave in the next day or two, destined—even he—for the front. From the balcony, the young people could see his car pull up outside.
Dr. Dovner was over forty, and, though he played an important role in the official side of life, he was inwardly quite contemptuous of it, always preferring the practical, material side—that is, things as they really were, and not the way people strove to depict them. This had brought him great success in life. A corpulent, agile man with ruddy cheeks, full of joie de vivre, he easily distinguished worthy individuals from feckless ones, achievers from windbags, and well knew that what was actually done differed greatly from how it was portrayed in writing. He readily entered mutual arrangements of the “You scratch our back, we’ll scratch yours” type, and took timely shelter under the wing of the omnipotent Party: and so, by the spring of 1941, he had become one of Rostov’s most notable personalities—the deputy head of the oblast health department, the director of its biggest clinic, a member of both the oblast and municipal soviets of workers’ deputies—proof of his remarkable skill at combining the functions of doctor, medical administrator, and devoted Communist.
Dovner had only a sketchy idea of who Gleb was, but had noticed him as one of the regulars at the young people’s table when dinners were held in the apartment. And he recognized him now when he came out onto the balcony with the intent of spending some time with his daughter. But Ella, who combined a generous, compassionate heart with an utter lack of understanding of real life, despite the fact that—or perhaps precisely because—she was studying for a post-graduate degree in literature, voiced a complaint to him as he approached, while twirling a flower around her little nose: “Papa! Gleb here didn’t do anything, but they’re summoning him for an investigation, putting together a report. . . .”
Gleb was embarrassed at being made to look like a supplicant. But, when Dovner questioned him lightly about the details, the man’s infectious laughter made Gleb even more convinced that such trifles were hardly worth mentioning at all. They sat on the balcony for a while, chatting, then the doctor called Gleb into the room, without the girls.
Dovner was every inch the civilian, and it was odd to see him already in uniform. The tailor had had his work cut out fitting the soft woollen battle-dress blouse to Dovner’s unathletic and paunchy frame. The broad officer’s belt was buckled on one of the first holes. But, for all that, he cut a rather gallant figure, with three bars gleaming red on the collar tabs on either side of his sturdy neck, and he looked not like a victim of the tumult of war but like a man pleased with a change of occupation and form of dress. He was off to take up command of a field hospital.
In this final day or two before his departure, when Dovner was already free of the cares and concerns of life out of the war zone but not yet burdened with those of the front, his experienced eye was able to grasp the significance of Gleb’s case immediately: “Do you realize what this could mean? Ten years in the camps.”
There is a point beyond which the scale of a threat or a danger ceases to scare us. We might take fright when faced with a bandit drawing his knife, but if he shouts, “I’ll smite you with a hundred lightning bolts,” we’d barely flinch. “Five months” would have frightened Gleb more than “ten years.” But Papa Dovner wasn’t joking. He lowered himself languidly onto the couch, like a performer after too many encores, and with eyes half closed, said, “Children, children, what do they teach you at university?”—then nodded toward the telephone directory. “Look up the precinct you were at. The chief’s office.”
“Now? But it’s evening,” Gleb demurred uncertainly.
“They work nights, it goes with the job,” Dovner said, narrowing his eyes. “Just look it up.”
“Do you really know him, too?” Gleb asked, hastily leafing through the directory.
“Easier to ask me whom I don’t know. All the commanding heights must be in the hands of the proletariat. I could order you a plane right now to fly you to the Far East. I could put you in charge of a restaurant. Or reserve a prenatal bed in a sanatorium for pregnant women—would you like that? What’s that number? Zero-five-three-eight-four?”
The magisterial way he dialled, still slouched back on the sofa, using one chubby white finger, never turning the dial all the way around but just far enough for each number to register, all while holding the receiver in the same hand—even minutiae such as these bespoke a man who held the commanding heights in this city of half a million inhabitants.
“Hello? Am I speaking to the Fourth Department? Captain Maksimov? Doctor Dovner here. . . . Hello, there. . . . How’s it going? Me, too. . . . And what little matter would that be? That’s fine, we’ll run it through the Medical Assessment Board. Send it along, and I’ll alert the Deputy Head. . . . Me? I’m off to the front. . . . Listen, I’ve got something to ask you, too. Write this surname down . . . ‘Nerzhin’ . . . that’s ‘N’ for ‘November,’ ‘E’ for ‘Echo,’ ‘R’ for ‘Rubbish,’ ‘Zh’— Yes, that’s it. Have you made a note of it? Your boys over there have cooked up a case against him, but it’s just a mistake. . . . Well, all right. . . . Fine, you can call later. . . . Oh, you can check now? Good, go ahead.”
Toying with the receiver not far from his ear, Dovner looked at Gleb, but his thoughts were already elsewhere, deep in his own concerns. And Gleb looked at Lieutenant Colonel Dovner in wonder: the feelings this man aroused were strangely ambivalent. From every theoretical point of view, Dovner was transforming the Soviet system, which had been conceived as something of perfect, crystalline purity. Yet whenever Gleb saw Dovner’s broad smiling face, his quick gaze, expressing not exactly a lofty intellect but a sharp, vigorous, and commodious mind, he could imagine all those disarming, mutually advantageous deals, which always benefitted specific individuals, not so much in terms of enrichment but, rather, in terms of evasion, exemption, dodging responsibility, and Gleb wondered why Dovner, rather than seeming a reprehensible character, could still appear so likable.
“Well? . . . You’ve found it? And the hearing’s already set for the day after tomorrow? Just drop the case, then, all right? So long, then. . . . Yes, yes, we’ll fix it.”
Dovner gently replaced the receiver.
“D’you understand?”
No! Right to the very end, Gleb had not truly understood or sensed the danger he’d been in. Those sensible decrees against panic-mongers that he’d so recently welcomed could not affect him, after all! It had so easily passed him by, as if nothing had ever happened: the gigantic wheel had rolled by, almost squashing him to a pulp—yet Gleb could not even grasp that the wheel existed and that it was in motion. ♦
(Translated, from the Russian, by Alexis Klimoff and Michael Nicholson.)
This is drawn from “Love the Revolution: An Unfinished Novel.”