She nodded.
— Can you describe him for us?
— But he didn’t have a child with him.
— We understand. He didn’t have a child with him. You’ve been clear about that. He just had a tool bag. But what did he look like?
Galina considered. Raisa held her breath, sensing she was about to break. They didn’t need the information written down. They didn’t need a signed testimony. They just needed a description, thrown away, deniable. Thirty seconds, that was all it would take.
Suddenly Fyodor cut through the silence, saying:
— There’s no harm in telling us what a man with tool bag looked like. No one can get in trouble for describing a railway worker.
Raisa stared at Fyodor. He’d made a mistake. People could get in trouble for describing a railway worker. They could get in trouble for much less. The safest course of action was always to do nothing. Galina shook her head, stepping back from them.
— I’m sorry, it was dark. I didn’t see him. He had a bag, that’s all I remember.
Fyodor put his hand on the door.
— No, Galina, please…
Galina shook her head.
— Leave.
— Please, please…
Like a panicked animal, her voice became shrill with worry:
— Leave!
There was silence. The noise of the children playing stopped. Galina’s husband appeared.
— What’s going on?
In the corridor apartment doors opened, people were staring, observing, pointing: alarming Galina further. Sensing that they were losing control of the situation, that they were about to lose their eyewitness, Raisa moved forward, hugging Galina, as if saying goodbye.
— What did he look like?
Cheek to cheek, Raisa waited, closing her eyes, hoping. She could feel Galina’s breath. But Galina did not reply.
Rostov-on-Don
Same Day
The cat perched on the window ledge, its tail flicking from side to side, its cool green eyes following Nadya around the room as if it were considering pouncing on her, as if she were nothing more an over-sized rat. The cat was older than her. She was six years old; the cat was eight or nine. That fact might go some way to explain why it had such a superior attitude. According to her father the area they lived in had a problem with rats and therefore cats were essential. Well, that was partly true: Nadya had seen plenty of rats, big rats and bold too. But she’d never seen this cat do anything useful about them. It was a lazy cat, spoilt rotten by her father. How could a cat think itself more important than her? It never allowed her to touch it. Once, as it had happened to pass by, she’d stroked its back, to which it had replied by twisting around, hissing, before bolting to the corner with its fur stuck out as though she’d committed some sort of crime. At that point she’d given up trying to befriend it. If the cat wanted to hate her, she’d hate it back twice as much.
Unable to remain in the house any longer with the cat staring at her, Nadya set off, even though it was late and the rest of her family were in the kitchen, preparing uzhin. Knowing that she’d be refused permission to go for a walk she didn’t bother asking, slipping on her shoes and sneaking out of the front door.
They lived on a bank of the river Don, her younger sister, her mother and father, in a neighbourhood on the outskirts, cratered streets and brick hut-houses. The city’s sewage and factory waste fed into the river just upstream and Nadya would sometimes sit and watch the patterns of oils, filth and chemicals on the water’s surface. There was a well-trodden path along the riverbank which ran in both directions. Nadya turned downstream, out towards the countryside. Even though there was very little light she was confident of the route. She had a good sense of direction and as far as she could remember she’d never been lost, not once. She wondered what kind of jobs a girl with a good sense of direction might get when she grew up. Maybe she’d become a fighter pilot. There was no point becoming a train driver since they never had to think about where they were going: a train could hardly get lost. Her father had told her stories about female bomber pilots during the war. That sounded good to her, she wanted to be one of them, her face on the front of a newspaper, awarded the Order of Lenin. That would get her father’s attention; that would make him proud of her. That would distract him from his stupid cat.
She’d been walking for a little while, humming to herself, pleased to be out of the house and away from that cat, when suddenly she came to a stop. Up ahead she could see the outline of a man walking towards her. He was a tall man but in the gloom she couldn’t tell much else about him. He was carrying some kind of case. Normally the sight of a stranger wouldn’t have bothered her in the least. Why would it? But her mother had recently done a peculiar thing: she’d sat Nadya and her sister down and warned them not to talk to any strangers. She’d even gone as far as telling them it would be better to be impolite than to obey a stranger’s request. Nadya looked back towards her house. She wasn’t all that far from home; if she ran she could get back in less than ten minutes. The thing was, she really wanted to walk to her favourite tree further downstream. She liked to climb up and sit in it and dream. Until she’d done that, until she’d reached that tree, she didn’t feel like the walk had been a success. She imagined that this was her military mission: to reach the tree and she couldn’t fail. Making a snap decision, she decided she wouldn’t talk to this man: she’d just walk straight past him and if he spoke to her, she’d say good evening but not stop walking.
She continued along the path with the man getting nearer. Was he walking faster? He seemed to be. It was too dark to see his face. He was wearing some sort of hat. She moved up the edge of the path, giving him plenty of room to pass by. They were only a couple of metres apart. Nadya felt afraid, an inexplicable urge to hurry past him. She didn’t understand why. She blamed her mother. Bomber pilots were never afraid. She broke into a run. Concerned this would insult the gentleman, she called out:
— Good evening.
With his free arm, Andrei grabbed her around the waist, lifting her small frame clear off the ground, bringing her face close to his, staring into her eyes. She was terrified, holding her breath, her little body rigid with tension.
And then Nadya began to laugh. Recovering from her surprise, she put her arms around her father’s neck and hugged him.
— You scared me.
— Why are you out so late?
— I wanted to walk.
— Does your mother know you’re outside?
— Yes.
— You’re lying.
— No, I’m not. Why are you coming from this direction? You never come from this direction. Where have you been?
— I’ve been working. I had some business in one of the villages just outside the city. There was no way to get back except to walk. It was only a couple of hours.
— You must be tired.
— Yes, I am.
— Can I carry your case?
— But I’m carrying you so even if I gave you my case I’d still be carrying its weight.