Striking the Balance

Nussboym shrugged. “If everything worked to my advantage, would I be here?”

Apfelbaum paused to sip at his glass of ersatz tea, then smiled. His smile was charming, so much so that Nussboym distrusted it at sight. The clerk said, “Again, I remind you that there are worse things than what you have now. You have not even been required to denounce any of the men of your old gang, have you?”

“No, thank God,” Nussboym said. He hurriedly added, “Not that I ever heard any of them say anything that deserved denunciation.” After that, he devoted himself to his bowl of soup. To his relief, Apfelbaum did not press him further.

But he was not altogether surprised when, two days later, Colonel Skriabin summoned him to his office and said, “Nussboym, we have heard a rumor that concerns us. I wonder if you can tell me whether there is any truth to it.”

“If it concerns the Lizards, Comrade Colonel, I will do everything in my power,” Nussboym said, hoping to deflect the evil moment.

He had no luck. Perhaps he had not really expected to have any Luck. Skriabin said, “Unfortunately, it does not. It is reported to us that the prisoner Ivan Fyodorov has on more than one occasion uttered anti-Soviet and seditious sentiments since coming to this camp. You knew this man Fyodorov, I believe?” He waited for Nussboym to nod before going on, “Can there be any truth to this rumor?”

Nussboym tried to make a joke of it “Comrade Colonel, can you name me even onezek who hasnot said something anti-Soviet at one time or another?”

“That is not the issue,” Skriabin said. “The issue is discipline and examples. Now, I repeat myself: have you ever heard the prisoner Fyodorov utter anti-Soviet and seditious sentiments? Answer yes or no.” He spoke in Polish and kept his tone light and seemingly friendly, but he was as inexorable as a rabbi forcing ayeshiva-bucher

through the explication of a difficult portion of the Talmud.

“I don’t really remember,” Nussboym said. Whenno was a lie andyes was trouble, what were you supposed to do?Temporize was all that came to mind.

“But you said everyone said such things,” Skriabin reminded him. “You must know whether the man Fyodorov was a part of everyone or an exception.”

Damn you, Moisei Solomonovich,Nussboym thought. Aloud, he said, “Maybe he was, but maybe he wasn’t, too. As I told you, I have trouble remembering who said what when.”

“I have never noticed this trouble when you speak of the Lizards,” Colonel Skriabin said. “You are always most accurate and precise.” He thrust a typewritten sheet of paper across the desk to Nussboym. “Here. Just sign this, and all will be as it should.”

Nussboym stared at the sheet in dismay. He could make out some spoken Russian, because many of the words were close to their Polish equivalents. Staring at characters from a different alphabet was something else again. “What does it say?” he asked suspiciously.

“That on a couple of occasions you did hear the prisoner Ivan Fyodorov utter anti-Soviet sentiments, nothing more.” Skriabin held out a pen to him. He took it but did not sign on the line helpfully provided. Colonel Skriabin looked sorrowful. “And I had such hope for you, David Aronovich.” His voice tolled out Nussboym’s name and patronymic like a mourning bell.

With a couple of quick jerks that had almost nothing to do with his brain, Nussboym signed the denunciation and shoved it back at Skriabin. He realized he should have shouted at Skriabin the second the NKVD man tried to get him to betray Fyodorov. But if you’d always believed in getting along with authority, you didn’t think of such things till that first fateful second had passed, and then it was too late. Skriabin took the paper and locked it in his desk.

Nussboym got another full bowl of soup at supper that night. He ate every drop of it, and every drop tasted like ashes in his mouth.

XVII

Atvar wished he had acquired the habit of tasting ginger. He needed something, anything, to fortify himself before going in to resume dickering with a chamber full of argumentative Big Uglies. Turning both eye turrets toward Kirel, he said, “If we are to have peace with the Tosevites, it appears we shall have to make the most of the concessions upon which they originally insisted.”

“Truth,” Kirel said in a melancholy voice. “They are certainly the most indefatigable argufiers the Race has ever encountered.”

“That they are.” Atvar twisted his body in distaste. “Even the ones with whom we need not conduct actual negotiations-the British and the Nipponese-go on with their unending quibbles, while two Chinese factions both insist they deserve to be here, though neither seems willing to admit the other does. Madness!”

“What of the Deutsche, Exalted Fleetlord?” Kirel asked. “Of all the Tosevite empires and not-empires, theirs seems to be presenting the Race with the greatest number of difficulties.”