Wolves Eat Dogs

'Yes.'

'And he's very good?'

'Apparently.'

He heard a murmur of satisfaction in a guess confirmed.

'You didn't ask,' Eva said.

'Ask what?'

'Whether the garden was radioactive. You're becoming a real citizen of the Zone.'

'Is that good or bad?'

'I don't know.'

'For you,' he asked, 'is it good or bad?'

She uncurled his fingers and laid her head on them. 'Disaster. The worst.'

Arkady's mobile phone rang as he coasted into town, and he turned onto the side street of beech trees to take the call. It was Victor phoning from the state library in Kiev. 'Encyclopedia entry 'Felix Mikhailovich Gerasimov, 1925 to 2002, director of the Institute of Extremely High Temperatures, Moscow.' Blah, blah. National prizes for physics, esteemed this and that, theoretician, patents for fuck-all, different state councils on science, international atomic controls, 'nuclear prophylaxis,' whatever the hell that is, papers on waste management. An all-around guy. Why are you interested? He died two years ago.'

Arkady leaned the motor bike on its stand. The sun danced through the trees, belying the fact that the street was dead and the houses empty. 'Something someone said. Any connection to Chernobyl?'

Sounds of paper flipping. 'Not much. A delegation six months after the accident. I bet every scientist in Russia was there by then.'

'Anything personal?'

Eva had told Arkady that he and Alex Gerasimov had more in common than he knew. He had a suspicion of what, but he wanted to be sure. While he talked, he paced by houses, each in its individual state of decay. At one window stood a doll, at least the third or fourth he'd seen at windows in Chernobyl.

Victor said, 'These are scientific books and journals, not fan magazines. Lyuba called last night. I told her about the lingerie shop here. She said to pick out anything I wanted. My choice.'

'Look for Chelyabinsk.'

'Okay, here's an article translated from the French about an explosion of nuclear waste in Chelyabinsk in '57. Which was a secret site, so we kept the lid on that. Gerasimov must have been a kid at the time, but he's mentioned as helping run the cleanup. I don't think they cleaned it up much. Okay, here's more nuclear pollution on Novaya Zemlya test grounds. Gerasimov again. For a theoretician, he did weird shit. A peace prize for military research. Very astute. This is how you climb the academic ladder. What is the Institute for Extremely High Temperatures, anyway? Could build warheads, could cure cancer.'

Could dump radioactive water into the Moscow River when the pipes at the institute froze. Arkady remembered Timofeyev's confession.

'More recent stuff,' Victor said. 'Newspaper clippings. London Times portrait from ten years ago, 'Physics in a Russian family: Academician Felix Gerasimov and his son, Alexander.' Genius in the genes, blah, blah. Friendly debate between generations over safety of reactors. 'Found dead.' Sorry, I skipped to another piece. From Izvestya, 'Institute director found dead at home by his own hand.' A gun. In good health but declining spirits after the death of his wife six months earlier. Last one, an appreciation in Pravda. 'Career that touched the highs and lows of Soviet science.' Here's the wife again. 'Tragic death.' '

A family tradition of suicide, that was the connection between Alex and Arkady. Eva had spotted the merry bond right away. 'What is the date on the Izvestya piece?'

'May second. He was found on May Day.'

Imagine, Arkady thought. One day Felix Gerasimov is the respected and honored director of a scientific institute well enough funded to have its own research reactor in the middle of Moscow, a reactor he's earned not only through his groundbreaking work in theoretical physics but also through his willingness to engage in the down-to-earth problems of nuclear this and that (test-site pollution and spontaneous explosions in the hinterland), all the signs of a politically shrewd careerist. And then the political system collapses. The Communist Party lies as gutted as Reactor Four. Bankrupt. The director and his faculty (including Ivanov and Timofeyev) have to walk around the institute in blankets and dump 'hot water' on the sly. That did, indeed, seem like twists enough for one career.

'Arkady, are you there?'

'Yes. Call Petrovka-'

'In Moscow?'

'Yes. Call headquarters and see if there's any record of a suicide attempt by the son, Alexander.'

'What makes you think there will be?'

'Because there will. Did you get anywhere with his off-time work in Moscow?'

'Sorry. I called, at Bobby's expense, every major hotel in Moscow. Nine have business centers offering interpreting, translation, PCs and fax. But none round the clock, and none employed an Alex Gerasimov. To put not too fine a point on it, a dead end. Lyuba says you're exploiting me.'

'Yes, that's why you're in Kiev and I'm in Chernobyl. Any sight of Anton?'

'I have my notes right here.' There was a rush of papers falling. 'Shit! Fuck your mother! I have to call you back.'

Victor really wasn't meant for the hushed confines of a library, Arkady decided. He looked at the doll in the window. Her face was bleached off, but the contours and a ponytail of golden filaments remained, and he glimpsed a shelf of more dolls, as if the house had been entrusted to a second, smaller family. The doorway lured him to the threshold. Close up, the doll's arms bore a gauze of spider-webs that he untangled, and when his mobile phone rang, he almost saw her flinch.

Arkady answered, 'Hello, Victor, go ahead.'

A raspy voice asked, 'Who is Victor?'

'A friend,' Arkady said.

'I bet you don't have many. I hear you got someone shot at the cooling pond.'

Arkady started again. 'Hello, Karel.'

It was Katamay, the missing militia officer. Dust motes eddied around the doll as if she were breathing.

'I want to talk to you about the Russian that you found. That's all, nothing else,' Arkady said and waited. The gaps were so long it was almost like talking to Zhenya.

'I want you to leave my family alone.'

'I will, but I have to talk to you.'

'We're talking.'

'In person. Just about the Russian, that's all I'm here for, and then I can go home.'

'With your friend Wayne Gretzky?'

'Yes.'

A seizure of coughing, followed by 'When I heard that, I almost split my side.'

'Then I won't bother your grandfather and sister anymore, and Dymtrus can have his gun back.'

A long silence.

'Pripyat, the center of the main square, ten tonight. Alone.'

'Agreed,' Arkady said, but to a dial tone.

Victor rang the next instant. 'Okay, Anton was at a couple of casinos by the river.'

'Why is he spending so much time here?'

'I don't know. Galina wore this tight outfit.'

'Spare me.' Arkady was still trying to switch gears from the Katamay call.

'Hey, thank God for our little hygienist, or I'd never see Anton. He picks her up after work every day. Goes up to the office like a real gentleman. Took her to a Porsche showroom, churches and a graveyard.'

'A graveyard?'

'Very prestigious. Poets, writers, composers all laid out. He put a pile of roses at a gravestone. I looked at it