Ask No Mercy

by Martin Österdahl

  “But why have you contacted me? How could I help you?”

  “I haven’t been able to forget our meeting at the opera. My husband wasn’t able to forget it, either; he has sought information about you and your friend. I heard him tell a comrade what your names and professions were.”

  She laid a hand on her chest, fingered the white blouse.

  “Because your friend Wallentin is a doctor, I contacted him. This didn’t raise any suspicions; I could claim there was a health issue. Then I asked him to arrange a meeting with you. There was something in your eyes when I met you at the opera house that made me feel you are a man who can be trusted, who can help me with the impossible.”

  “The impossible?” asked Carl.

  “I want to flee from the man who owns me and from the monster in Moscow. I accept the possible consequences. For betraying Mother Russia, I deserve to die.”

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 29

  14

  Max swung his feet onto the floor and looked at them, sitting on the edge of the bed and bending forward. He wiggled his toes a little and let his body awaken slowly. It had been a late night—too late, really. And it hadn’t brought him any closer to Pashie. After he’d finally gone to bed, he saw Pashie’s smile every time he closed his eyes. When he thought he could hear her whispering in his ear, he ignored all medical advice and took a benzo even though he’d had quite a bit to drink.

  Max got out of bed and walked to the hall mirror. Looked at his body, which felt more tired than it appeared. On a little chest in front of the mirror lay a brochure. On it, a cosmonaut floated through space, unaffected by Earth’s gravitational field. He was holding a cell phone up to his big round helmet, smiling behind the helmet’s faceplate, happily talking to someone at home in Russia. According to the brochure, the phone came from St. Petersburg GSM, a local cellular-service provider.

  Should he get a new cell phone with a local subscription? His own phone still wasn’t working. He shook his head gently and groaned. In contrast to the cosmonaut, he was certainly under the influence of Earth’s gravity. It was as though he, too, were wearing a large round helmet on his head—in his case, a helmet of lead. His mouth tasted of metal, and his throat was as dry as sandpaper.

  The telephone next to the bed started ringing, and Max jerked.

  Pashie?

  His pulse pounded in his temples as he rushed to the phone.

  “Max?” It was Mishin. “We just got hold of Mrs. Bili.”

  “Is Pashie there?”

  Mishin sighed. “No, unfortunately not. Mrs. Bili was away for a few days. She doesn’t know where Pashie is, but she says she’s found something that belongs to her.”

  “What has she found?” asked Max.

  “A cell phone.”

  After a quick shower, Max went down to Griboyedov Canal, where Ilya was waiting for him as agreed. He was behind the wheel of a red Lada Niva jeep and looked like a B-movie actor earning extra cash in a fast-food ad: hamburger in one hand, soda in the other, black leather jacket and sunglasses.

  “It’s wonderful to be doing business with you again, Max.”

  “Again?”

  “You know I like you.” Ilya smiled broadly.

  Max recognized the tone from their days together in Moscow, when everything that came out of Ilya’s mouth was either the opening move of a negotiation or a threat.

  The smell of Ilya’s hamburger mixed with the stink of exhaust. Max grimaced.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “I need fifteen thousand.”

  “Rubles?” said Max. “Okay, you have a deal.”

  “Dollars.”

  Fifteen thousand dollars to find Pashie. What choice did Max have in this negotiation? Could he say no and risk never seeing Pashie again and always wondering whether things would have gone differently if he had involved the tolkach in the adventure? The amount was utterly meaningless. Pashie was worth all the money in the world.

  “A high roller like you,” said Max. “What do you need the money for?”

  “Continued charity work,” said Ilya, grinning again. “But seriously—I’m going to go to school to become a lawyer.”

  Max imagined Ilya arriving in court with a briefcase in one hand and a cell phone in the other, wearing a tie and a tight-fitting suit being split at the seams by his broad rib cage and pumped biceps. He would surely be a fantastic lawyer, with the varicose vein under his eye and the big scar across his throat. He would scare the hell out of everyone: the jury, the security guards, the witnesses, even the worst clients imaginable.

  “Okay, you’ll get fifteen thousand dollars,” said Max. “When we have our girl.”

  Ilya turned to him, and Max thought he was going to question the payment terms, but instead he got so close that Max could see the vein pulsing under his eye.

  “Your girl, Max. Not our girl.”

  They drove down Nevsky Prospekt and across Alexander Nevsky Bridge and past the monument to the heroic defenders of Leningrad, with its eternal gas flame and tall obelisk. A constant reminder of the indescribable torments to which the city was subjected during the Second World War, when the nine-hundred-day siege had forced some people to eat other human beings to survive.

  Max had expected a typical Russian suburb with gray buildings quickly thrown together and scattered across the ground at random. But Toksovo was more like an urbanized town, something that was quite rare in Russia. It seemed to have been allowed to mature gradually, at a slower rate than usual. Industrialization hadn’t been introduced from above overnight; it hadn’t completely knocked out the old structures, as had happened in so many other places around the country.

  Though maintenance of roads and buildings had fallen behind here as elsewhere, Toksovo’s broad streets and residential neighborhoods were reminiscent of small towns in the American South. In contrast to the American South, however, the background here consisted of a low-slung mountain covered with snow and ski lifts that climbed to the ridges.

  Mrs. Bili lived in a little house with a tiny garden. On the lot stood a doghouse and a shed whose form had been dissolved by the wear of the seasons, so that it now resembled a tent that had lost a pole or two and was held up only by the house against which it was leaning.

  Ilya parked outside the house; he appeared not to care that he was obstructing traffic.

  Max saw Mrs. Bili through the window when he walked onto the lot. For a brief moment, their eyes met, and he felt a shock. Mrs. Bili was around sixty, short, thin, and pale; her hair was covered by a kerchief that would have made her look like the ideal Soviet working woman if she had been more muscular.

  She reminded him of his own mother.

  Mrs. Bili greeted Max and Ilya at the front door and invited them into the kitchen. Her clothing and the simplicity and cleanliness that surrounded her suggested that she lived alone. The complete absence of a life other than her own was worrying. Max had hoped to find something he could connect to Pashie.

  Mrs. Bili offered them tea, and Max and Ilya squeezed into what little space there was at her narrow kitchen table. Mrs. Bili looked the enormous Ilya over nervously.

  “We’ve tried to get in touch with Pashie and with you several times,” said Max. “Have you been away?”

  Mrs. Bili nodded and poured steaming tea into two cups on the table.

  “One day when I got home I found Avesta in poor condition.”

  Avesta? An Afghan girl’s name. Max remembered the doghouse he had seen outside. Perhaps her husband had served in the war? It wasn’t unusual for people to name dogs after individuals they had gotten to know while they were away fighting wars.

  “What had happened to her?” he asked.

  “It’s terrible.” Mrs. Bili shook her head and pressed a hand to one eye. “She’d always been a healthy dog, but last Thursday she suddenly got sick and was in terrible pain. The veterinarian lives almost an hour away. I was allowed to sleep there. Until it was all over.”

  Max nodded.r />
  “I’m sorry. When did you last see Pashie?”

  “The day before Avesta got sick.”

  “And when you got home you found no message from her, no sign of where she might have gone?”

  “Nothing. But we hear such terrible stories. One doesn’t even dare to think about it.”

  “Which stories do you mean?”

  “Quite a few skinheads live around here. They’re certainly capable of hurting people or worse. And given her ethnicity . . .”

  Prejudices and racism thrived in the countryside, particularly in the areas outside Russia’s largest cities. Hordes of supporters of the nationalist Zhirinovsky roamed the streets and country roads and caused problems. A Tatar always had to be careful, but Pashie was used to concealing her background.

  Mrs. Bili said a skinhead gang had shoved a dark-skinned elderly man in front of a train—one more person killed by racists. Max knew Pashie had encountered discrimination, but usually it took the form of everyday slights—for example, when a bartender refused to serve her alcohol, saying she was a Muslim, which she certainly was not. Her half-Russian mother had insisted that Pashie be raised as an Orthodox Christian like everyone else.

  “Do you have a close relationship with Pashie?” asked Max.

  “No, I can’t say I do. Can’t say I know her very well, but she’s been a good tenant, always paid her rent on time, no parties, no men.”

  Sure. We use hotels, thought Max. He turned in his chair.

  “Could we see her room?”

  Mrs. Bili changed her shoes and put on a green knitted cardigan. She pointed out the window at the garden shed.

  “Is that where she lives?” asked Max.

  “She lives in the old garage in back.”

  They walked through the little garden and into the shed. Max and Ilya had to duck to keep from hitting their heads on the ceiling. On a bench was a well-organized herb-cultivation project; empty pots were stacked; garden tools hung on the walls; and on the dirt floor stood a box containing a collection of dog bones.

  When they emerged at the back, Max could see an old garage door. It would have been impossible for a car to get back here. Presumably things had been different when the house was built. Had Pashie come home late in the evenings, after her long workdays in Saint Petersburg and thirty or forty minutes on the train, and walked through the dilapidated shed to live in a space built for a car? She was in the habit of saying that she lived in a garage, but Max had never been here before and hadn’t thought she’d meant it literally. Was there even any oxygen in there?

  “Has Pashie ever been away for a long period of time before?”

  “Yes, but never without telling me she would be.”

  “And you’re sure she isn’t in there?” asked Ilya.

  “The lights haven’t been on since I got home. I can see the light through a crack in the wall if they are.”

  “But you did find something that belonged to her.”

  Max waited patiently. Finally, Mrs. Bili put her hand in her pocket.

  “I found it in the bushes over there. It doesn’t seem to be working.”

  Max gasped when he saw the cell phone. It was Pashie’s. He took it and stroked it as though he could feel Pashie’s warmth coming out of it. She had held this telephone, had talked to him while she pressed it against her ear. But there was no warmth in the phone; in fact, it was very cold.

  Mrs. Bili cleared her throat, and Max jerked. He examined the phone again. Like his own, it was a Nokia with a Telia contract paid for by Vektor.

  “I’ll take it,” said Ilya. “I know someone who can get information out of it.”

  He stuck the phone in one of his jacket pockets.

  “Can we open this door now?” asked Max.

  Mrs. Bili turned the key, and Ilya helped her push the door open. A burnt smell swept toward them, and Mrs. Bili backed up a few steps.

  Max blinked. Then he stepped forward, into the little space. He saw a bed, an old sofa, a coffee table, and a little television. Against one wall stood a compact kitchen. Against the opposite wall was a large bookcase. Everything it had held had been thrown onto the floor or the furniture. In the middle of the room was an oil barrel. The smell of fire and ash came from it.

  With each step Max took toward the barrel, his heart rate increased. Time slowed and finally stopped entirely. He forced away the worst thoughts and images.

  Something was sticking out of the oil barrel. Something charred that seemed to be reaching out to him.

  When Max saw that it was a wooden stick, his heart started beating again. Using the stick, he poked around in the contents of the barrel. No bones, no hair, no melted fat.

  Thank God.

  But everything Pashie had been working on for Vektor was in there: documents, books, notebooks, photographs, and a half-melted laptop computer.

  “Can I take a look at that?” said Ilya.

  He picked up the computer and looked at the shattered screen and the melted keyboard. The battery was missing, and the underside of the computer had been repeatedly punctured and was as full of holes as Swiss cheese. He dropped the computer back into the barrel.

  “Max!”

  Mrs. Bili’s hoarse voice came from the innermost part of the garage. Max hurried over to a flimsy door that opened on a makeshift bathroom. He had to bend over to get in, but the room itself was bigger and had a higher ceiling than he had expected.

  On the left, directly above the toilet, a showerhead was attached to the wall. Next to it was an aluminum sink that looked like it belonged in a garden shed.

  Max’s gaze was drawn to the red marks on the walls.

  They didn’t form a pattern. They were prints made by a hand smeared with blood. Along the sides of the sink was more blood; it had coagulated and lay in thick, dry clumps.

  Bloody fingers had been dragged from one side of the bathroom mirror above the sink to the other. Max closed his eyes. He imagined the image of Pashie’s face filling the mirror. He opened his eyes again and her face was gone. The bloody marks on the mirror seemed to speak to him.

  Find me.

  15

  Afanasy Mishin shifted in his chair, and the smell of something stale reached his nose. The chair had been in the basement and hadn’t looked too worn. But sometimes its odor reminded him that it had been at the university almost as long as Mishin himself.

  He saw movement from the corner of his eye and looked up from the report he had been trying to concentrate on for the last half hour. A dog’s head appeared in the doorway. With the head came the smell of a dog that hadn’t had a bath in a long time and the well-known panting of an old friend who had never bothered to stay in shape.

  “Sharik, you old cur!” exclaimed Mishin. “We’ll have to build you a cart so it’ll be easier for you to drag your owner around with you.”

  Sergey Gachov came through the doorway without meeting Mishin’s eyes; instead, he looked at an old leather armchair, Mishin’s reading chair, which stood in a corner of the office.

  He sat down heavily, exhaled, and pulled on Sharik’s leash to get the dog to sit and then lie down at his feet.

  Gachov, Mishin thought, when are you going to be able to retire?

  Still breathless, Gachov asked, “Is everything going well, Afanasy? You seem to have made yourself at home here.”

  His gaze wandered from the light-blue and purple glass chandelier, which was a family treasure, to the large bookcase that covered the wall and was full of books on economic history and financial theory, and then on to the red-and-black Azerbaijani rug on the floor.

  “Sure, Sergey,” said Mishin. “In a few decades, this will seem like a real department with the funding to carry out serious research and achieve some kind of results.”

  They had both experienced so much, both outside and inside the protective walls of the academic world: they had been born during the famines and grown up during the war years; seen the purges of the fifties, the optimism and progress o
f the sixties and seventies, and the stagnation of the eighties, which had culminated in glasnost and perestroika and finally the roller coaster of the free market.

  Would they once again experience the great days of yore when science and research were government priorities?

  “What about you?” Mishin continued. “Are you still reading anthropology journals to the pooch until she’s snoring so loudly you can’t concentrate anymore?”

  The strength of Gachov’s laugh surprised Mishin.

  “She’s nice and warm,” said Gachov. “And a man’s best friend.”

  “She certainly is. But what brings you here?”

  Gachov had been working frenetically, as though he still thought he could make his way out of the shadows, but no university discipline had a lower priority than archaeology. The new Russia had no interest in historical excavations; nothing was less interesting. But that didn’t deter a man like Sergey Gachov.

  “The fact is, it’s Sharik who’s brought me here,” said Gachov, nodding at the dog, who appeared to have fallen asleep at his feet.

  Mishin looked at the bloodhound.

  “Don’t tell me she’s sick, Sergey? If so, you’ve come to the wrong professor.”

  “Not at all. Apart from her bad hip she’s fine, and she’s looking forward to surviving me by many years. And, in fact, I’ve come to the right professor for the matter I want to discuss. To the right person, anyway.”

  Gachov looked serious. “Sharik discovered something during our morning walk. I want to talk to you about it.”

  “Did she find a chest full of American dollars?”

  Gachov’s cheerfulness was now completely gone. “Unfortunately, no. She found human bones.”

  “Where are you going on these morning walks?” exclaimed Mishin. “To the cemetery?”

  “To the beach promenade out at the Baltic Point. It was yesterday morning.”

  “And you’re sure these were bones from a human being?”

  As soon as Mishin had asked the question, he realized how stupid it was. He admitted his mistake with a grimace. You don’t have to answer that.