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Ministers.”
    â€œBut Comrade Stalin,” said Aglaya, “taught us that the cleverer the enemy is, the more dangerous he is.”
    â€œWhy are you talking to me about Comrade Stalin?” Bogdan Filippovich sighed and took another drag, started coughing again and leaned toward the desk, clutching at his chest. “Comrade Stalin”—he coughed again—“as we know now, made a few mistakes of his own. During the war he even used a globe to command our forces. He used to spin the globe and say, Take this town here for the October anniversary, and this one, he’d say, for Red Army Day. And how to take it, which side to approach it from, where to move up the reserves, all that, he says, is no concern of mine, I’m the Supreme Commander, he says, and I command supremely. Understand? And let Zhukov or Tolbukhin think about the details.”
    â€œNonsense!” said Aglaya angrily. “Comrade Stalin was a genius and he had a close personal grasp of all the details.”
    â€œAha,” said Nechitailo, sounding bored. “Aglaya Stepanovna, I’m not going to get involved in an ideological debate with you. Especially since the leadership of our Party has a different opinion.”
    â€œWhat about you?” Aglaya asked in a less formal tone. “Do you have an opinion of your own?”
    â€œI do,” Nechitailo assured her. “But like the opinion of every honest communist, it’s no different from the opinion of our supreme leadership. And therefore I declare your order dismissing Shubkin—how shall I put it—null and void. That means,” he concluded decisively, stubbing out his butt in the ashtray, “that tomorrow morning he can turn up for work.”
    Aglaya realized there was nothing more to be said and she got up from her chair.
    â€œVery well!” she said in a threatening tone, although any threat was quite pointless. “Very well!”
    And as she left the room, she tried to slam the door as loudly as possible.
    Nechitailo sat there for a while until she had gone, said “Idiot,” shook his head and began manufacturing another roll-up.

13
    This time around, Aglaya defied superior authority and refused to allow the sacked man back to work. That was when things began to get unpleasant. Porosyaninov called her in to see him, sat her down in a soft leather armchair and ordered in tea with hard crackers and lemon.
    He began the conversation with a sigh: “Ah, Aglaya Stepanovna, you hot-blooded partisan! Just what position do you think you’re storming now? So you don’t like this Shubkin, but who does like him? I don’t like him, and I confess I can’t stand their entire nation. And what’s going on at the top isn’t to my liking either. Stalin stood at the head of the state for thirty years, we lauded him to the skies. A genius, a universal luminary, a generalissimo. And now they tell us he had Kirov killed, he devastated the peasantry, uprooted the intelligentsia, decapitated the army, exterminated the Party. And who are you and me, if we’re not the Party?”
    â€œRight!” said Aglaya, delighted. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
    â€œEverybody’s talking about it. Only between themselves, in a whisper. But out loud we must support the Party line. Whatever it might be, whichever way it might turn, we’re communists and we vote in favor.”
    â€œWithout principles?” asked Aglaya.
    â€œWithout conditions,” said Porosyaninov.
    Aglaya was incensed, she was about to object, and rather sharply, but just then the door of the office opened and first secretary of the district Party committee Nechaev came in without making a sound, as though he weren’t even moving his feet. He shook hands with Porosyaninov, who leapt to his feet, and with Aglaya, laying a hand on her shoulder to prevent her getting up, and asked, “I won’t be in