'At least,' said Zhenya, 'you would not have done so before the dismantling of the Soviet Union, which is now underway.'
'I should not do so now,'' said Rostnikov.' 'But I am tired.''
Emil Karpo stood silently, listening.
Zhenya looked at him and said, 'Congratulations, Inspector Karpo,' he said. 'I understand you are a hero. You participated in thwarting the assassination of our president. Only a minor official of no consequence was wounded.'
There was no irony to be detected in the colonel's words.
'Thank you,' said Karpo.
'And you, Rostnikov, you are a hero, too, a silent hero, a hero behind the scenes,' Zhenya said, suddenly abandoning the ring he had been playing with and moving to the rail. 'You prevented a conspiracy to end the leaders of the reform. You should be very proud of yourself.'
'I simply forwarded information to my superior,' said Rostnikov, deciding to suffer the cramping agony in his leg rather than stand and show Colonel Zhenya that he was nervous or, worse, rising to challenge him.
Zhenya leaned on the rail. Beyond him, on the shore, Rostnikov could see the diving boards of the Moskva Swimming Pool. A man on the top board leaped off gracelessly. Zhenya turned and looked back at the two men.
'I see a question in your eyes, Rostnikov,' he said. 'Do you wish to ask it?''
Rostnikov said nothing, and Emil Karpo stood motionless.
' 'You want to know why I am here. You expected me, but you did not know why I would come. You were disturbed by what has happened, but you did not know quite what to conclude. I will enlighten you, Rostnikov. I will enlighten you because you have once again been used. I will enlighten you because I want you to know that you have been used.' ' 'I appreciate that you would not be here if you did not intend to enlighten me,' said Rostnikov.
'I did not order Georgi Vasilievich murdered,' Zhenya said. 'If I had, I would tell you now, for there is nothing you could do about it. That murder was ordered by the man who organized the conspiracy, which you and Karpo thwarted with the help of one of my men.'' 'Misha Ivanov is one of your men,' said Rostnikov.
'Yes,' said Zhenya. 'The notebook that you brought to Colonel Snitkonoy was a fake. Misha Ivanov planted it for you to find. Vasilievich's notebook, which was full of nonsense and would have led you in the wrong direction, was destroyed.
You are wondering two things at this moment.
First, given my own lack of sympathy for the current reforms, why did I not let the conspiracy take place and simply benefit from it? Second, if I did not want the conspiracy to take place, why did I not simply reveal it myself and take credit? I need not hide from you that I have ambitions, that I wish to serve the Revolution and not participate in its destruction. Have you figured out where we are going with this yet, Inspector?'
Rostnikov could stand it no longer. He raised himself from the chair and leaned forward with both hands on the horizontal pipe before him to keep from falling.
Rostnikov had figured it out, but it might well be essential to his survival to allow Colonel Zhenya to outwit him. Rostnikov resisted the urge to look at Karpo.
'I am in your hands, Colonel,' Porfiry Petrovich said.
'The conspiracy the two of you helped to thwart was not aimed at Gorbachev and the reformers,' said Zhenya. 'It was aimed at the true patriots, the old guard and those of us who support the Revolution. It was not the Stalinists who planned to kill but the reformers who plotted to end opposition, to kill the Stalinists. Rostnikov, I was certainly one of the intended victims. The idea was to blame the entire operation on the CIA, Americans who wanted to keep Gorbachev in power. I needed honest policemen like you to step in. It is quite possible that you have now earned the enmity of the very people you thought you were saving from death. Now that is irony, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. As a Russian, you should appreciate that. Now you may smile. Karpo, you have a question.'
'Alexandrov,' Karpo said so quietly that the word was almost obscured by the purring engine of the ship.
'Jerold,' corrected Zhenya. 'He was part of the conspiracy. He had several options. If Krivonos had succeeded, Alexandrov would have escaped and left him to his fate, assuming that Krivonos, if he survived, would identify an American as the man who had hired him to do the deed. If Krivonos failed, as he did, Alexandrov would kill him, as he did, and emerge a hero. See how honest I am being with the two of you?''
Rostnikov allowed himself a glance at Karpo, whose attention was riveted on the colonel.
'You have helped our cause, the true cause of the Revolution, to survive to do battle another day,' said Zhenya. 'Inspector Karpo, you, as a zealous and loyal member of the party, might, I would think, be content with this outcome that holds open hope of maintaining the old order.'' 'Within the old society the elements of a new one have been created,' said Karpo. 'The dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.'
Zhenya shook his head.
' 'You are becoming a reformer, one of them, Inspector Karpo,' he said.
'Those were not my words, Colonel,' said Karpo. 'They were written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They are part of the Communist Manifesto.'
Colonel Zhenya looked first at the man known as the Washtub, who was trying to hide his pain, and then at the cadaverous creature who stood beside him and wondered how much naivete could survive. It had been foolish to seek them out, to savor his victory. It had been self-indulgent, a mistake he would never make again. Without another word, Colonel Zhenya walked to the front of the boat and lost himself in the crowd.
'Well, Emil Karpo. What do you think?'
'I do not think, Inspector Rostnikov. I enforce the law.'
'And I, Emil Karpo, think too much. We are cursed by a disease of opposites. It may account for our compatibility.'' 'I was not aware that you considered us to be compatible,' said Karpo as Rostnikov moved slightly to his right, urging feeling and circulation back into his leg. He checked his watch. There was still an hour to go on the ride.
FOURTEEN
On a spring evening, a very few months ago, three policemen, two in Moscow and one in Livadia, less than two miles from Yalta, were out walking at the same precise moment.
Before the night was over, one of the men would be laughing, one would be crying, and the third would be showing no emotion whatsoever.
This was not, Emil Karpo was sure, the ultimate solution to his increasingly frequent moments of uncertainty. He walked because he did not wish to be close to people on the Metro or a bus. He did not wish to be reminded of his own existence, did not wish to hear people talk of what had happened the day before.
He walked knowing that when he reached his destination he would have respite from the memory of Colonel Zhenya.
Karpo had become a policeman because it was at once the easiest and most difficult thing he could do. It was easy because he felt confident that the law was, basically, simple and direct, and the philosophy behind it was evident.
Crime was crime. The goal of the Soviet state was the total success of the Revolution. That which prevented the success of the Revolution was politically wrong. Murder, rape, robbery, fraud, corruption, those were easy, those were clearly counterrevolutionary. Crime was a rejection of the goals of the state, roadblocks, setbacks. He looked at himself, as Porfiry Petrovich had once said, as a determined tractor whose function was to remove an endless line of fallen logs along the road of the tank of Revolution.
It was the responsibility of the leaders of the party to set the policy of the Revolution in light of internal and external events. But now the party was not in command; the law was being interpreted by suntanned men who wished to be exactly like those against whom they had for so long struggled. What was the meaning of their life?
