Meredith looked at the living death of Heifetz's eyes, then looked away. 'You remember that old rag of a guidon he used to carry? The one he brought out of Africa? I passed it on to them for the museum. They're going to put it with his Medal of Honor, when that goes through.' Meredith let his eyes wander over the blanket, the bed- frame, the floor. 'The old man didn't have any family. No wife or anything. So I'm making sure that all his effects go to the museum, where they belong. Where he'll be remembered properly.' He suddenly looked up, hoping Heifetz would offer some sign of agreement. 'With nothing that could have embarrassed him.'
Meredith realigned himself in the chair and smiled. 'Those sonsofbitches,' he said. 'You know how they get all hepped up on appearances. They're going to use a picture of the old man from back when he was a captain. Before his face got screwed up. But… what can you do?'
To his surprise, Meredith took Heifetz's hand. It was soft and warm, yet utterly without human character. The fingers gave way as Meredith pressured them.
Meredith's smile widened into a terrible grin. 'And that sonofabitch Reno. He's got the regiment now. Got his colonelcy out of the operation. Under the hand of the President, and all that. Of course, he's all sweetness and light for the press. He and the old man were best buddies, to hear him tell it. But the first duty day we had back at Riley, he assembles everybody in the post theater. And he comes out on the stage like a little Patton. And you know what the first words are out of his mouth, Dave? He puffs himself all up and says, 'We're going to make some big changes around here, men.' He told me to my face he intends to reshape the regiment in his own image.' Meredith laughed. 'The chairman of the Joint Chiefs loves him.
'Then the goddamned Russians. They sold us out, Dave. Plain as day. But nobody wants to hear that now. The war's over. And the Russians are our best buddies.'
Meredith tightened his grip on his comrade's hand. He wanted a response. Anything.
'I'm bailing out,' he said. 'You know how the old man was. He would have told me to stay in the regiment and tough it out, to do what I could to control the damage Reno does. But I just can't, Dave. I know you understand. The old man just expected too much sometimes.' The hand seemed to cower under Meredith's grip. He suddenly relaxed the pressure, afraid he was hurting Heifetz. But there was no response. It was all in his own head. 'Anyway, I'm leaving the Seventh. Tucker Williams is going down to Huachuca with a mandate to try to clean up the intel school, and I'm going to be his XO. Who knows?
Maybe we'll get it right this time. If they don't close the place down again. Christ, the peace treaty hasn't even been signed, and Congress is already looking for big cuts in the defense budget.'
Meredith released the other man's hand altogether. Down the ward one of the patients made a violent gargling noise, then his body began to contort like a fish tossed onto a boat deck. The duty nurse darted from behind her medicine trolley and manhandled the patient over onto his belly, burping him as if he were a baby.
'Dave? I've got to go. I've got a hell of a drive ahead of me, and I'm on a tight schedule. Tucker Williams wanted me out there yesterday. You know how it is. I want to make Knoxville tonight.'
Meredith stood up. He had imagined that something dramatic might happen, that Heifetz might begin to weep or to otherwise acknowledge his presence. But the eyes just continued to flick haphazardly from right to left, up and down, and the mouth hung slackly, poised forever on the verge of speech. It was hard to believe that Heifetz understood a word.
The tinny loudspeaker broadcast a pop song about the joy of being in love.
'I've left Maureen, you know,' Meredith said suddenly. 'I can't explain it. I just couldn't go back.' He smiled down at Heifetz. 'You know, the old man was plain fucking crazy sometimes. I remember, oh, it was years ago now, the old bastard gave me a copy of
'I don't know what to do, Dave,' he said. 'I just don't know what to do.'
Snow was falling in Moscow, and Valya told herself she really had to get dressed and go to the park. It would be beautiful for a little while. But she made no move to rise from the couch. On the television, a silver-haired man read an economic report.
The Americans were gone. She had been reinstated in her teaching post, and the other members of the faculty simply pretended nothing had happened. She heard nothing further from the state security officers since the departure of the Americans. But she still imagined that they were out there, watching her.
She had gone out a few times with Tanya, and once with Naritsky. But it had not been satisfactory. For the past week, she had taken to declining all invitations, and when she was not teaching or standing in line for foodstuffs, she stayed in her apartment. She considered getting a cat, but she did not much like the idea of trying to housebreak it.
She looked into the future and saw nothing. She looked into the mirror and felt cold breath on the back of her neck. And she had not had her period since November. Soon she would have to go back to the clinic. She had flirted briefly with the idea of having this baby, but the notion lost its appeal the moment she began to consider the practicalities involved. Really, she would be far better off with a cat. And she did not want to lose her figure. While there was still any hope at all.
They did not need to put her in prison. She was already a prisoner in her life, her city, her country. She glanced from the television screen to the window again. The snow continued to fall as the day waned. For a while it would be beautiful in the park. Then the crowd would make it dirty again.
The doorbell rang. Valya surveyed the wreckage of her room in distress. She decided that she really needed to develop more regular cleaning habits. Then she shrugged and rose from her nest on the sofa. It was probably only Tanya, after all.
Running a comb of fingers through her hair, she opened the door. It took her a moment to recognize the man. There were so many men in the world. After a few awkward seconds, the quality of his clothing spurred her memory. It was the American who had bought her dinner, the pleasant-enough boy with whom she had shared a single night. He stood before her now with flowers and a brightly wrapped package in his hands, and he looked nervously happy. He held out the flowers and began his stammering speech.
'Valya,' Ryder said, 'will you marry me?'
Author's Note
This is a book about nightmares. Its central theme plays on an enduring Russian nightmare. Although the Soviet Union's short-term problems will arise primarily west of the Ural Mountains, the enduring vision of racial and religious apocalypse scorching inward from the south and east haunts the Russian mind. The plot embraces extremes, as fiction demands. A likelier scenario would describe decades of intermittent unrest, often grim enough in local consequence, but with the anger of the common man never sufficiently well organized to weld very different ethnic groups into a militant union. As a Soviet analyst, were I forced to predict the future of Soviet Central Asia, I would describe it as locally unstable, sporadically fanatical and spotted with blood, blighted by disease and economic malaise — and generally far too dull to attract more than a passing glance from the Western news media. We shall hear of occasional massacres, but far less of the hot, dreary, and limited life of the average man or woman. In short, I expect central Asia to be pretty much the same as it has been for countless centuries.
The Russians, like the Mongols, Persians, and the shadowy conquerors who preceded them, will eventually fade into the heat and dust. They will leave their traces, but they will leave. Will it be a matter of years, of decades, of a century? The clocks in Samarkand betray less anxiety than do the digital marvels of Washington — or the timepieces of Moscow, which forever seem to be rushing toward midnight.
Driven by Aristotle and an unquenchable thirst for blood, Alexander the Great crossed the Oxus — today's Amu Darya. And what did he leave behind? Legends and sand. These poisoned deserts swallow history.
But what about the issue of Islamic fundamentalism?
I admire the perfect accuracy of Levi-Strauss's description of Islam as a 'barracks religion,' and I take a far
