Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin Read Free Book Online Page B

Petrovna’s desk. From the back row, the classroom looks different. I’m here with other unreliables and I can see much better from here. Now I can see the whole room.
    â€œAfter the song, you will hear a drumroll. This is when our sacred banner will be brought in,” says Nina Petrovna, and glances at me. “Who’s going to carry the banner? Who truly deserves it? Who loves Stalin most of all?”
    She’s not looking at me now, but I can tell she’s enjoying choosing someone else to carry the banner. Someone other than me.
    I look up at our class photograph. Finkelstein’s
face is covered in black ink, and Vovka’s, too. Mine’s next. Any minute, the State Security guards will burst through the door and drag me off to Lubyanka to confess to my crimes. I will never be a Pioneer. Do I still have to live by the rules of the Pioneers?
    I get up, walk to where the banner is leaning against the wall, take it, and climb up on Nina Petrovna’s desk. I wave the sacred cloth over my head and, marching in place, sing “A Bright Future Is Open to Us” in a loud voice. It feels good.
    â€œZaichik!” shrieks Nina Petrovna. “Down, Zaichik! Down!”
    She tries to grab my foot, but I’m faster. I hop from desk to desk, shouting the song and waving the banner. Nina Petrovna chases after me. Everyone’s laughing. Then I miss a desktop and go down, and right away she’s on top of me, screeching and wrestling the banner out of my hands.
    When the State Security guards stomp in, I’m on my back, head toward the door, so I see their
boots upside down. One of the guards is holding Vovka by the collar. “That scum there,” Vovka says, pointing in our direction. Then Vovka nods toward Nina Petrovna’s desk.
    A guard steps over us, clomps to the desk, pulls the drawer out, and dumps it on the floor. Everyone’s quiet, watching him. He sorts through the stuff from the drawer with the tip of his boot, then bends down and picks something up.
    It’s Stalin’s plaster nose.
    He shoves it into Nina Petrovna’s face, which drains to white. “No. No. It’s not mine. I couldn’t … I’m a Communist … . It’s a mistake.”
    I look up at Vovka. He knows I’m looking at him, but he doesn’t turn his head. I see he’s grinning. So, he didn’t turn me in after all. He must have stayed behind in the classroom and hidden the nose in Nina Petrovna’s desk during Sergei Ivanych’s speech in the cafeteria.

    The guards twist Nina Petrovna’s arms and drag her to the door. She screams and kicks and tries to hold on to nearby kids. They duck under her arms, laughing.

27
    I DIDN’T KNOW our principal, Sergei Ivanych, is so short. He’s always either behind his desk or behind the podium, delivering speeches. There must be something hidden under his seat to lift him up, because now, as he walks me down the hall, I see that he is no taller than a kid.
    â€œNina Petrovna didn’t break off the nose,” I say.
    â€œThat woman is no longer my responsibility,” he says, and keeps walking.
    â€œFinkelstein didn’t break it, either.”
    â€œFinkelstein confessed in front of everybody.”

    â€œHe did it to get into Lubyanka to look for his parents.”
    â€œHis parents were executed,” he says, and shrugs. “Somebody should have told him.”
    I’m getting the shivers again. My teeth start to chatter. Poor Four-Eyes. His aunt told him his parents had been shot; why didn’t he believe her? Now he’s gone to prison for nothing.
    â€œNo stopping. Let’s go, Zaichik,” says Sergei Ivanych, and he grabs my arm and pulls me down the stairs to the basement. He’s short but strong.

28
    SERGEI IVANYCH knocks softly on the storage room door: three quick knocks, a pause, three quick ones again. He listens for a moment, takes a key out of his