– Maxim, I have no heart. I have no tears to shed. Nikolai was weak and vain. I should’ve guessed he would die in the most pathetic of fashions. However, as a message to the State, it was certainly more powerful than him merely hanging himself.
Just as the Church of Sancta Sophia had been destroyed and replaced with a dark, deep pit, Leo wondered if the same was true of her. Her moral foundations had been ripped up and replaced with a dark abyss.
Fraera asked:
– I take it you have made the connection between Suren, the man who ran the printing press, Nikolai, the patriarch, and yourself? You knew Nikolai: he was your boss. The patriarch was the man who enabled you to infiltrate our church.
– Suren worked for the MGB but I didn’t know him personally.
– He was a guard when I was interrogated. I remember him standing on tiptoe, looking into the cell. I remember the top of his head, his curious eyes, watching as if he’d snuck into a movie theater.
Leo asked:
– What is the point of this?
– When the police are criminals, the criminals must become the police. The innocent must live underground, in the shit of the city, while the villains live in warm apartments. The world is upside down: I’m merely turning it the right way up.
Leo spoke out:
– What about Zoya? You’ll kill her, a young girl who doesn’t even like me? A girl who only chose to live with me to save her sister from an orphanage?
– You are mistaken in your attempts at appealing to my humanity. Anisya is dead. She died when her child was taken from her by the State.
Leo didn’t understand. Answering his evident confusion, Fraera added:
– Maxim, I was pregnant when you arrested me.
With the precision of a surgeon Fraera probed this newly inflicted cut, prising it open, watching him bleed:
– You never even took the time to find out what had happened to Lazar. You never took the time to find out what had happened to me. Had you looked through the records you would’ve discovered that I gave birth eight months into my sentence. I was allowed to nurse my son for three months before he was taken from me. I was told to forget about him. I was told I would never see him again. When I was released, granted an early reprieve after Stalin’s death, I searched for my child. He’d been placed in an orphanage but his name had been changed and all record of my motherhood erased. This is standard, I was told. It is one thing to lose a child: it is another to know that they’re alive, somewhere, ignorant of your existence.
– Fraera, I can’t defend the State. I followed orders. And I was wrong. The orders were wrong. The State was wrong. But I have changed.
– I know about the changes you’ve made. You’re no longer KGB, you’re militia. You deal only with real crimes, not political ones. You’ve adopted two beautiful young girls. This is your idea of redemption, yes? What does any of it mean to me? What of the debt you owe me? What of the debt you owe to men and women you arrested? How is that to be paid? Are you planning to build a modest stone statue to commemorate the dead? Will you put up a brass plaque with our names written in tiny letters so they all fit in? Will that suffice?
– You want to take my life?
– I have thought about it many times.
– Then kill me and let Zoya live. Let my wife live.
– You would gladly die to save them. It would make you noble; it would scrub you clean of your crimes. You still believe that you can lead your life as a hero?
Fraera pointed to his clothes:
– Take off your clothes.
Leo remained silent, unsure if he’d heard correctly. She repeated her instructions:
– Maxim, take off your clothes.
Leo took off his hat, his gloves, his coat, dropping them to the ground. He unbuttoned his shirt, shuddering in the cold, placing it on the heap in front of him. Fraera raised her hand:
– That’s enough.
He stood, shivering, his arms by his side.
– You find the night cold, Maxim? It is nothing compared to the winters in Kolyma, the frozen corner of this country where you sent my husband.
To his surprise, Fraera also began to undress, taking off her coat, her shirt, revealing her naked torso. Tattoos covered her skin: one under her right breast, one on her stomach, tattoos on her arms, her hands, fingers. She stepped closer to Leo.
– You want to know what has happened to me these past few years? You want to know how a woman, the wife of a priest, came to be in charge of a vory gang? The answers are written on my skin.
She took hold of her breast, lifting it up, drawing Leo’s attention to the tattoo. There was a lion:
– It means I will avenge all who wronged me, from the lawyers, to the judges, to the prison guards and the police officers.
In the center of her chest, rising up between her breasts, was a crucifix:
– This has nothing to do with my husband, Maxim-it represents my authority, as the Thief-in-Law. Perhaps this one you’ll understand.
She touched the tattoo on her stomach. It showed a heavily pregnant woman-a cross section revealing the inside of her extended belly. Instead of an unborn child, the pregnant stomach was filled with barbed wire, coiled round and round like one long, jagged umbilical cord.
– Maxim, you have the blank skin of a child. To me, and to my men, it appears dishonest. Where are your crimes? Where are the things you have done? I see no trace of them. I see no marks on you. I see none of your guilt written on you.
Fraera took another step closer, her body almost touching his:
– I can touch you, Maxim. Yet if you lay a finger on me, you will be killed. My skin is the same as my authority. For you to touch me would be a violation, an insult.
She pressed against him, whispering:
– Seven years later, it is my turn to make you an offer. Lazar is still in Kolyma, working in a gold mine. They refuse to release him. He’s a priest. Priests are hated again, now that there are no wars the State needs them to promote. He’s been told that he’ll have to serve his full sentence-twenty-five years. I want you to get him out. I want you to put right that wrong.
– I have no such power.
– You have connections.
– Fraera, you murdered the patriarch. They blame you for the murder of two agents, Nikolai and Moskvin. They will never negotiate with you. They will never release Lazar.
– Then you must find another way to get him out.
– Fraera, please-if you had asked me a week ago, perhaps it would’ve been feasible. But after what you have done, it is impossible. Listen to my voice. I would do anything for Zoya, anything within my power. However, I cannot free Lazar.
Fraera leaned forward, whispering:
– Remember, I can touch you, but you must not touch me.
With that warning she kissed him on the cheek. Tender at first before her teeth gripped his skin, closing tight, digging in, increasing in pressure-drawing blood. The pain was intense. Leo wanted to push her away, but if he touched her, he would be killed. He could do nothing except suffer the pain. Finally, she opened her mouth, stepping back and admiring the bite marks.
– Maxim, you have your first tattoo.
With his blood on her lips, she concluded:
– Free my husband, or I will murder your daughter.
