would cause little harm. It was wrong, but it was expedient and, she felt, necessary if she was to prepare dinner tonight, a task she would never leave to her aunt with a guest coming. But she also knew that she wouldn’t do it. She would wait her turn, read a book, pay more than she could afford for inferior food, and not complain.
It is not whether the person knows right from wrong but whether they believe what they have done, no matter how terrible it might be, was done because it was necessary and expedient. Right and wrong, Elena thought, were lost concepts in the new Russia. She believed in obsolete ideas.
Sasha was on his last roll of film in his last station. He took two group photographs and three individual ones. A few policemen protested mildly. Most simply looked bored.
From this final station, he called home. Maya answered. The baby was doing well.
Nonetheless, a quiver in her voice told him there was something else happening, that the baby was doing well but Maya was not.
“Lydia is here,” Maya said. “She has given me many suggestions on how to take care of the baby. Would you like to talk to her?”
Sasha definitely did not want to talk to his mother, but Maya had given him no choice.
“Yes,” he said, wearily playing with the most recently shot roll of film, a roll marked in black with the number of the police station.
Seconds later his mother screamed into the phone. Across the room an officer taking another call looked up at the sound.
“Mother,” Sasha said as calmly as he could. “The baby is fine now. You can go home.”
“My grandchild needs me. Your wife needs me. Where are you in this crisis?”
“Working, Mother, and there is no crisis.”
“I’ll judge for myself when there is a crisis,” she said, her voice only a meaningless decibel or two lower.
“The doctor told us the baby would be fine,” he said.
“No he didn’t,” Lydia said.
“Ask Maya,” he said.
“I did. She said the same thing. I don’t believe it.”
“You think Maya and I are lying.”
“I didn’t say that,” his mother countered. “You believe the doctor said that. I don’t believe the doctor said that. We respect each other’s beliefs.”
Sasha was momentarily confused.
“I should respect that you think my wife and I are liars?” he said.
“You believe what you want to believe. I believe what I want to believe. This is a democracy now. I can believe what I want.”
Sasha took a deep breath and, as calmly as he could, said, “Mother, you must leave now. Maya needs rest. She’ll get no rest with you there.”
“She’ll get more rest,” said Lydia. “I’ll take care of the children. She can go rest.”
“I don’t think so,” said Sasha, surprising himself. “I believe she’ll get more rest if you leave. You believe she will get more rest if you stay. This is a democracy. You believe what you want to believe. I believe what I want to believe. Go home now.”
“But Maya wants me to stay. Ask her,” Lydia shouted.
Sasha knew that Maya would never bring herself to tell her husband’s mother to leave. The rift in the relationship of the two women would be too wide to bridge.
“No,” said Sasha. “I’ll call you later. We’ll have you over for dinner in a day or two.”
“If that’s the way you feel, that’s the way you feel,” she said, resigned and obviously feeling sorry for herself. “I’ll go.”
“And, Mother,” he said, now that he had the nerve, “I think you should call before you come to the apartment. Don’t just drop in. Anyone who simply drops in can be coming at a bad time.”
“You want to get rid of me?” she said angrily.
“No,” he said.
The man on the other phone was looking at him.
“I don’t want to get rid of you,” Sasha continued. “You’re my mother. I love you. I need your warmth, your wisdom, your caring.”
She had ample reason not to believe any of this, but this time she chose to.
“I’m going back to my little apartment now,” she said. “I will take comfort in the always welcoming company of Anna Timofeyeva. I will call you when you are more calm and we can talk about this sanely.”
“Fine,” Sasha said, putting the roll of film back in his pocket.
“You can come to my apartment and we’ll talk calmly,” she said. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow won’t be good for me,” said Sasha. “I’ll call you. We’ll make arrangements.”
“We’ll see,” said Lydia skeptically.
Before Sasha could say more, his mother hung up.
“I’ll be late again,” Valentin Spaskov said into the phone.
“Very late?” asked his wife.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
Spaskov’s wife had begun to think there was another woman. Once she had called the station to give him a message when he was supposed to be on duty and had been told that he was not working that night. More and more often he’d been coming home late, almost too depressed to play with his daughter if the girl was still awake. On those nights, Valentin had clung to her in bed.
Did he feel guilty? Did he want to confess? What about the blood he had hidden? She bore it silently, hoping it would end.
“I’ll have food ready for you,” she said as she always did.
“Good. I’ll probably be very hungry,” Spaskov said. “Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” she said, and hung up the phone.
So did Spaskov, who stood looking down at it for a minute or two, his hands flat on the desk.
If everything went as planned, Spaskov was certain he would have no appetite this night.
TWELVE
Porfiry Petrovich grunted mightily, his hair and brow damp with sweat, his purple-and-white Northwestern University sweatshirt with the tiny hole in the sleeve turned nearly gray from his perspiration. If he did two more bench presses, just two more, it would be a new record for him.
To the voice of Dinah Washington singing “Down with Love” Porfiry Petrovich, in the corner of his living room in his apartment on Karasikov Street, willed his arms and chest to move. Two things other than his own determination were helping him toward the new record. First, using extrastrength green plastic piping, he had designed and built a simple stand onto which he could place the weight as he lay back on the narrow bench. Placing the weight on the stand made it easier to get the weight in the air by not having to awkwardly lift it from the floor. He had no one to spot him on either side, so he had to be sure of the safe extent of both his weights and repetitions. He should have considered such a device years ago. He had seen them, used them in many weight rooms, even one in a small navy weather station in Siberia, but building one had only recently occurred to him. The second thing that made it easier to do the bench presses was the new leg. With his crippled leg he had balanced awkwardly on his right leg while doing the presses. It had taken a major effort just to get the weight to his chest and then down again when he finished. The new leg served as a brace, like the strong leg of a table.
The two girls, as always, sat watching Rostnikov. They sat quietly, listening to the music and to his grunting. Grunting and blowing air were not only part of the ritual, they actually helped him get through each exercise.
They had finished dinner, chicken tabak, Rostnikov’s favorite. He did not ask Sarah where she got the chicken, but he had not eaten with his usual hum of satisfaction. Sarah had something to discuss. He could see it
