“I’m not so certain,” she said. “You know, I thought I was going to die in here.”
“I know,” he said.
“I didn’t want to think about the future,” she went on, holding tightly to his rough hand. “Now we should think about the future again.”
“And what shall we think?” he asked.
She said nothing and he understood. She was dreaming of leaving the Soviet Union.
“I’m tired again, Porfiry,” she said. “Those pills they give me.”
“Sleep,” he said, getting up from the bed. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Don’t forget to eat, Porfiry,” she said dreamily.
“I won’t,” he promised.
And instantly she was asleep or pretending to be.
It was raining gently when Rostnikov stepped out of the hospital. There was a chance, if he moved quickly, that he could catch the ten o’clock train back to Moscow. He was not at all sure he could move quickly, but as it turned out, he did not have to hurry, nor did he have to take the train.
When Sasha Tkach reached home that evening, he was greeted at the door by Maya and Pulcharia. Maya kissed him, closed the door, and handed him the baby, who leaned over quickly to give his nose a toothless, moist, and gentle bite.
“Is Lydia home?” he asked.
“Yes,” Maya said. “And she is in a good mood. She says she is looking forward now to the move. And she is going out tonight. I think Lydia has a date.”
“Lydia has …” Sasha said.
Pulcharia tried to poke a finger in his eye, but Sasha turned his head and moved to the chair in the corner of the room.
“Yes,” Maya said. “She … What’s wrong?”
The tired smile on Sasha’s face had disappeared. His eyes had fallen on the table, set for dinner and containing a small glass in which were nestled the flowers he had given to Lydia so long ago that morning, the flowers of Sonia Kotsis, who had shot off the top of her head in front of Sasha Tkach.
Sasha clutched the baby close to him, closed his eyes, and felt Maya’s hand on his head. In the next room, Lydia Tkach burst into a loud and off-key version of something that may have been “Waltzing Matilda.”
Sasha wept.
Emil Karpo ate a dinner of bread and herring while working at the desk in his room. He drank mineral water and carefully completed his notes on both the Morchov case and his part in the apprehension of Vasily Kotsis and the rescue of the bus driver. He had written official reports at Petrovka and checked the pending investigations file. On the way to his apartment he had made a slight detour to confront the meat dealer whose name he had been given. The man, standing alone in a small room behind his small shop inches from the pale policeman, had been most cooperative. Karpo was certain that by the next morning he would have in his custody the men who had been kidnapping pets.
He finished his food, cleared away each crumb carefully, packed his small garbage, and walked it down to the trash room on the first floor.
It was still early when Karpo returned to his room, took off his jacket and shoes, and sat on the floor to meditate. For a moment he thought he felt the aura of a migraine headache, but it did not come, and he felt a pang of disappointment, for in spite of the pain, the headaches were old acquaintances.
Porfiry Petrovich had recently suggested to Karpo that the headaches may have been his body’s way of forcing Karpo to relax, to pay attention to his bodily needs. Yes, Karpo thought, remembering his recent conversation with Rostnikov. The machine is not a human body, and the human body is not a machine.
Emil sat on the floor and crossed his legs, focused on a whorl in the wood of his chair, and found himself imagining Yuri and Jalna alone in the dacha, huddled together with new hope and the specter of murder lifted from them. Karpo refocused, trying to turn the image to white, but the image of the two young people alone, laughing in bed, would not go away.
Karpo rose from the floor. It was a week early. He had never violated his schedule, had never given in to the animal needs of his body, though he never denied them. But this need he felt was without words and beyond his understanding.
He would explore it, control it, but first he had to give it what it demanded. Karpo put on his jacket and shoes and left his room. He ignored the light rain and found a phone. He placed his call and waited.
“Mathilde Verson,” he said to the man who answered the phone. Behind the man he could hear soft jazz music. And then he heard her voice.
“Yes?” she said.
“It’s me,” said Karpo.
“What can I do for you, Emil?” she asked. “You need some information?”
“No,” he said. “I would like to see you. Are you … available?”
“It’s not Thursday,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m available,” she said.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he said and hung up the phone.
It was done. He had no idea what he would tell her. All he knew was that for the first time in his life he did not want to be alone.
The car that pulled up beside Rostnikov on the rain-deserted street near the hospital was large, dark, and not Very old. The rear door opened. Rostnikov could see no one inside, but he recognized the invitation and it was not completely unexpected. The rain had begun to fall harder. Rostnikov moved to the car and slid in next to Schroeder, the hospital administrator. Schroeder glanced at Rostnikov, who closed the door as the driver moved quickly away from the curb.
“You made a mistake, Comrade Inspector,” Schroeder said without looking at Rostnikov. “You should have been looking for me in the hospital. You should have asked more questions about Ivan Bulgarin. You are in trouble.”
Rostnikov grunted. He had made no mistake.
“Why did you stop looking for Bulgarin?” Schroeder asked conversationally.
And Rostnikov understood. It was Schroeder who had made the mistake, Schroeder who had failed to keep Rostnikov looking for Ivan Bulgarin. It was Schroeder who was in trouble.
“Ivan Bulgarin did not need my help,” Rostnikov said.
Neither man spoke again for the remainder of the ride. Schroeder looked out of his window and Rostnikov out of his as the rain quickened and the sound of the windshield wiper lulled.
The car stopped before the door to Lubyanka, KGB headquarters. The rain had slowed a bit. Rostnikov stepped out and looked back across the square at the statue of Felix Dzerzinsky, father of the Soviet secret police. Schroeder joined him, and the car pulled away.
The policeman and the KGB man walked to the door and entered. On either side of the dank entryway stood a uniformed and armed guard, who watched as the two men approached the desk in front of them. The woman behind the desk looked at Schroeder, who displayed an identification card, and then at Rostnikov, who removed his identification card and handed it to the woman. She placed the card on a thin metal plate on the corner of the desk and pressed a white button next to the plate. There was a slight hum, and the woman returned Rostnikov’s card without a word.
The rest of the journey was a familiar one to Porfiry Petrovich. Schroeder moved slowly, allowing Rostnikov to keep pace with him. Rostnikov was sure, however, that Schroeder was not slowing his pace out of concern for the policeman. Schroeder was in no hurry to get where they were going. Up one stairway, down the corridor, and then what he had suspected was confirmed. They stopped in front of a dark, heavy wooden door. Schroeder hesitated and then knocked.
The door opened and a powerful-looking giant of a man in his late thirties stepped back to let them in. The powerful man wore a dark blue suit. He was clean-shaven with hair blond and cut short, and he looked very like the last man who had opened this door for Rostnikov.
The powerful man moved across the small carpeted room furnished with three chairs against the wall, a desk with a chair, and a single photograph of Lenin on the wall. The man knocked gently at the far door, and a voice Rostnikov recognized called, “Send him in, Vadim.”