hurting like hell it came to me that they couldn’t beat me
on my other ear if they wanted me to hear their questions. I also saw that going deaf in one ear had certain advantages that comrade interrogator probably never thought of—it meant I was able
to sleep with my good ear pressed to the blanket on the cell floor and not hear Sergo moaning all day long.
Every now and then the Uzbek went over to the shut-tight pleated curtains to smoke a cigarette while comrade interrogator came at me again with his questions. He wanted to know what political
statement I was making with the tattoo of Comrade Stalin on my biceps having a scar across his face. When I explained about the rope burn from when we were putting up the tent in Tiflis, he broke
into laughter.
“You have an explanation for everything, which in my experience is a definite sign of guilt.”
“I am telling you the way it really happened.”
“What about the fifty dollars U.S. you took to let the American weight lifter Hoffman win the gold medal at the European games in 1932? You didn’t think we knew about that, did you?
Wise up, Shotman, we know everything there is to know about you.” Christophorovich didn’t even give me a chance to deny the charge. “The Chekists who were watching you in Vienna
filed a report. You were lucky that time—the picture of Stalin shaking your hand at the Kremlin reception turned up in the newspapers before we got around to arresting you. But it’s a
matter of record that you were already in the employ of the Americans in 1932. When did they first contact you? What kind of secret codes did they use to communicate with you when you returned to
Moscow?” About then he dramatically pulled open another drawer in my steamer trunk and took out the copy of the American magazine Strength and Health Bob Hoffman gave me in Vienna,
Austria. His voice dripping with contempt, Christophorovich read in what sounded like American the dedication Bob Hoffman wrote in it. He didn’t need to translate the words—I knew them
by heart. To Fikrit Shotman, who took silver when he came in ten kilograms behind me in the dead lift, Vienna, December 27, 1932. It was signed, From your friend Bob Hoffman, who took
gold. “Any jackass can see there’s a secret message buried here somewhere. Save yourself grief and tell us what it says, Shotman. Our cipher experts will decode it
anyway.”
The Uzbek stubbed out his cigarette in the box of sand and came back to my side of the room, all the while smacking the sock filled with sand in his palm. Comrade interrogator turned my head so
he could talk into my good ear. “I don’t need to remind you that Trotsky was in New York at the time of the first Revolution that overthrew the Tsar in 1917. He was without doubt in the
pay of the American Organs when he returned to Russia to join the Bolsheviks, and later tried to take over the Party after Lenin’s death. You are clearly an accomplice of Trotsky’s,
like him in the pay of the Americans. If you hope for leniency, confess what we already know, Shotman—you are a key member of the backup Trotskyist Paris-based anti-Bolshevik Center.”
And he added so triumphantly I could almost make out the ta da in his voice, “That is the significance of the Eiffel Tower sticker on your trunk!”
It may have been long about then I began to consider the possibility there might be a grain of truth to comrade interrogator’s version of events. I wasn’t yet positive of what, but I
knew there was a good chance I must be guilty of something. I mean, even a village idiot knows there’s no smoke without fire.
SIX
Nadezhda Yakovlevna
Monday, the 7th of May 1934
S PREAD-EAGLED ON OUR MATTRESS , Mandelstam listened to the siren song of the sea nymph and, to my immense relief, managed to resist being lured to
destruction on the rocks surrounding our citadel.
Since the night of that poetry reading back in January, Zinaida had more or less separated
on my other ear if they wanted me to hear their questions. I also saw that going deaf in one ear had certain advantages that comrade interrogator probably never thought of—it meant I was able
to sleep with my good ear pressed to the blanket on the cell floor and not hear Sergo moaning all day long.
Every now and then the Uzbek went over to the shut-tight pleated curtains to smoke a cigarette while comrade interrogator came at me again with his questions. He wanted to know what political
statement I was making with the tattoo of Comrade Stalin on my biceps having a scar across his face. When I explained about the rope burn from when we were putting up the tent in Tiflis, he broke
into laughter.
“You have an explanation for everything, which in my experience is a definite sign of guilt.”
“I am telling you the way it really happened.”
“What about the fifty dollars U.S. you took to let the American weight lifter Hoffman win the gold medal at the European games in 1932? You didn’t think we knew about that, did you?
Wise up, Shotman, we know everything there is to know about you.” Christophorovich didn’t even give me a chance to deny the charge. “The Chekists who were watching you in Vienna
filed a report. You were lucky that time—the picture of Stalin shaking your hand at the Kremlin reception turned up in the newspapers before we got around to arresting you. But it’s a
matter of record that you were already in the employ of the Americans in 1932. When did they first contact you? What kind of secret codes did they use to communicate with you when you returned to
Moscow?” About then he dramatically pulled open another drawer in my steamer trunk and took out the copy of the American magazine Strength and Health Bob Hoffman gave me in Vienna,
Austria. His voice dripping with contempt, Christophorovich read in what sounded like American the dedication Bob Hoffman wrote in it. He didn’t need to translate the words—I knew them
by heart. To Fikrit Shotman, who took silver when he came in ten kilograms behind me in the dead lift, Vienna, December 27, 1932. It was signed, From your friend Bob Hoffman, who took
gold. “Any jackass can see there’s a secret message buried here somewhere. Save yourself grief and tell us what it says, Shotman. Our cipher experts will decode it
anyway.”
The Uzbek stubbed out his cigarette in the box of sand and came back to my side of the room, all the while smacking the sock filled with sand in his palm. Comrade interrogator turned my head so
he could talk into my good ear. “I don’t need to remind you that Trotsky was in New York at the time of the first Revolution that overthrew the Tsar in 1917. He was without doubt in the
pay of the American Organs when he returned to Russia to join the Bolsheviks, and later tried to take over the Party after Lenin’s death. You are clearly an accomplice of Trotsky’s,
like him in the pay of the Americans. If you hope for leniency, confess what we already know, Shotman—you are a key member of the backup Trotskyist Paris-based anti-Bolshevik Center.”
And he added so triumphantly I could almost make out the ta da in his voice, “That is the significance of the Eiffel Tower sticker on your trunk!”
It may have been long about then I began to consider the possibility there might be a grain of truth to comrade interrogator’s version of events. I wasn’t yet positive of what, but I
knew there was a good chance I must be guilty of something. I mean, even a village idiot knows there’s no smoke without fire.
SIX
Nadezhda Yakovlevna
Monday, the 7th of May 1934
S PREAD-EAGLED ON OUR MATTRESS , Mandelstam listened to the siren song of the sea nymph and, to my immense relief, managed to resist being lured to
destruction on the rocks surrounding our citadel.
Since the night of that poetry reading back in January, Zinaida had more or less separated
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