He turned her face toward him and kissed her on the lips. “I am in love,” he said softly, sliding his arm beneath the sheepskin coat and circling her waist, “but I am getting wet.”
“Some ferocious Bulgar you turned out to be. Whose ancestors rode the steppes.”
“Those were Mongols.”
“Oh? Well then, what did the ferocious Bulgars do?”
“Stayed dry,” he said, “when they could.”
Back in the room, they rubbed each other dry with the rough towels the landlady provided for a few francs extra each week. Khristo looked up as heavy footsteps moved down the corridor past their door. “Who is that?” He was used to the light step of the spinster, a retired piano teacher, who had rented the room at the end of the hall.
“A new tenant,” Aleksandra said. “Mademoiselle Beckmann has gone to join her sister in Rennes.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Madame told me yesterday when she came for the rent. The new lodger is called Dodin. I saw him move in.”
“He walks like an ox.”
“He looks like one as well. He is broad, wide as a door. And he has big red hands, like a butcher. He tipped his hat to me.”
“He sounds strange.”
She shrugged. “Sit down and I will dry your hair. God made you too tall.” He sat on the bed while she rubbed his head with a towel. “He is just a man who lives in rooms,” she said.
“So do I.”
“Well, he is the sort who does, I mean. You just happen to.”
“Perhaps we should find another room.”
“Because of Dodin?”
“No, not exactly. A change of scene, perhaps.”
“I like it here,” she said. “It is ours.”
“As long as he doesn’t bother you.”
“Don’t worry about that.” She adjusted his head by pulling on his ears. “I am used to big oxes.”
She had small breasts, they moved as she dried his hair and he touched them. “Be good,” she said, wriggling away from his hands. But he pulled her down on the bed next to him and, when she began to say the sort of things that always provoked him, when she began to tease him, he stopped her and made love to her in a way that was not their usual fashion. He made love to her from the heart, and when it was over she had tears in her eyes and he held her so tightly that his hands hurt.
On the first day of May the weather sparkled, bright blue and perfect, a day just barely warm enough to leave one’s coat at home. Ivan Donchev set his homburg at the proper angle and gave the bottom of his vest a final tug. In the hallway mirror, his image was precisely as he wished: an older gentleman but well kept, shoulders set square, chin held high. He had only a minor role in the day’s drama, but he meant to play it flawlessly and with style. Outside his apartment building, he stopped at the flower cart and bought his usual rosebud, white for today, and adjusted it carefully in his buttonhole.
He considered a taxi, but it was May Day and many of the drivers would be marching. Huge demonstrations and parades were expected in central Paris, busloads of police had been drawn up since before dawn in the side streets off the Rue de Rivoli. So he walked. It took him more than two hours but he enjoyed every minute, flirting with the passing ladies, patting the occasional dog, swimming easily in the stream of city life as he had done for forty years. He barely remembered Sofia, where he had grown to manhood, yet distance and time had somehow contrived to strengthen his patriotism. Besides, one could not exactly say no to Omaraeff. When something went awry in the emigre community, Djadja was the court of last resort and almost always found a way to put things right, thus he was not a man to be casually turned aside.
Just after 3:00 P.M., Ivan Donchev took up his position on the Place de l’Opera, in front of Lancel, its windows superbly decorated with gold and silver and Bakelite jewelry nesting among dozens of spring scarves. When the door opened, one could smell perfume. He quite loved this store, though its merchandise was well beyond his means. The women who swept in and out of its doors were delicious, he thought, each one showing off her own special flair. He was, for women in general, a very good audience, offering now and again an appreciative nod and a tip of the hat, which sometimes drew a smile in return.
Some blocks away, in the direction of the Rue de Rivoli, he could hear snatches of song and the occasional roar-quite muted by the time it reached his ears-of a huge crowd. Now and then, the high-low song of a police siren cut through the low rumble of the marchers. Omaraeff had, he was certain, chosen to act on May Day for two reasons: the evident symbolic value, as well as the fact that police cars would be well snarled up by the demonstrations. He strolled back and forth in front of the store, glancing at his watch, a man anticipating the reappearance of a woman occupied with shopping. He looked about him, discreetly, but could identify none of his confederates. That was all to the good, he thought, it indicated a professional approach to the matter.
At sixteen minutes past the hour, the man he awaited came toward him from the Rue de la Paix. His mouth grew dry, and he felt his heart accelerate.
As the courier walked past him, Ivan gathered his wits and rehearsed himself one final time. He let the man go by, waited as he gained some small distance, then ran after him at a trot. “Wait a moment!” he called out in Russian, waving his hand. The man hesitated, paused, then looked over his shoulder at Ivan, hurrying to catch up with him. “Please, sir, a moment,” Ivan called. From a taxi parked by the curb and from the doorway of a restaurant, two men appeared. He had never seen them before but there was no mistaking their trade. They were thick, bulky men who moved gracefully. One of them grabbed the courier’s left arm. The courier swung his satchel. A woman screamed. Several people started running. The other man grabbed the satchel but the Russian was strong and swung him around. Ivan stood motionless, watching the drama. The three men struggled for a moment, all tangled up with one another, it seemed. A loud voice demanded that the police appear at once. A woman coming out of Lancel lost a shoe, then stood hopping on one foot, trying to put it back on. From the driver’s seat of the taxi a hand appeared, holding an automatic pistol. There was a flash and a crack, then another, then three or four more in rapid succession. The courier leapt into the air as Ivan watched, transfixed. Then a bee stung him in the armpit and he began backing away hurriedly. What a moment for such a thing to happen! He saw the courier on the sidewalk, a handful of pamphlets sprayed across his chest, his satchel gone. The other two men were disappearing into the taxi as Ivan turned away and trotted off. A siren approached in the distance.
He was, at this point, supposed to go home. But he didn’t feel well. His left arm was numb, and he had now come to realize what had happened to him. Still, it couldn’t be terribly serious, and the most pressing need at the moment was to remove himself from the immediate area. There was a small cinema just off the avenue and he paid and went in, letting the usher guide him to a seat on the aisle and remembering to tip him.
Of the movie he could make little sense. A man and a woman lived in poverty on a barge that sailed up and down the river Loire. They were lovers, but the anguish of the times was driving them apart. The girl was called Sylvie. She had hooded eyes and a down-curved, unhappy mouth. When she lit a cigarette, she watched the match burn almost to her fingertips before blowing it out. This she did continually. Her lover was called Bruno-was he German? — a rough sort who wore a sleeveless undershirt and a neck scarf. Only one thing interested him, that was clear. But he was too much the primitive for Sylvie, a barbarian who thought himself clever.
Ivan kept moving about in the seat, trying to get comfortable. His skin felt clammy and there was a hot point beneath his shoulder blade that seemed to move about, as though the bee had burrowed well in and was now building a hive. He checked his watch. Amazing! Only fifteen minutes since he had hailed the courier. Much too soon to be out on the street. He settled himself back in the seat and tried to concentrate on the film. A vagabond, a stooped old man with a wild beard, had joined the couple. Sylvie kept staring at him from a distance, as though she had encountered him in a past life. Bruno noticed this but said nothing about it. He drank wine with the vagabond, who began to tell a story about a traveling circus.
The movie was definitely making him drowsy. A dog at the edge of the river barked at the moon. The
