Lying back on the dilapidated davenport in his apartment, Dybrovik could, without moving his head more than an inch or two, see the kitchen to the right, the front door in the vestibule to the left, and straight ahead, the window overlooking the darkness that was coming to the city.
Yesterday, after speaking with Vostrikov at the Ministry of Transportation, he had come home, fixed himself a supper of boiled potatoes, onions, and fish, and then drunk himself into a stupor.
This morning he had awakened late and tried to telephone Gordik at the bureau to tell him that he had work to do at home, and would not be in until much later. But there had been no answer. Only belatedly, after he had hung up the phone, did he realize it was Saturday and no one would be at the office unless there was a special assignment.
He had taken a shower and begun to get dressed when it dawned on him that there was nowhere for him to go. Ordinarily he would have gone to his office anyway, but now he felt there was no need for it. He was burned up. Expended. His talk with Vostrikov had done all that. In one fell swoop he had used up his one and only chance — the little man — and now he was done.
Vostrikov had a big mouth, and he was running scared. He had already tried to contact Shalnev at the bureau, and that would surely have tipped off the little man that something was going on. Someone was meddling.
“It’s the end,” he told himself at one point, holding the vodka bottle straight out away from him and addressing it as if it were a mirror and he could see his image in it.
He drank most of the morning, falling asleep again for a few hours. At about two o’clock he roused himself enough to get dressed and walked the few blocks to the government liquor store, where he purchased more vodka. The Foreign Exchange Store was closed on Saturdays, so he could not get Scotch or more American cigarettes, but that didn’t matter either, he kept telling himself. He had been born a Russian, he would die a Russian.
It was market day, and the Prospekt was busy with traffic as well as pedestrians of all sizes, shapes, colors, and ages. But he had been on his guard ever since meeting the little man, so he spotted the two men behind him. He took them to be either civil police or KGB officers. They were following him. Just as they had been following him for the past five weeks. They’d never let him go. They’d hound him to the ends of the earth. Only he was going to fool them all, including the little man. He wasn’t going to run. He was going to return to his own little private hole and wait for them to show up.
Back in the apartment, he took off his coat and tossed it aside, then opened a fresh bottle of vodka and poured himself a stiff drink. He went to the window and looked down at the street. The two men who had followed him were climbing into a black Zil, which pulled out into the street and took off.
Was he imagining it all? He continued to stare down at the street where the car had been. Hadn’t he seen the men around the building before? Wasn’t it possible that they were tenants in this very building, and so had a legitimate right to be hanging around?
He drank his vodka, poured himself another, and then laid his head back on the couch.
He was in Montreal again, with Susanne. They were climbing the stairs to her flat in Outremont. They had been out dining and dancing. It was dark then. She switched on the lights when they came in; he went around turning them all off. She came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel, and he gently slipped it off, releasing her lovely breasts and exposing the delicate tuft of pubic hair. “Delos,” she breathed into his ear. “Take me right here. On the floor.” And he did.
Thinking of it now made him ache for her.
He turned and looked at the bathroom door. It was tightly closed. Not like the evening he had come home to find the little man waiting for him. The door had been ajar that time.
He set his glass down and walked unsteadily to the door. For several seconds he could not bring himself to touch the doorknob, let alone open the door. But finally he mustered the courage and did it.
The bathroom was empty, of course; he released a sigh of relief and laughed. What had he expected? Larissa had died weeks ago. Her body had been cut down by the ambulance attendants, he had received a document — death by suicide — and her body had been cremated. Her clothes and pitifully few belongings he had given to the woman downstairs, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing left in the apartment to remind him of her. Except her aura. Her spirit. Whatever.
He could sense her presence here in the bathroom. He could almost see her hanging from the light fixture. He could almost smell her musky odor and feel her body next to his in the bed. He could almost hear her speaking to him. Calling from some unutterably vast distance. “Delos,” she was calling. “Delos. It was he who killed me.”
Insanity, he told himself, firmly closing the bathroom door. It was pressure that had created such feelings. Pressure and too much drink.
He poured another drink and threw himself down on the couch.
Newman was worried about Cargill and Louis Dreyfus and Vance-Ehrhardt; on the other hand, the little man was worried about secrecy. Newman was direct and straightforward. The little man was devious and insinuating. Newman was harsh, however, the little man gentle. Newman was a businessman, the little man a KGB officer.
He turned that thought over in his mind as he absently reached out for his glass, drained it, and poured still another drink.
Newman had warned him against an overzealous KGB officer. But the Americans were always warning against dark plots of one sort or another.
In the beginning the project had been exciting; the only worry was that it wasn’t really true. That there would not be the funds the little man had promised to do the sweeping things he wanted done.
But the money was there. Shalnev was making sure of that.
He held his vodka glass up and looked at the bathroom door through the clear liquor. Larissa. What would you have advised?
Dybrovik felt totally alone. Not only was there no one here to comfort him, there was no one to talk to. No one to turn to. No one in this city whom he could trust.
It would be so easy, he thought lying back on the davenport, to let go and trust his fate to the little man. Even now. But he just could not. There would be no grain shortfall this year, there would be a surplus. So why one hundred million tons of corn? What were they going to do with it? And where had the money come from? The Central Committee? Did the Party know of this? Did it approve?
“You think too much,” Larissa would have said. But now she was dead. He finally understood it in his bones. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. She was dead. Murdered. He had always known it, ever since his first conversation with the little man; he had simply not allowed himself to think about it.
He got up from the couch and staggered into the kitchen. Larissa had died. Here. Would he be next? From a drawer he pulled out a large butcher knife and held it up in front of his face.
He had never. killed a man before. The thought had never even crossed his mind. But he could hear Larissa now, calling to him for help. And he could see Newman standing by is car in front of the house at Coppet, warning him. And he could see the fright on Vostrikov’s face.
Someone knocked at the door, and Dybrovik spun around, almost losing his balance. The little man had come for him! It was no longer a matter of speculation. The end was now!
He moved out of the kitchen and into the living room where he paused in front of the couch, his eyes never straying from the door.
The knock came again, much louder now, more insistent. “Dybrovik? Are you in there?”
Through his vodka-numbed brain, he could not identify the voice, although it sounded familiar. In his mind he could see the little man sitting across the room in the corner. His voice had been soft. Scolding. Like a mother speaking to her naughty child.