The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense

by Otto Penzler

  When Aniskin walked the length of the village on a winter morning the women listened to the snow creaking as he moved from one house to another and said to themselves, “Six o’clock, time to start making the dough.” In summer Aniskin rose at half past six and his round of the village was marked by laboured breathing. Between five in the afternoon and eight in the evening Aniskin had his nap, then drank tea out in the garden in summer and in his small kitchen, whose walls were pasted with colour photographs cut from the magazine Ogonyok, in winter.

  The militia inspector’s wife was his very opposite in that she was extremely thin, with a low even voice and slanting eyes. Her name was Glafira. She did not work anywhere and was therefore regarded as a lady of leisure though nobody had ever seen her taking it easy. She always found something to keep her busy. She had a big vegetable plot, kept various animals and poultry, gathered mushrooms, berries and nuts, but for all her efforts the family was never particularly well-off, because they had many children and there was always a son or a daughter to be supported at college. Aniskin wanted all his children to have a good education. All Glafira’s babies were big, pink-cheeked and healthy.

  In the summer of 196… Aniskin’s weight was calculated to be roughly nineteen stone. One stuffy July afternoon, with the time for his nap approaching, Aniskin was strolling leisurely along the village street keeping on the river side and trying to catch cool wafts from the Ob on his hot forehead. The river flowed lazily to the north, cormorants circled above it, and the ferry-boat made its way creakingly to the other side. The river was its usual self, so was the sky, and at the foot of the high bank children were bathing, snorting like horses. When they caught sight of Aniskin’s huge bulk on the rise their shouting and screaming grew louder, and the running and splashing became more energetic than ever.

  “Sitting in the water all day long, can you imagine it?” said Aniskin. “Can you imagine anything like it?”

  He sucked his tooth, produced a handkerchief from his pocket, examined it carefully, thought a little, then moved his legs apart and bent down to pick a bit of brick. After winding his handkerchief round the brick he threw it down to the river edge, shouting to the children, “Wet the handkerchief for me, my head’s fit to split!”

  The children rushed to get the handkerchief and Aniskin laid his hands on his paunch, inclined his head to one side and began to twiddle his thumbs. His eyes popped out lobster fashion, his neck contracted and very slowly as though somebody was keeping him in place, he turned to the man who stood behind him.

  “Well?” he said quietly.

  “Here I am,” came the equally quiet reply.

  The man was about twenty-five. He wore a checked shirt and military-type breeches tucked into high boots and there was a grey cap perched on his head. But his physical appearance presented a striking contrast to his clothes. His pale, sickly face expressed extreme melancholy and the deep-set eyes glowed in the emaciated face with a strange icon-like beauty. His build was even more incongruous. The gaunt, saintly face and thin neck rested on the powerful torso of a wrestler, with enormously broad shoulders and a huge chest. His bare arms rippled with sweat-bathed muscles and the whole was supported by thick short legs. The man’s head lived separately from his body; it was as though they belonged to different people. “Look at him,” Aniskin thought to himself. “The image of his father Dmitri. Just look at him.”

  “You’re a funny chap, Genka,” Aniskin said with an aggrieved sucking of his tooth. “You have an angel’s face and a wolf’s body.”

  “That’s not my fault, is it?” Genka retorted in a plaintive voice. “I’m not to blame for it, am I?”

  “You must be,” Aniskin answered reflectively. “If you weren’t to blame I wouldn’t have to bother with you in such heat.”

  Twiddling his thumbs on his paunch and emitting occasional smothered grunts, the inspector gazed at the Ob, and his eyes reflected the river, the water molten in the sun, the oarboat, the old poplar on the tall bank, the bend and the children who were clambering up the clayey bank. The first to reach the top was the liveliest and jolliest of them, and he ran up to Aniskin, the wet handkerchief in his hand, shouting ecstatically:

  “Here it is, Uncle Aniskin, as wet as can be!”

  For another few seconds Aniskin stood motionless, his legs apart, his head lowered. The boy grew quiet and the smile left his face. On wet feet he walked over to the inspector, touched him cautiously on the elbow, lifted his head, and looked Aniskin in the face. Then Aniskin untwined his hands and laid one of them on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Good for you,Vitaly Pirogov, son of Ivan Pirogov.”

  Taking the handkerchief from the boy he straightened up and told him sternly:

  “Go back to your swimming now, Vitaly. And you knot the handkerchief round the back of my head, Genka. I can’t see.”

  Genka, the chap in the checked shirt and top-boots, knotted the handkerchief round the back of the inspector’s head, breathing cautiously and pantingly, and then walked aside and stood quietly, as Aniskin squeezed his eyes tight with pleasure and twitched his shoulders shiveringly. Water streamed from the handkerchief, which had not been wrung out very hard, onto Aniskin’s broad nose and down his hairy chest.

  “Ooo, that’s more like it,” Aniskin groaned delightedly.

  With the knotted handkerchief on his head, the militia inspector looked like some primeval Oriental deity.

  “Why don’t you have a swim?” Genka asked.

  “You have a swim yourself.”

  And Aniskin resumed his progress, down the village street moving his legs with elephantine clumsiness, and staring down morosely, obviously lost in some harrowing thoughts, for he was even hunched up tensely though this was not very noticeable with his enormous bulk. He passed Grandfather Krylov, who was sitting on a bench with his stick, with just a twitch of eyebrows for a greeting, did not so much as glance at the windows of the collective-farm office and did not smile at the woman who passed him with buckets full of water. Silent and redoubtable he marched on till he reached the house where he had his office. Stopping beside the wicket and thrusting his hand between the palings to open it from the inside, he asked drearily after a pause:

  “Why the hell are you like you are, Genka? Why in God’s name?”

  It was as quiet as can be at the edge of a village where immediately behind the houses spread a meadow, and a grove of cedars and young birches stretched up the graveyard hill, where a fir wood ran up right to the last house, the trees looking like warriors in Mongol spiked helmets and the mail of their cones glistening yellow.

  “Come on inside,” Aniskin said. “Come on in.”

  Once inside his office, a bare darkish room, Aniskin ordered Genka to stand by the door, lowered himself down on a stool and laid his heavy hands with light hairs on the table. He was immobile for several moments, then popped out his eyes in a stern professional manner and breathed out inquiringly:

  “Ah?”

  “All I want is three days,” Genka said. “Till the boat arrives from up the river. Three days.”

  “You certainly know what’s good for you, Genka,” Aniskin answered after some consideration. “Sure enough Proletary will come on Monday and you can make your get-away on it. Oh yes, you know what’s good for you,” he repeated and suddenly barked out ferociously, “Sit down! Sit down, you rotten bastard!”

  A second stool stood in the corner and Genka made for it. His wild beast’s paws trod stealthily, the massive back floated on at a strangely leisurely pace and his head moved along of its own accord, as it were, separately from the torso. All Genka’s movements were lithe and flowing and, sitting down, he put his hands on his knees with an elegant gesture, sighed childishly and fixed on Aniskin a devoted gaze shining with affection. The inspector shivered from this gaze as from a cold shower and said sadly:

  “You are a bandit, Genka, and no mistake. You crossed the room without a floorboard creaking.”

  Hungry black cock
roaches scurried over the walls of the office in great swarms. Usually Aniskin paid no attention to them, just apologised to his visitors with a smile. But today he looked at the battalions resentfully, squinting his eyes till they were two angry slits, though he was not so much looking at the cockroaches as peering at something inside himself. But whatever it was that he was trying to make out within himself eluded him and he scowled painfully.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you have gone and done, Genka?” he suddenly asked politely. “But don’t lie to me, my boy, please.”

  “Oh, dear me, Uncle Aniskin,” Genka whispered confidingly oozing affection. “When did I ever lie to you?”

  “You never did anything else, my dear lad,” Aniskin replied kindly.

  “That’s not true, it’s not true at all. Perhaps I did lie to you once or twice about small things, but when it came to big things, I’ve always told you the truth, because I haven’t got it in me to conceal things. That was the way my dear mother brought me into this world. I just can’t lie. I’m always like an open book to you.”

  As Genka Paltsev chanted on, blinking his saintly eyelashes, Aniskin was moving away further and further from him, and soon Genka’s litany seemed to be coming to him from a vast distance. A thick netting seemed to curtain Genka’s face, the pallor and sickliness left it and it was no longer Genka’s head and body living separate lives of their own before him, but Genka’s father, Dmitri Paltsev, sitting in the darkish office. He looked at Aniskin with his icon eyes and suddenly the stool heaved under the inspector and the floor sank. The damp rotting smell of a gully was in his nostrils, a big green star hit him in the eye so piercingly that his head began ringing like bells over an empty church, the star-like scar under his left breast began to ache. Enveloped in powder fumes he felt the pressure of a blood stream on his palm that flowed out to meet the star.

  “Shut up,” Aniskin whispered and made a motion with his hand as though to brush off a cobweb from his face. “Shut up.”

  For a minute they were both silent. Then Aniskin asked:

  “What did you do at the farm, Genka?”

  “I lifted a watch from the hairdresser,” Genka answered. “A gold one.”

  “Well?”

  “She squealed, Uncle Aniskin,” Genka added inaudibly, “so I had to keep her quiet.”

  “Killed her?”

  “Oh, how can you think such a thing about me, Uncle Aniskin! Now, would I go and kill a person over a mere watch? You are always inventing things, Uncle Aniskin, things it makes me shudder to think about to say nothing of repeating them out loud, really, you’re being unjust to me …”

  Genka chanted on, but his voice kept getting lower and the pauses between words longer and he gradually stretched out his legs before him sprawling on his stool. He lowered and lowered his voice until it became a whisper as Aniskin stared at him with immobile meditative eyes. Something was flowing out of them towards Genka, an invisible but tangible force which bound him hand and foot; Aniskin seemed to be looking right through Genka.

  “That’s enough!” Aniskin finally said.“Now I know everything about you, Genka. I needn’t have received a telegram from the district station ordering me to arrest a dangerous criminal. See, I’ve found out everything from your own words, not from the telegram.”

  Genka was now lying rather than sitting on the stool, his muscly arms had slipped from his knees, the thick legs looked boneless and his Slav nose sharpened. Then he opened his mouth gasping fish-like.

  “When did the telegram come?”

  “Day before yesterday.… I never thought you were such a fool.”

  Aniskin made a grimace of distaste, sucked his tooth and rose from his stool with the resolute air of one who has been meaning to do something for a long time but somehow could not get round to it. Once risen, Aniskin walked over to the Russian stove, took off a box of insecticide from a shelf and sprinkled the front ledge with it.

  “The hairdresser lived for two more hours,” he said in a smothered voice. “Whatever made you switch on your torch when you strangled her? Oh, what a fool you are! With mug like yours, you shouldn’t go about picking pockets, to say nothing of murder. She recognised your photograph. Now you’ve had it, Genka. It’s the firing squad for you, as sure as daylight.” Aniskin shook his head ruefully. “I’ve been militia inspector in this village for thirty-two years, but I’ve never seen a murderer yet. There have been fights and stealing, but no murders. You are my first murderer, Genka.”

  “Don’t arrest me, Uncle Aniskin, don’t give me up to the district station,” Genka’s head pleaded piteously and passionately. “Don’t give me up.”

  There was a rural silence all around, with not a sound to be heard, except the cockroaches scuttling behind the stove.

  “I’ve never given up any of the village folk to the district station for a small thing,” Aniskin said. “You just try and think of somebody I have given up for a small thing.”

  “No, you haven’t,” Genka’s swollen lips whispered. “Not one.”

  “I’ve got to arrest you, Genka,” Aniskin went on quietly. “I have no choice but to arrest you, but I shall give you a chance to escape and prove your worth if only you get the better of your cowardice. But if your cowardice is stronger than you are, then you’ve had it. So decide for yourself whether you accept my condition or not.”

  “What condition?”

  “I’ll tell you.”

  Aniskin walked across the room to the window, and looked out leaning against the frame. He saw the Ob almost colourless in the sun, the blue cedars on the other bank and the empty space beyond them: the river was a mile across and there was an even wider expanse beyond it, theVasyugansky marshes which stretched for hundreds of miles, a monotonous cheerless plain. Clouds of mosquitoes hovered over the marshes, the long-legged snipe squealed plaintively and the sun seemed to have got stuck in one position.

  “Here is my condition, Genka,” said Aniskin. “I am giving you till twelve o’clock tonight to leave the village. I haven’t seen you and you haven’t seen me. Now get out.”

  “Will you give me a canoe?” Genka whispered.

  “No, I won’t give you a canoe, or a boat either,” Aniskin answered in a hard voice. “You know I put someone to keep an eye on them. You’ll have to walk.”

  Paltsev sprawled on his stool, his face turned to the window, the Ob, the cedars and the expanse beyond.

  “But it’s the same as the firing squad,” Genka whispered.

  “And what did you think?” Aniskin responded after a pause. “What did you think when you strangled the mother of two children? Go away into the marshes and may God help you. If you get through alive, there’s a chance that you will make good after all. If you don’t make it, that’s as it should be, too. You are your own master now, Genka. And there is nothing more to talk about.”

  Paltsev remained motionless, numb all over. His muscles lay flaccid on the bones, a trapped beast’s torment flowed from the icon eyes down to his chest.

  “You’re a terrible man, Genka,” Aniskin said sucking his tooth. “People usually turn pale with fear, but you’ve gone red all over as though you’d drunk a glass of vodka.”

  Some five minutes later Genka rose and stumbled over to the door.

  “Have you got a knife?” Aniskin suddenly asked him in polite tones. “Eh, Genka?”

  “The things you go thinking up, Uncle Aniskin,” Genka chanted into the door. “Where would I get a knife from, how can you invent such a thing, really, it’s quite insulting, it is.”

  On and on he chanted, but the inspector was not listening. He felt Genka all over with his eyes and nodded with satisfaction as he noticed a wave pass down Genka’s back from the shoulders to the hips and to the left pocket of his breeches.

  “Why you rotten bastard!” Aniskin said delightedly. “You have a revolver in your left pocket, can you beat it? You are a dangerous criminal alright!”

  2

  The old poplar on
the bank whispered day-time story, the Ob was turning a deeper blue, the children no longer swam at the bottom of the high bank for it was already past five; lorries were giving impatient hoots in nearby meadows where the haymaking was in progress and women’s voices were raised as they rounded up the work. It is always like this towards evening when the air becomes clear and light and carries every sound. If it is quiet in the village, one can hear the chugging of a boat’s engine beyond the far bend, the cries of cormorants above the shallows four miles away and the cuckoo’s lament in the birches of the graveyard.

  It was quiet in the village, and Aniskin, standing in the middle of the road, his hands clasped on his paunch, and twiddling his thumbs, thought, “It’s been such a hard day that I don’t know which way to go.” He stood in the dusty road for another minute, then nodded and went towards the house made of pine logs, the home of schoolteacher Filatov. Instead of entering the yard, he walked over to an open window, listened in frowning concentration, unable to place the sound coming from within, and then smiled broadly.

  “Vladimir!” he called. “Would you mind coming out for a minute. I’d like to have a talk with you.”

  The whining of the electric razor stopped, there was an annoyed creaking of a chair, the hasty slapping of bare feet on the floor and the teacher poked his head out of the window. A small man, flecked with sun-spots like freckles, he averted his unshaven cheek from the inspector.

  “Good afternoon,” Aniskin greeted him. “Shaving, are you?”

  “Good afternoon, Inspector,” the teacher answered unenthusiastically and gestured with his hand. “Come inside, please.” Instead of doing so, Aniskin took a step towards the window and peered into the teacher’s face. Of course, the teacher’s left cheek had been left unshaven, but that was nothing compared to the fact that his eyelids were as swollen as if they had been stung by a bee, his cheeks were puffy and purple and his hands shook so badly that the razor clutched in his fingers made a tattoo against the window-sill. Noticing this the teacher smiled wryly and put his hands behind his back.