In the morning, Willery had accepted coffee and a sandwich and taken his seat on the floor, looking at the wall. Once in a while he adjusted his dark glasses, but otherwise he was completely still.
Willery had come to several conclusions. First, he did not have to get too close to the hotel and the theater when he pressed the button. It would almost surely work from some distance, but what distance? He had been told that when the moment came he was to be across the street, no more man fifty yards away, but maybe it would work from farther away. He could try, couldn’t he? If it didn’t work, he could simply move in a little closer. The best thing about this was that he would not have to see what happened inside the theater when he pressed the button. The worst thing was that he could easily imagine what would happen. He had seen the damage done by IRA bombings in London. He had wanted to make a movie about terrorism, but one visit to the site of a bombing had changed his mind. That was how he had met Robert from World Liberation.
He had no misgivings about blowing up the theater. In fact, he was quite happy about that part because it was the same theater where two nights before the audience had ridiculed his film. Yes, that very ridicule made him an aesthetic martyr. He would tell the Western reporters, especially his friend Elsie Brougham who worked for the Guardian, about the vulgarity of the Russian movie-goers. But still, there would be some justice in imploding that overdone excuse for a movie theater. If only there would be no people in or near it-or if he could carefully select the people who would be inside. He could come up with a nice list, starting with the pock-faced little turd from the Moscow Film Festival Committee who had tried to get him to withdraw his film and had smirked at him every time Willery tried to explain what his film was about.
He looked down at his watch and discovered that it was almost four o’clock. He groaned. In one hour, just one hour, he had to do it. He really had no thought of not doing it. They had killed Monique, and they would surely kill him. The Russians, even if they caught him…One more hour.
When Willery groaned, Platnov put down his book and turned to see what was happening. In the past few hours the student had developed a bit more tolerance for his guest, since he might well prove to be the bridge to Katya.
“What is wrong?” he asked.
“I’ve got to go,” whispered Willery.
“Where?” asked Alexander Platnov.
“Out,” said Willery, getting up on cramped legs. “But I’ll be back.”
“Of course,” Platnov said, now looking with some puzzlement at his guest. Had the man obtained drugs? It would not surprise Platnov. Whatever it was, Willery was going out and had not invited Platnov to go with him. The man from the Moscow Film Festival office had said that Platnov should stay with his guest at all times, but it was Sunday afternoon, and every man had his limits of tolerance. Both Marx and Dostoevsky had made that quite clear.
“I’ll be back,” Willery repeated, going to the door.
I’m sure you will, said Platnov to himself, wondering if he should go just to keep the man from wandering into a passing motorbus. “Would you like me to come with you?”
“No,” Willery snapped, and then, with a weak smile, he repeated, “no,” quite softly, and went out the door.
Platnov shook his head and turned back to his book. It was about computer technology for heavy machinery factories, and he hated it.
In a halfhearted attempt to get lost, Willery wandered about the city. To Sasha Tkach, who was following him, it looked at times like an amateur’s attempt to lose anyone who might be on his trail, but if so, it was so incredibly inept that the man appeared to be feebleminded, a possibility that Tkach, having seen To the Left, considered briefly. Willery took no public transportation, went through no buildings, but simply wandered, sometimes winding up where he had been before. It was also possible that he was simply trying to determine if someone was following him, but if so he was doing an amazingly good job of not being caught looking back.
No, Tkach decided, the Englishman was simply some kind of fool who disrupted the lives of policemen who would much rather be home with their families. When this thought came to Tkach, he smiled. A passing old couple saw his smile and smiled back.
That morning as he ate breakfast at their small table, Maya had told him and his mother that she was pregnant. It had struck Sasha like a hammer to the heart. His first response, strangely enough, was a feeling similar to the one he had last winter when he shot the young thief in the liquor store. He wanted the child very much. He had thought about it a lot and discussed it many times with Maya.
Then, as Maya shouted the news to his mother who had failed to hear the announcement, Sasha recognized that feeling in his chest. He didn’t give it a name but knew it had something to do with responsibility. Who had said…Yes, Rostnikov had said that for everything good, one has to pay a price, shoulder a responsibility. And then Rostnikov had added that for everything bad one also pays a price and shoulders the responsibility.
He had wanted to stay home with Maya. He’d considered asking Zelach to do a double shift of tailing Willery, or calling Rostnikov and asking his permission to stay home. Sasha wanted to give the news of the coming child to the Washtub, but he thought better of it. Willery was his responsibility. And so he went out and took over from Zelach just as Willery came out of the apartment building shortly before four and began his seemingly drunken wandering about the city.
Shortly before five o’clock, Willery’s wandering seemed to become more purposeful. He headed north, hesitated to gain his bearings, and then made his way to the river. Tkach closed the distance between them. There were plenty of people on the streets, most of them coming or going from nearby Red Square; and Willery, as had been made quite clear to Tkach, was not aware of or interested in the possibility that he might be followed.
When they passed the Kremlovskaya Embankment, which runs along the Kremlin Wall, Willery’s pace slowed. Through the crowd, Tkach could see the man furrow his brow over his dark glasses and look at his watch. For almost the entire trek, Willery’s hand had been moving restlessly in his right pocket. The hand went rigid as they came in sight of the Rossyia Hotel. Willery crossed the street and stood next to Saint Anne’s Church, but he was not there to admire the beautiful fifteenth-century building. Instead, he looked over at the hotel. Because of Willery’s dark glasses, Tkach could not tell if he was looking at the State Concert Hall or the Zaryadye Cinema. Tkach’s guess was that he had simply come to relive the agony of his film screening in the theater.
Certainly there was nothing happening in the theater at the moment. A huge sign indicated that the next screening would be in an hour. A few people were waiting for the doors to open, but there was no crowd. Tkach made his way closer to Willery as it became evident that the man was not going to move.
Tkach had expected to see a pensive look on Willery’s face when he got close, but it was not easy to read what he saw. From a distance of about twenty feet Willery looked frightened and determined. His thin lips were tight, as he looked at the people passing by or examining the small church. His eyes ran past Tkach, who turned his back to ask a passerby for the time. Four minutes to five.
Tkach walked across the street toward the theater, his back to Willery, and made his way to a cluster of men and women who were having an animated discussion of montage. He tried to look as if he was hurrying to join them. Moving behind the group of people, he smiled and asked the leader of the discussion what time it was.