tin can in her hand. The baby inside Elvira was kicking. Elvira held Ludmilla back with one hand and made her way to the door, shouting, “Who is it?”
“Police,” said Sasha Tkach.
“I’ve done nothing,” she said.
“We want to talk,” said Sasha pleasantly.
“About what?” she asked.
“We will tell you when we come in,” said Sasha.
It was not the first time the police had come. And it had always been the same thing. She had told the same lies, and eventually, when they saw there was no money in this and probably not even a reasonable arrest, the police had left, talking about the filth of Elvira Chazova’s home.
“All right. All right,” she said, opening the many bolts on the door and leaving the heavy chain in place as she peeked at the nice-looking young man and the slouching hulk behind him.
The young man held up an identification card, but Elvira didn’t bother to try to read it. Her eyes were not good for reading and her reading skills were minimal anyway. Besides, a police identification card could be forged. She knew two people who could do it for her for the price of a half-dozen eggs.
She unchained the door and stepped back to let the two men in. “I’m pregnant,” she said, moving to her chair and not offering a seat to the policemen.
“Congratulations,” said Zelach.
Neither policeman sat. It was not a place they wished to stay long.
“You have three sons,” said Sasha, “one of whom is named Mark?”
“My youngest boy. My baby boy. He is only five.”
She was lying by two years, but it made no difference. She could see by the young policeman’s face that he had already decided to doubt whatever she might say.
“Your three sons,” Sasha went on, “where were they last night?”
The one-year-old had decided to hold on to her mother’s dress and produce a red-faced scream, which Elvira ignored.
“Here,” she said.
The television droned on. The child screamed. The blond woman on the screen laughed. Zelach glanced at the television and then back at the screaming child.
“What time did they come home?” shouted Sasha Tkach, his hands at his sides and looking very official.
“Just before the first news on television,” Elvira said, holding her large stomach. “I don’t like them out at night anymore. Too dangerous since the new life. Too dangerous for little boys.”
“May we talk to the boys?” Sasha asked.
“Now?” she said.
“Now,” said Sasha.
The woman looked at the other policeman. He bore a faint resemblance to her second husband but without the angry look.
“They are out,” she said. “In school.”
“They are not in school,” shouted Sasha, searching for something in his pocket. “We have checked with the school. They have not been going to school.”
“Lots of children don’t go to school anymore,” she said defensively, “except when they hear that free food is being given.”
She glanced at the television screen, where an older man in a tuxedo was lighting a cigar and looking at the blonde, who smiled coyly.
“True,” agreed Sasha, finding a small sweet he had stashed deep inside his pocket for his daughter, Pulcharia. “But it is your children we are interested in.”
“Why?” she asked.
“We have questions,” said Sasha, handing the sweet to the red-faced, screaming child, who immediately became silent.
“Questions?” asked Elvira.
“About something that happened last night,” said Sasha.
“They were here last night. All night. I told you. We are a poor family. They are out begging. That’s what this new government, this new democracy, has done to us. We have to send our children out begging like Gypsies.”
“Your children begged even before the new government,” Sasha said, though he did not know this as a fact any more than he knew that the boys had not been in school.
“And so did I,” Elvira said, touching her hand to her breast. “I have always had a big family and worthless husbands. I’ve had a big burden. I have the luck of a Siberian.”
“And you are to be much admired and appreciated,” Sasha said without expression. He looked at the little girl, who sucked at the candy and regarded him with hostile curiosity. “I would like to talk to your sons.”
“They are not here,” Elvira repeated.
Sasha nodded. Zelach moved past the woman and pushed back the first curtain to reveal a space with three unmade cots and clothes in piles. Zelach moved through this space and pushed back the second curtain to reveal a small bed and an old dresser near the window.
“I told you they weren’t here,” Elvira said, almost weeping now.
Zelach looked back. Sasha nodded and Zelach began to go through the dresser.
“This is wrong,” the woman said. “I’m a mother. I’m pregnant. This could upset me, make me lose my baby, get my little one frightened again. It will be your fault.”
Sasha glanced at the television again. A maid and a butler were talking. Zelach pushed each drawer back carefully, checked the bed, and then moved into the boys’ space, going through their clothing and the contents of several cardboard cartons under each cot.
Elvira sat in silent indignation, rubbing her stomach and glaring at the young policeman. It didn’t seem to bother him. Zelach returned and shook his head. Nothing.
“Satisfied?” she said.
“No,” said Sasha. “We will return.”
“When?” she asked.
The young man didn’t answer. He headed for the door with the other policeman behind him.
“If you were a parent,” Elvira said, following them, “you wouldn’t do this to a loving mother.”
The policemen left. The door locked behind them.
Elvira pushed her daughter away and ran back through the apartment, opened the window, and touched the wooden sill to be sure it hadn’t been moved. There was a space, a narrow space, beneath the sill. Everything that was not cash or could be immediately converted to cash but was thin enough to fit was in a bag in the narrow space. Other things the boys brought home-wallets particularly-were thrown out immediately blocks away. Whatever cash the boys brought in was kept in a pouch she wore on a belt under her clothes. She slept in the belt, certain that the boys did not know it existed. She was wrong.
These two policemen were not the first who had come to harass her, but the young one was the first who looked as if he really cared about her answers. He said he would be back, she was sure he would be back. She had a sudden chill. The changing weather, the fear for herself and her children? She went back into the front of the apartment to watch the rich people in a movie from long ago. The baby began to cry. She had finished her candy.
“What did you get?” Sasha asked when they were back on the street in front of the crumbling building.
“A photograph of a soccer player, Belitnikov,” said Zelach. “A flashlight. An empty yogurt carton. I was careful.”
They had partial fingerprints from the belt of the dead man, Oleg Makmunov. The fingerprints were small. They might match others taken from the Chazov apartment. If they were inconclusive, Sasha and Zelach would take turns watching the apartment till the boys returned. Then they would bring them in for fingerprinting. Even if the fingerprints did not match, they would tell the boys that they did. Normally it was not difficult to get children to turn against one another.
