10
PARTISAN REVIEW
giving them documents . At some point you get used to the way you
are followed : they are almost part of your family. At night the engine
in their car is going because they have to warm themselves - it is ex–
tremely cold in Russia, unlike in New York. While you hear it you
sleep well. When you don't hear it you think : something is wrong,
what's happening? Of course they can arrest you, but they them–
selves cannot beat you because their job is to take you in.
Then I was arrested, suddenly taken from my house, thrown
into a car, brought to prison, stripped. They immediately reminded
me that now everything had changed. Your clothes are not yours,
your body does not belong to you, they can do with it whatever they
want. And they show you the order indicating why you were ar–
rested and what you are accused of, namely, Article 64, which
means high treason and is much more serious than Article 70 - the
. usual dissident charge you might expect - because it means you
could be sentenced to death. And in the first interrogation they say
to you that now there will be no more press conferences, now your
friends from Israel and America won't help you, now your fate is
fully in their hands. And it means , of course, that if you behave
yourself, if you cooperate, you will be permitted to go to Israel soon,
to your wife. And ifnot, you will be killed . At the next interrogation
they remind you that in all their history there was not a single case
like this. They are very cynical. They say "Let's not discuss whether
you are a spy or not a spy, what's the difference? We have an–
nounced to the entire world that you are a spy. There isn't one case
in Soviet history when we've retracted and not sent a man to trial .
And if we send him to trial, and he does not cooperate, we sentence
him to death . This is your fate, so you can choose."
They reminded me of this choice day after day after day. Sud–
denly, in the very first days, you're full of fear. Maybe they haven't
noticed it, but they might notice it at any moment. You know how
talented the K .G.B. is. You know that the Soviet Union is not a
country of professionals; it is not America. The Soviet people are not
naive, but they are not professionals. Yet there is one organization
that is very professional, the K.G.B . And their profession is to instill
fear in people and then use this fear to destroy you . The moment
they feel you are weak, they are ready to work on you. I had to do
something about this. And then I began to realize why I, who had
been so self-assured, who had played with them as though they were
boys, suddenly lost my confidence, why I was so scared.
It
was one
thing when you were in the midst of the struggle , when your friends
