Rostnikov’s son, Iosef, now firmly established in Moscow after four years in the army, was working in the theater, talking about becoming a policeman, and visiting his parents’ apartment to help amuse his “little sisters.”
They, his family, were safe, if a bit hungry, in Moscow. But the tossing of the plane still made him uneasy, and he felt the need to talk.
“Elena,” he said. “You are working on your Spanish?”
She closed the book in front of her and turned to him.
“No,” she said. “I was going over the reports.”
“Share with me your endeavors,” said Rostnikov, folding his arms and trying to ignore a particularly sudden and violent drop of altitude that drew a gasp from someone at the rear of the plane.
“I am going over the copy of the file of Igor Shemenkov,” said Elena.
“You must have memorized it by now,” said Rostnikov.
“Some of it,” she confirmed.
“When I was a boy, before the war, we had to memorize Gorky and Lenin and Marx,” said Rostnikov.
“Yes,” said Elena politely.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” said Rostnikov in a whisper. “Lenin and Marx were a mystery yet I remember long passages. Gorky was intriguing but I remember nothing of his work.”
Elena nodded.
“This strikes you as pointless conversation,” said Rostnikov. A man in a gray uniform hurried down the aisle toward the back of the plane either in frantic need of the rest room or to check on some new horrible sound that foretold the implosion of the airplane. “But I assure you it is not.”
“You are my superior and it is essential that I give you my full attention.”
“Your sense of responsibility gives me comfort, Elena.”
“I am pleased that it does.”
“When I think I am going to die in an airplane, I grow surly and sarcastic,” said Rostnikov. “I was being sarcastic.”
“So was I,” Elena replied.
In spite of his concern about the worried man who had run down the aisle, Rostnikov smiled. Elena returned the smile.
“A test, Elena Timofeyeva,” said Rostnikov. “Are you ready?”
“A test?”
“We are being accompanied by a member of State Security,” he said.
“KGB,” she answered.
Inexperienced as she was, she did not look about the cabin at the mostly masculine faces. Instead she continued to look directly at Rostnikov.
“The new collegium is still dominated by the leftovers of the Communist party,” he explained. “They protect the apparatus of the KGB while giving its branches new names, new uniforms, new public faces. You know all this?”
“I know all this,” said Elena.
“The Office of Special Affairs is a small but irritating fleck in the single eye in the center of their collective forehead,” he said. “But since they have but one eye …”
“Cyclops,” she said. “Mythology.”
“They wish to remove us,” he said. The plane rocked madly.
“I understand,” she said. “My aunt has given me her views on this historical direction. May I say something, Inspector Rostnikov?”
Something had changed in her voice and Rostnikov gave her his full attention. She shifted in her seat to face him and seemed undecided for an instant. Then, with a small intake of air, she said, “I feel very awkward being on this assignment. I wish to do well. I will do well, but I feel too …”
“Formal?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But I don’t know, awkward, concerned that I will say the wrong thing. I do not want this awkwardness to interfere with my efficiency.”
“The KGB agent,” he said gently. “Which one?”
Still she did not look around the cabin.
“One of two,” she whispered. “The thin man on the aisle four rows back or the woman in front of us, the one who keeps trying to listen to us over the noise. She is doing her best to keep from showing her frustration.”
“Good,” said Rostnikov. “Which one?”
“Perhaps both,” she said.
“One,” he repeated, shifting his left leg. He decided he would have to stand up again soon in spite of the bobbing airplane, to bring the leg back to some semblance of painful life.
“The man,” Elena concluded.
“Reasons?” asked Rostnikov.
“He did not look at either of us when he went past to his seat,” she said. “Every other passenger gave us some kind of glance. We are an odd pair. He worked too hard at not noticing.”
“Perhaps he is preoccupied,” said Rostnikov.
“He finds some reason to turn away or engage in conversation each time I go to the rest room,” she continued. “He does not want to make eye contact.”
“Conclusion?” Rostnikov said, grasping the railings of his chair with white-knuckled despair.
“He does not want to be remembered,” Elena said, her words coming in rattling leaps as the plane jerked up and down.
“But he draws attention to himself with his studied indifference,” said Rostnikov. “I’m afraid we did not merit a star of the KGB staff. The man’s unenviable task will be to stay close to us without our knowing he is there. The less we see of him the less likely he is to be remembered. It is a hopeless task. We will probably end up feeling sorry for him and inviting him to have coffee with us. I am looking forward to Cuban coffee. I understand it is very good. The man following us is Povlevich or Powelish,” said Rostnikov. “Karpo would know the date of his birth and which of his teeth is most in need of dental attention. It is enough that I know he works for a man named Klamkin, also known as the Frog. Klamkin reports to a Colonel Lunacharski, who covets the office of our Gray Wolfhound.”
“I see,” said Elena seriously.
“We live in a world of unnecessary complexity,” Rostnikov said as he rose. “It is the curse of being Russian. We don’t believe that the mad world is sufficiently mad so we create even greater madness and then point to the chaos we have created as proof of our theory.”
“We have a tragic history,” Elena said.
“The greatest comedy is tragedy,” he said. “Do you know who said that?”
“Lenin?”
The plane suddenly stopped rocking and began a smooth, steady rise.
“Gogol,” he answered, and began to make his way down the aisle to the distant rest room.
As Rostnikov limped past him, the KGB man lazily and naturally turned his head away and closed his eyes.
TWO
“I was just walking my dog,” the old man said, pointing at his dog. “I walk Petya every morning. Here. There. Everywhere. I’m a veteran.”
They were standing next to a thick tree in Sokolniki Park. The bark of the tree was peeling with age or some blight. Tkach didn’t know which, but he did notice that the tree was dying. As he had conducted the interview, Sasha had turned the old man, whose knees buckled with arthritis, away from the police laboratory crew and Emil Karpo, who were going over the area and examining the mutilated body of the girl.
“Citizen Blanshevski,” Sasha said. “Did you see anyone in the park this morning? Any people you usually see? People you have never seen before?”
“Comrade,” said Blanshevski. “I prefer to be called Comrade. I don’t mind saying I am a veteran. My brother died fighting the Germans.” The old man spat. “Whenever I think of the Germans, I spit. I have given my life to the Party. You should know that. So call me Comrade or I have nothing to say.”
Sasha gently bit his lower lip. He said nothing for a moment. For the three weeks since his thirtieth birthday he had, with the help of his wife, Maya, managed to pull himself from the thick pool of self-pitying misery in which he had been immersed for months.
Thirty was not as bad as he had feared, and there had been a great compensation. Their second child had come, a boy whom they named for Sasha’s father, Ilya, much to the joy of Sasha’s mother, Lydia, who was still temporarily living with Sasha, Maya, and their two-year-old, Pulcharia. Ilya was healthy, and he slept reasonably well. Maya had begun to get her figure back and with it the health that had seemed to ebb away in pregnancy.