“Daddy!” squealed the voice again.
A shadow flitted past the woodshed—a small man in a long greatcoat was trying to drag off Kitty, who was struggling with all her might. Klim caught up with them and knocked Kitty’s kidnapper into the snow with a blow to the jaw before snatching up Kitty in his arms.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
She was wearing nothing but her indoor dress—she was even without shoes.
Kapitolina ran up to them. “This man tried to steal our little girl!” she shrieked and began to kick the kidnapper, who was still spread-eagle in the snowdrift. The man’s Red Army cap had fallen off his close shaved head, and blood was pouring from his split lip.
“Why are you attacking me?” the man wailed in a high pitched voice like a woman. “I’m just looking for a foreigner who asked about the Chinese coat with the dragons.”
Klim’s heart skipped a beat. He handed Kitty to Kapitolina. “Take her home,” he said.
Klim took the kidnapper under the elbow and dragged him inside the house. The lobby was lit only by a dim bulb.
“What do you know about the Chinese coat?” he asked hotly. “Do you know the woman it belonged to? I’ll let you go if you tell me the truth.”
The man stared at Klim warily and sniffed. “They told me at the market that you’d give a reward for information about a Chinese coat. That was Nina’s coat!”
“And where is she now?”
“How the devil should I know? She was taken away by those bourgeois opposite the Korsh Theater.”
“What do you mean by ‘taken away’? Where?”
The man did not seem to have heard Klim’s question. “Your girl has a pretty dress,” he said. “I had one like that when I was little.”
He’s completely insane, thought Klim, looking into the man’s crazed eyes.
At that moment, Elkin ran out onto the landing, brandishing an ax. “Freeze! I’ll call the police!”
“I’ll kill you, you bastard!” roared the kidnapper, whipping a homemade blade out of his pocket and making a lunge at Klim, who leaped to one side.
The man ran headlong out into the street, and Klim and Elkin were unable to catch him.
Klim went back to his apartment, his heart hammering in his chest. Could it be that he had stumbled upon a clue to Nina’s whereabouts? All the foreigners in Moscow knew who lived in the house opposite the Korsh Theater. It was Oscar Reich, an American who earned millions from business concessions in Soviet Russia. Klim had met him several times at official banquets.
Kitty’s voice came from her room. “Daddy, where are you?”
“I’m coming,” he said.
What if I hadn’t heard Kitty cry out? thought Klim. That madman would have carried her off, taken her dress, and left her somewhere in the snow.
Galina, her eyes swollen with crying, came out of the living room and, catching sight of the bloodstains on Klim’s shirt, stared at him, horrified.
“Were you in a fight? Who was it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “How could a stranger have just walked into our apartment?”
Galina gave a plaintive sob. “Kitty took a postcard with a picture of Comrade Stalin on it. She punched a hole through his forehead with a pencil to hang the picture on the tree, so I told her to go and sit outside in the corridor and think about what she had done. She was on her own out there—Kapitolina and I were laying the table. I think the door may have been open—you didn’t slam it shut. And that character must have walked in—”
Hearing this, Klim felt another wave of anger at Galina. “What do you think you’re doing? Punishing a child about a Stalin postcard! Why are you so keen to fall down and worship sacred objects? You’re no better than a savage! Or were you just taking it out on Kitty because I had upset you before?”
Saying nothing more, Klim went into Kitty’s room. She was lying on the bed.
“I thought the man was Santa Claus,” she said, wiping away her tears. “He promised to give me a biscuit. And then he suddenly grabbed me and carried me off.”
Klim sat down beside her on the bed. “But he didn’t have a beard, did he?”
“I thought maybe he was a modern Santa. I thought maybe Santa shaves his beard nowadays.” Kitty sat up on the bed and looked into Klim’s eyes. “Daddy, I promise I won’t…” She did not finish and flung her arms around his neck.
They assured each other several times how frightened they had been and how good it was that everything had ended happily.
“You must promise me never to go anywhere with a stranger,” said Klim.
Kitty nodded. “I promise.”
He sent her off to wash her face. Then he went back into the living room and dug an address book out of the desk drawer.
“Klim, it wasn’t my fault,” Galina began, putting her head around the door. “I didn’t think—”
“It’s fine,” he said without looking up. “You can go home. Kapitolina will put Kitty to bed.”
He was overcome by nervous excitement. What if he was about to find Nina after all? What if he was about to experience a simple, ridiculously ordinary miracle and receive the most precious gift possible on the night before Christmas?
He stood for a long time, unsure whether to pick up the telephone and make a call. This indecision surprised even himself. What was stopping him? Addiction to the misery that had now become his lot in life? Fear of the unknown?
Plucking up his courage in the end, he lifted the receiver and asked the operator for Oscar Reich’s number.
The housekeeper answered the phone. “I’m sorry,” she said with a sing-song intonation. “Mr. Reich isn’t at home right now.”
“When will he be back?” asked Klim.
“In four months,” came the answer. “He’s leaving for Europe tonight.”
Klim’s heart gave a lurch. “What time is his train?”
“At ten. If it’s something urgent, you might still catch him at the station.”
It was already five to nine—there was almost no time left.
Klim could not simply approach Reich empty-handed and ask him about Nina because that might attract unwanted attention. He picked up a few postcards from the floor, put them into an envelope, and wrote on it the first thing he could think of: “Central Post Office, London, for collection by Mr. Smith.”
I’ll say that I need to send this letter in a hurry, Klim thought, and ask Reich to post it in the first post box he finds abroad.
Galina appeared again in the doorway. “Please don’t be angry with me—”
Klim rushed past her and began to pull on his coat. “I’ll be back soon.”
12. EX-WIFE
The sleigh was running along the busy Boulevard Ring. Snow was falling, soft, thick and gentle, covering the road and pavements under the bright light of the streetlamps.
“Come on. Hurry up!” pleaded Klim under his breath. But the driver seemed to dawdle deliberately, barely moving the reins.
At the crossroads, a street vendor had scattered his goods across the road, bringing traffic to a standstill.
“Hurry up, damn you!” Klim begged silently.
Chains of carts carrying firewood made their way slowly along Tverskaya Street with its magnificent buildings from the prerevolutionary era. The dray horses plodded on gravely, lifting great shaggy hooves caked in ice.
“Here we are!” the driver shouted, stopping the sleigh opposite the elegant tower of the station.
Klim paid the fare and dashed off through the crowds to the lacquered doors.
The train to Warsaw that took foreigners out of the country was still standing at the platform. The crew had not even begun to get up steam.