Beneath the Darkest Sky Read online

  “Neither am I,” said Lovett. “Why do you think I’m pining to get out of Moscow for a while and take that job in Kuybyshev. I’m not afraid to try anything new.”

  “Why are you moving?” I said.

  “It’s not permanent,” said Lovett. “I’m just exhausted with some particular members of the CPUSA. They don’t seem to share my views about the importance of America’s Negro problem as one that is wholly independent of class. I keep telling them that Jim Crow is not a damn class problem. It’s a race problem. I need the Party to be more proactive in addressing race as a singular issue. All they say is, ‘The Party’s aim is to lift all boats, and that includes the impoverished American Negro.’ Fuck that! Pardon me, ladies.”

  “Well, we hate to see you move,” I said. “You’re like family to us. And the kids will miss your demonstrative storytelling. They adore you, brother.”

  “Not a move actually,” he said. “Just more like a one-year sabbatical from the Party politics here in Moscow. I’m worried I may hurt somebody. During the Third International this summer, I nearly strangled three white members of the CPUSA. No one, including that damn nigga William L. Patterson, shares my sense of urgency when it comes to the Party tackling the issue of race in America. That was the entire point of my joining the Party. Guess I shouldn’t say that about ol’ Patterson. He sees it my way, but he just doesn’t like my flamboyance and the way I aggressively approach the whole thing. I’m not the go along to get along type. And I’ll dress the damn way I wanna dress.”

  “I love that you dress like a Cossack,” said Loretta.

  “Well, then, go on ahead and paint me, girl!” he said, raising his hands in the air and laughing. “I make a damn colorful subject!”

  “Yes, you do,” said B, kissing him on the cheek.

  “A sabbatical in Kuybyshev, huh?” I said, not so keen on joining the playfulness. “Will you still be teaching?”

  “Oh, yeah! Already have a job set up down there teaching chemistry. Gonna teach some boxing, too. Y’all didn’t know I was a boxer I’ll bet!”

  “No,” said Loretta and I.

  “Yep! Will be good for me to take a reprieve from all things science and politics. And B is going to keep her job here in Moscow. We’ll meet at the halfway point in Glazov about once a month. I just really need this break. Trust me.”

  17

  Magadan, Russia

  August 1938

  SUMMER HAD COME AND ALMOST GONE. I COULD NOW SAY I’D OFFICIALLY been a prisoner for one year, starting from that initial arrest back in Moscow. James and I had been hardened, meaning we didn’t speak much about our condition, we just lived from minute to minute, thankful at the end of each day that we’d survived to see the sun go down.

  As far as my killing the guard in the punishment isolator, the aftermath had played out as I’d imagined, with NKVD officials certain that Vladimir had gotten drunk and fallen into the sewage hole. For months now the hole had remained covered and sealed. And the guard certainly wasn’t missed. I’d even overheard one officer say, “Vladimir was a fucking pathetic drunk, terrible at his job. It was just a matter of time before he would have gotten shot by the bosses for being a shitty guard anyway.”

  Commander Koskinen had been pleased with my cost estimate for the big vehicle storage facility, but he’d also liked some other engineers’ offerings. Regardless, the project still hadn’t gotten under way yet, and I was overseeing a brigade of zeks tasked with constructing a new medical barracks made of stone, as the current wooden one was so weathered it was about to blow over from the strong sea winds.

  I’d learned some unspeakable news from Koskinen about the group of hundreds that Yury and Boris had been a part of. Eighty percent of them had died along the Road of Bones before making it to the mines, and the remaining twenty percent had passed away shortly thereafter. Why they had even bothered to send them all on such a suicide mission was incomprehensible. Koskinen’s answer: “They got at least one good month of excellent mine work out of that twenty percent, and that’s lives well spent as far as Stalin’s concerned. He reasons that there’s an endless supply of bodies.”

  My weight had originally gone from 200 to 180 to now 170, and I only knew this because a nurse had weighed me during a two-day stay at the medical barracks during my bout with dysentery. My recent concern, however, was less about my own health and more about James’s. He had developed a cough and dizzy spells that were plaguing him more and more regularly.

  After his couple of visits to the incompetent doctor, I was finding it heartwrenching to have to begin telling James, “Try not to show your sickness, son, because if they suspect that you’ve developed something chronic, God knows what they might do. Close your mouth, grit your teeth, and cough into the back of your throat and the air will expel through your nose. If you feel dizzy, get on your knees and at least act like you’re hammering nails into the floor or lower wall. But always remain looking busy. You can cough freely once we get into our bunks tonight.”

  It was on this last Sunday of August 1938 that I looked at my son convulsing, struggling to hold his cough while helping me frame a wall, that I knew I had to do the impossible and get us out of here. I knew it was a long shot, but I was forced to broach a specific topic with Koskinen during our meeting.

  “I need to ask you a very important question, Commander Koskinen,” I said about halfway through our conversation in his office.

  “The answer is yes, Comrade Sweet,” he said. “They are going to execute me before year’s end.”

  My face must have looked confused to him. “Say again, Commander!”

  “I make a joke,” he said, not smiling, but lighting his cigar. “Ask me.”

  “I want to spy for Stalin in exchange for my family’s release.” He slowly took a puff and leaned back in his chair, a look of deep thought on his face as he blew smoke, for he knew of my serious nature and was already preparing to hear something that would both intrigue and surprise him. I eyed his favorite book, which was lying on his desk, The Communist Manifesto. What he didn’t know was that at this very second, I had put the final period on my personal manifesto. I wasn’t about to make some public declaration to Koskinen or anyone else, but I’d written this in my mind:

  I declare, from this moment forward, that I will do any and

  everything required to get my family out of Stalin’s abattoir,

  even with the resolute knowledge that I could very well die in

  the process. I say today, To hell with Communism,

  Capitalism, or any other ‘ism’! I say To hell with concerning

  myself with global society, the various races therein—black,

  white, brown, red, yellow—for I must be wholly selfish in my

  thinking now. I declare, right here in this Commander

  Koskinen’s office, that I will outmaneuver Stalin and his

  complicit comrades at every turn. I will summon and utilize

  every resource within my being to save my family, and I

  don’t care if it is God or the devil who helps me do it.

  “Proceed,” said Koskinen.

  “Based on the last letter I received in Moscow from my diplomat friend, Bobby Ellington, months before I was arrested, I believe he will be leaving his post in Argentina by this December.”

  “Why is that significant?”

  “Because,” I said, “his post will be in Berlin. We both know all too well how significant Germany is in the mind of Stalin. And, you see, I was afraid to mention something to you before. I had only been teaching at the Anglo-American School in Moscow for a little over a year when I was arrested. Before that, I had been Bobby’s interpreter and assistant for about four years, two of those at the embassy in Haiti, the other two, at the embassy in Moscow.”

  Koskinen put his cigar out in the ashtray and sat up straight. His intrigue was obvious. Perhaps because he wanted to be the man who got credit for suggesting such an idea to Stalin, as it might be ju
st the kind of offering that would put him on the dictator’s “Good List,” even though he claimed a Trotskyist takeover was on the horizon. Or, maybe he just wanted to do this because he actually thought it might help me. Either reason suited me.

  “But you worked for this Ellington,” said Koskinen. “Therefore, you are loyal to him.”

  “No! He is a friend, but I would cut his throat to save my family.”

  Koskinen squinted at me a bit and began pinching his chin with his right thumb and index finger. “Cut his throat you say! You would?”

  “Yes,” I firmly said, lying through my teeth. “He is loyal to America, and I am loyal to my family. And, as I previously said, I was stunned to have been arrested in a country I love more than the United States. If my family and I were to be released, them before the mission commences and me upon its conclusion, we could easily forgive the arrests and remain loyal expatriates, completely at ease with living out the remainder of our lives in Russia.”

  “Stalin would never agree to release your family prior to any spy mission having been completed. I know nothing of this sort of thing, but I can guess. Your family would be leverage. They’d have to remain imprisoned until you’d gathered any type of intelligence at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, intelligence that one hundred percent fulfilled Stalin’s appetite. And even then, he might kill you all. He might tell you, ‘Mission complete. Come back to the Soviet Union and join your just-released family.’ But when you arrive . . . bang, bang, bang, bang! A bullet to each of your heads from one of his most trusted NKVD men.”

  “Then I’ll take on the assignment while they remain imprisoned,” I said. “All I ask is that the assignment has a specified time length, one that would assure all of our releases in no more than one year. Otherwise Stalin must certainly know they will die in here if kept much longer than that. I can gather plenty of intelligence in twelve months.”

  “Do you speak German?” he said, busily writing everything I said now.

  “Ja! I speak German, Russian, Italian, French, Spanish, and, of course, English.”

  He looked up from his pen with slight surprise. Then he continued writing, as if preparing a report he’d later type, one that listed the details of my history, the proposed mission, etcetera. It was like he knew such a suggestion of espionage would not fall upon deaf ears. I was reminded of just how seemingly orgasmic this whole spy business was to them.

  He stopped writing and leaned back, lost in thought for a while. After about a minute passed, I wondered if he’d decided not to consider my proposal, perhaps realizing that taking such a risk could cost him his life.

  “Your ability to speak Spanish could be good for us both,” he finally said, leaning forward. “I will help you under one condition. And it involves testing your . . . how do you say in America. . . your character. You see, I can’t make you do what I’m about to ask, but you can give me your word. Can you give me that, comrade?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I am going to die in here like the others; my family as well. I’ll promise you anything.”

  “Assuming you are magically able to get out of Russia, you are going to need a job, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said, watching him take a small slip of paper and jot something down.

  “You’re going to memorize this name and address because you can’t walk around with this paper. Go to this place and see this man.” He handed the slip to me and continued. “He is part of the Trotskyist movement. Tell him I sent you and that you speak Spanish and Russian. Then tell him why you hate Stalin. Because of your color, zek background, and rare language ability, he may have a good job for you, or he may not. But find out, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, handing the paper back to him.

  “Is it stuck already?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve got it memorized.”

  “I have your word that you will go see this man if you get out?”

  “You have my word,” I said, meaning it to my core.

  “Then it is between you and your God now. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will send this letter I’m writing about you to the proper man at the Kremlin,” he said, pen scribbling again. “It will likely be relayed to Stalin. But the next phase, assuming it’s not him ordering all of you immediately executed, will likely be a serious interrogation of you from some top NKVD men, along with them having you, in some way, confirm that your friend is indeed posted in Berlin and is willing to hire you. Are you sure you want me to send this?”

  “Yes,” I said, watching him write, his eyes remaining down. “Like I said, we are going to die in here anyway. That is part of their plan, what, with the way they feed us. They don’t want us to live, just as you’ve said. They want to replace us. This possible mission is my only hope.”

  “Then let me ask some more questions,” he said.

  “Okay, but first I have one more request. I must be transferred with my son to a camp near my wife and daughter before I leave for Berlin. I must be able to confirm with my own eyes that they’re alive. Of course I know that you can’t mention that you’ve already told me where they are. But I need to see them alive. Can you pretend not to know and ask them to find out where they are?”

  “I’m writing this all down,” he said, talking into his pen, pausing in between each written word. “But . . . in . . . the . . . meantime . . . you . . . must . . . survive . . . these . . . next . . . weeks . . . or . . . months. You know, until we receive word, because, of course, this is all only between you and me, and those commanders out there overseeing this camp, the ones higher ranking than me, have complete authority, as you understand, to kill you or your son without reason. They don’t know that I like you. So . . . stay alive, Comrade Sweet.”

  * * *

  Two days later, I saw before me a sight that required the willing suspension of disbelief. I was in the passenger’s seat of a large cargo truck, and we were just beginning to make the short drive down to the ship dock at the bay, where we were to retrieve some recently imported machinery. Just as we began to turn east, something caught my eye to the left. A rather small group of zeks was heading toward our camp from the west. They were walking the Road of Bones, but going the wrong direction, perhaps returning from mines. And they were all white men, save for one. I squinted to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me, and they were not. Interspersed amongst the zeks was none other than one Lovett Fort-Whiteman.

  As we continued toward the bay and lost sight of them, the lump in my throat stayed with me. My close friend looked beaten and weathered. I wondered just how and when he’d been imprisoned. Perhaps they were sending him to my lagpunkt, and if not, I certainly intended to speak with Koskinen about Lovett, to somehow convince him that my friend was as astute as me when it came to engineering, even though he wasn’t. Still, I knew that his expertise in science might be enough to convince Koskinen to let him work with me. After all, I had a little bit of leverage now.

  Six days passed and I’d seen no sign of Lovett, although I knew he was probably slaving away somewhere within our Magadan camp. I’d told Koskinen about him and he’d agreed to look into it, but that had only been some twenty-four hours ago, as it was now Monday.

  With the day’s work complete and our ration of hot water consumed, James and I were lying in our bunks resting. Many of the zeks in our barracks were loud and constantly instigating fights and arguments with others over the most arbitrary of issues, everything from a missing sock to a stolen cigarette or ruble. And on this particular night, I was on the receiving end of a bothersome false accusation from a zek named Max, who was about fifty years old, short, and considerably bonier even than the rest of us. His skin looked like wrinkled, filthy leather, the deep crevices on his face filled with a sort of green-black grime.

  “Comrade Sweet?” groveled Max. “Do you know the name of this new zek who is sleeping below you?”

  “Yes,” I said, eyes closed. “Roy. He’s an American.”

  “O
kay. Thank you.” He kneeled down and turned his attention to Roy. “Hey, Comrade Roy! What is—”

  “Don’t fucking touch me,” said Roy.

  “I just wanted to know if you stole my toothpaste,” said Max.

  “Get away from me!” said Roy.

  Max stood again.

  “Did you take my toothpaste, Comrade Sweet?” said Max, grabbing my foot and shaking it so I’d open my eyes.

  “No, Max!” I said, eyes still closed.

  “I think you did,” he said.

  “I didn’t. Why don’t you continue making your rounds! I saw you earlier accusing Douglas, Richard, Chris, and Wendell of the same thing. Do you have something against the American zeks?”

  “How could I?” he raspily said, clearing his throat and spitting on the wood floor. “You know I’m an American, too.”

  “Yeah,” I said, realizing this was the first time I’d spoken English in a long time, even James and I only speaking Russian to each other. “I do know you’re American, Max, and that’s why I’m puzzled at your choosing to pick on your fellow countrymen first. Go hassle Anatoly or Stanislav!”

  “They only steal pencils,” said Max. “By the way, where did you get your pen?”

  “How did you know I had a pen?” I said, turning on my side and opening my eyes.

  “I saw you showing it to James the other day.”

  “Koskinen gave it to me,” I said, looking at his rotten teeth, wondering if he’d ever even used toothpaste in his life. “By the way, where did you get toothpaste, Max? I haven’t seen or used any in a year.”

  “My aunt sent me some rubles from Moscow. She is Russian. That’s how I ended up in this shithole. Visiting her!”