BERIA’S GIFT
The next day, Auntie Mashka told us in secret that tomorrow the pupils would be photographed, and that in the hall under the portrait of Dzerzhinsky, Themis was setting up all sorts of stands, and screwing powerful lamps into the light-holders. On the morning of April the 24th, the head supervisor, speaking across the entire scoffery, ordered for everyone to appear in fifteen minutes in the assembly hall in full uniform. In the hall, under the portrait of the goat-bearded one, we saw the throne-chair of our boss on a two-tiered platform hammered together by the workman. Lower down, around it, chairs were ranged. To the left, to the right and behind the throne, a four-tiered structure of benches was placed. In the center, opposite the boss’s place, towered a solid box on three
