MANAGER OF A SMALL ACADEMIC PRINTING PRESS, Suren Moskvin had become renowned for producing textbooks of the poorest quality, using ink that smeared and the thinnest paper, all held together with a glue spine that began to shed pages within hours of opening. It wasn’t that he was lazy or incompetent. Far from it, he’d start work early in the morning and finish late at night. The reason the books were so shabby was due to the raw materials allotted by the State. While the content of academic publications was carefully monitored, they were not a resource priority. Locked into a quota system, Suren was forced to produce a large number of books from the lowest grade of paper in the shortest period of time. The equation never changed and he was at its mercy, acutely embarrassed that his reputation had sunk so low. There were jokes — with ink-stained fingers, students and teachers quipped that Moskvin’s books always stayed with you. Ridiculed, he’d been finding it difficult getting out of bed. He wasn’t eating properly. He was drinking throughout the day, bottles stashed in drawers, behind bookshelves. Aged fifty-five, he’d discovered something new about himself: he didn’t have the stomach for public humiliation.
Inspecting the Linotype printing machines, brooding over his failures, he noticed a young man standing at the door. Suren addressed him defensively:
— Yes? What is it? It’s not normal to stand there unannounced.
The man stepped forward, in typical student attire, a long coat and a cheap black scarf. He was holding a book, outstretched. Suren snatched it from his hands, bracing himself for more complaints. He glanced at the cover: Lenin’s The State and Revolution. They’d printed a new volume only last week, distributed a day or so ago, and this man, it would seem, was the first to spot something amiss. A mistake in a seminal work was a grave matter: during Stalin’s rule it would be enough to warrant arrest. The student leaned forward and opened the book, flicking to the front. Printed on the title page was a black-and-white photo. The student commented:
— The text at the bottom says it’s a photo of Lenin but… as you can see…
The photo was of a man who looked nothing like Lenin, a man standing against a wall, a stark white wall. His hair was wild. His eyes were wild.
Suren slammed the book shut and turned to the student:
— You think I could have printed one thousand copies of this book with the wrong photo! Who are you! What is your name! Why are you doing this? My problems are due to the limits of my materials, not carelessness!
Pushed back, the book jabbed at his chest, the scarf around the student’s neck came loose, revealing the edge of a tattoo. The sight made Suren pause. A tattoo was incongruous with the otherwise typical appearance of a student. No one, except the vory, the professional criminals, would mark their skin in such a way.
With the impetus taken out of Suren’s indignation, the man exploited his hesitation and hurried out. Halfheartedly, Suren followed, still holding the book, watching the mysterious figure disappear into the night. Uneasy, he shut the door, locking it. Something bothered him: that photograph. He took out his spectacles, opened the book, and scrutinized the face a little more closely: those terrified eyes. Like a ghost ship slowly emerging from dense sea fog, the identity of the man appeared to him. His face was familiar. His hair and eyes were wild because he’d been arrested and dragged from his bed. Suren recognized the photograph because he had taken it.
Suren hadn’t always run a printing press. Previously, he’d been employed by the MGB. Twenty years of loyal service, his career with the secret police had spanned longer than many of his superiors. Fulfilling a variety of banal tasks — cleaning cells, photographing prisoners — his low rank had been an asset and he’d been savvy enough not to push for more responsibility, never getting noticed, evading the cyclical purges of the upper echelons. Difficult things had been demanded of him. He’d done his duty unswervingly. Back then he’d been a man to be feared. No one made jokes about him. They wouldn’t have dared. Ill health had forced him to retire. Though well remunerated and comfortable, he’d found idleness impossible. Lying in bed with no purpose to his day, his mind had wandered, drifting over the past, remembering faces like the one now stuck into this book. The solution was to remain busy, appointments and meetings. He needed an occupation. He didn’t want to reminisce.
Closing the book, he slipped the volume into his pocket. Why was this happening today? It couldn’t be mere coincidence. Despite his failure to produce a book or journal of any quality, he’d unexpectedly been asked to publish an important State document. He hadn’t been told the nature of the document. However, the prestige of the assignment meant high-quality resources — good paper and ink. Finally he’d been given the opportunity to produce something he could be proud of. They were to deliver the document this evening. And someone with a grudge was trying to undermine him just as his fortunes were about to change.
He left the factory floor, hurrying to his office, carefully smoothing his wispy gray hair to the side. He was wearing his best suit — he only had two, one for everyday use and one for special occasions. This was a special occasion. He hadn’t needed help getting out of bed today. He’d been awake before his wife. He’d shaved, humming. He’d eaten a full breakfast, his first for weeks. Arriving at the factory early, he’d taken the bottle of vodka from his drawer and poured it down the sink before spending the day cleaning, mopping, dusting — wiping away the flecks of grease from the Linotype machines. His sons, both university students, had paid him a visit, impressed by the transformation. Suren reminded them that it was a matter of principle to keep the workplace spotless. The workplace was where a person took their identity and sense of self. They’d kissed him good-bye, wishing him luck with the enigmatic new commission. At last, after the many years of secrecy and the recent years of failure, they had reason to be proud of him.
He checked his watch. It was seven in the evening. They’d be here any minute. He should forget about the stranger and photograph, it wasn’t important. He couldn’t let him distract him. Suddenly he wished he hadn’t poured the vodka away. A drink would’ve calmed him. Then again, they might have smelled it on his breath. Better not to have any, better to be nervous — it showed he took the job seriously. Suren reached for the bottle of kvass. A nonalcoholic rye bread brew: it would have to do.
In his haste, his coordination shaky from alcohol withdrawal, he upended a tray of steel letter molds. The tray fell from the desk, emptying its contents, the individual letters scattering across the stone floor.
Clink Clink
His body went rigid. No longer in his office, Suren was standing in a narrow brick corridor, a row of steel doors on one side. He remembered this place: Oriol Prison, where he’d been a guard at the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. Forced to retreat from the rapidly approaching German army, he and his fellow guards had been ordered to liquidate the inmate population, leaving behind no sympathetic recruits for the Nazi invaders. With the buildings being strafed by Stukas and panzers within shelling distance, they’d faced the logistical conundrum of eliminating twenty cells crowded with hundreds of political criminals in a matter of minutes. They didn’t have time for bullets or nooses. It had been his idea to use grenades, two dropped into each cell. He’d walked to the end of the corridor, pulled back the small steel grate, and tossed them in—clink, clink—the sound of the grenade casing on a concrete floor. He’d slammed the grate shut so that they couldn’t be tossed out, running back down the corridor to get away from the blast, imagining the men fumbling for the grenades, their filthy fingers slipping, trying to throw them out of the small barred window.
Suren placed his hands tight over his ears as if this could stop the memory. But the noise continued, louder and louder, grenades on the concrete floor, cell after cell.
Clink Clink Clink Clink
He cried out:
— Stop!
Removing his hands from his ears, he realized someone was knocking on the door.
THE VICTIM’S THROAT HAD BEEN SAVAGED by a series of deep, ragged cuts. There were no injuries above or below what remained of the man’s neck, giving the contradictory impression of frenzy and control. Considering the ferocity of the attack, only a small amount of blood had spread right and left from the incisions, pooling into the shape of fledgling angel wings. The killer appeared to have knocked the victim to the floor, pinned him down, continuing to slash, long after Suren Moskvin — aged fifty-five and the manager of a small academic printing press — had died.
His body had been found early this morning when his sons, Vsevolod and Akvsenti, had entered the premises, concerned that their father hadn’t come home. Distraught, they’d contacted the militia, who’d found a ransacked office: drawers pulled out of the desk, papers on the floor, filing cabinets forced open. They’d concluded that it was a bungled robbery. Not until late in the afternoon, some seven hours after the initial discovery, had the militia finally contacted the homicide department headed by former MGB agent Leo Stepanovich Demidov.
Leo was accustomed to such delays. He’d created the homicide department three years ago using the leverage he’d gained from solving the murders of over forty-four children. Since its conception the department’s relationship with the regular militia was fraught. Cooperation was erratic. The very existence of his department was considered by many militia and KGB officers to imply an unacceptable degree of criticism of both their work and the State. In truth, they were correct. Leo’s motive in forming the department was a reaction against his work as an agent. He’d arrested many civilians during his previous career, arrests he’d made based upon nothing more than typed lists of names passed down from his superiors. In contrast, the homicide department pursued an evidential truth, not a politicized one. Leo’s duty was to present the facts of each case to his superiors. What they did with that truth was up to them. Leo’s private hope was that one day he’d balance his arrest ledger, the guilty outweighing the innocent. Even at a conservative estimate, he had a long way to go.
The freedoms granted to the homicide department resulted in their work being subject to the highest level of secrecy. They reported directly to senior figures in the Ministry of Interior, operating as a covert subsection of the Main Office for Criminal Investigations. The population at large still needed to believe in the evolution of society. Falling crime rates were a tenet of that belief. Contradictory facts were filtered from the national consciousness. No citizen could contact the homicide department because no citizen knew it existed. For this reason Leo couldn’t broadcast requests for information or ask witnesses to come forward since such actions would be tantamount to propagandizing the existence of crime. The freedom that he’d been granted was of a very particular kind, and Leo, who’d done everything in his power to put his former career in the secret police behind him, now found himself running a very different kind of secret police force.
Uneasy with the first-glance explanation behind Moskvin’s death, Leo studied the crime scene, his eyes fastening on the chair. Positioned, unremarkably, in front of the desk, the seat was at a slight angle. He walked up to it, crouching down, running his finger over a thin fracture line on one of the wooden legs. Tentatively testing his weight, pushing down on the back, the leg immediately gave way. The chair was broken. If anyone had sat on it, it would have collapsed. Yet it was positioned at the desk as though it were suitable for use.
Returning his attention to the body, he took hold of the victim’s hands. There were no cuts, no scratches — no sign that this man had defended himself. Kneeling, Leo moved close to the victim’s neck. There was hardly any skin left except on the back, the area touching the floor, protected from repeated slashes. Leo took out a knife, prising it under the victim’s neck and lifting the blade up, exposing a small stretch of skin that hadn’t been destroyed. It was bruised. Lowering the flap of skin, retracting the knife, he was about to stand up when he caught sight of a pocket on the dead man’s suit. He reached in, taking out a slim book — Lenin’s The State and Revolution. Even before opening the book, he could see that there was something unusual with the binding: a page had been glued in. Turning to the page in question, he saw a photo of a disheveled man. Though Leo had no idea who the man was, he recognized the type of photograph — the stark white background, the suspect’s disoriented expression. It was an arrest photo.
Puzzled by this elaborate anomaly, Leo stood up. Timur Nesterov entered the room, glancing at the book:
— Something important?
— I’m not sure.
Timur was Leo’s closest colleague and friend. The friendship they’d developed was of an understated kind. They didn’t drink together, banter, or talk very much except about work — a partnership typified by long silences. To cynics there was reason to suppose resentment in their relationship. Almost ten years younger, Leo was now Timur’s superior, despite the fact that he’d previously been his subordinate, always formally addressing him as General Nesterov. Objectively Leo had benefited more from their joint success. People had insinuated that he was a profiteer, individualistic and career-minded. But Timur showed no jealousy. The issue of rank was incidental. He was proud of his job. His family was provided for. In moving to Moscow he’d finally, after languishing on waiting lists, been appointed a modern apartment with running hot water and a twenty-four-hour electricity supply. No matter how their relationship might outwardly seem, they trusted each other with their lives.
Timur gestured toward the main factory floor where the towering Linotype machines stood, giant mechanical insects:
— The sons have arrived.
— Bring them in.
— With their father’s body in the room?
— Yes.
The sons had been allowed to leave, sent home by the militia before Leo could question them. He would apologize that they had to see their father’s body again but he had no intention of trusting secondhand information passed to him by the militia.
Summoned, Vsevolod and Akvsenti — both in their early twenties— appeared at the door, side by side. Leo introduced himself:
— I’m Officer Leo Demidov. I understand this must be difficult.
Neither of them looked at their father’s body, keeping their eyes on Leo. The older son, Vsevolod, spoke:
— We answered the militia’s questions.
— My questions won’t take long. Is this room as you found it this morning?
— Yes, it’s the same.
Vsevolod was doing all the talking. Akvsenti remained silent, his eyes occasionally flicking up. Leo continued:
— Was this chair at the table? It might have been knocked over, in the struggle perhaps?
— The struggle?
— Between your father and the killer?
There was silence. Leo continued:
— The chair’s broken. If you sat on it, it would collapse. It’s odd to have a broken chair in front of a desk. You can’t sit on it.
Both sons turned toward the chair. Vsevolod replied:
— You’ve brought us back to talk about a chair?
— The chair is important. I believe your father used it to hang himself.
The suggestion should have been ludicrous. They should have been outraged. Yet they remained silent. Sensing his speculation was on target, Leo pressed his theory:
— I believe your father hanged himself, maybe from one of the overhead beams in the factory. He stood on the chair and then kicked it from under his feet. You found his body this morning. You dragged him here, replaced the chair, not noticing that it had been damaged. One of you, or both of you, cut his throat in an attempt to conceal the scarring from the rope burns. The office was staged as if there was a break-in.
They were promising students. The suicide of their father might end their careers and destroy their prospects. Suicide, attempted suicide, depression — even vocalizing the desire to end your life — all these things were interpreted as slanders against the State. Suicide, like murder, had no place in the evolution of a higher society.
The sons were evidently deciding whether or not it was possible to deny the allegation. Leo softened his tone:
— An autopsy will reveal that his spine is broken. I have to investigate his suicide as rigorously as I would his murder. The reason for his suicide concerns me, not your understandable desire to cover it up.
The younger son, Akvsenti, answered, speaking for the first time:
— I cut his throat.
The young man continued:
— I was lowering his body. I realized what he’d done to our lives.
— Do you have any idea why he killed himself?
— He was drinking. He was depressed about work.
They were telling the truth yet it was incomplete, either through ignorance or calculation. Leo pressed the matter:
— A fifty-five-year-old man doesn’t kill himself because his readers got ink on their fingers. Your father has survived far worse troubles than that.
The older son became angry:
— I’ve spent four years training to be a doctor. All for nothing — no hospital will hire me now.
Leo guided them out of the office, onto the factory floor, away from the sight of their father’s body:
— You didn’t become alarmed that your father hadn’t come home until the morning. You expected him to be working late or you would’ve become concerned last night. If that is the case, why are there no pages of type ready to print?There are four Linotype printing machines. No pages have been set. There’s nothing to indicate any work was being done here.
They approached the enormous machines. At the front there was a typewriter-like device, a panel of letters. Leo addressed the sons:
— Right now you’re in need of friends. I can’t dismiss your father’s suicide. I can petition my superiors to stop his actions from impacting on your careers. Times are different now: the mistakes of your father need not reflect on you. But you must earn my help. Tell me what happened. What was your father working on?
The younger son shrugged:
— He was working on some kind of State document. We didn’t read it. We destroyed all the pages he’d set. He hadn’t finished. We thought maybe he was depressed because he was going to print another badly produced journal. We burned the paper copy. We melted the typeset pages down. There’s nothing left. That’s the truth.
Refusing to give up, Leo pointed at the machine:
— Which machine was he working on?
— This one.
— Show me how it works.
— But we’ve destroyed everything.
— Please.
Akvsenti glanced at his brother, evidently seeking permission. His brother nodded:
— You operate the machine by typing. At the back the device collects the letter molds. Each line is formed of individual molds grouped together with space molds in between. When the line is finished it’s cast from a mixture of molten lead and tin. It forms a slug. Those slugs are placed on this tray, until you have an entire page of text. The steel page is then covered in ink and the paper is rolled over — the text is printed. But, like we said, we melted all the pages down. There’s nothing left.
Leo walked around the machine. His eyes followed the mechanical process, the collection of letter molds to the assembly line. He asked:
— When I type, the letter molds are collected in this assembly grid?
— Yes.
— There are no complete lines of text. You destroyed those. But in the assembly grid, there’s a partial line, a line that hasn’t been finished.
Leo was pointing at an incomplete row of letter molds:
— Your father was halfway through a line.
The sons peered into the machine. Leo was right.
— I want to print these words.
The eldest son began tapping the space bar, remarking:
— If we add spaces to the end of the line, it will be of complete length and ready to cast as a slug.
Individual space molds were added to the incomplete line until the assembly grid was full. A plunger depressed molten lead into the mold and a narrow rectangular slug dropped out — the last words Suren Moskvin set before taking his own life.
The single slug lay on its side, its letters tilted away from view. Leo asked:
— Is it hot?
— No.
Leo picked up the slug line, placed it on the tray. He covered the surface with ink and placed a single sheet of white paper over the top, pressing down.
SEATED AT HIS KITCHEN TABLE, Leo stared at the sheet of paper. Three words were all that remained of the document that had resulted in Suren Moskvin taking his own life:
Under torture, Eikhe
Leo had read the words over and over again, unable to take his eyes off them. Out of context, their effect was nonetheless hypnotic. Breaking their spell, he pushed the sheet of paper aside and picked up his case, laying it flat on the table. Inside were two classified files. In order to obtain access to them he’d needed clearance. There’d been no difficulty regarding the first file, on Suren Moskvin. However, the second had prompted questions. The second file he’d requested was on Robert Eikhe.
Opening the first set of documents, he felt the weight of this man’s past, the number of pages accumulated on him. Moskvin had been a State Security officer — just like Leo — a Chekist, for far longer than Leo had ever served, keeping his job while thousands of officers were shot. Included in the file was a list: the denouncements Moskvin had made throughout his career:
Nestor Iurovsky. Neighbor. Executed
Rozalia Reisner. Friend. 10 years
Iakov Blok. Shopkeeper. 5 years
Karl Uritsky. Colleague. Guard. 10 years
Nineteen years of service, two pages of denouncements, and nearly one hundred names — yet he’d only ever given up one family member.
Iona Radek. Cousin. Executed
Leo recognized a technique. The dates of the denunciations were haphazard, many falling in one month and then nothing for several months. The chaotic spacing was deliberate, hiding careful calculation. Denouncing his cousin had almost certainly been strategic. Moskvin needed to make sure it didn’t look as if his loyalty to the State stopped at his family. To suffuse his list with credibility the cousin had been sacrificed: protection from the allegation that he only named people who didn’t matter to him personally. A consummate survivor, this man was an improbable suicide.
Checking the dates and locations of where Moskvin had worked, Leo sat back in surprise. They’d been colleagues: both of them employed at the Lubyanka seven years ago. Their paths had never crossed, at least not that he could remember. Leo had been an investigator, making arrests, following suspects. Moskvin had been a guard, transporting prisoners, supervising their detention. Leo had done his utmost to avoid the basement interrogation cells, as if believing the floorboards shielded him from the activities that went on below, day after day. If Moskvin’s suicide was an expression of guilt, what had triggered such extreme feelings after all this time? Leo shut the folder, turning his attention to the second file.
Robert Eikhe’s file was thicker, heavier, the front cover stamped CLASSIFIED, the pages bound shut as if to keep something noxious trapped inside. Leo unwound the string. The name seemed familiar. Glancing at the pages he saw that Eikhe had been a Party member since 1905—before the revolution — at a time when being a member of the Communist Party meant exile or execution. His record was impeccable: a former candidate for the Central Committee Politburo. Despite this, he’d been arrested on 29 April 1938. Plainly, this man was no traitor. Yet Eikhe had confessed: the protocol was in the file, page after page detailing his anti-Soviet activity. Leo had drafted too many pre-prepared confessions not to recognize this as the work of an agent, punctuated with stock phrases — signs of the in-house style, the template to which any person might be forced to sign their name. Flicking forward, Leo found a declaration of innocence written by Eikhe while imprisoned. In contrast to the confession, the prose was human, desperate, pitifully heaping praise on the Party, proclaiming love for the State, and pointing out with timid modesty the injustice of his arrest. Leo read, hardly able to breathe:
Not being able to suffer the tortures to which I was submitted by Ushakov and Nikolayev — especially by the former, who utilized the knowledge that my broken ribs have not properly mended and caused me great pain — I have been forced to accuse myself and others.
Leo knew what would follow next.
On 4 February 1940 Eikhe had been shot.
RAISA STOOD, watching her husband. Engrossed in classified files, he was oblivious to her presence. This vision of Leo — pale, tense, shoulders hunched over secret documents, the fate of other people in his hands — could have been sliced from their unhappy past. The temptation was to react as she’d done so many times before, to walk away, to avoid and ignore him. The rush of bad memories hit her like a kind of nausea. She fought against the sensation. Leo was not that man anymore. She was no longer trapped in that marriage. Walking forward, she reached out, resting a hand on his shoulder, appointing him the man she’d learned to love.
Leo flinched at her touch. He hadn’t noticed his wife enter the room. Caught unawares, he felt exposed. He stood up abruptly, the chair clattering behind him. Eye to eye, he saw her nervousness. He’d never wanted her to feel that way again. He should have explained what he was doing. He’d fallen into old habits, silence and secrets. He put his arms around her. As she rested her head on his shoulder, he knew she was peering down at the files. He explained:
— A man killed himself, a former MGB agent.
— Someone you knew?
— No. Not that I remember.
— You have to investigate?
— Suicide is treated as—
She interrupted.
— I mean… does it have to be you?
Raisa wanted him to pass the case over, to have nothing to do with the MGB, even indirectly. He pulled back.
— The case won’t take long.
She nodded, slowly, before changing the subject:
— The girls are in bed. Are you going to read for them? Maybe you’re busy?
— No, I’m not busy.
He put the files back in the case. Passing his wife he leaned in to kiss her, a kiss that she gently blocked with a finger, looking into his eyes. She said nothing, before removing her finger and kissing him — a kiss that felt as if he was making the most unbreakable and sacred of promises.
Entering his bedroom, he placed the files out of sight, an old habit. Changing his mind, he retrieved them, leaving them on the sidetable for Raisa should she want to read them. He hurried back down the hallway on his way to his daughters’ bedroom, trying to smooth the tension from his face. Smiling broadly, he opened the door.
Leo and Raisa had adopted two young sisters. Zoya was now fourteen years old and Elena seven. Leo moved toward Elena’s bed, perching on the edge, picking up a book from the cabinet, a children’s story by Yury Strugatsky. He opened the book and began to read aloud. Almost immediately Zoya interrupted:
— We’ve heard this before.
She waited a moment before adding:
— We hated it the first time.
The story concerned a young boy who wanted to be a miner. The boy’s father, also a miner, had died in an accident and the boy’s mother was fearful of her son continuing in such a dangerous profession. Zoya was right. Leo had read this before. Zoya summarized contemptuously:
— The son ends up digging more coal than anyone has ever dug before, becomes a national hero, and dedicates his prize to the memory of his father.
Leo shut the book.
— You’re right. It’s not very good. But Zoya, while it’s okay for you to say whatever you please in this house, be more careful outside. Expressing critical opinions, even about trivial matters, like a children’s story, is dangerous.
— You going to arrest me?
Zoya had never accepted Leo as her guardian. She’d never forgiven him for the death of her parents. Leo didn’t refer to himself as their father. And Zoya would call him Leo Demidov, addressing him formally, putting as much distance between them as possible. She took every opportunity to remind him that she was living with him out of practical considerations, using him as a means to an end — providing material comforts for her sister, freeing her from the orphanage. Even so, she took care that nothing impressed her, not the apartment, not their outings, day trips, or meals. As stern as she was beautiful, there was no softness in her appearance. Perpetual unhappiness seemed vitally important to her. There was little Leo could do to encourage her to shrug it off. He hoped that at some point relations would slowly improve. He was still waiting. He would, if necessary, wait forever.
— No, Zoya, I don’t do that anymore. And I never will again.
Leo reached down, picking up one of the Detskaya Literatura journals, printed for children across the country. Before he could start, Zoya cut in:
— Why don’t you make up a story? We’d like that, wouldn’t we, Elena?
When Elena had first arrived in Moscow, she’d been very young, only four years old, young enough to adapt to the changes in her life. In contrast to her older sister, she’d made friends and worked hard at school. Susceptible to flattery, she sought her teachers’ praise, trying to please everyone, including her new guardians.
Elena became anxious. She understood from the tone of her sister’s voice that she was expected to agree. Embarrassed at having to take sides, she merely nodded. Leo, sensing danger, replied:
— There are plenty of stories we haven’t read, I’m sure I can find one we like.
Zoya wouldn’t relent:
— They’re all the same. Tell us something new. Make something up.
— I doubt I’d be very good.
— You’re not even going to try? My father used to make up all kinds of stories. Set it on a remote farm, a farm in winter, with the ground covered in a layer of snow. The nearby river is frozen. It could start like this. Once upon a time there are two young girls, sisters…
— Zoya, please.
— The sisters live with their mother and their father and they’re as happy as can be. Until one day a man, in a uniform, came to arrest them and—
Leo interrupted:
— Zoya? Please?
Zoya glanced at her sister and stopped. Elena was crying. Leo stood up.
— You’re both tired. I’ll find some better books tomorrow. I promise.
Leo turned the light off and closed the door. In the hallway, he comforted himself that things would get better, eventually. All Zoya needed was a little more time.
ZOYA LAY IN BED, listening to the sound of her sister sleeping — her slow, soft intakes of breath. When they’d lived on the farm with their parents, the four of them shared a small room with thick mud walls, warmed by a wood fire. Zoya would sleep beside Elena under their coarse, hand-stitched blankets. The sound of her little sister sleeping meant safety: it meant their parents were nearby. It didn’t belong here, in this apartment, with Leo in the room next door.
Zoya never fell asleep easily. She’d lie in bed for hours, churning thoughts before exhaustion overcame her. She was the only person who cherished the truth: the only person who refused to forget. She eased herself out of bed. Aside from her little sister’s breathing, the apartment was silent. She crept to the door, her eyes already adjusted to the darkness. She navigated the hallway by keeping her hand on the wall. In the kitchen, street lighting leaked in through the window. Moving nimbly, like a thief, she opened a drawer and took hold of the handle, feeling the weight of the knife.
PRESSING THE BLADE FLAT against her leg, Zoya walked toward Leo’s bedroom. Slowly she pushed open the door until there was enough space that she could sidestep inside. She moved silently over the wood floor. The curtains were drawn, the room dark, but she knew the layout, where to tread in order to reach Leo, sleeping on the far side.
Standing directly over him Zoya raised the knife. Although she couldn’t see him, her imagination mapped the contours of his body. She wouldn’t stab him in the stomach: the blankets might absorb the blade. She’d plunge the blade through his neck, sinking it as far as she could, before he had a chance to overpower her. Knife outstretched, she pressed down with perfect control. Through the blade she felt his arm, his shoulder — she steered upward, making small depressions until the knife tip touched directly onto his skin. In position, all she had to do was grip the handle with both hands and push down.
Zoya performed this ritual at irregular intervals, sometimes once a week, sometimes not for a month. The first time had been three years ago, shortly after she and her sister had moved into this apartment from the orphanage. On that occasion she’d had every intention of killing him. That same day he’d taken them to the zoo. Neither she nor Elena had been to a zoo and, confronted with exotic animals, creatures that she’d never seen before, she’d forgotten herself. For perhaps no more than five or ten minutes, she’d enjoyed the visit. She’d smiled. He hadn’t seen her smile, she was sure of that, but it didn’t matter. Watching him together with Raisa, a happy couple, imitating a family, pretending, lying, she understood that they were trying to steal the place of her parents. And she’d let them. On her way home, on the tramcar, her guilt had been so intense she’d thrown up. Leo and Raisa had blamed the sweet snacks and the motion of the tram. That night, feverish, she’d lain in bed, crying, scratching her legs until they bled. How could she have betrayed the memory of her parents so easily? Leo believed he could win her love with new clothes, rare foods, day trips, and chocolate: it was pathetic. She’d vowed that her lapse would never happen again. There was one way to make sure: she’d taken the knife and resolved to kill him. She’d stood, as she stood now, ready to murder.
The same memory that had driven her into the room, the memory of her parents, was the reason she hadn’t killed him. They wouldn’t want this man’s blood on her hands. They would want her to look after her sister. Obedient, silently crying, she’d allowed Leo to live. Every now and then she’d come back, creeping in, armed with a knife, not because she’d changed her mind, not for revenge, not to murder, but as a memorial to her parents, as a way of saying she had not forgotten them.
The telephone rang. Startled, Zoya stepped back, the knife slipping from her hand, clattering to the floor. Dropping to her knees, she fumbled in the pitch-black frantically trying to find it. Leo and Raisa were stirring, the bed straining as they moved. They’d be reaching for the light. Working by touch alone, Zoya desperately patted the floor-boards. As the telephone rang for the second time she had no choice but to leave the knife behind, hurrying around the bed, running toward the door, slipping through the gap just as the light came on.
LEO SAT UP, his thoughts sluggish with sleep, intermingled dreams and reality — there had been movement, a figure, or perhaps there hadn’t. The phone was ringing. It only ever rang because of work. He checked his watch: almost midnight. He glanced at Raisa. She was awake, waiting for him to answer the phone. He mumbled an apology and got up. The door was ajar. Didn’t they always close it before they went to sleep? Maybe not; it didn’t matter, and he headed into the hallway.
Leo picked up the receiver. The voice on the other end was urgent, loud:
— Leo? This is Nikolai.
Nikolai: the name meant nothing to him. He didn’t reply. Correctly interpreting Leo’s silence, the man continued:
— Nikolai, your old boss! Your friend! Leo, don’t you remember? I gave you your first assignment! The priest, remember, Leo?
Leo remembered. He hadn’t heard from Nikolai in a long time. This man was of no relevance to his life now and he resented him calling.
— Nikolai, it’s late.
— Late? What’s happened to you? We didn’t start work until about now.
— Not anymore.
— No, not anymore.
Nikolai’s voice drifted off, before adding:
— I need to meet you.
His words were slurred. He was drunk.
— Nikolai, why don’t you sleep it off and we’ll talk tomorrow?
— It has to be tonight.
His voice cracked. He was on the verge of crying.
— What’s going on?
— Meet me. Please.
Leo wanted to say no.
— Where?
— Your offices.
— I’ll be there in thirty minutes.
Leo hung up. His annoyance was tempered by unease. Nikolai wouldn’t have got back in contact unless he had cause. When he returned to the bedroom, Raisa was sitting up. Leo shrugged an explanation:
— A former colleague. He wants to meet. Says it has to be tonight.
— A colleague from when?
— From…
Leo didn’t need to finish the sentence.
— Out of nowhere, he calls?
— He was drunk. I’ll speak to him.
— Leo…?
She didn’t finish. Leo nodded:
— I don’t like it either.
He grabbed his clothes, hastily getting changed. Almost ready to leave, tying his shoelaces, he saw something under the bed, something catching the light. Curious, he moved forward, crouching down. Raisa asked:
— What?
It was a large kitchen knife. Near where it lay there was a notch in the floor.
— Leo?
He should show it to her.
— It’s nothing.
As Raisa leaned over to look he stood up, hiding the knife behind his back and turning the light off.
In the hallway he laid the blade flat across his palm. He glanced at his daughters’ bedroom. He stepped toward the door and gently pushed it open. The room was dark. Both girls were in bed, asleep. In the process of retreat, silently shutting the door, he smiled at the slow, shallow breathing of Elena sleeping. He paused, listening carefully. He couldn’t hear any noise coming from Zoya’s side of the room. She was holding her breath.
DRIVING TOO FAST, LEO skidded into a turn, the tires slipping across black ice. He eased off the accelerator and brought the car back to the center of the road. In a state of agitation, his back damp with perspiration, he was relieved to arrive at the offices of the homicide department. He pulled up, resting his head against the steering wheel. In the unheated interior his breath formed a thin mist. It was one in the morning. The streets were deserted, layered with patchy snow. He began to shiver, having forgotten to grab a pair of gloves or a hat as he rushed from the apartment, hurrying to get out, to get away from the question of why the bedroom door had been ajar, why his daughter had been pretending to sleep, and why there’d been a knife under his bed.
Surely there were explanations, simple, mundane explanations. Maybe he’d left the door open. Maybe his wife had gone to the bathroom, forgetting to shut the door on her return. As for Zoya pretending to be asleep: he’d misheard. In fact, why did she need to be asleep? It made sense that she was awake, she’d been woken by the telephone and she’d been lying in bed, trying to get back to sleep, justifiably annoyed. As for the knife… he didn’t know, he just couldn’t think, but there had to be an innocent reason, even if he had no idea of what that might be.
He stepped out of the car, shutting the door, moving toward his offices. Located in the Zamoskvareche district, south of the river, an area with a high concentration of factories, his homicide department had been designated space above a vast bakery. There was mockery in the location as well as the message that their work was to remain invisible. The offices had been marked as Button Factory 14, prompting Leo to wonder what went on in the other thirteen factories.
Entering the ramshackle reception area, the floor crisscrossed with flour footsteps, Leo climbed the stairs, running the events of the night over in his mind. He’d successfully dismissed two out of three occurrences, but the third — the knife — resisted attempts to explain it away. The matter would have to wait until the morning when he could talk to Raisa. Right now Nikolai’s unexpected phone call was a greater concern. Leo needed to focus on why a man he hadn’t spoken to in six years was calling drunk in the middle of the night, begging for a meeting. There was nothing between them, no bond or friendship, nothing except that year—1949—his first year as an MGB agent.
Nikolai was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, slouched in the doorway like a vagrant. Seeing Leo arrive he stood up. His winter coat was well tailored, perhaps even foreign made, but tatty with neglect. His shirt had come unbuttoned, his stomach overflowing. He’d gained weight, lost hair. He was old- and tired-looking, his face pinched with worry, scrunched up around the eyes. He stank of smoke and sweat and booze, which, combined with the ever-present smell of baking and dough, formed a rancid combination. Leo offered his hand. Nikolai pushed it aside, embracing him, clinging on as if he’d been rescued from a mountainside. There was something pitiful about the hug— this from a man who’d built a reputation on being pitiless.
Leo’s attention was suddenly snatched away as he remembered the notch in his wood floor. Why had he forgotten that detail? It was unimportant, that’s why. Any number of things could have caused it. It might have been there for some time, it wasn’t something he’d necessarily notice, a scratch caused by furniture being moved. Yet in his gut he knew the knife and the notch were connected.
Nikolai had begun talking, rambling, slurring his words. Leo was barely paying attention as he’d opened up the department, leading his guest through to his office. Seated opposite each other, Leo clenched his hands together, leaning his elbows on the table, watching Nikolai speak but hearing almost nothing, tuning in and out, catching occasional fragments — something about being sent photographs.
— Leo, they’re photographs of the men and women I arrested.
Leo’s mind had no space for the things that Nikolai was saying. A single, terrible realization was growing inside of him, shunting every other thought aside. The knife had been dropped, the tip cutting into the floor before ricocheting under the bed, dropped because whoever had been holding it had panicked, alarmed by a sudden noise, an unexpected telephone call. The person had fled the room, leaving the door open, in too much of a rush to close it behind her.
Her
Even now, with all the pieces in place, he struggled to articulate the only logical conclusion: the person holding the knife had been Zoya.
He stood up, walking to the window and throwing it open. Cold air rushed over his face. He wasn’t sure how long he remained in this position, staring out at the night sky, but hearing a noise behind him he remembered that he was not alone. He turned around, about to apologize. He swallowed his words. Nikolai, a man who’d taught him that cruelty was necessary and good, was crying.
— Leo? You’re not even listening.
Tears still on his cheeks, Nikolai started to laugh, a noise that took Leo back to their obligatory post-arrest drinking celebrations. Tonight Nikolai’s laughter was different. It was brittle. The swagger and confidence were gone.
— You want to forget? Don’t you, Leo? I don’t blame you. I would pay anything to forget it all. What a wonderful dream that would be…
— I’m sorry, Nikolai; my mind is elsewhere, a family matter.
— You took my advice… A family, that’s good. Families are important. A man is nothing without the love of his family.
— Can we talk tomorrow? When we’re less tired?
Nikolai nodded and stood up. At the door he paused, looking down at the floor:
— I am… ashamed.
— Think nothing of it. We all drink too much from time to time. We’ll talk tomorrow.
Nikolai stared at him. Leo thought he was going to laugh again, but this time he turned around, heading toward the stairs.
Leo was thankful to be alone and able to concentrate. He couldn’t pretend any longer. He was an ever-present reminder of Zoya’s terrible loss. He’d never spoken about what happened that day, when her parents had been shot. He’d tried to brush the past aside. The knife was a cry for help. He had to act to save his family. He could fix this. Talking to Zoya: that was the solution. He had to talk to her right now.
NIKOLAI STEPPED OUTSIDE, HIS BOOTS sinking into the thin snow. Feeling the chill on his exposed stomach, he tucked his shirt into his trousers — his eyes barely able to focus, his body swaying as though he were on the deck of a boat. Why had he phoned Leo? What had he expected his former protégé to do? Perhaps he’d just come for companionship, not just any companionship such as a fellow drunk; he’d come for the company of a man who shared his shame, a man who couldn’t pass judgment without also passing that same judgment on himself.
I am ashamed.
Those were words that Leo should have understood better than anyone. Mutual shame should have brought them together and made them brothers. Leo should’ve put his arms around him and said: Me too. Had he forgotten their history so easily? No, they merely had different techniques for dealing with it. Leo had embarked on a new and noble career, scrubbing his bloody hands in a basin of warm, soapy respectability. Nikolai’s technique had been to drink until he blacked out, not for the thrill but as an attack on his memory.
Someone wouldn’t allow him to forget, sending him photographs of men and women taken against a white wall, cropped so that they were just a face. At first he hadn’t recognized the subjects although he’d realized that they were arrest photographs, the kind required by any prison bureaucracy. They arrived in batches, once a week, then once a day, every day, an envelope left at his home. Going through them he’d begun to remember names, conversations — tattered memories, a crude collage with one citizen’s arrest spliced with another’s interrogation and another’s execution. As the photographs accumulated, holding them heaped in his hands, he questioned if he’d arrested so many. In truth, he knew, he’d arrested far more.
Nikolai wanted to confess, to ask for forgiveness. But no demands were sent, no requests for an apology, no instructions on how to repent. The first envelope had been marked with his name. His wife had brought it to him. He’d opened it casually in front of her. When she’d asked what it contained he’d lied, hiding the photos. From then on, he’d been forced to open them in secret. Even after twenty years of marriage his wife didn’t know about his work. She knew he’d been a State Security officer. But she knew little more. Perhaps she was being willfully ignorant. He didn’t care whether it was willful or not, he cherished her ignorance — he depended upon it. When he looked into her eyes he saw unqualified love. If she knew, if she’d seen the faces of the people he’d arrested, if she’d seen their faces after two days of questioning, there would be fear in her eyes. The same was true for his daughters. They laughed and joked with him. They loved him and he loved them. He was a good father, attentive and patient, never raising his voice, never drinking at home — a home where he remained a good man.
Someone wanted to steal this from him. Within the last couple of days the envelopes were no longer marked with his name. Anyone could have opened them: his wife, his daughters. Nikolai had become afraid to go out in case something should arrive in his absence. He’d made his family swear to bring to him any package or letter whether it was marked with a name or not. Yesterday he’d gone into his daughters’ room to find an unmarked letter on their bedside table. He’d lost his temper, wild with anger, furiously asking if the girls had opened it. They’d cried, confused by the sudden transformation, assuring him they’d put it on the table for safekeeping. He’d seen fear in their eyes. It had broken his heart. It had been the moment he’d decided to seek Leo’s help. The State must catch these criminals that were senselessly persecuting him. He’d given many years of service to his country. He was a patriot. He’d earned the right to live in peace. Leo could help: he had an investigative team at his disposal. It would be in their mutual interests to hunt down these counterrevolutionaries. It would be just like old times. Except Leo hadn’t wanted to know.
The early morning workers were already arriving at the bakery. They stopped, staring at Nikolai in the doorway. He snarled:
— What?
They said nothing, remaining huddled, some meters away, not passing him.
— You judge me?
Their faces were blank, men and women waiting to bake the city’s bread. He had to get home, to the one place, the only place where he was loved and where his past meant nothing.
Living nearby, he staggered through the deserted streets, hoping that in his absence another package of photographs hadn’t arrived. He stopped walking: his breathing was shallow and heavy, like an old, unhealthy dog. There was something else, another noise. He turned around, looking behind him. Footsteps — he was sure of it, the tap, tap of hard heels on stone pavements. He was being followed. He lurched toward the shadows, searching for outlines, straining his eyes. They were after him, his enemies, stalking him: hunting him as he had once hunted them.
He was running now, home, as fast as he could. He stumbled before regaining his balance, his coat flapping about his ankles. Changing tack, he spun around. He’d catch them at this game. He knew these tricks. They were his tricks. They were using his methods against him. Staring at the dark corners, the murky enclaves, the hiding places where he’d trained MGB recruits to move between in, he called out:
— I know you’re there.
His voice echoed down the seemingly empty street. Empty to a layman, but he was an expert in such matters. His defiance was brief, melting away:
— I have children, two daughters. They love me! They don’t deserve this. You hurt me and you hurt them.
His children had been born while he was an MGB officer. After arresting fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, every night he’d gone home and kissed his own family good night.
— What about the others? There are millions of others; if you killed us all, there’d be no one left. We were all involved!
People were appearing at the windows, drawn out by his shouting. He could point to any building, any house, and inside there’d be former officers and guards. The men and women in uniform were the obvious targets. There were also the train drivers who took the prisoners to the Gulags, the men and women who processed paperwork, stamped forms, the people who cooked and cleaned. The system required the consent of everyone, even if they consented by doing nothing. Nothing was enough. They’d depended upon a lack of resistance as much as they’d depended on volunteers. He would not be a scapegoat. This wasn’t his burden alone. Everyone carried a collective guilt. He was prepared to feel remorse from time to time, to spend a minute each day thinking over the terrible things he’d done. The people hounding him weren’t satisfied with that. They wanted more.
Fearful, Nikolai turned and ran, wildly this time, as fast as he could. Tangled up in his coat, he fell over, crashing down into the slushy snow, his clothes soaking up the filthy water. Slowly getting up, his knee throbbing, his trousers ripped, he ran again, water streaming from his coattails. It wasn’t long before he fell again. This time he began to cry, exhausted, awful sobs. Rolling onto his back, he pulled himself free from his coat, now impossibly heavy. He’d bought it many years ago from one of the restricted stores. He’d been proud of it. It was proof of his status. He didn’t need it anymore: he’d never go out again, he’d stay at home, lock the door, and pull the curtains shut.
Reaching his apartment block, he entered the hallway panting and sweating — dirty water dripping from his clothes. Soaking wet, pressed against the wall, leaving an impression of his body, he checked the street, waiting to catch a glimpse of his pursuers. Unable to see anyone — they were too sly — he climbed the stairs, his feet slipping, then scrambling up on all fours. The closer he got to home, the more he relaxed. They couldn’t reach him through these walls, his sanctuary. As if he’d swallowed a soothing tonic he began to think rationally. He was drunk. He’d overreacted, that was all. Of course he’d made enemies over the years, people with grudges, bitter at his success. If all they could do was send him a couple of photographs he didn’t need to worry. The majority — society — respected and valued him. He breathed deeply, reaching his landing and groping for his key.
Outside his front door was a package, roughly thirty centimeters long, twenty centimeters wide, and ten centimeters deep, wrapped in brown paper, neatly bound with string. There was no name, no label, just an ink drawing on the paper, a crucifix. Nikolai dropped to his knees. His hands trembled as he pulled the string free. Inside was a box. The top of the box was marked:
NOT FOR PRESS
He lifted the lid. There were no photographs. Instead, there was a stack of neatly printed pages, a substantial document, over a hundred pages long. On the top rested an accompanying letter. He picked it up, scanning the words. It wasn’t addressed to him: it was an official State letter declaring that this speech was to be distributed to every school, every factory, workers and youth group up and down the country. Confused, he put the letter down, taking up the speech. He read the first page carefully. He began shaking his head. This couldn’t be true. It was a lie, a malicious fabrication, intended to drive him insane. This could never have been published by the State: they would never distribute such a document. It was impossible.
INNOCENT
VICTIMS
TORTURE
These words couldn’t exist in black and white, printed, State-sanctioned, distributed to every school and factory. When he caught the perpetrator of this hoax, this well-informed hoax, he’d have them executed.
Involuntarily Nikolai scrunched up the page he was reading and tossed it aside. He began to tear at the next page, and the next, ripping them into shreds, tossing the scraps aside. He stopped, bending forward, curling into a ball, his head resting on the unread pages, muttering to himself:
— It can’t be true.
How could it be? But it was here, with a State-stamped letter, containing information only the State would know, with sources, quotes, references. The conspiracy of silence, which Nikolai had presumed would last forever, was over. It was no trick.
The speech was real.
Nikolai stood up, leaving the papers scattered. He unlocked the door and entered his apartment, abandoning the papers to the communal hallway. It didn’t matter if he locked the door behind him and pulled the curtains shut, his home was no longer a sanctuary. There were no sanctuaries any longer. Soon everyone would know, every schoolchild and every factory worker would read the speech. Not only would they know, they’d be allowed to talk openly, encouraged to discuss.
He pushed open the bedroom door, staring down at his wife, asleep, on her side, her hands under her head. She was beautiful. He adored her. They lived a perfect, privileged life. They had two wonderful, happy daughters. His wife had never known disgrace. She’d never known shame. She’d never known Nikolai in any other guise than that of a loving husband, a tender man who’d die for his family. He sat on the edge of the bed, running a finger along her pale arm. He couldn’t live with her knowing the truth, changing her opinion of him, pulling away, asking questions, or, worse still, remaining silent. Her silence would be unbearable. All her friends would ask questions. She’d be judged. How much did she know? Had she always known? Better that he should not live to see her shamed. Better that he should die now.
Except his death would change nothing. She would still find out. She would wake to find his body and she would cry and grieve. Then she would read the speech. Although she’d attend his funeral she would wonder at the things he’d done. She would rethink the moments they spent together, when he’d touched her, when he’d made love to her. Had he murdered someone hours before? Had her home been bought with blood? Perhaps, eventually, she would even come to believe that he deserved to die and that taking his life had been the right thing to do, not just for him but also for their daughters.
He picked up the pillow. His wife was strong and she would struggle, but even though he was out of shape, he was confident of his ability to overpower her. He positioned himself carefully and she moved accordingly, sensing his body, no doubt pleased he was home. She rolled onto her back, smiling. He couldn’t look at her face anymore. He had to act now before he lost his nerve. He lowered the pillow quickly, not wanting to catch sight of her opening her eyes. He pressed down as hard as he could. Quickly she grabbed at the pillow, at his wrists, scratching. It was no good, he wouldn’t let go — she couldn’t pull loose. Rather than trying to break his grip, she tried to wriggle out from underneath. He straddled her, locking his legs around her stomach, keeping her fixed in position and unable to move while he kept the pillow in place. She was pinned down, helpless, weakening. Her hands no longer scratched, they merely held his wrists until they went slack and fell by her side.
He remained in the same position, on top of her, holding the pillow for some minutes after she stopped moving. Finally, he eased back, letting go, leaving the pillow across her face. He didn’t want to see her bloodshot eyes. He wanted to remember her expression as being full of love. He reached under the pillow so that he might shut her eyelids. His fingertip roamed her face, getting closer and closer until he touched her pupil — the faintly sticky surface. He carefully closed her eyelids and lifted the pillow, looking down at her. She was at peace. He lay beside her, his arms around her waist.
Exhausted, Nikolai almost fell asleep. He shook himself awake. He was not finished yet. Standing up, neatening the bedsheets, he picked up the pillow and walked out into the living room, turning toward his daughters’ bedroom.
ZOYA AND ELENA WERE ASLEEP: Leo could hear the rise and fall of their breathing. Adjusting to the darkness, he carefully shut the door behind him. He couldn’t fail at being a father. Let the homicide department close, let him be stripped of his apartment and privileges, there had to be some way of saving his family, nothing mattered more. And he was sure that this family, despite its problems, offered the best chance for all of them. He refused to imagine a future where they wouldn’t be together. It was true that both girls were far closer to Raisa than they were to him. Clearly the obstacle wasn’t the adoption but his past. He’d been naïve in thinking that his relationship with Elena and Zoya merely required time and that like a trick of perspective moving far enough away from the incident would make it appear smaller and less significant. Even now he used euphemisms—the incident—for the murder of her parents. Zoya’s anger was as vivid as the day her parents had been shot. Instead of denial, he had to confront her hatred directly.
Zoya was sleeping on her side, facing the wall. Leo reached over and took hold of her shoulder, gently rolling her onto her back. The intention had been to ease her out of her sleep, but instead she sat up straight, her body tensing, pulling away from his touch. Without realizing exactly what he was doing he placed his other hand on her shoulder, stopping her from moving away. He did it for the best of reasons, for both of their sakes. He needed her to listen. Attempting to maintain a measured, reassuring tone, he whispered:
— Zoya, we need to talk, the two of us. It can’t wait. If I wait till morning I’ll find some excuse and I’ll delay till tomorrow. I’ve already delayed for three years.
She said nothing, remaining motionless, her eyes fixed on him. Although he’d spent at least an hour in the kitchen trying to work out exactly what to say, those carefully planned words disappeared:
— You were in my bedroom. I found the knife.
He’d opened on the wrong topic. He was here to talk about his failings, not to criticize her. He tried to turn the conversation around:
— First, let me make clear, I’m a different person now. I’m not the officer that came to your parents’ farm. Also, remember, I tried to save your parents. I failed. I will live with that failure for the rest of my life. I can’t bring them back. But I can give you and your sister opportunities. That’s how I see this family. It’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for you and for Elena, but also for me.
Leo stopped, remaining silent, waiting to see if she’d ridicule the notion. She didn’t move or speak. Her lips were clamped together: her body was rigid.
— Can’t you… try?
Her voice trembled, her first words:
— Let go.
— Zoya, don’t get upset: just tell me what you’re thinking. Be honest. Tell me what you want me to do. Tell me what kind of person you want me to be.
— Let go.
— No, Zoya, please, you have to understand how important this is.
— Let go.
— Zoya…
Her voice became higher, strained — desperate:
— Let go!
Stunned, he pulled back. She was whining like a wounded animal. How had this gone so wrong? In disbelief he watched as she recoiled from his affection. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He was trying to express his love for her. She was throwing it back in his face. Zoya was ruining this, not just for him. She was ruining it for everyone. Elena wanted to be part of a family. He knew she did. She held his hand: she smiled, laughed. She wanted to be happy. Raisa wanted to be happy. They all just wanted to be happy. Except for Zoya, stubbornly refusing to recognize that he’d changed, childishly clinging on to her hatred as if it was her favorite doll.
Leo noticed the smell. Touching the sheets he discovered they were damp. Even so, it took him a second or two to understand that Zoya had wet the bed. He stood up, stepped back, muttering:
— That’s okay. I’ll clean up. Don’t worry. That’s my fault. I’m to blame.
Zoya shook her head, saying nothing, scrunching her hands against her temples, clawing at the sides of her face. Leo became short of breath, perplexed that his love could create such misery:
— Zoya, I’ll take the sheets.
She shook her head, clutching the piss-stained sheets as if they were protecting her from him. By now Elena was awake and crying.
Leo turned to the door and then turned back again, unable to leave her in such a state. How could he fix the problem when he was the problem?
— I just want to love you, Zoya.
Elena was looking from Zoya to Leo. Her being awake resulted in a change in Zoya. She regained her composure, calmly telling Leo:
— I’m going to wash my sheets. I’m going to do it myself. I don’t need your help.
Leo left the room, leaving the young girl he’d hoped to win over sitting in piss and tears.
ENTERING THE KITCHEN, Leo paced the room, drunk on catastrophe. While he’d tidied away the files, the sheet of paper from Moskvin’s printing press was as he’d left it:
Under torture, Eikhe
An appropriate companion: a reminder of his former career, a career that was going to shadow him forever. Picturing Zoya’s reaction in the bedroom, Leo was forced to contemplate something he’d only minutes ago dismissed as unthinkable. The family might have to be broken apart.
Had his desire to hold them together become a blind obsession? It was forcing Zoya to pick at a scab that would never heal, infecting her with hatred and bitterness. Of course, if she couldn’t live with him then neither could Elena. The sisters were inseparable. He’d have no choice but to find them a new home, one with no connection to the State, perhaps outside of Moscow in a smaller town where the apparatus of power was less visible. He and Raisa would need to search for suitable guardians, meeting prospective parents and wondering if they could do a better job, if they could bring the girls happiness, something Leo had so utterly failed to provide.
Raisa appeared at the door:
— What’s going on?
She’d come from their bedroom. She didn’t know about the bedwetting, the conversation, referring instead to Nikolai, the phone call, the midnight meeting. Leo’s voice was cracked with emotion:
— Nikolai was drunk. I told him we’d talk when he was sober.
— That took all night?
What was he waiting for? He should sit her down and explain.
— Leo? What’s wrong?
He’d promised there would be no more secrets. Yet he couldn’t admit that after three years of trying to be a father he had nothing but Zoya’s hatred to show for it. He couldn’t admit that he had woken her in the middle of the night, pathetically petitioning to be her father. He was afraid. The division of their family might make Raisa wonder which side of the divide she wanted to be on. Would she remain with the girls or with him? For the years he’d been an MGB officer she’d despised him and everything he represented. In contrast, she loved Elena and Zoya without qualification. Her love for him was complicated. Her love for them was simple. In making her decision she might choose to remember the man he was, the man he used to be. Part of him was convinced that his relationship with Raisa depended upon him proving himself as a father. For the first time in three years he lied to her:
— Nothing is wrong. It was a shock seeing Nikolai again. That’s all.
Raisa nodded. She looked down the hall.
— Are the girls awake?
— They woke up when I came back. I’m sorry. I said sorry to them.
Raisa picked up the sheet of paper taken from the printing press.
— You better move this before the girls sit down.
Leo took the sheet, carrying it to their room. He perched on the bed, watching as Raisa left the kitchen to wake the girls. Nervous, nearly sick, he waited for Raisa to discover the truth. His lie had bought him a temporary reprieve and no more than that. She would listen as Zoya explained what had happened.
He looked up, stunned to see Raisa casually emerge from the bedroom, returning to the kitchen without saying a word. Seconds later Zoya emerged, carrying her sheets to the bathroom where she deposited them in the bath, running the hot water. She hadn’t told Raisa. She didn’t want Raisa to know. The only thing she hated more than Leo was the idea that he’d been able to embarrass her in this way.
Leo stood up, entering the kitchen and asking:
— Zoya’s washing the sheets?
Raisa nodded. Leo continued:
— She doesn’t need to do that. I can arrange to have them cleaned.
Raisa lowered her voice:
— I think she had an accident. Just leave her, okay?
Leo nodded:
— Okay.
Elena entered first, her shirt buttoned up incorrectly, taking her seat. She was silent. Leo smiled at her. She studied his smile as if it were something unknown and threatening. She did not smile back. He could hear Zoya’s footsteps. They stopped. She was standing out of sight, waiting in the hall.
Zoya stepped into view. She faced Leo directly, looking at him from across the room. She glanced at Raisa, who was busy stirring the oats, then at her sister, who was eating. She understood that he hadn’t told them either. The knife was their secret. The bedwetting was their secret. They were accomplices, complicit in this false family. Zoya wasn’t ready to tear the family apart. Her love for Elena was stronger than her hatred of him.
Gingerly, like an alley cat, Zoya moved toward her seat. She didn’t touch her breakfast. In turn, Leo ate nothing, churning the oats in the bowl, unable to look up. Raisa was unimpressed:
— Neither of you are going to eat?
Leo waited for Zoya to reply. She said nothing. Leo began to eat. As soon as he did, Zoya stood up, depositing her untouched bowl in the sink.
— I feel sick.
Raisa stood up, checking her temperature:
— Are you well enough for school?
— Yes.
The girls left the table. Raisa moved close to Leo:
— What is wrong with you today?
Leo was sure, if he opened his mouth, he’d start to cry. He said nothing, his hands clenched under the table.
Shaking her head, Raisa moved off to help the girls. There was bustle around the front door: final preparations to leave, coats being put on. The door was opened. Raisa returned to the kitchen, carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper, tied with string. She placed it on the table and walked out. The front door slammed shut.
Leo didn’t move for several minutes. Then, slowly, he reached forward, pulling the parcel toward him. They lived inside a ministerial compound. Letters were normally left at the gate: this had been left on his doorstep. The parcel was about thirty centimeters long, twenty centimeters wide, and ten centimeters deep. There was no name, no address, just an ink drawing of a crucifix. Ripping the brown paper, he saw a box, the top of which was stamped:
NOT FOR PRESS
THE METRO CARRIAGE WASN’T CROWDED yet Elena took hold of Raisa’s hand, gripping it tightly, as if fearful they were about to be separated. Both girls were unusually quiet. Leo’s behavior this morning had unsettled them. Raisa couldn’t understand what had come over him. Normally so careful around the girls, he’d seemed to accept that they were about to sit down for breakfast and witness him preoccupied by that word: torture. When she’d asked him to take the sheet of paper away, his cue to pull himself together, he’d obeyed only to return to the kitchen in exactly the same disheveled state, staring at the girls and not saying a word. Bloodshot eyes, a haunted, ragged look: she hadn’t seen that expression for years, not since his returns from all-night assignments as a secret police officer, exhausted and yet unable to go to bed. He’d slump in the corner, in the dark, brooding, silent, as though the events of the previous night were playing over and over in his mind like a looped reel of film. During that period he’d never spoken about his work yet she’d known what he’d been doing, arresting indiscriminately, and she’d secretly hated him for it.
Those times were past. He’d changed — she was sure of it. He’d risked his life to break from a profession of midnight arrests and forced confessions. The State Security apparatus still existed, renamed the KGB, remaining a presence in everyone’s life, but Leo played no part in its operations, having declined the offer of a high-ranking position. Instead, taking a much greater risk, he’d opened his own investigative department. Every night he shared stories of his working day, partly because he sought her advice, partly to show how different his department was from the KGB, but mostly to prove there were no more secrets between them. Yet her approval wasn’t enough. Observing him around the girls, it struck Raisa that he behaved as if he were cursed, a character in a children’s fairy tale, and only the words—I love you— spoken by both girls, could break the dark magic of his past.
Despite his frustrations, he’d never shown any jealousy of Raisa’s easy relationship with Elena and Zoya even when Zoya deliberately tormented him by being openly affectionate to her and cold to him. Over the past three years he’d withstood rejection and rudeness, never losing his temper, soaking up hostility as if he considered it nothing less than he deserved. In the face of this, he’d made the girls his only hope of redemption. Zoya knew it and reacted against it. The more he sought her affection, the more she hated him. Raisa couldn’t point out the contradiction, or tell him to relax. Once fanatical about Communism, he was now fanatical about his family. His vision of utopia had been made smaller, less abstract, and though it now encompassed only four people, rather than the entire world, it remained just as elusive.
The train pulled into TsPkiO station, abbreviated from its full name, Tsentralnyl Park Kulturyi Otdykha Imeni Gorkovo. The first time the girls had heard it formally read out over the PA system they’d started to laugh. Caught unaware by this chance absurdity, Zoya had revealed a beautiful smile that, up until then, she’d kept locked out of sight. In that moment Raisa caught a glimpse of the child that had been lost — playful and irreverent. Within seconds Zoya’s smile had been wiped away. Raisa had felt an intense pain. She was no less emotionally involved. She and Leo had been unable to have children of their own: adoption was her only hope of motherhood. However, she was by far the better at concealing her thoughts, even if Leo had been trained by the secret police. She’d made a tactical decision, careful that the girls not be constantly aware of how important they were to her. She treated them without fuss or ceremony, establishing functional foundations — school, clothes, food, going out, homework. Though they both went about it in different ways, she shared Leo’s dream — the dream of creating a loving, happy family.
Raisa and the girls exited the station on the corner of Ostozhenka and Novokrymskiy, following a path dug through the snow on their way to their respective schools. Raisa had wanted to enroll both girls at the same school where, ideally, she also would have taught so that the three of them could have been together. However, the decision had been made, either by the school authorities or at a higher level, that Zoya would attend Lycee 1535. Since it only accepted secondary students Elena was forced into a separate primary school. Raisa had resisted since the majority of schools accepted both primary and secondary students and there was no need to split them up. Her request had been declined. Siblings were at school to create a relationship with the State, not to shelter within family ties. According to that rationale, Raisa was lucky to get a job at Lycee 1535 and so she’d relinquished the demand in order to preserve the advantage. At least this way she was able to keep an eye on Zoya. Although Elena was younger and had been more obviously nervous about the prospect of a new school in a large city, Zoya concerned Raisa far more. She’d fallen further behind academically, her village school not being up to Moscow’s standards. There was no question that she was intelligent. But it was unpolished, directionless, ill-disciplined, and, unlike Elena, Zoya steadfastly refused to make any efforts to fit in, as if it were a matter of principle that she remain isolated.
Outside the primary school, a converted prerevolutionary aristocratic town house, Raisa took an unnecessary amount of time tending to Elena’s uniform. Finally, holding her close, she whispered:
— Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.
For the first few months Elena had cried when she’d been separated from Zoya. Though she’d gradually adjusted to spending eight hours apart, at the end of every school day, without exception, she’d stand by the gates eagerly awaiting their reunion. Her excitement at seeing her older sister return hadn’t diminished, a reunion as full of joy as if a year had passed.
After Zoya had given her sister a hug, Elena hurried into school, pausing at the doors to wave good-bye. Once she was inside, Zoya and Raisa walked in silence toward the Lycee. Raisa resisted the urge to question Zoya. She didn’t want to agitate her before class. Even the simplest of inquiries risked putting her on the defensive, setting off a chain of disruptive behavior that rippled throughout the day. If she asked about schoolwork it was an implicit criticism of her academic achievements. If she asked about her classmates it was a reference to her refusal to make any friends. The only subject open to discussion was Zoya’s athletic abilities. She was tall and strong. Needless to say, she hated team sports, unable to take orders. Individual sports were a different matter — she was an excellent swimmer and runner, the fastest in the school for her age. But Zoya refused to compete. If entered into a competition she would deliberately forfeit the race, although she had enough pride not to come last. She’d aim for fourth, and since she occasionally mistimed it, or forgot herself in the heat of the moment, she might come in third or even second.
Built in 1929, Lycee 1535 was angular and stark in design, intending to embody an egalitarian approach to learning, a new kind of architecture for a new kind of student. Twenty meters from the gates Zoya stopped walking, remaining fixed to the spot and staring straight ahead. Raisa crouched down:
— What is it?
Zoya dropped her head, speaking under her breath:
— I feel sad. I feel sad all the time.
Raisa bit her lip, trying not to cry. She put a hand on Zoya’s arm:
— Tell me what I can do.
— Elena can’t go back to that orphanage: she can’t ever go back.
— No one is going anywhere.
— I want her to stay with you.
— She will. You both will. Of course you will. I love you very much.
Raisa had never dared to say that aloud. Zoya looked at her carefully:
— I could be happy… living with you.
They’d never spoken like this. Raisa had to be careful: if she said the wrong thing, gave the wrong reply, Zoya would close down and she might not get another chance.
— Tell me what you want me to do.
Zoya considered:
— Leave Leo.
Her beautiful eyes seemed to swell, soaking up every detail of Raisa’s reaction. Zoya’s expression was filled with hope at the notion of never seeing Leo again. She was asking Raisa to divorce Leo. Where could she have learned about divorce? It was rarely spoken about. The State’s initially permissive attitude had hardened under Stalin, making divorce more difficult, expensive and stigmatized. In the past, Raisa had considered a life without Leo many times. Had Zoya detected the remnants of that embittered relationship and drawn hope from it? Would she have dared ask if she didn’t think there was a chance Raisa would have said yes?
— Zoya…
Raisa was gripped by an intense desire to give this girl anything she wanted. At the same time, she was young — she needed guidance, she couldn’t make outlandish demands and expect them to come true.
— Leo’s changed. Let’s talk, you and me and him, together, tonight.
— I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to hear his voice. I want you to leave him.
— But Zoya… I love him.
The hope drained from Zoya’s face. Her expression became cold. Without saying another word she broke into a run, leaving Raisa behind, hurrying through the main gates.
Raisa watched as Zoya disappeared into the school. She couldn’t run after her: there was no way they could speak in front of the other students, and anyway, it was too late. Zoya would remain silent, refusing to answer. The moment had passed, the opportunity was gone, Raisa had given her reply—I love him. Words greeted with a grim stoicism, like a convict hearing a death sentence confirmed. Cursing herself for responding so definitively, Raisa entered the school grounds. Ignoring the students and teachers passing her, she considered Zoya’s dream — a life without Leo.
Inside the school building she entered the staff room, unable to concentrate, dizzy and distracted. She found a parcel waiting for her. There was a letter attached. She ripped it open, glancing at the contents. It contained instructions that she was to read the enclosed document to all her students, every year group. The letter was from the Ministry of Education. Tearing off the brown paper wrapped around the parcel, she glanced at the top of the box:
NOT FOR PRESS
She lifted the lid, taking out the thick stack of neatly typed pages. As a politics teacher she was regularly sent material and instructed to convey it to her students. Having read the covering letter, she tossed it into the bin, only to see that the bin was filled with identical letters. Copies must have been sent to every teacher, every class must be having the speech read to them. Already running late, Raisa picked up the box, hurrying out.
Arriving at class, she saw the pupils talking, making the most of her delay. There were thirty students, aged between fifteen and sixteen. She’d taught many of them for the full three years she’d been at the school. She put the pages down on the table, explaining that today they’d be hearing a speech by their leader Khrushchev. Waiting for the applause to die down, she read aloud:
— Special report to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. By Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, First Secretary, Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
It was the first congress since Stalin’s death. Raisa reminded her class that the Communist revolution was worldwide and that at these gatherings were emissaries from international workers’ parties as well as Soviet leaders. Braced for an hour of platitudes and self-congratulatory declarations, her thoughts focused on the unlikely hope that Zoya would make it through the day without getting into a fight.
Very quickly her attention was brought back to the material she was reading. This was no ordinary speech. It opened with none of the normal descriptions of startling Soviet successes. Midway through the fourth paragraph, her hands tight around the paper, she stopped, unable to believe the sentences set out before her. The class was silent. In an uncertain voice she read:
— … The cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of Party principles, of Party democracy, of revolutionary legality.
Amazed, she flicked forward, wondering if there was more, reading silently:
— The negative characteristics of Stalin, which, in Lenin’s time, were only incipient, transformed themselves during the last years into a grave abuse of power…
She’d spent her entire career propagandizing the State, teaching these children that the State was always right, good, and just. If Stalin had been guilty of fostering a cult, Raisa had been instrumental in that. She’d justified teaching such falsehoods since it was necessary that her students learn the language of adulation, the vocabulary of State worship without which they’d be vulnerable to suspicion. The relationship between a student and teacher depended upon trust. She believed she’d upheld that premise, not in the orthodox sense that she’d told the truth, but she’d told them the truths they needed to hear. These words made her a cheat. She looked up. The students were too confused to understand the implications immediately. But they would eventually. They would understand that she was not an enlightened role model but a slave to whoever happened to be in charge.
The door was flung open. Iulia Peshkova, a teacher, was standing in the doorway, her face bright red — her mouth open, startled, unable to speak. Raisa stood up:
— What is it?
— Come quickly.
Iulia was Zoya’s teacher. Fear struck Raisa. She put down the pages, telling her class to remain in their seats and following Iulia down the corridor, down the stairs, unable to get a sensible answer:
— What happened?
— It’s Zoya. It’s the speech. I was reading and she… you must see for yourself.
They reached the classroom. Iulia stood back, allowing Raisa to go in first. She opened the door. Zoya was standing on the teacher’s desk. The desk had been pushed up against the wall. All the other students were at the opposite end of the room, bunched up, as far away as possible, as if Zoya had some contagious disease. Around her feet were the pages of the speech and shards of glass. Zoya was standing proud, triumphant. Her hands were bloody. They clasped the remains of a poster taken down from the wall, an image of Stalin with the words printed underneath:
FATHER TO ALL CHILDREN
Zoya had climbed onto the table to take the picture off the wall: she’d smashed the frame, cutting her hand before ripping the poster in two, decapitating the image of Stalin. Her eyes were ablaze with victory. She raised the halves of the poster, streaked with her blood, as if brandishing the body of a vanquished foe:
— He’s not my father.
IN THE COMMUNAL CORRIDOR outside Nikolai’s apartment were the remains of the speech. Seeing the ripped pages, glancing at the words, Leo drew his gun. Behind him, Timur did the same. Paper scrunching underfoot, Leo reached out, taking hold of the door handle. The apartment was unlocked. He nudged open the door, the two of them stepping into the empty living area. There was no sign of a disturbance. The doors to the other rooms were closed except for one — the bathroom door.
The bath was full to the rim, the bloody water’s surface broken only by the emergence of Nikolai’s head and the island of his plump, hairy stomach. His eyes and mouth were open, as if amazed that an angel and not a demon had welcomed him to death. Leo crouched beside his former mentor, a man whose every lesson he had spent the past three years trying to unlearn. Timur called out:
— Leo…
Noting his deputy’s tone, Leo stood up, following him to the adjacent bedroom.
The two girls appeared to be sleeping, the blankets pulled over their bodies up to their necks. Had it been night, the stillness of the room would’ve felt natural. But it was midday and sunlight was pushing through the gaps in the curtains. Both girls were facing the walls, their backs turned to each other. The eldest daughter’s long glossy hair was spread over the pillow. Leo swept it back, touching her neck. The faintest trace of warmth remained, preserved under the thick comforter that she’d been lovingly tucked under. There was no sign of any injury on her body. The younger daughter, no more than four years old, was positioned identically. She was cold. Her small body had lost its warmth quicker than that of her sister’s. Leo closed his eyes. He could’ve saved these girls.
Next door, Nikolai’s wife, Ariadna, was arranged, as her daughters had been, in a semblance of sleep. Leo had known her a little. Seven years ago, after an arrest, Nikolai used to insist that Leo eat with him. No matter how late, Ariadna had always made dinner, offering hospitality and civility after Leo and Nikolai’s mutual savagery. The dinners had been intended as demonstration of the value of domestic space where the details of their bloody employment did not exist, where they could maintain the illusion of being nothing more than an ordinary loving husband. Sitting at her dressing table, Leo regarded the ivory bone hairbrush, perfumes and powders — luxuries that Ariadna had accepted as payment for her unquestioning devotion. She hadn’t realized that ignorance wasn’t a choice: it was a condition of her existence. Nikolai wouldn’t tolerate his family in any other form.
Never tell your wife anything.
As a young officer Leo had interpreted that warning, whispered to him after he’d made his first arrest, as referring to the need for caution and secrecy, a lesson in not trusting even those closest to him. But that was not what Nikolai had meant at all.
Unable to stay in the apartment any longer, Leo stood up, unsteady on his feet. Leaving the bodies behind, he hurried to the communal hallway, leaning against the wall, breathing deeply and staring down at the remains of Khrushchev’s speech, delivered and positioned outside Nikolai’s front door with lethal intent. Returning home last night, Nikolai had read a small fraction; most of it was still untouched in the box. One page had been shredded. Had Nikolai believed he could destroy these words? If that thought had crossed his mind, the accompanying letter would’ve ended that hope. The speech was to be copied and distributed. The inclusion of the official letter was a message to Nikolai that the secrets of his past were no longer his to control.
Leo glanced at Timur. Before joining the homicide department he’d been a militia officer, arresting drunks and thieves and rapists. The militia had not been excluded from making politicized arrests. However, Timur had been fortunate, no such demands had been placed on him, at least not that he’d ever admitted to Leo.
A man who rarely lost control of his emotions, Timur was visibly angry:
— Nikolai was a coward.
Leo nodded. It was true. He’d been too scared to face disapproval. Nikolai’s life was his family. He couldn’t live without them. He couldn’t die without them either.
Leo picked up a page from the speech, regarding it as if it were a knife or a gun — the most effective of murder weapons. He’d read the speech this morning, after it had been delivered to him. Shocked at the outspoken attack, it had taken Leo very little time to realize that if he’d been sent the speech, Nikolai would have too. The intended target was clear: the people responsible for the crimes described.
The clump of footsteps filled the stairway. The KGB had arrived.
KGB OFFICERS ENTERED THE APARTMENT, regarding Leo with open contempt. No longer one of them, he’d turned his back on their ranks. He’d refused a job in order to run his homicide department, a department they’d been lobbying to shut down since its inception. Prizing loyalty above all else, in their eyes he was the worst of things— a traitor.
Taking charge was Frol Panin, Leo’s superior officer from the Interior Ministry, the office of Criminal Investigations. Some fifty years old, Panin was handsome, well tailored, charming. Though Leo had never seen a Hollywood movie, he imagined Panin was the type of man they’d cast. Fluent in several languages, he was a former ambassador who’d survived Stalin’s reign by remaining abroad. It was rumored that he didn’t drink, that he exercised daily and had his hair cut once a week. In contrast to many officials who prided themselves on their modest background and indifference to anything as bourgeois as appearances, Panin was brazenly immaculate. Soft-spoken, polite, he was a new breed of official who no doubt approved of Khrushchev’s speech. Behind his back he was frequently badmouthed. It was claimed that no man as effete as him would have lasted under Stalin. His hands were too soft, his nails too clean. Leo was sure that Panin would have accepted it as a compliment.
Panin briskly studied the crime scene before addressing the KGB officers:
— No one leaves the building. Head count all the other apartments, check them against residential records and make sure every person is accounted for. No one goes to work; those who have already left, bring in for questioning. Interview everyone — find out what they saw or heard. If you suspect they’re lying, or holding back, take them into a cell and ask them again. No violence, no threats, just make them understand that our patience has limits. If they do know something…
Panin paused, adding:
— We’ll deal with that on an individual basis.Also, I want a cover story. Agree the details among yourselves but no mention of murder. Is that understood?
Thinking better of giving them responsibility for a plausible lie, he continued:
— These four citizens were not murdered. They were arrested, taken away. The children have been sent to an orphanage. Begin to sow talk of their subversive attitudes. Use the people you have at your disposal in nearby communities. It is imperative no one catches sight of the bodies when they’re taken out. Clear the street if you have to.
It was better that society believe an entire family had been arrested, never to be seen again, rather than know that a retired MGB officer had murdered his family.
Panin turned to Leo:
— You met Nikolai last night?
— He phoned around midnight. I was surprised. I hadn’t spoken to him in over five years. He was upset, drunk. He wanted to meet me. I agreed. I was tired. It was late. He was incoherent. I told him to go home and we’d talk when he was sober. That was the last I saw of him. When he got home, he found Khrushchev’s speech on his doorstep. It was put there as part of a campaign against him, instigated, I believe, by the same people who put the speech on my doorstep this morning.
— Have you read the speech?
— Yes, it’s the reason I came here. It seemed too much of a coincidence that it was delivered to me at the same time as Nikolai getting in touch.
Panin turned, staring at Nikolai in the bloody bathwater:
— I was in the Kremlin Palace when Nikita Khrushchev delivered the speech. Several hours and no one moved, silence, disbelief. Only a very small number of people worked on it, select members of the Presidium. No warning was given. The Twentieth Congress began with ten days of unremarkable talks. Delegates were still applauding Stalin’s name. On the last day, the foreign delegates were getting ready to go home. We were called in for a closed session. Khrushchev showed a certain relish for the task. He’s passionate about admitting the mistakes of the past.
— To the entire country?
— He argued that these words couldn’t go beyond the confines of the hall or it would damage our nation’s reputation.
Leo failed to keep the anger out of his voice:
— Then why are there millions of copies in circulation?
— He lied. He wants people to read it. He wants people to know that he was the first person to say sorry. He’s taken his place in history. He’s the first man to criticize Stalin and not be executed. The notice that it is not to be printed in the press was a concession to those who opposed the speech. Of course, the stipulation is absurd in the context of the wider distribution plans.
— Khrushchev rose up under Stalin.
Panin smiled:
— We are all guilty, yes? And he feels it. He’s confessing, selectively. In many ways, it’s an old-fashioned denunciation. Stalin is bad: I’m good. I’m right: they’re wrong.
— Nikolai, myself, we are the people he’s telling everyone to hate. He is making monsters of us.
— Or showing the world the monsters we really are. I include myself in that, Leo. It is true for everyone who was involved, everyone who made the system tick. We’re not talking about a list of five names. We’re talking about millions of people, all of them either actively involved or complicit. Have you considered the possibility the guilty might outnumber the innocent? That the innocent might be a minority?
Leo glanced at the KGB officers examining the two daughters.
— The people who sent this speech to Nikolai must be caught.
— What leads do you have?
Leo opened his notepad, taking out the folded sheet of paper retrieved from Moskvin’s printing press.
Under torture, Eikhe
Panin examined it while Leo retrieved a page from Nikolai’s copy of the speech. He pointed at a line:
Under torture, Eikhe was forced to sign a protocol of his confession prepared in advance by the investigative judges.
Spotting the duplication of the three words, Panin asked:
— Where did the first sheet come from?
— From a printing press, run by a man called Suren Moskvin, retired from the MGB. I’m sure the speech was delivered to him. His sons claim that he had an official contract with the State to print ten thousand copies. But I can find no evidence of that contract. I don’t believe it existed: it was a lie. He was told it was a State contract and then he was given the speech. He worked through the night, typesetting it; by the time he got to these words, he’d decided to kill himself. They gave him the speech knowing the effect it would have, just as they gave it to Nikolai, just as they gave it to me. Yesterday, Nikolai said he was being sent photographs of the people that he’d arrested. Moskvin was also harassed with photographs of the people he’d come into contact with.
Leo took out the modified volume of Lenin’s text, holding up the arrest photo glued into the front instead of Lenin.
— I’m sure one person connects all three of us — Suren, Nikolai, and myself — someone recently released from imprisonment, a relative of a…
Leo paused before adding the word:
— … A victim.
Timur asked:
— How many people did you arrest as an MGB officer?
Leo considered. On occasions, he arrested entire families — six people in one night.
— Over three years… many hundreds.
Timur couldn’t hide his surprise. The number was high. Panin remarked:
— And you think the perpetrator would send a photograph?
— They’re not afraid of us, not anymore. We’re afraid of them.
Panin clapped his hands, calling together the various officers:
— Search this apartment. We’re looking for a batch of photographs.
Leo added:
— Nikolai would’ve hidden them carefully. It was essential that his family never find them. He was an agent so he was good at hiding things and good at knowing where people might look.
Systematically searching every room, the luxurious apartment Nikolai had spent years furnishing and decorating took two hours to dismantle. In order to search under the beds and rip up the floorboards, the bodies of his murdered children and wife were heaped in the center of the living room, wrapped in bedlinens. Around them, wardrobes were smashed, mattresses torn open. No photos were found.
Frustrated, Leo stared at Nikolai in the bath of bloody water. Struck by a thought, he stepped up to the bath and without taking off his shirt sank his arm into the water. He felt Nikolai’s hand. His fingers were locked around a thick envelope. He’d been clutching it when he died. The paper had become soft and broke apart as soon as Leo touched it, the contents floating to the surface. Timur and Panin joined him, watching as one by one the faces of men and women rose up from the bloody bottom of the bath. Soon a film of photographs, hundreds of overlapping faces, bobbed up and down. Leo’s eyes darted from old women to young men, the mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. He recognized none of them. Then one face caught his eye. He picked it out of the water. Timur asked:
— You know this man?
Yes, Leo knew him. His name was Lazar.
ACRUCIFIX HAD BEEN DRAWN on the outside of the envelope, a careful ink drawing of the Orthodox cross. The drawing was small, roughly the size of his palm. Someone had taken time over it: the proportions were correct, the inkwork competent. Was it supposed to engender fear, as if he were a ghoul or a demon? More likely it was intended ironically, as a commentary on his faith. If so, it was misjudged — amateurish in its psychology.
Krasikov broke the seal, emptying the envelope’s contents onto his desk. More photographs… he was tempted to toss them in the fire as he’d done the others but curiosity stopped him. He put on his glasses, straining his eyes, studying this new batch of faces. At a glance they meant nothing. He was about to put them aside when one of the faces caught his attention. He concentrated, trying to remember the name of this man with intense eyes:
Lazar
These were the priests that he’d denounced.
He counted them. Thirty faces, had he really betrayed so many? Not all of them had been arrested while he’d been Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the leading religious authority in the country. The denunciations had predated that appointment, spread over many years. He was seventy-five years old. For a lifetime, thirty denunciations were not so many. His calculated obedience to the State had saved the Church from immeasurable harm — an unholy alliance, perhaps, yet these thirty priests had been necessary sacrifices. It was remiss of him not to be able to remember each of their names. He should pray for them every night. Instead, he’d let them slip from his mind like rain running off glass. He found forgetfulness easier than asking for forgiveness.
Even with their photographs in his hands he felt no regret. This wasn’t bravado. He suffered no nightmares, experienced no anguish. His soul was light. Yes, he’d read Khrushchev’s speech, sent to him by the same people that had sent these photos. He’d read the criticisms of Stalin’s murderous regime, a regime he’d supported by ordering his priests to praise Stalin in their sermons. Undoubtedly there’d been the cult of dictator and he’d been a loyal worshipper. What of it? If this speech pointed to a future of pointless introspection then so be it — but it wouldn’t be his future. Was he responsible for the Church’s persecution through the early decades of Communism? Of course not, he’d merely reacted to the circumstances in which he found himself and his beloved Church. His hand had been forced. The decision to surrender some of his colleagues was unpleasant although not difficult. There were individuals who believed they could say and do as they pleased simply because it was the work of God. They were naïve and he’d found them tiresome, eager to be martyrs. In that sense, he’d merely given them what they wanted, the opportunity to die for their faith.
Religion, like everything else, had to compromise. The pomestny sobor, the council of bishops, had shrewdly put him forward as patriarch. They’d needed someone who could be political, flexible, shrewd, which was why his nomination had been State-approved and why the State had allowed elections in the first place, elections duly rigged in his favor. There had been those who had argued that his election was a violation of Apostolic canon law; church hierarchy was not supposed to be consecrated by secular authorities. To his mind, that was an obscure academic argument at a time when the number of churches had shrunk from twenty thousand to less than a thousand. Were they supposed to disappear altogether, proudly clinging to their principles, as a captain might cling to the mast of his sinking ship? His appointment had been intended to reverse that decline and stem their losses. He’d succeeded. New churches had been built. Priests were trained rather than shot. He’d done what had been required, no more. His actions had never been malicious. And the Church had survived.
Krasikov stood up, weary of these recollections. He picked up the photos and piled them on the fire, watching them curl, blacken, and burn. He’d accepted reprisals were a possibility. There was no way to govern an organization as complex as the Church, managing its relationship with the State, and not create enemies in the process. A cautious man, he’d taken steps to protect himself. Old, infirm, he was patriarch only in name, no longer involved in the day-to-day running of the Church. He now spent much of his time working in a children’s sanctuary he’d founded not far from the Church of the Conception of St. Anna. There were those who considered his sanctuary a dying man’s attempt at redemption. Let them think that. He didn’t care. He enjoyed the work: there was no more mystery than that. The hard graft was done by the younger members of staff while he provided spiritual guidance to the one hundred or so children they had space for, converting them from a path of chiffir addiction, a narcotic derived from tea leaves, to a life of piety. Having dedicated his life to God, a dedication which forbade him from having children of his own, this was compensation of a kind.
He shut the door to his office, locking it, descending the stairs to the main sanctuary hall where the children ate and were schooled. There were four dormitories: two for the girls, two for the boys. There was also a prayer room with a crucifix, icons, and candles — a room where he taught matters of faith. No child could remain in the sanctuary unless they opened themselves to God. If they resisted, refused to believe, they were expelled. There was no shortage of street children to choose from. According to secret State estimates, which he was privy to, some eight hundred thousand homeless children were scattered across the country, mainly concentrated in the major cities— living in train stations or sleeping in alleyways. Some had run away from orphanages, some from forced-labor colonies. Many had traveled in from the countryside, subsisting in the cities like packs of wild dogs— scavenging and stealing. Krasikov wasn’t sentimental. He understood that these children were potentially dangerous and untrustworthy. He therefore employed the services of former Red Army soldiers to keep order. The complex was secure. No one could get in or out without his permission. Everyone was searched upon entry. There were guards inside, circling, and two always on the front door. Ostensibly these men were employed to keep the hundred children in check. However, these men provided a secondary service: they were Krasikov’s bodyguards.
Krasikov surveyed the hall, searching the grateful faces for his newest intake, a young boy, perhaps only thirteen or fourteen years old. He hadn’t given his age, refusing to say very much. The boy had a terrible stammer and a peculiarly adult face as if each year on earth had aged him by three. It was time for the boy’s induction, to decide if he was sincere about his commitment to God.
Krasikov gestured for one of his guards to bring the child over. The boy shied away like a mistreated dog, wary of human contact. He’d been found not far from the sanctuary, in a doorway, huddled in rags, clutching an earthenware figure of a man sitting on the back of a pig, riding the pig as though it were a horse. It was a comic piece of household porcelain, suggesting a provincial background. Once brightly colored, the paint had faded. Remarkably, it was unbroken except for the pig’s chipped left ear. The boy, sinewy and strong, never let it out of his sight and never let it go. It had some sentimental value, perhaps, an object from the boy’s past.
Krasikov smiled at the guard, politely dismissing him. He opened the door to the prayer room, waiting for the boy to follow. The boy didn’t move, clutching his painted man on a pig as tightly as if it were filled with gold.
— You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. However, if you can’t let God into your life, you can’t stay here.
The boy glanced at the other children. They’d stopped what they were doing: watching to see what decision would be made. No one had ever said no. The boy tentatively entered the prayer room. As he passed by Krasikov asked:
— Remind me of your name.
The boy stammered:
— Ser… gei.
Krasikov shut the door behind them. The room had been prepared. Candles were burning. The afternoon light was fading. He knelt before the crucifix, not giving Sergei any instructions, waiting for the boy to join him, a simple test to see if the child had any religious background. Those with experience would join him: those with none would remain by the door. Sergei didn’t move, remaining by the door:
— Many of the children were ignorant when they arrived. That is no crime. You will learn. I hope God will one day take the place of that toy figure you hold so dear.
To Krasikov’s surprise the boy replied by locking the door. Before he could query the action, the boy strode forward, pulling a length of wire from the chipped pig’s ear. At the same time, he raised the earthenware figure above his head, throwing it down with all his strength. Krasikov instinctively turned away, expecting it to hit him. But the porcelain figure missed, smashing at his feet, breaking into several large, uneven pieces. Shocked, he peered at the porcelain fragments. There was something else beside the remains of the pig — cylindrical and black. He bent down, picking it up. It was a flashlight.
Confused, he tried to get up, off his knees. Before he could, a noose slipped over his head, down around his neck — thin steel wire secured in a knot. The boy was holding the other end, coiled around his hand. He tugged: the wire tightened, Krasikov gasped as his breath was squeezed from him. His face turned red, the blood constricted. His fingers slipped over the wire, unable to get underneath. The boy tugged again, speaking in a cool, composed voice with no trace of his previous stammer:
— Answer correctly and you’ll live.
AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE CHILDREN’S SANCTUARY, Leo and Timur were denied access, held back by two guards. Frustrated with the delay, Leo showed the men the photo of Lazar, explaining:
— It’s possible that everyone involved in this man’s arrest is a target. Two men are already dead. If we’re right, the patriarch might be danger.
The guards were unimpressed:
— We’ll pass the message on.
— We need to speak to him.
— Militia or not, the patriarch has given us instructions not to let anyone in.
Commotion broke out upstairs: the sound of shouting. In an instant the guards’ complacency turned to panic. They abandoned their post, climbing the stairs, followed by Leo and Timur, bursting into a large hall filled with children. The staff had huddled around a door, shaking it, unable to get in. The guards joined the fray, taking hold of the door handle, listening to the overlapping explanations:
— He went in there to pray.
— With the new boy.
— Krasikov’s not replying.
— Something smashed.
Leo cut through the discussion:
— Kick the door down.
They turned to him, unsure.
— Do it now.
The heaviest and strongest of the guards rushed forward, shoulder smashing against the frame. He charged again, the door broke apart.
Clambering through the splintered opening, Leo and Timur entered the room. A young voice called out, authoritative, assured:
— Stay where you are!
The guards stopped moving, fierce men rendered helpless by the scene before them.
The patriarch was on his knees, turned toward them, his face as red as blood, his mouth open — his tongue protruding, obscene, like a twisted slug. His neck was pinched: thin steel wire stretched to the hands of the young boy. The boy’s hands were wrapped in rags: the wire coiled around and around. A master with a dog on a leash, the boy exercised absolute and lethal control: he need only apply more tension and the wire would either choke the patriarch or slice into his skin.
The boy took a careful backward step, almost at the window, keeping the wire tight and ceding no slack. Leo emerged from the pack of guards who’d become paralyzed at their failure to protect. There were maybe ten meters between him and the patriarch. He couldn’t risk running forward. Even if he reached the patriarch there was no way to get his fingers underneath the wire. Addressing Leo, sensing his calculations, the boy said:
— Any closer, he dies.
The boy threw open the small window, clambering up onto the ledge. They were on the second floor, too great a height to jump. Leo asked:
— What do you want?
— This man’s apology for betraying priests who trusted him, priests he was supposed to protect.
The boy was speaking words as if from reading from a script. Leo glanced at the patriarch. Surely the threat of death would make him compliant. The boy’s orders were to extract an apology. If those were his orders he’d obey them: that was the only leverage Leo had.
— He’ll say sorry. Loosen the wire. Let him speak. That’s what you’ve come to hear.
The patriarch nodded, indicating that he wanted to comply. The boy considered and then slowly loosened the wire. Krasikov gasped, a strangled intake of breath.
Supreme resilience glistened in the old man’s eyes and Leo realized that he’d made a mistake. Summoning his strength, spraying spit with each word:
— Tell whoever sent you… I’d betray him again!
Except for the patriarch, all eyes turned to the boy. But he was already gone. He’d jumped from the window.
The wire whipped up, the full weight of the boy catching on the old man’s neck, pulling the patriarch with such force that he rose up from his knees like a puppet jerked by strings before falling onto his back, dragged across the floor and smashing the small window. His body caught in the window frame. Leo darted forward, grabbing the wire around the patriarch’s neck, trying to relieve the pressure. But the wire had cut through skin, severing muscle. There was nothing Leo could do.
Looking out the window he saw the boy on the street below. Without saying a word Leo and Timur ran out of the room, abandoning the distraught guards, through the main sanctuary hall, the crowd of children, downstairs. The boy was skilled and nimble but he was young and would not be able to outrun them.
When they reached the street, the boy was nowhere to be seen. There were no alleys, no turnings for some distance, he couldn’t have cleared the length of the street in the brief amount of time it had taken them to get outside. Leo hurried to the window where the wire was hanging. He found the boy’s footprints in the snow and followed them to a manhole. Snow had been brushed aside. Timur lifted the manhole up. The drop was deep — a steel ladder leading to the sewage system. The boy was already near the bottom, rags tied around his hands. Seeing the light above him, he glanced up, revealing his face to the daylight. In response to seeing Leo he let go of the ladder, falling the last distance and disappearing into the dark.
Leo turned to Timur:
— Get the flashlights from the car.
Not waiting, Leo grabbed the ladder, climbing down. The rungs were icy cold and without gloves his skin stuck to the steel. Each time he let go of the rungs his skin began to rip. There were gloves in the car but he couldn’t delay his pursuit. The sewage system was a labyrinth of tunnels: the boy could disappear down any of them, one unsighted turn and he’d be free. Gritting his teeth at the pain, Leo’s palms began to bleed as patches of skin tore off. His eyes watering, he looked down, judging the remaining distance. It was still too far to jump. He had to continue, forced to press his raw flesh against the iced steel. He cried out, letting go of the ladder.
Landing awkwardly on a narrow concrete ledge, his feet sliding under him, he almost toppled into a deep stream of filthy water. He steadied himself and examined his surroundings — a large brick tunnel, roughly the size of a metro tunnel. A pool of sunlight from the manhole above illuminated a small patch of ground around him but little more. Ahead of him it was dark except for a flicker of light, like a firefly, some fifty meters ahead. It was the boy: he had a flashlight, he’d prepared for this escape.
The flicker of light disappeared. Either the boy had turned his flashlight off or he’d gone down another tunnel. Unable to follow in the dark, unable to see the ledge, Leo looked up at the manhole, waiting for Timur — each second was vital.
— Come on…
Timur’s face appeared at the top. Leo called out.
— Drop it!
If he failed to catch the flashlight it would hit the concrete and smash and he’d have to delay chasing after the boy until Timur climbed down. By that time the boy would be gone. Timur stepped back so that he wasn’t blocking the light. His arm appeared outstretched, holding a flashlight, positioning it in the center of the hole. He let it fall.
Leo’s eyes tracked it as it began to turn, glancing against the wall, knocking outward again, the movement now entirely unpredictable. He took a step forward, reached up and caught the handle, his red-raw palms stinging as he gripped. Fighting against the instinct to let go, he flicked the switch. The bulb still worked. He shone the light in the direction the boy had disappeared, revealing a ledge that ran alongside the tunnel above the slow-flowing stream of filth. He set off — his speed limited by ice and slime, his clunky boots slipping on the precarious surface. Tempered by the cold, the smell was not unbearable and he limited himself to short, shallow breaths.
Where the boy disappeared, the ledge stopped altogether. There was a secondary tunnel, much smaller — only a meter or so wide — the base of which appeared at shoulder height. This side tunnel fed into the stream below. There was excrement streaked across the wall. The boy must have climbed up. There was no other choice. Leo had to crawl into the tunnel.
He put the flashlight up first. Bracing himself, he gripped the oozy sides, his open wounds roaring in pain as exposed flesh mingled with dirt and shit. Dizzy with pain, he tried to pull himself up, aware that if he lost his grip he’d fall into the stream below. But there was nothing to grab on to farther inside the tunnel — he reached out, his hand splashing down on the smooth, curved surface. The toe of his boot gripped the brickwork: he pushed up, into the tunnel, lying on his back, trying to wipe the filth off his hands. In the confined space the smell was overwhelming. Leo retched. Managing not to throw up, he took hold of the flashlight, shining the beam down the tunnel and crawling on his stomach, using his elbows to propel himself along.
A series of rusted bars blocked the way forward: the space between the bars was less than the width of his hand. The boy must have gone another way. About to turn back, Leo stopped. He was certain: there was no other way. Wiping off the grime, he examined the bars. Two of them were loose. He gripped them, tugging. They could be pulled free. The boy had scouted this route, that’s why he had the flashlight, that’s why he knew to wear the rags — he’d always intended to escape through the sewers. Even with the two bars removed Leo had trouble squeezing through the gap. Forced to take off his jacket in order to fit, he emerged into a cavernous chamber.
Lowering his feet, the floor seemed to move. He shone the light down. It was alive with rats, three or four deep — crawling over each other. His disgust was moderated by his curiosity that they were all traveling in one direction. He turned his light in the direction they were running from, scrambling away from a larger tunnel. Inside that tunnel Leo could see the boy, about a hundred meters’ distance between them. The boy wasn’t running: he was standing by the wall, his hand flat against it. Cautious, sensing something was wrong, Leo moved forward.
The boy swung around and, seeing his pursuer, set off again. He’d adapted his flashlight — which hung around his neck by a piece of string — enabling both hands to remain free. Leo reached out, feeling the tunnel wall. The vibrations were so intense his fingers trembled.
The boy was sprinting, water splashing around his ankles. Leo tracked his movements with his flashlight. Nimble as a cat, the boy used the curved walls, jumping and propelling himself off the side, leaping upwards. His target was the bottom rung of a ladder that emerged from a vertical tunnel overhead. The boy missed the lowest rung, landing with a splash on the floor. Leo ran forward. Behind him, he could hear Timur crying out in disgust, no doubt at the mass of rats. The boy was up on his feet, preparing himself for another jump at the ladder.
Suddenly the thin stream of stagnant water started to swell, surging, rising in volume. A tremendous rumbling filled the tunnel. Leo raised his torch upwards. The beam of light caught white foam: the breaking tip of a wall of water crashing toward them less than two hundred meters away.
With only seconds remaining, the boy made another run for the ladder, jumping at the wall and reaching for the bottom rung. This time he caught it, hanging by both hands. He pulled himself up, clambering into the vertical tunnel, out of the water’s reach. Leo turned around. The water was closing. Timur had just entered the main tunnel.
Arriving at the base of the ladder, Leo clamped the flashlight between his teeth and jumped, catching hold of the steel bar, his hands stinging as he pulled himself up. He could see the boy moving up above him. Ignoring the pain, he sped up, closing on the boy. He grabbed the boy’s foot. Keeping a lock as the boy tried to kick free, Leo directed the beam of light down. At the bottom of the shaft, frantic, Timur dropped his flashlight, jumped. He caught the bottom rung with both hands just as the water crashed around him, white foamy water exploding up into the vertical tunnel.
The boy laughed:
— If you want to save your friend you’ll have to let me go!
He was right. Leo had to let the boy go, scale down, and help Timur.
— He’s going to die!
Timur emerged from the water, gasping, lifting himself up, wrapping an arm around the next bar and pulling himself free of the foam. The bulk of his body was still submerged but his grip was good.
Relieved, Leo didn’t move, keeping a grip on the boy’s ankle as he kicked and thrashed. Timur pulled himself up to Leo’s position, taking the flashlight from Leo’s mouth and pointing it at the boy’s face.
— Kick again and I’ll break your leg.
The boy stopped: there was no doubting that Timur was serious. Leo added:
— We climb up together, slowly, to the next level. Understood?
The boy nodded. The three of them climbed up, slowly, awkwardly, a mass of limbs, moving like a deformed spider.
At the top of the ladder, Leo remained stationary, holding the boy’s ankle while Timur scrambled up over both of them, reaching the passageway above:
— Let him go.
Leo let go and climbed up. Timur had the boy’s arms pinned. Leo took hold of the flashlight, using his fingertips to avoid touching his bloody palms. He shined the light in the boy’s face:
— Your only chance of staying alive is by talking to me. You’ve murdered a very important man. A lot of people are going to be calling for your execution.
Timur shook his head:
— You’re wasting your time. Look at his neck.
The boy’s neck was marked with a tattoo, an Orthodox cross. Timur explained:
— He’s a member of a gang. He’d rather die than talk.
The boy smiled:
— You’re down here while up there… your wife… Raisa…
Leo’s reaction was instantaneous, stepping forward, grabbing the boy by his shirt, pulling him free from Timur and lifting him off his feet. It was all the opportunity the boy needed. Like an eel, he slipped out of his shirt, dropping to the floor and darting to the side. Left holding the shirt, Leo turned the flashlight, finding the boy crouched by the edge of the shaft. The boy stepped out, falling into the water below. Leo lunged but too late. Looking down he saw no sign of the boy — he’d fallen into the fast-flowing water, swept away.
Frantic, Leo assessed his surroundings: a closed concrete tunnel. Raisa was in danger. And there was no way out.
RISA WAS SEATED OPPOSITE THE SCHOOL’S DIRECTOR, Karl Enukidze — a kind man with a gray beard. Also with them was Iulia Peshkova, Zoya’s teacher. Karl’s fingers were knotted under his chin, scratching backward and forward, glancing at Raisa and then at Iulia. For the most part Iulia avoided eye contact altogether, chewing her lip and wishing that she was anywhere but here. Raisa understood their trepidation. If the smashing of Stalin’s portrait were to be investigated Zoya would be placed under the scrutiny of the KGB. But so would they. The question of guilt could be reconstituted: do they blame the child, or the adults who influenced the child? Was Karl a subversive, encouraging dissident behavior in his students when they should be fervently patriotic? Or perhaps Iulia’s lessons were deficient in Soviet character. Questions would arise as to what kind of guardian Raisa had been. Possible outcomes were being hastily calculated. Breaking the silence Raisa said:
— We’re still behaving as though Stalin were alive. Times have changed. There’s no appetite for the denouncement of a fourteen-year-old girl. You’ve read the speech: Khrushchev admits the arrests have gone too far. We don’t need to take an internal school matter to the State. We can deal with it. Let’s see this for what it really is: a troubled young girl, a girl in my care. Let me help her.
Judging from their muted reaction, a lifetime of caution was not wiped away by a single speech, no matter who was speaking and what was being said. Adjusting the emphasis of her strategy, Raisa pointed out:
— It would be best if this were never reported.
Iulia looked up. Karl sat back. A new set of calculations began: Raisa had tried to silence the matter. Her proposal could be used against her. Iulia replied:
— We’re not the only people who know what happened. The students in my class saw everything. There are over thirty of them. By now they will have spoken to their friends, the number will grow. By tomorrow I would be surprised if the entire school wasn’t talking about it. The news will travel outside the school. Parents will find out. They will want to know why we did nothing. What will we say? We didn’t think it was important? That is not for us to decide. Trust in the State. People will find out, Raisa, and if we don’t talk, someone else will.
She was right: containment wasn’t possible. On the defensive, Raisa countered:
— What if Zoya left school with immediate effect? I’d speak to Leo; he could speak to his colleagues. We’d find another school for her. Needless to say I would also leave.
There was no way Zoya could continue her education here. Students would avoid her. Many wouldn’t sit next to her. Teachers would resist having her in their classes. She’d be an outcast as surely as if a cross were daubed on her back.
— I propose that you, Karl Enukidze, make no statement about our leaving. We would simply disappear: no explanation given.
The other students and teachers would presume the matter had been taken care of. The sudden absence would be translated as the culprits being punished. No one would want to talk about it because the consequences had been so severe. The topic would close down, the subject would disappear — a ship sinking at sea while another ship passed by, all the passengers looking in the opposite direction.
Karl weighed up the proposal. Finally he asked:
— You’d take care of all the arrangements?
— Yes.
— Including discussing the issue with the relevant authorities? The Ministry of Education, you have connections?
— Leo does, I’m sure.
— I don’t need to speak to Zoya? I don’t need to have any dealings with her at all?
Raisa shook her head:
— I’ll take my daughter and walk out. You carry on as normal, as though I’d never existed. Tomorrow neither Zoya nor myself will attend classes.
Karl looked at Iulia, his eager eyes recommending the plan. It now depended on her. Raisa turned to her friend:
— Iulia?
They’d known each other for three years. They’d helped each other on many occasions. They were friends. Iulia nodded, saying:
— That would be for the best.
They would never speak to each other again.
OUTSIDE THE OFFICE, in the corridor, Zoya was waiting, leaning against the wall — nonchalant, as though she’d merely failed to hand in homework. Her hand was bandaged: the cut had bled profusely. With the negotiations concluded, Raisa shut the office door, exhaustion sweeping over her. Much would now depend upon Leo. Walking to Zoya, she crouched down:
— We’re going home.
— Not my home.
No gratitude, just disdain. Close to tears, Raisa couldn’t manage any words.
Leaving the school building, Raisa stopped at the gates. Had they been betrayed so quickly? Two uniformed officers walked toward her:
— Raisa Demidova?
The eldest of the officers continued:
— We’ve been sent by your husband to escort you home.
They weren’t here about Zoya. Relieved, she asked:
— What’s happened?
— Your husband wants to be sure you’re safe. We can’t go into the details except to say there have been a series of incidents. Our presence is a precaution.
Raisa checked their identity cards. They were in order. She asked:
— You work with my husband?
— We’re part of his homicide department.
Since the department was a secret, even that admission went some way to satisfying Raisa’s suspicions. She handed back the cards, pointing out:
— We need to pick up Elena.
As they walked toward the car, Zoya tugged her hand. Raisa lowered her head. Zoya’s voice was a whisper:
— I don’t trust them.
ALONE IN HIS OFFICE, Karl stared out the window.
Times have changed.
Maybe that was true, he wanted to believe and put the entire affair out of his mind, as they’d agreed. He’d always liked Raisa. She was intelligent and beautiful and he wished her well. He picked up the telephone, wondering how best to phrase the denunciation of her daughter.
IN THE BACK OF THE CAR Zoya glared at the militia officers, following their every movement as if imprisoned with two venomous snakes. Though the officer in the passenger seat had made a cursory attempt at being friendly, turning around and smiling at the girls, his smile had smashed up against a brick wall. Zoya hated these men, hated their uniforms and insignia, their leather belts and steel-capped black boots, making no distinction between the KGB and the militia.
Glancing out the window, Raisa approximated where they were in the city. Evening had set in. Streetlights flickered on. Unaccustomed to being driven home, she slowly pieced together her location. This was not the way to their apartment. Leaning forward, trying to smooth out the urgency in her voice, she asked:
— Where are we going?
The officer in the front passenger seat turned around, his face expressionless, his back creaking against the leather upholstery:
— We’re taking you home.
— This isn’t the way.
Zoya sprang forward:
— Let us out!
The guard scrunched up his face:
— What?
Zoya didn’t ask twice. With the car still in motion she unlocked the latch, throwing the door wide open into the middle of the road. Bright headlights flashed through the window as an oncoming truck swerved to avoid a collision.
Raisa grabbed hold of Zoya, clutching her waist, pulling her back inside just as the truck clipped the door, smashing it shut. The impact crumpled steel and shattered the window, showering the interior with glass. The officers were shouting. Elena was screaming. The car thumped into the curb, running up onto the pavement, before skidding to a stop by the side of the road.
A stunned silence elapsed, the two officers turned round, pale and breathless:
— What is wrong with her?
The driver added, tapping his temples:
— She’s not right in the head.
Raisa ignored them, examining Zoya. Unharmed, her eyes were blazing. There was a wildness about her: the primeval energies of a feral child brought up by wolves and captured by man, refusing to be tamed or civilized.
The driver got out, examining the damaged door, scratching and shaking his head:
— We’re taking you home. What’s the problem?
— This isn’t the way.
The officer pulled out a slip of paper, handing it to Raisa through the gap where the window once was. It was Leo’s writing. She stared blankly at the address before recognizing that it was the address of Leo’s parents’ apartment. Her anger evaporated:
— This is where Leo’s parents live.
— I didn’t know whose apartment it was. I just follow orders.
Zoya wriggled free, climbing over her sister and out of the car. Raisa called after her:
— Zoya, it’s okay!
Unappeased, Zoya didn’t return. The driver moved toward her. Seeing him about to grab her, Raisa called out:
— Don’t touch her! Leave her! We’ll walk the rest of the way.
The driver shook his head:
— We’re supposed to stay with you until Leo turns up.
— Then follow behind.
Still seated on the backseat, Elena was crying. Raisa put an arm around her:
— Zoya’s okay. She’s not hurt.
Elena seemed to absorb those words, checking on her older sister. Seeing that she was unhurt, her tears stopped. Raisa wiped the remaining few away:
— We’re going to walk. It’s not far. Can you manage that?
Elena nodded:
— I don’t like being driven home.
Raisa smiled:
— Nor do I.
Raisa helped her out of the car. The driver threw up his hands, exasperated at the exodus of passengers.
Leo’s parents lived in a low-rise modern block to the north of the city, home to numerous elderly parents of State officials, a retirement home for the privileged. In the winter, residents would play cards in each other’s living rooms. In the summer they’d play cards outside, on the grass strip. They’d shop together, cook together, a community with only one rule — they never spoke about their children’s work.
Raisa entered the building, leading the girls to the elevator. The doors closed just as the militia officers caught up, forcing them to take the stairs. There was no chance Zoya would remain in a confined space with those two men. Reaching the seventh floor, Raisa led the girls down the corridor to the last apartment. Stepan — Leo’s father — answered the door, surprised to see them. His surprise quickly transformed into concern:
— What’s wrong?
Leo’s mother, Anna, appeared from the living room, equally concerned. Addressing both of them, Raisa answered:
— Leo wants us to stay here.
Raisa gestured at the two officers approaching from the stairway, adding:
— We have an escort.
There was fear in Anna’s voice:
— Where is Leo? What’s going on?
Raisa shook her head:
— I don’t know.
The officers arrived at the door. The more senior of the two, the driver, out of breath from climbing the stairs, asked:
— Is there any other way into the apartment?
Anna answered:
— No.
— We’ll remain here.
But Anna wanted more information:
— Can you explain?
— There have been reprisals. That’s all I can say.
Raisa shut the door. Anna wasn’t satisfied:
— But Leo is okay, isn’t he?
With gritted teeth, Zoya listened to Anna, watching the loose skin of her chin wobble as she spoke. She was fat with doing nothing all day long, fat with her son’s provision of rich and rare foods. Her worries about Leo were excruciating, her voice strangled with concern for her murdering son:
Is Leo okay? Leo is okay, isn’t he?
Are the people he arrested, the families he destroyed — are they okay? They doted on him as if he were a child. Worse than concern was their parental pride, excited by every story, hanging on every word he had to say. The displays of affection were sickening: kisses, embraces, jokes. Both Stepan and Anna were willing and eager participants in Leo’s conspiracy to pretend that they were a normal family, planning day trips and visits to the shops, the restricted shops, rather than those with long queues of people and limited supplies. Everything was nice. Everything was comfortable. Everything was designed to conceal the murder of her father and mother. Zoya hated them for loving him.
Anna asked:
— Reprisals?
She repeated the word as if the concept were nonsensical and baffling, as if no one could possibly have any reason to dislike her son. Zoya couldn’t help herself, stepping into the discussion and directing her words at Anna:
— Reprisals for arresting so many innocent people! What did you think your son was doing all these years? Haven’t you read the speech?
In unison Stepan and Anna turned to her, shocked by the mention of the speech. They didn’t know. They hadn’t read it. Sensing her advantage, Zoya twisted her lips into a smile. Stepan asked:
— What speech?
— The speech about how your son tortured innocent victims, about how he forced them to confess, about how he beat them, about how the innocent were sent to the Gulags while the guilty lived in apartments like this.
Raisa crouched down in front of her, as if trying to block her words:
— I need you to stop. I need you to stop right now.
— Why? It’s true. I didn’t write those words. I was read them as part of my education. I’m only repeating what I was told. It’s not for you to censor Khrushchev’s words. He must have wanted us to talk about it, otherwise he wouldn’t have allowed us to read it. It’s not a secret. Everyone knows. Everyone knows what Leo did.
— Zoya, listen to me…
But Zoya was in midflow, unstoppable:
— You think they shouldn’t know the truth about their wonderful son? The wonderful son who found them this wonderful apartment, who helps them with the shopping — their wonderful murdering son.
Stepan’s face went pale, his voice quivered with emotion:
— You don’t know what you’re saying.
— You don’t believe me? Ask Raisa: the speech is real. Everything I’ve said is true. And everyone is going to know your son is a murderer.
Anna’s voice was a whisper:
— What is this speech?
Raisa shook her head:
— We don’t need to talk about it right now.
Zoya wasn’t about to back down, enjoying her newfound power:
— It was written by Khrushchev and delivered at the Twentieth Congress. It says your son, and every officer like him, is a murderer. They acted illegally. They’re not police officers! They’re criminals! Ask Raisa, ask her if it’s true. Ask her!
Stepan and Anna turned to Raisa:
— There is a speech. In it there are some critical things about Stalin.
— Not just about Stalin, it’s about the people that followed his orders, including your son, your murdering son.
Stepan walked up to Zoya:
— Stop saying that.
— Stop saying what? Murderer? Leo the Murderer? How many deaths do you think he’s responsible for, aside from my parents?
— That’s enough!
— You knew all along! You knew what he was doing for a living and you didn’t care because you liked living in a nice apartment. You’re as bad as he is! At least he was willing to get blood on his hands!
Anna slapped Zoya, a stinging blow:
— Young girl, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You speak like that because you’ve been spoiled. For three years you’ve been allowed to get away with anything. You can do whatever you want and have whatever you want. You’ve never been told off. We’ve watched it happen and said nothing. Leo and Raisa have wanted to give you everything. Look at you now, look at what you’ve become — ungrateful, hateful, when all anyone is trying to do is love you.
Where she’d been smacked, Zoya felt her skin burn hot, a sensation which spread through her body, every part of her stinging from her fingertips to the back of her neck. She reached out and scratched Anna, digging her nails in as deep as they could go, tearing as much skin as she could:
— Fuck your love!
Anna retreated, crying out. But Zoya wasn’t finished, lunging at her, fingers arched like claws. Raisa caught hold of her waist, spinning her away. Uncontrollable, Zoya’s anger sought a new target, redirected toward Raisa. She bit her arm, sinking her teeth as far as they’d go.
The pain was so intense Raisa felt lightheaded, her legs about to buckle and give way. Stepan grabbed hold of Zoya’s jaw, prising it open as if dealing with a savage, rabid dog. Blood streamed from the deep teeth marks. Zoya was twisting and thrashing. Stepan threw her to the floor where she fell, teeth bared and bloody.
A knock on the door: the guards had heard the commotion. They wanted to come in. Raisa examined the bite — it was bleeding heavily. Zoya was still on the floor, eyes wild but no longer seeking a fight. Stepan hurried to the bathroom, bringing back a towel, pressing it against Raisa’s arm. There was a second knock. Raisa turned to Anna, who was standing in almost exactly the same position as when she’d been attacked, dumbstruck, scratches down her face, four bleeding lines.
— Anna, get rid of the officers, tell them they don’t need to interfere.
Anna didn’t react. Raisa had to raise her voice:
— Anna!
Anna opened the door, turning her injured face away from view, ready to reassure the guards. Expecting to see two officers, she was startled to find four standing outside as if, like bacteria, they’d divided and multiplied. The two new officers were wearing different uniforms. They were members of the KGB.
The KGB agents stepped into the apartment, taking in the scene before them, the girl on the floor with bloody teeth and bloody lips, the woman with a bleeding arm, the elderly woman with a scratched face:
— Raisa Demidova?
Despite the element of grim farce, Raisa tried to keep her voice steady and calm, the towel around her bite marks turning red:
— Yes?
— Your daughter needs to come with us.
Their attention was fixed on Zoya.
Raisa’s plan had failed. Iulia, or the director of the school, had betrayed her. Despite her injury, despite everything that had just happened, Raisa instinctively, protectively moved in front of Zoya.
— Your daughter smashed a portrait of Stalin.
— That matter is being taken care of.
— She needs to come with us.
— She’s being arrested?
Seeing that the two KGB officers were determined to carry out their orders, Raisa addressed the timid militia, the officers Leo had sent to protect them:
— They’re going to have to wait until my husband comes back, isn’t that correct?
The older of the two KGB agents shook his head:
— Our orders are to bring your daughter in for questioning. Your husband has nothing to do with this.
— Those men have orders to make sure we stay here, together, until Leo gets back.
The militia officer meekly stepped forward. Raisa’s heart sank.
— These are KGB officers…
— Leo won’t be long. We stay here, together, until he gets back — he can sort this out. She’s a fourteen-year-old girl. There’s no rush to take her anywhere. We can wait.
The KGB man stepped closer, raising his voice:
— She’s going to have to come with us right now.
Something about their impatience was wrong. The dynamic of these agents was wrong. The older agent was doing all the talking, the other man merely stood in silence, uneasy, his eyes darting from person to person as if he expected someone to attack him. They were both awkward in their uniforms. How was it possible they were here so quickly? It would take hours for the KGB to put together a plan and authorize an arrest. Even more peculiar, why were they at this address? How would they have known Raisa wouldn’t be at home? Fueled by these discrepancies, Raisa’s eyes focused on the agent’s neck. A mark rose up above his shirt collar: the tip of a tattoo.
These men weren’t members of the KGB.
Raisa glanced at the militia officers, attempting to communicate the danger they were in. However, the militia officers were stupefied by the guise of these agents, scared at the very mention of the KGB. In her efforts to catch their attention, she caught the eye of the impostor. Whereas the militia were dumb to her signals, he was not. Before Raisa could raise her hand to warn the militia the tattooed man had drawn his weapon. Turning, he fired twice, a shot into the forehead of each officer. As they collapsed to the floor, the man turned the weapon on Raisa:
— I’m taking your daughter.
Raisa stepped closer to the barrel of the gun, in front of Zoya, who was still crouched on the floor:
— No.
The gun was turned on Elena.
— Give me Zoya. Or I will kill Elena.
A shot rang out.
The bullet missed Elena, embedding into the apartment wall, a warning. Looking into his eyes, Raisa had no doubt this man would kill a seven-year-old as easily as he’d shot the two officers. She had to choose. She stepped out of the way, allowing them to take Zoya.
The man scooped Zoya up in his arms:
— Struggle and I’ll knock you unconscious.
He threw her over his shoulder, carrying her toward the door and calling out:
— Stay in the apartment!
The keys were taken: the apartment door was shut and locked.
Raisa ran to Elena, dropping to her side. Elena was on her knees, staring at the floor, her body shaking and her eyes vacant. Raisa took hold of her head, directing her eyes up, trying to get through to her:
— Elena?
But she didn’t seem to hear, didn’t respond.
— Elena?
Still no reply, no recognition or awareness, her body was slack.
Transferring Elena to Anna’s care, Raisa stood up, taking hold of the front door handle, unable to get out. She pulled back, moving to the bodies of the dead officers, taking one of their guns and tucking it into the back of her trousers. She hurried through the living room, opening the door to the small balcony. Stepan grabbed her:
— What are you doing?
— Look after Elena.
She stepped out onto the balcony, shutting the door behind her.
They were on the seventh floor, some twenty meters above street level. There were identical balconies each directly below the other. They could serve as a step to the next. She could climb down from balcony to balcony. If she fell, thin heaps of snow would do little to break the fall.
Kicking off her smooth-soled shoes, Raisa scaled the rail. She’d not taken into account the bite on her arm. It was still bleeding. The arm felt weak, her grip less secure. Unsure whether she could carry her weight, she lowered herself to the outer rim of the balcony. Gripping the freezing-cold concrete ledge, she hung by her fingers, blood dripping onto her shoulder. Even at full stretch her toes didn’t reach the sixth-floor balcony rail below. She hazarded a guess at the distance being no more than a couple of centimeters. There was no choice other than to let go.
A split-second fall, her feet made contact with the rail below. Trying to keep her balance, rocking from side to side, she heard Zoya’s voice. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the men exiting the front entrance, one carrying Zoya. The other had his gun trained on her. Balancing on the narrow rail, she was helpless.
The man fired. She heard glass smash. Raisa was falling toward the snow.
UNWASHED, STILL STINKING OF THE SEWERS, Leo was driving at the car’s top speed. Cumbersome and slow, incongruous with his urgency, it had been the first vehicle they’d been able to requisition after he and Timur had emerged from a manhole almost a kilometer due south from where they’d originally descended into the sewers. His hands a bloody mess, Leo had refused Timur’s offer to drive, putting on a pair of gloves, taking hold of the steering wheel with his fingertips, eyes watering each time he changed gears. He’d driven to his parents’ apartment, only to discover the area closed down by the militia. Elena, Raisa, and his parents had been taken to the hospital. Elena was being treated for shock. Raisa was in a critical state. Zoya was missing.
Reaching Municipal Emergency Hospital 31, Leo skidded to a stop, leaving the car on the shoulder — door open, keys in the ignition— running inside with Timur just behind. Everyone was staring, appalled by the sight and smell of him. Indifferent to the spectacle of himself, demanding answers, Leo was eventually directed to the surgery where Raisa was fighting for her life.
Outside the operating room a surgeon explained that she’d fallen from a significant height and was suffering from internal bleeding.
— Will she live?
The surgeon couldn’t be sure.
Entering the private ward where Elena was being treated, Leo saw his parents standing by her bed. Anna’s face was bandaged. Stephan seemed unhurt. Elena was sleeping, her tiny body lost in the middle of a white hospital bed. She’d been given a mild sedative, having become hysterical when she’d realized Zoya was gone. Peeling off his bloody gloves, Leo took hold of Elena’s hand, pressing it against his face pitifully, wanting to tell her how sorry he was.
Timur put a hand on his shoulder:
— Frol Panin is here.
Leo followed Timur to the office commandeered by Panin and his armed retinue. The office door was locked. It was impossible to enter without first announcing your name. Inside were two uniformed armed guards. Though Panin appeared unruffled, neat as always, the additional protection was testament to the fact that he was scared. He caught the observation in Leo’s eyes:
— Everyone is scared Leo, at least everyone in power.
— You were not involved in Lazar’s arrest.
— The issue stretches beyond your prime suspect. What if this behavior triggers a pattern of reprisals? What if everyone wronged seeks revenge? Leo, nothing like this has ever happened before: the execution and persecution of members of our State Security services. We simply don’t know what to expect next.
Leo remained silent, noting Panin’s interest was not the welfare of Raisa, Elena, or Zoya, but the wider implications. He was a consummate politician, dealing with nations and armies, borders and regions, never the mere individual. Charming and witty, yet there was something cold about him, revealed in moments like these when any ordinary person would have offered some words of comfort.
There was a knock on the door. The guards moved for their guns. A voice called out:
— I’m looking for Officer Leo Demidov. A letter was delivered to reception.
Panin nodded at the guards, who cautiously opened the door, guns raised. One took the letter while the other searched the man who delivered it, finding nothing. The envelope was handed to Leo.
On the outside was a carefully drawn ink crucifix. Leo tore open the envelope, pulling out a single sheet of paper:
Church of Sancta Sophia
Midnight
Alone
THIRTY MINUTES PAST MIDNIGHT, LEO was waiting at the location where the Church of Sancta Sophia had once stood. The domes and tabernacles were gone. In their place was a vast pit, ten meters deep, twenty meters wide, and seventy long. One of the pit walls had collapsed, forming an uneven slope that led down to a muddy basin of brown snow, black ice, and oozy water. The remaining walls were near collapse, slipping inward, creating the impression of a mouth closing around a monstrous black tongue. No work had taken place since 1950: it was a construction site with no construction, sealed off and closed down. Along the steel perimeter fence were faded signs warning people to keep out. After the initial, botched attempt, when one demolition expert had died and several of the crowd had been injured, the church had been successfully destroyed and cleared away, loaded on the back of trucks, the remains dumped outside the city, a rubble corpse now bound together with weeds. Preliminary work had begun for what was to be the nation’s largest watersports complex, including a fifty-meter pool and a series of banya, one for men, one for women, and one marble chamber for State officials.
Excitement had been manufactured by a saturation media campaign. The design schematics had been reprinted in Pravda, footage had run in the cinemas showing real people superimposed against a matte drawing of the completed baths. While the propaganda geared up, work had shuddered to a halt. The ground beside the river was unstable and susceptible to slippage. The foundations had begun to move and tear, causing the authorities to regret not examining the ancient foundations of the church more carefully before scooping them up and tossing them aside. Some of the best minds in the country had been called in and, after careful consideration, declared it unsuitable for a complex that required deep networks of pipes and drains, dug farther down than the church had ever extended. Those experts had been dismissed and more pliable experts brought in who, after a different kind of careful consideration, declared the problem fixable. They merely needed more time. That was the answer the State had wanted to hear, not wishing to admit to a mistake. These experts had been housed in luxury apartments where they drew diagrams, smoked cigars, and jotted down calculations while the deep pit filled with rain during the autumn, snow during the winter, and mosquitoes during the summer. The propaganda footage was pulled from the cinemas. Shrewd citizens understood that it would be best to forget about the project. Imprudent citizens wryly commented that a watery trench made a poor substitute for a three-hundred-year-old church. In the summer of 1951 Leo had arrested a man for making such a quip.
Leo checked his watch. He’d been waiting for over an hour. Shivering and exhausted, he was near mad with impatience. He had no idea if his wife had survived surgery and, cut off from communication, had no means of finding out. There was no question that the decision to leave Raisa’s side and meet Lazar was the correct one. There was nothing he could do in the hospital. No matter how much Zoya hated him, no matter how she behaved, no matter if she wanted him dead, he’d taken responsibility for her, a responsibility he’d promised to uphold whether she loved him or not. In preparation for the meeting he’d gone home, showered, scrubbed the smell of the sewer off him, and changed out of his uniform. His hands had been dressed at the hospital. He’d refused painkillers, fearing that they might dull him. Wearing civilian clothing, he was conscious that the trappings of authority might provoke a vengeful priest.
Hearing a noise, Leo turned, searching the gloom for his adversary. There was residual light from nearby buildings outside the fenced perimeter. Precious machinery — cranes, diggers — stood abandoned, left to rust because no one dared admit defeat and redeploy them where they could be put to use. Leo heard the noise again: the clang of metal against stone. It wasn’t coming from inside the construction site: it was coming from the river.
Cautiously, he approached the stone ledge, tentatively leaning over and peering down toward the water. A hand reached up not far from where he was standing. A man nimbly pulled himself up, squatting on the ledge before jumping down to the construction site. To his side another man climbed up. They were crawling out of the mouth of a sewer tunnel, clambering up the wall, like a disturbed ant colony responding to a threat. Leo recognized the young boy who’d murdered the patriarch clambering out, expertly using finger- and toeholds in the brickwork. Watching the boy move with such agility, it was unsurprising that he’d survived his earlier dive into the torrent.
The gang searched Leo for weapons. There were seven men and the boy, tattoos on all of their necks and hands. Several items of their clothes were well tailored, while others were threadbare, mismatched as if a haphazard selection from the wardrobes of a hundred different people. Their appearance left no question. They were part of a criminal fraternity — the vory—a brotherhood forged during their time in the Gulags. Despite Leo’s profession, he encountered vory rarely. They considered themselves apart from the State.
The gang members spread out: examining the surroundings, making sure it was safe. Finally the boy whistled, giving the all-clear. Two hands appeared on the ledge. Lazar climbed up, towering above his vory, silhouetted by the lights on the other side of the river. Except that this wasn’t Lazar. It was a woman — Anisya, Lazar’s wife.
Anisya’s hair was cropped short. Her features were sharp. All the softness in her face and body had been lost. Despite this, she seemed more intensely alive, more striking and vivid than ever before, as if some great energy emanated from her. She was wearing loose trousers, an open shirt, and a short, thick coat — dressed much like her men. There was a gun on her belt, like a bandit. From her triumphant position she looked down at Leo, proud that her arrival had surprised him. Leo could manage only one word, her name:
— Anisya?
She smiled. Her voice was cracked and deep, no longer melodic, no longer the voice of a woman who used to sing in her husband’s choir:
— That name means nothing to me now. My men call me Fraera.
She jumped down from the ledge not far from where Leo was. Standing up straight, she studied his face intently:
— Maxim…
She addressed him with the alias he’d taken:
— Answer me this, and don’t lie, how often did you think of me? Every day?
— Honestly, no.
— Did you think of me once a week?
— No.
— Once a month…
— I don’t know…
Fraera allowed him to taper off into embarrassed silence before remarking:
— I can guarantee you that your victims think about you every day, every morning, and every night. They remember your smell and the sound of your voice — they remember you as clearly as I see you now.
Fraera raised her right hand:
— This was the hand you touched when you made me your offer, that I leave my husband. Isn’t that what you said? I should let him die in the Gulags while I slipped into bed with you?
— I was young.
— Yes, you were. Very young and yet you were still given power over me, over my husband. You were a boy with a crush, little more than a teenager. You thought you’d done a decent thing in trying to save me.
This was a conversation she’d practiced a thousand times, words shaped by seven years of hate:
— I had a lucky escape. If fear had taken hold of me, if I had faltered, I would’ve ended up as your wife, the wife of an MGB officer, an accomplice to your crimes, someone to share your guilt with.
— You have every reason to hate me.
— I have more reason than you think.
— Raisa, Zoya, Elena: they have nothing to do with my mistakes.
— You mean that they are innocent? When has that mattered to officers like you? How many innocent people have you arrested?
— You intend to murder every person who wronged you?
— I didn’t murder Suren. I didn’t murder your mentor Nikolai.
— His daughters are dead.
Fraera shook her head:
— Maxim, I have no heart. I have no tears to shed. Nikolai was weak and vain. I should’ve guessed he would die in the most pathetic of fashions. However, as a message to the State, it was certainly more powerful than him merely hanging himself.
Just as the Church of Sancta Sophia had been destroyed and replaced with a dark, deep pit, Leo wondered if the same was true of her. Her moral foundations had been ripped up and replaced with a dark abyss.
Fraera asked:
— I take it you have made the connection between Suren, the man who ran the printing press, Nikolai, the patriarch, and yourself? You knew Nikolai: he was your boss. The patriarch was the man who enabled you to infiltrate our church.
— Suren worked for the MGB but I didn’t know him personally.
— He was a guard when I was interrogated. I remember him standing on tiptoe, looking into the cell. I remember the top of his head, his curious eyes, watching as if he’d snuck into a movie theater.
Leo asked:
— What is the point of this?
— When the police are criminals, the criminals must become the police. The innocent must live underground, in the shit of the city, while the villains live in warm apartments. The world is upside down: I’m merely turning it the right way up.
Leo spoke out:
— What about Zoya? You’ll kill her, a young girl who doesn’t even like me? A girl who only chose to live with me to save her sister from an orphanage?
— You are mistaken in your attempts at appealing to my humanity. Anisya is dead. She died when her child was taken from her by the State.
Leo didn’t understand. Answering his evident confusion, Fraera added:
— Maxim, I was pregnant when you arrested me.
With the precision of a surgeon Fraera probed this newly inflicted cut, prising it open, watching him bleed:
— You never even took the time to find out what had happened to Lazar. You never took the time to find out what had happened to me. Had you looked through the records you would’ve discovered that I gave birth eight months into my sentence. I was allowed to nurse my son for three months before he was taken from me. I was told to forget about him. I was told I would never see him again. When I was released, granted an early reprieve after Stalin’s death, I searched for my child. He’d been placed in an orphanage but his name had been changed and all record of my motherhood erased. This is standard, I was told. It is one thing to lose a child: it is another to know that they’re alive, somewhere, ignorant of your existence.
— Fraera, I can’t defend the State. I followed orders. And I was wrong. The orders were wrong. The State was wrong. But I have changed.
— I know about the changes you’ve made. You’re no longer KGB, you’re militia. You deal only with real crimes, not political ones. You’ve adopted two beautiful young girls. This is your idea of redemption, yes? What does any of it mean to me? What of the debt you owe me? What of the debt you owe to men and women you arrested? How is that to be paid? Are you planning to build a modest stone statue to commemorate the dead? Will you put up a brass plaque with our names written in tiny letters so they all fit in? Will that suffice?
— You want to take my life?
— I have thought about it many times.
— Then kill me and let Zoya live. Let my wife live.
— You would gladly die to save them. It would make you noble; it would scrub you clean of your crimes. You still believe that you can lead your life as a hero?
Fraera pointed to his clothes:
— Take off your clothes.
Leo remained silent, unsure if he’d heard correctly. She repeated her instructions:
— Maxim, take off your clothes.
Leo took off his hat, his gloves, his coat, dropping them to the ground. He unbuttoned his shirt, shuddering in the cold, placing it on the heap in front of him. Fraera raised her hand:
— That’s enough.
He stood, shivering, his arms by his side.
— You find the night cold, Maxim? It is nothing compared to the winters in Kolyma, the frozen corner of this country where you sent my husband.
To his surprise, Fraera also began to undress, taking off her coat, her shirt, revealing her naked torso. Tattoos covered her skin: one under her right breast, one on her stomach, tattoos on her arms, her hands, fingers. She stepped closer to Leo.
— You want to know what has happened to me these past few years? You want to know how a woman, the wife of a priest, came to be in charge of a vory gang? The answers are written on my skin.
She took hold of her breast, lifting it up, drawing Leo’s attention to the tattoo. There was a lion:
— It means I will avenge all who wronged me, from the lawyers, to the judges, to the prison guards and the police officers.
In the center of her chest, rising up between her breasts, was a crucifix:
— This has nothing to do with my husband, Maxim — it represents my authority, as the Thief-in-Law. Perhaps this one you’ll understand.
She touched the tattoo on her stomach. It showed a heavily pregnant woman — a cross section revealing the inside of her extended belly. Instead of an unborn child, the pregnant stomach was filled with barbed wire, coiled round and round like one long, jagged umbilical cord.
— Maxim, you have the blank skin of a child. To me, and to my men, it appears dishonest. Where are your crimes? Where are the things you have done? I see no trace of them. I see no marks on you. I see none of your guilt written on you.
Fraera took another step closer, her body almost touching his:
— I can touch you, Maxim. Yet if you lay a finger on me, you will be killed. My skin is the same as my authority. For you to touch me would be a violation, an insult.
She pressed against him, whispering:
— Seven years later, it is my turn to make you an offer. Lazar is still in Kolyma, working in a gold mine. They refuse to release him. He’s a priest. Priests are hated again, now that there are no wars the State needs them to promote. He’s been told that he’ll have to serve his full sentence — twenty-five years. I want you to get him out. I want you to put right that wrong.
— I have no such power.
— You have connections.
— Fraera, you murdered the patriarch. They blame you for the murder of two agents, Nikolai and Moskvin. They will never negotiate with you. They will never release Lazar.
— Then you must find another way to get him out.
— Fraera, please — if you had asked me a week ago, perhaps it would’ve been feasible. But after what you have done, it is impossible. Listen to my voice. I would do anything for Zoya, anything within my power. However, I cannot free Lazar.
Fraera leaned forward, whispering:
— Remember, I can touch you, but you must not touch me.
With that warning she kissed him on the cheek. Tender at first before her teeth gripped his skin, closing tight, digging in, increasing in pressure — drawing blood. The pain was intense. Leo wanted to push her away, but if he touched her, he would be killed. He could do nothing except suffer the pain. Finally, she opened her mouth, stepping back and admiring the bite marks.
— Maxim, you have your first tattoo.
With his blood on her lips, she concluded:
— Free my husband, or I will murder your daughter.