The Frenchman moaned.
The driver demanded silence.
Ignition, headlights.
Back at Garage Number One, Kostya checked his watch and then noted the time of the car’s return on three different forms. He’d already delivered his prisoner to one of the collection windows and retrieved paperwork from the intake clerk. Paperwork for the car, for his prisoner’s dossier, for the night’s plan, and for the other officers under his command, kept Kostya busy at his desk until four thirty. Then, after locking away his ink and blotter — such items prone to disappearance — he descended to the detention cells to check and sign yet more paperwork, this time the clerk’s report. Officers’ delivery reports might, at any moment, be compared to clerks’ intake reports, and a discrepancy could be dire.
His boot soles tapped on the stairs, and the grid-wire overhead threw sharp shadows in the electric light.
At the intake bay, near the cells, he queued with other officers on the same errand for a good quarter hour. Once he reached the window, the clerk needed to check with a colleague at another window. The clerk then reviewed Kostya’s forms and said that all paperwork concerning his prisoner looked in good order.
Kostya thanked the clerk, and the paperwork disappeared into a file. He’d declined, in the end, to note any belligerence in his prisoner, and in a rash moment he later blamed on pain and fatigue, he wished he could tell the prisoner so. He’d not likely see the prisoner again. Other officers would interrogate him, in shifts, to prevent the prisoner’s attachment to one man. A familiar face sparked hope; hope lent resilience; and resilience impeded interrogation, which only added to the burdens on overcrowded, overtaxed Lubyanka.
I played along, Gleb had said, asked him what he’d done. ‘Nothing at all,’ he told me, ‘which is precisely why I’ve been expecting you.’
Sighing, Kostya checked his watch: hours to go before the end of his shift. The sloth of time. Target practice? No, not with so much pain in his shoulder. He climbed the caged stairs and returned to his desk. A new crooked stack of paperwork that threatened to slip and spill onto the floor now awaited his review. He’d asked for an in-tray. Many times. Given up.
Thoughts wandering to the constellations he’d glimpsed earlier in the night, Kostya told himself to focus on his work. He unlocked his desk, retrieved ink and blotter, took the topmost papers from the pile and reviewed them. He worked until almost seven, looking up as officers from one of the morning shifts arrived and passed by the hall. As he wrapped the reviewed forms in red tape and attached a note stating Ready, the two colleagues with whom he shared his office entered together. For now, they worked shifts opposite Kostya’s, but one day, Kostya reminded himself, all three of them could be working the same shift and need the office at the same time. Dreading that, Kostya wished his colleagues a good morning, locked his blotter and ink away once more, deposited his taped paperwork on the secretary’s desk, and signed out in the ledger.
Outside, the gentle air smelled reedy, as from some great river in a fairy tale: the forbidden Puchai, perhaps, where Dobrynya Nikitich bathed and thereby encountered Zmei Gorynich. Recalling this story as he descended to the metro, Kostya promised himself a long hot shower. He fell asleep and almost missed his stop. He scrambled then, aware that he amused the other metro riders, not that they’d dare show it: the uniformed NKVD officer so clumsy, so human? He wished he could laugh aloud at himself, laugh with the others as they all left the metro car. Instead, here in Vasilisa Prekrasnaya, before a stunning mosaic version of Ivan Bilibin’s Vasilisa, the girl standing outside the fowl-footed hut of Baba Yaga and shining a lamp she’d wrought from a skull and holy fire, he tugged his uniform straight.
He ascended to the street and strode to his block of flats. Eighteen hours to call my own. Civilians, seeing the uniform, made certain to step out of Kostya’s way. Kostya ignored them. By now, he reasoned, Efim Scherba would be getting ready for his workday, and Kostya would soon have the flat to himself. He greeted the old watchwoman in the lobby, noting the contrast between her white hair and black dress, and tried to remember her name. She was one of a very similar pair; they took turns. Once out of her sight, Kostya frowned. The women had only one task: to sit and watch. Not sew. Not read. Just watch. All these widows, Kostya thought, not acknowledging his relief at the lack of grid-wire enclosing these stairs. Where did we get all these widows?
Noise interrupted his thoughts. Tape. Someone ripped long pieces from a wide roll of strong tape.
Reaching his floor, Kostya glanced over his shoulder. Three of his colleagues worked to seal the flat of someone, or perhaps multiple someones, arrested overnight.
Reading Kostya’s insignia, the NKVD men hurried to tug their caps back on. Kostya almost said it aloud: I don’t fucking care about uniform infractions at this hour.
Still, they expected a response: a rebuke, perhaps a threat.
After a moment, Kostya nodded. —Good morning.
— Good morning, Comrade Senior Lieutenant.
Postures stiff and hinting at the goose step, they tore off more tape.
Kostya wrenched off his boots the moment the flat door closed behind him. Eyes aching, he walked down the short corridor to the large kitchen, turned left, and tossed his cap onto what he and Efim used as an eating table. The surface worked on a hinge and could nest in an alcove in the wall when not in use. The eating area led to a small front room, where the stenka, a high cabinet fitted with shelves and drawers, stood near a wall. A radio perched on one of the stenka’s open shelves, and a cushioned armchair, the only such chair in the flat, faced the radio. The new pine floors and the white walls reflected what little daylight came through the small windows, and the high ceilings made the flat seem bigger. Yes, Kostya acknowledged, a good flat. True, one must overlook the frailty of the plumbing, the inconvenient placement of light switches, and the nuisance of the telephone mounted on a strip of wall just outside the bathroom. Still, ninety square metres was ninety square metres.
Efim emerged from his bedroom. —I’m glad I caught you. Take off your shirts, and I’ll look at your shoulder before I go. At the table. The light’s better.
Glancing at the sink and faucet, recalling the strain to pump water in that clinic in Spain, Kostya placed his portupeya, shoulder sling, and holstered Nagant next to his cap. Then he eased off his gymnastyorka and undershirt and exposed his wounds. Fatigue pressed on his shoulders and neck; despite his hospital stay, he still felt drained.
You are resilient, Gleb Kamenev once told him, resilient and adaptable. You’ll go far.
Efim manipulated Kostya’s shoulder, then studied the scars. —These are healing well. Never any infection?
— I was full of sulpha pills when the bombs fell.
— Lucky man. When I turn the arm like that: better or worse? Any difference?
— No.
Efim drew the pads of his fingers over Kostya’s scars, debridement craters and shrapnel’s demented paths. —Any new pain here?
— No.