A Train to Moscow

by Elena Gorokhova

I thought of those in the stratosphere of the Kremlin, dressed in generals’ uniforms and party suits, puffing on pipes at their desks, debating the fate of our lives between sips of cognac, issuing search warrants, signing decrees of death. Sitting like judges at their engineered trials, pounding gavels with their meaty hands: death, death, death. What made their hearts beat, what pushed through their veins instead of blood was the sludge of paranoia and betrayal. Who is not with us is against us, their eyes instruct us from the portraits hanging in every office. We do not arrest good people, they say. We’re simply protecting our motherland from its enemies with the help of other good people, all those neighbors with properly attuned ears, insufficient living space, and healthy socialist envy.