the screaming women on either side of her, the white-masked, white-gowned, white-capped quartet of doctors and nurses who helped her, and she remembered the pain. There was no anesthetic. Though the Lamaze method was developed largely through Soviet research, there was no encouragement to practice natural childbirth methods that might lessen pain. Pain was assumed to be a natural part of bearing a child. Pain, the doctor at the clinic had told her, was a reminder of the cost and responsibility of bearing a child. It was not supposed to be easy.
After the birth the baby had been kept from Maya for more than a full day to avoid infection. And though there was nothing wrong with mother or child, Sasha had been unable to see them for ten days. That, too, to avoid infection.
Sasha lay with his eyes closed, trying to remember the time he had seen on his watch. The watch was notoriously unreliable, a recent replacement for the pocket watch he had inherited from his father. The new watch was Romanian and tended to lose a minute every few days.
The baby was cooing now, and Maya was whispering, 'Krasee' v/iy doch, beautiful daughter.'
In another hour Sasha would have to get up, get dressed like a student, and hurry to a bookstall near Moscow State University that was reported to be a contact for the illegal sale of videotapes and videotape players. Sasha was a junior investigator in the Office of the Procurator General. He looked far younger than his twenty-nine years and was frequently used in undercover operations because of the innocence of his features. He looked nothing like a policeman. He also knew, and didn't like, the fact that among the investigators at Petrovka he had earned a nickname: the Innocent. Still, it was better to have a nickname, a reputation, a future, than to be where Rostnikov was nowdemoted, for some reason, and under the eye of the Gray Wolfhound.
When next he opened his eyes, Sasha would get up quietly, check on the baby, brush his teeth in the tiny bathroom that had no bath and a shower that infrequently worked, shave, dress, and grab a slice of bread and a drink of cool tea from the bottle in the small refrigerator. Then he would walk to the metro and head for the bookstall, where he would pretend to be a student wanting to buy a foreign videotape machine. His reports, which up to now had had little of substance in them, were not only being reviewed by Khabolov, the assistant procurator, butbecause of the economic implications of the case, Sasha Tkach was surewere also being examined by someone in the KGB. No one had told him this, but because the black market was involved it was obvious, and Khabolov's special interest in the case had made it clear that there was an urgency involved that was encountered only when pressure was being put on the assistant procurator.
Sasha felt Maya get back into the bed, cover herself with the thin sheet, and move close to him. The' baby was quiet. Somewhere far away through the open window a drunken voice laughed once and then was silent. Sasha reached over and put his arm around his wife. She moved his hand to her belly and for a moment there was a soft silence. But only for a moment. The door to Lydia's small bedroom shot open and Sasha's mother's voice squealed out in exasperation.
'Can't the two of you hear the baby crying?' With that, of course, Pulcharia woke up again and began to cry.
'Details, routine, vigilance,' the Gray Wolfhound announced, holding up one finger of his slender hand to emphasize each word.
Two men sitting at the table in the meeting room at the Petrovka Station looked up at Colonel Snitkonoy and nodded in agreement. The third man, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, was barely aware of the words at all. He was aware of the standing colonel,the tall, slender man with the distinguished gray temples whose brown uniform was perfectly pressed, whose three ribbons of honor, neatly aligned on his chest, were just right in both color and number. The colonel was impressive. And that, indeed, was his primary function: to impress visitors and underlings; to stride, hands clasped behind his back like a czarist general deep in thought about an impending battle. So successful was the Gray Wolfhound at his role that it was rumored that a Bulgarian journalist had returned to Sofia and written a novel with Snitkonoy as the very evident model for his heroic policeman hero.
'Your thoughts, Comrades,' Snitkonoy said, waving his hand before again clasping it behind his back. He was the only one standing, poised in front of a blackboard on which he had occasionally been known to make lists and to write words that he wanted those with whom he met to remember.
Two of the men at the table looked at each other to determine which of them might have a thought. They ignored Rostnikov, who doodled on the pad in front of him.
One of the men at the table was the Gray Wolfhound's assistant, Pankov, a near-dwarf of a man with thinning hair who was widely believed to hold his job because he made such a perfect contrast to the colonel. Pankov was a perspirer, always uncertain. His clothes were perpetually rumpled, his few strands of hair unwilling to lie in peace against his scalp. When he stood, Pankov came up to the Wolfhound's chest. In appreciation of Pankov's flattering inadequacy, the colonel never failed to treat his assistant with patronizing respect.
Opposite Pankov sat the uniformed Major Grigorovich, a solid, ambitious block of a man in his early forties who saw himself as the eventual heir to the Wolfhound and took pride in his ability to keep Snitkonoy from feeling threatened while making clear to his colleagues that he, Major Andrei Grigorovich, was no fool. On his second day with the Wolfhound, Rostnikov had commented to his wife, Sarah, that Grigorovich looked a bit like a slightly overweight version of the British actor Albert Finney. Occasionally during these briefing sessions, Rostnikov would draw little caricatures of Grigorovich, Pankov, Snitkonoy, or one of the others who sometimes joined them to give reports.
It was believed among all who attended the sessions that the Washtub, Rostnikov, was taking detailed notes on everything everyone said. Rostnikov's reputation as a criminal investigator added an air of intimidation to the morning meetings, and much speculation existed over why he had been assigned to basic criminal investigation. Pankov, who shared his views with everyone who would listen, was convinced that Rostnikov was there to evaluate the Gray Wolfhound. Pankov knew that if the Wolfhound fell, so would he. Therefore, Pankov was ever alert to undermine suggestions Rostnikov. might make, while at the same time trying to keep Rostnikov from knowing what he was doing because Rostnikov might well later hurt those who had given him trouble. This difficult position resulted in Pankov's seldom speaking at the meetings for fear of offending anyone. Grigorovich was convinced that Rostnikov was being considered to replace the Wolfhound, or at least to be tested against Grigorovich to determine which man should, either soon or in the distant future, move up a notch.
Snitkonoy, on the other hand, simply assumed that Rostnikov had been assigned to him so that he, Rostnikov, could learn the nuances of leadership that he lacked so he could return to the Procurator's Office at some point in the future with a new sense of purpose and the inspiration provided by his association with Snitkonoy.
And that was the situation that prevailed in the room when the three men at the table were asked for their thoughts. It was evident to all of them that their real thoughts were the last things they would give in this room. It was also evident to Rostnikov that none of them had really been paying attention to the Wolfhound.
'We must continue to tighten up on our efficiency,' Pankov said, taking the easy, abstract route and pounding his small fist into his palm for emphasis.
'Yes,' said the Gray Wolfhound with tolerance but no enthusiasm. 'Major?'
'We must have an adequate termination of a greater percentage of our cases, our responsibilities,' said Grigorovich, looking at Rostnikov, who continued to frown at the pad of paper on which he was doodling.
'Paperwork, evidence, must be more complete, investigations better documented, before we turn each case over to the Procurator's Office for prosecution or further investigation,' Grigorovich went on.
'Yes,' Pankov agreed.
'Comrade Inspector,' the Wolfhound said, snapping the pointing finger of his right hand at Rostnikov. 'Your views? You have had time to gather your thoughts. Perhaps your delay this morning was due to your diligence in preparing for this meeting?'
'This morning,' said Rostnikov slowly, his eyes coming up from the poor copy of Gogol's statue he was working on, 'a man leaped to his death from the new Gogol statue.'
The silence was long as they waited for Rostnikov to continue. Outside and below them, in the police-dog compound, a German shepherd began to bark and then suddenly went quiet. When it became evident that Rostnikov had no thoughts of continuing, Snitkonoy prodded as he stepped back and tilted his head.
'And the point of this, Comrade Inspector?'
Grigorovich and Pankov turned their eyes to Rostnikov, who sighed, shrugged, and looked up.
'I wondered what would so frighten a man that he would do a thing like that,' Rostnikov mused. 'Leap headfirst to the pavement. Crush his skull like an overripe tomato.'
