Fall of a Cosmonaut

KARPO: I am having lunch with Paulinin.

ROSTNIKOV: The epitome of a good time. Will you do something for me, Emil?

KARPO: Whatever you wish.

ROSTNIKOV: Turn your head to the left and look at the painting of Mathilde Verson.

KARPO: I would prefer to discuss the case at hand.

ROSTNIKOV: I asked. You said you would do as I asked.

KARPO: I am looking at the painting.

ROSTNIKOV: What are you feeling?

KARPO: I don’t understand.

ROSTNIKOV: When I hang up, look at the painting as if it were just placed on the wall.

KARPO: I look at it frequently.

ROSTNIKOV: I know, but this time with fresh eyes. Let her teach you. Don’t lose the lesson of life, the gift she gave you.

KARPO: You are being especially whimsical tonight.

ROSTNIKOV: Yes, I have learned that I cannot and do not wish to deny my sentimental nature. I think it is this wilderness that brings it out in me.

KARPO: Adamovskovich denies his guilt.

ROSTNIKOV: And?

KARPO: The evidence condemns him, but I think he may be innocent.

ROSTNIKOV: Intuition?

KARPO: Intuition is simply a conclusion drawn from experience, both environmental and genetically guided. His shoes had the victim’s blood on them. He disliked the victim, but then almost everyone at the center disliked him. He suggests that someone came into his laboratory when he was in a deep sleep and wore his shoes to commit the murder.

ROSTNIKOV: And you find that plausible?

KARPO: I find it possible. We have both seen far stranger things, and the people who work in that center are quite strange.

ROSTNIKOV: And that, Emil Karpo, is why I gave you this assignment. You recognize the strange. You are not taken in by it. Imagination does not get in your way. That is your strength and weakness.

KARPO: You have more than sufficient imagination for both of us.

ROSTNIKOV: Humor, Emil. A touch of irony?

KARPO: An observation.

ROSTNIKOV: Is Zelach of any help?

KARPO: Zelach has become an object of great interest on the part of one whom I consider a suspect, a Nadia Spectorski. She believes Akardy Zelach has psychic powers.

ROSTNIKOV: Our Zelach has abilities that lie below the surface. Iosef tells me that he can also kick a soccer ball seventy yards. Perhaps he missed his calling. The Russian national team might well use a psychic fullback.

KARPO: Another joke? They are wasted on me, Porfiry Petrovich.

ROSTNIKOV: I don’t think so. Allow me to keep trying.

KARPO: You do not need my permission.

ROSTNIKOV: Good night, Emil. I’m going to call my wife now. Is there anything you want me to say?

KARPO (after a long pause): Please tell the young girls that I wish them a good night.

ROSTNIKOV: I will do so. You know I like you, Emil Karpo.

KARPO: I do not understand why. I am not a likable person.

ROSTNIKOV: You sell yourself short. Good night again.

Getting through to home was relatively easy. Sarah answered the phone.

SARAH: Porfiry.

ROSTNIKOV: You are psychic, like Zelach?

SARAH: Who else would be calling at this hour? I’ve been expecting the phone to ring. What about Zelach being psychic?

ROSTNIKOV: I’ll explain when I am back in Moscow. Before I forget, Emil Karpo and I say good night to Laura, Nina, and Galina Paniskoya.

SARAH: They are already asleep.

ROSTNIKOV: Then tell them we say good morning when you see them. You are well?

SARAH: I am well. Iosef?

ROSTNIKOV: Well. I have been thinking about grandchildren.

SARAH: As have I.

ROSTNIKOV: It would be best if they looked like you and Iosef.

SARAH: I would be happy if they looked like you.

ROSTNIKOV: But you would be happier if they looked like you and Iosef.

SARAH: Perhaps, but it is also possible that they will resemble Elena.

ROSTNIKOV: I think that would be an acceptable compromise.

SARAH: What will happen, will happen. Will you be back tomorrow?

ROSTNIKOV: Or the next day. There was a service for Nicholas and his family, or at least what remains of their bones.

SARAH: I know.

ROSTNIKOV: They were murdered only miles from where I am now standing. History has power for Russians, does it not?

SARAH: Yes.

ROSTNIKOV: And your day?

SARAH: I worked. One customer wanted an old Beatles album we had on display. He was an Englishman. He paid in dollars. Six hundred. I did nothing but make the transaction. Bulnanova praised me, promised a bonus at the end of the month. She will forget.

ROSTNIKOV: You had a headache today?

SARAH: No. Get some sleep, Porfiry Petrovich. And come home to me soon. Good night.

ROSTNIKOV: Good night. Look at the moon if you can before you go to bed. It is full and clear where we are.

SARAH: It is obscured by the pollution of Moscow, but I see it. Good night.

They both hung up. Porfiry Petrovich knew she had lied about the headache and she knew that he knew. Perhaps he should not have asked her so that she would have had no need to lie. Her cousin Leon the doctor had said that she was doing well, that she did not need more surgery, but the surgeon who operated on Sarah for the tumor five years ago predicted that she would continue to have painful headaches, probably for the rest of her life, and the headaches might well get worse. They would watch her. Leon, who was in love with Sarah and had been all of their lives, would take special care of her.

Rostnikov hung up the phone. Podgorny had left him alone in the shop to make his calls. Porfiry Petrovich made his way up the narrow wooden stairs. He moved slowly, not relying on his alien leg. There was no light under the door of the man who called himself Primazon and who Rostnikov had recognized as a former KGB agent whose name was something like Disiverski. The name would come. Porfiry Petrovich and Iosef were safe from him. He wanted them to lead him to Tsimion Vladovka, almost certainly to kill him and preserve whatever the secret was.

There was a light under Iosef’s door. Rostnikov hoped that his son would soon turn out his light and move to his window. He imagined that father and son would be looking at the moon at the same time, thinking of dead czars, of Ivan the Terrible, of Catherine the Great, of men who rode in small spheres circling the earth and looking at that full moon. He could not see Mir, but there was a secret about it that he would like to know. Perhaps a cosmonaut or two were now circling in the sky, looking at the same full moon, thinking about dead royalty.

The murderer of Sergei Bolskanov was Andrei Vanga, the director of the Center for Technical