The Lacuna

The penalty for the charges against Lev is death. Yet he seems in good spirits, despite the newspapers from France and the United States calling him a villain, and the Mexican ones calling him a “villain in our midst.” The editorials speculate on why he betrayed his principles. These newspaper men have never met Lev, yet confidently they discuss his innermost feelings and motives! They take it on faith that the treacheries were all committed. They don’t even wonder how a man could derail so many Russian trains after he was put on a cargo boat for Prinkipo Island.

The security regimes here are strictly maintained, as the news makes clear Stalin intends to have Lev assassinated. The guard in the street changes hourly. Lorenzo organizes drills in which Lev and Natalya must be hidden very quickly. When Diego comes in the car, Lev has to move to one of the inner rooms before the court gates are opened to let the car drive in. Snipers could be in Allende Street, waiting for a line of fire into the courtyard. And if any unknown person comes to the door, even a grocer’s boy delivering eggs and flour, the intruder is patted down, relieved of belt and shoes, and made to open all packages for inspection. The GPU will certainly strike, and no one knows how they will do it. (Though entering in the guise of a grocer seems unlikely.)

Lev says he has been a revolutionary from the age of seventeen, with a gallows waiting for him somewhere for forty years. His friends will know these new charges against him are invented. “And my enemies know it also. Which of these has written anything new?” He threw the newspapers aside and made Natalya come and sit on his knee. She obeyed him, but with a frown on her bottom lip, like the little dogs that have long wool in their eyes and a flattened nose. Lev took off his round-rimmed spectacles and sang to her in Russian. He asked to hear some songs of the Mexican revolution. Perpetua knew a surprising number. For such an old cook, her voice is steady.

24 January

Lev and Natalya went for a stroll in the Melchor market, their first venture outside the house since arrival. Between all the guards and Diego’s machine gun, Coyoacán village must have entertained a commotion. But the so-called Villain in Our Midst means to hold his bearded chin up to the world without shame.

With Lev and Natalya out strolling and all the guards escorting, the house was quiet. A slow afternoon passed, helping Van file cartons of Lev’s letters and published writings. It’s hard to believe such an outpouring of words could come from one man—“the Commissar,” Van calls him. He works each day as if the calendar on his desk were on its last page, which it could well be. Today while he was out, Van took the opportunity to ask many questions, not friendly. Place of birth, education, and so forth.

He revealed some scraps of his own life: a difficult childhood, the French mother losing her citizenship for marrying a Dutch husband, who died soon after Van’s birth. Van has a weakness for what he calls Nederland licorices. They look like black glass beads, in a packet he keeps in the desk drawer, guarded rather anxiously, as he is sure they can’t be bought in Mexico.

Here are two fatherless boys, then, eager to be anything for Lev, with his own two sons so far gone from him, and the man so kind. Already Lev remembers which assistant takes sugar in his tea. He puts everyone through stretching exercises so they won’t get backaches while typing what he himself stayed up all night to write. But Van will always be the favored son, of course. He has served Lev so long.

Van was surprised to learn the “native typist” is also of hybrid origin, half gringo. He changed to speaking English after that. His Spanish is very imperfect. He needs help with interpreting at the political meetings, especially when the talk flies around the table like a flock of crows. Last evening it flew from Russian to English (for Mr. Novack), then Spanish (for the Riveras’ colleagues), then back to Russian, with some French thrown in by Van, just for show, it seemed. Excuse this opinion, if it is one, but as Sra. Frida can plainly recall, no one at that meeting needed French.

All papers filed today were letters from the past four years, most in French but some typed in Russian, pages of characters in that strange alphabet lined up like rows of little men doing bending exercises. So it’s untrue that typewriters are restricted to characters of the English language. Van cracked his composure and smiled at the story of Officer Gringo and the Potomac Academy typewriters. He understands Spanish well enough to laugh at the joke about Señor Villanueva and his anos in the bano. Or he pretended. He seems fearful of losing his position as his commissar’s sole interpreter.

With apologies here to Sra. Frida, because the last paragraph undoubtedly contains at least one opinion. But not a fiction. The second weekly household report from Coyoacán is herein submitted for her inspection.

30 January

A wire came from Paris: Radek, Piatakov, and Muralov were executed in Moscow. Lev’s spirits flag—more of his friends are dead—but he stays absorbed in work. What the newspapers say about Lev is shocking, charges more improbable every day. Lev said that when the public nerve is aroused, the most impressive capacity of man is his skill for lying. Van said, “It’s good to hear you indignant, Commissar.”

But Lev maintained he was not at all indignant. He was holding a Russian newspaper with such ink-stained fingers he could be a printing press. “I’m speaking as a naturalist, stating fact. The urge to lie is produced by the contradictions in our lives. We are made to declare love for our country, while it tramples our rights and dignity.”

“But newspapers have a duty to truth,” Van said.

Lev clucked his tongue. “They tell the truth only as the exception. Zola wrote that the mendacity of the press could be divided into two groups: the yellow press lies every day without hesitating. But others, like the Times, speak the truth on all inconsequential occasions, so they can deceive the public with the requisite authority when it becomes necessary.”

Van got up from his chair to gather the cast-off newspapers. Lev took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t mean to offend the journalists; they aren’t any different from other people. They’re merely the megaphones of the other people.”

“It’s true, sir. The newspapers are like the howlers on Isla Pixol.”

Lev seemed interested in the comparison, and changed from English to Spanish. “What are these howlers?” he asked.

“A kind of monkey, very terrifying. They howl every morning: first one starts, then a neighbor hears it and starts his own howl, as if he can’t help it. Soon the whole forest is bellowing, loud as thunder. It’s their nature, probably they have to do it, to hold their place in the forest. To tell the others no one has gotten the best of them.”