Apparently he did not understand that Soviet waiters and hotel personnel did not cater to the needs of their customers. The Soviet way was to be wary, to wait to be asked and then to treat any request as an imposition. Anton, however, was not in the least bit surly. He had, he said, lived his entire life, except for his military duty, in Yalta. He, and his father before him, had been named for Anton Chekhov, and both had attended School Number 5, which had previously been the Yalta Gymnasium for Girls, the gymnasium, Anton said proudly, where the great Chekhov had been on the board of trustees.
"My grandfather was a waiter in this hotel, as was my father. My grandfather had the honor of serving Chekhov himself on many occasions. Chekhov was very fond of fish. Would you like some help with your chair, Comrade Rostnikov?" he asked with a very small smile that showed reasonably even though not large teeth.
Anton was a short man with wire-rim glasses and short brown hair. He was, at best, wiry; at worst, scrawny.
"I'm fine, Anton," said Rostnikov.
"Back for lunch at one?" Anton asked as Rostnikov started down the slope for another morning at the beach while Sarah rested.
"At one," Rostnikov agreed.
"Drinks?" asked Anton, whose voice was a bit farther away as Rostnikov came to the bottom of the slope. He was sure Anton's hands were clasped together.
' 'Ask Mrs. Rostnikov when she gets up,'' Rostnikov called over his shoulder.
The sky threatened rain, but Rostnikov trudged on. Families hurried past him toward the beach, their beach shoes clapping on the path. Rostnikov limped resolutely, folding chair under his arm, anxious to finish his book. Ten minutes later, he positioned himself in more or less his usual spot and was pleased to see a reasonably handsome woman in a red swimsuit lying on a blanket not more than twenty yards away. Thunder rumbled, but the clouds were not dark enough to clear the beach or make Rostnikov think of an early return. Sarah would be sleeping, resting. If it rained, it would rain, and he would get wet as he walked to one of the cafes near the beach, where he could eat an English biscuit and continue reading while having an overpriced cup of coffee or tea.
He was comfortable in his chair, absorbed in his book, letting conversation and the general wave of water and voices wash around him when a single word caught his attention.
"Vasilievich," came a man's voice.
Rostnikov looked up. A man nearby, a bony old man with a little gray beard and a potbelly, had said the word to a lumpy woman sitting beside him on a blanket.
Rostnikov rose, his leg already a bit stiff, tucked the book under his arm, and moved to the bony man.
"Pardon me," he said. "What did you say about Vasilievich? Who…?"
"Yah n'e poneema'yoo vahs," the man said slowly. "I don't understand. We are Hungarians. Gavaree't'e pazha-ha 'Ista, me 'dlenn 'eye. Please speak a little more slowly."
"You speak English?"
"A little," the bony man said.
"Vasilievich. You said something about someone named Vasilievich," Rostnikov said in English.
"Correct," the man said. The woman next to the man turned and shaded her eyes with her right hand to look up at Rostnikov. "Someone with the name Vasilievich in another room in the hall from my wife's father at the sanitarium. He died during the night. Not her father. Vasilievich."
"Georgi Vasilievich?"
"Yes," said the bony man. "You know… knew him? They said it was heart. Man had a bad heart. Died in a chair outside the sanitarium. Must have been there a long time. Found by a Mrs. Yemelova."
"Yemelyanova," the woman corrected him.
"Yes, correct," said the bony man. "She found him. You knew him?"
"Yes," said Rostnikov. "Thank you."
Rostnikov broke his routine. He returned to the hotel, informed Sarah of Vasilievich's death, and with Sarah went down to the lobby to call the local MVD office. He identified himself to the woman who answered, and she confirmed that Georgi Vasilievich was dead and that his body lay in the Dysanskay Sanitarium.
Anton appeared. "You're back early," he said. "I saw you come back. Is everything well? Do you want early lunch?"
The Lermontov lobby was small, dark, and, at this hour, almost empty except for a trio huddled in conversation around a small table near the window, the clerk behind the desk, and an odd duo-a huge, formidable-looking bear of a man and a small, nervous man with a dancing eye-in a far corner. The man with the dancing eye seemed to be looking at Rostnikov.
"Would you like early lunch?" Anton repeated.
Rostnikov did not answer.
"What is being served?" Sarah asked.
"Sour cabbage in vinegar and oil, veal loaf, and sugared apples."
"No, thank you," said Sarah.
Anton looked as if he were about to try again, but Rostnikov's vacant look stopped him.
"We'll go to the clinic early today," Rostnikov said softly.
"Yes," said Sarah, taking his arm. She looked at the mildly bewildered Anton and said, "Someone my husband knew for many years died."
Anton nodded.
Sarah looked pale. It was not that she or Porfiry Petrovich had any great affection for Vasilievich. Rostnikov knew that Vasilievich was not an easy man to like, and Sarah had been careful to say that Vasilievich was not a friend, but "someone my husband knew." Nonetheless, Vasilievich had been with them, alive the day before, and her recent operation reminded her that life was fragile and death always nearby.
"I'll get my things," Sarah said.
"A sandwich to take with you?" Anton offered. "Or a vobla, a dried fish, to nibble on the way?"
"Are you like this with everyone?" asked Rostnikov.
"Like what?" Anton asked, mopping up crumbs with his hand from a small white wooden table nearby.
Rostnikov didn't answer. His eyes held those of the waiter.
"You are a policeman," Anton said. "Policemen are to be respected. We get many of them here. And it is my honor, as it was my father's before me, and my grandfather's, to be assigned to those of rank."
"I am not Chekhov," said Rostnikov.
"And," Anton said, standing, with no trace of irony, "I am not my grandfather."
Rostnikov nodded in agreement, and Anton departed, cradling in his cupped hand the table crumbs, which he bore like a delicate prize.
The Oreanda sanitarium was not far, but it was too far from the Lermontov Hotel for Sarah and Rostnikov to walk. There was a bus that made the rounds of the hotels and brought outpatients to the sanitarium twice each day. Normally, they took the late-afternoon bus. Today they managed to catch the morning bus, which was only ninety minutes late instead of the usual two and a half hours. They rode in bumpy silence, very much aware of other passengers: the silent ones, who looked out the window, pretending they had hope for their ailments; the resolute ones, with hope, who read books or let their eyes make contact with others.
"We should visit Alupka," Sarah said, touching her husband's hand.
"We should," he agreed, turning to her, intending to smile, but the smile was lost in a thought.
They said nothing more. When they reached the sanitarium, Rostnikov, as he always did, escorted her to the radiology section. He was about to take a seat next to her when she said, "Go. I'll meet you back here. I have a book."
She held up the book of poetry she had been carrying for weeks. The book was large, old, and tattered, with a red leatherlike cover. It had been a favorite book of Sarah's mother. Rostnikov knew that his wife had barely read it, that though she had been an insatiable reader before her surgery, it was almost impossible for her to read now, but the history,
weight, and even the smell of the book gave her the comfort a child's doll or stuffed bear would give.
They were more than thirty years beyond the routine of his refusing to leave and her persuading him. He nodded, looked around at the other patients who were waiting, and left, trying to minimize his limp. For reasons that he did not wish to explore, Porfiry Petrovich did not want his limp to suggest that he was a patient.