They had always politely refused with thanks. Leon understood.
They wanted to be alone with the still-living memory of the music inside them. On this night, however, Leon would have welcomed company and conversation.
Sarah and Porfiry Petrovich would take the news well and ask that the surgery be performed as quickly as possible. Leon would arrange it and tell them the absolute truth about what the surgeon might find and have to do. He would tell them that he would be present in the operating room and that, while any surgery on the brain was serious, it was likely that this operation was not life-threatening.
Leon had no brothers or sisters. Sarah was the closest relative of his generation, more a sister than a cousin. Leon’s wife had died almost ten years ago, leaving him with their son, Ivan, whose real name was Itzhak. Ivan was watched over in motherly fashion by Masha, a Hungarian woman, who had a small but comfortable room in Leon’s apartment. Leon loved his son to the point where it hurt just to see him.
Ivan showed an interest in and talent for the piano, but he did not delight and lose himself in practice as his father did. Leon doubted if his son had the emotion inside that would carry him into a musical career. No matter. The boy was smart, loving. He would do well.
Meanwhile, Leon dreaded the morning.
He had long since stopped deluding himself about his feelings for his cousin Sarah. He had loved her from the time they were children. He had longed for her. When he had married, those feelings remained tucked carefully in imaginary velvet, never to be opened for careful scrutiny.
Ivan would be asleep, but Leon would go into his room, sit at his bedside, and watch his smooth, peaceful face for as long as half an hour. Then he would go to bed, dreading what he must do in the morning.
Porfiry Petrovich did not snore, but from time to time he made a deep sigh that sounded full of promises to keep. Sarah listened to her husband sleeping. He had brought home a surprise of pizza and had done his nightly workout while the two girls sat watching.
Sarah knew the routine by heart. Rostnikov seldom deviated.
First, he turned on the cassette player after having selected whatever suited his mood. Tonight it had been Creedence Clearwater Revival. Occasionally, when he was very tired, he hummed or even sang along with the music. Tonight he had hummed.
Five people in a one-bedroom apartment was both good and bad. It was good because Sarah, when she came home after working in the music shop, liked to have company, to hear what Galina Panishkoya and her grandchildren had done all day. Galina too worked while the girls were in school. Usually, Sarah and Galina collaborated to prepare dinner. The apartment was full of life.
That was also the problem. Privacy was impossible, or almost so.
Rostnikov had kept his leg on for stability when he sat up or lay on the narrow, low exercise bench. Tonight he had worn his blue-and-white Prix de France sweatpants and shirt. Perspiration had come quickly and the humming had turned to grunts. This was the favorite part for the little girls, and Sarah knew her husband was doing a bit of play-acting to make it look hard. Porfiry Petrovich was working out with great zeal. Next month was the Izmailovo Park annual weight-lifting championship competition. Porfiry Petrovich was now eligible for the senior competition, but it was really no competition for the one-legged policeman. He usually won.
His primary rival was a younger, likeable man with almost white hair. The younger man named Felix Borotomkin looked like the photographs of Arnold Schwarzenegger on the covers of CDs of music from his movies. Felix Borotomkin worked out for several hours everyday. Since he worked in a private gym, this was not a problem for him. It was a problem for Porfiry Petrovich.
Sarah wondered if her husband might be dreaming of the competition, going over each move. For Rostnikov, the excitement was in the struggle more than in the winning, though he dearly enjoyed his victories.
Rostnikov slept on his back, no pillow, no cover except in the coldest of weather. His ritual nightwear was a clean pair of exercise shorts and the largest T-shirt he could find in his drawer.
Tonight he was wearing a black one with the words THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE in white letters.
Leon had told Sarah to come when Rostnikov went to work in the morning, that he had to talk to her.
She had gone to him about her headaches, which were increasing in pain and frequency. He had given her medication. When the headaches continued, he had called his cousin in for an examination. Now, three days after the tests, he wanted to see her. It couldn’t be good news.
Sarah would have gotten up and read a book, but there was really nowhere she could turn on a light. Any light and most sounds immediately awakened Rostnikov, though he had no trouble getting back to sleep instantly when he was sure no problem existed that he had to help deal with. Oddly enough, he did not awaken if Sarah reached over to touch him, which she now did.
She was certain now that the news would be bad. It was best if she got some sleep, was rested when she had to cope with the news.
It would be better but it would be impossible.
Her husband’s missing leg was not a problem for Sarah. She had been relieved when it had been amputated. It had been a less-than-handsome sight, and Rostnikov frequently had pain from it while he slept. Now, the sounds of pain were gone, replaced by these mournful grunts.
Sarah had lived for half a century. In that lifetime, she had never been unfaithful to her husband and she was sure he had been faithful to her. Sarah, with her red hair, smooth complexion, white skin, and ample body, had experienced many overtures from co-workers, men in cafes, customers, strangers in odd places. She had been tempted a few times, but the temptations had been slight and passing. She lay wondering if she had missed something. She knew, however, that she would never go beyond that slight temptation.
She closed her eyes and tried the relaxation techniques, the breathing, the visualization she had learned before her last surgery and had practiced till her recovery seemed complete. The techniques helped a bit and she needed them now to control her headache and to try to sleep.
She closed her eyes, imagined the full moon, and tried to let her consciousness go in full concentration on the glowing ball where men had walked and would walk again. No, she told herself, it is just a glowing ball that I must think of and watch while words and thoughts stop. She was just beginning to have some success when she fell asleep.
Anna Timofeyeva, her cat, Baku, in her lap, sat by her window.
A table with folding legs was before her, the light from a lamp il-luminating the pieces of the half-finished jigsaw puzzle on the table.
Jigsaw puzzles had proved to be a comforting meditation for the former procurator. A few years earlier she considered such things a waste of time that could have been productive, and she silently scorned pastimes that did not exercise one’s mind, vocabulary, or dexterity. Now, however, she could be so relaxed by the process, so engaged in fitting the small pieces together that when Lydia Tkach came to complain, she could almost block out her piercing voice and stories of hardship and woe. Lydia didn’t mind the puzzle as long as Anna said something sympathetic from time to time.
Each small piece attached to another was a tiny moment of satisfaction to Anna. The puzzle before her had a thousand pieces and would, when it was finished, present a picture crackled by the hundreds of edges comfortably fitting together. From the cover of the box she knew that she was working toward the completion of a Swiss chalet in the winter, snow-covered mountains in the background with blue sky and white billowy clouds. In the foreground would be two children playing on a sled. The chalet would, as it did in the picture on the box, look like it was made of fragile white-and-brown chocolate.