Anna reached into her cupboard and pulled out a slightly overripe tomato. “And,” she added, “I made leek soup.”
“Let me do it,” Elena said.
Elena had learned to take over the preparation of meals whenever possible. Cooking was neither a talent nor an interest of Anna, whose true passions were crime and her cat.
“Who is insane?” asked Anna as Elena turned on the small electric stove that stood on the table in the kitchen corner.
Baku rubbed against Elena’s legs and she motioned for him to join her. The cat leaped into her arms and she stroked its head as she smelled the leek soup and pushed the pot onto the burner.
“Tkach,” she said. “He’s like a madman. You prepared me for the madness in the streets, but not in the people with whom I must work.”
“He is in the wrong business,” Anna Timofeyeva said.
Elena put Baku down and carefully cut the soft tomato with a less-than-sharp knife.
“He isn’t insane,” said Anna.
“He rants, he threatens.” Elena sighed. “He almost killed a man selling pizzas today.”
Outside the window one of the babushkas had taken off her gloves and was paddling a small child with her bare hand. The other babushkas were watching silently. The child’s wails penetrated the window.
“If I have children,” Elena said, carefully slicing the loaf of bread with the same dull knife, “I will not allow them to be hit.”
“Perhaps,” said Anna. “Tkach has a child and another on the way. Do you think he strikes his child?”
“I don’t care what he does to his child,” Elena said, turning her head from the window to her aunt.
“He is young,” said Anna.
“He is only two years younger than I,” said Elena. She examined the uneven piece of bread she had just cut.
“In years,” said Anna. “In experience perhaps he is older, but in emotions, no. I’ve known him since he was twenty-three or twenty-four. What he wanted yesterday, he no longer wants today, and what he wants today will be forgotten tomorrow in the self-pity of not knowing what he wants. But he is a good policeman. I bought him a scarf from one of the old ladies. We’ll give it to him at the birthday party.”
“Fine,” said Elena.
The cat had taken the chair at the window and was curled up in front of Anna’s book.
“The Arab girl …?” asked Anna.
“Amira Durahaman.”
“You haven’t found her.”
“No. That’s where we’re going tonight. To look for her. Her boyfriend was murdered this morning, a young Jew.”
Anna watched as her niece moved to the window and looked out, then leaned forward to scratch Baku’s head and reach for the book.
“What are you reading?” Elena asked.
“Minds,” said Anna Timofeyeva. “Today I am reading minds, your mind. He is a good-looking young man.”
“Who?” asked Elena, examining the book.
“Who? Chairman Mao. You know who,” said Anna. She went over to the table and tried to place the cup of
Elena put the book down, scratched Baku’s head once more, and took her place at the table. Anna poured the soup and placed a plate of food in front of her. They ate in silence for a few minutes.
“I can’t work with him,” Elena said.
“He is a good investigator,” replied Anna. “Smart. But too passionate.”
“You said that.”
“I suffer from lapses of short-term memory and the belief that the young are inattentive,” Anna said.
Anna Timofeyeva knew that there was a highly classified file on Sasha Tkach’s indiscretions, a file of which he was not aware. There were thousands of such files-on members of the MVD, on government officials-files that Anna Timofeyeva had once had access to, and could still examine if she wished to do so. She wondered what the new zealots would do with this information.
“I don’t think he will ever be able to control his passions,” Anna said, “which is why I think he should not make a career as a policeman.”
“A minute ago you said he was a good policeman,” said Elena. “You see I am listening.”
“A person can be a fine butcher and hate the sight of blood.”
“It is unlikely that if he hated the sight of blood he would become a butcher,” countered Elena.
“Destiny often hands us a sword too heavy to carry.”
“You are being cryptic,” said Elena, tearing off a piece of bread from the loaf. “You are reading too much Freud.”
“I’ve been reading too much Gogol,” said Anna with a sigh. “All right. I’ll be direct. Better for you if Tkach was
“It’s fine,” said Elena.
“It’s soggy, the tomato, the bread,” said Anna. She put her half-finished plate on the floor, and Baku leaped from the chair to eat. “And the soup is hot water with three onions.”
“He might get me hurt, even killed,” said Elena.
“Let us hope you survive at least your second week. Your mother would never forgive me.”
“I must get back to work.”
“Trust his instincts and experience, question his passions,” Anna said, reaching down to pet Baku, whose head was bent over the cup of
“Can I ask you a question?” asked Elena, rolling a crumb of bread in her fingers.
Anna had carried her niece’s plate to the sink in the corner. “You mean, may you ask a question which might make me feel uncomfortable? Since I am curious, ask.”
“Are you bitter?”
“Bitter? About …?”
“The system you worked for is gone. The Soviet Union has gone. The memory of Lenin is dying. The law-”
“-remains the law,” said Anna, turning to her niece. “I did not dedicate my life to a cause. I dedicated my life to the law. The goal was to improve the law and to seek justice within it. There was nothing wrong with Soviet law. The problem was in its corruption.”
“You are being philosophical today,” said Elena.
“Philosophy is the perfect exercise for a woman with nothing to do but walk and read about hysteria.”
Elena moved back to the chair by the window, sat, and put on her shoes. Then she went to the battered wooden wardrobe in the corner, opened it, selected a clean blouse, and moved to the small bathroom to examine herself in the mirror. “I’m getting fat,” she said.
“It is your genetic burden,” said Anna. “Along with intelligence and determination. Your mother is heavy. I am heavy. But you are also pretty. You won’t be truly fat like us for ten years, twenty if you are careful.”
“Thank you,” Elena said as she came out of the bathroom, buttoning her blouse. “You are very reassuring.”
“I am very practical,” said Anna. “You want lies? Read
“I suppose I want the truth cushioned,” Elena said, putting on her coat.
“It is still the truth. Besides, I don’t know how to do that.” Anna leaned over to pick up Baku’s clean plate. “It is a skill, like cooking, which I never learned.”
“I don’t know what time I will be back,” said Elena.
“Baku, Freud, Gogol, and I will be here,” said Anna Timofeyeva, moving back toward the chair near the window. “Maybe we’ll watch some television. ‘Wheel of Fortune.’ Who knows? The night is still young.”
“Aunt Anna,” Elena said.
