Vodka

by Boris Starling

  She pointed to rows of rosettes on the wall, bright colors splashed in serried ranks. Vladimir and Konstantin had won at Solkoniki Park; Nikita was the reigning Grand International Champion of Europe; Josef had triumphed in Kiev, Yuri in Saratov, Mikhail in Krasnoyarsk. Vladimir, Josef, Nikita, Leonid, Yuri, Konstantin and Mikhail, Irk thought; Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev. Svetlana was evidently one of the millions pining for the Soviet Union.

  “They don’t have to parade like dogs. They just have to sit still and look pretty.” Svetlana beckoned Leonid back to her. “Look at their fur. If you brush it one way, it’s blue; the other way, and it’s silver.” Leonid looked at Irk with big emerald eyes, his slender ears sticking up like chimney pots. Svetlana leaned forward and tapped Irk’s knee. “I’ll let you in on a secret. You know what keeps them so blue? Vitamin pills and zucchini. And I wash them every other day in automatic washing machine detergent. Some of them like it more than the others, of course; they’ve all got their quirks. Lyonya here, for example, needs vodka in his milk. Two months ago, he knocked a bottle of vodka off the kitchen table—whoops!—and licked the entire contents off the floor. Now he’s become a raving alcoholic, and won’t stop running around until I give him a couple of shots of vodka.”

  “Waste of good vodka, if you ask me,” said Rodion. Irk had almost forgotten he was there.

  “So,” Irk said, “let’s talk about Raisa.”

  Galina and Rodion had their heads close together, speaking in low voices as though their conversation was a litany of secrets. They looked at Irk and then at Svetlana. By some form of family decision, invisible to Irk’s alien eye, it was Galina who was elected to speak for them.

  “There is someone we think might be responsible,” she said, “but it’s difficult to say who.”

  “Difficult because you don’t know?”

  “Difficult because he’s a powerful man, and he’s well connected.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s Lev.”

  “Lev? Heavens, no—impossible!” they all chorused in unison. “Do you have any idea what he’s done for this family, Investigator?”

  “Why don’t you just tell me who you’ve got in mind?”

  The Khruminsches looked at each other again. “This can’t have come from us, right?” Galina said. “You understand that?”

  “The prosecutor’s office keeps its sources strictly confidential,” Irk said, and caught himself. “Sorry; I sound like a pompous ass. Yes, I’ll keep your names out of it. If need be, I’ll fabricate evidence to justify further investigation.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, I bet,” Rodion said.

  “You’re right,” Irk said equably. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “It’s Tengiz Sabirzhan,” Galina said as though in the confessional.

  Even among a people who pride themselves on their solicitousness toward children, Sabirzhan showed what some—the Khruminsches included, though they said they were by no means the only ones—felt to be an excessive interest in the school and orphanage. He was often at the Prospekt Mira site, they said, though he’d no real reason to be—he didn’t have a child at the school, and he wasn’t officially involved with the orphanage. Of course, none of the staff there dared take issue with him. Rumors of Sabirzhan’s cruelty and passion for torture preceded him like outriders. If nothing else, Sabirzhan was KGB, and the legacy of fear those initials engendered was dying hard.

  What had really convinced the Khruminsches to come forward, though, was the fact that Sabirzhan had a handful of favorites, and he was brazen in showering gifts and attention on them. Vladimir Kullam and Raisa Rustanova had both been among the “lucky ones.” The tone of Galina’s voice made it clear that she regarded such status as a mixed blessing.

  “Sabirzhan was at Vladimir’s house this time last week,” Rodion said.

  “How do you know?” Irk replied.

  “German told me.”

  “I interr—I questioned him. For hours. He didn’t mention it.”

  Rodion shrugged. “And then Sabirzhan was at the orphanage on Wednesday.”

  “The day before Raisa failed to turn up at roll call.”

  “Exactly.”

  “We really shouldn’t speculate as to what happened,” Svetlana said before spending ten minutes doing exactly that. Maybe Sabirzhan had tried to seduce the children and they’d resisted. Perhaps, not knowing the violence he was capable of, they’d threatened to expose him to Lev or someone even higher. Whatever the truth, there was something not right with the man, that was for sure.

  Irk chewed on his lower lip. Sabirzhan had been keen to get Irk reassigned right from the get-go. His reasons had seemed plausible enough at the time, but his actions made even more sense if he was the guilty man. As far as Irk was aware, serial killers tended to confine themselves to one gender. Admittedly, his knowledge was scant; officially, there had been no serial killers in the Soviet Union, and therefore investigators had no need to study their motives and methods. Another triumph for totalitarian law enforcement.

  They ate—chicken legs from the US, known as Bush’s legs because imports had begun under the current Washington administration—and drank. As the evening progressed and the level in the vodka bottle diminished, so the conversation moved away from the case and everyone seemed to relax. Svetlana bustled around and flirted with Irk in a matronly way. Galina spoke enthusiastically of all the Western pop bands she and her friends were listening to, though of course there’d never, ever, be any group half as good as the Beatles. Even Rodion began to lighten up, rattling off a succession of jokes filthy enough to have made a tart blush.

  They discussed how the city was being knocked off its bearings, forcing its citizens to fend for themselves, and agreed that their defenselessness was not only material, it was inner, psychological, a feeling of desolation. Moscow has always been a city of kitchens; great kitchens, to be sure, kitchens with the world’s best conversing, drinking, schmoozing, seducing, plotting and (most importantly for any Russian) philosophizing. With vodka, food, cigarettes and a handy guitar, Russians will settle down to swap stories, teach each other a few songs, and indulge in heart-to-hearts as only they can.

  Irk was enjoying himself. Even a man as content with his own company as Irk was could be solitary for only so long, and when he looked at his watch, he was astonished to see that it was after one in the morning, too late for the last metro back. He could have gone into the street and flagged down a car—people were so desperate to make money that virtually every driver on the road offered himself as an impromptu taxi—but the Khruminsches were having none of it. There was a sofa bed here in the living room; he could take that, and they’d all go in to work together tomorrow. Irk glanced at Svetlana to see whether this was her roundabout method of seduction, but all she gave him was a demure kiss on the cheek before disappearing into her room.

  Irk liked to read before going to bed, so he took the first book he saw from the shelf. It was Pushkin, of course; every Russian house has Pushkin, it’s almost a constitutional requirement.

  “What have you found?” asked Rodya.

  Irk opened it at random and began to read. “The horses once again are riding: Jingle-jingle go the bells … I see: the ghosts are gathering amidst the whitening plains.”

  Rodya snatched the book from Irk’s hands, slammed it shut and tossed it on the floor. “Ghosts!” he said. “Ghosts, from Afghanistan. How can I listen, when in my head the horse is an armored transport vehicle, the bells are the clanking of its treads and the white plains are yellow sand? I don’t even have Pushkin anymore, fuck it!”

  22

  Monday, January 13, 1992

  Irk and the Khruminsches left the apartment on Preobrazenskaya just after seven in the morning. When they descended the stairs—the elevator was out of order, again, Svetlana said—Irk could barely keep pace; Rodion had the balance of a cat. Once in the street, Galina handed Rodion a small wooden trolle
y and a thick pair of gloves. He sat on the trolley, pulled on the gloves, and propelled himself along the sidewalk with strong, confident pushes.

  “I’ve had enough practice,” Rodion said, and Irk heard the bitterness in his voice.

  Svetlana stopped to chat briefly with two janitors wrapped in padded jackets and orange hats against the grim freeze. Every winter, armed with snow shovels, twig brooms and ice hammers, they and thousands like them battled to clear half a million cubic feet of snow from the streets. Their struggle was a very Russian one: unceasing, mighty and with the maintenance of normality its only aim—normality, in this instance, being open streets, passable sidewalks and roofs free from deadly icicles. Only in the summer, when their duties turned to planting tulips, tending lawns, sweeping litter and generally brightening up the neighborhood, could anything as radical as improvement be considered.

  Galina kept walking; Rodion kept pushing, weaving between cracks in the sidewalks and angled paving stones. Irk hesitated, unsure whether to go on with the youngsters or stay with Svetlana. He ended up walking by himself. Svetlana caught him up, puffing from the effort, and gestured angrily at her son and daughter-in-law.

  “An exchange of pleasantries, that’s all it is. Yet they have to make their point, don’t they?”

  Every Soviet leader since Stalin had used janitors as informers. Sly old women denounced their neighbors to the secret police or pointed out the apartments that housed enemies of the people. Galina and Rodion were of a generation that knew change; they saw no reason to fraternize or ingratiate themselves with such people.

  Two men in hooded coats were standing in front of Galina and Rodion, forcing them to stop. For a moment Irk thought that it was accidental, the kind of thing that leads to an absurd dance as both parties go for the same space two or three times before finally getting it right with laughing apologies. But when he saw the deliberateness of the men’s stance, and the darkness of their skin beneath their hoods, he knew they were Chechens and this was trouble.

  “Pretty girl.” It was the taller of the Chechens who spoke to Galina. “You should think about doing some work for us.” He used ty, the form of address usually reserved for intimates—unless the intention is to patronize or insult, as it was here.

  Irk and Svetlana reached Rodion and Galina, and stopped. Passersby swirled around the contretemps, shying involuntarily as they clocked the presence of the Chechens before pretending that they simply weren’t there. Chechens engender fear wherever they go, and they know it; it’s their bubbleskin, their force field. But Galina seemed not in the least afraid. She tossed her head as if in revulsion at a bad smell.

  “I know my friends, and I’m sure I don’t know you, so if you want an answer, it’s vy not ty.”

  “It won’t be much,” the Chechen said. “Passing on some of the information that comes across your desk, that’s all.”

  “Leave us alone, will you?” Rodion said.

  Both Chechens looked down at Rodion as though he were an impertinent child. The derision in their stares flushed Irk with anger—worse, he thought, with shame and a vicarious pity.

  “Did the cripple say something?” the smaller Chechen said.

  “I didn’t hear,” replied his colleague.

  “I’m a war veteran, not a cripple,” Rodion snapped. “And I can still remember how to fight, so why don’t you just let us past before this gets ugly?”

  “You want to see ugly, my friend, look in a mirror.”

  “I’m an investigator with the prosecutor’s office,” said Irk, stepping between them, badge in hand. “I suggest that you get going, unless you want a trip to Petrovka.”

  The Chechens glanced at each other. They were small fry, Irk saw; their boss wouldn’t have sent anybody valuable to intimidate a secretary on a Moscow street. “Go on,” Irk said. “Fuck off out of here.”

  “Think about it,” the smaller Chechen said to Galina. “We’ll contact you again.” They melted into the crowd and were gone.

  “My boys!” Svetlana clapped her hands and hugged Irk and Rodion close to her. “My brave soldiers, protecting their women!”

  Galina’s emerald eyes were shot through with rage. “How dare they?” she said. “On the street, in full view of everyone, with all of you here? Who the hell do they think they are?”

  Rodion was silent. The Chechens’ jibes had stung him, and he bristled with all the hostility Irk had seen last night. Irk realized now that Rodion’s belligerence had not been aimed at him, the interloper, but at the world in general.

  As for Irk’s own part in the incident, well, it had all happened so quickly, but he couldn’t help thinking that he, an officer of the law, should have spoken up a lot sooner.

  They took the metro in from Elektrozavodskaya. Irk watched subtly and not without admiration as Rodion negotiated stairs, escalators and crowded carriages; not a ramp in sight to make his progress easier.

  “Wouldn’t prosthetic limbs be easier?” Irk said.

  “Forget it. They’re produced like every other Soviet product—to fulfill a quota, not to meet the needs of those who use them. All the ones I tried left me with dreadful sores or lesions.”

  Galina was going all the way to the distillery. Svetlana and Rodion changed trains at Kurskaya to take the Circle Line up to Prospekt Mira. Irk decided to stay with Galina. “I’ve got plenty of reasons to see Lev,” he said. “Your name won’t come into this.”

  She looked hard at him. Penned in by commuters on all sides and by the fur hat on her head, she seemed to Irk extraordinarily alluring, a spirit of the steppe jammed into a cage that could hardly hold her.

  Red October was in turmoil when they arrived. Normally, the workers ambled, walked or bustled around the distillery, depending how near the end of the month it was and how far behind their schedules they were. Today, however, a crowd several hundred strong had gathered beyond the filtration columns. They were shouting and gesturing at Sabirzhan, who was standing on a staircase and making calming motions with his hands.

  “I tell you, the situation is in hand.” Sabirzhan was having to shout to make himself heard over the hubbub. “I am personally investigating these regrettable incidents, and the perpetrator will be brought to justice in the near future.”

  Once a KGB agent, Irk thought, always a KGB agent.

  “What if there’s another one, Tengiz Lavrentiyich?” someone shouted. “And one after that?”

  “These are difficult times, I know. But”—Sabirzhan puffed as he searched for the right words—“your patience is a great help.”

  “What kind of person are you looking for?” It was German Kullam speaking, up on tiptoe and looking twice the size of the wreck Irk remembered from Petrovka. “Someone like you yourself, perhaps, Tengiz Lavrentiyich?”

  Sabirzhan recoiled as if he’d been pushed. Irk understood that the gasp that ran through the crowd was not one of disbelief at German’s accusation, but of recognition that he’d dared say the unthinkable. Emboldened by their approval, German hurried on. “A man who enjoys torturing and killing—doesn’t that sound like you? How do we know it wasn’t you, eh? You should be on trial anyway, Tengiz Lavrentiyich, you and your friends at the Lubyanka.”

  A mass reckoning for the KGB was something many people—Irk included—favored, but Irk knew it would never happen, if only on the grounds of practicality. Millions of people would be involved. Perhaps this was Red October’s substitute.

  “That’s enough!” Sabirzhan was hopping around in agitation. “Back to your workstations, all of you!”

  “We want an answer, Tengiz Lavrentiyich!” The crowd scented blood; they followed where German had dared to tread. “Come on, defend yourself against these accusations!”

  “That is enough.” Lev’s voice rumbled like cannon fire. As he descended the staircase, the sheer force of his presence impelled Sabirzhan to step aside. “The murders of Vladimir Kullam and Raisa Rustanova have struck a blow at the heart of the Red October family. I share your
anger, German, and I feel the loss of those two children as keenly as if they were my own son and daughter. I give you my word that I will hunt down their murderer as if I were their father. I will move heaven and earth to find him, no matter where he is hiding, and I will make him pay. I know how difficult this is, especially for those of you whose children attend the school, but I ask you to put your faith in me. I have just this minute returned from Prospekt Mira, and the children are well guarded. Whatever fiend is committing these crimes, the discord I see here will only serve his purpose better. If you want to talk to me in private, my door is always open; otherwise I ask you respectfully to get on with your work. Thank you.”

  The crowd began to drift away. Sabirzhan sneered at their retreating heads. His salmon face was clammy with sweat, and he was breathing hard. “You see that?” he said. “The sooner you have me back on the case, the better.”

  Lev turned to him. “A word of advice for the next time you’re tempted to act the peacemaker, Tengiz: don’t.”

  Irk sat in the canteen with German Kullam; a cup of strong tea each, and a severe dose of nerves for German. The canteen was three-quarters empty, but those who were there were only feigning nonchalance. Word had gotten around that Irk was an investigator. German looked about him as though working out which way to bolt.

  “This isn’t very comfortable for me,” he said.

  “I can see that, German.”

  “Couldn’t we do this somewhere more private?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Sabirzhan?”

  “What about him?”

  “You tell me.”

  “How do you know there’s anything to tell?”

  “That’s not what I asked. Vladimir was one of Sabirzhan’s favorites, wasn’t he?”