“What the hell,” Allberry agreed, patting the other Americans shoulder.
Rostnikov listened to the men at his table talk and looked out the window past a forest of birch trees that came almost to the train tracks. Snowdrifts stretched up the trees, and nooks in the fleeting branches were tinged with the soft whiteness. From time to time he could see an isolated dacha or two, sometimes four or five in a group, retreats for the upper-middle class, their roofs decorated with tufts of snow.
On the table before the four men was a plate of hard-boiled eggs, another of fried eggs with small slices of ham, an urn of black coffee, slices of black bread, and small cups of yoghurt.
“The breakfast,” Drovny said in English, buttering a thick slice of bread, “is standard fare. Nothing you would not get in a second-class hotel in Irkutsk. But the lunch and dinner …”
“Good, huh?” asked one of the Americans.
Drovny smiled and said, “Rice with minced mutton.”
Plov eez bahrahnyeeni, thought Rostnikov.
“Boiled beef tongue, roast pork with plums, goulash, beef Stroganoff,” Drovny went on. “Not the equal of some of the restaurants I could take you to in Moscow, and nothing like Paris, but palatable.”
“I’m a steak-and-potatoes man,” Allberry said. “Doing it so long, it’s in my blood. But I’m willing to try. I remember back in those months with a Russian intelligence general we had a dish with beef, veal, and chicken in gelatin served with a mustard sauce. Sounds terrible, right? But it was damned good.”
“Kholodets,” Drovny said. “That is what it is called. Served with charlotka, a creamy vanilla and raspberry-puree dessert. Delicious.”
The American laughed. “I’m afraid we weren’t near any of that.”
“Yes,” said Drovny, reaching over to pat the man’s arm in congratulation for his willingness to experiment with the standard cuisine of the country he was visiting. “And you?”
He was looking at Rostnikov.
Rostnikov had already told the men that he was a plumbing contractor; but he was, like Drovny, a Russian. “I am willing to try any food,” he said.
“A large man with a large appetite,” said Drovny with a big grin, as if he had made a joke.
Rostnikov looked around the car. All the tables were full. He did not see the woman he had spoken to the night before, the one who had given him the name Svetlana Britchevna.
“This egg,” said Drovny. “It reminds me of something.”
“What’s that?” asked one of the Americans.
“It reminds me of a funny story,” Drovny said. “Two flies go into an insect restaurant. The first fly orders shit with garlic. The second one orders shit but adds, ‘Hold the garlic. I don’t want my breath to smell bad.’”
The two Americans laughed. Rostnikov smiled as the joker asked, “Which is more useful, Russian newspapers or Russian television? The newspaper,” he answered himself. “You can wrap fish in it.”
Five cars down, Sasha Tkach was slowly making his way through the train. His plan was simple. He would check the empty compartments, the ones in which the occupants were dining, out in the corridors, or visiting with other passengers. He kept a list of the cars and compartments and checked them off. He would return periodically to see if unchecked compartments were empty.
If a compartment were, at the moment, unoccupied, he would slide open the door when he was confident no one in the corridor was watching, then quickly look at the luggage and reach out to feel particular pieces. In five cars, he had found nothing promising.
Some people passing had looked at him as he moved slowly or loitered. He gave them his best smile and a good morning. The smile still worked, though he did not feel it.
Sasha had no great hope of finding that for which he searched, but he persisted. There would be a stop in twenty minutes. He would have to suspend his search and get out onto the platform. This was proving on the first day to be an exhausting assignment.
Sasha continued, recalling his brief conversation with Porfiry Petrovich the night before.
“The man’s name?” Rostnikov had asked. “The one your mother says she might marry?”
“Matvei Labroadovnik,” Sasha had said. “He is working on the restoration of the Cathedral of the Resurrection in Istra.”
“Matvei Labroadovnik,” Rostnikov repeated, searching his memory for the name.
“She says he is famous,” Sasha had gone on.
“And you believe? …”
“That he knows my mother has money. That he is not a famous painter. Either that or he is ninety years old, half blind, and slightly mad.”
“You don’t think a man could be interested in your mother?”
“Do you?”
“She has her good points, Sasha.”
“Such as?”
“She is generous.”
“But she charges a great deal for her generosity. Attention, great respect, and the right to dictate how I live.”
“She loves you and your children,” Rostnikov tried.
“She smothers us with love, on her terms,” said Sasha. “She is a smothering … I do not know.”
“Would you not be happy if she indeed had found someone?”
“I would be relieved, overjoyed. I would throw a party. There would be dancing. But I don’t believe it.”
Rostnikov had his doubts too but he went on, “We will check on this painter when we get back to Moscow.”
“And if they decide to marry before we get back? He may want to marry her quickly before he has to meet me, deal with me.”
“Are you concerned about losing your mother’s money?”
“A little, perhaps,” Sasha admitted.
“You are concerned about losing your mother,” Rostnikov tried.
“As strange as it is, that may be the case,” said Sasha with a deep sigh. “I have grown accustomed to her nagging. Maya would be happy to see her gone. Maya does not care about the money. The children would probably be happy too.”
“We are not talking about Lydia dying,” said Rostnikov. “Only about her getting married.”
Sasha laughed. The few other people in the car had looked at him. “You know why I am laughing?” he asked.
“I think so,” said Rostnikov.
“I sound like I am jealous,” Sasha said, putting his hand to his chest. “That is what the woman has done to me. I will be thirty-six years old on my next birthday and I still feel like a child when I am with her.”
Rostnikov said nothing. This was an important moment of realization for Sasha Tkach.
“I think,” he said, no longer laughing, “I think I understand something. It sounds crazy. The problems I have had with women during my marriage.”
Rostnikov was well aware of Sasha’s weakness. It had almost cost him his marriage and at least twice had jeopardized his career.
“It is my mother I want to hurt,” he said. “It is my mother I want to show that I am interested in other women.”
“It is a theory,” Rostnikov admitted.
“It seems right,” said Sasha with excitement. “You should have been a psychiatrist.”
“If simply listening qualifies one, then perhaps you are right, but I would give you a caution, Sasha. What seems clear and true and right when it is night and one is tired and on a train rocking into darkness may not seem quite so right in the sunlight.”
And Rostnikov had been right. Now, going through the train in search of a suitcase he probably would not recognize, Sasha thought his whole theory about his mother had been little more than nonsense.
Sasha moved forward, sometimes sensing when someone was in a compartment or catching a glimpse of movement or form on a seat. He had such a sense as he passed the next compartment and was about to open the door of the empty one just past it when a woman’s voice called.
“You missed me.”
Sasha turned back. Standing in the doorway of the compartment he had just passed was the quite-beautiful woman who had been talking to Porfiry Petrovich in the lounge car the night before.