“I am certain of it,” said Rostnikov.
In the morning Sasha Tkach sat up suddenly.
“I know who it is,” he said aloud.
“American cereal,” said Lydia, who was fully dressed and standing next to the kitchen table across the room with a box of Froot Loops in her hand.
“I’ve got to go,” said Sasha, getting up quickly and reaching for his pants. “No, maybe I should phone Elena.”
“You should eat your American cereal,” Lydia said. “There are all kinds of things about how healthy it is for you on the side of the box. That’s what the man I got it from said. All I can see are numbers. Take a look.”
“I can’t read English,” he said, looking for his socks.
“Then just eat them. I opened the box. Very pretty colors. Look. A red one.”
“Mother, I am thirty-four years old,” Sasha said, finding his socks. “You can talk to me like an adult.”
“You are thirty-four years old, which is why you need a shave before you go anywhere.”
“Yes,” he said.
“And some American cereal. I have milk. It’s sweet like candy. How can something sweet like candy be good for you?”
“A miracle of American technology and artificial ingredients,” said Sasha.
“Do not be sarcastic, Sasha.”
“I apologize. I must go.”
“What is the hurry?” she asked, looking at the picture of a big-billed bird on the front of the box.
“I have to prevent a murder,” he said.
“Then go,” she said. “Why is there a bird on the box? Do they put chicken or something in the cereal? I prefer kasha.”
“Then why did you get American cereal?” he asked, regretting it even before the question was finished.
“I thought you would like it,” she said. “I know our little Pulcharia would like it.”
Sasha nodded and looked again at the drawing lying on the table. Yes, it was him. Sasha scooped his papers into the briefcase, reached over and took a handful of Froot Loops from the box his mother was holding, and began putting them into his mouth as he moved to the door.
“Very good,” he said.
“Shave,” she said.
“When I get where I’m going. I have one of those disposable razors in my briefcase.”
He had the door open.
“Sasha,” she commanded. “I want to see the rest of that movie, the one where the men were taking off their clothes.”
“Mother …”
“You made me leave. You are an adult. I am an adult.”
“Yes, all right. We will see it again. Under one condition. You may not talk during the movie.”
“I will be quiet as death,” she said, arms folded. “As quiet as I will soon be when I am dead.”
He didn’t believe it for a moment. “You are only sixty years old. You are, with the exception of your hearing, in perfect health.”
“All I want to do is live long enough to see my grandchildren again, just one more time.”
“I am confident that you will see them again. I have an idea. You go to Kiev.”
“Maybe I will. And I’ll bring with me boxes of sweet American cereal.”
He closed the door. If he moved quickly, they might still be able to recover the negative and keep Yuri Kriskov from being murdered. At least that is what he thought.
Sasha Tkach was wrong.
In the morning, very early in the morning, after little sleep, Valery Grachev awoke covered in sweat. There was no doubt. He was feverish, some virus or flu. He should spend the day in bed.
Maybe tomorrow if everything went well. He dressed, was out of the apartment before he had to talk to his uncle. The sun was battling the cloud cover as he walked past a street-cleaning truck that was noisily brushing away the filth of the night before.
The apartment of Valery’s uncle was on the fifth floor, a block of concrete with thin walls, rusted radiators, peopled by pensioners with nothing to do but complain about the landlady, who made excuses and no repairs.
In less than an hour, the men with caps, cigarettes, and the weary faces of resignation would congregate in the doorway of the building. The doorway reeked of years of tobacco smoke. Valery’s uncle would trudge off to work, nodding to Yakov, Panushkin, and the others, trudge off to a day of scrubbing subway stations and counting himself lucky to have a job.
When Valery had money, he would give his uncle a job. Valery did not particularly like his uncle, who spoke little, provided meager food in the apartment, and played such awful chess that his nephew had long given up wasting his time in front of the board with the grizzled, grunting man who had no passion for the game. Where was the satisfaction of defeating an opponent who did not care?
The key in Valery’s pocket was small. He checked again to be sure it hadn’t fallen through a forgotten hole or been flung onto the street when Valery had taken out his other keys or change for the bus. Since he’d gotten the key, he had checked to be sure it was there at least a hundred times a day. He had considered taking his scooter, but he decided to come back for it later, to leave as much of the morning as he could to concentrating on what he had to do, and not on traffic.
The walk was long, the summer morning hot. Valery felt dizzy with anticipation and possibly with fever. He wiped his damp forehead with his sleeve. Others walking with and past him were not yet affected by the heat. They walked as they always walked unless they were with someone. They walked, heads down, clutching the bag, briefcase, book, or whatever they were carrying.
Valery walked with his head up this day. He was Kon. He was not afraid of beggars or of the mad woman who spent her mornings and most of the day in front of the Sokol metro station. Her hair was as wild as her words. She wore a series of solid-colored dresses-blue, green, black, but never red-and could have been any age. A fire raged in her eyes. She never seemed to grow tired of berating the passersby, who pretended that she did not exist. On the sidewalk each morning, in white chalk, she wrote a new message. Today’s was “You are destroying the air we breathe.”
For the first time Valery paused in front of the woman, who looked him in the eyes and lowered her voice to say, “You are destroying the air we breathe.” Her face was red from months of shouting and the summer sun.
“You should wear a hat,” he said.
“You are destroying the air we breathe,” she said again, her voice a bit louder.
“We are all destroying the air we breathe. What would you have me do about it?” he asked.
“Stop,” she said.
“Stop what?”
“Creating filth, smoking, driving cars, running factories, making bombs and biological weapons.”
A few passersby glanced at the odd pair, the thin ranting woman and the short block of a hairy young man, standing face to face.
“I do none of those things,” Valery said.
“You allow others to do them.”
“And what am I to do?”
“Stop them,” she said, pointing down the street at some vague
“Are you trying to stop them?”
“Yes, by being here each day.”
“You think you are successful?”
“No,” she said. “But that is no reason not to try.”
“People think you are crazy,” Valery said. “They don’t listen to you because you rant and scream your messages.”
“I tried to be more reasonable,” she said, suddenly transformed and calm. “I tried. I dressed well, talked
