He knocked at the door to the apartment, though he knew the door would be open, that the aunt and cousin would be out. Mathilde answered the door. The amused smile was on her face; her dark brown hair hung loosely around her shoulders.
She had on no makeup, and she wore a plain blue dress. She could have been a housewife in the midst of cleaning house.
Their relationship had grown more complex than he had ever anticipated. In truth, Emil Karpo had anticipated no relationship other than one that provided him respite from the animal necessity that he could not deny. But something more had happened.
She had become-for reasons that Karpo could not identify and that might not exist, since Mathilde did not function on the basis of reason-his friend.
Mathilde Verson and Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov were the only people he had known since he was a boy, and that included his own parents, who seemed to display any concern for him.
"Emil Karpo, for a hero of the Revolution who has saved the life of the president himself, you look even more serious than usual, and the usual is about as serious as a human being can get."
With this she stepped back and let him enter. She closed the door behind him and stood as he turned to her.
"The tea is warm, and we can talk about life and the state before we go to bed," she said, moving past him to the curtain that separated the small living room from the kitchen area. Beyond the kitchen was the single bedroom with the oversized prerevolutionary bed.
"I do not wish to talk," said Karpo, following Mathilde as she moved to the pot boiling gently on the stove.
"Then let's just drink our tea and-"
"I do not wish to drink tea," he said.
She turned to him, put her hands on her hips, and tilted her head to one side.
The puzzled smile disappeared from her face as Karpo moved toward her and reached out to touch her left breast.
"Emil Karpo, with what drug has someone secretly injected you?"
Karpo gripped her arms firmly but gently, and she looked up into his pale face.
Something very like tears were forming in his eyes, and she did not know whether to be frightened or very pleased.
Sasha Tkach, closely shaven, walked into the hospital in clean clothes. His hair was combed back, and Maya had put a touch of hair tonic on it to keep it from falling forward into his face. Under his left arm he held a package wrapped in green paper.
No one stopped him as he went to the elevator and informed the thin woman who operated it that he wanted the sixth floor. He was the only passenger, but she stopped at each floor along the way. He was not disturbed. No one got on.
"Thank you," he said, getting out when the doors finally opened on six.
The nurses on duty at the station did not ask Sasha Tkach for identification or where he was going. He moved down the hall and into the ward where Zelach had been moved following his recovery from surgery.
Other patients in the eight-bed ward had visitors; some had two or three, and one man in the corner seemed to be having a party. Zelach was lying back, his face almost as white as Karpo's, his left eye covered by a bandage, his right eye closed. Sasha moved to the side of the bed and quietly said, "Arkady."
There was no answer. Sasha put the package down, found a folding chair in the corner of the room against the wall, returned to the bedside with it open, and sat. Five minutes later, when Zelach stirred to the sound of laughter from the party in the corner, Tkach repeated, "Arkady."
And Zelach opened his eye. The lid fluttered, and Zelach seemed to be having trouble focusing. He turned his head slowly and found Sasha. Zelach's swollen lips formed something that might have been a smile.
"Sasha," he said dryly.
"Would you like a drink, some water?" asked Tkach, getting up from the chair.
"No," Zelach said in a dry voice that was not his own. "Have you forgiven me?"
"Arkady, it is you who should forgive me."
"Me?"
"Yes."
"I forgive you, Sasha, but I don't-"
"Your mother says your eye will be saved. You will need glasses. You'll look like an intellectual."
"I'll look," Zelach rasped, "like a potato sack with glasses."
"You are too hard on yourself, Arkady."
"No, I am not, Sasha Tkach. It is you who is too hard on himself. You are only a human being. See, I can think of nothing to say but my mother's old sayings."
"You are right, Arkady Zelach," said Tkach.
"My mother said you and Karpo are heroes," said Zelach, trying to raise his head. "Or was I dreaming?"
"We were not heroes."
Zelach held back the sharp pain in his face as he propped himself higher and turned his head far enough toward Tkach that he could see the green paper of the package lying on the small table near his bed.
"What is that?"
"Open it," said Tkach.
"I don't think-"
"I'll open it for you," Tkach said, taking the package and carefully opening it so that Zelach could give the wrapping paper to his mother if he wished to do so. The contents of the package were small, a packet of papers about the size of an eyeglass case.
"Shall I read it?" Tkach said.
"Yes," Zelach said as a peal of laughter came from the party in the corner and a patient somewhere in the ward began coughing uncontrollably.
Sasha Tkach read:
" 'Upon recovery from injuries received in the course of his duties, Arkady Sergeivich Zelach will take two weeks of vacation in the Crimean region of the Ukrainian Republic at the Lermontov Hotel in Yalta. There will be no expenses incurred for this period, and Arkady Sergeivich Zelach will be permitted to be accompanied by his wife or any immediate member of his family.' "
"My mother," said Zelach.
"Arkady, my wife and I will be going with you. I have also been given a vacation. My wife's family is in Nikopol. We will see them for several days and then join you and your mother, if that pleases you."
"You want to go on a vacation with me and my mother?" asked Arkady incredulously.
"Very much," said Sasha Tkach.
"Does that mean we are friends?" Zelach asked.
"I would consider it an honor," said Tkach with a laugh.
At the airport in Yalta, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov was met by his wife, who handed him an envelope that had been delivered to the hotel just before Sarah had left for the airport.
Rostnikov's leg had already been aching from the boat ride that morning, but the cramped conditions on the plane and the turbulent weather that made it impossible to get up and walk about had led Rostnikov to consider seeking medical help. He had tried sleeping on the plane. Impossible. He had managed to finish the book he had begun on the flight to Moscow, an Ed McBain tale, Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man. He had read the book many times before. The pages were now, like many of his favorite books in his American detective-novel collection, unglued and ready to escape from the battered cover that held them loosely together. It helped a bit, but he could not read for more than a few minutes at a time.
He took the envelope and looked at his wife in the red-sun twilight. Her hair had grown back quickly since the surgery, and though he knew there was a scar, it could not be seen. She had lost weight, but she was still a solid woman whose face was remarkably unlined considering the roughness of the life she had led for her forty-eight years.
"Porfiry Petrovich," his wife said, looking over the top of her glasses as she had done since the day he had first met her. "You are ill."
"And you are quite beautiful," he said.
"That is your fever talking."
"No," he said, opening the envelope. There was a single-spaced typed, unsigned sheet inside. He read it, put it back in the envelope, and put the envelope into his pocket.