SHAKHURIN: RESULTS OF EXTERNAL OBSERVATION
All of shakhurin’s deputies had long since rotted in the ground, except one who was still breathing: the colonel-general Alexander Nikolayevich Ponomarev. It took me two months, but then, on a Tuesday in April, I dialed a US number and I lied to the woman who answered about who I was. But I told her the truth about what I needed.
“Do you know a Shakhurin?” I could hear the woman shout at someone, while she covered the receiver with one hand. I could also hear the din of television in the background, and a dog barking; the woman laughed, then spoke to me: “He’ll be ninety-one in two weeks. I’m younger by sixteen and a half years. His daughter comes into his room, and he asks, who’s that? I’ll let you try it yourself.”
I heard a senile, sleepy vo
