“It is about learning to relax,” she said. “I read it. It has done wonderful things for me.”
She scurried around, looking for more to do, taking one thing out and replacing it with another.
“I look forward to reading the book,” he said.
“We have forgotten something,” Lydia said. “I know! A small plastic bag to keep your toothpaste in so it doesn’t squish out and ruin your clothes.”
“I will get one,” he said.
“Go see if you have one,” his mother ordered.
He escaped from the bedroom and took his time bringing the plastic bag back. He had called Maya, told her what had happened. She had asked if he could find some way to keep his mother away from the apartment for the first few days while he was gone. He said he would try.
“I do not dislike her, Sasha,” she said.
Sasha was not sure he felt the same way about his mother.
“She wants to see the children,” he said. “How can I? …”
“Tell her I will call her soon, that, that I have had a breakdown … no, she will come with doctors. I do not know what you can tell her.”
“I can tell her anything,” Sasha had said. “The problem is that she will not listen.”
“I know,” Maya said.
They had spoken a few minutes longer, holding back, putting away till they had face-to-face time together the important things that had to be dealt with, the important things other than the omnipresence of Sasha’s mother.
And now Sasha stood watching his mother stuff the suitcase beyond its reasonable capacity.
“And this is last,” she said, holding up a pair of binoculars. “They were your father’s. You can look out the train window with them.”
“Thank you,” said Sasha, having no intention of using the binoculars. Were she returning to her own apartment that night he would have considered removing half of what she had packed and hiding it. But that would probably not work. His mother was certain to search the two rooms to be sure he had not done just that.
This was madness. He was thirty-five years old.
“Mother,” he said as she struggled to zip the bag closed. “For the first few days, when Maya and the children come back …”
“Tomorrow,” Lydia said, standing back to examine her handiwork.
“Yes.” He had promised Maya he would try and so he would.
“I won’t be here,” his mother said, turning to Sasha. “I have to go to Istra for a while.”
“Istra?”
“You do not know where Istra is?” she asked, looking at her son as if he might be feverish.
“I know exactly where it is,” he said. “About forty kilometers from here off the Volokolamsk Highway.”
“On the bank of the Istra River,” she said. “That is right.”
“Why are you going there?” he asked, his curiosity replacing for the moment his pleasure at having achieved instant success.
“To spend some time with Matvei,” she said, walking past him into the room that served as living room, dining area, and kitchen.
Sasha followed her quickly.
“Matvei? Who is Matvei?”
“Matvei Labroadovnik, the famous painter,” she said, looking around the room for something to straighten or at least change.
“The famous … I’ve never heard of … why are you going to spend time with this Matvei La …”
“Labroadovnik,” she supplied. “He is very famous. We are considering marriage.”
Sasha felt slightly dizzy. He reached back for the arm of the couch, found it, and sat heavily.
“He is living in a dacha in Istra while he helps with the restoration of the Cathedral of the Resurrection,” she said, finding a chair that had to be moved a few inches to satisfy her sense of decor.
Sasha’s mother had retired from her government job four years earlier. She was now nearly sixty years old, and as far as Sasha knew she had had nothing to do with men since his father had died when he was a boy.
“How did you meet him? How old is he?” asked Sasha, bewildered.
“You want some tea? Pepsi-Cola?” she asked.
“Water,” he said.
She nodded, moved into the kitchen area, and got him a glass of water from the noisy tap.
“Matvei is fifty-six years old. His mother lives in the building where I have my apartment. We have met frequently. We have much in common.”
“Like what?” asked Sasha.
“Art,” she said.
“You have never shown the slightest interest in art,” he said.
“You haven’t noticed,” she said, sitting across from him, continuing to scan the room for imperfection.
“Art?”
“And movies.”
“You don’t like to go to movies. You can’t hear them.”
“You are wrong,” she said. “I love movies.”
Sasha had an insight, or thought he did.
“And he is famous?”
“Very.”
“And he is well paid?”
“He has a great deal of money. He is in great demand.”
Sasha sought desperately for a reason why this man might be interested in his mother. If it wasn’t for her money, then what? Lydia was no beauty. Lydia was no aesthete. Lydia was a meddler and a tyrant.
“He is healthy?”
“Like a swine,” she said with a small smile. “Tall, robust. When we get back, you can meet him. I’ll see that he dresses up.”
There was a mystery here for which Sasha did not have the time, energy, or proper source of information. He recognized the possible blessings of seeing far less of his mother, but he was a detective and the evidence sat before him.
“Does he know I am a policeman?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” she said. She stood up suddenly and said, “I will go shopping, get food, some new clothes for the children for when Maya gets back … Sasha,” she said, picking up her oversized black purse. “You must promise me something.”
“What?” he asked.
“On the train, you will stay away from women.”
“I will be working with Porfiry Petrovich,” he said.
“That has not stopped you before.”
She walked over to her seated son and touched his cheek. “You are too much like your father,” she said.
“My father? My father? …”
“Had a weakness.” She sighed. “For the ladies. He was handsome, weak, but he had a bad heart.”
“You’ve never told me this before,” he said.
“You knew he had a bad heart. It killed him.”
“No,” he said, “about the women.”
“I must have,” she said. “How could you not know after all this time? I had best go do some shopping now. You should eat before you go.”
“Yes,” he said, not wanting to hear any more surprises from his mother. “I should eat.”
“Is there anything you would like special for dinner?”
His mother never asked such questions. She simply made what she wished and expected anyone at the table to enjoy it, though she was a terrible cook.
“No,” he said. “Whatever you choose.”
She nodded as if he had made a very wise decision, and marched out the door.
When the door closed, it struck him. He had carried on an entire conversation with his nearly deaf mother without having her fail to understand him.
His mother had changed in what appeared to be an instant. Had it been gradual? Had he been too preoccupied to notice? He took out his notebook and pen and wrote the name Matvei Labroadovnik in it. He would make some calls, ask some questions.
The building on Brjanskaya Street was about half a hundred paces from the entrance to the Kievski Market, across the Moscow River from the heart of the city. There was no name on the building, just an address, and the building itself was no more than a few years old; it was a relatively simple, clean, yellow-brick six-story structure.
It was not the kind of building in which one might expect to find one of the wealthiest men in all of Russia. The truly wealthy new capitalists and those who aspired to be and lived on the edge of success were in the prestigious buildings in the center of the city.
Nikoli Lovski could have his office wherever he wished. He owned six radio stations, two newspapers, a paper company with a supporting forest in Siberia, and a piece of several banks and stock in a large number of foreign companies, not to mention considerable land, mostly in the growing suburbs of the city.