“I’m fine,” she said with a smile.
She had gained weight before her operation but had steadily grown more trim since. She looked, with her smooth pale skin and red hair, much as she had looked as a young woman. Illness had not aged her. On the contrary, it had, ironically made her look younger.
There were no messages, no neighbors with toilet or sink problems, no urgent calls to contact his office.
The girls sat next to each other on the floor eating pizza while Rostnikov changed into his gray sweat suit, turned on a cassette of the American rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival. He had discovered the tape by accident, buying it for next to nothing at an outdoor market. Now it was one of his favorites. If he ever went to America, he would try to meet Ed McBain and John Fogarty, who sang and wrote most of the Creedence Clearwater songs. “Bad Moon Rising” began at the same moment Porfiry Petrovich lay back on the narrow bench he had pulled out from the cabinet against the wall. He lined up his weights and began. The women at the table talked softly, and the two little girls ate and watched the serious ritual that they knew was designed to make one stronger, only Rostnikov was already the strongest man in the world, they were certain. They had concluded some weeks ago that he simply enjoyed doing this, which struck them both as very strange, given the pain and grunting and sweat. Adults were very strange and unpredictable creatures.
Chapter Seven
THAT NIGHT IN MOSCOW WAS a relatively quiet one.
A former farmer from a collective in Georgia, Anatoli Dudniki, weaved his way drunkenly down the middle of Kadashevskaya Prospekt, announcing to the hurtling taxis and cars that it was his sixty-fifth birthday. One driver, who had taken a few drinks himself, screeched to a halt directly in front of Anatoli, who leaned forward over the hood and laughed.
“Like a movie,” Anatoli said. “My life is like a movie now. You hear that?”
The man in the car opened his window and shouted, “Get out of the street, you drunken old bum, before you get killed.”
“You mean,” said Anatoli, none too steady on his feet, “my head could be run over like a melon, a plum, a cabbage, a grape, something? Squish, skwush?”
The man in the car closed his window and drove on.
Anatoli made it to the curb and sat down. A few cars passed but there were no pedestrians. There was a feeling of rain in the air as there had been all day. There was no moon. Anatoli had learned to recognize the coming of rain from his years on that pitiful collective farm where his now-dead wife had learned two hundred ways to prepare potatoes. Oddly enough, Anatoli still loved potatoes, and when others on the collective had complained at the diet, he had nodded in agreement though he did not agree.
“I love potatoes,” he shouted. “You hear that? I love them to little pieces. I could cry over them. I wish I had two potatoes now. You know what I would do? I would eat one and give one to someone else. That’s the kind of man I am. That’s the kind of man I am.”
Now Anatoli worked in a bar, which was where he was coming from. He cleaned up after closing—sweeping, mopping, tending to the puke in the bathrooms, the sanitary napkins that blocked the toilets in the women’s room, the stuff that stuck to the floor and to the small bandstand. The pay was poor but he got to work alone and drink as much as he wanted to when he finished his cleanup each night. The management never checked the stock. Anatoli drank only the best.
The alcohol compensated for the dirty job, and he could, because he came at closing time, avoid the loud music from the small band trying to sound like Americans, and avoid the young people in stupid crazy clothes who did something they called dancing and laughed at nothing.
“They laugh at nothing,” Anatoli, sitting on the curb, said to no one. “At nothing. Not that there is anything to laugh at if you are not rich.”
Anatoli shook his head. A little drink would be nice, but Anatoli knew better than to ever remove a bottle from the Albuquerque Bar. And so he sat, shoulders down, a huge burp and sigh escaping from him. He should go home, crawl into the narrow bed in the closet in his daughter and son-in-law’s apartment, but he wasn’t quite sure where the apartment was. Things seemed to be turned this way and that tonight. It had always been difficult for Anatoli, but since the revolution had ended and the street names had been changed, it had become worse.
He shifted his right foot, which was growing stiff, and kicked something hard, something in the street next to the curb. The streetlights were dim so Anatoli leaned over to look at the object.
“What’s this? What’s this?” he said, reaching over and picking up the object. “A gun. A weapon. A thing that shoots.”
He held the gun in his hand. It was heavy. He had no idea what kind of gun it was or even, with certainty, that it was real.
“I found a plotka, a gun,” he said aloud. “A weapon. Is this a thing or is this a thing? I could shoot it. I could sell it.”
Anatoli looked at the black pistol in his hand and held it out. He had never held a gun in his hand. He pulled the trigger. The gun fired and sent him backward. He hit his head on the sidewalk and sat up quickly, at least as quickly as he could with the aid of gawky elbows and arthritic fingers.
He looked across the street. The gun had made a loud noise and the breaking of glass in a window across the street had created an almost musical follow-up.
“It’s a real gun,” Anatoli said, bracing himself with his left hand and firing again with his right hand.
This time the bullet hit brick or concrete and Anatoli saw a spark of light when it struck.
“I think I should get up and get the hell out of here before I am in big trouble,” he said, still carrying on his conversation with the empty street. “I am a cowboy. I am a cowboy with a gun. All I need is a horse and one of those hats. I am going home.”
The problem was that getting up from the curb was now a major chore that he could not accomplish. Oh, he was capable, but Moscow would not cooperate. It kept swaying. He placed the gun in his lap and began singing. The song he sang was “Baby Face.” Anatoli didn’t know it was an American song. He only knew the Russian words.
“You got the cutest little baby face,” he bellowed hoarsely.
Across the street, three buildings down, Misha Vantolinkov had had enough. He had been awakened by gunfire on his street before. He had been awakened by gangs of kids shouting obscenities, but the loud croaking of the drunken Anatoli got to him. Besides, the drunk had the words to the song wrong.
Misha, who had to get up at six to get to his job at the reception desk of the Space Museum, turned on the lights and picked up his major luxury, the telephone. He called the police, giving the location but not his name, told them a lunatic drunk was shooting a gun in the street, and then he hung up.
Anatoli Dudniki was singing even more loudly, “I’m up in the sky when you give me a hug,” when Misha got back in bed and covered his head with his pillow.
Ten minutes later a patrol car with two young policemen in it pulled up at the curb. The policemen got out, guns in hand, and ordered Anatoli to stop singing and put down the gun.
Anatoli complied and grinned, showing his few remaining teeth and a look of gratitude.
“I’m not at home,” Anatoli said as he put the gun in the street. “I have a name, a medal, a daughter, a bed. That is where I would like you to take me, comrades. Oh, I forgot, no more ‘comrades.’ Citizen policemen. I am at your mercy. Get me home.”
He staggered toward the policemen and fell into the arms of the younger one, almost knocking him over.
Eleven minutes beyond that, Anatoli was in a small damp cell in the nearest police lockup. The lockup was located next door to a paper-clip factory whose metal cutting machines throbbed all night and all day.
“This,” he announced with confidence, “is not my bed. I want my bed. This is now a free country. I am a citizen.”
“And,” said the policeman, standing over him as Anatoli sat, “you have murdered a woman. One of those shots went th
rough a window and killed a young mother.”
“Killed?” said Anatoli, looking at the policeman.
Seconds later, he was asleep.
Raisa Munyakinova sat in the only reasonably comfortable chair in her minuscule apartment. They called it an apartment, but it was just a room. It was enough for her. She had work. She had a place to live. She would survive losing track of the days, having to carefully write her work schedule on the back of a flyer for Canadian cereal and place it under a glass on her tiny table.
The detective who looked like a ghost had not frightened her. It was not fear that now kept her awake. It was her decision to identify the man who had been with Valentin Lashkovich before he was murdered.
In a few hours, with the sky full dark, Raisa would get dressed and go to work and when she was finished take a bus to Petrovka to meet the ghost detective. She would look at photographs. She knew the face of the man she would be looking for. Would she have the strength to identify him? Or should she simply say, “He is not here,” and go on with the life she had chosen and which had chosen her?
She had just returned from her night of work. She was tired, so tired that the idea of just rising from the chair to get to her bed was too much effort.
In the darkness, her head turned to the curtain in the corner. Behind the curtain was a cardboard box. It was not a particularly large box. From time to time she took the box out and removed items and memories, touched and examined them and put them back. It was her past and it was painful, but compelling. Whenever she went through the contents of the box, she smiled and wept.
She got up wearily, turned on the small sixty-watt table light and moved to the curtain. The meaning of her life was beyond that curtain in a cardboard box. She wondered how many others in Moscow kept their meaning in boxes behind the curtains.
Although Bronson was a dog, that did not mean he had no thoughts. On the contrary, he had many thoughts, but they were fleeting and he had almost no control over them.
Even now, as he lay in his large metal cage in the darkness, with only the dim night-light through the single small slit of a window, thoughts came racing through the head of the huge dark animal.
An image of a human bringing something heavy down on his back stirred the dog, but it was instantly gone, forgotten till the next time. A spark of a memory of looking into the eyes of another dog whose neck he had held with his best bloody grip rolled by on a wave. He felt the death of that other dog and it became part of the wave of death of many dogs. And that too passed. Memories did not linger consciously in Bronson. He felt, but did not think, that he would soon be facing another dog in the circle. Smelly, shouting humans would be there, some calling the name he had been given. His body would quiver with memories so deep that they went back to the wild free days of his ancestors in the forests. And then the thing would take over and he would attack. There was no plan, no thought. Bronson would give himself over to the ancient memory of survival, and it would either carry him through the triumph over the dead or dying other or leave him lying in the scent of his own death.
But none of this frightened the dog. Fear simply was not a part of his being. Nor did he think in terms of success or failure. He simply existed to live and fight and for the praise of the human who provided food and shelter.
The human had taught him two words that made Bronson’s life simple—vyshka, death sentence, and stop, which was the same in Russian or English.
Bronson had attacked two humans in his five years of life. One of the two he had killed. The other, he did not know about. He did not particularly like attacking humans. They provided no meaningful battle that would leave the dog with a fast-beating heart of triumph. But, if ordered, he would attack and he would kill, and he would lose himself in the smell of fear and the taste of flesh and blood.
Bronson slept.
Oleg Kisolev, the soccer coach, lay in bed that evening next to his lover, Dmitri. Dmitri was a left-wing on Kisolev’s team. Dmitri was, at one time, the fastest player in the league, a graceful, dodging flash who consistently led all others in assists. Oleg remembered the lean man with long dark hair and powerful legs running with the ball ahead of him, passing defense men, centering the ball in a perfect low arch in front of the goal for a header. Dmitri was almost thirty now and, while still fast and the best corner kicker in Moscow, he had lost as much as a quarter of his speed.
Oleg touched the head of the man beside him, who was exhausted from a long practice and who needed a shave. The light on Oleg’s side of the bed was dim and he had to wear his glasses to read the book on his chest. Over the past two years or so Oleg had begun selecting books more for the size of their type than the content of their pages. Now he was reading a book on the history of the Soviet Union in the Olympic Games. The book was ten years old but full of things Oleg did not know.
The light did not bother Dmitri. When he was exhausted, not even the cry of pazhahar, fire, would awaken him.
Oleg thought about the two policemen who had come to see him about Yevgeny Pleshkov that afternoon. The policeman who slouched had kicked the ball farther and with more accuracy than anyone Oleg had ever seen, with the possible exception of Karishnikov. The policeman was a little old for the game but perhaps he could still play fullback. This speculation was only a game for Oleg, an exercise of his imagination. The policeman would never play. In addition to which Oleg really did not wish to see the man and his partner ever again. Oleg had good reason. Oleg preferred never to see any policemen again. He was sure he had done well, but the young one had smiled and made Oleg feel uncomfortable.
“I didn’t betray Yevgeny,” Oleg told himself. “Yevgeny went wild. It was when the German touched Yulia between her legs and Yulia bit her lower lip and tried to look as if she were thinking of somewhere else, another time.”
It was in Yulia’s apartment on Kalinin. Yevgeny was just a little drunk and he told Oleg they would surprise her. Surprise her they did. She answered the door wearing a pair of pink silk panties and a matching bra. She didn’t try to keep the two men out of the room. On the contrary, she had opened the door for them to enter and they had immediately seen the German, Jurgen, sitting naked on the spindly legged sofa. His arms were outstretched and draped along the top of the sofa.
Oleg immediately noticed that the man was flaccid, though his penis was unusually thick and long, even longer and thicker than Dmitri’s.
Yulia gave no explanation. She closed the door to the room and went to get herself a drink from the small wooden cabinet against one wall.
“An unexpected visit,” the German had said. “And from such a distinguished member of the government. I’ve been hoping to meet you.”
Neither Oleg nor Yevgeny had responded. The German had continued talking with only the slightest accent.
Oleg was well trained in his hatred of Germans. He and two generations before his were taught in school with graphic photographs of staggering numbers of dead Russian soldiers, women, and children. Those who had survived and helped repulse the obscene invasion of their country told tales of German atrocities and the horrors they had endured and witnessed. The teachers, the survivors, the books did not differentiate between Nazi soldiers and German citizens. They were all born with a madness to conquer. This one was no different.
“Yulia and I were waiting for the proper time to suggest a lucrative business proposal with you,” the German said. “Your coming now is a fortunate act of fate.”
Yulia had now put on a flimsy robe, a white one through which you could see. Oleg, though his sexual interests were with another gender, recognized the long-legged beauty of the woman and understood his friend Yevgeny’s obsession with her.
She handed Yevgeny a drink: vodka, no ice. She offered Oleg nothing. In the several years his friend had been having binges with her at his side, Oleg had met Yulia only twice. Oleg did not drink. He did not carouse and so he seldom saw Yulia, though the two had formed an instant dislike of each other from the moment they
had met. The source of their dislike was obviously Yevgeny, whom she quite successfully manipulated when he was drunk and whom Oleg tried, with almost no success, to wean back to sobriety and safety. Yevgeny was too prominent a man to continue to avoid being exposed by the press for his drunkenness, his gambling, his being seen around with a beautiful woman who was obviously his mistress. And Yevgeny was not one to fade into the shadows when he was on a drunken spree. Oh, no. He was loud, very loud. He practiced speeches in the streets and stopped individuals to tell them what had to be done to save Russia and return it to a power its people deserved. If anyone recognized him they did not admit it. Most people simply walked by.
While Yulia and what little she wore had not disturbed Oleg, the German sitting naked on the sofa had disturbed him deeply. He was sitting there like an Aryan prince, smiling with perfect white teeth. He was enjoying the surprise visit and made no move to cover himself. In spite of his instant dislike of the man, Oleg had found himself engaged in a sexual fantasy. He had managed, however, to put it away, though he knew it would come back sometime in the future and he knew he wanted to remember.
“Please sit,” the German had said, pointing to two chairs that matched the sofa from which he reigned.
Neither man sat, nor did the woman.
“As you wish,” said the German, standing and smoothing back his hair. “Yulia.”
The name had been spoken as a command, and the woman moved across the room, drink in hand, to the desk neatly tucked in a corner. She opened a drawer and removed a wooden box. She crossed the room again and handed the box to the German, who took hold of her arm and clearly ordered her to stand at his side, though he said not a word.
“In this box are items, not the originals but copies,” the German said. “The originals are someplace safe. Open it. Gaze upon your fate. Das ist dein Schicksal gaverin, your fate.”
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