if he were a prize she had captured in the park, her little Jew, the trophy. Guilt, relief, and excitement ran through him. As the Jew he pretended to be, he despised this woman. As the man he pretended to be, he needed her protection. And as Sasha Tkach, he felt the softness of her left breast against his arm through her dress.
'They were going to kill me,' said Elena Kusnitsov.
She was sitting in her kitchen chair, the same chair the man named Jerold had tied her to and from which the police had released her. When the tape had been removed, Elena Kusnitsov had tried to rise, but her left knee began to dance, and she had to sit down. It had continued to bounce up and down unbidden, as if hearing a tune the rest of Elena could not appreciate. She had tried to use her hands to stop the dance and had succeeded, at least for the moment.
It was bad enough to be frightened, to have to face killers, to have to sit here with this ghost of a policeman hovering over her, but to suffer the humiliation of this mad, frightened foot of hers was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
Elena did not want to cry, certainly not in front of this policeman, who stood there patiently waiting for his witness's leg to cease its spasms.
Elena, who was sixty-three, quite mistakenly prided herself on her ability to appear forty. She dyed her hair, watched her weight, wore clothes she believed were fashionable, and made up her face carefully each morning, after lunch, and immediately after coming home from her job at the Beriozka, the Birch Tree, dollar shop in the Metropole Hotel. She was a woman of culture who could sell American cigarettes or Russian vodka in three languages. She talked to important people from foreign countries every day. Wearing the very dress she was now wearing, she had spoken to Armand Hammer, the wealthiest American in the world.
This should not happen to her. She looked at her knee and felt her eyes fill with tears.
'I'm not doing this on purpose,' she explained.
'I know that,' said Emil Karpo. 'We can wait.'
Elena did not want to wait. She wanted this frightening creature out of her small apartment.
'When you go, I will close that window, the window through which the two had climbed. I will close it and nail it shut. Never rnind Popkinov. I don't care if he is the district maintenance officer, I don't care if he is a party member. I don't care if you are a party member,' she said, trying to sound defiant.
'I am a party member,' said Karpo.
' 'I don't care. Boris Yeltsin, our president, quit the party,'' Elena Kusnitsov said.
The knee. The damnable knee. When would it stop? When would he leave? The noise of ambulances, police cars, curious people outside looking at the body the policeman told her was there, those noises had not stopped. They came through the open window and contributed to both Elena's fear and defiance.
Karpo leaned over and reached down toward Elena with his left hand.
Elena released a tiny whimper and cringed, almost falling backward in her chair.
'No,' she said.
There was no point in Emil Karpo explaining that he simply wanted to reassure the woman, calm her down so that he could get information from her. Rostnikov would have had her quiet long ago, would have had her eager to cooperate, but Rostnikov was not here, and Karpo had a criminal to pursue.
Elena's knee had stopped dancing. She smiled up at Karpo, her makeup a smear, her hair wild, and then the tears came.
Karpo waited patiently while she sobbed.
'Ask,' she said through her tears.
'I can wait,' said Karpo.
'I want to answer, and I want you to leave,' Elena said through her sobs. 'My father was construction foreman on the Moskva Swimming Pool. This should not happen to me.'
'Did the two men speak?' Karpo asked, taking out his notebook.
'Yes,' she said, brushing back her hair with her right hand. 'I look terrible.'
'What did they say?'
'They didn't know I understood them,' said Elena. 'I speak three languages in addition to Russian.'
She looked up at Karpo to see if he would challenge her.
'What language did they speak?' ' 'English,'' she said. ' 'The young one with the orange hair spoke very bad English. The other one, the older one with a beard, he was American.'
'What did they say?'
'Nonsense, they said. They are crazy people. Crazy people speak nonsense. The one with orange hair put his face right in front of mine. He wanted to kill me.
He told the other one to get him a Madonna.'
'What else?' asked Karpo.
'Jerold,' she said. 'The American one with the beard was Jerold.'
Karpo didn't bother to say,' 'What else?'' He simply stood, pen poised, and waited while Elena wiped her eyes with the back of her left hand and looked around.
'Thursday,' she said. 'The American one, Jerold, told the other one to take it easy, that he had to be ready for Thursday. And the one with the orange spikes said he would be ready. That Walther would be ready.'' 'Walther?' asked Karpo.
'Yes. You know who Walther is?' she asked.
'Walther is a gun,' Emil Karpo said.
The door to Elena Kusnitsov's apartment suddenly burst open. She screamed, and her knee began to dance again. A young man in a brown policeman's uniform, carrying a black weapon that he held in two hands, entered.
'What are you doing?' she screamed. 'This is my apartment. It may not be much, but it is mine. Just because two lunatics broke in doesn't give everyone the right to break in.'
The young policeman looked at Karpo, who gave him no help, and then at the woman.
'I'm sorry,' he said.
'I've been violated.' she screamed.
The young policeman took a step backward.
'What is it?' Karpo asked the young man.
'You are to report to Colonel Snitkonoy at Petrovka immediately, Comrade Inspector,'' the policeman said.
'Violated,' Elena repeated.
The policeman backed out of the room quickly and disappeared. Karpo tore a sheet from his notebook and handed it to Elena Kusnitsov, who took it carefully, as if it were extended bait and he might suddenly reach out and grab her.
'It's the name of a lock for your door and window,' he said, putting his notebook away. 'I've written where you can buy them and the name of a woman who will install them for you. No one will be able to pick or break the locks.'
Karpo didn't add that a determined assailant could break down the door or smash the window. The lock could not keep someone out, but the need to make noise might be sufficient to make a burglar consider another door.
'Thank you,' Elena said, carefully placing the sheet of paper in her lap as if it were a fragile wineglass.
'A policeman will remain in the building all night,' he said. 'The two men will not be coming back.'
'But others might,' she added quickly.
'Statistics do not support that likelihood,' he answered, moving toward the door.
'But they exist,' she said triumphantly.
'They exist,' he admitted, and went into the hall.
FIVE
'We can go to your apartment if you prefer,' Tamara whispered, holding Sasha's arm tightly as they went up
