Tin Sky by Ben Pastor Page A

want to wait until morning. I’ve waited long enough.”
    It was the first and only suggestion that the women were due there the following day. Platonov was visibly shaken. He might have suspected until now it was a trick, so Bora took advantage of the moment. “I can tell you they spent four years in hard labour south-west of here, at the Kremenchuk power station. We freed them in ’41. They’re quite well, as you can see from the photo. I understand your wife lost three toes of her right foot during her sentence, but given the circumstances it could have gone much worse. Your daughter Avrora Glebovna is reported to be in good health as well.” Bora did not look away even after Platonov began to tremble. “As long as they’re under my tutelage, General, I vouch for their safety. However, should I lose that oversight, believe me, anything can happen. I have a wife; I speak as a husband to a husband. The moment the ladies enter this building I’ll personally and on my honour answer for them. But I’m not inclined to endure further delays: I want guarantees, too.”
    It was strange, but it had happened other times with prisoners about to give in: that their protest suddenly became hollow, spoken in a dull tone that belied the forcefulness of the objections put forward.
    “ Guarantees ? I am a Soviet lieutenant general.”
    “And I’m a German interrogator. Soviet authorities didn’t even let you know your relatives survived your disgrace: we bring them to you.”
    “It could be a ruse.”
    “No, no. It’s a barter, General Platonov. And when bartering, IOUs don’t work.”
    Platonov clutched the armrests of his green velvet seat to keep from trembling. His lower jaw hung half-open like a very old man’s; a frightful weariness seemed to have overtaken him, making him come unglued. He gave the impression that he would start losing his limbs piecemeal at any time, like a broken puppet.
    The one thing that could be used against him Bora was usingnow. He heard himself say, “Here we go, General”, and, as if from a distance, he could almost see himself neatly squaring the pages on the table, evaluating the effect of the handsome charm that had so often got him through in his young life.
    As if looks spoke the truth. As if Stalingrad, leaving him sane, hadn’t carved out of him most of the civility he’d previously been one and the same with! This is the devil’s work , he was thinking, dismally. I’ve gone from the role of a naive Adam in Eden to playing the serpent. And yet the serpent too has his reasons . Whatever Stalin’s plan had been in making Platonov believe his women had been killed, it must be intolerable to start hoping again at this point, and at the hands of the enemy. Everything in the prisoner’s desperate posture begged for mercy; Bora had to be careful not to show a particle of the sorrow that tried to cut a rift into his firm resolve.
    “Let me go once more through what we have been through for the past several days. You have been working closely with Colonel General Konev. We know you met with Marshals Zhukov and Vasilevsky in April, and we rather think you were to help organize the front around Voronezh. I understand your reticence to speak, and more so to elaborate on details, whether or not they can be termed military secrets. So I prepared this questionnaire, which itemizes possible changes brought by your High Command to the composition of tank destroyer, armoured and rifle divisions. We wish for you to mark off the option closest to the truth. And we wish to know what the role of the general officers listed at the bottom of the questionnaire is expected to be in any upcoming operation.”
    I , we : Bora’s careful dosage of the personal pronoun drew an imaginary line between what the German Army wanted and what he, Bora, was willing to do to meet him halfway. “From the moment Selina Nikolayevna and Avrora Glebovna were brought to my attention,” he continued, “I have