(4 of 6)
As Father dictated one reel after another, he began to agonize about what would happen to his memoirs. "It's all in vain," he would say during our Sunday walks. "Our efforts are useless. Everything's going to be lost. As soon as I die, they'll take it away and destroy it, or bury it so deep that there'll be no trace of it." Deep down I agreed with him. The fact that everything was quiet now didn't mean that it would continue that way forever.
In the summer of 1967, when Father seemed almost completely forgotten, his name suddenly cropped up again. An American news network decided to make a biographical film about him. But the Soviet side interpreted it as a provocation, a hostile move. Brezhnev couldn't bear any mention of Khrushchev's name. People like him, who are soft and weak on the one hand and vain on the other, have a peculiar way of perceiving and "processing" their bad deeds. Having done something wrong, they project their guilt onto their victim, trying in this way to justify their actions to themselves and to the world. Father's name stood in the way of Brezhnev's attempt to solidify his own role in history.
Instead of abandoning his memoirs after the uproar over the TV film, Father redoubled his efforts. The authorities became aware of those efforts in the winter of 1967-1968. Brezhnev was greatly upset. How to make Father stop work on the project? Should they search his dacha and seize the tapes? That would trigger a scandal, leaving Brezhnev looking like a tyrant and Khrushchev a martyr. So what was to be done? The choice was to call Khrushchev in and persuade him to cease work on his memoirs and turn over what he had written to the Central Committee. If he refused, he should be compelled, even intimidated into cooperating. After all, what was more important to him, a comfortable life in a state dacha or a bunch of papers?
Brezhnev had no desire to speak to his former boss. So he instructed his first deputy in the Central Committee, Andrei Kirilenko, a rude and high- handed man, to summon Khrushchev and get him to drop the memoirs. Arvid Pelshe, the chief of the party Control Commission, attended to add pressure; everyone knew the Control Commission wasn't to be trifled with.
In April 1968, on the eve of Father's birthday, I arrived as usual to spend the weekend at the dacha. Father wasn't inside. Mama said that he had gone to the edge of the forest to sit in the sun.
"Father is very upset," she said. "Yesterday he was summoned to the Central Committee. Kirilenko demanded that he cease work on the memoirs and hand over what's already been written. Father became infuriated and started to shout. He made a huge scene. He'll tell you everything but don't press him. He was very agitated yesterday, and he doesn't feel well."
I went down the path. Father was sitting on the bench, watching the sun go down. His dog Arbat was lying beside him. Father looked tired, his face seemed grayer and older. He asked, "Do you know already? Did Mama tell you?" I nodded. "Scoundrels! I told them what I think of them. Perhaps I went too far, but it serves them right. They thought I would crawl on my belly in front of them."