Sashenka

Ulrikh: In the name of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Military Tribunal of the Supreme Court has examined the case and established that Ivan Palitsyn was a member of an anti-Soviet Trotskyite group, connected to Okhrana double agents and White Guardists, and controlled by the Japanese and French secret services, linked to his wife Alexandra “Sashenka” Zeitlin-Palitsyn (known in Party circles as Comrade Snowfox), Mendel Barmakid (known in Party circles as Comrade Furnace) and the writer Beniamin Golden. Having found Accused Palitsyn guilty of all said offenses under Article 58, the Tribunal sentences him to the Highest Measure of Punishment, to be shot. The verdict is final and to be effected without delay…

Katinka was sitting at the T-shaped desk in the Marmoset’s office at the Lubianka, reading the transcript of Vanya’s trial and the originals of his confessions. The Marmoset buffed his nails and read his Manchester United fanzine—but Katinka, her flesh creeping, could hear only the brutal verdict of the judge. Vanya Palitsyn was no longer a historical character to her. He was Roza’s father—and somehow she was going to have to tell her that he’d died so terribly. She was just searching through the papers for a certificate of execution when the door opened and the archives rat, Kuzma, hobbled into the room, pushing his cart with its cats frolicking together on the lower tray.

“Collecting files, Colonel,” murmured Kuzma in his white coat, placing some papki on his cart and sorting them into piles.

Katinka returned to Palitsyn’s interrogations: he confessed to the crimes specified by Captain Sagan, whose confessions were also stowed in his file. But here was something odd: the confessions, signed by “Vanya Palitsyn” on the top right-hand corner of each page, were filthy, as if they had been splashed in a muddy winter puddle. Had the interrogator spilled his coffee? Only while she was turning the pages did she realize that this muddy spray was surely the spatter of blood. She raised the paper to her face, sniffed it and thought that she could divine the telltale copperiness…Katinka felt disgust for the Marmoset, and for this evil place.

“Excuse me, Colonel,” said Katinka, her head full of Roza’s family and their sufferings. “There’s no death certificate in Palitsyn’s file. What happened to it?”

“That’s all there is,” said the colonel.

“Was Vanya Palitsyn executed?”

“If it’s in the file, yes; if it’s not, no.”

“I saw Mouche Zeitlin yesterday. She said that the KGB sentenced Sashenka to ‘ten years without rights of correspondence.’ What did that mean?”

“It means she couldn’t receive or send letters or packages.”

“So she could be alive?”

“Sure.”

“But these files are empty. There’s so much missing!”

The Marmoset shrugged and his nonchalance infuriated her.

“I thought we had a deal.” Katinka was aware she was almost shouting. They both glanced at Kuzma, who was edging slowly toward the door in his stiff, cadaverous gait.

“I’m not an alchemist,” said the Marmoset testily.

Now she understood what Maxy had told her: archives start out as sheets of crushed tree pulp but they come to life, they assume the grit of existence, they sing of life and death. Sometimes they are all that is left of families, and then they metamorphose. The stamps, signatures and instructions on scuffed, stained scraps of curling yellow paper can convey something approaching life, even sometimes love.

The Marmoset came round the table and pulled a chit from the back of the file: Send files of Palitsyn case to Central Committee.

“What does that mean?” she asked him.

“It means it’s not in this file. It’s in another one, and it’s not here. And that is not my problem.”

Just then Kuzma unleashed a jet of gob into his KGB spittoon.

“Comrade Kuzma, how good to see you,” she said, jumping up. The fat marmalade cat sat on the cart licking the scrawny kitten. “How are Utesov and Tseferman, our jazz cats?”

This time, Kuzma opened a toothless mouth and emitted a high-pitched yelp of pleasure. “Ha!”

“I brought them something. I hope they like it,” Katinka said, taking a bottle of milk and a tin of cat food out of her handbag.