That night in Moscow was a relatively quiet one.
A former farmer from a collective in Georgia, Anatoli Dudniki, weaved his way drunkenly down the middle of Kadashevskaya Prospekt, announcing to the hurtling taxis and cars that it was his sixty-fifth birthday. One driver, who had taken a few drinks himself, screeched to a halt directly in front of Anatoli, who leaned forward over the hood and laughed.
“Like a movie,” Anatoli said. “My life is like a movie now. You hear that?”
The man in the car opened his window and shouted, “Get out of the street, you drunken old bum, before you get killed.”
“You mean,” said Anatoli, none too steady on his feet, “my head could be run over like a melon, a plum, a cabbage, a grape, something? Squish, skwush?”
The man in the car closed his window and drove on.
Anatoli made it to the curb and sat down. A few cars passed but there were no pedestrians. There was a feeling of rain in the air as there had been all day. There was no moon. Anatoli had learned to recognize the coming of rain from his years on that pitiful collective farm where his now-dead wife had learned two hundred ways to prepare potatoes. Oddly enough, Anatoli still loved potatoes, and when others on the collective had complained at the diet, he had nodded in agreement though he did not agree.
“I love potatoes,” he shouted. “You hear that? I love them to little pieces. I could cry over them. I wish I had two potatoes now.
You know what I would do? I would eat one and give one to someone else. That’s the kind of man I am. That’s the kind of man I am.”
Now Anatoli worked in a bar, which was where he was coming from. He cleaned up after closing-sweeping, mopping, tending to the puke in the bathrooms, the sanitary napkins that blocked the toilets in the women’s room, the stuff that stuck to the floor and to the small bandstand. The pay was poor but he got to work alone and drink as much as he wanted to when he finished his cleanup each night. The management never checked the stock. Anatoli drank only the best.
The alcohol compensated for the dirty job, and he could, because he came at closing time, avoid the loud music from the small band trying to sound like Americans, and avoid the young people in stupid crazy clothes who did something they called dancing and laughed at nothing.
“They laugh at nothing,” Anatoli, sitting on the curb, said to no one. “At nothing. Not that there is anything to laugh at if you are not rich.”
Anatoli shook his head. A little drink would be nice, but Anatoli knew better than to ever remove a bottle from the Albuquerque Bar. And so he sat, shoulders down, a huge burp and sigh escaping from him. He should go home, crawl into the narrow bed in the closet in his daughter and son-in-law’s apartment, but he wasn’t quite sure where the apartment was. Things seemed to be turned this way and that tonight. It had always been difficult for Anatoli, but since the revolution had ended and the street names had been changed, it had become worse.
He shifted his right foot, which was growing stiff, and kicked something hard, something in the street next to the curb. The streetlights were dim so Anatoli leaned over to look at the object.
“What’s this? What’s this?” he said, reaching over and picking up the object. “A gun. A weapon. A thing that shoots.”
He held the gun in his hand. It was heavy. He had no idea what kind of gun it was or even, with certainty, that it was real.
“I found a plotka, a gun,” he said aloud. “A weapon. Is this a thing or is this a thing? I could shoot it. I could sell it.”
Anatoli looked at the black pistol in his hand and held it out.
He had never held a gun in his hand. He pulled the trigger. The gun fired and sent him backward. He hit his head on the sidewalk and sat up quickly, at least as quickly as he could with the aid of gawky elbows and arthritic fingers.
He looked across the street. The gun had made a loud noise and the breaking of glass in a window across the street had created an almost musical follow-up.
“It’s a real gun,” Anatoli said, bracing himself with his left hand and firing again with his right hand.
This time the bullet hit brick or concrete and Anatoli saw a spark of light when it struck.
“I think I should get up and get the hell out of here before I am in big trouble,” he said, still carrying on his conversation with the empty street. “I am a cowboy. I am a cowboy with a gun. All I need is a horse and one of those hats. I am going home.”
The problem was that getting up from the curb was now a major chore that he could not accomplish. Oh, he was capable, but Moscow would not cooperate. It kept swaying. He placed the gun in his lap and began singing. The song he sang was “Baby Face.”
Anatoli didn’t know it was an American song. He only knew the Russian words.
“You got the cutest little baby face,” he bellowed hoarsely.
Across the street, three buildings down, Misha Vantolinkov had had enough. He had been awakened by gunfire on his street before.
He had been awakened by gangs of kids shouting obscenities, but the loud croaking of the drunken Anatoli got to him. Besides, the drunk had the words to the song wrong.
Misha, who had to get up at six to get to his job at the reception desk of the Space Museum, turned on the lights and picked up his major luxury, the telephone. He called the police, giving the location but not his name, told them a lunatic drunk was shooting a gun in the street, and then he hung up.
Anatoli Dudniki was singing even more loudly, “I’m up in the sky when you give me a hug,” when Misha got back in bed and covered his head with his pillow.
Ten minutes later a patrol car with two young policemen in it pulled up at the curb. The policemen got out, guns in hand, and ordered Anatoli to stop singing and put down the gun.
Anatoli complied and grinned, showing his few remaining teeth and a look of gratitude.
“I’m not at home,” Anatoli said as he put the gun in the street.
“I have a name, a medal, a daughter, a bed. That is where I would like you to take me, comrades. Oh, I forgot, no more ‘comrades.’
Citizen policemen. I am at your mercy. Get me home.”
He staggered toward the policemen and fell into the arms of the younger one, almost knocking him over.
Eleven minutes beyond that, Anatoli was in a small damp cell in the nearest police lockup. The lockup was located next door to a paper-clip factory whose metal cutting machines throbbed all night and all day.
“This,” he announced with confidence, “is not my bed. I want my bed. This is now a free country. I am a citizen.”
“And,” said the policeman, standing over him as Anatoli sat,
“you have murdered a woman. One of those shots went through a window and killed a young mother.”
“Killed?” said Anatoli, looking at the policeman.
Seconds later, he was asleep.
Raisa Munyakinova sat in the only reasonably comfortable chair in her minuscule apartment. They called it an apartment, but it was just a room. It was enough for her. She had work. She had a place to live. She would survive losing track of the days, having to carefully write her work schedule on the back of a flyer for Canadian cereal and place it under a glass on her tiny table.
The detective who looked like a ghost had not frightened her. It was not fear that now kept her awake. It was her decision to identify the man who had been with Valentin Lashkovich before he was murdered.
In a few hours, with the sky full dark, Raisa would get dressed and go to work and when she was finished take a bus to Petrovka to meet the ghost detective. She would look at photographs. She knew the face of the man she would be looking for. Would she have the strength to identify him? Or should she simply say, “He is not here,” and go on with the life she had chosen and which had chosen her?
She had just returned from her night of work. She was tired, so tired that the idea of just rising from the chair to get to her bed was too much effort.
In the darkness, her head turned to the curtain in the corner. Behind the curtain was a cardboard box. It was not a particularly large box. From time to time she took the box out and removed items and memories, touched and examined them and put them back. It was her past and it was painful, but compelling. Whenever she went through the contents of the box, she smiled and wept.
She got up wearily, turned on the small sixty-watt table light and moved to the curtain. The meaning of her life was beyond that curtain in a cardboard box. She wondered how many others in Moscow kept their meaning in boxes behind the curtains.
Although Bronson was a dog, that did not mean he had no thoughts. On the contrary, he had many thoughts, but they were fleeting and he had almost no control over them.
Even now, as he lay in his large metal cage in the darkness, with only the dim night-light through the single small slit of a window, thoughts came racing through the head of the huge dark animal.
An image of a human bringing something heavy down on his back stirred the dog, but it was instantly gone, forgotten till the next time. A spark of a memory of looking into the eyes of another dog whose neck he had held with his best bloody grip rolled by on a wave. He felt the death of that other dog and it became part of the wave of death of many dogs. And that too passed.
Memories did not linger consciously in Bronson. He felt, but did not think, that he would soon be facing another dog in the circle.
Smelly, shouting humans would be there, some calling the name he had been given. His body would quiver with memories so deep that they went back to the wild free days of his ancestors in the forests.
And then the thing would take over and he would attack. There was no plan, no thought. Bronson would give himself over to the ancient memory of survival, and it would either carry him through the triumph over the dead or dying other or leave him lying in the scent of his own death.
But none of this frightened the dog. Fear simply was not a part of his being. Nor did he think in terms of success or failure. He simply existed to live and fight and for the praise of the human who provided food and shelter.
The human had taught him two words that made Bronson’s life simple- vyshka, death sentence, and stop, which was the same in Russian or English.
Bronson had attacked two humans in his five years of life. One of the two he had killed. The other, he did not know about. He did not particularly like attacking humans. They provided no meaningful battle that would leave the dog with a fast-beating heart of triumph. But, if ordered, he would attack and he would kill, and he would lose himself in the smell of fear and the taste of flesh and blood.
Bronson slept.
Oleg Kisolev, the soccer coach, lay in bed that evening next to his lover, Dmitri. Dmitri was a left-wing on Kisolev’s team. Dmitri was, at one time, the fastest player in the league, a graceful, dodging flash who consistently led all others in assists. Oleg remembered the lean man with long dark hair and powerful legs running with the ball ahead of him, passing defense men, centering the ball in a perfect low arch in front of the goal for a header. Dmitri was almost thirty now and, while still fast and the best corner kicker in Moscow, he had lost as much as a quarter of his speed.
Oleg touched the head of the man beside him, who was exhausted from a long practice and who needed a shave. The light on Oleg’s side of the bed was dim and he had to wear his glasses to read the book on his chest. Over the past two years or so Oleg had begun selecting books more for the size of their type than the content of their pages. Now he was reading a book on the history of the Soviet Union in the Olympic Games. The book was ten years old but full of things Oleg did not know.
The light did not bother Dmitri. When he was exhausted, not even the cry of pazhahar, fire, would awaken him.
Oleg thought about the two policemen who had come to see him about Yevgeny Pleshkov that afternoon. The policeman who slouched had kicked the ball farther and with more accuracy than anyone Oleg had ever seen, with the possible exception of Karish-nikov. The policeman was a little old for the game but perhaps he could still play fullback. This speculation was only a game for Oleg, an exercise of his imagination. The policeman would never play. In addition to which Oleg really did not wish to see the man and his partner ever again. Oleg had good reason. Oleg preferred never to see any policemen again. He was sure he had done well, but the young one had smiled and made Oleg feel uncomfortable.
“I didn’t betray Yevgeny,” Oleg told himself. “Yevgeny went wild.
It was when the German touched Yulia between her legs and Yulia bit her lower lip and tried to look as if she were thinking of somewhere else, another time.”
It was in Yulia’s apartment on Kalinin. Yevgeny was just a little drunk and he told Oleg they would surprise her. Surprise her they did. She answered the door wearing a pair of pink silk panties and a matching bra. She didn’t try to keep the two men out of the room. On the contrary, she had opened the door for them to enter and they had immediately seen the German, Jurgen, sitting naked on the spindly legged sofa. His arms were outstretched and draped along the top of the sofa.
Oleg immediately noticed that the man was flaccid, though his penis was unusually thick and long, even longer and thicker than Dmitri’s.
Yulia gave no explanation. She closed the door to the room and went to get herself a drink from the small wooden cabinet against one wall.
“An unexpected visit,” the German had said. “And from such a distinguished member of the government. I’ve been hoping to meet you.”
Neither Oleg nor Yevgeny had responded. The German had continued talking with only the slightest accent.
Oleg was well trained in his hatred of Germans. He and two generations before his were taught in school with graphic photographs of staggering numbers of dead Russian soldiers, women, and children. Those who had survived and helped repulse the ob-scene invasion of their country told tales of German atrocities and the horrors they had endured and witnessed. The teachers, the survivors, the books did not differentiate between Nazi soldiers and German citizens. They were all born with a madness to conquer.
This one was no different.
“Yulia and I were waiting for the proper time to suggest a lu-crative business proposal with you,” the German said. “Your coming now is a fortunate act of fate.”
Yulia had now put on a flimsy robe, a white one through which you could see. Oleg, though his sexual interests were with another gender, recognized the long-legged beauty of the woman and understood his friend Yevgeny’s obsession with her.
She handed Yevgeny a drink: vodka, no ice. She offered Oleg nothing. In the several years his friend had been having binges with her at his side, Oleg had met Yulia only twice. Oleg did not drink.
He did not carouse and so he seldom saw Yulia, though the two had formed an instant dislike of each other from the moment they had met. The source of their dislike was obviously Yevgeny, whom she quite successfully manipulated when he was drunk and whom Oleg tried, with almost no success, to wean back to sobriety and safety. Yevgeny was too prominent a man to continue to avoid being exposed by the press for his drunkenness, his gambling, his being seen around with a beautiful woman who was obviously his mistress. And Yevgeny was not one to fade into the shadows when he was on a drunken spree. Oh, no. He was loud, very loud. He practiced speeches in the streets and stopped individuals to tell them what had to be done to save Russia and return it to a power its people deserved. If anyone recognized him, they did not admit it. Most people simply walked by.
While Yulia and what little she wore had not disturbed Oleg, the German sitting naked on the sofa had disturbed him deeply.
He was sitting there like an Aryan prince, smiling with perfect white teeth. He was enjoying the surprise visit and made no move to cover himself. In spite of his instant dislike of the man, Oleg had found himself engaged in a sexual fantasy. He had managed, however, to put it away, though he knew it would come back sometime in the future and he knew he wanted to remember.
“Please sit,” the German had said, pointing to two chairs that matched the sofa from which he reigned.
Neither man sat, nor did the woman.
“As you wish,” said the German, standing and smoothing back his hair. “Yulia.”
The name had been spoken as a command, and the woman moved across the room, drink in hand, to the desk neatly tucked in a corner. She opened a drawer and removed a wooden box. She crossed the room again and handed the box to the German, who took hold of her arm and clearly ordered her to stand at his side, though he said not a word.
“In this box are items, not the originals but copies,” the German said. “The originals are someplace safe. Open it. Gaze upon your fate. Das ist dein Schicksal gaverin, your fate.”
The dazed Yevgeny had taken the box. He stepped back to Oleg’s side and opened the box. Inside were small cassette tapes and photographs. Some of the photographs were of Yevgeny in bars, casinos, laughing, looking drunk and red-faced, Yulia at his side. Most of the photographs, however, were of Yevgeny and Yulia in sexual embrace. As Yevgeny went through each photo and Oleg watched, the soccer coach’s initial response was that his friend had no sexual imagination. In all the photographs in which they were engaged, Yevgeny was in the traditional male position, face to face and on top. Oleg was more interested in the look on Yulia’s face. It was almost identical in each picture in which her face could be seen. Her head was turned away. Her eyes were closed. There was no smile on her beautiful face. Apparently, the sexual performance of Yevgeny Pleshkov left a great deal to be desired.
“Those are yours,” the German said. “Keep them. Destroy them.
Listen to the tapes. Some of them are difficult to understand.
Many of them are of indiscretions on your part, in which you reveal information of a highly sensitive nature about others in the government and secret actions, which I am sure were not meant to be revealed outside of a very small circle in the Kremlin. Some might even say that the sharing of such secret information with a woman would constitute treason.”
“I don’t have money,” Yevgeny said, closing the box with a sudden snap and handing it to Oleg.
“Money,” the German said, running a hand down Yulia’s body.
“No, I am not after money. I need your power, your influence. I need to be able to go to business and political sources in other countries and guarantee them certain things from Russian governmental agencies, things which you can arrange.”
Yevgeny had swayed slightly, his eyes on the German. Oleg had no idea what his friend was thinking. Yevgeny cheated on his wife-which, considering his friend’s wife, was completely understandable. Yevgeny was often away from his role in running the fragile government; he gambled away his money and was ever prepared to take offense at a look or a comment. He was easily swayed by a pretty face.
On the other hand, Yevgeny Pleshkov was an honest man who stubbornly held to his own principles in spite of pressure from his own party, from outside lobbies, and sometimes from the press.
The people seemed to love him. An honest man in a dishonest world. A compassionate man who was frequently quoted. Once he had said, “To err is divine. To forgive is human.” People who loved Yevgeny and did not know him smiled when they spoke these words. In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Yevgeny might well become a political king. Oleg didn’t always agree with what his friend said and stood for, but he admired and respected his courage in saying what he thought, doing what he believed was best for Russia.
Maybe he was thinking about such things as he looked down at the wooden box. And then he looked up and saw the German’s hand move under Yulia’s gown and between her legs. She neither protested, moved, nor indicated in any way that she welcomed being used.
Oleg knew what was coming. He had seen Yevgeny like this before when he had been drinking. Oleg wondered if Yulia had warned the German, and if the German knew some kind of mar-tial art or had a gun, but he was stark naked. There was no place to hide a weapon.
The German stood, working his hand between Yulia’s legs, under her open gown.
Oleg reached for his friend’s arm as Yevgeny strode forward toward the couple and made a deep animal sound. The German spread his legs, amused for a moment, but only a moment. Oleg had no idea what the German had expected, but he certainly didn’t expect to be hit in the face with the wooden box. The German staggered back in surprise and pain. Blood spurted from his nose.
A purple welt like a fat worm streaked over his left eyebrow.
Yulia stepped away, watching, no sign of fear or a move to escape the room or step between her lovers. She was, Oleg thought as he rushed quickly forward to restrain his friend, indifferent. She takes drugs, Oleg had thought. A normal person wouldn’t act like this.
Oleg put his arms around Yevgeny, but the drunken man of the people was beyond restraint. He shook Oleg off. The German, his left eye closing quickly, started toward a door that must have been the bedroom. He moved on legs far less steady than the drunken Pleshkov. The German got about five feet before Yevgeny caught him and with a two-handed grip slammed the wooden box against the side of the fleeing man’s head.
The box splintered and came apart at the hinges. Photographs and cassettes sprayed around the room. The German was on his knees now, holding the side of his head. Yevgeny stood over him, breathing heavily, a piece of the shattered box in each hand. The piece in his right hand was a jagged splinter.
Oleg was afraid to tackle his friend again but he knew he had to try. But before he could do so, the German turned on his knees, a dazed look on his face, blood trickling down his lips and into his mouth.
Yevgeny plunged the splinter into the man’s neck.
The German said something like “Ahhggg,” and Yevgeny stepped away, watching the German fall to the floor on his back and attempt to remove the sharp broken wood from his neck. It was useless. He rolled over atop photos and cassettes and died trying to curl up into a ball to escape the pain.
Yevgeny was breathing hard. He looked around as if he did not know where he was. First he looked at the piece of the box in his hand. Then he looked at the German and at Oleg and finally he looked at Yulia, who walked over to the dead German and poured the remains of her drink on his body.
She placed her glass on a small table next to a lamp and took two steps to the bewildered Yevgeny Pleshkov.
“Sit, Yevi,” she said, leading him by the arm to one of the chairs the German had offered him. Pleshkov sat and Yulia took the remains of the box from him and dropped them on the floor.
“Yevgeny,” Oleg said, “let’s get out of here.”
Pleshkov looked at his friend as if surprised to see him there, wherever there might be. Yevgeny did not rise. In fact, he sat back and closed his eyes.
“Help me clean up,” Yulia had said to Oleg.
“The body?” Oleg asked.
“We’ll think of something when we come to that,” she said. “I’ll change into something that won’t be ruined by the blood.”
Oleg got on his knees and began picking up photographs, many of them splattered with blood, and cassettes, some of which had broken and flown across the room, leaving a brown vinyl trail of thin tape. And there were dozens of pieces of wood. In his hurry, Oleg picked up a splinter in the palm of his hand. There was enough visible to pull it out, though his hand was shaking.
Oleg found a wastebasket and was filling it when Yulia reappeared in faded blue jeans and a blue sweatshirt.
“No,” she said, handing Oleg a large green plastic garbage bag.
“Fill this. I can dump it in the trash. It will be picked up in the morning. Put in everything.”
The man and woman worked together. Yulia produced a blanket to wrap the German’s body, which they did with surprising ease, though Oleg did his best not to look at the grotesque naked man with the battered face and the sharp piece of wood buried in his neck. Without hesitation, Yulia pulled the wooden stake from the neck of the man who had humiliated her. She wiped it to remove any possible fingerprints and dropped it into the rapidly filling bag.
Then she produced two electrical extension wires and used them to tie the top and bottom of the makeshift shroud in which what was once a man was wrapped.
The blood was the most difficult part of the operation. Yulia said, “I’ll be right back. Try to rouse Yevi. We will need his help.”
Oleg did as he was told and tried not to look at the bundle on the floor. Yevgeny Pleshkov did not respond to his entreaties, but he did look into Oleg’s face as if trying to recognize him. Oleg gave up and resumed his cleanup, wondering if Yulia would suddenly appear with armed policemen and point her finger at the scene, denouncing Oleg and Yevgeny.
She did reappear with a bucket containing a variety of plastic cleaning items, a pair of brushes, and some towels.
“Took them from the storage closet on the next floor,” she explained. “I will have to get them back soon. Let’s put the body by the door. See if he is leaking through first.”
Again, Oleg did as he was told. The blood did not seem to be spreading, at least not yet. Together they moved the wrapped corpse near the door.
Cleaning up the blood took almost half an hour and left the thin carpet wet.
“We can do no better,” Yulia had announced, surveying the room. “I’ll rearrange the furniture later to cover the spot. It will look fine. Now we get rid of the bag and the body.”
“How?”
“I’ll take the bag,” she said. “I’ll carry it to the park and drop it in the trash there.”
“Burn it,” Yevgeny suddenly said in a monotone, without looking at the others. “No one must find those photographs, those tapes.”
“All right, I will burn the bag,” she said.
“I want to watch,” said Yevgeny.
“You don’t trust me,” Yulia said with a smile.
“No.”
Yulia gave a raspy, deep laugh which sent an icicle down Oleg’s back. “Then you shall watch,” she said.
“The originals,” said Yevgeny, slowly coming to life and rubbing his eyes.
Yulia shook her head. “I will protect you, Yevi. I will burn these photographs and tapes. I will help get rid of the body. The three of us, if the police get close, and they are looking for you, must never vary from the story that Jurgen was attacking me, that he had a gun, that you bravely overcame him and had to kill him to protect yourself. As for the body, you panicked and to protect me again wrapped him up, and we, you and I, took him to the place I have in mind. Your friend Oleg need not be involved.”
Yevgeny nodded in agreement.
“I have the originals of the photos and the tapes safely hidden,”
she said. “And so they will stay. I ask you for nothing in exchange.
They are my insurance that the two of you will not betray me. I like you, Yevi. You have never hurt me. You have been generous and undemanding. And now you’ve rid me of my beast. No, that is a cliche. You’ve rid me of something that looked like a human, something with an insatiable lust, who enjoyed the anguish of others.
He is the only person I have ever known who simply enjoyed being evil. One time I asked him if he was the devil. He said he was.”
Yevgeny finally stirred and stood. “Let us do it,” he said.
The rest was a frightening nightmare for Oleg, who was grateful that Yulia was clearly in charge and knew what she was doing and that Yevgeny was participating. She carried the bulging garbage bag through which shards of wood from the broken box now jut-ted like angry little spikes, while Oleg and Yevgeny carried the awkward and heavy dead German. Yulia also held a two-liter plastic bottle. Yulia had surveyed the hallway and, assured that no one was in sight, led the two men carrying the body to the service steps.
Oleg started to head down but Yulia said, “No. Up.”
Oleg was in no state to challenge anything she said, and Yevgeny had lapsed back into a near-somnambulistic state.
They struggled up two flights, where Yulia opened the door to the roof and put down bottle and bag to open the door with a key.
“Jurgen had the key made,” she explained. “I was never sure why.
Now I have a reason.”
They struggled onto the roof. Yulia led the way to a ribbed metal shed whose door was open.
There wasn’t much inside the shed: a few paint cans, a pile of rags, something that looked like a radio with its electrical intestines showing. The shed was dark, and no light came from the moon and stars covered by clouds. But there was enough, just enough, light coming from Kalinin Street below so that Oleg saw where Yulia pointed. He guided Yevgeny and the body to the spot she had indicated and they put their burden down.
“Back,” said Yulia, pouring the contents of the bottle she had been carrying over the body and the garbage bag she had placed atop it.
Oleg led Yevgeny several steps away from the shed. There was a sudden flare of flames as Yulia joined them.
“Someone will see,” Oleg said. “Someone will report a fire on the roof. The police. .”
Yulia stepped to Yevgeny’s right and took his arm.
“No one will see. No one will report. No one will discover perhaps for days, and no one will be able to identify the corpse. The evidence will be gone. It will remain a mystery. I have seen such things happen. Yevi can stay with me tonight. Tomorrow. . I don’t know.”
“It looks like rain,” Oleg said as the sky rumbled above them.
“It has for days,” she said, “but the shed will keep it from our work. Even a deluge won’t stop that fire.”
They stood watching for a few minutes, just to be sure the body and the bag were on fire and not likely to go out.
“Go home, Oleg,” Yulia said.
Oleg was hypnotized by the flames, the smell of tape and flesh.
He stood transfixed.
“Go home, Oleg Kisolev,” she said firmly.
And, finally, he did.
Oleg had made his way home and now lay in his bed next to Dmitri, trying to convince himself first that the whole thing had not happened. He failed. Then he tried to convince himself that he was safe, that the body of the German would burn beyond recognition, that the green garbage bag and its contents would also be burned without leaving a trace, aside from ashes.
Oleg put the Olympic history book down and reached over to turn off the light. His hand hesitated and he realized that he did not want to be in darkness. He adjusted his pillow and slid down under the covers, turning to put his arms around Dmitri, who made a slight sound of childish pleasure.
Maybe, thought Oleg, maybe I can sleep like this. Maybe.
Sarah Rostnikov’s cousin, Leon Moiseyevitch, the doctor, sat at the piano beside the cellist and oboe player with whom he had performed for almost five years. They specialized in standard works, Bach and Mozart particularly, and Leon found that he could lose himself in the music, that rehearsal after rehearsal, concert after concert, brought him closer to the magical state in which he could simply let his fingers and body perform while he listened.
It was late, but the small hall which held seventy-five was full and the trio had played for more than two hours.
Some nights Leon played with a jazz group at a nightclub called Hot Apples, a short walk from the Kremlin walls.
It had been a nightmare of a day in his office, a nightmare from which he tried to distance himself emotionally, and from which he knew he could partially cleanse himself through music. When he was finished, he would go home, kiss his sleeping son, and go to his bedroom.
Leon was financially comfortable. His reputation was secure among both the newly rich and the old powerful Communists who had managed to make the transition to new power by renouncing the crumbled party and embracing the sham of democracy. Leon was secure.
To help cleanse his conscience, he put in a dozen hours a week at the public hospital, treating whoever came into the emergency room and charging nothing.
The past week had been typical. He had treated one woman who had been struck by a piece of falling concrete from a crumbling building. The woman had died from massive head wounds, as Leon had known she would when she was brought in. It was amazing that she had stayed alive long enough to be brought to the emergency room. About one hundred Muscovites died each year after being struck by falling bricks and concrete. Another dozen died annually after being crushed by huge icicles as they walked down the street. Leon had treated people who had stepped into holes in the sidewalk and suffered broken limbs, people who had drunk contaminated tap water, people who had received deadly shocks of electricity while riding trolley buses, people who had been poisoned by bootlegged vodka, people who had been struck by automobiles driven by motorists who routinely ignored the yellow painted lanes and drove madly, ignoring pedestrians.
Then there were the more bizarre cases he had seen over the past year: the two little boys aged six and five, who had found a hand grenade in Gorky Park and had died of injuries when it exploded while they were playing with it; and the bespectacled young businessman on the way home from work who spotted an odd white Styrofoam box on the ground next to a metal-mesh garbage container. The man had picked up the box to deposit it in the trash, and lifted the lid. The contents of the box were two soft, green claylike masses, the size of small melons. The suspicious and con-scientious young businessman, who had a wife and a three-year-old daughter, had brought the Styrofoam box and its contents to the hospital emergency room where Leon was on duty. Leon had told the young man to place the container on a small stainless steel table with rubber-covered wheels. The container proved to be emitting a high level of radiation. The man had been exposed to the radiation when he opened the box to examine its contents and when he carried it the half mile to the hospital. The man was still being treated half a year later and not doing particularly well. And the police still did not have the slightest idea who might have placed the white Styrofoam box near the trash container.
Leon had come to a passage that always pleased him. It was flowing, beautiful, a moment of salvation in a world of madness.
In his music, in Bach, Mozart, Schumann, and sometimes Brahms, Leon could stop being the confident, wise, supportive physician whom he had made himself into, and inside of whom existed an angry and sometimes frightened man.
Even in the hospital the people of Moscow were not safe. A woman had recently bled to death while giving birth because the power company had, without warning, turned off the hospital’s electricity in a dispute over nonpayment of bills.
The trio was coming to the end of the piece and the end of the concert. Leon did not want it to end. Given the slightest encouragement from the audience, Leon would be willing to give encore after encore throughout the night. He was sure his fellow musicians felt the same.
The horrors would not stop even during the most delicate of passages.
Leon remembered helping to treat the victims of a utility company blunder in which a high-pressure gas line had been attached to a residential neighborhood instead of the industrial plant for which it was intended. Fifteen homes had burst into flames. Fortunately, it happened in the early afternoon, which kept the number of burn victims down.
Leon knew well from the statistics he accessed on his computer that Russians are five times more likely to die from accidents than are Americans. Deaths in Russia exceed births by more than six hundred thousand. Of the boys who are now sixteen, only half would reach the age of sixty, which is a worse rate than a century ago.
The Mozart piece came to an end with Leon’s brief solo, a slow and bittersweet conclusion.
The audience consisted mostly of university students and teachers, with a smattering of old people who attended anything-concerts, lectures, travel films-as long as the evening or afternoon entertainment or enlightenment was free.
The applause was enthusiastic, appreciative, but there was something in it that the musicians frequently sensed. The people before them had decided that the diversion was over. There would be no encores this night. The audience trickled out. A few, as always, almost always the young, approached the trio, thanked them, and asked questions or simply wanted to talk about their own love of music. Part of the trio’s mission, as they saw it, was to listen em-pathetically to those who approached.
Leon adopted his physician’s manner. The others, Lev Bulmasiov and Dmitriova Berg, alternatively beamed and took on serious looks, nodding their heads, saying something that showed the person who had approached that they understood what they were trying to express.
All three-Leon, Lev, and Dmitriova-were Jews. It was the combination of their love for the same genre of music, their mu-tual background as Jews without religion, and their talent that brought them together. Lev was a successful carpenter in his forties who held an advanced degree in electrical engineering, a profession that would have earned him far less than he brought home to his family as a carpenter. Leon knew that Lev did not dislike being a carpenter but would have preferred the profession for which he had been trained and which he loved. Lev’s oboe was his solace. Dmitriova was a medical lab technician at the hospital where Leon did his volunteer work. She was in her twenties, short, approaching a serious weight problem, and very plain with slight recurrent acne. Her compensation for the body and skin that had been given her was her cello, her music. Dmitriova was easily the most talented of the trio and should have been making her living on the concert stage.
But those who managed musicians, while recognizing her talent, were certain that they could not market someone who looked like Dmitriova.
When the last questioner, the one who always lingered until the musicians said they had to leave, had departed, the trio had said good-bye, told each other that the concert had gone well, and went their own ways.
Leon dreaded the next day. He had tried to put it from his mind, but he now had to deal with it. In the morning, he would have to call his cousin Sarah and tell her that she probably needed more surgery, that something had happened, that he wasn’t sure what it was, though he was certain, as was the woman who had been the surgeon on Sarah’s original operation, that an internal examination had to be made. Leon thought the problem was a growing clot of blood in the brain, a clot resulting from the original surgery, which may have weakened a crucial vessel.
Leon had a car and, unlike the other musicians in the trio, he had no instrument to carry. He did not know how they would get home. He had offered Lev and Dmitriova rides on many occasions.
They had always politely refused with thanks. Leon understood.
They wanted to be alone with the still-living memory of the music inside them. On this night, however, Leon would have welcomed company and conversation.
Sarah and Porfiry Petrovich would take the news well and ask that the surgery be performed as quickly as possible. Leon would arrange it and tell them the absolute truth about what the surgeon might find and have to do. He would tell them that he would be present in the operating room and that, while any surgery on the brain was serious, it was likely that this operation was not life-threatening.
Leon had no brothers or sisters. Sarah was the closest relative of his generation, more a sister than a cousin. Leon’s wife had died almost ten years ago, leaving him with their son, Ivan, whose real name was Itzhak. Ivan was watched over in motherly fashion by Masha, a Hungarian woman, who had a small but comfortable room in Leon’s apartment. Leon loved his son to the point where it hurt just to see him.
Ivan showed an interest in and talent for the piano, but he did not delight and lose himself in practice as his father did. Leon doubted if his son had the emotion inside that would carry him into a musical career. No matter. The boy was smart, loving. He would do well.
Meanwhile, Leon dreaded the morning.
He had long since stopped deluding himself about his feelings for his cousin Sarah. He had loved her from the time they were children. He had longed for her. When he had married, those feelings remained tucked carefully in imaginary velvet, never to be opened for careful scrutiny.
Ivan would be asleep, but Leon would go into his room, sit at his bedside, and watch his smooth, peaceful face for as long as half an hour. Then he would go to bed, dreading what he must do in the morning.
Porfiry Petrovich did not snore, but from time to time he made a deep sigh that sounded full of promises to keep. Sarah listened to her husband sleeping. He had brought home a surprise of pizza and had done his nightly workout while the two girls sat watching.
Sarah knew the routine by heart. Rostnikov seldom deviated.
First, he turned on the cassette player after having selected whatever suited his mood. Tonight it had been Creedence Clearwater Revival. Occasionally, when he was very tired, he hummed or even sang along with the music. Tonight he had hummed.
Five people in a one-bedroom apartment was both good and bad. It was good because Sarah, when she came home after working in the music shop, liked to have company, to hear what Galina Panishkoya and her grandchildren had done all day. Galina too worked while the girls were in school. Usually, Sarah and Galina collaborated to prepare dinner. The apartment was full of life.
That was also the problem. Privacy was impossible, or almost so.
Rostnikov had kept his leg on for stability when he sat up or lay on the narrow, low exercise bench. Tonight he had worn his blue-and-white Prix de France sweatpants and shirt. Perspiration had come quickly and the humming had turned to grunts. This was the favorite part for the little girls, and Sarah knew her husband was doing a bit of play-acting to make it look hard. Porfiry Petrovich was working out with great zeal. Next month was the Izmailovo Park annual weight-lifting championship competition. Porfiry Petrovich was now eligible for the senior competition, but it was really no competition for the one-legged policeman. He usually won.
His primary rival was a younger, likeable man with almost white hair. The younger man named Felix Borotomkin looked like the photographs of Arnold Schwarzenegger on the covers of CDs of music from his movies. Felix Borotomkin worked out for several hours everyday. Since he worked in a private gym, this was not a problem for him. It was a problem for Porfiry Petrovich.
Sarah wondered if her husband might be dreaming of the competition, going over each move. For Rostnikov, the excitement was in the struggle more than in the winning, though he dearly enjoyed his victories.
Rostnikov slept on his back, no pillow, no cover except in the coldest of weather. His ritual nightwear was a clean pair of exercise shorts and the largest T-shirt he could find in his drawer.
Tonight he was wearing a black one with the words THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE in white letters.
Leon had told Sarah to come when Rostnikov went to work in the morning, that he had to talk to her.
She had gone to him about her headaches, which were increasing in pain and frequency. He had given her medication. When the headaches continued, he had called his cousin in for an examination. Now, three days after the tests, he wanted to see her. It couldn’t be good news.
Sarah would have gotten up and read a book, but there was really nowhere she could turn on a light. Any light and most sounds immediately awakened Rostnikov, though he had no trouble getting back to sleep instantly when he was sure no problem existed that he had to help deal with. Oddly enough, he did not awaken if Sarah reached over to touch him, which she now did.
She was certain now that the news would be bad. It was best if she got some sleep, was rested when she had to cope with the news.
It would be better but it would be impossible.
Her husband’s missing leg was not a problem for Sarah. She had been relieved when it had been amputated. It had been a less-than-handsome sight, and Rostnikov frequently had pain from it while he slept. Now, the sounds of pain were gone, replaced by these mournful grunts.
Sarah had lived for half a century. In that lifetime, she had never been unfaithful to her husband and she was sure he had been faithful to her. Sarah, with her red hair, smooth complexion, white skin, and ample body, had experienced many overtures from co-workers, men in cafes, customers, strangers in odd places. She had been tempted a few times, but the temptations had been slight and passing. She lay wondering if she had missed something. She knew, however, that she would never go beyond that slight temptation.
She closed her eyes and tried the relaxation techniques, the breathing, the visualization she had learned before her last surgery and had practiced till her recovery seemed complete. The techniques helped a bit and she needed them now to control her headache and to try to sleep.
She closed her eyes, imagined the full moon, and tried to let her consciousness go in full concentration on the glowing ball where men had walked and would walk again. No, she told herself, it is just a glowing ball that I must think of and watch while words and thoughts stop. She was just beginning to have some success when she fell asleep.
Anna Timofeyeva, her cat, Baku, in her lap, sat by her window.
A table with folding legs was before her, the light from a lamp il-luminating the pieces of the half-finished jigsaw puzzle on the table.
Jigsaw puzzles had proved to be a comforting meditation for the former procurator. A few years earlier she considered such things a waste of time that could have been productive, and she silently scorned pastimes that did not exercise one’s mind, vocabulary, or dexterity. Now, however, she could be so relaxed by the process, so engaged in fitting the small pieces together that when Lydia Tkach came to complain, she could almost block out her piercing voice and stories of hardship and woe. Lydia didn’t mind the puzzle as long as Anna said something sympathetic from time to time.
Each small piece attached to another was a tiny moment of satisfaction to Anna. The puzzle before her had a thousand pieces and would, when it was finished, present a picture crackled by the hundreds of edges comfortably fitting together. From the cover of the box she knew that she was working toward the completion of a Swiss chalet in the winter, snow-covered mountains in the background with blue sky and white billowy clouds. In the foreground would be two children playing on a sled. The chalet would, as it did in the picture on the box, look like it was made of fragile white-and-brown chocolate.
Elena had not been home for three days. Anna knew why and had given her niece some ideas of how she might handle the undercover assignment. Elena had listened attentively, nodding her head, absorbing. Elena was smart, a good investigator.
Her niece’s relationship with Iosef Rostnikov was welcome to Anna, though she would not say so even if asked. She would not and could not exert any influence on Elena on such an issue. It would happen or it would not.
Anna petted Baku, who purred, a purr that was more a vibration than a sound. An elusive piece was found, a section of one of the chalet windows with a shutter. Without being aware of it, Anna smiled with pleasure.
Though she said and showed no reaction to her niece when Elena’s current assignment had come, Anna was worried. She told Lydia nothing about the nature of what Lydia’s son, Sasha, and Elena were doing. Lydia was already so obsessed with her son’s safety that such a revelation would have resulted in mock hysteria, if not the real thing.
Moscow was more dangerous now than it had ever been, and the most dangerous part for a police officer was probably the gangs.
Life was without value. Violence simply took place and was forgotten. Sasha and Elena were attempting to destroy the operation of one such gang, or Mafia, as they liked to call themselves now.
The Ministry of the Interior, which was supposed to be responsible for gang activity, was completely overcome by the size of the problem. What Elena and Sasha were doing was worth doing, but it would probably accomplish little.
Anna examined her work of the evening with satisfaction, satisfaction that it was coming along well, satisfaction that there was still more than half the puzzle to complete, two nights’ work. Anna seldom worked on the puzzle during the day. She watched the world in the concrete courtyard outside her window, took her pre-scribed walks, listened to music, read history books and occasional novels. Lately, she had been taking note of and notes on a young mother who was in the courtyard each day with her small child.
Anna found the young woman very interesting.
It was late.
Lydia Tkach had knocked insistently and Anna had admitted her, perhaps feeling a slight touch of loneliness that she did not want to admit to herself. Lydia had entered wearing a heavy blue man’s robe at least a size too large for her. Anna had returned to her chair and puzzle, and Lydia had closed the door and moved to sit across from her.
“Have you heard from Elena?” asked Lydia.
“No. I didn’t expect to.”
“She could be dead,” said Lydia.
“Thank you for coming late in the night to cheer up a woman with a heart condition,” said Anna, not looking up from her puzzle.
“Are you being sarcastic, Anna Timofeyeva?”
“Yes, Lydia Tkach.”
“I did not think such sarcasm was in you.”
“I have, since my retirement, nurtured and developed it with great care. Soon I will be able to reduce all but the most oblivious or determined-and that includes you-to frustration and departure.”
“More sarcasm. You play games with words and pieces of cardboard and I am sick, sick with fear about my only son,” said Lydia, pressing her fists into her frail chest.
“That is understandable,” said Anna, finding a place for a piece of the puzzle that had eluded her.
Bakunin, who did not like Lydia, had cautiously leapt back into Anna’s lap, eyes fixed on the loud intruder.
“My Sasha is a brooding, reckless young man. He has a family, children, a wife who is growing weary of his frequent absences, long hours, and. . his rare indiscretions caused by the pressures of his work.”
“And he has a mother,” said Anna, examining a small puzzle piece that may have been part of a human face.
“He has a mother,” Lydia said, reaching for a puzzle piece near her hand.
Anna considered taking the piece from the woman and remind-ing her that she was in violation of the agreement they had made when Lydia had moved into the building. Lydia was to come when invited, to keep her visits brief, and to engage in no complaints about her son, his family, or the simple dangers of being alive.
Lydia had begun violating the agreement within a week of moving in. Reminders had been of no use. Anna had even taken the extreme step at one point of informing Lydia that she could not visit under any circumstances until further notice. This had been successful for almost two days.
Lydia reached over and placed the piece of the puzzle snugly into the proper space.
It was not a question of the quality of Lydia’s work. The woman obviously had an almost eerie ability to do the puzzles without even thinking about them. But Anna’s goal was not to race through each and hurry to the next. Anna had a great deal of time. She wanted the satisfaction of completing each puzzle by herself.
Anna put down the piece in her hand and gently took the piece Lydia was now holding.
“I cannot talk to Porfiry Petrovich about this,” said Anna. “I do not wish to talk to him. It is not my business. I would not even talk to him about Elena.”
“Maybe I could talk to the new director, Yockvolvy?”
“Yaklovev,” Anna corrected. “I doubt, from what I know about him, that he would be sympathetic to your pleas.”
“Can it hurt?”
Anna shrugged. Actually, it could hurt, but there was something satisfying to the imagination to picture Lydia loudly insisting to the Yak that he find safe work for her son, even if Sasha didn’t want it. However, it could certainly do Sasha’s fragile career no good.
“So,” said Lydia. “You will do nothing?”
“Nothing,” said Anna, stroking her cat. “There is nothing I can do, nothing I wish to do.”
“Well, a mother can do a great deal,” said Lydia.
“I wish you luck, Lydia Tkach. Now, I am afraid I will have to ask you to leave me. I need to go to bed.”
Lydia stood up, pulled the robe tightly around her, and said,
“Sometimes I think you lack normal feelings, Anna Timofeyeva.”
“Sometimes I agree with you, Lydia Tkach, but that seems to be gradually changing and I am not sure I welcome the change. Please forgive me if I do not rise. I’ll lock the door behind you in a few minutes.”
Lydia walked to the door and opened it. “We’ll talk further tomorrow,” she said.
“I will try to contain my great enthusiasm for the moment of that conversation.”
“More sarcasm,” said Lydia. “You are a difficult person to have as a best friend.”
“Best friend? I did not apply for that distinguished position.”
“It evolved,” said Lydia, leaving the apartment and closing the door behind her.
Could it be, thought Anna, that if I were under oath I would have to admit that Lydia is my best friend? The thought was depressing. “Chiyigh, tea and bed,” she said. “Sound good to you, cat?”
Baku did not respond. Anna rose from her chair, careful not to jar the table. After the first time Anna had risen in the morning and found that Baku had destroyed her puzzle, Anna had chastised the cat whenever he approached the fragile table. He had learned quickly. But the mind of a cat is unpredictable in its workings.
Anna took Baku into the bedroom with her every night and closed the door. Baku had no problem with this and slept comfortably by Anna’s side.
Anna Timofeyeva had always been honest with herself and, when possible, with others. Now, as she prepared water for tea after locking the apartment door, she admitted that she was keeping Baku next to her at night because she wanted, needed, the company of a living creature.
In one sense, Anna, who had suffered three heart attacks, was waiting for the fatal one, waiting to die. But in another sense, Anna had come to terms with her life. She missed the satisfaction of power and mission she had when she had been a procurator, but she had grown quite comfortable with her present life. In fact, even if she were suddenly cured, she doubted if she would be interested in returning to work, though she was only fifty-five years old. She had been a loyal, hopeful Communist, well aware of the abuses of the system and the principles of the revolution, but she had doggedly pursued her duties.
The water was boiling now. Anna, who stood next to the stove, turned off the flame and poured the steaming water into her large glass, which contained an English tea bag.
Since she was an atheist, Anna did not pray as she stood drinking her tea, but she did close her eyes and will that Elena would be all right. It struck her that she suddenly knew how the many wives and mothers of police officers felt each night, the fear, the attempts not to think about what might happen.
She finished the tea, threw the bag in the garbage, rinsed the glass and said, “To bed, Baku. Tomorrow we have a satisfying and meaninglessly busy day before us, and, if we are fortunate, Elena will be home.”