Almendinger realized he was still holding the little parcel from the Beriozka store in his hand. He opened his briefcase and slipped his purchase into a small leather pocket. He saw the wads of paper there, the neatly arranged files and smiled. A tipsy passerby came up and asked him: "Tell me, friend, you don't happen to have any matches, do you?"
Still smiling, Almendinger held out a lighter to him. When after several attempts the man managed to light his cigarette and mumbled: "Thanks for coming to the rescue, friend," and tried to return the lighter, Almendinger was no longer there. He was already strolling toward the alley that smelled of bitter tobacco.
Ivan remained in the hospital for a long time, recovering from the heart attack he had suffered in the militia van. The inquiry took its course. No serious charges were brought against him. The Embassy sent a note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An article appeared in a Swedish newspaper: "Failed Hold-Up in Moscow Beriozka Store." The following day "Radio Liberty," broadcasting from Munich, gave the facts, mentioning the full names of all the participants correctly. Everyone knew that the story would soon evolve into one of those piquant anecdotes that are related at diplomatic cocktail parties: "It actually happened at the Be-riozka, you know. And a Hero of the Soviet Union, what's more! A Gold Star on his chest… Oh no, he's had his psychiatric assessment. A man of perfectly sound mind… You're right. Maybe it's what they call the Old Guard syndrome. Have you heard what that fellow Petrov says about it? Quite priceless! He's supposed to have stamped out all that kind of thing. When they told him about it he nodded and growled: 'Yes, the veterans stay young at heart for a long time…' And by the way, the veteran's daughter… Yes, yes… And there's another quite fascinating detail…"
At the beginning of June Ivan was to be transferred into preventive detention. While he was in the hospital Olya had been to see him every day. They did not have much to say to each other. Olya would produce the latest newspapers and fruit and food from her bag, and ask after his health. Then they would go down and sit on a bench in front of a flower bed that gave off the bitter smell of marigolds.
In the course of these two weeks, by borrowing money left and right and exchanging foreign currency, she settled accounts with the Beriozka. She telephoned Alexei… It was sometimes his father, sometimes his mother, who picked up the phone and each time they replied politely that Alexei was not there. His mother added: "You know, Olyechka, he's preparing for the Youth Festival at the moment. He's gone to France to sort out some problems to do with the makeup of the delegation." Olya thanked her and hung up.
Sometimes a longing overcame her, pathetic in its unreality: like a child who has broken a cup, she wanted to go back, to play the scene over again, so that the cup didn't slip from her hands, so that there should not be this resounding and irremediable silence. But even this pathetic regret vanished.
To her amazement, she saw that she was beginning to get used to a situation, which, a little while previously, would have seemed to her inconceivable. She was getting used to this orange flower bed, to this thin old man emerging from the dull fog of his room to meet her, to the inquisitive and merciless stares in the corridors of the Center. And the fact that nothing had radically changed seemed to her disturbing.
It was very hot in Moscow at the end of May. Sometimes through the open windows of the Center the long, slow siren of a ship could be heard, coming from the Moskva River. It even seemed as if you could smell the warm, muddy smell, the smell of the wet planks of the landing stage in the heat of the sun. And when evening came the streetlights already cast a blue radiance over the thick foliage as they did in summer. In the restaurant, amid the dense aroma of spiced dishes and perfumes, the tinkling of a little spoon or a knife had an agreeably cool resonance.
Svetka consoled Olya as best she could. But she was so happy herself at that time that she went about it clumsily. A little while earlier, her Volodya had sent her a smiling photograph of himself and a letter in which he promised he would be coming home on furlough for a whole month. In the photo two big stars could be seen very clearly on his epaulettes.
"So long as Gorbachev doesn't call it off in Afghanistan," she commented, "Volodya's sure to come back with his three colonel's stars. Of course, it's not much fun for him over there. But are things any better here? Apparently he's been in some garrison miles from anywhere for a long time, somewhere in Chukotka… Oh! I can't wait for August! We'll pop over to the Crimea and rent a little beach house by the sea. At least he'll get a decent tan. Last time he came back, you know, his face was like a Negro's, with just his teeth shining… and the rest of him all white!"
She checked herself, ashamed of her happiness. "Listen, Olya, you mustn't worry. Your father, what can they accuse him of? Only a brawl and maybe they'll throw in that he was drunk. He'll get a year at the end of the world with a suspended sentence… And as for your diplomat, don't worry. With men it's always like that, you know. There are plenty more fish in the sea. Look, when he comes back, Volodya will introduce you to one of his friends from the regiment. And maybe your diplomat will come back to you anyway. Obviously his father and mother have turned him against you. But it'll all calm down and be forgotten. And if he doesn't come back, to hell with him! Listen, you remember Katyukha, who worked with the Americans. She married a guy like that. And he bugged her all the time. 'You've got no aesthetic intuition,' he used to say. 'No grasp of style. You can't tell the difference between Bonnard and Vuillard…' That whole artistic elite used to gather at their place, lounging around in armchairs, knocking back Veuve Clicquot and 'telling the difference.' And you know, she's a plain, straightforward girl. One day she'd had enough of all these stuck-up art historian bitches and guys with shrill voices. They were talking about Picasso at the time. And suddenly she came out with this riddle, which is a real scream: 'What's the difference between Picasso and the Queen of England?' It's a hoary old chestnut, of course. You must have heard it a hundred times. 'Picasso only had one blue period in his life and the Queen has them once a month… On account of her blue blood!' You can just imagine the faces they pulled, all those intellectuals! Her husband exploded: 'That's not only an obscenity – I'm used to that. It's sacrilege!' The idiots. They'd have done better to laugh instead of acting like constipated cows. Katyukha wouldn't put up with it. 'They're just daubs, your Picasso!' she shouted. 'He was a salesman, that's all. He got the message that there was a market for this kind of vomit – it's what you all like – so he vomited…' What a hullaballoo! The women all charge out into the corridor and get their mink coats mixed up. The men squeaclass="underline" 'It's the Attila Complex!' Her dear husband goes into hysterics… He's already opened divorce proceedings, the bastard. He was always lecturing her: 'Life is an aesthetic act.' And all the time he was injecting himself against impotence. What an aesthete!"
They chattered on till dusk, as in the good old days. And, as in the old days, Ninka the Hungarian came to see them from time to time. She, too, set about consoling Olya, relating melancholy tales of her own life hitting the, rocks many times, of disappointed hopes and other people's black ingratitude… But she, too, found it hard to conceal her own happiness. In June she was to make her last visit to the Black Sea coast. In October she would marry and would found what she herself laughingly called "a model Soviet family."