The Treachery of Russian Nesting Dolls

by Orest Stelmach

  He was the man who’d expressed his gratitude in person for saving his daughter’s life by giving me a business card that granted me one special favor.

  If only I had used it. It had never occurred to me that by granting me one favor, Putler had given me a chance to save Simmy’s life.

  I escaped the bar, stepped outside the hotel, and dialed the number Putler had given me. No one picked up for obvious reasons. So I walked around the hotel and kept dialing continuously. Sirens sounded and brakes screeched in the background. I don’t know how many loops I made or how much time passed, but eventually someone finally picked up my call. I froze in place on the sidewalk, but there was no sound on the other end of the line. An awkward pause followed, and I feared I was so distraught that I’d been misdialing the entire time.

  And then I heard his voice on the other end of the line.

  “If you’re calling me to ask for the resurrection of your fiancé,” Putler said, “I haven’t acquired that skill yet. But my scientists are working on it. They tell me they’re getting close.”

  “What a fool believes,” I said.

  He paused and sighed with great delight. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  I took a breath to compose myself. “You do still owe me a favor, though, don’t you?”

  “I’m a man of my word. Just understand that drinking from the cooling pond in Chernobyl and that sort of thing doesn’t qualify. It has to be a reasonable request.”

  I couldn’t believe he’d mentioned Chornobyl. It simply couldn’t be a coincidence. Somehow, Valery Putler—the President of Russia—knew that I’d snuck in there illegally two years ago.

  “It’s agreed then,” I said. “We’ll speak again.”

  “I look forward to it, my snow leopard.”

  He ended the call.

  I thought of the matryoshka.

  It contained seven dolls. Simmy had told me that I needed to know all seven dolls to understand a Russian man.

  Now I understood the one who’d outsmarted me.

  He was a powerful statesman, an avid sportsman, and a devoted father. He was also an insecure boy, a thug, a liar, and a murderer.

  He was whichever of these men he needed to be to meet his objective.

  He was all the other men, too.