More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
From his jacket pocket he took out a glass vial filled with small, uneven-shaped dirty white crystals—pure methamphetamines, a narcotic much favored by the Nazis. He’d been introduced to it while fighting on the eastern front as his country’s army had pushed the invaders back, absorbing prisoners of war and also some of their habits. There had been operations where Leo couldn’t afford to rest. This was one of them. Now prescribed to him by the MGB doctors, he’d used it repeatedly since the war, whenever a mission needed to run all night. Its usefulness couldn’t be underestimated. But its price
...more
While it was easy to comfort yourself that you would never steal or rape or murder, no one could ever be sure they weren’t guilty of anti-Soviet agitation, counterrevolutionary activity, and espionage, since no one, including Leo, could ever be sure exactly what these crimes were.
Leo’s lips moved. He said something but Vasili couldn’t hear. He moved closer: —What is your name? His eyes seemed to focus—he looked straight ahead and said: —Pavel.
-heavy breathing intensifies-
She’d rubbed his head, held his hand—kissed him. This was all the medicine she was able to offer.
Even with these assurances, Raisa wondered whether or not these people would any longer be so trusting and welcoming. Would they feed a stranger? Or from now on would they fear that strangers were hiding some evil they couldn’t see? The price of this story was the audience’s innocence. It wasn’t that they hadn’t seen brutality and death. But they’d never imagined that the murder of a child could give pleasure.
