Tearing off one shirtsleeve, Arkadin leaned in and dabbed the blood off her face. It was when he touched the point of her chin to turn her face back toward him that he saw the deep bruises on her face, the welts on her neck. Rage at Oserov flared anew inside him, but then he noticed that the welts and bruises weren‘t recent-he was certain they hadn‘t been made in the last several days. If Oserov hadn‘t caused them then, in all likelihood, her husband, Lev Antonin, had.
Her eyes met his for a moment, and in them he saw a bleak reflection of the bedroom upstairs, filled with both her intimate scent and her abject solitude.
— Joškar, he said, — do you know who I am?
— My son, she said, hugging him to her breast. -My son.
— We‘re going to get you out of here, Joškar, you and your children. You don‘t have to be afraid of Lev Antonin anymore.
She stared at him, as dumbfounded as if he‘d told her she was getting her lost youth back. The crying of her youngest girl brought her around. She looked at Tarkanian who, with her car keys in one hand, had slung Oserov over his shoulder.
— He‘s coming with us? The man who killed my Yasha?
Arkadin said nothing, because the answer was clear.
When she turned back to him, a light had gone out in her eyes. -Then my Yasha comes, too.
Tarkanian, bent over like a coal miner, was already carrying his heavy load to the front door. -Leonid Danilovich, come on. The dead have no place among the living.
But when Arkadin took Joškar‘s arm, she snatched it away.
— What about that piece of filth? The moment he killed my Yasha he died, too.
With a grunt, Tarkanian opened the door. -We don‘t have time for negotiation, he said brusquely.
— I agree. Arkadin took Yasha into his arms. -The boy comes with us.
He said it in such a tone that Tarkanian gave him another of his penetrating looks. Then the Muscovite shrugged. -She‘s your responsibility, my friend. All of them are your responsibility now.
They trooped out to the car, Joškar herding her three confused and shivering daughters. Tarkanian placed Oserov in the trunk and tied the lid to the bumper with a length of twine he‘d found in a kitchen drawer so that his compatriot would have fresh air. Then he opened the two doors on the near side, and went around to slide behind the wheel.
— I want to hold my son, Joškar said as she urged her daughters into the backseat.
— Better that I take him up front, Arkadin said. -The three girls need your undivided attention. When she hesitated, pushed the hair back from her son‘s forehead, he said, — I‘ll take good care of him, Joškar. Don‘t worry. Yasha will be right here with me.
He got into the front passenger‘s seat and, with the boy cradled in one arm, closed the door. He noted that they had almost a full tank of gas. Tarkanian fired the ignition, let out the clutch, and put the car in gear. They took off.
— Get that thing off me, Tarkanian said as they took a corner at speed and Yasha‘s head brushed against his arm.
— Show some fucking respect, Arkadin snapped. -The boy can‘t hurt you.
— You‘re as loony as a tyolka in heat, Tarkanian retorted.
— Who‘s got a friend locked in the trunk?
Tarkanian honked the horn mightily at a truck lumbering in front of him. Maneuvering around, he braved oncoming traffic to pass the huge vehicle, ignoring the angry blare of horns and the near misses as cars coming the other way scrambled to get out of his way.
When they were back on their side of the road, Tarkanian glanced over at Arkadin. -You‘ve got a soft spot for this kid, huh.
Arkadin did not respond. Though he was staring straight ahead, his gaze had turned inward. He was acutely aware of Yasha‘s weight, even more his presence, which had opened a door into his own childhood. When he looked down at Yasha‘s face it was as if he were looking at himself, carrying his own death with him like a familiar companion. He wasn‘t frightened of this boy, as Tarkanian clearly was. On the contrary, it seemed important for him to hold Yasha, as if he could keep safe whatever remained of a human being, especially such a young and innocent one, after death. Why did he feel that way? And then a murmuring from the backseat compelled him to lean over to peer at the reflections in the rearview mirror. He saw Joškar with her three young daughters gathered around her, her arms encompassing them, sheltering them from further harm, fear, and indignities. She was telling them a story filled with bright fairies, talking foxes, and clever elves. The love and devotion in her voice was like an alien communication from a distant, unexplored galaxy.
All of a sudden a profound wave of sorrow swept through him, so that he bent his head over Yasha‘s thin blue eyelids, as if in prayer. In that moment, the boy‘s death and the part of his childhood his mother had torn from his breast merged, became one, indistinguishable both in his febrile mind and his damaged soul.
Humphry Bamber was waiting anxiously for Moira when she returned to Lamontierre‘s brownstone.
— So, how did it go? he said, as he ushered her into the living room.
— Where‘s the laptop?
When she handed him the wrecked disk, he turned it over and over. -You‘ve got to be kidding.
— I wish I was, Moira said wearily.
She sat heavily on the sofa while he went to fetch her a drink. When he returned, he sat opposite her. His face looked haggard and drawn, the first signs of constant anxiety.
— These disks are utterly useless, he said, — you realize that?
She nodded and sipped at her drink. -Just like the cell I got off the guy who pulled the hard drive from my laptop. It was a burner.
— A what?
— A disposable cell phone you can buy in practically any drug-or convenience store. It has a set number of pre-paid minutes. Criminals use them and discard them daily; that way their conversations can‘t be tapped and their whereabouts can‘t be traced.
She waved her own words away. -Not that it matters now. Where tapping into Noah‘s computer is concerned, we‘re essentially screwed.
— Not necessarily. Bamber hunched forward. -At first, when you left I thought I‘d go out of my mind. I kept replaying you pulling me out of the Buick, seeing Hart behind the wheel, and then the whole thing exploded to hell. His eyes slid away. -My stomach rebelled. Maybe that wasn‘t such a bad thing because while I was splashing cold water on my face I got the idea.
Moira put her empty glass down beside the wreck of the hard drive disks.
— What idea?
— Okay, it occurred to me that each time I deliver a new iteration of Bardem, Noah insists that I download it directly to his laptop.
— Security reasons, I‘m sure. So?
— Well, in order for the program to install correctly, he‘s got to shut down all other programs.