The youngest three boys, who had never seen their older half brother, Yakov, were the children of a brutish ex-soldier named Leon. The boys feared nothing but their mother’s displeasure and the threat that their father might return. But Leon, who had never given Elvira his true last name, had packed his few belongings one day and headed west.
So now Elvira Chazova-her hair white and stringy, most of her teeth long gone, her face wrinkled and beaten by days in the sun and diseases of the dampness-had to make do with a meaningless government subsidy and what could be scrounged and stolen. The boys begged, but they were a sorry lot, thin, sharp-featured like their father, and with their father’s perpetual surly challenge on their faces. They were much more successful at stealing, roaming the streets at night, finding stray drunks, late-night hotel prostitutes, and restaurant workers heading home after long days. They chose their victims carefully. A man might appear to be prosperous, but if he looked to be more than the three boys could handle, they passed him by. They had actually gone by tram as far as the town of Oryol to find drunks for the taking. For when they brought their earnings home, they were praised by their mother.
There was only one window in the apartment, at the end of what used to be the corridor. A curtain had been put up to create a bit of privacy for Elvira. The boys slept on cots in a small space beyond the curtain. On the other side of them was another curtain, which established another space before the door to the apartment, which held two stolen sofas and four chairs plus a television that sometimes worked, a table, and a small refrigerator. There was no sink. There was no toilet. One of the old offices at the far end of the corridor served as a kind of communal room for those who lived on the floor and the one above. It had a sink and a filthy toilet.
Occasionally a lost child or adult would wander into the communal room and curl up to sleep. If the Chazovs found such a person, he or she was lucky to escape with little more than a split head and a broken limb.
At night and during the day the black-and-white television set droned on, losing both the top and bottom of its picture to blackness. Elvira was expecting her latest baby soon. Its father was a half-mad fool named Kirsov, who claimed to be in a Georgian mafia but who was in fact kept around by one of the mafia’s minor members to run risks such as delivering messages to rival gangs. About three months ago Kirsov had tempted his luck one too many times and had been shot and dumped in the Moscow River with his eyes plucked out, a warning to the Georgians, who ignored it.
This murder of Kirsov had been further proof to Elvira that one could only survive by violence and that one had to be cautious when choosing one’s victims and friends. “Family,” she had frequently told Alexei, Boris, and Mark. “That is all you can count on.”
Were the boys a bit brighter, they might have noticed that their family had hardly been a model of reliability: Their older half brothers as well as their father had fled as soon as they could; their own father had gone west; and their mother’s latest friend had had his eyes plucked out, leaving her with another baby.
Elvira hoped the child in her belly would be a girl. Girls were much more likely to be given money by people, particularly foreigners. Besides, Elvira had always wanted a girl. Not that she hadn’t loved her boys. She had, each one of them. The baby was always lavished with love, coddled, allowed to sleep next to his mother till he was six or even seven. But then Elvira would begin to lose interest in the child, except as potential income. When asked, she’d fiercely proclaim her love, but in truth she often felt more comfortable when they were in the streets.
Elvira heard a knock at the door and knew it was an official knock, not the kind made by a timid neighbor. She rose from her chair in front of the television, where she had been watching an old movie about a pretty blond woman with a beautiful apartment and lots of men friends. The woman had a white living room right down to the telephone.
The one-year-old, Ludmilla, was angry because the knocking had startled her and made her drop the empty tin can in her hand. The baby inside Elvira was kicking. Elvira held Ludmilla back with one hand and made her way to the door, shouting, “Who is it?”
“Police,” said Sasha Tkach.
“I’ve done nothing,” she said.
“We want to talk,” said Sasha pleasantly.
“About what?” she asked.
“We will tell you when we come in,” said Sasha.
It was not the first time the police had come. And it had always been the same thing. She had told the same lies, and eventually, when they saw there was no money in this and probably not even a reasonable arrest, the police had left, talking about the filth of Elvira Chazova’s home.
“All right. All right,” she said, opening the many bolts on the door and leaving the heavy chain in place as she peeked at the nice-looking young man and the slouching hulk behind him.
The young man held up an identification card, but Elvira didn’t bother to try to read it. Her eyes were not good for reading and her reading skills were minimal anyway. Besides, a police identification card could be forged. She knew two people who could do it for her for the price of a half-dozen eggs.
She unchained the door and stepped back to let the two men in. “I’m pregnant,” she said, moving to her chair and not offering a seat to the policemen.
“Congratulations,” said Zelach.
Neither policeman sat. It was not a place they wished to stay long.
“You have three sons,” said Sasha, “one of whom is named Mark?”
“My youngest boy. My baby boy. He is only five.”
She was lying by two years, but it made no difference. She could see by the young policeman’s face that he had already decided to doubt whatever she might say.
“Your three sons,” Sasha went on, “where were they last night?”
The one-year-old had decided to hold on to her mother’s dress and produce a red-faced scream, which Elvira ignored.
“Here,” she said.
The television droned on. The child screamed. The blond woman on the screen laughed. Zelach glanced at the television and then back at the screaming child.
“What time did they come home?” shouted Sasha Tkach, his hands at his sides and looking very official.
“Just before the first news on television,” Elvira said, holding her large stomach. “I don’t like them out at night anymore. Too dangerous since the new life. Too dangerous for little boys.”
“May we talk to the boys?” Sasha asked.
“Now?” she said.
“Now,” said Sasha.
The woman looked at the other policeman. He bore a faint resemblance to her second husband but without the angry look.
“They are out,” she said. “In school.”
“They are not in school,” shouted Sasha, searching for something in his pocket. “We have checked with the school. They have not been going to school.”
“Lots of children don’t go to school anymore,” she said defensively, “except when they hear that free food is being given.”
She glanced at the television screen, where an older man in a tuxedo was lighting a cigar and looking at the blonde, who smiled coyly.
“True,” agreed Sasha, finding a small sweet he had stashed deep inside his pocket for his daughter, Pulcharia. “But it is your children we are interested in.”
“Why?” she asked.
“We have questions,” said Sasha, handing the sweet to the red-faced, screaming child, who immediately became silent.
“Questions?” asked Elvira.
“About something that happened last night,” said Sasha.
“They were here last night. All night. I told you. We are a poor family. They are out begging. That’s what this new government, this new democracy, has done to us. We have to send our children out begging like Gypsies.”