Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Viktor moved to an old desk behind which sat a man with pockmarked face, a heavy man with gray-black hair and a uniform with a collar so tight it turned his exposed neck into a line of taut ridges. The man’s face was red and he wheezed slightly when he spoke.

  “My name is Viktor Dalipovna,” he said. “My daughter is here. I was told I could come.”

  The man behind the desk looked up at him with disapproval and then down at a list on the desk. Viktor could see names, some of them lined out, some open, others underlined in red.

  “Room seven,” the man at the desk said, filling out a small rectangular form and handing it to him. “That way.”

  Viktor took the sheet and moved past the flow of policemen. The station smelled of age and decay. He found room seven, knocked, and a voice called, “Enter.”

  Viktor opened the door and found himself in a very small, dirty white room with a wooden table. On the other side of the table his daughter Inna sat, her hands handcuffed together awkwardly because of the white cast on her right wrist. Next to her sat a man who looked at Viktor and pointed to a wooden bench facing himself and Inna.

  Viktor sat, keeping his eyes on his daughter.

  “I am Inspector Iosef Rostnikov of the Office of Special Investigation,” Iosef said.

  “Yes,” said Viktor, hardly glancing at the tired-looking young man. “You were on the television. The policewoman. The one Inna … is she? …”

  “She will be well,” said Iosef.

  Inna looked at her father. He saw nothing in her eyes, no emotion, no fear, anger. Perhaps a quiet resignation.

  “You have ten minutes,” Iosef said.

  “Can we be alone?” Viktor asked.

  “No,” said Iosef. “I am sorry.”

  Viktor turned to his daughter and reached out to touch her manacled hands. She neither responded nor pulled away. Her hands were cold. Or perhaps it was his hands which were cold.

  “Inna,” he said. “Do you really hate me so much?”

  “I do not hate you, Poppa,” the woman said flatly.

  At that moment, and just for a moment, Inna reminded Viktor of his dead wife, Inna’s mother at the very end when she had decided to ignore what remained of her life and those who had been a part of it.

  “Then why?” he asked.

  “I love you, Poppa,” she said. “And I hate you. I want to kill you, to make you see me as a person, not as a pathetic child, a sick child. But I do not want you to die. You want to know why?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Because I am afraid of being alone. I am afraid you will go with my mother and leave me alone. I hate you for that and I hate her because she might come and take you. I am afraid and I hate her and you.”

  “Have I been that bad to you?”

  “You have not been anything to me at all,” she said. “I am your burden. I clean and cook and shop and I do not exist.”

  “We talk,” he said.

  “You talk,” she said. “I pretend to listen.”

  “But to kill people, Inna?”

  She looked away and said, “They say I am crazy. I hear them. The doctor last night. She said I was crazy, but she did not use that word. They are going to put me in a crazy house, Poppa. Who will make your meals, do your shopping?”

  “That is not important, Inna,” he said.

  She pulled her hands away from his touch.

  “Not important? It has been the only meaning my life has had and now you say it is not important?” she said, showing not anger but pain.

  “I did not mean—” he tried.

  She started to rise but the young inspector put his hand gently on her arm and guided her back into her chair. Inna closed her eyes.

  “I will get a lawyer,” Viktor said. “Kolya in my office, who handles our contracts. He knows lawyers.”

  “You will be alone now, Poppa,” she said, so softly that he was not sure if she had spoken or he had only imagined her voice.

  “Inna—” he started.

  “I want to go back now,” she said, turning to Iosef.

  Iosef nodded and rose. Inna Dalipovna rose too and looked at her father. He sat, unable to rise, frozen by the look on the face of his daughter. She was smiling, not the smile of happiness or the calm smile of feeling alive, but a smile of satisfaction.

  In the morning the sun was shining and the snow had stopped falling, but he no longer cared. The Naked Cossack would have cared, but he was no longer the Cossack. His father had taken care of that. He was no longer Misha Lovski. He had renounced that. He was no one.

  He had been informed that his brother had been treated by a doctor and would be well. He did not care. Songs did not run through his mind. There were no causes. There was just his father, who sat there.

  He sat across the breakfast table in the dacha, cleaned and scrubbed, in new casual clothes, a plate of food before him which he did not look at.

  “You feeling better, Misha?” Nikoli Lovski asked.

  “Better than what?”

  “Better than you did yesterday, Misha,” Nikoli said, working on his coffee.

  “Better? Of course. You locked me in a cage, tried to drive me insane, took away my identity. How could I not be better?”

  “Misha …” Nikoli Lovski began calmly.

  “Do not call me that,” he said.

  “What shall I call you?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Call me nothing.”

  “You are not nothing,” said his father with a sigh, putting down his coffee cup. “You are an educated young man, a Jew, a member of my family, an important family. You can have a great deal, be someone important.”

  “Nothing,” the young man said. “I want nothing. I am nothing.”

  “Would you like to go to South America?” Nikoli said.

  “I embarrass you here,” was the reply.

  “Yes, you do, but that is not the reason I want you to go to Chile. You can start your life again. We have a television station there. You can work, be something.”

  “I was a cossack,” he said angrily.

  “You were never a cossack,” his father answered. “You are a Jew. The cossacks would stomp on you with their boots and leave you with your insides steaming on the street without giving it a thought.”

  “And so I am nothing,” he answered.

  “You are going to South America,” his father repeated.

  “And if I do not choose to go?”

  “You will do what? Go in the streets? Hide from your former friends? A new life is better.”

  “And I have no choice?”

  “None,” Nikoli said.

  “The law …”

  “… will not interfere with our family. I am not your enemy, Misha. Give yourself a new name. It will not change who you are. I am not trying to hurt you.”

  “Just control me.”

  “There is nothing more to say,” Nikoli said, wiping his face with a napkin and dropping the napkin on the table. “You will be treated well. You will work. I see no point in our talking again before you leave. I am sure our conversation would get no further than it is at this moment.”

  “And …”

  “I will come to Chile in six or seven months,” Nikoli said. “We will see what changes have taken place in you. I will have someone there to teach you Spanish.”

  “Everything is planned,” the young man said with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

  “Everything is never fully planned,” his father said. “But plans are necessary if we are not to be completely surprised by life.”

  “I will remember that,” the young man said.

  “Then we are already making progress.”

  In the morning the sun was shining and the snow had stopped falling. It was not spring that held out the hope of a new beginning to Moscovites. It was winter. The cold wrapped them in a protective embrace. The snow provided a fortress of respite. From what? From crime which prowled under the sun and struck under the moon. From mad
ness in the streets born of despair. From the restless and the overworked and those who did not work and took to the streets to escape the bleakness of small apartments with restless cats and dogs and television screens that had long since failed to provide more than a temporary narcotic.

  Crime went down in the winter. Tempers cooled in the cold. Bodies moved more slowly and were less likely to collide or, if they did, were less likely to take umbrage at the crash. Automobile accidents, which in other cold countries went up in the winter, fell in Russia with the coming of snow and cold. Yes, there were exceptions, usually caused by vodka, but drivers moved more slowly, coaxing their vehicles, talking gently to them, urging them to live through one more winter under the promise of pampering.

  Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov and Emil Karpo sat in a café, drinking coffee. They could not talk outside walking in the cold. Lenin would rebel. They could not talk in the offices in Petrovka. The Yak would listen. And so the moment Emil Karpo had entered his cubicle in the morning he had been greeted by the chief inspector.

  Karpo was generally the first one in the office. This morning had been no different. He had simply followed Rostnikov back onto Petrovka Street and walked at his side silently till they reached the café where people were packed in at the counter or the small tables along the wall, drinking hurriedly, checking their watches.

  Karpo, as always, was dressed in black. His leather coat was black. Even his scarf and fur hat were black. Rostnikov thought that clothes reflected the people who wore them. Rostnikov himself dressed neatly, conservatively, in old comfortable suits and ties Sarah had bought for him at market stalls. As for Karpo’s choice of black, Rostnikov was not given to simple judgment. He himself was rather fond of black, which was either the absence of color or the totality of color. There was a statement in black, he thought. Black said, You cannot penetrate my being by looking at my exterior. I am a dark cipher.

  “The report on the Lovski case is on your desk,” Karpo said.

  “Good,” replied Rostnikov, who was munching on a brown flat piece of cake that tasted too little of chocolate and was too hard. It dipped well in his coffee.

  “We will, I think, want to change the report before presenting it to the director,” he said.

  “And why is that?” asked Karpo, who had not touched his coffee.

  “Because it contains the truth. Misha Lovski was kidnapped by his own father. Two mercenaries hired by Nikoli Lovski took two witnesses, conspirators in the kidnapping. Both witnesses, a boy, and a girl, may well be dead now. Misha Lovski is now in his father’s hands. The mercenary Zelach shot has been released from custody.”

  “And? What is in error?”

  “Nothing. The report is, lam certain, complete and accurate.”

  “But it must be changed?”

  The chocolate brick softened only minimally with its, dipping into the now-warm coffee, but it was edible. At first Rostnikov did not answer. He sat upright. A portly little man with large glasses carrying a cup of coffee almost collided with Karpo. The little man began an apology but cut it short when he looked into Karpo’s eyes.

  “I believe Director Yaklovev has taken advantage of the situation to fortify himself with political currency to further his own ambition,” said Karpo. “I believe the concept of justice has not been served. We exist to serve the goals of a man in a system which is no longer interested in justice.”

  “And this is something new?” asked Rostnikov.

  “No, but it has become something petty and without meaning. It has no foundation.”

  “We still do our work, take criminals off the street, neutralize them,” said the chief inspector. “Elena and Iosef did that. We do it every day.”

  “Except when there is a prize to be won by the director. Before …”

  “During the Soviet Socialist Union,” said Rostnikov.

  “Yes, during,” said Karpo. “One could hold on to the precepts, the hope of Communism. The people who were in power were corrupt, but there always existed a hope.”

  “And now you see no hope?” said Rostnikov.

  “The only justice that will prevail is justice taken by those who are willing to take responsibility for their convictions,” said Karpo.

  “You mean bypass the law?”

  Karpo looked directly at his superior and did not answer.

  “I admit it is tempting to know one is right, face a thief, a murderer, a rapist, a corruptor of children, and simply shoot him,” said Rostnikov. “But what of those who are not able to discern who the thief, murderer, rapist, and child corruptor is, those who are not certain?”

  “I know when I am facing evil,” said Karpo. “You know. I cannot speak for others. If we do not act, then too often there will be no action. Those with money and means will/prevail.”

  “As it has always been,” Rostnikov agreed. “Do you realize, Emil Karpo, this is the longest conversation we have ever had?”

  Karpo said nothing.

  “And so you want to start shooting criminals?”

  “Yes,” said Karpo. “But I will not do so.”

  “No,” said Rostnikov, “you will do the opposite. You will justify your ethics by martyring yourself”

  “I do not believe in martyrs,” said Karpo.

  “You believe in? …

  “The small evil. The larger ones are beyond us.”

  “I see,” said Rostnikov. “Do you think much about Mathilde?”

  “She is dead,” said Karpo. “Killed without meaning. Her killers, if they have not yet been gunned down by rival Mafias, still swagger in clubs and drive in expensive cars.”

  “Emil Karpo, you are bitter.”

  Karpo did not answer.

  “I think that is a good start,” said Rostnikov. “Bitter is a sharp edge of emotion. It cuts deeply. You are going to have a new assignment for the indefinite future.”

  Karpo registered nothing, asked no questions.

  “You have your files of dead cases,” Rostnikov said. “Your black books filled with crimes which have never been solved, which you work on when you have time. And there are more pages and more books all the time.”

  “The point of this, Chief Inspector?”

  “You are to work on your dead cases,” said Rostnikov. “Choose whichever ones you wish, go back as far as suits you. Take the time you need on each one. No pressure for success. Simply keep me informed. No written reports unless you successfully conclude a dead case. You understand?”

  “Your words are clear.”

  “And no killing,” said Rostnikov. “Justice, Emil Karpo. Avoid, if you can, cases with political implication, cases which might have in them the possibility for exploitation. And do not take unnecessary risks. You understand?”

  “Perfectly. When do I begin?”

  “When we finish our coffee. Oh yes, Elena and Iosef are to be married as soon as she is up and well. You will of course attend the wedding and the party.”

  “If I am invited.”

  “You are. Now, questions?”

  “No.”

  “I have one. What are your thoughts about the sun?”

  “It is the source of energy and life on earth,” said Karpo. “It is a star that will someday die.”

  “Nothing else?”

  Again, Karpo did not answer.

  “I have brought you something,” Rostnikov said. “I would like you to read it.”

  He reached awkwardly into his coat pocket and came up with a ragged paperback book. He handed it to Karpo.

  “Poetry,” Rostnikov said. “Russian poetry. Yevtushenko. Have you ever read poetry?”

  “No. It serves no function other than feeding delusion and fantasy.”

  “Humor me, Emil,” said Rostnikov, starting to rise. “Humor me. Perhaps you will find that you have undervalued the function of delusion and fantasy. What takes place in our imagination is as real as that which exists outside our body.”

  “I have not found it so,” said Karpo, also rising.


  “One can but hope,” said Rostnikov.

  Epilogue

  Siberia: 1912

  BORIS ANTONOVICH DERMANSKI adjusted the straps on the pack he carried on his back and tried to get his bearings. It had been nineteen years since he had been here. The train tracks were there, two sets of them now, but there was no train at rest to tell him which way to go.

  He knew that the rock where he had hidden the package was north of the tracks and no more than a few hundred yards from them. That reduced the search area to several million acres. He also knew that the rock was somewhere between Beloyarskly and Sverdlovsk-Pass.

  Boris had survived the search and killing two decades earlier. He had been tortured, lost a small finger, but played the fool and survived. Lieutenant Smolkov had not been so lucky. Boris had continued to work on the tracks, had hidden the package deep Into his thoughts, covered it with a gentle fog, waited, fearing that there might be those who still watched, still combed the area where the box might be hidden.

  He had left the railroad and with the little money he had saved opened a small shoe-repair shop on Gogol Street in Ekaterinburg with the thought that someday, a day when he was absolutely certain it would be safe, he would return for the package he had hidden. Boris had married, had a son, survived with food on the table, just short of prospering.

  When fifteen years had passed he had taken up hiking, always alone, staying out in the forest for days at a time, professing a love of nature which he did not feel. He had walked along the tracks, marking off the areas, probing into the forest through the aspen and birch, once-fighting off a pack of six wolves, once getting lost for almost a week.

  What he searched for was some sign, some landmark he might recognize, but it all looked the same.

  This day, however, was different. There was something familiar about the woods to his right and the mountains far beyond. He had felt this before, had been wrong, but this time felt different. It was a visual memory brought back from the protective fog.

  He plunged into the forest. It did not feel the same as it had when he and the others had come in to drop the dead, and yet he was almost certain that he was right. He had gone more than a hundred yards farther than he was sure the rocks had been. He turned around, moved to his left about twenty-five yards, and started back. His plan was to continue this pattern, back and forth, till he found the rocks or was certain that he had to move on.