Behind them, the kettle began to boil, and Mathilde rose to make the tea.
“What night?” she said, her back turned.
“Wednesday,” he replied. “Yesterday.”
“Her name is Natasha,” Mathilde said. “She goes one night a week, Wednesdays, to the Metropole. She doesn’t dare go there any oftener than that for fear someone might get suspicious and turn her in. Normally in the afternoons she works one of the railway stations in Komsomolskaya Square. Try the Leningradsky station. She’s about thirty-five, on the thin side, short blond hair, fairly good teeth, no beauty, but when she gets dressed for a night at the Metropole, she can pass, especially with a foreigner who is drunk. Is that what you wanted?”
She returned with the tea and placed a cup before him.
“Yes,” he said, his eyes meeting hers.
They drank quietly, saying nothing for almost two minutes.
“You’ve never been here in the daytime,” she said finally.
“Until today,” he agreed, finishing his tea.
“Since you are here…” she began.
Somewhere deep within him, Karpo had the same thought. It was as if she read his mind, exposed his need and turned it into a vulnerability.
“I think not,” he said rising. “I prefer our regular arrangement.”
“As you wish,” Mathilde said with a slight nod.
As it must be, Karpo thought to himself, and he departed without another word.
The Leningradsky station was alive with people when Karpo arrived. He showed his identification to the policeman at the entrance who was posted there to keep out all those without tickets.
The hard wooden benches were crowded with peasants in ragged clothes. Some of them may well have been there for days, unable to find someplace in the city to sleep. All hotels were essentially beyond their means. Even if they were not, the chances of a peasant being given a room were nonexistent. If the peasant knew no one in the city or could find no one who would allow him and his wife and possibly a child or two to sleep on the floor for a few rubles, his only choice was to live in the railway station till his train came. The better dressed travelers sat a little straighter, sought others like themselves, or buried their faces in books to keep from being identified with the lowest levels of Soviet society.
Karpo moved to the dark little snack bar in the corner and watched the woman behind the bar. She had a clear case of asthma, made no better by the smokey station. She was ladling out chicken soup for a man in a rumpled business suit. When she finished, she shouted over her shoulder at one old woman who was washing the dishes.
Karpo caught the attention of the asthmatic woman.
“Natasha,” he said softly. Just then another customer, reasonably well dressed but in need of a shave, ambled forward but when he saw Karpo’s vampirelike face he decided to wait.
The woman had not been looking at Karpo. As she turned and saw him, her sour expression turned docile.
“My name is not Natasha, Comrade,” she wheezed.
“There is a woman who works the station-blond, thin,” he explained. “Her name is Natasha.”
“I know of no such person,” the woman said, looking around in the hope that a customer would save her from this man.
Karpo leaned forward, his eyes fixing on the woman’s. He could smell her sweat. There was no room behind the bar for her to back away. Behind her the dishwasher asked if something was wrong. The woman said nothing and gasped at the face before her. Then her voice came out in a small whisper.
“She’s here. The far corner, over by the second gate, behind the…”
But Karpo had turned and was gone. He pushed through the crowds, moving slowly, his eyes scanning the room. He spotted a prostitute almost immediately, but she was hefty and had dark hair. He went on, and in a few more minutes spotted the thin blonde. She was asking a gentleman for a light for her cigarette. At this distance, she looked rather elegant, but as Karpo pushed toward her, the look of elegance faded. Her face was hard, her hair brittle and artificially colored, her teeth uneven and a little yellow. Looking at her, Karpo thought that her nights at the Metropole were probably numbered. Soon she would be spending more time at the railroad stations, and soon after that she would only be working nights.
Karpo pretended to ignore the talking couple as he strode past them to a newspaper stand in the corner. In spite of the bustle of sounds around him, he caught a bit of the conversation.
“In about an hour,” said the man. He had a boyish face and graying temples, and he looked like a professor.
“Plenty of time,” said Natasha. “There’s a place…”
And Karpo was out of earshot. He turned and saw the professor hesitate, heard Natasha coax, though he couldn’t make out her words. The professor shook his head slowly, and Natasha grabbed his arm, smiling. Karpo felt confident of his quarry now. He stepped forward behind the couple, dodging a young man with a huge suitcase held closed by rope, and touched Natasha’s shoulder. She turned suddenly, surprised.
“I’d like to talk to you,” he said.
The professor didn’t bother to excuse himself. He simply disappeared in the crowd.
One lost, one gained, she seemed to be thinking as her smile returned. Karpo didn’t like the false smile, but he understood it.
“We can’t talk very well here,” she said, looking around.
With that she lifted her left arm so he could see the number 20 clearly written on her flesh. Karpo knew that street prostitutes put their prices on the soles of their shoes, on their arms, or on the palms of their hands. Her price was high for a railway station prostitute, but that was only the initial asking price.
“I’m a policeman,” Karpo said softly.
Natasha’s pale face went ghostly white.
“I’ve done nothing,” she gasped. “I’ve broken no laws.”
It was true, for there were no laws against prostitution. Since it doesn’t exist, the argument goes, there need be no laws against it. However, as both Natasha and Karpo well knew, there were many sexual crimes in the nation’s criminal code, including infecting with venereal disease, illegal abortion, sexual relations with a minor, and depraved actions. Natasha could be charged with several of the crimes, and the penalties could include a number of years in a penal colony.
“If you answer quickly and honestly,” he said now, holding her arm, “I will turn in a minute or two and walk away. If you do not, I arrest you.”
Natasha didn’t respond.
“Last night at the Metropole. You were there?”
Natasha was about to tell a lie, but Karpo’s face was inches from her own, and what she wanted most was to escape from this man.
“Yes,” she said.
“There was an American. His name was Aubrey. He was looking for a woman. He found you.”
Karpo was not at all sure that Aubrey had been with Natasha. If it turned out that he had not, Karpo would pressure her for another name, follow another lead.
“Yes,” she said.
“Where did you go with him?”
“In a taxi,” she said. “My husband is a taxi driver.”
“What did the American say to you?” Karpo went on. A couple passing by looked at Karpo and the transfixed and frightened Natasha, considered intervening, and changed their minds.
“Nothing,” she said. “He just got in. We…he couldn’t do it so I helped him. He said nothing.”
“Nothing?” asked Karpo. “A drunk who had minutes before been babbling?”
Natasha’s eyes darted back and forth. Then, suddenly remembering, she cried, “Oh! He did say something. It was nonsense. Something about having them now, having the biggest story, having the liars. My English is not good, but something like that. He kept saying he had them now, and he would show them. But he didn’t seem happy about it. More, you know, angry. Spiteful.”
“Names?” Karpo went on.
“He mentioned no names,” she said. “I swear. No names. He did say something strange, though. Something about a frog bitch. It is drunk talk. Dogs are bitches in English, I think. Frogs are not spoken of that way. He was drunk.”