WHEN PEKKALA HAD FINISHED SHAVING, HE WIPED THE LAST FLECKS of soap from his face, carefully folded the razor, and put it in his pocket. He walked into the kitchen and was surprised to find Anton sitting there with his feet up on the table, reading a copy of Pravda. “Look what I bought,” he said, without looking up.
“That paper is a week old,” said Pekkala.
“Even week-old news is news in a place like this.” Anton folded the paper and slapped it down on the table.
“Mayakovsky was here,” said Pekkala, handing over the basket.
Anton removed a loaf of dark rye bread and gnawed off a piece. “And what did our little house troll want for this?” he asked with his mouth full.
“He says he might know someone who spoke to Katamidze on the night the Romanovs were killed. He might be able to get us a name.”
“Let’s hope,” mumbled Anton, “that he’s more help to us than last time.”
With the contents of the basket-a small partridge, a bottle of milk, some salted butter, and half a dozen eggs- Kirov put together a meal. He chopped up the partridge, tore the bread into crumbs, and mixed them together in a cracked bowl which he found under the sink. Then he kneaded in some butter and the yolks of several eggs. He stoked the stove until the iron plate on top seemed to ripple from the heat. He shaped the mixture into oval cakes and fried them.
Afterwards, the three men sat around the stove, letting the fire die down while they ate with their hands and only their handkerchiefs for plates, scalding their fingers on the hot, buttery cakes.
Pekkala ate as slowly as he could, letting each thread of the taste weave its way through his brain as the cakes dissolved in his mouth.
“My family owned a tavern,” Kirov said, “in a town called Torjuk on the Moscow-Petrograd road. In the old days, with horse carriages passing through all the time, the place was very busy. There were small rooms upstairs for guests, and downstairs the windows were made from pieces of stained glass held together with strips of lead. It smelled of food and smoke. I remember people coming in half frozen from their carriage rides, stamping the snow off their boots and sitting down at the big tables. Coats would pile up by the door in heaps taller than I was. It was always busy in there, and the chef, whose name was Pojarski, had to be ready to cook meals for people whenever they came in, day or night. In winter, when things got quiet and the stove cooled down, Pojarski would sleep on the top of it. But when the Nikolaevsky railroad began running between the two cities, it didn’t pass through Torjuk. The road almost closed down, there were so few carriages traveling on it. But my family kept the tavern open. During the week, Pojarski cooked for the guests, if there were any, but on Sundays he would prepare a meal for me and my parents after we came back from church. This is what he used to cook for me. He seasoned it with vodka and sage and called it a Pojarski cutlet. I looked forward to it all week. What you are eating now is the reason I wanted to become a chef.”
“You went to church?” Anton had wolfed down his food. Now he was wiping the grease from his hands onto his handkerchief. “Not exactly good credentials for a Commissar.”
“Everyone went to church in Torjuk,” replied Kirov. “There were thirty-seven chapels in the town.”
“That’s all gone now,” said Anton.
“Be quiet and eat,” whispered Pekkala.