With fresh determination, he pushed himself to his feet. He turned toward the armoire, crossed around the end of the sofa, and then tripped again over the same black shoe. Pausing, he picked it up and turned it over. It was a woman’s shoe, the leather cracked and muddy, and the short heel ground to almost nothing. Fat, too, the shoe obviously belonged to Lila Nikolaevna. How odd for it to be loose.
In a quick impulse, he went to the armoire and twisted its key. He hesitated, thought of the bizarre dream he’d had of Lila Nikolaevna—it had been so real—then swung open the door. Nothing unusual—the armoire was filled with a few coats and scarves. As if it were a scar on his memory, however, he was unable to rid himself of that vision of the body.
Boris tossed the old shoe on the sofa and, rubbing his brow, walked around the apartment shutting off lights. The blow to his head that morning and his lack of sleep were all too much. But the sooner he finished with Sergei’s group, the sooner he could join Lara. Yet…
He neared the front door and stopped. Something was nagging at him, pulling him back, and he shoved aside a few bills and sat on the edge of the trunk next to the door. What a vivid dream! He had seen the old woman’s body so clearly, heard his own gasp. The memory made him cringe and he nervously began to flip the latches on the trunk. This was going to drive him crazy.
Suddenly his nose twitched. The air around him stank like overripe cheese. He shifted uncomfortably, recognizing the smell right away. Something had died, and whatever it was lay very close.
Boris wrinkled his nose. Another mouse or rat had died—judging by the sharp stench, probably right in the wall behind him. It would be weeks before the creature decomposed thoroughly. The smell would linger for months. Why didn’t the building superintendent use traps that exterminated the rats outright instead of a slow-killing poison?
He laughed. Well, that putrid smell was Musya’s problem. This was her place now.
With a quick flick of his wrist, he extinguished the light and headed out into the darkness of Leningrad.
Chapter 14
As Kyril’s leather arms wrapped tighter and tighter around her in the chilly night air, Musya thrashed like a wild animal.
“Oi,” she whimpered, “I want to fuck you right here, right now. I want you to lift me up and nail me to this tree.”
He pressed the hardness of his body against her clothing. “Promise you’ll never leave me.”
“Oi, never, Kyrozhinka! Never!”
The two lovers, locked in a fluid embrace alongside the Fontanka Canal, waited for Boris to leave the apartment once again. Earlier, when Musya was preparing to depart, they’d almost bumped into him on the stairs. Kyril had prevented the encounter, though, by throwing his hand over her mouth, then pulling her up the next set of stairs and out of sight.
Now, he leaned back, studied her bruised cheek in the pale night light. “I’m sorry, my love. If only that fool hadn’t been an hour late this morning, if only he hadn’t run into the old man downstairs. Will you forgive me for striking you so hard?”
“Of course I will.”
She realized that Kyril hadn’t risked killing Boris earlier because he’d already been seen in the building. She knew, also, that Kyril had been obliged to make it appear as if she’d been attacked as well.
She said, “There was no other way to keep Boris from suspecting me. And it worked. Funny, isn’t it? I abhor him and he doesn’t even know.” She reached down to Kyril’s pants and stroked him. “Actually, I’ll only forgive you if tonight you do exactly as I say.”
“Anything…”
Sinking into his embrace, Musya squeezed the thickness of his body made so strong from his butchering.
She ran her lips over his neck. “You have to kill him tonight before he—”
“That feels wonderful.”
“Before he realizes it’s not a gang that’s trying to kill him, but us.” She looked down the river toward the Anichkov Bridge and the four bronze horses. “All this stuff about this gang of his makes me nervous, but what a lucky break for us.”
She bit his chin, glanced up at the apartment. With lights blazing, it was obvious Boris was still there.
“I just can’t stand the sight of him another minute.”
“Patience, my love,” he moaned, sliding his cold hand up under her blouse.
“I’ve been patient for the last four years, but now… oi, Kyril…” She delighted in his large, soft hand on the tip of her breast. “I would have been a great actress. That’s what I wanted. I wanted to be an actress instead of a nurse. Oi, Kyril… I should have divorced him years ago,” she added, pressing him with kiss after kiss.
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“I know, I would have lost the apartment. Oi… don’t stop.”
“I won’t… until that pig comes down.”
Had she divorced Boris while his father was still alive, she would have been forced to leave. Even a more recent divorce might have robbed her of her true desire: the apartment. It had belonged to the Volkov family for so many years that the courts might have ruled in favor of Boris. But since he had fully inherited the right to the apartment, she too could claim it—as his widow.
“Oi, Kyrozhinka, you’re so wonderful!” she said as his thick hands rubbed her.
“Musya…”
They had planned everything scrupulously. Six months or so after Boris’ death they would start dating publicly. A few months later she, the lonely widow, would invite him to move in. And then they would marry. That, of course, would mean Kyril would receive a legal permit to live in Leningrad and neither of them would ever have to return to their native village.
She glanced up again, and again saw burning lights up in the apartment. “I just hope he doesn’t find Elizaveta Nikolaevna.” While Boris was still unconscious, Kyril and she had crammed the old woman into the trunk by the door. “She’s really beginning to smell.”
“Don’t worry. I locked it and still have the key.” He pressed his waist firmly against her skirt. “This is like old times, eh? Just like out in the barn.”
Yes, she thought. Quick, daring. Together they had helped each other survive those painful years of youth stranded in the countryside. From the start Musya had delighted in finding someone who finally needed her, had delighted in the anger that he so easily transferred to her sexually. In Musya, Kyril had found escape and a kind of comfort.
“Oi,” she said, trying to squirm away. “The lights are going off. He’ll be down any minute.”
Like teenagers caught necking, they sprang apart and adjusted their clothes and hair. Kyril slipped off his leather jacket and handed it to Musya. She tucked it under her arm, then handed him a bag that held the gun. She touched Kyril’s dark wool sweater.
“He won’t recognize you without the jacket, but aren’t you going to be cold?”
Always stoic, Kyril shook his head.
She kissed him one last time. “Don’t fret about Boris. That husband of mine is as dumb as a fish and he won’t suspect a thing. It’s this gang he keeps talking about that perplexes me. You’ll be careful, won’t you?”
“Of course, soul of mine.” He felt the hard metal in the bag. “Don’t worry. He won’t know what hit him. Now get out of sight before he comes down.”
She pecked him one last time on the cheek, then started north along the embankment away from Nevsky. At a bend in the river she stopped and stared back. In the distance Boris was emerging from the building and turning toward Nevsky. Then she saw Kyril—not much larger than Boris but stockier and beefier—as he shifted in the shadows and started after him.
That, she thought rapturously, would be the last she’d ever see of Boris. Kyril was following him to this silly meeting with the gang. Then Kyril would stir up some trouble and shoot Boris. The militsiya without a doubt would blame his death on a gang war and those wild Georgians. So simple, so clean. There’d be absolutely no reason to suspect Kyril or her. After that, the apartment would be hers an
d within a few months she and Kyril would finally be married and settled in Leningrad, the heart of Russian culture.
A moment later she saw Kyril slip onto Nevsky and disappear from sight. He was so wonderful, so strong, so assured. Who, she thought, could ask for a better cousin?
Chapter 15
Boris stepped around the corner and ordered a glass of tea and a meat-filled pirozhok at a little cafe. He quickly ate the pastry and was out the door in five minutes. All he had to do was catch a blue trolley bus to the end of Nevsky, meet Sergei and the gang, hop another bus home, and then be off to Lara’s. And some much-needed sleep.
The misty rain having subsided, he jogged across Nevsky and headed toward the Pushkin Theatre. Boarding a trolley from the rear, he dug into his pocket and took out two two-kopeck pieces; the bus was already in motion before he and the other passengers had collected their thin paper tickets. He found a seat and settled in for the four-kilometer ride to the end of the avenue.
The electric trolley hummed along until it reached Insurrection Square—the center of the uprising against the tsarist government—and slowed to an island of greenery in front of the Moscow Station. Then the broad street shot off at an angle, becoming Old Nevsky and shrinking in size. The bus sped down this last part toward Alexander Nevsky Square, bordered on one side by the modern, curving Moscow Hotel and on the other by an ancient monastery.
At this last stop before the Neva River, Boris and a handful of other riders clambered out into the early night. He glanced to his right at the classical domed archway of the monastery, the blackness of centuries of death lurking beyond. Not much was to be seen, but Boris was well aware of the massive overgrowth of gnarled cottonwood trees, the roots of which had slowly twisted gravestones and caskets. Nature had provided a violent finale for the best of Imperial Russia who slumbered here in neglect.
Across the broad square, Boris eyed the large Moscow Hotel, its square windows ablaze with life, the sidewalk in front glutted with pedestrians. Sergei was supposed to be around here somewhere, and then they’d be off to the meeting. Just let it be quick and easy, he thought, as he followed the beige and white stone wall of the monastery.
As he neared the Neva—here strong and straight before it bent east toward the center of the city—he saw a fire-orange dot glow in a parked car. Squinting, Boris recognized the small red Zhiguli. He walked over and climbed in on the passenger’s side.
“Okay, let’s go,” said Boris, rubbing his brow.
The little man took a long puff on his Marlboro.
His narrow face swelled and then, with a sigh, a slender stream of smoke filtered over his lips.
“Not so fast,” Sergei insisted. “These cigarettes are almost as expensive as hashish from Afghanistan.”
Boris twisted in his seat. “Come on, just start it up. Do you want me to drive?” He motioned toward the ignition.
“Drive where?” Sergei took another long drag. “We’re here. We don’t have to go anywhere.”
The lines in Boris’ forehead deepened. “What?”
“We’re meeting them in there.”
He let a trickle of smoke seep over his lips, then nodded past Boris. Across the sidewalk rose the wall; behind the wall spread the cemetery of the monastery. What lay inside had long ago sunk deep into death and rot.
“Nyet!”
“Da, da,” said Sergei calmly. “Where else could we meet in the middle of Leningrad and not be noticed? Everyone in there will be dead except for you and me and the gang.”
“Yes, but… but…”
“But what?” Sergei shook his head in disgust. “Listen, you’re the only reason we’re here. You don’t want to back out, do you?”
“Ah…” The thought of Lara catapulted forward and overrode the images of the ancient burial ground. “No. I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Sergei took a final drag, then reached beneath the seat, and pulled out a flashlight. He opened his door and tossed out his cigarette.
“Ready?” His hand looped back and stuffed the light in his companion’s lap. “Take this. Just don’t turn it on until we’re deep inside.”
Electric torch in hand, Boris sighed and climbed out of the car. They followed the wall toward the river, cut around the corner, off the sidewalk, and onto a grassy knoll. As they passed deeper into the deserted nook, the hotel, the busy street, and the life of Leningrad fell behind. Off to their left the waters of the Neva swirled on to the Bay of Finland. On the bank across the river, the residential towers of a new district rose out of the flatlands like artificial mountains dusted with lights.
Boris spun around and stopped still in the wet grass.
“Sergei!” he whispered.
At once his friend pressed himself against the wall. “What?”
Boris stared into the night behind them. Hadn’t he heard footsteps rushing through the grass? Hadn’t he seen the tip of a black shadow?
“I thought I saw someone.”
The two of them melted into the shadows and peered back toward the sidewalk. A few cars and busses sped down the road and across the bridge, but the space between them and the street seemed a vacuum.
Sergei nudged Boris. “Come on. We can’t stand out here.”
They continued along the knoll for another twenty meters until they reached a crumbling section of the stone wall. Sergei glanced back one more time then nodded toward a small pile of stone.
“Go on. Step on that and climb over.”
“Wait!”
His eyes adjusting to the faint light, Boris looked back and struggled to see gray moving across black. Only the distant lights of the city, however, greeted him.
“Come on,” insisted Sergei. “No one’s back there.”
Hoping his friend was right, Boris caught his breath, stepped on the rocks, and dug one foot into a hole. He spread his broad shoulders wide and without too much effort pulled himself up and over. Once inside the cemetery, he pressed himself into a bush and made room for Sergei. With a huff, his friend came hurling over the top, and then they plunged into absolute darkness; the bushes and trees were like canopies that blocked out everything that lay beyond the ancient walls.
Boris had gone only a few steps when his shin cut into stone.
“Oi!”
“Tss!” said Sergei. “Careful. There are headstones all over the place.”
“Where are we supposed to meet them?”
“By Dostoevsky’s grave.”
“Where’s that?” asked Boris, pushing aside a branch.
“Somewhere up there in the Tikhvin Cemetery. This is the Lazarus. Keep the flashlight off until we’re further inside.”
All around them the cottonwood trees swayed in the dark wind and showered their shriveled fall leaves upon them. Boris and Sergei wove stealthily among headstones and around short iron fences marking the hundreds of graves. All around them, crumbling mausoleums spewed their stone walls into the paths and worn boards propped up fractured statues and headless angels.
After winding their way in and out of the graves for a few minutes, Boris flicked on the light.
“Do you know where we are?”
“No,” sighed Sergei.
Boris lifted the lamp’s beam to one of the markers. Worn letters, as if drawn in soft sand, came to life.
“Look.”
There lay Natalya Alekseyevna, Peter the Great’s sister. Boris stared at the tomb, transfixed by history. He glided the beam to the next gravesite, which was in a ruined pile. Spires and wreaths and figurines had been smashed from the granite edifice; sunk in the mud around it were chunks of stone hands and wings. Such, thought Boris, was the pent-up fury of the Revolution.
The wind died for a moment, and from one side they heard steps rustling through the leaves.
“They’re up there,” whispered Boris, pointing to the left. “Beyond the path.”
“Just remember. Let me do the talking,” said Sergei. “Here, give me the light.”
Boris handed it
over, and the two of them made their way across a path that led from the entrance to the old cathedral. They climbed into the Tikhvin Cemetery, skirted a puddle and reached a clump of trees that sat on the edge of an opening. Sergei put his fingers to his lips, motioned for Boris to stay behind a tree, then started forward. With the light pointing just ahead on the dirt path, the short man moved cautiously into the clearing.
A sharp light burst on his face.
“Ai!” cried Sergei, lifting his hands to his eyes.
Boris, behind the tree and unseen, saw the vague outlines of several men on the other edge of the opening. He couldn’t distinguish any faces, but one thing he was able to recognize. Behind the light and seeping out of the dark was the bottom of a jacket. A rich, dark leather one.
“Why do you want to meet tonight?” asked the man, his Georgian accent deep and throaty. He held the beam of light steady on Sergei’s face.
“It’s about my friend, Boris. The truck driver.”
The man laughed. “A real coward.”
Automatically, Sergei said, “Yes. Absolutely.”
Some friend, thought Boris, shifting behind the tree. He strained to see how many others there were but couldn’t tell.
The gang leader said, “What’s the problem?”
“You see, he decided… ah… he decided he really…”
Boris stepped from behind the tree and into the edge of the clearing.
“What he’s trying to say is—”
Four men burst out of nowhere and a second electric torch seared Boris’ eyes. Squinting, he made out several steel-gray pieces of metal trained on him. His heart bulged in his chest and his hands shot upward.
“—is… is that I don’t have the stomach for this.”
“Da, da, da.” Sergei’s voice shook. “That’s right. He’s a very good man, tovarischi.” Comrades. “There’s no need to worry. He just wants… out.”
“And I wish you well with your business. Really, you can trust—”
Suddenly a branch snapped behind Boris. As he turned, he saw a gray figure dive behind a tree. Then a gun emerged, the black hole of its barrel aimed right at his head.
Blood Russian Page 9
