'We've got to clean up,' she said with one hand on her hip and the other using her broom to point to the rows of stands.
Rostnikov shifted slightly to remove his identity card. He held it up to the woman without looking at her. The other cleaning woman, a shorter version of the leader, leaned forward to look at the card.
'We'll clean around him,' the older woman announced, and they went about their business. In less than twenty minutes the women had finished their cleaning act and exited as they had come. Some of the women turned their heads to look at the bulky man sitting alone in the arena. The older babushka who had seen his identification card spoke to a woman at her side as they departed, and more heads turned to look at him. Then they were gone and all that remained was the overhead humming of the lights. Suddenly the lights began to click off. There was a pattern. The lights behind Rostnikov went off first and then, like a row of dominoes, the other lights clicked off in a wave until the only illumination in the circus arena came from a quartet of night lights mounted on the floor. They cast a dull glow in the circle in front of Rostnikov as if waiting for a final, ghostly performance.
And still Rostnikov sat. He thought, after another five minutes or so, that he heard something in the darkness beyond the lights. The direction was uncertain. He sat almost certain that he was now being watched. He wanted to shift his leg to keep it from going stiff but he did not move. Another sound. In front? Above?
'The next performance isn't until tomorrow.' Mazaraki's voice came from the darkness.
Rostnikov said nothing, did not try to find the man behind the voice.
Mazaraki laughed. The laughter echoed in the dark circle of the arena like the screams of a dozen madmen.
'You are in my world, policeman,' Mazaraki said. Rostnikov thought the voice had moved. Yes, to the right in front of him and possibly above. No, definitely above.
'I am going to guess something, policeman. I'm going to guess that you have told no one else what you suspect. Am I right? I'm right. And now, policeman, you are trapped in the light like a fish in a tank.'
Rostnikov was certain now where the voice was coming from. He turned his head upward and fixed his eyes directly on the point in the shadows where Mazaraki must be standing. 'It is you who stand naked in the light, Dimitri Mazaraki.'
From the darkness came the shuffling, slipping sound of Mazaraki taking a step backward.
Rostnikov stood up then and walked down two steps, ignoring the electric tingling in his leg. He walked to the center of the circle and beyond. Above him Mazaraki scrambled heavily, his footsteps echoing on metal. Rostnikov reached the far side of the circle and moved to one of the four lights that were fixed on the center of the arena. He reached down and with both hands pulled the metal light fixture. It was reluctant to move, but he forced it upward, upward. It was like a cannonball, a single a dumbbell heavier than any he had attempted before. It fought him for seconds and then gave up.
Above him Mazaraki continued to scramble. Rostnikov turned in front of the beam and looked upward. His own huge shadow was cast over the seatsa faint, broad shadowand just above the head of the shadow the faint light found Mazaraki, one foot on the rope ladder leading down from the high wire. Mazaraki, still clad in his red suit, looked down over his shoulder. His hat slipped from his head and floated like a bird in slow motion downward toward Rostnikov, who watched it land, bounce, roll in a circle, and stop.
'I'm coming, policeman,' Mazaraki said.
'I'm here,' replied Rostnikov as Mazaraki climbed down in the shadow of the policeman.
Mazaraki came steadily, without panting, without effort. Rostnikov was fascinated by the grace of the huge body and the pose the man in red took when he reached the ground. Mazaraki stood for an instant with his hands on his hips. There was a smile below his mustache. He took a dozen steps forward and beckoned for Rostnikov to meet him. Rostnikov made no reply in word or movement. His gray shadow now covered the hatless announcer, who took the final ten steps and stood in front of Rostnikov. Mazaraki was at least six inches taller. The big man's right hand came out and grasped Rostnikov's left arm above the elbow. The wool of the gray sweater scratched Rostnikov's arm. The eyes of the two men met, and Rostnikov reached over with his right hand, got a firm grip on Mazaraki's thick, hairy wrist, and began to squeeze slowly.
'The game will soon end,' whispered Mazaraki. 'Your moment in the ring will be over. I will crush your head and throw your body in the park.'
The smile on Mazaraki's face was fixed, his teeth remarkably white and even, the teeth of a performer, but beads of sweat were forming on the big man's brow and his cheeks. Rostnikov's left arm was beginning to go numb where Mazaraki squeezed. The light Rostnikov had turned upward now hit the big man's face, casting the upward shadows Josef used to make with a lamp: the scary face, the dark eye sockets, the black mouth.
And then Mazaraki's dark smile contorted suddenly. He gasped, let go of Rostnikov's arm, and tried to pull his hand back, but Rostnikov didn't let it go. Mazaraki struggled to free himself, jerked back to make the smaller man release him, but Rostnikov didn't budge. His grip was like a metal spring trap on Mazaraki's wrist. Mazaraki lashed out with his left fist, a thundering hammer of a blow. Rostnikov stepped forward, leaned over, and rammed his head into Mazaraki's exposed stomach just below the blow, which barely touched the top of Rostnikov's head.
A wooof sound escaped from Mazaraki, and Rostnikov released his wrist. The announcer hi red fell on his rear into the center of the circle. He writhed on the ground, got to his knees holding his stomach, groaned, and slowly stood.
'I'm not going to jail,' Mazaraki shouted defiantly, one hand on his stomach.
'I'm not taking you to jail,' Rostnikov replied.
Mazaraki's new mask was one of puzzlement.
'You lie.' He laughed, and his laughter once again echoed through the arena.
'Why would I lie?' Rostnikov said.
'I killed Pesknoko,' Mazaraki said. 'And Duznetzov.
He killed himself because he was afraid, afraid of what would be done to him because he was weak, because he might talk. Do you know what he might talk about?'
'You were smuggling people across the borders to the West,' Rostnikov said as Mazaraki tried to straighten up, pull himself together for another frantic attack.
'Yes, but how did you…?' Mazaraki said, and then got an idea. He looked up at Rostnikov with a new understanding. 'Yes,' he said again, 'I see. You're not going to put me in jail. You haven't told anyone. You want me to get you out. You, and some family members. A wife? Daughter? Huh? Ha. Now it is clear.'
Rostnikov said nothing. He held his ground. But something had hit him low in the stomach. The voice of a warlock was speaking to him.
'It can be done,' Mazaraki said in a whisper of conspiracy that would have been heard by anyone who happened to be in the darkness of the arena. 'You take a vacation, say you are going to the mountains or Yalta, but you come with the troupe. We are about to go on tour. You come with the group to Lithuania. I have false papers so you can even cross the border into Poland. And in Poland I know people who can get you into Germany, West Germany. It can be done, policeman. I've done it dozens of times.'
Nausea. Rostnikov felt nausea as he imagined for an instant himself, Sarah, Josef, each carrying a suitcase, climbing into a car with someone who spoke with a Polish accent.
'Katya Rashkovskaya,' Rostnikov said, to pull himself away from the temptation of the image. 'You tried to kill her.'
'Of course,' said Mazaraki through clenched teem, fighting off the last of the first shock of pain. 'If I don't kill her, she will kill me.'
'Kill you?' Rostnikov said as Mazaraki stood almost upright.
'Whose idea do you think all of this was?' Mazaraki said with a shake of his head. 'I never thought about smuggling people, doing anything but some black marketing of a few radios from France. It was her idea when they joined the circus. She kept Pesknoko in line, Duznetzov. And then when Duznetzov weakened and said he could take no more she got me to threaten him. She decided that we had to get rid of Pesknoko. Then, only then, did I realize that she would have to kill me, have to get rid of me, or I might drag her down if I got caught. Don't you see? Don't you understand?'
'It makes' Rostnikov began.
But Mazaraki hulked forward and cut in, 'I only tried to kill her to protect myself. You are a joke, policeman. You've done all this to protect the woman but she is the one you want. You are a joke but we can turn the joke. We can both get her and I can get you and your family into the West. You're thinking about it.'
