Masha lifted the photograph to get a closer look. The medal was shaped like a circle, with rays radiating out from it. Masha asked if she could make copies of several of the photographs from the file, and Anna Yevgenyevna graciously agreed.
Masha smiled and stood up. “Thank you very much for your time.”
“Of course, of course, go write that paper, grind it out, let me know if you think of any questions.” The detective stood up noisily at her desk and walked off farther into her office. She switched on an electric tea kettle as Masha left.
On her way out, Masha thought unhappily that the well-meaning investigator hadn’t actually shed much light on the case. Just that medal. There hadn’t been anything about it in the case file. Masha imagined the sharp tip of the pin poking through the blue-tinged skin. Her stomach turned.
I should be exercising more, Masha decided, shaking her head to chase away the horrifying image. I’ll make Mama happy and go to the gym.
Natasha had bought her a gym membership six months ago, in an attempt to get her to stand up a little straighter, get some muscle tone, and forget about serial killers once and for all. She was willing to give it a shot. After that story of architectural negligence in the metro, though, she was done with public transportation for the day. She’d go home to get the car first.
Masha hated working out, and she trudged into the ritzy health club on Novoslobodsky like other people dragged themselves into the dentist’s office. She’d been going nowhere on a treadmill, to a soundtrack of cloying pop music, for at least half an hour, when suddenly her rhythm faltered. Masha stumbled, then jabbed at the red button. Stop! The medal! There was something about that damn medal! Masha grabbed her towel and ran to the locker room. Still panting, she opened her locker, took out the file full of documents, and plopped down on the wooden bench.
A bead of sweat dropped onto the picture in her hands of the medal, close up, on Gebelai’s hairy chest. Masha swallowed hard and lifted her head. Other young women were going about their business all around her, some in swimsuits, some in track suits, some wrapped in towels, rosy-cheeked and relaxed after their showers. Masha, sitting there with a murder file on her lap and staring fixedly straight ahead, was an unusual sight for these gym rats, and probably a disturbing one.
“The medal,” Masha whispered. She counted the rays on it. “One, two, three, four, five. Five.” She repeated the last number quietly, while around her women passed each other lotion, curled their eyelashes, fussed with hair dryers. No, it doesn’t make sense! Masha thought, but she couldn’t stop now. She shuffled through the file and found the business card with Anna Yevgenyevna’s number.
“Yes?” came the low voice of the lady detective.
“Hello. It’s me again, Masha Karavay.”
“Ah, the intern. Hi there.” The woman’s tired voice slipped down another full octave. Masha could hear her working on another cigarette. “Did you come up with some questions, then?”
“Yes,” said Masha, embarrassed. “You know, I was looking at these photos, and it seems to me that there used to be more little rays on that medal. It’s probably not important,” she rushed to add, suddenly ashamed to have bothered the detective.
“Good work, Miss Intern.” Masha felt, rather than heard, Yevgenyevna blowing out smoke happily. “Being meticulous like that is crucial in this cruddy profession of ours. There should have been eight of them.”
“But there were five,” said Masha. “Could they have broken off, just like that?”
“Just like that!” snorted the detective. “Nothing happens just like that. They were sawn off, honey, and that’s all there is to it. But why? What for? No idea. And I wracked my brains over that for a long time.”
“Thank you,” Masha said slowly. She said good-bye and hung up.
“Five,” she repeated to herself, worrying that she might be going crazy. Did everything actually fit into this bloody puzzle, or was her subconscious just serving up pieces that matched the pattern? A pattern that began with the numbers one, two, and three on the shirts of the unfortunate people at the Bersenevskaya waterfront and then led to a distinguished architect in a luxury apartment on Lenivka Street? Masha jumped when the phone rang again. It was Innokenty.
“Masha!” he said. “I think I have something for you, but I’m not sure. There’s somebody I want you to meet. Today, if possible.” And he gave her an address.
It was getting dark by the time Masha picked up Innokenty at the park outside the hospital. The security guards made her wait at the front gate while they called the front desk. Then they drove slowly down a narrow road lined with old maple trees. The noise of the city gradually died away, and when Innokenty gallantly helped Masha out of the car, she heard birds singing their evening song, and it felt like they’d left the city altogether. They climbed the gently sloping stairs to a Palladian-style front porch with its semicircle of white columns, and Innokenty pushed open the heavy door, polished smooth by thousands of visitors’ hands. Masha read the sign: “Pavlov Psychiatric Clinic.”
Inside they came first to a much more modern-looking door of thick glass. The woman at the desk saw them and nodded, and the door buzzed open.
“Good evening,” said Innokenty. “We’re here to see Professor Gluzman.”
Masha had assumed Gluzman was one of the doctors here, but the nurse’s gentle smile and the way she said the professor was feeling well and could receive them today made her wonder.
“What does that mean, feeling well?” Masha whispered as they followed a carpeted corridor deep into the hospital.
“Ilya Gluzman was my favorite professor in college,” Kenty replied, giving Masha’s suddenly clammy hand a squeeze. “I must have told you about him. He’s an expert in Russian medieval history. Don’t let the hospital scare you. Dr. Gluzman is in good shape right now. He’s writing books, and he just got back from an international lecture tour.”
Masha still felt uneasy. No sound came from behind the doors along both sides of the hall. All she could hear was soft, almost inaudible, classical music, apparently meant to calm the nerves. Whose nerves? she wondered. Was the music for the guests, the patients, or the staff? Meanwhile, the nurse had stopped before one of the identical doors and knocked quietly. The door opened and another nurse appeared, so similar to the first that they might have been twins. She had the same warm smile and pleasant face.
“So it is Inno-centi himself!” came a rumbling voice from inside the room. The nurse nodded and stepped aside. The sixty-year-old man who greeted them had a gentle face covered with fashionable graying stubble, and a similar bristle covered his egg-shaped head. He was dressed more like an Oxford don than a mental patient, in a dark-green jacket with leather elbow patches, a wool turtleneck sweater, and corduroy trousers. He rolled his motorized wheelchair closer and shook Innokenty’s hand. Then he grinned slyly at Masha.
“Ilya Gluzman, at your service.” He lifted Masha’s hand to his lips, not so much to kiss it as to express his gentlemanly intentions.
“Masha,” she introduced herself, a little taken aback.
“Innokenty, thank you for bringing such a beauty to visit a lonely old man!” Dr. Gluzman looked at her like a curious bird, tilting his head to one side. “If only I could still fall in love at my age!”
Then he rolled back into the room and gestured to the nurse to put the teapot on a low table. The table was already set with a ceramic bowl of chocolates and a crystal dish overflowing with an artistic mess of dark, nearly black cherries and small, pungent strawberries. After her long workday and visit to the gym, Masha felt her mouth water.