The Yid Read online

  The hilt of the dagger is cast in gold. On both sides, the hilt is marked with the words: “In Reward.”

  Indication for Procedure: This 35-year-old, previously healthy and active ambulance physician presents with marked dyspnea, tachypnea, and hypotension with a blood pressure of 70/40 and heart rate of 160.

  An emergency chest X-ray demonstrates a large right-sided pleural effusion coincident with an entry wound just lateral to the spine in the fifth inter space and medial to the posterior axillary line.

  The entry wound measures only 1.5 cm. The patient displayed a decorative dagger, which the ambulance attendant had removed at his direction after the patient was stabbed. This event occurred approximately 27 minutes prior to the initiation of the procedure.

  Description of Procedure: IV access was obtained and light general anesthesia was administered and deepened as tolerated after ongoing fluid resuscitation. Orotracheal intubation was performed and the patient was placed in the full lateral position. The chest was rapidly prepared with Betadine and a fifth inter-space incision was made anterior to the entry wound.

  Several liters of clotted blood were removed rapidly and minimal ventilation was performed in order to rapidly assess the mechanism of injury. Irrigation was used to remove the deeper lying thrombus. The lung parenchyma was essentially spared. Attention was then turned to the hilum.

  Inspection of the anterior vessels showed no evidence of pulmonary or bronchial artery injury.

  The lung was then reflected medially and an area of posterior thrombus was identified well behind the phrenic nerve.

  This area was suspicious for a pulmonary vein injury and was approached as carefully as possible.

  A large defect was seen in the right superior pulmonary vein continuing from the pleural space into the pericardium. The pericardium was lacerated inferior to the venous laceration.

  Once the defect was visualized, a light 4-0 silk suture line was begun to close the defect. Unfortunately, several minutes were needed to find the suture and while the chest was flooded with irrigation the patient arrested.

  An arterial air embolus was suspected. Open chest cardiac massage was begun and the defect was closed with good hemostasis. The pericardium was then widely opened and no further injuries were seen.

  Continued resuscitation was performed for another 30 minutes. Despite these measures, the heart continued to fibrillate and a proper rhythm could not be established.

  The patient was pronounced dead in the operating room at 5:53 a.m.

  The retractor was removed and the incision was closed with interrupted suture.

  Kogan’s objective here was to create record, to show who killed his friend and to document the extent of injuries.

  If you are a homicide detective, you want notes these good, but you rarely get them.

  * * *

  Kogan felt pride every time he walked through the entrance of Pervaya Gradskaya. The hospital was built in 1832 at a time of Russia’s great imperial ambitions. It was a grand place with massive columns, a cupola, and two small bell towers rising incongruently but charmingly from the sides of the portico at the main entrance.

  Kogan often noted that the building looked even more impressive than Johns Hopkins Hospital in the city of Baltimore, state of Maryland. He chose Hopkins as a benchmark because it’s such a storied place, especially for surgeons.

  On February 23, seven days after his friend died on the operating table, Kogan was summoned to the hospital’s Special Department.

  Kogan’s strategy in dealing with the Special Department was the same as his strategy in dealing with fellow doctors, nurses, and janitorial staff: listen well, tell the truth, show respect.

  The director’s office was small, carved up in more than a century of reorganizations. It looked like a small sliver of a ballroom. The walls were green; a tilted portrait of Stalin looked down at the visitor’s chair. The ceiling was impossibly high, and the lone, uncovered window took up the entire side of the room, giving the hospital’s most ominous department the feel of a glass palace.

  The man running the Special Department was rumored to be a colonel of national security. Most people in that rank will not give you their last names. This man was different. He used only his last name: Zaytsev.

  Zaytsev didn’t get up when Kogan walked in. When Kogan extended his hand, Zaytsev’s hand remained on the massive, prerevolutionary walnut desk.

  Zaytsev drilled Kogan with his wide blue eyes. The two men were about the same age, early fifties, except Zaytsev was pudgy and looked officious in a blue gabardine suit and even a tie. Kogan was in his white coat. He would be returning to work, God willing.

  “I will not play games, Sasha,” Zaytsev began. “We have a problem here at Pervaya Gradskaya.”

  Kogan knew that when men like Zaytsev promised to refrain from playing games, they were, in fact, starting a game.

  The doctor cringed a little after being addressed by his first name. This man wasn’t a friend, and decorum in medicine was important. Such were his manners; everything about Zaytsev was backward.

  Zaytsev pointed to a chair, and Kogan settled in.

  “A young doctor here, Arkady Kaplan, now deceased, was conducting religious propaganda with an ambulance driver. He said Jesus Christ was a Yid doctor. Were you aware of this?”

  “No,” said Kogan.

  This was no surprise. They got to Spartak after the stabbing, and with his friend dead, he had no reason to protect Kaplan.

  Kogan had no idea precisely what was said in that ambulance, but it had to have been funny. He smiled. Arkashka would have wanted him to.

  “What can you tell me about him, Sasha?”

  “Nothing to tell, Comrade Zaytsev. I thought he was a talented young doctor. I met him before he enrolled in the medical institute. It was in Stalingrad. He was a medic. I was hoping he would get additional training and become a surgeon.”

  “Stalingrad. Medic. Interesting … When he was evacuating the wounded, do you believe he got close to German positions?”

  “I presume. This is one of the dangers of the job, being in no-man’s-land.”

  “Do you believe that he may have come very close, close enough to get recruited by the Germans?”

  “Why would that happen? And how? He was Jewish, by nationality, as you should be able to see in the dossier.”

  “Exactly! Who would suspect him? Next question: do you believe Kaplan had the skills required to operate a radio?”

  “I don’t know. What makes you ask?”

  “I am not at liberty to discuss. The investigation is ongoing. Have you known this man outside work?”

  “Well, yes, he was a frequent guest at my apartment.”

  “Did he speak German?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. You know from my dossier, I studied in Berlin.”

  “I wanted to hear that from you, man to man. The professors you had in Berlin; were they German?”

  “Some were. I ask that you familiarize yourself with my dossier, Comrade Zaytsev. I studied in Germany in 1926 through the end of 1928. I was sent there by the Commissariat for Health. It was official business.”

  “And your professors, where are they now?”

  “Some died in the war, some in the concentration camps; one practices in London, another, I believe, in America.”

  “Where in America?”

  “Boston.”

  “Where in Boston?”

  “Harvard University.”

  “Are you in touch with them?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “It says in the dossier you have relatives abroad…”

  “Yes, I do. My parents left Odessa in 1918, just as I was joining the Red Army.”

  “Are they living?”

  “I don’t believe they are. Though I have never been informed of their deaths.”

  “And you have siblings?”

  “My sister was in Denmark, and my brother is
in New York.”

  “Are you in touch with them?”

  “No.”

  Of course, Zaytsev knew that maintaining ties with relatives abroad was suicidal. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to have been informed about Aleksandr and Vladimir’s only post-emigration meeting, in Berlin in 1928.

  “Do you believe Kaplan would have been capable of a provocation against a Soviet officer?”

  “No, why would he do that? He was a decorated veteran of the Great Patriotic War.”

  “As I said, the matter is under investigation, I am not at liberty to discuss the details.”

  “Well, no, I don’t believe that. If he was with a patient, he would have been focused on discharging his duties as a doctor. I know this because I trained him.”

  “Did he have religious, fanatical views that would have prompted him to sacrifice himself in order to dishonor a Soviet officer?”

  “Nothing in our interactions would have suggested that, and I am afraid I am unable to speculate. I wouldn’t want to lead you in the wrong direction. What does all of this have to do with me?”

  “You were his friend, and he died on your operating table. Your notes from that surgery have been examined thoroughly, and they are too thorough, as though someone is trying to cover tracks.”

  “Cover tracks? What tracks?”

  “I read that document myself, and I can tell you what I thought: I thought that you killed him, Sasha. The admiral, Admiral Abrikosov, said that Kaplan declined to provide treatment for his mother and kept looking at his watch, causing the admiral, who was grief-stricken, to inflict a superficial wound. Sasha, you are a doctor, can you imagine a doctor refusing to help a dying patient? The ambulance driver confirmed that his wounds were superficial when he arrived in the hospital, and then he ended up on your operating table.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That Kaplan’s wound, as described by witnesses, was not as severe as the wound you say he died of. It’s so laughable that we returned the dagger to Admiral Abrikosov, with our sincere apologies.”

  “Are you really saying that I killed him?”

  “Yes, actually, we are starting to come to this conclusion.”

  “I did nothing of the sort. Why would I do that?”

  “Because it was a part of your long-standing plan, dating back to Stalingrad.”

  “But, Comrade Zaytsev, I remind you again that Dr. Kaplan was of Jewish nationality. The newspapers tell us that Jewish doctors are killing people of Russian nationality. In this, shall we say, hypothesis of yours, why would you think I killed another Jew?”

  “Simple! Sometimes you have to kill one of your own, so people won’t think you are killing only Russians.”

  “To cover tracks?”

  “To cover tracks.”

  “I see. So you hypothesize that Kaplan and I were German spies, recruited in Stalingrad?”

  “It does look as though you were, when you put all the pieces together. They recruited Kaplan when he was pretending to evacuate the wounded, and he recruited you.”

  “Would it be helpful to you if I reminded you that Germans killed millions of Jews, presumably including Dr. Kaplan’s family, plus about forty of my distant cousins? It should be in the dossiers.”

  “Yes, and this is exactly what gives you cover.”

  “That’s preposterous.”

  “And we cannot, at this point, rule out the possibility that other intelligence services were involved.”

  “Really? You can’t rule this out? Which ones?”

  “America, England, the usual.”

  “May I remind you that they were our allies during the war? Why would they be working with the Germans to recruit Dr. Kaplan?”

  “Yes, we thought of that. Because even then they could foresee that the wartime alliance was fleeting.”

  “So the Americans were in a secret alliance with Germany to recruit a Soviet medic in Stalingrad?”

  “And pass on messages to you, from Jewish agencies in New York. And Denmark was collaborating with Germany, I should remind you.”

  “Oh my … I don’t even know what to do with Denmark. I am not clear on my sister’s whereabouts, alas, so I can’t help you. What do you think my motivations would be in doing all this?”

  “To undermine the Soviet Union.”

  “There is only one flaw that I see: you have left out the whirling dervishes. I don’t know how you can work them in, but I think you can. Let me ask you this, admittedly from a doctor’s perspective: do you actually believe all of this, Comrade Zaytsev?”

  “Does it matter what I believe?”

  “I guess not. Will you be arresting me now?”

  “No, not now. We want to give you the opportunity to confess your crimes and surrender publicly, at the hospital staff meeting, which will be attended by journalists and members of the public.

  “You will come to the meeting as though you are a member of the audience, then you will rise and take the podium and you will make a full confession, and you will point out other members of your secret organization, who will be there.”

  “I don’t have a secret organization, so I am afraid I can’t help you.”

  “We will refresh your memory. We will have the names of individuals involved. We will share it with you before the meeting.”

  “You want me to falsely accuse good people. That’s indecent. And I don’t understand why you wish to make a spectacle of this. Why wouldn’t you handle my arrest in a customary way, by sending a Black Maria to my apartment in the middle of the night? Is this something new? I’ve never seen this before.”

  “You are very perceptive, Sasha. Yes, we want this case to become more open, more visible than it has been. As you’ve read in the newspapers, we are unmasking conspirators, but it’s all been done in secret. We are uncovering conspiracies, but the people don’t know what we are doing. Now we are in a different place in this operation. We want the people to see us at work. We want their support, even their participation in defending the motherland from outside elements. And, Sasha, you are going to see many things you haven’t seen before. The situation is about to change dramatically.”

  “I am sure I will. But just to make sure I understand, what am I being offered, should I agree to take part in this spectacle?”

  “I am not authorized to make any offers. But you are welcome to take a week to think.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “Then you will be letting me down. And yourself. I said you were a sensible man. I vouched for you.”

  Kogan thanked him. At home, he packed Dusya’s suitcases—she had two—and when she returned from work, he told her to go.

  There was no point in having her share his future, like the wives of the Decembrists. Kogan urged her to testify against him—even plead for his execution—when the time comes, i.e., if the organs of state security choose to produce the dance of jurisprudence. Tanets umirayuschego evreya. The dance of the dying Yid.

  The idea that the wife must share her husband’s fate is utterly absurd to begin with. It might have been easier to convince her to reject the idea of self-sacrifice had their marriage been good. She would have accepted this as a token of love. Alas, their love was a thing of the past.

  Their marital fidelity was among the victims of that war, but that wasn’t the worst of it. He had a succession of “front wives”; she a succession of “front husbands.” The war ended, but normalcy didn’t return. Or maybe it did return, but in a changed form, with neoplasms hanging off its innards.

  There was a long tail of complexities, but they still took care of each other, out of duty, perhaps. And now he told her to go, liberated her. He knew exactly where she would go, and it was, oddly, just fine with him.

  “Run, Dus’ka, save yourself. I am a dead man,” he implored, and this time she left.

  “Perhaps they will leave her alone after they come for me,” he thought as she closed the door of their apartment on Ulansky Street. “Thank God,
at least she is Ukrainian.”

  * * *

  In his transition from machine gunner to surgeon, Kogan learned that the way you feel about death is determined by where you are.

  Killing is a natural act when you are nestled behind the shrapnel shield of a Maxim. Your compassion is suspended; your victims are dehumanized. When you are a surgeon whose job it is to save the life of a wounded soldier, life acquires paramount importance.

  Dr. Kogan feels no regret about the deaths caused by machine-gunner Kogan. For whatever reason, the boundary between these two men is solid. Never has Kogan contemplated crossing back.

  “Aleksandr Sergeyevich, if you had a chance, would you have killed Hitler?” Arkashka Kaplan asked him over vodka a couple of years ago.

  Arkashka was the only man who had the ability to get him to confront so fundamental an issue. His integrity and intelligence were unmatched. More important, Kogan trusted the younger man’s intellectual rigor, his willingness to hold himself accountable.

  He trusted Levinson’s integrity and intelligence, too, but as an ethicist Levinson was a disaster. Levinson’s thinking always defaulted to strategy. He set goals and plotted the best way to attain them.

  “I did have a chance to kill Hitler, I think,” Kogan responded to Arkashka that night. “I think I saw him at a beer hall in Munich, before he was der Führer. Or, at least, I was told that we were sitting near some corporal, Austrian. He was surrounded by thugs, I was told. When he became more prominent, I thought he looked sort of familiar.”

  “You could have laced his beer with something bad. You knew how.”

  “I suppose I could have.”

  “Isn’t it tantalizing to think that you could have saved the lives of millions of people?”

  “Yes, that’s one way to look at it. But I didn’t have any basis for believing that this thug would become der Führer. I would have had to kill many thugs, and I still wouldn’t know whether the right one was among them.”