The Commissariat of Enlightenment by Ken Kalfus Read Free Book Online Page A

it’s available from the operators themselves. There must be one such operator vulnerable to appeals of solidarity, or to blackmail.”
    “Yes, your honor,” said Tarass, with exaggerated enthusiasm to hide his confusion about the meaning of Ivanov’s speech. “Sir, there is one difficulty. As you know, the local Party’s membership has declined, so we have been presented with some questions about funds…”
    At that moment the tanner was interrupted by a fist on the door to the house. The widower, who had fallen nearly asleep, abruptly rushed to his feet. When he reached the door, he called through it in a wafer-thin voice, “Yes?”
    “Thesis!” came the reply, crisply pronounced.
    The old man turned to the gentlemen from abroad for approval. Bobkin called out the countersign: “Antithesis!”
    From the other side of the door came a reflexive counter-countersign: “Synthesis!”
    Bobkin nodded, giving the widower permission to open his own door.
    A new visitor now appeared, someone else with whom the widower was not acquainted. It was hard to believe that this day hadn’t ended and that still more strangers were filing into his modest home. His head was spinning; he had agreed to put up Ivanov and his wife at the request of the respected local school-teacher, who had sworn him to secrecy without explanation. He had never expected so many men of affairs, talking to each other in code, employing mysterious terminology and German. They were revolutionists, he only now realized.
    The new man was breathing heavily, his face flushed from his run through the frigid night. The knees of his trousers had been dirtied when he slipped on the ice. He didn’t glance around theroom, neither at his hosts nor the other men attending Ivanov, nor at the woman standing behind Ivanov. His eyes went to Ivanov’s immediately.
    “Dzhugashvili!” he announced, nearly shouting.
    Bobkin fell a step back and sputtered, “Iosif Vissarionovich?”
    Ivanov’s eyes became wide, as if he had just been slapped in the face. “Koba?” he asked, disbelieving.
    “Stalin!” the new visitor confirmed. They had now recapitulated the evolution of a dread revolutionary identity.
    Until now the woman had presented an unyielding countenance. But now something was working on her face, beneath the skin, like an awful muscular storm. She could not keep her features in place. She remained silent.
    Ivanov spoke, mostly to himself: “Here in Astapovo…”
    “Yes, comrade. He arrived on the train this evening.”
    “Did you see him with your own eyes? What does he want? Does he know I’m here?”
    “He sends warm fraternal greetings, to both you and Comrade Nadezhda Konstantinovna.”
    The woman gasped as she heard her name and patronymic spoken freely. This was grievously irregular. Stalin was plotting something.
    Her husband pounded the table. “Why did he come? How did he get here? I thought he was in internal exile! He’s the most undisciplined, reckless, untrustworthy, impudent revolutionist that there ever was!”
    The newcomer, who in 1905 had led a brave charge of striking bakery workers against a police barricade in the Presnya district of Moscow, now trembled from the force of Ivanov’s anger. He mumbled, “He says he’s awaiting your instructions.”
    “My instructions!” Ivanov shouted, blood rushing to his face.Years later, when Ivanov was felled by the first in a fatal series of strokes, Bobkin would be at his side and would recall this moment. He would realize that the world’s single indispensable man had been close to a stroke even then. “My instructions are for him to get as far from Astapovo as the earth’s dimensions permit! My instructions are for him to go back to Siberia!”
    Ivanov’s wife finally spoke, her voice a level monotone. “The son of a bitch,” she said.

SIX
    A muddled image of Russia dashed to pieces eventually accompanied Gribshin into sleep. He took comfort in it and as his sleep deepened the