When Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov entered his apartment shortly after eight that night, his thoughts were a random bombardment of fragments. He knew he would have to put them in order, and he could think of only one thing that would help him. He greeted Sarah who, he could tell, had something on her mind. He could tell from the hand she placed on his right cheek when she kissed his left cheek. He could tell by the bustle and light talk as she prepared dinner. She told him about the letter from their son Iosef, which described a weekend in Kiev with two friends. Iosef would say nothing in a letter about his three months in Afghanistan. That would have to wait till he came to Moscow on leave.
Rostnikov grunted appreciatively as he changed into his sweatshirt and pants, leaving the bedroom door open so he could hear Sarah continue her chatter. Sarah was not a chatterer. The bomb, Rostnikov knew, would eventually fall. He glanced into the kitchen to see what she was cooking. It was his favorite dish, chicken tabaka, a Georgian specialty, which Sarah prepared to perfection when she could buy chicken.
She carefully removed the backbone, flattened the bird and fried it under a heavy metal plate weighted down still further by a hand iron. She would then serve it with a prune sauce and pickled cabbage. At that point he would be most vulnerable, and that’s when she would speak.
Rostnikov moved to the weights, and Sarah stopped talking, knowing that she would not get through his concentration. Rostnikov turned on the radio, opened the cupboard, rolled out the thin mat, carefully removed the heavy weights, and, enjoying the music of Rimsky-Korsakov and the smell of chicken tabaka, began his routine. He had one more day to prepare. No one but Sarah knew that he had entered the annual weightlifting competition in Sokolniki Recreation Park. The competition was for men and women over fifty, and the participants, he well knew, were often remarkable. He had seen the competition every year for the past seven years, with the exception of 1977 when he was being held at gunpoint by a pyromaniac in the basement of the Moscow Art Theater.
This year, Alexiev was to give out the trophies. Rostnikov imagined standing next to his idol, accepting a trophy from him, clasping his huge hairy hand. The fantasy was overpowering. Rostnikov had never entered the competition before, because his leg would make it nearly impossible for him to participate in many of the events. To clean and jerk 200 pounds, he had to move in a strange swoop, and this put him at an immediate disadvantage. To win the event, he would have to do far better than the other competitors. Even the dead lift would be a problem, since he could bend only one knee. He would have to do on one leg what others did on two.
In moments, Rostnikov was happily sweating and straining. The music danced around him. He counted without having to think about counting. His body, arms, legs, and chest told him how close he was to exhaustion, and when that exhaustion came he would strain through it, his face turning red, his veins mapped along his furry arms, his breath coming in short puffs. Sarah always turned away from him at this point. In spite of his assurance that this was natural, she was convinced that he was doing terrible things to his body. She never tried to talk him out of it, for she realized how much he needed those weights. But still, she would not look.
Rostnikov had spoken on the phone to the partner of the dead Japanese filmmaker. The partner had spoken no Russian but could get along in English, so Rostnikov had conducted the interview in a language that was awkward for both of them.
The dead Japanese, Yushiro Nakayama, knew no one in Moscow. He had been in town only two days when he died. His film production company was small and produced soft-core pornography as well as one general release film each year. This year’s film,
The partner might have been lying, but Rostnikov didn’t think so. Like most Russians over forty, Rostnikov harbored a deep suspicion of the Japanese. The Japanese had been one of the few nations to clearly defeat Russia in a war. Of course that had been under the czarist regime, but it was a crushing defeat nonetheless. The Russians had done their best to avoid conflict with the Japanese during the Second World War, Rostnikov’s war, leaving them to the Americans and the British. Rostnikov didn’t trust the Japanese, though he grudgingly admired them. In fact, from his reading he had decided that the Japanese were clearly the most intelligent people in the world, which made him even more suspicious. Thus, though he felt confident that the dead Japanese film producer was the victim of an accident, still he decided to assign a junior officer to continue investigating his death.
He was waiting for reports on the two dead Russians. Neither one seemed likely to have been the intended victim. But, just in case, Rostnikov had called the home towns of both men and asked for a local inquiry and investigation.
No, he thought, transferring a weight to his right hand, the American journalist was the most likely target. Karpo’s report had led him to that conclusion. Karpo’s prostitute had said that Aubrey, the American, spoke of a frog bitch. Rostnikov remembered that Americans and Englishmen used the word “frog” in a pejorative sense to mean French. He had read that in one of his American detective novels. So the drunk and dying American in the back seat of a Moscow taxi had referred to a Frenchwoman. According to Aubrey’s notebook, he had interviewed a Frenchwoman the day before his death. After the encounter outside the elevator, Rostnikov had dispatched Tkach to interview this Frenchwoman, Monique Freneau.
Yes, Rostnikov thought, he had done the right thing. Now the investigation could wait till morning when he would talk to Tkach, interview the German, and have Tkach interview the Englishman.
Rimsky-Korsakov and Rostnikov finished at almost the same time. Rostnikov reached over, panting, turned off the radio, put his weights away, and went to the kitchen table.
The food was excellent. They drank the borscht slowly, dug into the chicken with gusto, drank the wine with approval. Then it came.
“Porfiry,” Sarah said, playing with a piece of chicken on her plate. “What do you think about France?”
The question was startling since he had, in fact, just been thinking about France. Her blue eyes suddenly met his.
“I am not overly fond of the French,” he said, pouring the last of the wine from the small bottle. “In their assumed superiority they have little tolerance for any other people. They find Russians particularly barbaric. I think it has something to do with Napoleon’s inability to-”
“No,” Sarah interrupted. “I mean what would you think about living in France. Or England, or Israel, or even America or Canada.”
That was it, then, Rostnikov thought. The idea had remained unspoken for so long, but now it was out. Sarah was a Jew. She could apply for immigration. It would not be easy, but it could be done, and Porfiry, as her husband, could apply with her. The problem, as they both knew, was that as soon as they applied, they would become objects of abuse. Their lives would be made miserable. They might well lose their jobs and be given tasks of no responsibility or merit. Their son Iosef would suffer, and, worst of all, they probably would never be given permission to leave. But it was something Rostnikov had been considering seriously since his job had grown more political and since his knowledge had become a potential danger to the state.
“Sarah,” Rostnikov sighed, “I’m a policeman. They would never let me go.”
“You know people,” she said. “People who could help us.”
Whom did he know? Anna Timofeyeva? What influence did she have? And as a loyal Party member, what would she think of his wanting to leave, to desert the cause when she was giving her life to it?
“I don’t know anyone who would be willing to help us,” he said.
Their eyes met, and he could see something in hers that she had been careful to conceal before, if it had been there.
“Porfiry,” she said. “We are more than fifty years old. It is worth trying.”
Insanely, the name Isola came to mind. Isola, the city of Ed McBain, where the police behaved so differently from those in Moscow. Now, if he could go to Isola…
“Sarah,” he said, “it cannot be.”
She nodded, got up, and began to clear away the dishes. An observer might conclude from this that the matter was ended, but Rostnikov knew better. He knew that it had only begun and that Sarah was much more patient and even more intelligent than he was. Besides, Rostnikov had been more than toying with the idea for some time.
The knock at the door was gentle. They thought the sound was coming from across the hall. Then it was louder. Rostnikov grabbed the table and pushed himself up, feeling the tug of the conversation and the nip of the wine.
