Moscow Noir полностью

“From the point of view of psychiatry, it’s interesting that you would refer to an execution as a last orgasm,” I said pompously. “Would you be so kind as to explain what you mean in more detail?”

“Doctor, not everyone’s a maniac. Could you hold on a second? I’m going to go grab something … here. A memoir of someone who loathed Beria with all his heart. For various reasons. The Bystander, by one Mr. Dmitri Shepilov, minister of foreign affairs under Khrushchev. He was also in charge of culture, arts, and ideology in the Communist Party. He was, by the way, a handsome man who loved women. Ordinary women, mind you, not underage schoolgirls. The chapter is called ‘The Battle.’ And I quote … hold on a minute, I’m going to quote him where he talks about where they put Beria. ‘And when he was told he was under arrest, his face turned green and brown from his chin to his temples and up to his forehead. Armed marshals entered the meeting hall. They escorted him to the automobile. It had been earlier agreed upon that the Beria would not be put in the internal jail in the Lubyanka or the Lefortovo detention cells: that could lead to unforeseeable consequences. It was decided to keep him in a special detention cell in one of the buildings of the Moscow Military District under surveillance by armed guards.’ He’s referring to your Khodynka; or, rather, the farthest end of it. Later the military closed some of the buildings there and gave them away. Oh, and here’s the part about orgasms: ‘He persistently from the depths of his memory recalled the most erotic scenes and relived them, voluptuously enjoying all the little details, in order to excite himself, seeking oblivion for at least a few precious moments. The supreme officers who guarded the door of his cell all day and night could see through the peephole how Beria, covered with a rough military blanket, writhed underneath it in spasms of masturbation.’ What style, doctor! Note, however, that I wasn’t quoting from the book. I was quoting from the original manuscript that I received from one of his publishers. Even though this was way after the Soviet era, the publishers had scruples about printing the piece about the military blanket, so they left it out.”

A blanket, I thought. A military blanket. And clothes.

“Sergey, do you happen to know if they confiscated his clothing, too, after he was arrested?”

“Clothing? My dear doctor, not just clothing. Shepilov very clearly states in his memoirs that they they took away his shoelaces, his belt—even his famous pince-nez, so he wouldn’t cut himself with the glass.”

“And where did they take it all?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. Does it really matter? I doubt they would have kept that information in the archives. Although, it’s possible they might have written it all down in some official document somewhere.”

On the other hand, I thought, it doesn’t really matter. I imagined the military investigators fingering every little wrinkle of a light gray overcoat and then … then tossing it in some corner … and then …

Suddenly, I heard my mother’s voice in my head. When was it? How many years ago did she tell me about the cold day in June 1953, before I was even born? It was a story about her and my father. They were sitting alone on some stone steps by the river, cigarette butts floating past, next to a tall Stalin-era building on Kotelnicheskaya embankment. They must have felt very happy on that short June night, when the sun rose almost as soon as it had set. They felt happy until the stone steps began to tremble under their feet.

Because tanks started rolling down the boulevard next to the embankment.

And my father—who had run off to fight in the war as a boy, and who ever since had been able to tell the difference between tanks on their way to military parades and tanks going off to war (portholes shut tight, armaments at the ready)—got up from the stone steps to watch. Then he went back to where my mother was and said somberly, “I think I’d better run home.”

But it wasn’t war. It was Marshals Zhukov, Nedelin, Mos-kalenko, and others, getting ready to enter the Kremlin and arrest the omnipotent minister of national security.

And arrest him they did. The troops under Lavrentiy Beria’s command did not rise up in his defense. The door to the dungeon at Khodynka slammed shut behind him.

A cold, cold summer in 1953. A summer coat. An underground bunker that looks like a bomb shelter. Its roof, covered in moss, disappearing into the ground.