Aleksandr Chenko had awakened after a fitful night.
Over the last five years since he had pushed his rival out of a window-he could no longer remember the name of the lean, weak young man-Aleksandr had not had a troubled night of sleep. Indeed, he had seemed to sleep more soundly with each drunken, homeless, or surly lout he lured into the park and struck from behind with his hammer. The feel of steel against skull, the shatter of cracking bone, the last sounds without words from each victim had given Aleksandr days and even weeks of near perfect peace. After marking off each attack, he had always returned to his daily ritual, breakfast of hot or cold kasha with a little milk.
But last night, last night had been different. He had dreamt; the dream had the feel of a nightmare. He had sat on a stone bench in the park across from a man to whom he could assign no face. The chessboard between them had only a few pieces left. Each empty space was trickled by a drop of blood that shimmered with each hand placed on the table.
“Your move,” the man had said.
It was quite vivid, even now, in the light of a sunny day.
“Your move,” the man had said patiently.
Aleksandr had raised a hand toward his remaining knight when the man said, quite calmly, quite certainly, “With that move you will lose.”
Aleksandr had withdrawn his hand. He had looked at the board, the remaining pieces, the spots of blood, and none of it had made any sense. He did not know whether he was ahead or behind.
It was then he had awakened with no doubt that the man across the way, the policeman with one leg, was the man of his dream.
Aleksandr Chenko needed a plan. It was his move.
But first he forced himself to shave, shower, and dress before deciding to boldly throw open the curtains to be sure that he had not also dreamt of the policeman he had seen last night.
As soon as he had opened the curtains, he saw the policeman, cup of steaming coffee or tea in his hand, sitting in the opposite window. The policeman did not look Aleksandr’s way but continued to read, or pretend to read, a paperback in his hand. The policeman was dressed and looked quite awake.
Should Aleksandr try to get his attention or should he too act as if this were all very normal? He decided to wait out the block of a man across from him. Aleksandr would not crack. The man who had calmly killed more than sixty people was not going to crack. He would not allow the lawyers, judges, newspaper reporters, television news crews to see a broken man. Of course this all depended on whether or not he was going to be arrested. He was determined to hold out. He was determined not to give them what they wanted. Now, if only the policeman with the false leg would understand. Aleksandr did not want forgiveness because he did not feel that he had done anything that needed to be forgiven. But understanding would be acceptable, and it was possible this bulk of a policeman could understand that Aleksandr was not the Bitsevsky Maniac, that calling him a maniac was to dismiss him as simply having acted insanely. Aleksandr knew that he was not insane.
When he exited his apartment building, the first thing he saw was a bus moving toward the corner. If he hurried, he could catch it and it would bring him to within a few hundred yards of the Volga Supermarket II. Even during heavy rains when he carried an umbrella or deep snow and frigid cold when he had to wear his down jacket and hood, he had not chosen the bus. The park was his.
But this morning he was tempted by that bus, for the second thing he saw was the policeman sitting across the street in front of the park on the bench that faced the apartment building.
Aleksandr, pretending he had not seen the policeman, did not hurry toward the bus. He hitched his backpack, in which was packed his lunch of beef soup in a thermos, and crossed the street. He entered the familiar park path certain that he hardly had to hurry to outdistance the policeman.
When Aleksandr emerged from the park, he saw the one-legged policeman again sitting on a bench, a book in hand. As Aleks moved, he was within ten feet of Rostnikov. No one was in sight but a woman a half block down, her back to the park. The element of surprise was with Aleks. He could kill the policeman here and now during this break in late-morning traffic. The only question was how did the man get here so quickly? Was there a police car lurking, watching? No. This was neither the place nor the time. Aleks decided to acknowledge the policeman.
“Good morning.”
Rostnikov finished the sentence he was reading and looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun with his right hand.
“Good morning.”
“Do you plan to haunt me night and day?”
Rostnikov did not answer and so Aleks continued with, “Are you trying to get me to say something I will regret?
“Tell me,” said Rostnikov as Chenko started to step away. “Do you like birds?”
“Birds?”
“Yes. When I go to the coast of the sea on vacation, I sit and watch the long-beaked, long-legged white creatures that step with the grace of Bolshoi ballet dancers. And when they soar, it is a thing of great beauty. Do you find anything beautiful?”
“Beautiful? Perhaps a neatly lined-up and stacked display of some fresh fruit. Oranges, apples, melons. The ones that give out a sweet smell. But vegetables also-”
He stopped abruptly.
“What?” asked Rostnikov.
“What did you do with the old couple whose apartment you sit in?”
“Moved them out for a while,” answered the policeman.
The next reasonable question was, “Why?” but since Aleks knew why, the slayer of dozens did not ask.
Aleks hurried away wondering if the one-legged policeman would emerge during the day, at the end of a display in the produce department, down the aisle of canned soups and canned vegetables, seated on a bench at the end of a checkout aisle.
Aleks paused a moment to look back at the policeman, who was now in the distance. The man had gone back to reading his book.
Lydia Tkach did not expect her grandchildren to run to her arms. Lydia knew that her voice was high and shrill and her manner that of a Gulag prison camp commander. Still, they were well behaved and suffered themselves to be hugged. The hug was long and the children were patient.
“Other room,” said Maya.
Lydia’s daughter-in-law had changed, and definitely for the better. Her dark beauty had returned. There was confidence in her manner. The small apartment in the heart of Kiev was clean, comfortable looking, and bright.
Both children headed back across the living room and entered a room at the rear of the apartment.
“Please sit. I’ll make some coffee.”
“Maybe in a little while,” said Lydia, who was, reluctantly, wearing the hearing aids her son had purchased for her.
Maya sat on a modern-looking chair with arms and rested her folded hands in her lap.
“No,” Maya said.
“No? You don’t know what I was going to ask,” said Lydia.
“I do,” said Maya. “The answer is ‘no.’ You will always be welcome in my home because of your grandchildren, but I do not want to hear the reasons why the children and I should go back to Sasha.”
“I have come far and spent much to talk to you of such things. At least listen. Time me. Ten minutes. No more.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Yes, ten minutes, well, maybe fifteen.”
“Begin,” said Maya.
And Lydia did.
“I am a pest, I know,” said Vera Korstov.
