'Yes,' said Rostnikov. 'Thank you.'
Rostnikov broke his routine. He returned to the hotel, informed Sarah of Vasilievich's death, and with Sarah went down to the lobby to call the local MVD office. He identified himself to the woman who answered, and she confirmed that Georgi Vasilievich was dead and that his body lay in the Dysanskay Sanitarium.
Anton appeared. 'You're back early,' he said. 'I saw you come back. Is everything well? Do you want early lunch?'
The Lermontov lobby was small, dark, and, at this hour, almost empty except for a trio huddled in conversation around a small table near the window, the clerk behind the desk, and an odd duo-a huge, formidable- looking bear of a man and a small, nervous man with a dancing eye-in a far corner. The man with the dancing eye seemed to be looking at Rostnikov.
'Would you like early lunch?' Anton repeated.
Rostnikov did not answer.
'What is being served?' Sarah asked.
'Sour cabbage in vinegar and oil, veal loaf, and sugared apples.'
'No, thank you,' said Sarah.
Anton looked as if he were about to try again, but Rostnikov's vacant look stopped him.
'We'll go to the clinic early today,' Rostnikov said softly.
'Yes,' said Sarah, taking his arm. She looked at the mildly bewildered Anton and said, 'Someone my husband knew for many years died.'
Anton nodded.
Sarah looked pale. It was not that she or Porfiry Petrovich had any great affection for Vasilievich. Rostnikov knew that Vasilievich was not an easy man to like, and Sarah had been careful to say that Vasilievich was not a friend, but 'someone my husband knew.' Nonetheless, Vasilievich had been with them, alive the day before, and her recent operation reminded her that life was fragile and death always nearby.
'I'll get my things,' Sarah said.
'A sandwich to take with you?' Anton offered. 'Or a vobla, a dried fish, to nibble on the way?'
'Are you like this with everyone?' asked Rostnikov.
'Like what?' Anton asked, mopping up crumbs with his hand from a small white wooden table nearby.
Rostnikov didn't answer. His eyes held those of the waiter.
'You are a policeman,' Anton said. 'Policemen are to be respected. We get many of them here. And it is my honor, as it was my father's before me, and my grandfather's, to be assigned to those of rank.'
'I am not Chekhov,' said Rostnikov.
'And,' Anton said, standing, with no trace of irony, 'I am not my grandfather.'
Rostnikov nodded in agreement, and Anton departed, cradling in his cupped hand the table crumbs, which he bore like a delicate prize.
The Oreanda sanitarium was not far, but it was too far from the Lermontov Hotel for Sarah and Rostnikov to walk. There was a bus that made the rounds of the hotels and brought outpatients to the sanitarium twice each day. Normally, they took the late-afternoon bus. Today they managed to catch the morning bus, which was only ninety minutes late instead of the usual two and a half hours. They rode in bumpy silence, very much aware of other passengers: the silent ones, who looked out the window, pretending they had hope for their ailments; the resolute ones, with hope, who read books or let their eyes make contact with others.
'We should visit Alupka,' Sarah said, touching her husband's hand.
'We should,' he agreed, turning to her, intending to smile, but the smile was lost in a thought.
They said nothing more. When they reached the sanitarium, Rostnikov, as he always did, escorted her to the radiology section. He was about to take a seat next to her when she said, 'Go. I'll meet you back here. I have a book.'
She held up the book of poetry she had been carrying for weeks. The book was large, old, and tattered, with a red leatherlike cover. It had been a favorite book of Sarah's mother. Rostnikov knew that his wife had barely read it, that though she had been an insatiable reader before her surgery, it was almost impossible for her to read now, but the history,
weight, and even the smell of the book gave her the comfort a child's doll or stuffed bear would give.
They were more than thirty years beyond the routine of his refusing to leave and her persuading him. He nodded, looked around at the other patients who were waiting, and left, trying to minimize his limp. For reasons that he did not wish to explore, Porfiry Petrovich did not want his limp to suggest that he was a patient.
He found Dr. Vostov at the swimming pool. He was sitting on a white-enameled chair, under a broad red- and-white umbrella on a stand, supervising therapy for an ancient quartet in the shallow water. Vostov, a round man of average height, with very curly black hair peppered with gray, was wearing sunglasses, which he had to lift up constantly because he was taking notes. Between notes, he watched a burly woman therapist in the water take the quartet through their routine.
'Dr. Vostov?' Rostnikov asked.
Vostov, absorbed in his work, looked up, surprised. His skin, Rostnikov could now see, was pale.
'I am Inspector Rostnikov, MVD.'
Vostov seemed unsure about whether or not to rise. He started up and then changed his mind, lifting his sunglasses to take a look at the policeman.
'I'm supervising,' Vostov said quite apologetically. 'Would you like to sit while…?'
'It is a bit difficult for me to get up and down,'' Rostnikov said. 'Old injury.
I would prefer for the moment to stand.'
'You are a patient here?'
'No, my wife. Georgi Vasilievich was a… a colleague.'
'Ah,' said Vostov. 'I see. Yes, I remember. He was some sort of government-'
And then to the therapist in the water: 'Work the legs, Ludmilla, the legs. Two more minutes.'
His attention returned to Rostnikov, who stood patiently.
'Seawaterinthepool,' whispered Vostov. 'Buoyant, curative. Seawater and very little sunshine. They come for the sun and sea air.
They're half right. The sun will kill them. Show me a pale man or woman and I'll show you a potentially healthy person.'
'Interesting theory,' said Rostnikov. 'Vasilievich's body. I would like to see it.'
Vostov looked bewildered. He rose, tucking his notebook into a pocket of the white hospital jacket he wore open over a rumpled suit.
'I don't know if it is still here,' said Vostov. 'They called and said they would like to pick it up this afternoon.'
'They?' asked Rostnikov.
'Family,' said Vostov. 'At least I think so. I didn't talk to them.'
'Let's look at the body,' said Rostnikov.
'Two full minutes more, Ludmilla,' Vostov called back as he moved away from the pool.
Ludmilla didn't bother to nod or answer.
Georgi Vasilievich's was not the only body in the cool white room.
'There are three others,' Vostov whispered, moving past two waist-high carts on which bodies lay covered with sheets. 'Sometimes there are none. Sometimes… you know. Old people, sick people.'
'Yes,' Rostnikov whispered as they approached the third cart.
Each morgue had its own rules, Rostnikov knew. Hospital rooms of death were equally divided between those in which you were expected to whisper and those in which you were not.
'Here,' said Vostov, stopping in front of the third cart and pulling back the sheet.
Vasilievich was smiling. Rostnikov had seen many corpses, knew the rictus of death. This was not such a smile.
'Heart,' said Vostov quietly. 'Not fully unexpected.'
Rostnikov pulled back the sheet, keeping Vasilievich's lower half covered. Vasilievich was a very hairy man. Vostov stood silently, sunglasses now in his breast pocket, while the policeman examined the hands of the corpse, turning them over.
