the trip. Rostnikov had never been to Siberia. He had no curiosity about Siberia. He did not want to go to Siberia. But, and this was much more important, he had no choice in the matter.
CHAPTER THREE
Ice cream is the Soviet Union's most popular dessert. It is eaten not only in the summer but in the winter. It is eaten in enormous quantities. In Moscow alone more than 170 tons of ice cream are consumed each day and visitors report that the ice cream in Moscow runs second in taste only to that of Italy and is probably equal to that of France and the United States.
Business, however, was not particularly good that morning at the ice cream stand in the Yamarka, the shopping center behind the Education Pavilion of the USSR Economic Achievements Exhibition, the VDNKh, in North Moscow. Boris Manizer, who had sold ice cream at the stand for four years, knew why. Visitors, who usually stood in line at the stand, would approach with an eager smile, see Boris's new assistant and change their minds.
Boris's new assistant was not just sober. He was positively forbidding. The man was tall, over six feet, lean with dark thinning hair and very pale skin. He looked corpse-like and his dark eyes radiated a frost more cold than the ice cream they sold or, today, failed to sell. The white sales-coat simply added contrast to his new assistant's pale skin.
The man did not serve many customers and when he did he moved his left hand a bit awkwardly, as if he had recently been injured. Boris had decided that he did not like his new assistant, but he had no choice. The man had appeared two days earlier, shown his MVD identification and informed Boris that he would be working with him 'for a few days.' There was no further explanation.
And so, this morning as every morning Boris Manizer took the metro to the VDNKh Station and walked past the massive Space Obelisk pointing into the sky to commemorate the progress of the Soviet people in mastering outer space. Five years ago on a summer day, Boris had heard two educated men in front of the Obelisk saying that religion had been replaced in modern Russia by the Soviet space program. It had struck Boris as a wonderful, secret truth. He began to notice how many space stamps, space ashtrays, space desk ornaments were being sold. Even grocery stores and beauty shops had names like Cosmos and Sputnik. It had, in the last few years, began to change a bit, but it was still evident that the people were waiting for something new to happen in space, something new to celebrate the way he heard the crazy Americans celebrated the anniversaries of rock singers like Elovis Presahley and movie stars like Marilyn Munrue.
The wind had been blowing across the Peace Prospekt this morning and Boris had hurried beyond the Alley of Heroes, with its busts of Yuri Gargarin and the other Soviets who had been in space, and to the main entrance of the Exhibition, the biggest museum in the city including 100,000 exhibits, frequently renewed, in 300 buildings and 80 pavilions with open-air displays when weather permitted. He had tramped left, past the Central Pavilion and the stature of Lenin in front of it, avoided the frozen path lined with winter-white birch trees where skaters would soon flash back and forth laughing, their noses red. He had walked around the Education Pavilion and down the path into the shopping center.
Boris could talk knowingly with his customers about the many exhibits and pavilions though he had actually been in only a few of them. Boris liked to talk, to suggest to his customers that they visit the Circlarama theater, the bumper cars in the fun fair, the Animal Husbandry Pavilion and the Transport Pavilion. Now Boris fleetingly considered talking to the policeman who had given him no name, but one look at the gaunt face changed his mind.
A few weeks earlier business had been booming. People had come, in spite of the cold weather, as they always do to the annual Russian Winter Festival. The exhibits were crowded and people coming in from the troika rides were hungry. Now, standing beside the vampire of a police officer, Boris began to worry about how long the stand would stay in business. Already, he knew, the next nearest ice cream stand, the one managed by Pugachev, had almost doubled its business since the coming of the ghost. And so Boris stood glumly and watched the customers pass him by, glance at the policeman and hurry on to another stand or to one of the sbashlyk grills.
'What are you looking for?' Boris finally asked as the day wore on and the pale man stood unblinking. 'Since it is destroying my livelihood and starving my wife and children, I would like to know.'
The man looked down at Boris. Almost everyone looked down at Boris who stood slightly over five feet tall. Boris wore a clean, white linen cap with a peak to give the illusion of a few added inches to his height, but it simply made him look like a very little man with a peaked cap.
'There is no need for you to have that information,' the man said flatly.
'What about my business? No one will buy ice cream from us but blind people. I'm sorry to tell you you are not a welcoming figure. You know that?'
'I can do nothing about that,' the man said.
'You could smile,' Boris said looking hopeful at a mother and child who were headed for the ice cream stand.
'I cannot,' the policeman said. The policeman, whose name was Emil Karpo, had attempted a smile before the mirror in the wash room at Petrovka years earlier. It had looked grotesque, reminded him of the character in a book he had been forced to read as a child, a French book called The Man Who Laughs about a man who has his face twisted into a permanent grin.
'Maybe not, but what about my business?' wailed Boris.
'The business of the State takes precedence over the interests of the individual,' the man said, his eyes scanning the crowd.
'True,' sighed Boris as the mother and child saw Karpo and veered off toward a nearby restaurant, 'but what is the business of the State here? If my wife and three children are to starve for the State, I would like to know why?'
Karpo's eyes fixed on two young men, heavily clothed, moving resolutely, hands in pockets, toward a group of Japanese tourists who were taking pictures of everything but Boris Manizer's ice cream stand.
'Three children is too much,' Karpo said, not looking at Boris.
'Right, eezveenee't'e pasbah' Ista, please forgive me. I'll kill two of them as soon as I get home. I might as well. I can't feed them any longer,' Boris said sarcastically.
'That won't be necessary,' Karpo said, his eyes still on the young men. 'The State will provide if they will do their share.'
Boris had been shifting the ice cream cartons as Karpo spoke. He looked up to be sure that the man was joking but the pale face gave no indication of humor. Before Boris could pursue the issue, a customer appeared, one of the Japanese complete with camera around his neck.
'Yah tooree'st,' said the small Japanese man who was bundled in a bulky black coat.
'What a surprise!' Boris said with a smile. 'Who would have thought you were a tourist? I would have taken you for a member of the Politboro.'
'Mab-ro-zbeb-na,' the Japanese man said, deliberately looking back at a group of his friends who admired his courage.
'What?' said Boris.
'He thinks he asked for ice cream,' Karpo said.
'Da,' the man agreed.
Boris got the ice cream and the Japanese man motioned to his friends to join him. A few seconds later the stand was surrounded by Japanese tourists holding out ruble notes. It wouldn't be enough to make it a profitable day, but it wouldn't hurt. He turned to the policeman for help with the crowd, but the man was gone, his white jacket and cap lying on the floor beside the stand.
As he scooped and handed out cones, Boris looked over the heads of his Japanese customers to see the policeman moving swiftly through the crowd toward the two young man he had been watching. The young men, one of whom had removed his hat to reveal long red hair, were talking to the woman and child who had veered away from Boris's stand only minutes before.
'Choco-late,' said one Japanese man.
Boris had no idea what he was saying and handed the man a vanilla cone. The man smiled and paid.
