He launched into a leisurely, detailed exposition of this gruesome example of hideous banality, which Fritz had genuinely liked—and he wasn’t the only one. Vareikis listened in silence, nodding every now and then in the most unexpected places—as if suddenly recalling where he was. His face still expressed nothing but gloom and despondency. It was obvious that he had lost the thread long ago and didn’t understand a single thing. At the most crucial point in the plot, when Vareikis had clearly realized that he would have to listen right through to the very end, Andrei broke off with a blatant yawn and said complacently, “Well, and so on, in the same vein. You must watch it… By the way, what kind of impression did young Ketcher make on you?”
“Ketcher? So far I have the impression that he is all right.”
“And so do I,” said Andrei. He picked up the phone. “Do you have anything else for me, Vareikis?”
Vareikis got up. “No,” he said. “Nothing else. May I go?”
Andrei benevolently nodded to him and spoke into the receiver. “Amalia, is there anyone else?”
“Ellisauer, Mr. Counselor.”
“What Ellisauer?” Andrei asked, observing Vareikis cautiously exiting the office, one part at a time.
“The deputy head of the transport department. Concerning the subject of ‘Aquamarine.’”
“Let him wait. Bring in the mail.”
Amalia appeared in the doorway a minute later, and Andrei spent that entire minute moaning gently as he massaged his biceps and squirmed his waist about; everything ached pleasantly after an hour of intensive work with a spade in his hands, and as always he absentmindedly thought what good exercise it was for a man who led a mostly sedentary life.
Amalia closed the door firmly behind her, clattered across the parquet floor in her high heels, stopped beside him, and put the correspondence file on the desk. In a habitual gesture, he put his arm around her firm, narrow hips sheathed in cool silk and patted her on the thigh while he opened the file with his other hand.
“Right, then, what do we have here?” he said cheerfully.
Amalia simply dissolved under his palm—she actually stopped breathing. A funny girl, and devoted as a dog. And she knows her job. He looked up at her. As always happened in these tender moments, her face had turned pale and frightened. When their eyes met, she hesitantly laid her hot, slim hand on his neck below the ear. Her fingers were trembling.
“Well then, babe,” he said endearingly. “Is there anything important in this trash? Or shall we lock the door right now and assume a different position?” That was their code name for fun and games in the armchair and on the carpet. He could never have told anyone what Amalia was like in bed. He had never been in bed with her even once.
“Here are the draft budget figures,” Amalia said in a weak little voice. “Then all sorts of proposals and submissions… Well, and the personal letters—I haven’t opened them.”
“Quite right too,” said Andrei. “What if there was one from some little cutie…”
He let go of her and she gave a feeble sigh.
“Sit down for a moment,” he said. “Don’t go, I’ll be quick.”
He took the first letter that came to hand, tore open the envelope, rapidly glanced through it, and frowned. The technician Yevseenko informed Andrei that Yevseenko’s immediate superior, Quejada, “passes remarks concerning the administration and concerning Mr. Counselor Voronin personally.” Andrei knew this Yevseenko well. He was an extremely strange individual and a hopeless loser—nothing he tried ever went right. He had once stunned Andrei by singing the praises of life in the year 1942 near Leningrad. “Those were good times,” he had said in a strange, dreamy kind of voice. “Just living, without thinking about anything, and if you need something—just tell the men and they’ll get it.” He had served his time as a captain, and in the entire war he had killed only one man—his own political commissar. They were fighting their way out of encirclement at the time. Yevseenko saw the Germans had caught the political commissar and were rummaging through his pockets. He fired at them out of the bushes, killing the political commissar, and then took to his heels. He thought very highly of himself for this exploit: they would have tortured him to death.
Well, what can I do with this fool? This is the sixth denunciation he’s written. And he doesn’t write to Ruhmer, does he, or to Vareikis, but to me. A very amusing psychological twist, that. If he writes to Vareikis or Ruhmer, Quejada will be held accountable for his words. But I won’t touch Quejada—I know all about him, but I won’t touch him, because I value him and I forgive him, everyone knows that. So this way it turns out that Yevseenko has sort of fulfilled his civic duty but no one’s life has been ruined… God almighty, what a creep he is!
Andrei crumpled up the letter, flung it in the wastebasket, and picked up the next one. The writing on the envelope looked familiar to him; it was very distinctive. There was no return address. Inside the envelope was a sheet of paper with text written on a typewriter—a carbon copy, not the top sheet—and below the text a note had been added by hand. Andrei read it without understanding a thing, read it again, turned cold, and glanced at his watch. Then he grabbed the receiver off the white phone and dialed a number.
“Counselor Ruhmer, urgently!” he barked in an altered voice.
“Counselor Ruhmer is busy.”
“This is Counselor Voronin! I said—urgently!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Counselor, Counselor Ruhmer is with the president—”
Andrei flung down the receiver, pushed aside dumbfounded Amalia, and dashed for the door. He had already grabbed the plastic handle before he realized it was too late—he couldn’t get there in time anyway. If it was all true, of course. If it wasn’t all an idiotic hoax…
He walked slowly across to the window, took hold of the velvet-covered handrail, and started watching the plaza. It was empty, as it always was. Light blue uniforms hovering, idle onlookers mooching under the trees, an old woman hobbling past, pushing a baby stroller along in front of her. A car driving past. Andrei waited, clutching the handrail.
Amalia came up to him from behind and gently touched him on the shoulder. “What’s happened?” she asked in a whisper.
“Move away,” he said without turning around. “Sit in the chair.”
Amalia disappeared. Andrei looked at the time again. On his watch an extra minute had already gone by. Of course, he thought. It’s not possible. An idiotic hoax. Or blackmail… And just at that moment a man appeared from under the trees. He looked very small from this height and this distance, and Andrei didn’t recognize him. He remembered the man as being slim and erect, but this man looked bulky and swollen, and Andrei only realized why at the very last moment. He squeezed his eyes shut and backed away from the window.
A short, rumbling boom shattered the silence of the plaza. The windows shuddered and jangled and somewhere below him shards of glass scattered with an irritating tinkling sound. Amalia gave a stifled screech and down below in the plaza frantic voices started shrieking.
With one hand Andrei pushed aside Amalia, who was straining to get to him, or maybe to the window, then forced himself to open his eyes and look. Where the man had been there was a yellowish column of smoke, and he couldn’t see anything beyond it. From every direction light blue uniforms were running toward the spot, and farther away, under the trees, a crowd was rapidly gathering. It was all over.
Andrei walked back to the desk with no feeling in his legs, sat down, and picked up the letter again:
To all the powerful of this trashy world!
I hate lies, but your truth is worse than lies. You have transformed the City into a well-organized pigsty, and the citizens of the City into gorged swine. I don’t want to be a gorged swine, but I don’t want to be a swineherd either, and in your chomping, champing world, there is no other choice. You are smug and mediocre in your correctness, although there was a time when many of you were real human beings. Some of my former friends are among you, and I am writing to them first. Words have no effect on you, and I shall reinforce them with my death. Maybe you’ll feel ashamed, maybe you’ll feel afraid, or maybe you’ll simply stop feeling so comfortable in your pigsty. This is all I have left to hope for. May God punish your boredom! These are not my words, but I fervently subscribe to them.