“Good morning,” Rostnikov replied and went through the door of the Wolfhound’s den and out to meet the day.
Sasha Tkach had one hour for lunch. His wife, Maya, had asked to meet him in front of the memorial chapel on Kuibyshev Street, directly across from the Ploschad Nogina Metro Station. Sasha crossed Kirov Street, moved past the Dzerzhinsky Metro Station, and hurried down the Serov passage past the Polytechnical Museum to Kuibyshev Street.
He pulled the collar of his jacket down now that the light rain had ended. He crossed the street and saw his wife and baby daughter at a bench. Maya saw her husband crossing the street and turned the baby, who was standing in front of her holding on to the bench. Pulcharia was just beginning to stand, though she needed something or someone to hold on to. She saw Sasha as he approached and began to wave; the tassels on the blue knit sweater she was wearing bobbed with her zealous wave, and Sasha smiled at his daughter’s open, toothless grin.
“It’s at’e’ts, your father,” Maya said, and she, too, smiled as Sasha leaned over to kiss them. They had been married for almost three years now and the baby was nearly a year old. It seemed to Sasha that they had been married much longer. He could not remember the details, the day-to-day rituals of his life before this woman and child.
“I haven’t long,” Sasha said, taking a sandwich from Maya.
There was at least the hope of sun now.
“What we can get, we take,” she said, tearing off a piece of bread and putting it into Pulcharia’s waiting mouth.
Maya’s words resonated with a Ukrainian accent that Sasha found exotic. He knew what she wanted to talk about, and he knew that it couldn’t be avoided.
“Lydia,” Maya said.
“Yes,” said Sasha with a sigh.
They would soon be moving from their apartment into a slightly larger one. The move had come about after a complex series of trades arranged by a friend of Lydia’s from childhood. Their apartment would go to an old couple and their daughter. The old couple, in turn, would give their centrally located apartment over to an accountant for the Ts UM department store, where Maya worked part time. Sasha and Maya would then get the accountant’s apartment, which was larger than their own though farther from the city. Everyone got something they wanted from the trade and lost something. The old couple got a slightly larger apartment but gave up their proximity to the central city. The accountant would be close to his work, and Sasha and Maya would have more room. The problem was Sasha’s mother, Lydia. The nearly deaf Lydia still worked at the Ministry of Information as a file clerk, but she would be retired in a little over a year. Sasha was well aware that his mother was difficult to live with under the best of circumstances, and having her around constantly was trying even for her son. They had spent their entire married life sharing the apartment with Lydia.
“You’ll have to tell her, Sasha,” Maya said gently.
The baby pulled at Sasha’s trousers and he handed her a piece of bread. Maya took the bread from the baby and tore it into smaller pieces before handing her a single piece.
“She’s my mother,” Sasha said, looking into his wife’s dark eyes. “How does one tell his mother she can’t live with him? Especially my mother. Could you do it to your mother? Besides, the apartment is really hers. We moved in with her.”
“My mother wouldn’t want to live with us,” Maya said. “But could I do it? Yes, if I had to. And we have to, Sasha.”
Sasha could hear his mother’s voice vividly, sharply in his mind. He almost turned on the bench to look for her. A passing shopper smiled at Pulcharia, who offered the woman a piece of her bread.
“She arranged for the new apartment,” Sasha reminded his wife, who reached over and brushed the hair from his eyes.
“And she gave birth to you and you love her and she drives you mad and she drives me mad,” Maya said gently. “Your aunt wants her. Your aunt is lonely.”
“They don’t get along,” sighed Sasha. “You know that.”
“Lydia doesn’t get along with anyone.”
“She gets along with you,” he said, reaching over to pick up the baby, who was reaching out to him.
“I get along with her,” Maya corrected.
“She has to be told,” he said, kissing his daughter.
“She’ll be one bus from us,” said Maya, touching his hand. “She can come twice a week. We’ll probably get along better with her.”
“I’ll tell her tonight,” Sasha said, looking around at a pair of old women walking arm in arm down the sidewalk.
Maya leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. Her kiss was warm, and he smiled.
“After all,” he said to the baby, “what can your grandmother do to me?”
Pulcharia, who was named for Lydia’s mother, decided her father had made a joke and she laughed, but her father did not laugh with her.
FOUR
Zelach wore his most attentive look. His lips were tight and his eyes narrowed and fixed on Rostnikov. Zelach tried to hold his thick body erect in the chair, but it refused to cooperate, requiring Zelach to expend great amounts of limited will and mental resources on the effort. Such a concentration and expenditure of effort to juggle his air of attention while at the same time actually listening to Rostnikov was a greater task than his body was equipped for. Zelach settled for a look of greater and greater concentration in the hope that he would either deceive his colleagues and superiors or something magical would take place. Adding to his discomfort was the fact that Zelach was very hungry and lunchtime had come and gone.
Zelach had neither wit nor talent, and he was well aware of this lack, as was Rostnikov. At first Zelach, known to the investigators on the fourth floor as Zelach the Slouch, had been a pimple on the side of Rostnikov’s small team, but gradually he learned that his survival was dependent on the good will of the inspector. When that realization came, Zelach discussed it at length with his mother, with whom he had lived his entire life. Zelach gave his loyalty to Rostnikov, though he never felt comfortable with his superior, never knew when the Washtub was making a joke or being serious, never knew when he might be making one of those jokes at the expense of Arkadi Zelach.
Karpo, as was usual in these meetings in the small questioning room, stood at near attention near the door, a notebook in his left hand, a Soviet ballpoint pen in the right. He stood behind Zelach, who had the constant urge to turn around and look at the gaunt detective to be sure that the sham of Zelach’s life was not being penetrated by the emotionless, dark eyes.
“Zelach, you have that?”
Zelach nodded slightly with a wry smile of understanding, though he had no idea what he was responding to.
“At this point we have only the concern of a possibly disoriented parent,” Rostnikov continued. “Since she came to us, we will make discreet inquiry and”-he tapped the neatly typed report in front of him-“I will begin to process your report for circulation to the proper agencies. That will take, I believe, about three days.”
Karpo nodded almost imperceptibly. He had just been told by Rostnikov to put aside his current investigations and make inquiries into the allegations of Elena Vostoyavek that her son was planning to kidnap Commissar Andrei Morchov. Officially, he knew, they should report the incident immediately to the KGB. He also understood that Rostnikov planned to hold the report for three days so that Karpo could pursue the investigation. It was routine, but Karpo felt the necessity of recording his concern.
“I believe the ramifications of this incident make it essential that we inform the KGB immediately,” Karpo said softly. At that moment Emil Karpo smelled lilacs and knew without putting words to it that he was receiving the first warnings, the aura of a migraine. The odors that came to him were always unbidden, evoking memories he could not quite identify from a childhood he preferred not to remember. Flowers, chicken zatzivi, cleaning fluid.