The man walked briskly down the hallway, glancing back over his shoulder occasionally. His footsteps made no sound, as he was wearing low rubber slippers pulled over his black shoes. He came to a door-oval-shaped and with a large metal wheel in the center. He stood for a moment, his hands on the wheel, looking back the way he'd come.
The hallway's ceiling and walls were curved, and at irregular intervals the entire corridor bent first right then left at sharp angles, like some huge, painfully contorted snake. Parallel rows of pipes and conduits ran along the walls. Ceiling, walls, floor, pipes-all were painted a uniform pale gray. Harsh fluorescent lights in the ceiling made everything shine, as if slightly wet. A stenciled word over the door read (Officer Barracks).
He turned the wheel and pulled the door open with some effort, stepped into the small room, then pulled the door closed behind him, locking it with a spin of the wheel. The room's walls and ceiling were curved, too, making it cramped. There was only enough room for two small metal cots, two upright metal wardrobes, and a small metal desk. He went to the cot next to the wardrobe marked (Leverotov) and sat down.
He was wearing a military uniform: a sea green jacket over similarly colored tunic and pants, a blue beret, and a brown leather gun belt buckled around his waist. The only insignia on the entire uniform were brass pins, one on each collar: two crossed cannons, the symbol of the artillery.
Reaching inside his tunic pocket, he extracted two objects: a green-and-blue pack of cigarettes and a small wooden box of matches. The cigarette pack read (Shipka) in white letters against a green background, with a picture of a square monument rising in exaggerated perspective into the sky. The number 1877 was printed on the side of the monument. The matchbox cover displayed a simple drawing: two raised hands, one with a hammer and the other with a sickle, and a miniature rocket arcing over them.
He sat for a moment looking at the cigarettes and matches.
The faint squeaking of footsteps in the hallway brought his head up, his eyes concentrating on the wheel of the door. The footsteps grew closer-then passed by.
He opened the matchbox, dumped the matches on the cot, and removed the box's cover. He took a small pencil from his pocket and began carefully drawing something on the inside bottom of the box-lines, some in sharp wriggles, others straight, a tiny dot and rectangle, some other symbols. It was painstaking work, and soon he was sweating, even though the room was chill with recycled air.
Finished, he turned to the matches. He began putting them back into the box, counting as he did so. When he reached thirty-three, he took another match and, inserting it into his mouth, bit off the blue-colored tip-and swallowed it. He put the beheaded match into the box; the matches inside now covered his tiny sketch.
Taking up the pencil again, he wrote 34 on the box cover, beneath the tiny rocket. There were six matches left on the cot. He shook a filterless cigarette from the pack and pulled it out with his lips, then lit one of the remaining matches on the side of the box, brought it to the cigarette. He inhaled deeply. Then he picked up the remaining five matches and brought the burning match against them. The matches flared, bringing his face into sharp relief, reflecting in his brown, grim eyes. He watched them burn, then blew them all out. He reached over and took a metal ashtray from the desk. Putting all six spent matches into the ashtray, he stubbed out the cigarette and placed it on top of the matches, then returned the ashtray to the desktop.
He tucked the matchbox inside the nearly empty cigarette pack. He stood and crossed the narrow aisle to the cot opposite his: (ORLOV) read its wardrobe. He opened the thin metal door and, parting the front of a dress tunic identical to his draped on a hanger, slipped the package into the tunic's inside pocket. Then he carefully straightened the tunic and closed the locker's door.
Returning to his own cot he sat down. He looked at his hands, which were trembling, and closed them into fists. The trembling stopped. He removed a small black-and-brown automatic pistol from the gun belt's holster. Embossed on the grip was a tiny five-pointed star. The pistol looked surprisingly light for something made of metal, something so lethal. He removed his beret and placed it carefully on the pillow of his cot. Then he raised the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger.
The sound, in such a confined space, was deafening.