burst. Porfiry was never sure whether it was his touch or hers that broke it. The moment of ecstasy was replaced by fear. Porfiry had looked around for his mother. She was hidden by the crowd of children who had turned to him and the little girl with the deafening pop of the balloon.
The tall balloon man had stepped through the crowd and looked down at Porfiry, who stood close to the little girl. She had taken his hand. The man leaned down to Porfiry and the girl. Porfiry could smell his breath, the dry, distant odor of tobacco like his uncle Sergei.
“What is your name?” the man had said.
Porfiry held back the tears, eyes darting for his mother, hand holding tight to the little girl’s fingers.
“Porfiry Petrovich,” he had answered. He could not remember if the little girl had given her name.
“Remember this, Porfiry Petrovich,” the man whispered in his ear, raising his eyebrows to play to the crowd of children, who laughed. “Treat precious things gently. If you press the balloon too hard, it will break. Will you remember that?”
“I will remember,” Porfiry had said.
“Good!” the man had shouted, standing up. “Then here is a gift.”
He handed Porfiry and the little girl each a balloon on a string and turned to the crowd of children who clamored around him, begging, calling, crying for a balloon of their own.
The little girl had dropped his hand and run away, and Porfiry Petrovich had raced around the crowd and found his mother.
“What is written on the balloon?” he asked.
“Sacrifice for the Revolution,” she said. “There’s a free circus tonight. That is the theme.”
The balloon had lasted almost till evening before a small leak drained and withered it.
“Porfiry,” Sarah said gently.
“Yes,” he answered, looking at his wife in the bed. The sun was going down and the ward lights would soon be coming on, the harsh white lights that cast the skin a sickly orange. Rostnikov wanted to be gone before that light came to his wife’s face, but he knew he would not leave till she ordered him to do so.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I was thinking about balloons,” he said. “Iosef was never interested in balloons.”
Sarah smiled. He returned the smile, and she took his hand the way the little girl had done half a century ago. He looked at her and thought that in the evening light and shadow she looked, with her bandaged head and white gown, like a little girl playing a role, perhaps the role of a wise Gypsy fortune teller.
“But Iosef loved the circus,” she said.
In the next bed, the girl Petra Toverinin dozed, a book lying open on her stomach. Irinia Komistok, the old woman, was off somewhere receiving therapy. Porfiry and Sarah were as alone as they probably ever would be in the hospital.
“What about that man?” Sarah asked, trying to sit up a bit.
“Bulgarin,” Rostnikov said. “Ivan Bulgarin. He is gone. His family removed him from the hospital yesterday.”
“Where did they take him?”
Rostnikov shrugged. “I’ll find out, but not today. I couldn’t push the balloon too hard or it might break,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sarah said, sounding tired. “If he has a family taking care of him.”
“I’ll find out nonetheless,” he said.
The girl in the next bed stirred and the book slipped from her stomach to the floor in a flutter like a landing bird. The sound struck something in Rostnikov.
“Porfiry?” Sarah said. “What is it?”
“The American writer Edgar Allan Poe,” he said, softly squeezing her hand. “He said that melancholy is the path of beauty.”
“I think you are tired,” said Sarah. “Why don’t you go home, lift your weights, read a little, and get something to eat.”
“Yes,” Rostnikov agreed, both reluctant and eager to go. If she were better, would he share with her, tell her where Ivan Bulgarin, the bear who had burst into her room, was leading him? No doubt he should drop the whole thing, forget that Nahatchavanski’s name had been given to him by Lukov at the Lentaka Shoe Factory. But perhaps he could pursue it just a bit further to satisfy his curiosity. Besides, he was curious about why Bulgarin was suddenly removed from the hospital and why no record of his transfer could be found.
Rostnikov let go of his wife’s hand and massaged his leg with both hands before standing up. Then he moved to the side of the sleeping girl’s bed, picked up the fallen book, and placed it on the small table nearby.
“Tomorrow,” he said, turning to his wife to kiss her forehead, which felt moist and slightly feverish. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she said. “It takes time. You have vegetables?”
“Potatoes,” he said.
“Find something green,” she said. “Eat something green. Promise.”
“I promise,” he answered, touching her hand and moving to the door and opening it as the last light of day faded. “You want the lights on?”
“No,” she said. “I think I’ll sleep.”
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“If you’re too busy …” she began, following through on the ritual they had established after his first visit.
“I’m not too busy,” he said, closing the door behind him.
NINE
WHEN ROSTNIKOV ARRIVED at Petrovka the next morning, the sun was not yet up. The armed uniformed guard inside the door stood behind a plastic shield, his machine pistol at the ready. His eyes met Rostnikov’s with recognition and returned to the front door.
The sixth floor was not exactly bustling with activity, but neither was it absolutely quiet. A trio of inspectors was using one of the glass-enclosed rooms. Their heads were close together, and they looked tired. One, a man known as Walchek the Pole, was shaking his head no while the others entreated. Walchek looked up when Rostnikov passed and nodded.
Karpo at his desk, pen in hand preparing a report, did not turn around when Rostnikov entered his office, but Rostnikov knew he had been noticed. Tkach and Zelach arrived almost an hour later, Tkach looking tired, Zelach silent and slouching. When the four men met in Rostnikov’s small office moments later, Porfiry Petrovich was lost in thought and concentrating on a sketch he was making of neat tubes of various sizes connected in an intricate pattern.
“Reports,” he said, putting a final touch of shading on a tube and standing up.
Karpo and Tkach placed filled-in forms on the desk, and Rostnikov glanced at them.
“And now,” he said, “tell me what is not in these reports.”
“The man who was found shot, Tolvenovov,” Tkach said, “was killed on a bus, probably our missing bus, probably by Turkistani separatists, probably led by a man in his late forties. If we find the man, Kostnitsov can positively identify him through DNA. The dead man grabbed the man’s wrist.”
“Computer,” said Tkach, holding back a yawn. “Identify and locate Turkistani separatists or those who know the Turkistani community, try to get a lead if it was Turkistanis.”
Tkach was seated in the corner, Zelach standing behind him. Karpo stood in the other corner.
“You had trouble sleeping, Sasha?” Rostnikov asked.
“My mother,” he said, brushing his hair back. “She … we talked most of the night.”
Outside the cubicle the sixth floor was coming to life. A pair of uniformed officers flanked a smiling man whom they jostled forward between the desks, and toward the room where Walchek the Pole and the other two investigators were still seated. The prisoner was ridiculously thin and looked as if he had some disease.
