“Please,” said the man, but it was less a human voice than the hum of a wounded dog.
“Sit,” said Rostnikov gently.
The moment was absurd and Rostnikov felt the absurdity of himself and the creature in front of him. They were a bad joke. The man’s breath smelled of black bread. The man’s enormous penis brushed Rostnikov’s chest.
“Please,” the man insisted this time.
The footsteps were clambering closer.
“What?” Sarah said behind him, waking from her drugged sleep.
And this time the creature put his hairy hand on Rostnikov’s shoulder, crunched his jacket in a great fist, and tried to shove the man in front of him to the side so he could get to the window. But the shorter man did not move.
“Please,” bellowed the man, his head turned upward in near prayer and total panic.
“Sit,” Rostnikov said firmly. “You are a man, not an animal. Sit.”
The man looked at Rostnikov and raised both hands into tightfisted hammers. Someone stood in the doorway, but Rostnikov couldn’t look. Petra screamed behind him. Rostnikov stepped forward quickly under the descending fists and locked his arms around the man’s body at the waist. The massive man’s fists thundered down on Rostnikov’s back, but Rostnikov tightened his grip and lifted.
“Sit,” Rostnikov repeated, but the man was thrashing and screaming and could hear nothing.
Rostnikov lifted him and stepped forward, forcing himself to put weight on his left leg, a weight that sent a familiar spasm of cold electricity through the policeman’s body. He felt tears of pain in his eyes but took another step and placed the writhing creature in the chair.
Two white-uniformed men rushed forward and pinned the man’s arms behind him, or attempted to. The creature threw one of the men from him. Rostnikov moved behind the chair and pushed the man down just as he was about to rise again. A stream of urine, dark and yellowish, shot forward from the man in the chair and barely missed one of the two uniformed men, who struck out with his closed fist at the nearly secured man in the chair, who kicked forward and sent the chair sliding back several feet.
“Leave him alone,” Rostnikov said to the two uniformed men.
“Leave him …” one of the two uniformed men said, panting. Rostnikov couldn’t tell which one spoke. He had not yet taken a look at them.
“Leave him,” Rostnikov repeated firmly. The orderly who had spoken ignored him and reached out for the man. Rostnikov grabbed the orderly’s wrist and repeated, “Leave him.”
The orderly tried to pull away but couldn’t free himself from the grasp. The man who walked like a bear tried to rise from the chair but Rostnikov firmly pushed him back down and said, “Sit.”
Rostnikov looked up at the second orderly, a heavyset man with straight white-yellow hair who stood back and folded his arms waiting to see what the little round madman planned to do with the enormous creature. Rostnikov thought he detected a touch of intelligence or at least cunning in the orderly, in contrast to the fear he felt in the man whose wrist he held.
“Leave him, Anatoli,” the man with white-yellow hair said.
Rostnikov released the wrist, and Anatoli backed away with a curse and moved to the wall to help the hurtled orderly, who sat stunned and disoriented. The creature in the chair kicked out with an animal growl and tried to rise again, but Rostnikov could feel that there was less desperation in his throes. Standing behind the chair, Rostnikov put both hands on the man’s shoulders, pushing him down and whispering, “You are a man, a man with a name.”
The man breathed heavily, clenched his teeth, and tried to rise again. Rostnikov pushed him down.
“You are a man,” Rostnikov repeated. “Behave like a man, not an animal. What is your name? You are a man. You have a name. What is your name?”
“His name is-” the orderly began.
“I asked him.” Rostnikov stopped him. “I asked this man who sits before me. What is your name? My name is Porfiry. My wife in that bed is Sarah. In the bed in the corner cowering in fear, thinking you are an animal and not a man, are an old woman and a little girl. Let them know you are a man.”
“Bulgarin,” rasped the man, going limp.
“Bul-” Rostnikov began.
“Bulgarin,” the man repeated in a whisper so low that only Rostnikov could hear.
“Bulgarin,” Rostnikov repeated. “Can I release you now? Will you go calmly with these men?”
Bulgarin shook his head no.
“We can’t sit here all morning, Bulgarin,” said Rostnikov with a sigh. “I have work to do. The women need rest. These comrades have other patients to deal with. And you’ve made a mess in here. Someone will have to come clean it up.”
“I’m sorry,” said Bulgarin, his head going down.
“You want to be covered?” asked Rostnikov quietly.
Bulgarin nodded his head yes and Rostnikov nodded at the orderly with yellow-white hair. The orderly, amusement on his lips, stepped over to Petra’s bed and pulled off a rumpled sheet. He threw the sheet to Rostnikov; who wrapped it around the now shivering giant.
“Go with them quietly, Bulgarin,” Rostnikov said, releasing his hands from the man in the chair.
Bulgarin rose, wrapping the sheet closely to him, shaking. The three orderlies moved to the man’s side and Bulgarin went gently with them to the door and then stopped suddenly and turned to Rostnikov.
“I had to,” Bulgarin said, nearly weeping. “The devil came to devour the factory and I couldn’t stop him. And he’s found me here and has come to devour me.”
“There is no devil, Bulgarin,” Rostnikov said.
“Yes, there is,” said Bulgarin, being led out the door and into the hall.
And Rostnikov thought but did not say that the world would be easier to deal with if there were a devil, if evil were clear and announced itself and wore the proper clothes or even disguised itself. In his thirty years of criminal investigation, Rostnikov had encountered only two criminals who admitted they were evil, and both of them were as mad as Bulgarin and not nearly as evil as dozens of criminals Rostnikov had encountered who defended their murders and rapes till the cell doors clanged closed at Lubyanka.
Rostnikov limped over to the door and closed it gently before he turned back into the room to face Sarah, whose white-turbaned head rested on the white pillow. Her face was pale, and there was a smile on her lips. The surgeon had assured Rostnikov that the tumor that had pressed against Sarah’s brain had been removed and that she would gradually recover completely.
“I need rest, not entertainment, Porfiry Petrovich,” she said.
Rostnikov moved to her side, touched her hand. Her hand was still cool. Not cold, but cool.
“He’ll come back!” Petra cried from Irinia’s bed.
Rostnikov looked over at the girl, who had less than three months ago been raped by a trio of drunks. Irinia was comforting her and herself.
“No,” Rostnikov said. “He won’t.”
“He’ll come back and-” Petra went on.
“He didn’t come here to get you,” Sarah said, taking her husband’s stubby hand in both of hers. “He came in search of a window.”
The door opened behind him and Petra let out a frightened squeal. Dr. Yegeneva, who had operated on Sarah, stepped in.
“They just told me,” she began. “Are you all all right?”
Dr. Yegeneva adjusted her glasses and pushed her straight hair from her face. Dr. Yegeneva was somewhere in her thirties and, Rostnikov knew, had two children. “I don’t know how that patient got up here. The mental ward is two flights up in the south section and-”
“I’ve got to get back to the city,” Rostnikov said as the doctor moved to the far bed to comfort the girl and reassure the old woman.
“I wasn’t afraid, Porfiry Petrovich,” Sarah whispered.
“Thank you,” he said.
“No, not just because of you,” Sarah said, squeezing his hand. “I awoke from a dream I can’t remember and I saw him there and there was such pain in his face. He reminded me of Benjamin.”