stay far behind and keep your eye on me, I can stay close.”
Trailing behind her, Vidot carefully kept his distance, subtly gesturing back to Bemm, who was more than a block behind, to keep a proper length away. This proved to be wise since the old woman stopped and looked around every so often. Vidot could not tell if she was being careful or simply trying to get her bearings. He was not particularly concerned; after years of experience he knew how to follow a suspect unobserved, and with the streets bustling with midday shoppers, the officers had no trouble staying on her trail.
To Vidot, she seemed painfully old. Watching her swollen varicose legs work their way down the lane, Vidot sensed the ache of every step. As he slowly followed her through the maze of cobblestone streets—pausing occasionally to window-shop whenever she glanced around—Vidot found himself preoccupied with thoughts on the expansive arc of life, how slowly old age stretches out long after youth has flown by, and how, he thought as he watched her make her way, the nomadic people of earlier times must have built those first simple towns and villages for no other reason than to give their own ancient mothers and fathers a place to sit down and rest. Vidot dreaded the thought of aging, his own father had died relatively young, in his early fifties. But his mother was nearing ninety now and was cared for at home by a private nurse. Of course Vidot was glad she was still alive, not only because he loved her, but also because, after his father passed away, she had actually grown noticeably kinder, even gay. Every afternoon in her sun room, the nurse would play old phonograph records while his mother happily waltzed with invisible partners. Perhaps she danced with the memory of his father, Vidot imagined, or maybe lost suitors recalled from another age.
Following behind this tired creature now, Vidot had a feeling those legs of hers could never dance, let alone carry her another block, and, sure enough, she turned off into a small dead-end lane. Vidot peeked around the corner and saw her disappear down into a basement apartment.
Bemm caught up with him moments later. “Come,” Vidot said, “let us see what our new friend has to say.”
The old woman did not look surprised when she answered their knock at her door, and her eyes showed little concern or interest as they introduced themselves. Vidot felt as though they could have been electricians or plumbers she had been expecting. “Fine, yes, hello, come in,” she said, shutting the door tightly behind them.
Vidot was immediately intrigued by the contents of the small, packed apartment. The light streaming in was tinted yellow and the air was heavy and mote-laden. Every nook was stuffed and filled. Stacks of books labeled in Cyrillic script were packed and shoved roughly into the uneven shelves, and more were piled crookedly in the corners, all topped and lined with tied bundles of dried herbs, jars of pickled roots, and bole-colored soils. Small growths of mushrooms cropped from mildewed cracks in the windowsill, and as Vidot peered into an open copper pot, he saw tiny orange minnow creatures swimming about in a brackish brown-and-mustard-colored liquid. The creatures seemed to glow.
“Bah, don’t touch that pot. That’s dinner,” the old woman said, trundling off into her kitchen. “I was about to put a kettle on, would you like tea? Who did you say you are again?”
“I am Inspector Vidot and this is my colleague, Officer Bemm,” he said, now trying to decipher the titles of the books on the shelves. “We have a few questions regarding the clock you offered the shopowner down the street.”
“Mmmn,” she said. “Did you say you want tea or no?”
“We do not need anything to drink, madame, but thank you for your kind offer.”
Vidot and Bemm listened to the banging about of cabinets, dishes, and pots before the old woman emerged again from the kitchen. Now clutching a steaming mug, she brushed by them and sat herself down on a threadbare upholstered chair in the corner. “The clock? The clock? Mmmn. Oh, yes, that clock”—she shook her head with a scowl—“a girl gave it to me yesterday.”
“May we ask who this girl is?”
“A girl, she is a girl, she is trouble, she is bad news. Her name is Zoya Fominitchna Polyakov. She was moving, leaving town, and she did not need the clock. I certainly did not want it either, look at this stupid place. Where would I put such a pretty thing?” She kicked the beat-up ottoman in front of her. “No room. Nothing pretty here. Ha. Plus, at my age, staring at a clock is worse than a dagger in the eye. It’s like kissing the enemy. Ugh, I don’t have to tell you about that. But as I say, this girl, Zoya, she owed me money, so I took this clock. You want to sit down? You two make me nervous.”
Vidot and Bemm both sat awkwardly on the couch. Vidot tried to suppress his smile. “This is all very useful information. And can I get your name?”
The old woman leaned forward and pronounced her name very clearly, “My name is Elga Sossoka.”
“You are Russian?”
“Yes, but I left there in, what, ah”—she counted in the air with her fingers—“1917.”
“You’ve been here since then?” asked Vidot.
“I’ve been all over.” She went back to sipping her tea, and then stopped. “Why are you grinning like such an idiot?”
“To be honest, madame, I have been working on this case for a little while now and we have had no real leads. So it is very refreshing to receive even this small bit of information.”
“Ah! I see, I see. Ha ha.” Her eyes lit up, suddenly she seemed bright and lucid, almost young. “So you’re that sort, you like to hop about and think on puzzles, yes, of course, of course, hmmm, yes, then you should see it, a problem, a strange troubling problem you can help me with. You certainly look like a man who can figure things out, so this will be easy for you, I am sure.” The old woman balanced her tea precariously on the ottoman and, stiffly pulling herself up, waddled over to the bookshelf. Watching her reaching up to dig through the shelves, Vidot again sympathized with the woman’s aches. He found himself wondering at the strange ratio between pain and age, how when we are young and without suffering we lead such careless lives, physically risking all without the slightest thought, and it is only when we’re older, when we’re given such misery in bone, joint, and tooth, when our sense of smell and taste are long gone, our eyes have clouded over, and our ears have waxed shut, it is then that we cling to life so fiercely, struggling to continue on when we are only little more than a compendium of agonies.
“Ah, there it is,” she said. The ancient woman was up on her tiptoes now, grunting and reaching toward a dusty, thick tome perched high on the shelf. “I think I can reach it.” Vidot was about to rise up to help when, in her clumsiness, the old woman knocked two jars down onto the floor. They both fell with a loud crack as the glass shattered and a dark, red dirt spilled out onto the rug. “Ah, forgive me, such an ass,” she said, leaning over.
“Oh, no need to clean—” Vidot began to say, when suddenly she bolted upright, letting loose a loud raspy scream and throwing handfuls of the dirt into each of the policemen’s faces. The mixture of dirt flooded his lungs, and immediately Vidot felt immobilized, incapable of even turning to look at Bemm. None of the words shouting out of the woman’s mouth were recognizable, they did not even sound like language, merely a serpentine thread of barks, hisses, shrieks, and throaty rasps. Veins bulged out of her brow and neck as she lunged backward, grabbing another jar off the shelf and fiercely shattering it onto the floor. More dust billowed around them, blotting out everything but the thick streaks of ocher light streaming through the curtains. Vidot felt weighted shadows come crawling in around him; looking down, he was shocked to see his fingernails extending backward, running up his arm, splitting open his flesh. His body shook and his old skin smoked off him, like dry autumn leaves burning in a pile. Then his spine suddenly twisted and contracted as extreme cramps in his thighs and stomach caused him to lurch over and collapse onto the floor. He caught a glimpse of Bemm as he fell down, his partner reeling too, his face covered in a sheet of blood and his mouth open in a silent scream.
Looking up, the last thing he saw before it all went black was the old woman’s pained expression and her hands madly weaving around in the air, as if she were playing some great and terrible harp. Then the pain ceased. He felt as though he slept for months, maybe years, and when he opened his eyes Vidot was stunned at how impossibly large the room had become.
XI
Zoya sat on the bench across from the apartment building and gazed up at the distant lit window. She was almost certain the man had not seen her slipping up behind him as he left the metro station. He had been easy to
