“Let no one forget and no one be forgotten,’” quoted Kyril. “I lost three uncles, four aunts, and nine cousins in the war.”
“A few of our twenty million killed.” The old man’s voice cracked in the dark. “My mother and father were killed by a rocket. My wife and son starved to death right downstairs that first winter of the Blockade. I was with the partisans. Didn’t come back into the city until that spring. That’s when I found them, two piles of thawing flesh and bones.”
Kyril tapped his foot along the plank. “What a nightmare!”
“The Fascists almost got us all, but they didn’t,” grunted the old man. “And neither will the warmongering capitalists in America.”
With his deep voice, Kyril said, “Of course not.”
Pavel Semyonovich stopped, set the oil lamp down on the edge of a brick chimney, and turned to Kyril. As if he had just stepped out of a hidden trench, the old man’s face appeared tired and without hope.
“Now what is it you want?”
“My father is dying,” began Kyril, brushing back a lock of his raven-dark hair. “I want to take him a present—a souvenir—that will remind him of his stronger days.”
The war veteran crossed his arms. “These items are expensive. Relics from the war belong in a museum.”
His words firm and without doubt, Kyril said, “Nothing is too much for a hero of the Great Fatherland War.”
Pavel Semyonovich appeared satisfied, thought for only a moment. “A deposit will be necessary.”
From his roll of money, Kyril peeled two fresh ten-ruble notes. Pavel Semyonovich inspected them in the light of the oil lamp and nodded his approval.
The white-haired man continued down the single plank, then stepped to another board. He disappeared behind the brick chimney, then reappeared dragging a large suitcase of torn leather. Kyril guessed that it had once been used by a merchant for international travel.
Kyril’s right hand slipped into his jacket. He’d have the gun and be out of here within minutes.
“My prices are firm. No bargaining.”
Kyril said, “My mother always told me not to dicker with a war hero.”
With Kyril’s help, Pavel Semyonovich pulled the case onto two beams. The older man blew a cloud of dust from it and flipped two latches.
Raising the lid, in a low voice he said, “I hid this up here during Stalin’s time. Still aren’t supposed to have some of these things.”
Peering downward in the faint light, Kyril said, “I’m very discreet.”
“Well, I’m not selling you anything a civilian shouldn’t have.”
“Of course not,” said Kyril.
Pavel Semyonovich laid back the lid and exposed a thick suitcase crammed with trinkets from the Great Fatherland War. He extracted a helmet, a layer of neatly folded, dingy-green uniforms, and a dagger embossed with a swastika.
Pausing at the knife, Pavel Semyonovich said, “This belonged to a Nazi captain I killed.”
Kyril spotted the bullets first. Then he saw the black butt of a pistol sticking out from beneath a yellowed newspaper.
Kyril unbuttoned his jacket. “That newspaper there from Victory Day—I think Papa might like that. How much?”
As the old man rubbed the back of his neck, Kyril lifted the cleaver from the loop in his jacket. Just then his attention was caught by the flickering flame of the oil lamp and he had an idea.
“Newspapers like these are very rare, you know, and—”
He swung open his jacket, and the silvery cleaver streaked out of the black. Using both hands, Kyril slammed the flat side of it against Pavel Semyonovich’s head. There was a loud slap as the metal smacked his cheek and temple. The air burst from him like a pained burp and he crumpled to the side.
Kyril stepped back, looked down at the body, and was pleased how simple his plan was so far. Quickly, he then stepped over Pavel Semyonovich, dug into the suitcase, and pulled out the dark pistol. Pushing aside the paper, a uniform, and other objects, he recovered over a dozen bullets. He understood, too, why Pavel had not only the gun but everything else hidden away. Had the wrong people seen this paraphernalia, they might have thought he was a revolutionary instead of a dedicated Communist.
Suddenly Kyril felt something creep up the toe of his shoe and move higher. He gasped and jumped up. At once, he realized that he’d forgotten to seal Pavel Semyonovich’s eyelids with blood. Now the old man was reviving and his shriveled right hand was wrapping itself around Kyril’s ankle. Kyril tried to lift his foot and kick, but the thick, gnarled fingers were wrapping tighter and tighter. He jerked his foot again, and again was not able to free himself. With a will to live that had carried him through the war and far beyond, Pavel Semyonovich was refusing to let go of life.
Kyril’s body tensed in repulsion. He dropped the gun and grabbed his cleaver. As the old man’s fingers dug deeper into his ankle, Kyril raised the blade. He spent a moment taking aim, then hurled the knife down and into the wrist. Like a razor slicing through cloth, the finely honed edge of the cleaver separated wrist from hand. With a final spasm, the fingers of Pavel Semyonovich clutched into Kyril’s ankle, then loosened and dropped into a puddle of shiny liquid that pumped from the quivering body.
Wasting not a moment, Kyril plunged his thumb into the blood, then stamped his finger over each of the old man’s eyes. Back. Back into death, which is now forever yours, he chanted in his mind.
That done—the only way Kyril knew to keep the murdered from haunting their killers—Kyril grabbed up the gun and bullets. His heart beating fast, he gazed down at the handless arm. When the body was discovered in the cinders, he hadn’t wanted any sign of a struggle to exist, any oddity that would spark an investigation.
But even though it was too late for that now, he continued his original plan. He wiped the cleaver on the cuff of Pavel Semyonovich’s pants, dropped the instrument back in its noose. Then wasting not a second more, he placed the gun and bullets in his pocket, and finally raised the oil lamp and lobbed it against the wooden rafters. For a moment he stared at the fire as it devoured all, and he was reminded of the house in that village, the one that had belonged to the elderly couple. That cozy little house, too, had crumbled into black cinders.
When the bright flames rolled over the not-quite-dead body of Pavel Semyonovich, Kyril hurried off and down the steep stairs. There was little time left if he were to intercept Boris Ankadievich Volkov before the meeting and extinguish his life as well.
Chapter 11
Boris left the towering, inhabited wails surrounding the southern part of the city and returned to the historical center. He took the metro; his car, rarely used except to go to the dacha or for a drive in the country, was parked and covered near his apartment. Then he switched to a tram, which he rode to the Strelka, the tip of Vasilevsky Island. It was here, at this easternmost spit of land, that the river was divided in two—the Bolshay Neva and the Malaya Neva—on its way into the Bay of Finland.
Boris stepped down from the yellow streetcar and was hit by a blustering wind from the north. Putting up his collar, he peered at the graying sky. The sun was setting earlier each day, it seemed, and soon the wooden landing stages would be towed upstream for the winter. It was only a matter of time, too, before the statues in the Summer Garden were boarded up and the open air dance floors removed. Another season was upon them, its raw winds beating down upon the stone metropolis.
It was all exhilarating to Boris, this death of one season, the birth of another. Perhaps, he mused, it was because this matched his own situation—his decision to end a phase of his life and start anew. He was filled with hope for the future and, standing on the spit across from the old Exchange Building, he reveled in the beauty of Leningrad. One couldn’t escape it.
He gazed across the river and past the apple-green walls of the Winter Palace. The cityscape was low and solid, pierced only by church domes and spires. What had his father always called Leningrad? A glorious paradox. A city modeled
after Amsterdam, designed by Italian architects, then over-boiled in severe classicism. There really wasn’t anything Russian about it except for a few golden domes. Yet at the same time it was all Russian. A place of imagination and beauty that had been brutally forced upon its people by their greatest revolutionary, Peter the Great.
Papa, Papa, thought Boris. You always call me back just when I’m about to break free. Boris knew he could stay here forever, staring at the colorful palatial facades with their columns and deep-set windows. Filled with regrets, he could gaze a lifetime from the heavy granite embankments over the dark waters of the Neva. But a blast of wind burst across the flat waters, chilling his bones. He had to move on. Lara was waiting.
He jogged across the street and cut around the side of the Exchange. As he headed toward the center of the island, he passed alongside the university. The streets were empty, free of the bustle of students. That meant the harvest was still going on. It couldn’t be much longer, though. In a week or two the weather would be too wet to harvest potatoes. Then the students would return from their required duty and fall would begin in earnest.
Soon Boris was in the middle of Vasilevsky Island, passing down Sredny Prospekt. Within minutes, he raised his eyes and saw her butter-yellow building, a five-story structure reconstructed after the war. Lara had lived here for three years, ever since her widowed mother had moved to Novgorod to help her son, a top official in the militsiya, and his wife with their newborn twins.
He passed through a gate, into a courtyard, and entered a single door. The narrow staircase turned and turned upon itself, growing ever darker the higher he climbed. He passed the communal kitchen and bathroom she shared with three other families and finally came to her room, a garret perched under the eaves. It was alone up there on the top floor, a tiny hideaway in Leningrad.
“Lara, it’s me!” he called, huffing and knocking at the same time.
From inside came a rustling of clothing, the sound of a book dropping to the floor. Always books. She worked at Dom Knigi, the House of Books, on Nevsky, and she was always reading. Poetry, fiction, travelogues—her mind feasted on the printed word. He loved that about her. Loved that their dreams meshed, that she held high his desire to write. Then a bolt was loosened and the door to the one-room apartment pulled open. A smallish woman stood there, a faint smile on her face. The last doubt left his mind forever.
“I love you, Lara.” It made him happy, too, to see the familiar brown and white sweater that hung like a bag from her shoulders. “You’re wearing my sweater.”
“I always wear it, you know that. It’s warm and it reminds me of you.” She grinned and rolled her green catlike eyes. “You’ve been out with Sergei again. I can tell. How much have you had to drink this time? Do you have a headache yet? Need some drops? Come on in.”
“Honest. I’m as sober as a priest. Now, anyway.” He stared at her. “Stand back. I want to look at you.”
A puzzled expression came over her face. She was still before taking a hesitant step back.
He admired her unashamedly. The thick light brown hair. The green eyes so delicately shaped. The pale complexion—a creamy English complexion, he called it—that lit up all rosy at the first chill.
“I’ve loved you ever since Sergei introduced us.”
That was over two years ago, and their souls had touched right at the start. She sensed his pain, he her loneliness. He admired her intellect; she wished she had his imagination. At twenty-nine, she was six years younger than him. Inside, though, in a place where skin and bone faded into nothingness, they had the same curiosity, the same eagerness, the same spark.
“But just today I realized how much I love you… how much you mean to me.”
Lara was so alive, so much more than Musya. An ideal day to his wife would be to sleep late, loll about the apartment, shop for nylons or Bulgarian kosmetiki or search out her black market connections for another jeanzi skirt, then drink cognac or brandy late into the night. Lara would pass the same day by rising early and reading, visiting the art collection at the Hermitage, searching out a rare book, strolling in the woods, then visiting friends.
Confusion and fear plain on her face, Lara cleared her throat. “Is everything all right?”
His head bobbed up and down, “Da, da, da.”
A long stream of air poured over his lips in a sigh that left him at peace. It was as if he had just exhaled the last confusion of his life, the last tension.
He moved forward like a ballet dancer, his steps strong and sure. He raised his arms, and Lara leapt out at him.
“Ya tebya lubloo.” I love you, he said, as he caught her and spun her around. She slid downward in his arms, her feet easing onto the floor. But he still held her firmly. Grasping her waist, he kissed the top of her head, bent down, and kissed her ear through her thick brown hair. He sensed her lips on his neck.
“Are you all right?” he asked in a whisper. “How do you feel?”
“I’m fine now.”
His eyes ran from the cabinet with its hot plate, to the table, to the iron bed by the single window. The only other furniture was a bookcase and three chairs around the table. Books were stacked everywhere, filling the case, covering the table. But there was no food.
“Have you been eating?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Some cheese and bread and tea. I’m not hungry.”
He brushed aside her hair and ran his fingertips over her smooth cheeks. “Just take care of yourself.”
She backed away and voiced her fear. “Boris… is this goodbye?”
The shock of her words threw him back. He saw her pale face, the quivering lips, the glassy eyes.
“Wh-what?” His brow shot up in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Her green eyes dropped to a button on his shirt and she picked at it. “This feels like a farewell. Is everything over between us? Is that what you came to say?”
“Oh, not goodbye, Lara.” His broad shoulders bounced up and down with gentle laughter. “It’s a hello.” The warmth of his proposal brought chills to his spine. “Would you like a roommate?”
Stunned, her face was still and white. Then she blinked.
“Well, would you? I mean, a roommate for the rest of your life?”
Speechless, she broke into an incredulous grin. She shook her head, brushed back her brown hair. This is what she’d wanted all along. Now that it was here, though, she couldn’t believe it.
“I… I…”
“Lara,” he blurted, wanting to tell her everything immediately, “someone broke into my apartment and tried to kill me this morning.”
Her delight vanished. “No!” She searched his face for an explanation, grabbed at his arms. “What are—”
“Ts-s-s.” Quiet, he said, a gentle finger on her lips. He patted his chest. “See, I’m all right. Not hurt at all. Though I would have been if Musya hadn’t come home.” He shook, took a deep breath. Closing his eyes briefly, he forced himself back on track. “When I thought I only had seconds to live, I realized I was about to die without doing what was right in my heart. Lara, I need you. I want you.” Grinning, he added, “I’ve decided to leave Musya.”
Lara gasped. “No!”
He saw the joy burst back on her face and they both started laughing. He opened his arms and they flew together again. Boris shook with laughter and closed his eyes as she kissed him on his forehead, the bridge of his nose, his eyelids.
“You don’t seem sick!”
“I’m not… I’m not anymore!”
He tried to hold her, but she was too excited. And he knew it then. He knew as she clambered all over him that he’d never made a better decision in his life. He caught a glimpse of her face.
“Lara, you’re crying!”
Her head bobbed up and down. “I’m so happy!”
“I feel like I’ve had a headache all my life,” he said, “and suddenly… suddenly it’s gone.”
He wanted her to understand and to kn
ow everything. No more secrets. No more denials. No more games. He took her hand and started across the small room. He wove around the table and a chair stacked with books, then pulled her toward the iron bed.
“Come here. Let’s talk.”
He flopped back on the bed, his body sinking in the soft mattress. She lay next to him.
“Lara, I got mixed up in something…”
The same long explanation came pouring out of him for the second time that day. He told her about Sergei’s involvement with the gang, the stolen auto parts, and his involvement in transporting them.
“It was awful,” he admitted. “I don’t know why I let myself get talked into it in the first place. The extra money, I guess. I kept thinking that as soon as I had money saved up, I’d leave Musya. Maybe it was an excuse. Maybe it was just a way of putting off making a decision. I’ve been so afraid of hurting Musya. You know how much she loves me.”
“Not half as much as I do.”
“And not half as much as I dislike her.” He groaned at the thought of his soon-to-be ex-wife. “So when I was coming home from work this morning, all I could think about was honesty. And you.”
She squeezed his hand. “Boris, you’re a wonderful writer. You must make time for your dream.”
He was lost in the memory now, the fright overtaking him, and he seemed not to hear her. “And then I was attacked by this maniac with a cleaver, and…I knew. I knew everything had to be changed around.” He took a deep breath. “I phoned Musya earlier. Now I’m going to tell her that I’m leaving her. Tonight. Do you have room for me?”
She bent over and kissed him on the nose. “Welcome home.”
He looked directly at Lara. “I’m going to give her the apartment. That’ll be her settlement. Will you still love me even if I lose the nicest apartment in Leningrad?”
She patted the bed. “This is the nicest place in all of Russia. No place has seen so much fun.”
“Seriously, Lara. You know we’ll never get another apartment even half as nice as that again.”
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