'… and I've been working like uh dug,' Lydia sang-shouted the Beatle song in terrible English. Sasha and Maya looked at each other and laughed. The baby paused in her sucking, startled, and then continued drinking.
It wouldn't be a bad day, Sasha thought. Not a bad day at all.
He turned out to be quite wrong.
'He's coming. He's coming,' Liana Mirasnikov shouted from the window of the People's Hall.
'Coming here. The square one?' wailed Sergei wide-eyed from across the hall.
'No, the other one, the ghost,' she said without turning.
''Oh no. Worse and worse,' the old man groaned. 'Is he wearing a hat?'
The old woman squinted through the curtains.
'No hat,' she announced. 'He is mad.'
'We are undone,' he moaned.
He had prepared for this moment. He had gone through everything that they had accumulated over the years and decided whether they had a right to each piece. If they did not, he moved the piecean old pair of candlesticks, a chair with a worn velvet covering, a movie projector that he had never tried to useto the loft which could not be reached without a ladder. The loft already contained a collection of articles which Mirasnikov had kept just in case. These articles included paintings of Stalin and Khrushchev and even a small painting of someone Liana thought was Beria and Sergei was sure was Trotsky. The large painting of Lenin with the flag remained in place in the main hall as it had for almost fifty years. Lenin was always a good, conservative art investment.
Sergei took a last, quick look around the hall as the door opened and the pale man stepped in.
'Mirasnikov,' the man said in a deep voice. It was, the old man thought, like the voice of the devil calling for him, telling him it was his time and he should know it.
'I am Mirasnikov,' the old man admitted.
The ghostly man stepped forward and looked around. The big hall was clean and relatively empty except for the old oak table with three chairs behind it, the painting of Lenin, and a broom leaning against the wall. The folding chairs which had been pulled out for the rare meeting were usually stacked inside the large closet.
'I am Deputy Inspector Karpo,' the man's voice echoed through the empty room. 'I have a few questions to ask you concerning the death of Commissar Rutkin.'
'A good man,' said Mirasnikov quickly.
'I am not concerned with his virtues,' said Karpo. 'Only with his actions and your knowledge of them.'
This man, who looked rather like a Tartar, had stopped in the middle of the hall and looked at Mirasnikov. And this man named Karpo did not blink, which caused Mirasnikov to blink uncontrollably for both of them.
'Of course,' said Mirasnikov. 'Would you like to sit? Would you like some tea or maybe we even have coffee. Liana, do we have coffee for the inspector, anything for the inspector?'
'I don't…' the old woman near the window stammered in confusion.
'I want no tea or coffee,' said Karpo. 'Come.'
Mirasnikov followed the man to the table where Karpo moved around to sit in the chair in which, in the old days, the visiting procurator would sit. Mirasnikov took a chair as far from the man as he could get and Liana was forced to take the remaining chair nearest the inspector. She had seen him the night before when she served and cleaned up the dinner for the three visitors. She had avoided his eyes the night before but now she could not.
Had someone told Karpo he was frightening the couple, he would have been surprised and curious. He had no intention of frightening them. On the contrary, he wanted to put them at their ease, to get his answers as quickly and efficiently as possible and then to get back to his room to prepare his report for Rostnikov.
'Who murdered Commissar Rutkin?' Karpo asked when the old couple was seated.
It was the very question which Mirasnikov had most feared and for an instant he sat, mouth open and silent.
Karpo looked at the old man. It was a standard question. One to which he had expected no answer beyond conjecture which might feed into other conjecture. But the old man had reacted and Karpo considered a new line of questioning.
'You saw the murder of Commissar Rutkin,' Karpo said. It was not a question but a statement.
'Nyet. No,' said Mirasnikov shaking his head vehemently. 'I saw nothing.'
'I do not believe you, Comrade,' Karpo said.
'He saw nothing,' the old woman chirped.
'You were with him on the morning of the murder?' asked Karpo, looking at the old woman next to him. She shrank back against the chair.
'No. I was still asleep,' she said.
'So you were not together,' said Karpo turning his eyes on the old man. 'You were up early. You were in here preparing the hall for the hearing.'
'I… maybe,' Mirasnikov said with a shrug. 'I was moving chairs, making noise. Then Doctor Samsonov knocked and I went to help him. The Commissar was dead. I had made tea for everyone. I can show you the tea pot.'
'What did you see?' asked Karpo.
The old man looked at his frightened wife before he answered.
'Nothing. Nothing.'
Karpo sat silently, white hands on the table. He was dressed, as always, entirely in black, which contrasted with his white face. Something creaked in a corner.
'What did you think of Commissar Rutkin?' Karpo asked breaking the silence.
'He was a Commissar,' Sergei answered, unaccustomed to anyone, even his wife, asking his opinion. Mirasnikov was unaware that he had any real opinionswas, in fact, convinced that opinions were very dangerous things to have.
'That is not an opinion,' said Karpo.
'It's not?' Mirasnikov said looking at his wife for help, but she looked forward resolutely as if she were being pestered by a stranger she wished to ignore.
'Was he admired, respected?' asked Karoo. 'Did people like or dislike him? Did they cooperate with Commissar Rutkin? Did you?'
'Cooperated,' Mirasnikov said eagerly. 'Everyone cooperated.'
'But what did you, others, think of him?'
The old man was backed into a corner with no way out.
'I don't know,' he said.
And then Karpo began his questioning in earnest.
Sokolov was slogging up the plowed path behind Rostnikov who realized that he could not avoid the man and so turned to wait for him. Sokolov was bundled in fur with only his eyes, nose and a bit of his mustache showing.
'You didn't wake me,' he said through the scarf which muffled his voice.
'You didn't answer my knock,' Rostnikov said with a shrug, which was true though Rostnikov was certain that his knock had not been loud enough to awaken a frightened bird. 'I left a note.''
'I found it. Please knock harder next time,' Sokolov said through his scarf. 'I don't wish to miss anything.'
'I'll bear that in mind,' Rostnikov said, turning to walk further up the slope toward the next house. 'Won't you join me?'
Sokolov grunted and moved to Rostnikov's side.
'Who have you spoken to? What have you done?' Sokolov said trying to hide his irritation. The problem was obvious. Sokolov had already failed to stay with the man he was assigned to watch. Sokolov could be in trouble.
'I've talked to a few people,' said Rostnikov moving toward the next wooden house up the slope. 'The Samsonovs, Galich, the former priest.'
'What?' Sokolov asked, stopping.
Rostnikov stopped him. Sokolov's talking was soaking his scarf, 'The Samsonovs, Galich,' Rostnikov repeated.
Sokolov's eyes scanned Rostnikov's face but whatever he was seeking wasn't there.
