Moscow Noir полностью

Since then we’ve spoken of this often. Jan’s dream has become my dream. We’ve imagined finding a countess: a spy infiltrated by White émigrés from Paris; an aristocrat in hiding who survived the Revolution in some out-of-the-way house, masquerading as a peasant, factory worker, or student. On the day of her execution she’ll be wearing a white dress, holding a parasol, wearing black high-laced shoes on low heels. Sometimes we’ll lead her down a brick corridor to the last wall, sometimes we’ll take her out into the snow in the Cheka courtyard (they haven’t executed anyone there in a long time, but in my dreams for some reason I see her walking, stumbling in the snow, across that courtyard), sometimes we’ll take her out of town, to the Gulf of Finland. Even in his dreams Jan won’t let me carry out the sentence myself—I just hand him the revolver and then he, squinting, slowly raises the muzzle and the countess turns pale, opening her parasol with a trembling hand or dropping it in the snow, covering her face in elbow-length white gloves. Jan always says, Farewell, countess!—and the seed of death bursts from his barrel, and her white dress turns red, soaked with blood, ordinary red blood, the same color as everyone else he has shot.

His dreams go no further than that shot, but in my visions I drop to my knees before him, kiss the revolver’s smoking muzzle, and then carefully take the other shaft into my mouth, a shaft poised and ready to fire.

I doze off holding Jan’s hand and think, Today it seems like he isn’t really with me, as if he’s thinking about something else, not the Revolution even, but some other young man, a year or two younger than me maybe, a twenty-two-year-old beauty with curly fair hair. Half-asleep, I see the three of us, then Jan goes away somewhere and my new lover kisses me on the lips—and then Jan’s voice wakes me, and I don’t understand right away what he’s said, but when I do I squeeze his hand even harder—and fall asleep for real.

I’ve found her, Jan says. I’ve found the countess.

There’d been a joint meeting to fight banditry—the police, UgRo, and OGPU. When they were done, Jan went outside and saw a young woman standing with her elbows resting on a fence, almost stock-still, her entire figure replete with bourgeois refinement, the aristocratism of the old regime. She was out of place there, among the strong men in leather jackets. I should ask for her documents, Jan thought, but at that moment an UgRo officer he didn’t know ran up to the girl, hugged her, and kissed her on the lips.

Jan walked away so as not to attract attention, only later he asked, Who was that kissing the woman over there?—and in reply he heard the man’s name.

All the rest was a technical matter. Jan made inquiries and found out more about the man. Some Civil War hero, a fighter against banditry, a distinguished comrade. True, he had to dig deeper when it came to the girl. A student at the university—so Jan stopped by her department and checked her documents. Everything seemed in order, a worker family, but her name put him on his guard. He went to the address where her mother and sister lived. My revolutionary instinct did not mislead me, he chuckled. When the house committee saw his warrant, they told him everything. A former bourgeoise who started at the factory recently so she could get into the university.

The street cleaner volunteered to show him where they’d lived before—in their own house, it turned out. And there, not believing his own ears, Jan heard this: The dead count’s wife and daughter.

I’ll collect some more documents, he said, and I felt his fingers trembling in my hand, and report to Comrade Meerzon that a representative of the exploiting classes concealed her origin when entering the university, and with criminal intent entered into a liaison with an officer of the workers and peasant militia. This means the death penalty, believe me, Vitya, I know how to write.

I pressed my whole body to Jan, soaking up his trembling.

Why didn’t you say something? I whispered. After all, this is a gift for both of us.

Yes, Jan replied gravely, for the Revolution’s birthday.