The October Circle Read online

  NONPERSON no. 228

  Lev Mendeleyev, known as the Flag Holder. A partisan in the period of the Great Patriotic War, he ran afoul of the regime he helped establish over the question of the intervention in the internal affairs of Czechoslovakia, which he bitterly opposed.

  The rest of the page is blank, but the Racer’s eye catches the imprint of sentences, as if someone has been writing on a piece of paper that rested on the page. On a hunch, the Racer looks in the waste-basket. It smells from cigarette ashes, though there are none in it now. His hand rummages — empty Rodopi boxes, old magazines, blank medical forms, a crumpled piece of paper. Tacho retrieves the paper and flattens it on the desk. It contains a series of short scribbled notes.

  It isn’t Communist Power, but Communist Virtue, that will spread Communism across the globe. But can the Minister be made to see this?

  If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never get accustomed to seeing girls who aren’t partisans wearing pants. But then, if I go through with it, I shall never live to be a hundred.

  One last effort. Communists are men of conscience. Must appeal to that conscience. If I fail, those who come after me will know there are no Communists here, and no conscience to appeal to.

  Do I have the detachment to do it?

  Do I have the detachment to do it?

  Do I have

  The writing ends in midsentence. On the bottom, in a tiny handwriting, is what appears to be a list. It says:

  Lighter

  jerry can

  September 9

  They are having coffee when Kovel phones in. “Nothing. Couldn’t find hide nor hair of him nowhere. But Gogo says he seen him going past when he opened the Milk Bar, maybe around seven. Says he was carrying a plastic shopping sack and a roll of papers under his arm — “

  “Does he have any idea what was in the sack?” the Racer demands.

  “I didn’t ask him nothing like that, but how could he know what was in a sack?”

  “Goddamn it, ask him.”

  Melanie puts her arm around the Racer’s waist. “Take it easy,” she pleads.

  Kovel is back in a second. “Geez, he don’t have no idea what’s in the sack, like I said. You want I should keep looking?”

  “Keep looking, yes,” the Racer tells him more calmly.

  When the phone rings again, the Dwarf answers it. He listens for a moment, grunts and passes it to the Racer. “Popov,” he says.

  “Atanas, you find anything?” the Racer asks.

  “Friend of mine who works the predawn shift on Hristo Botev thinks he saw him coming out of a shop around six, six-thirty maybe.”

  “What kind of shop?”

  “No idea,” Popov informs him.

  “All right, keep looking,” Tacho replies. He hangs up and turns to the Dwarf, puzzled. “Atanas has someone who saw Lev coming out of a shop around six. Up on Hristo Botev.”

  “What would he be doing in a shop at that hour?” Melanie asks.

  “There’s a man on Hristo Botev who prints the newsletter for the Centre,” the Rabbit recalls. “I went there with him once. It’s right next to the cinema.”

  “Sure,” exclaims the Dwarf. “That’s our Lamplighter.” The Lamplighter was the wartime code name for the man who printed the underground newspaper for the Communist partisans. And lighter was the first word on the Flag Holder’s crumpled list.

  “Come on,” the Racer tells the Dwarf. He waves the women back when they try to follow him. “We’ll call when we know something.”

  The Racer peers through the glass door of the Lamplighter’s shop, then opens it. A bell jingles. The Lamplighter, sturdy, bald, squinting through wire-rimmed glasses, appears from a back room. He is chuckling and looks as if he expects them.

  “Hey, don’t blame me,” he says. “It was his idea, not mine.”

  “What idea was his idea?” the Racer asks sharply.

  “Why, the notices, of course — “ Suddenly it dawns on the Lamplighter that something is very wrong. “What’s going on? He said it was a joke. He said — “

  They find the first death notice high on the wall a block from the Lamplighter’s shop. It is taped up between a poster for a band concert and another announcing a series of discussions on “Stimulating the Agrarian Sector of the Economy.” They crowd around, the Racer, the Dwarf and the Lamplighter.

  “Oh, dear god,” moans Tacho.

  “Jesus Mary,” mumbles the Dwarf, and he crosses himself for the first time in a quarter of a century.

  The paper on the wall shows a grainy black-bordered photograph of the Flag Holder leading his partisans into Sofia. Under the photograph, it says:

  LEV MENDELEYEV

  Known as the Flag Holder

  Died, by his own hand, Sept. 9, 1968, at the age of 54, in protest against the violent suppression of Socialism in Czechoslovakia.

  “Violence is the opiate of the people.”

  They find the second death notice on the corner of Uzundžovska and Vitoša, and a third two blocks up on Vitoša in the direction of Place Lenin.

  The Fat Lady and the Tattooed Man pull alongside in Kovel’s taxi. “Have you seen them?” the Fat Lady yells shrilly.

  “We must find him,” the Racer calls back, and he waves the taxi away. It roars off down Vitoša. A large crowd is gathering on the next corner, where Vitoša joins Ruski Boulevard.

  “The parade is starting,” cries the Lamplighter, breathless from trying to keep up with the Racer. “They won’t let us cross Ruski.”

  “Parade!” explodes the Dwarf.

  “Of course,” the Racer mutters to himself. “The nine September parade,” To the others, he yells:

  “Dimitrov’s tomb. We must get to Dimitrov’s tomb.”

  They are running now, the Racer well ahead, the Lamplighter and the Dwarf trailing. Octobrina and Popov wave frantically from across the street, and Popov points to something on a wall. A trolley passes between them. When it is clear, they are still waving and still yelling. The Juggler rounds a corner on the run, almost knocking the Racer down. He grabs at the Racer’s jacket and starts to shout something at him, but Tacho breaks free and charges into the crowd at the entrance to Ruski. A line of militiamen, drawn up shoulder to shoulder, blocks the way. Without a pass it is impossible to enter, one of the militiamen says politely. The Racer cranes, then jumps to see down Ruski. The bleachers are full; the pass-in-review is just getting under way. He hears a drum roll, a clattering of rifle butts hitting the pavement, then the notes of the national anthem. The Racer tries to talk his way past the militiamen. One of them shakes his head stonily. The Racer moves through the milling crowd and tries to push past a militiaman behind someone with a pass. He is shoved back roughly. A whistle blows. Three policemen start toward him. Tacho backs away from the line of militiamen, then catches sight of the Mime, in white face and top hat, standing before the revolving door of the Hotel Balkan, beckoning to him. Tacho bolts up the steps toward the Mime. When he reaches him, the Mime bows slightly, quickly, turns and pushes through the revolving door with the “BAL AN” stenciled in gold letters on the glass and leads the way through a maze of passageways behind the kitchen into a back alley filled with garbage cans. Here the Mime points and bows again. Tacho nods his thanks and dashes down the alley into the ruins of the Sveti Georgi Church, an archeological dig that has been closed to the public for years. At the far end of the dig he crawls through a low arch and emerges behind one of the wooden bleachers across the square from Dimitrov’s tomb.

  Stepping around the side of the bleachers, Tacho takes i n the entire square. It is filled with workers from a steel complex in the south of the country, marching forty abreast. Dozens of red banners stream over their heads. A brass band coming down Ruski behind the workers plays the Internationale. From the reviewing stand atop the white marble tomb, the country’s Communist Party Chief, puffy-faced and cordial, peers out, waving jovially. A teen-age girl with pigtails detaches herself from the line of marc hers and runs up
the steps on the side of the tomb to hand a huge bouquet of roses to the Party Leader. He cradles the flowers in one arm and pats the girl on the head. Flash bulbs pop. A television camera dollies in. The crowd cheers wildly. The Party Chief acknowledges the cheers and passes the bouquet to the Minister, who stands just behind him.

  The factory workers move on. The brass army band steps out, the footfalls of the soldiers marking the rhythm of the music. Suddenly, in the space between the steelworkers and the army band, the Flag Holder appears — from where, the Racer will never know. He is simply and suddenly there, facing the Party leaders atop the tomb, sinking to his knees in the path of the brass band, pulling a can from a plastic sack and emptying its contents on his clothes. The Minister leans over the reviewing stand, his knuckles white on the railing, his face muscles twisting into an expression of disgust, and shouts a command. Two soldiers with machine pistols at the ready start toward the kneeling figure. The Racer, knowing what is going to happen before he can think about what is going to happen, lurches toward the Flag Holder. Some men in civilian clothes grab him. He tries to pull away, turns to argue with them, presses shut his eyes and opens his mouth until it feels as if the skin at the corners will tear and sc reams a scream that pierces the music of the brass band.

  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.”

  And again:

  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.”

  The Racer struggles to open his eyes; for a terrible instant he can’t locate the muscles that do the work. When he gets them open, he sees a ball of flame that has the sickening outline of a kneeling man, his arms flung wide. There is a silence so absolute it feels as if the earth has stopped rotating. The flames lick like a tongue at the kneeling man, who settles toward the ground as if he were melting. The civilians holding the Racer grimace but never take their eyes off the fire. One of the guards frozen at attention in front of the door of the tomb vomits over his dress uniform. The figure in the middle of the square slumps forward on what must have been its head and shoulders. Far away a whistle blows, then another. Policemen shout orders. The huge crowd stirs, but the only motion is a gentle pressing in toward the focal point.

  The Milk Bar is relatively empty for this time of the day. Gogo is cleaning grounds out of the espresso machine. Poleon studies a petition taped to the front of the espresso machine, requesting clemency for Mister Dancho. He is trying to decide which better serves his interests — to sign it, or report its existence to the block captain, who is the sister of his uncle’s wife and can be counted on to give him credit. Poleon’s ex-wife is picking food out of her teeth with one of her long fingernails, and nodding at the Scream Therapist, who is talking about the problem of sex in crowded apartments. In the distance, a brass band can be heard playing the Internationale.

  “Women tend to freeze up if they think their cotenants can hear them,” the Scream Therapist is saying. “Men, on the other hand, seem to care less who is listening. I know someone who tape-recorded his neighbors making love and played it at a party — “

  The distant music trails off and the Scream Therapist perks up the way a dog does when he hears a whistle pitched too high for human ears.

  “Did you hear it?” he whispers.

  A distant scream pierces the Milk Bar. Both Gogo and Poleon turn toward it.

  “Now that,” the Scream Therapist announces, “is the first healthy person I’ve heard in this country!”

  13

  EVERYONE is unfailingly polite: the starched duty officer who escorts him up the marble stairs, the thin aide with protruding eyes who ushers him into the formal room, the Minister himself who rises when he hears the soft footfalls on the thick carpet.

  “Ah, I was expecting you. Can I offer you a coffee” — the Racer shakes his head — “tea then, or something stronger, a vodka, a whiskey perhaps?”

  Again the Racer refuses, and the Minister dismisses the aide with the back of his hand and sits down.

  “About the Flag Holder: naturally there can be no question of a state funeral.”

  The Racer shifts uncomfortably in his chair, aware of the black armband on the sleeve of his jacket. From the outer office comes the sound of a typewriter.

  “Naturally,” he says, and he is struck by the oddness, the inappro-priateness, of the word. Nothing that has happened has been natural.

  “You are authorized to bury him privately in” — the Minister lowers his eyes, but not his head, to the single sheet of paper before him and names an obscure cemetery in a workers’ district of Sofia. He glances at his male secretary, who inclines his head; he has noted the order in the notebook open on his lap.

  A functionary comes in and lavs a dossier on the small gilt-edged antique table that serves the Minister as a desk. A prewar telephone is on one side, a porcelain inkwell on the other. The Minister sits with his back to an open window. The curtains are drawn, and billow inward every now and then when a breeze catches them. The Minister plucks the pen from the porcelain inkwell and scratches his initials in the upper-right-hand corner of the dossier. The functionary withdraws the dossier and leaves without taking notice of the Racer, who sits on an antique chair across the table from the Minister.

  “Above all,” the Minister is saying, “the cortege must be — how to phrase it? — it must be discreet. Surely you catch my meaning?”

  “What are you trying to hide? Thousands of people saw the suicide — “

  “There was a suicide, no one disputes the point,” the Minister agrees quickly. He waves absently with his hand toward the secretary, who closes his notebook and retreats to the far corner of the room, out of earshot.

  “But who, I put it to you, committed suicide? Ah, I can see the question startles you. Surely you’ve heard the rumors?”

  “Rumors?”

  “Rumors, yes. One has it that the deceased was a retired engineer whose wife just died of cancer. There are others who say the man was one” — the Minister scans the paper for a name — “Korbaj, a Serbian who escaped last week from an insane asylum in Plovdiv. I myself was a stone’s throw from the victim, you will remember. Now I grant you there was a resemblance to the Flag Holder, but one can never be absolutely sure— “

  “And the death of the Flag Holder— “

  “Ah, yes, there is the death of the Flag Holder to account for. I must tell you that my people have already heard rumors concerning this too: that he got roaring drunk and cut his wrists after visiting his son, Georgi, who was mutilated by the Czech revisionists; that he shot himself in the mouth after he discovered he had terminal lung cancer— I might add that the name of a prominent doctor is associated with this story; that he gassed himself in the kitchen of his apartment when he caught his mistress in flagrante delicto with his best friend and her former lover, the bicycle racer Abadzhiev; that he choked on a chicken bone in Krimm — there are two waiters there who swear they saw him being carried out on a stretcher; that he died peacefully in his sleep of a coronary. It goes without saying, my people are passing on the rumors as they hear them. Within a few days, take it from someone with experience in such matters, nobody will know for certain what happened.”

  “The Flag Holder immolated himself in protest against the suppression of Socialism in Czechoslovakia.”

  “How very interesting you should mention that; it coincides almost exactly with one of the rumors in circulation. But I tell you frankly, nobody puts much stock in it. It is simply not like him. Oh, he liked to play his games with us now and then, but a death such as you describe would have been out of character.” The Minister scrapes back his c hair—for an instant he seems to step outside the role of Minister. “I am not without feelings,” he says quietly. “I knew him a long time. I was there, I actually saw him pick up the flag. I only regret …”

  “What is it you regret?”

  The Minister looks up; he is every inch the Minister again. “I regret that somewhere along the way he stopped being one of us.”

  “Somewhere al
ong the way you stopped being one of him.”

  The Minister’s face tightens into a smile. “That’s the kind of thing he would have said. Are you thinking of playing his role?”

  The telephone rings softly. The Minister lifts the receiver and listens, his eyes glued to the Racer’s; he seems to be seeing him in a new light.

  “Tell him I’m on my way,” he says, “and have the car brought around to my private entrance.” He places the receiver back on its cradle.

  The Minister rises; the interview is terminated. Tacho rises also, and the two men regard each other across the vast gulf of the small table.

  “It seems to me,” Tacho declares, “that whatever you think of him, you must give a man his death — “

  “Where national security is concerned, we give nothing.”

  The Racer starts to leave, then turns back. “It is very difficult for me to think about what he did. But when I can make myself think about it, what I think is this: He … burned himself to death … so the world would know there was one person in the Communist world who detested with every fiber of his body the suppression of progressive forces in Czechoslovakia.”

  “If that was his reason,” the Minister replies—they are both speaking very quietly — “more’s the pity, for the world will never know about it.”

  “There is no way you can keep it in.”