playing, a few people clapped, and the man went to Tamara Petrov’s table. The man’s cheeks had been puffed up when he played. Now they were sunken, and, in profile, Komarov recognized Jewish features. First the Gypsy, now a Jew who blows farts on his saxophone while she applauds him, smiles at him, invites him to her table, and perhaps to her apartment.
Komarov imagined Tamara Petrov kissing the bearded Jew, using the wiry black beard to clean between her teeth the way prostitutes clean their teeth on pubic hair. Suddenly, he thought of Dmitry with a man, in bed with a man, the taste of salt and the feel of hair inside one’s mouth. A wave of nausea came over him, nausea so strong he had to go to the washroom and splash cold water on his face. The water from the spigot smelled metallic. He took deep breaths from the open window in the washroom. When he finally recovered, he returned to his table, held his coffee cup in front of his face, and watched Tamara Petrov.
The saxophonist was back onstage, puffing his cheeks and playing something reminiscent of a Hungarian song played on a violin, a ridiculously romantic elongation of melody, a sound like someone weeping, the sound made by the old man with the violin in Lenkomsomol Square the night Detective Horvath escaped. And there was Tamara Petrov smiling at the Jew. When the Jew switched to a Middle Eastern melody and gyrated his hips, Tamara Petrov stood and applauded.
If only Detective Horvath could be here now. If only he could see his Gypsy lover swooning like a child bride experiencing her first orgasm. Perhaps Horvath would be jealous enough to leave the club in anger, wait for Tamara Petrov in an alleyway, and confront her. A woman who first turns him in, then replaces him with a Jew so she can play his saxophone penis.
Komarov held his cup in one hand, reached inside his coat, gripped his knife, and thought of Pudkov and the poet, their necks like wet muted violin strings as he sliced across them. He thought of Gretchen staring at him with surprise as he pushed the knife in and twisted.
When the saxophonist approached the climax of his disgust-ing wail, and as Tamara Petrov remained standing, applauding, and gyrating her hips like a belly dancer, Komarov left Club Ukrainka.
Outside, he lowered his head into his collar and took up his limp.
When he passed the Volga, the men inside paid no attention to him.
He walked a half block and hid around the side of a building in a dark alleyway. From this position, he could see the entrance of Club Ukrainka and he could see the heads of the two KGB men who would soon be disciplined severely for allowing Tamara Petrov to be murdered under their very noses.
26
The village of Kisbor on the Ulyanov collective was on a dry plateau less than twenty-five kilometers from the Czechoslovakian border.
Although the Chernobyl accident was a topic of conversation, Kisbor residents felt relatively safe because Kiev was much closer and Kiev television news did not show citizens dropping dead in the streets.
Instead of worrying about the reported insignificant amount of radiation in their area, citizens of Kisbor and the Ulyanov collective were more concerned with spring planting.
Nikolai stood in the yard of the Horvath farm, watching the sunrise. The farmhouse was on a slight hill above the village, and only the tallest houses in Kisbor were visible, their peaked roofs like black witches’ hats against the orange sky. The morning was cool, and on the distant plain he could see patches of ground fog. According to local legend, these patches of fog were the last breaths of a person who had recently died. Perhaps one of the patches belonged to Pavel, his last breath drifting on the wind all the way from the town of Visenka, outside Kiev, and arriving now, his last breath wandering about until it came upon his friend Nikolai, who cradled him like a babe in his arms as he died.
Nikolai walked around the side of the farmhouse where a rooster strutted back and forth on the tin roof of a lean-to chicken coop.
The rooster’s claws on the roof sounded like someone scratching from inside a coffin. The rooster stopped strutting, puffed up its chest, and greeted the sunrise with a high-pitched wail.
When he went into the backyard, Nikolai passed a weathered wooden box set in the ground. The box had an old oilskin tablecloth draped over it, and on it were two battered tin plates holding water from the last rain. Tarnished and bent knives and forks rescued by local children completed the make-believe table setting.
Children. At the funeral, Pavel’s wife said they were going to have children. She repeated it over and over as he helped carry the coffin to the grave site set aside for Kiev’s KGB agents and militiamen. “He was only twenty- seven and no children!” screamed Pavel’s wife as the coffin was lowered.
Shortly after Pavel’s funeral, Nikolai was sent here. In the farmhouse there were three children-a baby belonging to the Sandors, who lived in the house, and the two daughters of Nina Horvath, who had come from Pripyat by way of a Moscow hospital. Walking beyond the oblong box with its oilcloth, discarded utensils, and border of untrimmed weeds, Nikolai wondered about Detective Horvath’s boyhood here with his brother, little boys playing games just as he and Pavel had done when they were boys. Today the games were more serious. The winner’s prize was to remain alive. Today’s orders were to be alert for the possibility Detective Horvath and Juli Popovics might show up. And tomorrow? Who knew?
Nikolai was not alone. He and the others took twelve-hour shifts alternating between the farmhouse and the small hotel in the village. Originally there had been four men. Now, with the arrival of Captain Brovko and three others, the total was eight. At any given time there were at least three of them at the house.
Nikolai reached the end of the yard where tilled soil began, looked at his watch, and turned back when he heard tires on the gravel road. He had been at the house for his twelve-hour shift and, walking to the side of the house, was glad to see Captain Brovko in one Volga and three replacements climbing out of a second Volga.
One of the men stretched and yawned loudly. Nikolai joined the other two who had spent the night at the house, each of them alone, alternating positions every two hours. One man in the house, one in the car, and one walking about the perimeter, all three armed with Stechkin machine pistols.
Nikolai was about to get into the second Volga with his two partners when Captain Brovko called him over and sent the other two ahead to the hotel. As the men drove away, Nikolai wondered what more could possibly happen to him.
“Come,” said Captain Brovko. “I’ll drive you back.”
The inside of the Volga was warm. For the moment, as Captain Brovko drove down the road into the dust of the other Volga, Nikolai felt safe. Here, in a warm Volga with his machine pistol stowed on the floor and his new captain driving, he was assured of not being attacked from behind by Detective Horvath returning to his boyhood home. No matter what Captain Brovko had to say, even if it was a reprimand, he was glad to be away from the house with its dark yard and the women inside who conveyed hatred by simply looking at him. Last evening when he took his turn in the house, Mariska Sandor, the resident farm wife, played a game with the little girls in which she claimed she could tell their fortunes by observing teacup stains. During the game, Mariska Sandor had turned to him and claimed she could tell how long he was going to live. The smile on her face when she said it frightened Nikolai, filling the remainder of the night with visions of Detective Horvath sending him to join Pavel in the grave.
Shortly after the road curved and dropped down the small hill, Captain Brovko pulled over to the side and parked. Ahead, and slightly below, the village greeted the sun, clay tiles on the roofs taking on the color of rouge on a woman’s cheeks. The Volga carrying his two partners disappeared into the main street of the village, leaving only the dust settling above the road.
He and Captain Brovko spoke of their pasts. Nikolai described the PK and his and Pavel’s assignment in the Pripyat post office.
Captain Brovko described working in Moscow and in the GDR.
Captain Brovko said he missed Moscow because he had a girlfriend there. Chernobyl had ruined plans to spend a furlough with her.
Nikolai mentioned his latest girlfriend in Pripyat, wondering if she had escaped. He told Captain Brovko how Pavel had come to the door the Saturday morning after the explosion and found him in bed with his girlfriend. Captain Brovko laughed with him, and this, combined with the morning sun shining through the windshield, made
