CHAPTER FOUR
Rostnikov finished his bench presses, fifteen with two hundred American pounds, and with a soft grunt let the weight back onto the two padded chairs just above his head. He sat up on the flat plastic coffee table with the steel legs that he used for his lifting and began to breathe deeply as he watched Sarah set the table.
There were many things Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov would have liked. He would have liked a real weight- lifting bench like the Americans made. He would have liked a small room where he could go to lift his weights instead of a corner of his living-dining room. He would have liked more room to store his weights instead of having to place them neatly inside the cabinet in the corner where the good dishes would be kept if he and Sarah had good dishes. He would have liked their son Josef back safely in Moscow or, at least, not in Afghanistan where he was now. And he would have liked to avoid telling Sarah about the trip to Siberia he would be taking the next morning.
He had come through the door that evening prepared with a vague excuse for being late and with an offering in his hand to make up for his tardiness. He had clutched a bag of garden vegetablesa squash, two onions, something that might be a cucumber. A nervous man with exceptionally bad teeth had set up one of those quick- moving folding stands outside the metro station to sell some of the vegetables. Rostnikov had the good fortune to be there when the man was setting up and was standing in the line that formed even before anyone knew what the man was selling. By the time Rostnikov had filled the little sack he kept in his coat pocket, the man was almost sold out, though the line still contained about twenty-five people.
Sarah had been late. Her latest job was in a small bookshop on Kacholav Street where, she said, she felt far more comfortable than she had working at the Melodiya Record Shop or for her cousin who sold pots and pans. Rostnikov did and did not believe her. In any case, the bookshop had been opened late to accommodate a special customer of high rank who wanted to pick up an American book.
Sarah had explained all this after she entered the apartment wearily and greeted Rostnikov who, at the moment, had been doing one-handed seventy-pound curls while seated on the edge of the bench.
Rostnikov had grunted as she took off her coat and he sensed her moving across the room toward him. She touched his head from behind with cool fingers and then moved toward the small kitchen into his line of vision. For an instant Rostnikov lost count of his repetitions. Sarah looked unusually tired and he sensed that something weighed upon her. Sarah was forty-six, solidly built, with a remarkably unlined face considering the life she had led. She wore round glasses. When she was listening carefully to what someone said, she would tilt her head down and look over the glasses. Her dark hair with highlights of red was naturally curly and she kept it cut short partly, he knew, because Rostnikov had frequently admired her neck.
She smiled back at him when she discovered the vegetables on the small table near the equally small refrigerator and then set to work on heating his chicken tabaka, which she had prepared and cooked the night before.
'Are you having more headaches?' Rostnikov said panting from the workout, wiping his face with the moist corner of his gray sweat shirt.
Sarah didn't answer at first. She only shrugged, and then she muttered, 'It comes. It goes. Nichevo. It's nothing.'
At that point, she smiled, looking at him over her glasses. In one hand she held a knife. In the other, the possible cucumber he had purchased. He thought she looked quite beautiful.
'You should talk to your cousin Alex, the doctor,' Rostnikov said, getting up slowly to keep his left leg from complaining.
'I'll call him tomorrow. You want to wash up? The chicken will be ready soon.'
He grunted and went through their small bedroom to the bathroom smelling both his own sweat and the aroma of chicken. The tiny bathroom was Rostnikov's triumph. He had learned to repair the frequently broken toilet himself knowing that the building superintendent, whose job it was, would never get it done. He had learned to fix the almost-as-frequently functionless shower. He had begun his amateur exploits as a plumber out of a determination to triumph over adversity, but he had discovered that he enjoyed reading about conduits and pipes and plunge valves, that he enjoyed identifying the problem, locating its origin and repairing it. A few of the neighbors had even learned to come to him, though it was quite illegal to bypass the People's plumber for the district and everyone knew that you could almost never get one of the assigned repairmen to the building and if you did you would have to pay a bribe of at least five rubles to get any decent work done, even though the repairs were supposed to be free. The neighbors figured that since Rostnikov was a policeman the normal rules of the Socialist Republic did not necessarily apply.
They had encountered the system often enough to know that this was generally true. And the nice thing about Rostnikov was that he did not expect a bribe. He even seemed to enjoy himself when fixing a toilet or a sink.
Sarah had suggested to him that plumbing repair was just another form of detection with different tools.
'Yes,' he had agreed, 'but toilets are much simpler. They may complain and talk back but they don't make you weep. And when you find out what is wrong, you fix it. It is simple lonely detection.'
She had understood. Sarah usually understood, Rostnikov thought as the cool water beat against his hairy chest. And he usually understood her. For months they had not spoken about leaving the country. He had tried, had even engaged in an attempt to blackmail the KGB, but he had failed and endangered both them and their son Josef. And so they had stopped speaking of leaving and Sarah had remained just as supporting and loving but her smile was not as ready, her step not as hopeful. And the headaches had come.
If Sarah were not Jewish, perhaps, she would not have thought, dreamed of leaving. It would not have entered her mind, but she was Jewish and their son Josef was, on his records, listed as being half Jewish and Rostnikov was identified as having a Jewish wife, all of which gave rise to the idea of leaving. Officially, the Soviet Union, whose Constitution, in Article 34, declares that all 'Citizens of the USSR are equal before the law without distinction of origin, social or property status, race or religion,' draws a distinction between Russians and Jews or Russians and other ethnic minorities. This distinction is made quite evident on the passports of Soviet citizens, and Jews are sometimes sneeringly called pyaty punkty, fifth pointers, because it is on the fifth line of the Soviet passport that nationality is indicated and the line on which a Jew is identified as being different from the rest of his countrymen.
Rostnikov turned slowly to let the water hit his lower back and then his leg. It would have felt better to have the water beat down, massage, but there was seldom enough water pressure for this to happen. Sometimes in the shower Rostnikov made a sound like singing or humming to tunes or near-tunes that ran through his head, but he did not feel like singing this night.
When he turned off the shower and stepped into the bedroom to dry himself, Rostnikov considered once again how best to tell Sarah about Siberia. It struck him, as it often did, that getting through life was a minefield and one did it successfully by constant worry or by developing a sense and sensitivity.
'Ready?' Sarah said calling to him.
'Coming,' he replied with a sigh as he finished putting on his pants and tucked in his white pullover shirt.
Sarah was seated. The pot was steaming in the center of the table as it rested on a block of wood. The salad stood next to his plate and there were glasses of red wine. He tasted his and smiled.
'Saperavi,' she said sipping from her own glass.
Like most Russian wines, Saperavi came from Georgia.
'You said you liked it,' Sarah said, taking the lid off the pot and pointing to it, indicating that Rostnikov should eat.
'I like it very much, but it costs…' he began as he reached forward to serve himself.
'A celebration,' Sarah interrupted.
'What are we celebrating?'
Sarah shrugged and looked at her plate.
'I don't know. Your favorite dish. Your favorite wine.'
'You know the story about my cousin Leonora,' he said after tasting the chicken and telling her it was
