after ground-to-air missiles were developed, the barracks on the Moskva River were converted into small apartments with a communal kitchen that had once served the unit stationed within its walls.
Rostnikov entered the apartment with the key she had given him. The cat on the bed arched its back and hissed.
“I’ve come to feed you, animal,” Rostnikov said gently, reaching for the can of food. “Straighten your back. I know you have no claws.”
The cat put down its back and watched the heavy man shuffle across the room, get the familiar can opener, and open the can. The smell lured Baku off the bed and across the room. Rostnikov grunted as he got to one knee and offered the animal the open can of fish and a fresh cup of water. He changed the newspaper in the wooden box in the corner and then, without the slightest feeling of guilt, went through Anna Timofeyeva’s belongings. In a dresser drawer, he found a note stating that if she died her instruction book on outstanding cases was in the top drawer of her office desk. The note also requested that, in the event of her death, the cat be given to Rostnikov.
Rostnikov looked at the orange cat. He felt nothing for the animal but quite a bit for Anna Timofeyeva.
“Animal,” he said, and the cat paused in its eating to look up at him with yellow eyes, “we may have to be comrades for a time. We shall have to practice mutual tolerance. I will make the effort, and I expect the same from you.”
The cat went back to eating, and Rostnikov failed to find anything in the apartment that would be of use to him. Anna Timofeyeva kept her official business in her office and her private life, which was almost nonexistent, in her room.
From her bed in the hospital, Anna Timofeyeva watched the woman across from her. There were only four women in her room, a remarkably small number, so the hospital knew she was a relatively important official. They had allowed her no papers or work and had told her little about her condition.
The nurses were efficient but unenthusiastic. The doctors were respectful but volunteered very little. After the pain had stopped and they had ceased scurrying around attaching machines to her and shouting at one another, she had concluded that, at least for the immediate future, she was going to live. The heart attack had been fairly mild, but it was not her first. The doctors had no plans to operate on her and no plans to release her. They would simply watch her, and when her recovery was sufficient, if it ever was, they would release her. She suspected that she would not be long in the hospital. Beds were scarce, and the staff could do little for her.
A doctor would make the obligatory visit, she was sure, and tell her that she must stop working and relax. She would acknowledge the warning and terminate the conversation as soon as possible. She would also return to her work the moment her health permitted her to do so. There was nothing else she wanted to do.
So, for the moment, she watched the woman across the room, a very fat woman who seemed to be telling herself a silent story. The woman sometimes looked sad and at other times smiled, revealing very few teeth. Anna Timofeyeva wondered what the woman could be thinking.
“Comrade Procurator.” Rostnikov’s voice came through her reverie, and she turned to him.
“Porfiry Petrovich,” she said, trying to sound gruff.
He looked, as always, solid, with something dancing behind his eyes. Today, however, the light dancing back there was particularly bright. Not many would have noticed, but she had made it her business to read the faces and minds of those who worked with her.
“I have taken the liberty of examining the files on pending cases,” he said, “and I have taken care of your cat.”
She nodded in acknowledgment, and Rostnikov changed the subject.
“You are better,” he said.
“It appears that I will survive,” she said. The woman across the aisle laughed. Both Rostnikov and Timofeyeva looked at her, but she seemed to be responding to voices in her own mind. The other beds were empty. Their occupants were having X-rays…or operations; Anna couldn’t remember which.
The pause now was awkward. She was not given to small talk, and her helplessness was an embarrassment for both of them.
“How is the investigation progressing?” she asked.
Rostnikov shrugged and shifted his briefcase from his right hand to his left.
“It progresses,” he said, reluctant to go into details.
“Good,” she said.
The pause this time was even more awkward.
“Can I bring you anything?” he said.
“I will be home in a few days and back to work soon.”
Rostnikov reached into his briefcase, pulled out a book, and handed it to her.
“Something I had at home,” he said.
It was a book on the history and collections of museums in Moscow. He had thought for some time about what kind of book she might like and had settled on this, though he had been tempted to bring her a novel. He was sure that Anna Timofeyeva had not read a novel for several decades.
“I will study it,” she said, putting it next to her. “What are you planning, Rostnikov?”
“Me, planning?” he said, looking around the room. “Nothing.”
“Be careful,” she said, closing her eyes. “Whatever it is, be careful.”
“I will be as careful as I can,” he said, but he was thinking that there were times when one must take a chance.
When he looked down at her, she was snoring gently.
The woman across the way looked at Rostnikov as he stepped away from the bed. Her eyes met his, and she too seemed to know his innermost secrets. She smiled. He hid a shudder and left as quickly as he could.
TEN
“I don’t like movies,” said Lydia Tkach as she sat down in the Zaryadye cinema hall in the Hotel Rossyia. Most of the theater’s three thousand seats were full, and since Lydia Tkach was almost deaf and had spoken very loudly, many of those present were aware of her sentiments. Sasha gave an apologetic look to the well-dressed man sitting next to his mother and shrugged at Maya, who smiled sympathetically, having grown used to her mother-in-law.
Lydia was a proud woman of sixty-five. During the day, she worked in the Ministry of Information Building, filing papers and telling anyone who would listen that her son was a high-ranking government official. Lydia was not a popular woman in the Ministry of Information Building. People avoided her because she drew attention to herself with her loud conversation. This tended to make her more lonely and crotchety, which in turn made her turn on her captive audience at home, her son and daughter-in-law.
Sasha had more than once urged her to get a hearing aid, but Lydia had stoutly refused, insisting that there was nothing wrong with her hearing. Nor, she insisted, was there anything wrong with her common sense, which was why she disliked most movies.
“Mother,” Sasha said in a normal voice, which he had little hope his mother would hear, “please.”
He handed her the headphones attached to her seat and urged her to try them. Maya put hers on and played with the switch. The translation would be given in six languages on six separate channels. Nothing came through on the headset, so Maya put it down.
“I understand this movie has no words,” Maya said to her mother-in-law, mouthing each word carefully. Lydia nodded, trying to get comfortable in her seat and staring down a woman in front of her who turned to indicate that she would allow none of this chatter to continue after the film began.
Sasha was pleased that everything had worked out so well. Willery sat in the front of the theater, wearing a jacket and tie, looking about nervously. In spite of the jacket and tie, he still wore faded jeans. Tkach knew that Kirslov was at the door of the theater to pick up Willery after the performance. The program notes Tkach had been given made the film sound suitable for his mother. It was, he discovered, silent. There was no need for her to hear anything.
