Boris tried to concentrate on business but he couldn't help watching the policeman who was only a few feet from the young men who were standing very close to the mother and child, both of whom looked quite frightened.
And then something quite strange happened. Two men in black coats stepped through the crowd and stood in front of the pale policeman who stopped and reached quickly into his pocket. One of the two men in black coats had something in his hand and the pale policeman removed his hand from his jacket and spoke. The two men in black looked back over their shoulders at the young men and the mother and child and then turned back to the gaunt policeman. The two youths had now taken notice of the gaunt man and the two in black coats. They began to back away from the mother and child.
Boris handed out ice cream after ice cream pulling in coins and paper, handing out change, not quite sure if he was doing it right.
As Boris served his last tourist he watched the red-haired youth and his companion turn and run, coats flapping behind them, in the general direction of the Metallurgy Pavilion. The pale policeman pointed at the fleeing pair but the men in black coats did not turn to look. They remained, hands at their sides, directly in front of him while behind them the mother and child stood trembling, confused. Boris could stand it no longer. He hurried around his stand and moved as quickly as he could through the crowd to the mother and child as he would want someone to do if his Masha and one of his children were standing frightened, alone like that. The boy even looked a bit like his Egon.
'Are you all right?' he asked the woman and child. Though the boy was no more than ten, he was nearly as tall as Boris, taller if Boris took off his peaked hat.
'They threatened us, me, Alex, but…' she said looking around for the youths.
Alex's nearly white hair was a mass of unruly curls. His mouth hung open.
'Come. I'll give you both an ice cream and you'll feel better,' Boris said, looking around the crowd for any sign of the policeman, but there was none. Boris led the mother and boy toward his stand, praying to the gods that didn't exist that he would never see the pale man again. And the gods that didn't exist granted the wish of Boris Manizer.
The trip to Dzerzhinsky Square in the KGB Volga took less than twenty minutes. Karpo sat silently next to one of the black-coated men while the other drove. They took the center lane, the lane of the privileged, straight down Mira Prospekt, around the square past the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, who, under Lenin himself, headed the Cheka, the forerunner of the KGB. The car pulled up smoothly in front of Lubyanka, a massive block-square mustard yellow building. Karpo did not glance at the white-curtained windows of Lubyanka nor at the shiny brass fittings on the door as he walked up the steps flanked by the two KGB men who had left their car at curb.
Lubyanka had begun life as a turn-of-the-century insurance office. It was converted under Lenin to a great prison and interrogation center and now it was the headquarters of the KGB.
An armed guard in uniform inside the door scanned the three men without moving his head. At a desk about twenty paces farther on, behind which stood a duplicate of the armed man at the door, a woman in a dark suit looked up, recognized the KGB men and nodded for them to pass. People, almost all men, passed them carrying folders, papers, notebooks, briefcases. Flanked by the two, Karpo walked quickly down a corridor, past a desk where a dark-suited man sat with yet another young, uniformed soldier behind him carrying a machine pistol at the ready. The trio turned right down another corridor and one of the black-coated men motioned for Karpo to halt at an unmarked door. The second KGB man remained behind Karpo. It was more a question of routine and procedure than any thought or fear that Karpo might run or go mad and violent. It did not matter who Karpo was. There was a way of bringing someone in and that way had to be followed or the consequences could be quite severe.
They entered the small reception area that looked more like a cell. There were wooden benches against the wooden walls. Four photographs of past Party heroes were on the walls, one on each. A photo of Lenin at his desk looking at the camera was slightly larger than the other three photographs.
One of the KGB men nodded at the bench. Karpo sat, back straight, eyes apparently focused on the wall ahead while the shorter KGB man stood near him and the other walked to the inner door and knocked gently.
'Pa-dazb-DEEk-tye, wait,' came a deep voice from within and the KGB man stepped back a bit too quickly as if the door upon which he had knocked were electrified.
They waited, one man standing over Karpo, the other pacing the room and occasionally glancing at Karpo or the door. The pacing man's face was square, solid, cold but beyond it Karpo, who never looked directly at him, could see the fringes of anxiety. The man wanted to get rid of his responsibility and be free of this cell of a reception room.
Five minutes, then ten passed with none of the three speaking. And then the inner door opened and a thin, balding bespectacled man of about forty, wearing a brown suit that looked almost like a uniform, stepped out and fixed Karpo with dark blue eyes. Karpo looked up and met his eyes. Karpo's eyes showed nothing.
'Out, both of you, now,' the man said.
Karpo's escorts moved to the door. They did their best to give the impression that they were in no hurry to leave, an impression that they failed to deliver.
When the two men were gone, the man motioned to Karpo to follow him. Emil Karpo rose and entered the inner office which continued the monastic motif of the outer office. There was an old, dark wooden desk containing nothing but a telephone, no carpeting on the clean but worn wooden floor and four wooden chairs, one behind the desk, three facing and opposite it. There was one white-curtained window and on the wall across from the desk, a painting of Lenin signing a document. Karpo felt quite comfortable in the room for it was not unlike the one in which he lived.
'Emil Karpo,' the man said. 'You may sit.'
'If you wish,' Karpo said watching the other man adjust his glasses and move around to his chair behind the desk. They stood looking at each other, both unblinking.
'I wish,' the man said, and Karpo sat in one of the wooden chairs. The man did not sit.
'I am Major Zhenya,' the man said.
Karpo nodded.
Zhenya opened the drawer in the desk without looking down and removed a thick file.
'This is your file, Inspector Karpo,' he said. 'It is a very interesting file. There are things in it which you might find surprising, not surprising in their existence, but surprising because we know them. Would you like some examples?'
'My wishes are clearly of no consequence,' Karpo answered, and Zhenya studied him for a sign of sarcasm but he could detect none for the simple reason that there was no sarcasm. Karpo had no use for sarcasm or imagination.
'You are a dedicated investigator,' Zhenya said without looking at the report, 'a good Party member. Recently, with your acquiescence, you were transferred from the Procurator's Office to the Office of Special Services of Colonel Snitkonoy in the MVD to work under Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov who has also recently been transferred, a definite demotion for both of you.'
He paused for response and Karpo met his eyes.
'I believed that my association with Inspector Rostnikov who was out of favor would hamper my continued services to the Procurator General,' he said. 'Therefore, when offered the opportunity to continue to serve under Inspector Rostnikov, even in a reduced capacity, I accepted.'
'I see,' said Zhenya glancing down at the folder. 'Are you a bit curious about why you are here?'
'No,' said Karpo.
Major Zhenya removed his glasses, cocked his head and looked at Karpo with disbelief but Karpo's dead eyes met his without flinching.
'Let us then try a few of those surprises,' said Zhenya. 'Twice a month, on a Wednesday, you have an assignation with a telephone operator and part-time prostitute named Mathilde Verson. Your next such assignation will be this coming week.'
'Prostitution has been eliminated from the Soviet Union,' said Karpo.
'You deny this assignation?' asked Zhenya.
'I quote official statements of the Office of the Premier,' said Karpo. 'That I meet this woman is true. That our meeting is intimate is also true. That it represents a weakness I also confirm. I find that I am not completely able to deny my animalism and that I can function, do the work of the State to which I have been assigned, with
