Two for the Devil: Greek Cooking and Culture (Small Worlds) - Hardcover

Allen Hoffman, an award-winning author of short stories and screenplays, was born in St. Louis and received his B.A. in American History from Harvard University. He studied the Talmud in yeshivas in New York and Jerusalem, and has taught in New York City schools. He and his wife and four children live in Jerusalem, where he teaches English literature and creative writing at Bar Ilan University.

Excerpt from: Two for the Devil

Chapter One

Who could doubt the truth of such a building? Certainly not Colonel Hershel Shwartzman! Inspiring confidence, symbolizing stability, the great massive structure had been the Rossiya—Russia Insurance Company. The Rossiya had successfully insured bourgeois lives against death, a mere physiological necessity, but eventually it failed; nothing could insure bourgeois life against a historical necessity, proletarian revolution. The tsarist Rossiya fell in a blaze of red glory to the Great October Revolution, but the imposing, massive edifice remained. Purged of its parasitic despoilers, it began a new life that only a revolution can bestow—and vigilantly served all the people in the noblest of pursuits, safeguarding the Communist revolution.

To compare the new Soviet workers communal society with the preceding rotten exploitative capitalist one was an outrage. Where once there had been darkness, there was now light. How could one compare darkness and light? Aside from the moral travesty, it really was quite impossible. Still, if one were foolishly to risk such an absurd undertaking, one might suggest that the liberated building, now populated with the "new" Soviet man, continued to serve a remarkably similar function: insurance.

The Lubyanka actively insured the success of the worlds only Communist revolution. It was busier than before and, understandably, more densely populated, for the Lubyanka was the secret police prison, the very home of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. Of course it was busier: the tsarist Rossiya had to worry only about death, fire, flood, famine, and other natural events, but along with these insignificant occurrences, Stalin's protectors contended with Mensheviks, Trotskyites, kulaks, "former people" (tsarists), revisionists, anarchists, Social Revolutionaries, counterrevolutionaries, wreckers, double-dealers, saboteurs, spies of every ilk, engineers, all clerics, Ryutinists, fascists, right oppositionists, Bukharinists, left oppositionists, White Guards, capitalists, and most old Bolsheviks, to name a few.

All of these "unnatural" but cunning enemies were enmeshed in conspiracies, constantly hatching plots. And they were ubiquitous; they had even been unmasked posing as loyal party members. It was enough to make ones head spin, and NKVD colonel Hershel Shwartzman's had spun for the last several years. But now he was overwhelmed by it all. What had set his head turning most, however, weren't the frantic investigatory white-hot beams of NKVD light so much as the elusive shadow that played among them. That shadow was the staple of all insurance organizations: fear.

Fear had always made the denizens of the Lubyanka do strange things. Since the Lubyanka represented a progressive revolution, fear, too, had progressed; it caused the secret police officers themselves to do strange, unexpected things within the sheltering walls where Grisha Shwartzman now sat, facing a prisoner. Bourgeois insurance divided the risk, but Communist security multiplied the fear.

Never mind the fear, Grisha thought; but who could put that from his mind? It was always lurking like a shadow in the darkness. The light would shine, but there it would be, naked and ugly. Beyond the fear, the NKVD officer marveled; it was positively shameful! Grisha should have returned the prisoner to his cell almost two hours earlier. What was worse, he, an NKVD colonel, was permitting the prisoner to sleep. That was a scandal. Almost a sacrilege. When Colonel Hershel Shwartzman had taught interrogation, if a trained lieutenant so much as permitted a prisoner to close an eye, Grisha had mercilessly roasted the fledgling officer for lacking revolutionary vigilance. The officer never lacked it again; not if he wanted a real investigatory career in the NKVD. If not, let him guard convoys, administer camps, supervise institutions. There was more than enough to do, but if the cadet really wanted to protect the revolution by rooting out the evil that threatened to sap its lifeblood, he would listen.

Who could appreciate that lifeblood better than an old Chekist who had struggled to create the very revolution itself? The very first political institution created following the Great October Revolution was the Cheka—whose initials stood for Extraordinary All-Russian Commission of Struggle against Counterrevolution, Speculation, and Sabotage. Not until a month later did the party establish the Glorious Red Army under Trotsky, that traitor. There was a man who split the party and damaged the state! The Chekists, however, were loyalty itself. The party's founder had enrolled Grisha in the fledgling organization. Oh, Grisha had taught them a thing or two. And now? Chekists themselves were not only suspect but even more suspect than anyone else. Why? Why those who had served so faithfully, the sword and shield of the revolution?

In the past few years, when his head had spun, Grisha had hoped that things would settle down and his head would cease to spin. Everything would fall into place and begin to make sense. He wanted to stifle the swirling chaos he was afflicted with—as a dizzy child reels, stumbling off a carousel—until little by little, the world would stop gyrating and once again only the carousel would revolve, balanced and bright, a large child's toy. Now Grisha realized there might be no climbing off the ever quickening machine. Disoriented, he would inevitably lose his grip and be flung off, to crash against stable objects such as the prison bars of the Lubyanka itself. Or worse, flung into the basement, where the dreaded pistol shots had no echoes.

Colonel Shwartzman had feared for the revolution; now he feared for his life. Others who had ridden the carousel more skillfully—moving to the very center, where the motion was negligible—had been thrown to their deaths. Henrik Yagoda, the chief of the NKVD, had disappeared. Grisha had not been allied with Yagoda; those who had, immediately followed the ex-chief into the basement. Until Yagoda's precipitous fall, Grisha had always assumed that he himself had an insurance policy against casualty. Grisha had served Stalin faithfully from the beginning. Not personally, but he had never made a secret of where his loyalties lay. After beloved Lenin's death, Grisha had understood that Stalin was the only man for the job. But look what had happened to Stalins man, Yagoda. No, with Stalin there were no insurance policies, only sacrosanct areas where the NKVD would not arrest one of their own. The organs could never admit a mistake; therefore, no NKVD officer could ever be arrested while interrogating a prisoner. As long as the prisoner in front of him remained, Grisha was safe. Two hours ago he should have returned him to his cell. How much longer could he keep him here?

Grisha stared across his desk at his insurance. An experienced prisoner, the man sat erect. Anyone entering the office from behind would never suspect him of sleeping. His eyelids were inflamed and puffy from days without rest. Grisha guessed that his companion was about his own age, slightly over fifty, but the man had been in prison camps before he was returned to the Lubyanka, and he looked considerably older. For all the discomfort of the prisoners predicament, his unguarded expression revealed something smug, as if the NKVD were not worth losing sleep over. Jealous that the man could rest so innocently, Grisha felt a rush of the old Chekist indignation at the prisoners contempt for Soviet justice. A Chekist colonel had a sense of pride! Suddenly, Grisha went around the desk and kicked the prisoner in the shin. The mans eyes popped open, and he instinctively began to rub his leg.

"Mock Soviet justice!" Grisha cried indignantly. He wasn't acting. He felt the burning hatred...