Case of Comrade Tulayev, The by Serge Victor

Author:Serge, Victor [Serge, Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novel, Fiction, Modern Classics
ISBN: 978-1-59017-426-5
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 1967-01-01T03:00:00+00:00

6. Every Man Has His Own Way of Drowning

For six months a dozen officials had been turning over the one hundred and fifty selected dossiers of the Tulayev case. Fleischman and Zvyeryeva, as “examiners appointed to follow the most serious cases,” followed this one from hour to hour under the immediate supervision of Deputy High Commissar Gordeyev. Fleischman and Zvyeryeva, both formerly Chekists — that is, in the old heroic days — should have been under suspicion; they knew it, and hence they could be counted on to show the utmost zeal. The case ramified in every direction, linked itself to hundreds of others, mingled with them, disappeared in them, re-emerged like a dangerous little blue flame from under fire-blackened ruins. The examiners herded along a motley crowd of prisoners, all exhausted, all desperate, all despairing, all innocent in the old legal meaning of the word, all suspect and guilty in many ways; but it was in vain that the examiners herded them along, the examiners always ended up in some fantastic impasse. Common sense suggested dismissing the confessions of half a dozen lunatics who all told how they had murdered Comrade Tulayev. An American tourist, a woman who was almost beautiful and completely mad, though her self-control was an impenetrable weapon, declared: “I know nothing about politics, I hate Trotsky, I am a Terrorist. Since childhood I have dreamed of being a Terrorist. I came to Moscow to become Comrade Tulayev’s mistress and kill him. He was so jealous; he adored me. I should like to die for the U.S.S.R. I believe that the love of the people must be spurred by overwhelming emotions … I killed Comrade Tulayev, whom I loved more than my life, to avert the danger that threatened the Chief … I can’t sleep for remorse — look at my eyes. I acted from love … I am happy to have accomplished my mission on earth … If I were free, I’d like to write my reminiscences for the papers … Shoot me! Shoot me!” During her periods of depression she sent her consul long messages (which of course were not transmitted), and she wrote to the examining judge: “You cannot shoot me because I am an American.” — “Drunken trollop,” Gordeyev cursed, when he had spent three hours studying her case. Wasn’t she simulating insanity? Hadn’t she actually thought about committing a murder beforehand? Didn’t her declarations contain some echo of plans ripened by others? What was to be done with her, mad as she was? An embassy was taking an interest in her, news agencies on the other side of the globe distributed pictures of her, described the tortures which they claimed the examiners were inflicting on her … Psychiatrists in uniform, still faithful to the rite of question-and-answer, applied suggestion, hypnotism, and psychoanalysis in turn, to persuade her to admit her innocence. She exhausted their patience. “Well then,” Fleischman suggested, “at least persuade her that she killed somebody else, anybody … Have

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