Zelach was still on leave. Both Karpo and Rostnikov were in Arkush. No one would see him, no one but Elena, and she had begun the laughter. It was safe and he laughed. There was no reason to laugh, but he laughed and watched her laugh.
“I must stop,” he said. “It is too painful.”
“All right,” said Elena, wiping her eyes. “All right. We will stop.”
She did her best and it was almost good enough, but she couldn’t stop. Finally they sank back and caught their breath. It was at this point that for the third time she said, “You should be home in bed,”
“I will feel less pain and feel less stupid about my actions last night if I work,” he said. “We will go gently.”
“Gently,” she agreed, and knew that they had broken through to some understanding. It would not be perfect from this point on, but it would be better. “I have the names Tatyana gave us. Some have no last names and will be impossible to find, but a few are not so bad. I think I found the right Katrina Velikanova. The others, either she had the last names wrong, or …”
“Or she lied,” said Tkach.
“Or she lied,” agreed Elena. “But Katrina Velikanova is listed in the directory. Amira Durahaman was seen by Tatyana with Velikanova.”
“Plus some young man named Stillsovik, an American named Paul Harbing-”
“-who I cannot find-”
“-and,” Sasha continued, “another Arab girl with an unpronounceable name and-”
“It is a place to start.”
“It is a place to start,” he agreed.
And they started. They called Katrina Velikanova to be sure she would remain at home till they got there. She claimed that she could not wait, but Elena had made it clear that this was not a request.
The ride took half an hour, and it was half an hour of pain for Tkach, who stood in a corner of the electric bus with his back half-turned to protect his taped ribs. The crowd was not bad at this hour.
Sasha did not want to talk. He held the pole, ignored Elena, and looked out the window at the disabled cars and sagging power lines. Billboards along the way promised foreign luxuries-Volvos, Sharp computers, Mars bars, 7UP, M amp;M’s-few could afford.
As they passed the Bolshoi Opera House Sasha could see the scaffolding and boards that covered the giant sculpted horses atop the building. Work had begun on repairing the horses almost a year ago. Perhaps now it would never be completed. He had seen the horses two or three times a week for his entire life, but at the moment could not remember how many of them there were.
He considered asking Elena, but his attention was caught by the policeman in the corner stokinglass, the glass-enclosed traffic station on the corner. The man, bundled in his gray coat, was changing the light from red to green.
“Here,” Elena said, touching his shoulder.
They got off the bus and emerged into the chill daylight. The dark 1905 Revolution sculpture was behind them. In front of them were the dark streets that hid the crumbling apartment buildings from the eyes of tourists.
Tkach found himself walking very slowly.
One block along they turned a corner and found themselves in a narrow dirty street with concrete-block buildings and cracked sidewalks. They stepped around a place where the sidewalk seemed to have erupted.
At the next corner a group of men and women shifted from one foot to another as a scrawny man badly in need of a shave played an out-of-tune accordion.
Sasha and Elena crossed the street and moved past a pile of dirty concrete blocks intended at one time for some now-forgotten project. They stopped just in front of the building beyond the dirty concrete. Katrina Velikanova lived in an eight-story apartment building very much like this.
Elena started to speak, but Sasha spoke first. “Do not say it. I am not going home.”
She closed her eyes to show that she accepted and they moved on. Katrina Velikanova’s apartment was on the eighth floor, and of course the apartment had no elevator.
“Does he feel like this every time he walks up stairs?” Sasha asked as they moved upward.
“He?”
“Porfiry Petrovich. His leg.”
When they reached the top floor and found the right door, the young woman who opened it insisted on carefully inspecting their identification. “You look nothing like your picture,” she said, examining Sasha’s battered face.
“I’ve been ill,” he said.
She was pretty and looked no older than sixteen. She was also very frightened but determined to hide it. “What happened to you?” she asked, letting them in.
“Encounter with a reluctant witness,” said Elena.
The apartment was incredibly tiny, a cell papered in bright yellow with orange flowers.
“You want to sit?” Katrina Velikanova asked, removing her hands from her hips and folding them in front of her.
“No,” Sasha said.
“What do you want?” she said. On a table in the corner sat about twenty porcelain dogs of various sizes and breeds. She picked up a terrier and rubbed it with her thumb.
“Do you work?” asked Elena.
“Of course,” she said. “I told you when you called that I had to get to work.”
“Where?” asked Sasha.
“The House of Friendship with People of Other Countries,” she said. “I can speak Romanian and Czech. My mother was Romanian. You don’t believe me?”
“We believe you,” said Elena. She realized that the girl was not terribly bright.
“You are here about Amira,” the girl said.
Elena and Sasha glanced at each other.
“What makes you-” Elena began, but Katrina put down the dog and said, “The other one sent you. You are the follow-up and I-”
“The other one?” asked Elena.
“The cop,” she said. “This morning. I’ve seen the movies. My boyfriend has a television.”
“Did he show you his identification, this other policeman?” asked Sasha.
“No, I just … that’s why I wanted to see yours. He wasn’t-”
“What did he look like?” asked Elena, taking out her notebook.
“He wasn’t a policeman?”
“What did he look like?” Elena repeated.
“Big. Like this.” She formed a large rectangle with her hands. “Nose was flat like that actor.”
“Tabakov?”
“No, the Frenchman. It doesn’t matter,” she said, picking up another dog. “He was wearing a leather jacket like the Frenchman wears.”
Elena remembered the man in the Nikolai. When he came through the beaded curtains, he had looked as if he were going to charge at Inspector Rostnikov. He had looked directly into Elena’s eyes.
“What did he want?” asked Sasha.
“He wanted to know if I knew where Amira was. I told him I didn’t know. He asked if I knew any of her friends. He said she might be in trouble and he wanted to help her.”
“So?” asked Elena.
“I told him what I know. It’s not much. I only saw her at the Nikolai a few times. With Grisha Zalinsky and with the Englishman.”
“American,” Sasha said.
“No, Englishman. I hear enough English and Americans trying to speak Russian. This was an Englishman.”
“Paul Harbing,” said Elena.
“Paul Harbing?” said the girl, looking up at her. “I don’t know any Paul Harbing. His name was-wait, he only said it once when we were introduced, but I have a good memory. I need it in my work. I took the memory course at the … Chesney, Peter. Peter Chesney.”
“You are sure?” asked Elena.
“I am sure. Peter Chesney.”
“You know where Peter Chesney lives?” asked Sasha.
“No, why should I know that? What’s wrong with Amira?”
“Nothing,” said Elena.
“Nothing. That’s why people keep knocking down my door and threatening me.”
“Thank you, Comrade Velikanova,” said Elena.
“Now I am Comrade Velikanova,” said the girl. “I’m glad someone knows what we can call each other now. My mother has gone back to ‘gospodin,’ friend. My boss still says ‘tovarish.’ Can Comrade Velikanova ask you to call her boss and tell him why she is late?”