A Man Without Breath

We went into a cosy little drawing room that was heated with a tall brown ceramic stove that stood in the corner like a petrified tree. While I glanced around the room, Batov pushed some wood in the brass door on the grate and closed it again. I knew his wife was dead, but there were no pictures of her to be seen, and this puzzled me, as there were many marks on the wallpaper where framed pictures had been hanging, as well as many photographs of Batov himself and a girl I presumed was his daughter.

‘Your wife,’ I said. ‘Was she killed in the war?’

‘No, she died before the war,’ he said, fetching some small glasses, some black bread and some pickles.

‘Do you have a picture of her?’

‘Somewhere,’ he said, waving a hand at the apartment and its contents. ‘In a box in the bedroom, I think. You’re wondering why I keep her hidden, perhaps? Like an old pair of gloves.’

‘I was rather.’

He sat down and I poured two glasses.

‘Here’s to her, anyway,’ I said. ‘What was her name?’

‘Jelena. Yes, here’s to her. And to the memory of your own wife.’

We threw the glasses back and then banged them down on the table. I nodded. ‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘Not bad at all. So that’s chekuschka.’

‘Chekuschka is really what we call the size of the bottle, not the stuff that’s in it,’ he said. ‘The vodka is cheap stuff but nowadays that’s all there is.’

I nodded. ‘Your wife,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to pry. Really, it’s none of my business.’

‘It’s not because I didn’t love her that I keep her photographs hidden,’ explained Batov, ‘but because in 1937 she was arrested by the NKVD after she had been accused of anti-Soviet agitation and wrecking. It was a difficult time for the country. Many were arrested or simply disappeared. I don’t display her photographs because I’m afraid to do so would be to risk the same thing happening to me. I could hang them up again, of course. After all, it’s not as if the NKVD are likely to come calling while you Germans are here in Smolensk. But somehow I haven’t had the courage. Courage is another thing that’s in short supply in Smolensk these days.’

‘What did happen?’ I said. ‘To Jelena, I mean. After she was arrested.’

‘She was shot. At that particular time in Soviet history, arrest and a bullet in the back of the head were more or less synonymous. Anyway, that’s what they told me. A letter came in the post, which was thoughtful of them; so many people never learn these things for sure. No, I was lucky that way. She was Ukrainian-Polish, you see. I think I told you before – when you came to the hospital – she was from the Subcarpathian province. As a Pole she was a member of a so-called fifth-column community, and this made the authorities suspicious of her. The charge was nonsense of course. Jelena was an excellent doctor and devoted to all of her patients. But that certainly didn’t stop the authorities from alleging she had secretly poisoned many of her Russian patients. I imagine they tortured her to get her to implicate me, but as you can see I’m still here, so I don’t think she could have told them what they wanted. Now I blame myself for not leaving Russia and going to live with her in Poland. Perhaps she would be alive if we had left. But that’s true of millions, I shouldn’t wonder. Jews especially, but Poles, too. Since the war of nineteen-twenty it’s been almost as difficult to be Polish under the Bolsheviks as it is to be Jewish under the Germans. It’s an old historical scar, but as always these scars run deep. The Russians lost, you see. Soviet forces under Marshal Tukhachevsky were defeated by General Pilsudski outside Warsaw – the so-called miracle on the Vistula. Stalin always blamed Tukhachevsky, and for his part he blamed Stalin. There was no love lost between them, so really it’s amazing that Tukhachevsky lasted as long as he did. But he was arrested in 1937 and he and his wife and two brothers were shot; I believe his three sisters and a daughter were sent to penal camps. So I suppose I and my daughter can count ourselves lucky in that we’re still here to tell the tale. I told you the name of this street is Gudunow Street. It is. But before the war it used to be called Tukhachevsky Street. And just living on a street with this name was a cause for suspicion. Really, you look like you think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. People were arrested for much less than that.’

‘And I thought Hitler was bad.’

Batov smiled. ‘Hitler is just a minor demon in hell, but Stalin is the devil himself.’

We tossed another couple of glasses back and ate the bread and pickles – Batov called these little snacks zakuski – and it wasn’t long before we had finished the first bottle, which he then placed beside the leg of the table.