Behind her in the mirror there appeared a very pale male face, slightly puffy around the eyes. The man was disheveled, and yesterday’s blond stubble gleamed on his sunken cheeks. His pale blue eyes gazed into Regina Valentinovna’s calm brown eyes dully and senselessly. She looked around abruptly and noticed that the man’s hands were shaking and his right thumb had an ugly black slash from a new scab that looked fresh.
“You should shave, Venya,” she said quietly and, walking up to the man, ran her hand over his cheek. She was wearing pale, flesh-colored matte polish.
“Regina, I’m dying. I can’t do this,” Veniamin Volkov cried out in a loud whisper. “Do something, please. I can’t do this.”
Quickly looking around to make sure that there was no maid, secretary, or guard in the vicinity, Regina gave him a good slap on the face and said quietly, “Silence, beast!”
Venya’s hands stopped trembling. His eyes acquired an intelligent but frightened expression.
“You see? You have to do something,” he said in a perfectly calm, matter-of-fact voice. “Any more of this and I’ll explode.”
“Well, you’re a long way from an explosion, I think,” Regina responded in the same calm, matter-of-fact voice. She and Volkov had identical intonations.
“No.” He shook his head despairingly. “It nearly happened today.”
“But it didn’t. You were able to control yourself. You’ve been healthy for fourteen years. That’s quite a long time, Venya.”
Volkov showed her his injured right thumb. After a careful glance at the ink- and blood-stained pad of his thumb, Regina shrugged.
“You could have gotten along without the pain. You were just tired. What did you use? A pen?”
“My Parker.”
“Too bad, it was a nice Parker.” Regina sighed. “All right, let’s go.”
“Only in your car!” He smiled weakly. “The air in it’s better.”
“The air in the Volvo is better than the Lincoln?” Regina laughed cheerfully. “Yes, Venya, you’re definitely tired.”
A little over an hour later, Regina Valentinovna Gradskaya parked the dark blue Volvo next to an old two-story dacha in Peredelkino, just outside Moscow. The house was surrounded by a high metal fence, and there was a guard booth just inside the gates.
“Asleep on the job again,” Regina remarked good-naturedly, getting the remote out of the glove compartment and opening the tall gates with a press of the button.
The guard’s sleepy face appeared in the booth, after which he leapt out into the light of day as if he’d been scalded and out of habit respectfully saluted his bosses.
“Good morning, Retired Captain!” his boss greeted him sarcastically. “How’s the sleeping going this evening?”
“My apologies, Regina Valentinovna!” the guard reported. “Honest to God, I didn’t even notice I’d fallen asleep!”
“Thank you for not doing it on the living room couch.” Regina snickered amiably. “All right, you can go to the kitchen and let Lyudmila feed you. And drink some coffee. It’s no good sleeping at your post, Comrade Retired Captain. Watch out or I’ll have to fire you.” Regina turned to a silent Venya. “He’s afraid of losing his job, but he’s too tired to stay awake, the rascal.”
Venya followed her into the house.
The dacha had once belonged to a famous Soviet writer, a Stalin Prize winner. His heirs had sold it to Volkov for a hefty price, but neither he nor Regina regretted the cost. Regina had long had her eye on this particular place in the small, elite writers’ colony. She liked the fact that it was on the corner, well down the road, with one side adjoining a picturesque birch grove and the other, a small pond where, in the summer, bright lemon-yellow buttercups bloomed.
“Think up something for supper for us, Lyudmila,” Regina said to the plump, pink-cheeked young woman who met them on the threshold. “Only make it something light, like fish or a small salad.”
“I understand, Regina Valentinovna. Should I bake the sturgeon or grill it?”
“Venya, are you asleep or something?” Regina touched his shoulder. “How do you want your sturgeon, baked with mushrooms or grilled?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Fine. Lyudmila, do it on the grill the way I like it, no salt or sauce, just a spritz of lemon. Some new potatoes for him, too, just a few, four or so, boil them and sprinkle them with dill. And for me, asparagus. Plain.”
When the cook had gone, Regina cast a cold, assessing look at Volkov and asked, “Well, my unhappy man, will you let me have a smoke, or should we work for the half hour until supper?”
“You can see for yourself.”
She saw a fine white film dusting his lips and his hands trembling again.
“Fine, let’s go.”
In the writer’s former study, there was a small eighteenth-century lady’s writing table, and the bookshelves were filled with The Great Medical Encyclopedia, books on psychiatry in four languages—Russian, English, German, and French—and also works by Nietzsche, Freud, and Roerich. Only philosophical, psychological, and mystical literature livened the three walls covered floor to ceiling with bookshelves.
Pulling off her suede boots, Regina sat on the low, wide couch and tucked her slender legs underneath her. Volkov sat directly on the floor, opposite her, and fell still, looking steadily into her brown eyes, which flickered strangely in the light of the table lamp.
“They came to see me today,” he began. “They came from the past. They even sang the same song as back then, on the Tobol.”
“Don’t tense up. We haven’t even started yet,” Regina interrupted him. “Who came?”
“Two girls, for an audition. A blonde and a brunette, each eighteen. At first I didn’t notice anything, but when they started singing the ballad, I suddenly saw them.”
“You realize it wasn’t them?” Regina asked quickly.
“Yes. But I’m afraid how everything is coming together like this. First that fellow who had to be done away with. Now these girls. I could barely contain myself, and you know how I’ve contained myself all these years. But when that fellow showed up…”
“He’s gone now,” Regina reminded him.
“How did you do it? Why don’t you want to say?”
“I didn’t do it. He did it himself.”
“But you were there?” Venya squeezed his fists so hard his sharp knuckles turned white.
“You know very well I was with you.”
“Who did you send?”
“I told you, he did it himself! If you don’t believe me, at least believe the police report.” She laughed out loud. “The investigators were there, and they did an autopsy. Suicide.”
“And the singer?”
“The singer was offed by the same thugs who attacked Thrush at his birthday party. Stop it, Venya. You really aren’t your best. Watch out or pretty soon you’ll be sleeping on the job, like our retired captain. Okay, then, let’s begin…”
Volkov closed his eyes and began rocking slowly, seated cross-legged on the carpet. Regina began in a low monotone that came from somewhere in her belly.
“Your legs are soft, heavy, and warm; your muscles are slowly relaxing; your arms are dropping, growing heavy; you are warm but not hot, your skin is smoothing out like the surface of the sea, soft and cool. Not a single wave and no breeze, you hear and smell nothing, you feel warm and good. There is nothing but my voice. The rest is silence, peace, nonbeing. My voice is the way out of nonbeing, you’re on it, like a moonbeam path, moving toward the light…”