Wolves Eat Dogs

early. It wasn't. There's no point going to the hospital now.'

'What happened? How did you get exposed?'

'Ah, that's a different story.'

'Maybe not. Three men suffered from cesium poisoning: your Russian, his business partner and you. You don't think they're related?'

'I don't know. It depends how you look at it. History moves in funny ways, right? We've gone through evolution, now we're going through de-evolution. Everything is breaking down. No borders, no boundaries. No limits, no treaties. Suicide bombers, kids with guns. AIDS, Ebola, mad cow. It's all breaking down, and I'm breaking down with it. I'm bleeding internally. No platelets. No stomach lining. Infected. The reason I agreed to see you was to say that my family had nothing to do with this. Dymtrus and Taras had nothing to do with any of this, either.' Katamay stopped for a spasm of wet coughs. The Woropays were solicitous as nurses, wiping blood from his lips. He raised his head and smiled. 'Much better than a hospital. I had my theater debut here in Peter and the Wolf. I played the wolf. I thought I was a wolf until I met a real one.'

'Who is that?'

'You'll know when you know. Anyway, we stray. Just the Russian I found, we agreed.'

'His car. You towed it. Was there anything inside? Papers, maps, directions?'

'No.'

Arkady reviewed his notes. 'His watch, you said it was a Rolex?'

'Yes. Oh, that was sneaky. You caught me.' Katamay held up an arm to show a gold Rolex like a bauble.

Dymtrus punched Arkady in the back of the head. He obviously did not appreciate lese-majeste.

Katamay said, 'No, no, fair is fair. He caught me. It doesn't matter, anyway.'

'It doesn't, does it?' Arkady said.

'Give Dymtrus back his gun. He's embarrassed.'

'Sure.'

Arkady returned the pistol to Dymtrus, who muttered, 'Gretzky.'

'Okay, there was a checkpoint pass and directions,' Katamay said.

'To where, exactly?'

'The cemetery.'

'Where are the directions now?'

'I don't know.'

'Typewritten?'

'Hardly.' Katamay was amused.

'But the pass was signed by Captain Marchenko?'

'Maybe.'

'It's just a form that could be snatched off a desk?'

'Pretty much.'

'You saw the pass and directions when you found the body or when you towed the car?'

'When we found the body.'

You said you found the body while you were canvassing houses about theft. The cemetery gate is fifty meters from the nearest occupied house. Why were you at the gate?'

'I don't remember.'

'That was cute, towing the car and hiding it at Bela's yard.'

'Right under Bela's nose and where Marchenko couldn't go. I hear Bela walks the whole yard every day now.' Karel's laugh turned into a cough; every word seemed to cost him.

'You disappeared at the same time. Were you sick then?'

'A little.'

'But you still wanted money from a stolen car?'

'I thought I could leave something… to someone.'

'Who?' Arkady asked, but Katamay stopped for breath. 'Leave me something. Who was the 'squatter' who led you to the gate?'

'Hulak,' Katamay got out.

'Boris Hulak? The body pulled out of the cooling pond?'

'That's the only reason I'm telling you.' Karel sank out of sight against the cushions with a laugh no more than a sigh. 'There's nothing you can do about it anyway.'

As Arkady rode by the sarcophagus, he felt the monster shift within its steel plates and razor wire. But the monster wasn't only there. It was riding a Ferris wheel here, swirling though a bloodstream there, seeping into the river, rooting in a million bones. What leitmotif for this kind of beast? An ominous cello. One note. Sustained. For fifty thousand years.

The closer Arkady got to the turnoff to Eva's cabin, the more each passing radiation marker sounded like the stroke of an ax. He didn't have to go back. She wouldn't answer any questions. She was a complication. The truth was that, after such close contact with Karel Katamay, part of Arkady craved nothing more than a chance to burn his own clothes, to scrub himself with a stiff brush and ride as far away as he could.

By itself, the motorbike seemed to turn her way. He rode over the rattle of the bridge and along nodding catkins to the house among the birches, where he found her sitting in bed in her bathrobe, smoking, cradling a glass and an ashtray between her legs. She looked as if she had stared a hole through the door since he'd left.

Arkady asked, 'Are we drinking?'

'We're drinking.'

There was a sharpness in the air that said it wasn't water.

'Do you think we drink too much?'

'It depends on the circumstances. I used to go over patient files in the evening, but since you arrived, I have been trying to understand who you are. When I get the answer, I may not want to be sober.'

'Ask me.' He tried to take the bottle, but she held on.

'No, no, you're the Question Man. Alex says most people get over asking why by the age of ten, only you never did.'

'Was Alex here?'

'See? The problem is, I hate questions and poking into other people's lives. I don't see much of a future for us.'

He pulled a chair up to the bed and sat. Being with her was like watching a bird beat against a pane of glass. Anything he did could be disastrous. 'Well, I had a question.'

'No questions.'

'What's your opinion of Noah?' Arkady asked.

'From the Bible?'

'The Bible, the Flood, the ark.'

'You are a strange man.' He felt her tease around the question, searching for his angle. Eva said, 'My opinion of Noah is low, my opinion of God is lower. Why on earth do you ask?'

'I was wondering 'Why Noah?' Was he a carpenter or a sailor?'

'A carpenter. All he had to do was float, and muck the stupid animals. It wasn't as if he was going anywhere.'

'How do you know?'

'God would have given him directions.'

'You're right.' If Timofeyev had driven from Moscow to the Ukraine, to a small village he had never seen before, he would have needed directions. 'Do you think the ark could have settled here?'

'Why not? It's a nice place,' Eva said. 'Full of murdered Poles, Jews, Reds and Whites, not to mention the victims starved to death by Stalin or hung by the Germans, but still nice. The best milk, best apples, best pears. We used to spend the summer on the river, in boats or on the beach. We fished. The Pripyat was famous for pike in those days. I would lie down on a towel on the beach and watch fluffy clouds and dream of dancing and traveling to foreign countries where I would meet a famous pianist, a passionate genius, and marry him and have