'She's still alive.' So far, he could have added. Without oxygen, brain cells started dying at two minutes. At four minutes half the brain was dead matter. She would certainly be dead by the time an ambulance arrived.
Arkady had his moment of clarity. Anya didn't eat, she drank coffee.
The emergency kit-a white plastic box with a red cross-was the only item in the refrigerator. The contents of the kit were a plastic mask attached to a rubber bulb and an EpiPen preloaded with adrenaline.
Arkady exposed the needle and thrust it into Anya's thigh. Instantly, she jerked and her heart began to beat.
He slipped the mask over Anya's face. Her heart would race until it dropped like a dead horse unless she started to breathe. Each squeeze of the mask's rubber bulb forced air into Anya's mouth. Her lips were purple and although it was like trying to animate clay, he maintained a rhythm of squeeze and release, squeeze and release, every five seconds as if her heart were in his hand.
'How long are you going to try this?' Victor asked.
Arkady heard a gasp and caught Zhenya and Maya standing in the doorway. Maya's hand was over her mouth.
Victor whispered, 'The longer it takes, the less likely she can be revived. You can't raise the dead.'
She wasn't dead, Arkady thought. He wouldn't allow it.
'Arkady.' Victor tried to pull him up.
'Wait,' Maya said.
Squeeze and release. Squeeze and release.
Anya's first breath was harsh and ugly. Arkady continued to pump until her respiration was steady and the blue cast of her skin gave way to pink.
25
Arkady had put Anya in his bed. Light hurt her eyes, and he had turned off all the lights except a reading lamp that he turned low. He expected her to fall into a deep sleep, but adrenaline was still racing through her system.
'Half the time I think I'm dead again.'
'You had a traumatic experience. I would guess that being dead, even for a short time, qualifies as traumatic.'
'It wasn't what I expected.'
'No white light?'
'Nothing.'
'No family or friends?'
'Zero.'
'Let's talk about whoever tried to kill you.'
'I don't know who it was. I don't remember anything from this afternoon on.' Anya shifted for a better view of Arkady. 'You knew what to do. You've seen someone in shock before. Was it a woman?'
'Yes. I didn't know what to do then. I do now.'
Overlap was the last thing he wanted. No spilling of memory from one woman to another. Yes, he had helplessly witnessed anaphylactic shock before. This time at least he had a chance to save someone. Arkady had taken no chances. He had concentrated on the bulb and mask as if they were a rope out of an abyss, and hadn't even noticed when life first began to creep back into her body.
'This was different, someone tried to kill you.'
'They did kill me.'
'But you're alive now.'
'Maybe.'
'I heard two separate sets of footsteps leave your apartment, and you say you didn't have any guests?'
'I don't remember. Could I have a cigarette now?'
'Definitely not. Somebody left a glass with a residue of milk in your kitchen sink. Can you tell me who that somebody might be?'
'I'm a journalist. Don't you know it's open season on journalists?'
'And you don't want to call in the police.'
'Why should I when I have you?'
'Well, I have been dismissed. How much I can help is debatable.'
'I'll take my chances.' In a different tone, she asked, 'How long was I dead?'
'Comatose.'
'Dead,' she insisted. 'In other words, am I swimsuit ready? Sasha Vaksberg has asked me to go to his dacha tomorrow.' She pulled back the sheet from her leg to examine the dark bruise left by Arkady and the needle.
'I don't think you've lost anything,' Arkady said.
'The dacha is enormous. Sasha has two swimming pools, tennis courts and a ring for horses. Sometimes I think he pays people just to walk around.'
'I'm sure it's very grand.'
'You think I should go.'
'You might be safer there than here.'
'Do you have a dacha?'
'A shack.' He tried to return to the attack. 'As a journalist, do you keep an appointment book?'
'Is your shack on a river or a lake?'
'Just a pond.'
'Describe it.'
'Ordinary.'
'In what way?'
'A cabin with three rooms, half of a kitchen, bad paintings, a stone fireplace, a family of hedgehogs under the porch, a canoe and a rowboat on a dock. My father was a general, but after enough vodka, he thought he was an admiral.'
'That doesn't sound so bad. Was I dressed?'
'Excuse me?'
'When you found me, was I dressed?'
'Not completely.'
'How did I look? Is blue in fashion?'
'You're asking the wrong man. What about Sasha Vaksberg? He must have called in reinforcements by now. He could have given you a hundred bodyguards.'
'Maybe he would have. He's an unpredictable man.'
Anya took in the high ceiling, a monstrous armoire, light patches on the wall where photographs and paintings had been removed.
'Did you grow up here? It must have been something at one time.'
'It was where the 'party elite' lived, and it was a great honor to be assigned an apartment like this. On the other hand, it was full of false walls and secret passageways for the KGB to listen. And once a month or so, some famous face would disappear. So it was an honor with a certain risk. While no one could refuse to live in such a luxurious establishment, they always kept a suitcase packed.'
'Did they ever listen in on your father?'
'He was very accommodating. He would tell the agents his itinerary for the day. And night.'
'Did it affect you to live in such a haunted house?'
'I'm embarrassed to say no. I did find the wall that the agent sat behind. I had a rubber ball and I bounced it against the wall a hundred times, two hundred times.'
'I don't think you were cut out to be a policeman.'
'It's a little late in the day to learn that. What does it mean, 'God is shit'?'
