People Who Walk In Darkness

“I am not surrounded by a council of great minds,” Kolokov said, looking at his two cohorts who provided no response. “I would like to have at least one person I can count on to use his head for something besides a battering ram. You know what I mean?”

James Harumbaki croaked a “yes.”

As a matter of fact, he did know what it was like to be surrounded by people who could not think. He wondered what resources Patrice, Biko, and Laurence were calling upon to replace his leadership. His life depended on what they were going to do and, while he did not doubt their determination, loyalty, or courage, he had no illusions about their intellect.

He smiled. Two gangs of incompetents led by a mad Russian and a Botswanan who really wanted to be a baker of fine cakes.

“This is funny?” asked Kolokov.

“No,” said James Harumbaki. “I was just thinking that you are clearly correct in your assessment of the situation. We Africans smile at different things than do Russians.”

Kolokov decided to ignore his hostage’s reply.

James Harumbaki decided that he would have to control himself to keep from beating the Russian in six or eight moves when the man stopped pacing and decided to play another game of chess.

“All the great. . ” Kolokov began when the door opened.

The large bald man entered and said, “You will not believe this.”

Kolokov had stopped pacing.

“I would believe that Putin has become a Jew,” Kolokov said. “I would believe that the sun is about to stop shining. I would believe you have seen the ghost of Lenin. What can you possibly say that I would not believe? What are you doing here? You are supposed to be waiting for us at the War Memorial. You are supposed to be looking for the Africans.”

“There was a demonstration at the War Memorial,” said the bald man. “Faggots were putting flowers on the tomb.”

“How patriotic,” said Kolokov.

“Then there were lots of people. Men, boys, old women, priests. They came throwing eggs, water, stones. I got hit. Look.”

He turned his head to reveal a bloody opening that almost certainly needed stitches and certainly would not be getting them.

“The police came.”

“Yes, they beat the queers,” said Kolokov, wanting the bald man to get to the point.

“No, they beat the others, the men, the women, the priests. .”

“Yes, yes,” said Kolokov. “Were the Africans there?”

“Yes, there were two of them. They ran away. I think some of the crowd was chasing them. I followed them. They got on the Metro.”

“Where did they go?”

“To a bar, a bar full of blacks. I think they may have noticed me.”

One of the other two men made a sound that may have been a laugh. The bald man gave him a warning look.

“How could they possibly notice you?” Kolokov said. “A big, bald white man with a gushing wound on his head. They must have had to employ very keen powers of observation honed from a hundred generations of hunting in the jungle. They will not be coming to the memorial to make the exchange.”

“I have the phone number of the cafe,” said the bald man.

Kolokov scratched his neck, and the bald man handed him a torn corner from a newspaper.

“You know the cafe they went to?”

The question was addressed to James Harumbaki.

“Yes,” he said.

“You will call them and I will tell you a new place for the exchange,” said Kolokov.

James Harumbaki said nothing.

“There is one more thing,” said the bald man.

Kolokov had been leaning forward so that his face was only inches from his hostage.

“And what is that?” asked Kolokov, still looking at James Harumbaki.

“There were two other people following them. I think they were policemen.”

Kolokov clasped his hands together, then clapped once and stood up.

“Go take care of your head,” he said calmly. “We will all have a drink from the bottle of vodka which Bogdan, who laughs in the corner, will pour for us all. I will then play another game of chess with our valuable guest and decide how we will engage our endgame with his friends and the police.”

He sat across from James Harumbaki.

“It will be interesting, and when it is over either we will have millions in diamonds or this will be the last game of chess for our guest.”

It was at this point, as the mad Russian waited for him to set up the pieces on the board, that James Harumbaki decided that it was not the time or place to beat his captor.

The bodies of the two Africans had been replaced on Paulinin’s laboratory table by two bodies that had been flown in from some idiotic place in Siberia.

Rostnikov had called, inquired about the condition and tranquility of his leg, and asked that the examination of the bodies he had sent be done as soon as possible.

One reason, Rostnikov said, was that the Canadian government wanted the body of the younger man.

And that was why Paulinin had turned on the CD of Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra, switched on the bright overheads, scratched his head, adjusted his glasses, scrubbed his hands, and made a decision. In the privacy of his laboratory, he would perform a dual autopsy.

Before doing so, however, he consulted with the two dead men as he laid out his instruments.

“You do not mind?” he asked.

“No, why should we,” said the old man, naked on the table. “We are dead. Are you not going to ask who killed us?”

“Would you tell me?” asked Paulinin, scalpel in hand, bending over the pale corpse of the Canadian.

“No,” said the old man. “You will have to discover that for yourself.”

“You agree?” he asked the Canadian as he made an incision to open wide the dark, almost blue, clotted wound in his chest, which had probably been the cause of death.

“Of course,” said the Canadian in perfect Russian.

Paulinin paused, long, sharp blade inserted deeply in flesh, as a favorite cello solo called out from the shadows where the speakers rested. The beauty of the passage almost brought him to tears.

Paulinin knew full well that neither dead man could talk, that the conversation was completely within his mind. Often Paulinin would get carried away by his conversations with the dead and forget for a while that the dead could not really speak. He likened his experience to that of a writer who carries on conversations with characters who do not exist, or of people watching a movie who both believe and disbelieve that what they are seeing is really taking place.

“Of course,” he said, pushing two fingers deeply into the wound, “one would have to be insane to believe that what was happening in a movie was really taking place, but at the same time, if the movie experience was working, the viewer would. . what have I found?”

“What?” asked the Canadian.

“What?” asked the old man on the table behind Paulinin.

Paulinin took his bloody fingers from the wound, picked up a foot-long instrument with a pincer at the end, and inserted it into the wound where his fingers had been.

It took him a difficult minute or so of probing before he realized that he had pushed that which he sought into the auricle of the heart.

Tchaikovsky, orchestra, and plaintive cello urged him on.

He found what he was looking for and slowly, carefully, to keep from losing it, removed the long, thin