Martin Smith - Tatiana

“A battle?” Arkady thought that was a little exaggerated.

One wall of Obolensky’s office was covered with citations from news organizations and schools of journalism around the world. Two photographs were of Obolensky and Tatiana Petrovna accepting awards. A leather sofa was worn flat. A dead ficus haunted a corner. Obolensky’s desk was half hidden by a computer and manuscripts and books that overflowed the shelves. All in all, pretty much the professional disorder that Arkady expected in an editor’s office.

“What happened after Anya and I left?” he asked. “Did you get your cameras and cell phones back?”

“After the captain confiscated all the film and memory cards. The captain had his fun. He advised us not to make an issue of the beating because then they would really dish it out. ‘Dish it out’? What does that mean? What’s left after murder? For the meantime he cited us for unlawful assembly and libeling the office of the president. Not a word about the attack on us. I’m responsible for my people. I don’t want their blood on my hands.”

“Did you lodge a complaint with a prosecutor?”

“What would be the point? Prosecutors, investigators, militia, they’re all thieves, present company excepted.” Only two glasses of vodka, and Obolensky was becoming emotional. “Renko, you and I know that our demonstration was about more than Tatiana. It was about all journalists who have been attacked. There’s a pattern. A journalist is murdered; an unlikely suspect is arrested, tried and found not guilty. And that’s the end of it, except we get the message. Soon there will be no news but their news. They say it’s better than a free press, it’s a free but ‘responsible’ press.” He poured a sloppy glass and raised it high. “So the nation moves on, blindfolded.”

“What about Tatiana?”

“Tatiana was fearless. Independent. In other words, I couldn’t stop her. She did what she wanted. She went to America once for a big humanitarian prize, and all she could talk about when she came back was bumper stickers. She said if she had a car, she’d have a sticker that said, ‘So Much Corruption, So Little Time.’ I think she knew her time was up. Why else would she live in a building next to skinheads?”

“Did they ever attack her?”

“No.”

“Is it possible they respected her?”

“Why not? They’re monsters but they’re still human. She was always for the underdog.” Obolensky hunched closer. “The official line is that Tatiana jumped and there will be no investigation. So, what are you doing? The war is over.”

Arkady said, “People don’t know about the demonstration.”

“And they won’t. The television news that night showed Putin petting a tiger cub and Medvedev arranging flowers. Anyway, Tatiana is missing again.”

“Again?”

“First she was in the wrong drawer.” Obolensky refilled the glasses. To the brim. “Now she’s totally disappeared.”

“What do you mean?”

“They can’t find her. They say they’ve looked everywhere. They’re just twisting our dicks. Apparently, the authorities are concerned that wherever our Tatiana is buried will become some sort of shrine. They’re juggling her until they come up with an answer.”

“Why not cremate her?”

“Maybe they have, who knows? But you’re supposed to ask the family first.”

“Did she have any family?”

“A sister in Kaliningrad that no one can locate. I tried. I went to Kaliningrad myself and knocked on her door, because if the sister doesn’t claim her or they hide Tatiana long enough, she might end up in a grave for the unclaimed. A double disappearance.”

“Was she secretive by nature?”

“She had a personal life. She would disappear for a week at a time and never say where she’d been. An unpredictable lady. I think it was her unpredictability that kept her alive. And she never revealed her sources, but we were watching the news and saw this body wash up on the beach in Kaliningrad. She insisted on going to the scene.”

“What was his name?”

“She wouldn’t tell me.”

“How did she know him?”

“According to Tatiana, they met at a book event in Zurich. He was interpreting for one of the other authors. Of course, once he knew who she was, he tried to impress her and let her know that he had inside information about criminal activities in Moscow and Kaliningrad. The police didn’t even make a pretense of an investigation of his death. They just hauled him off. It was local kids that found his notebook in the sea grass. The little ghouls sold it to Tatiana. Five hundred rubles for a notebook of puzzles. Only the joke’s on us. It’s completely useless.” Obolensky unlocked a desk drawer and took out a reporter’s spiral notebook.

“What is it?”

“Tatiana said they were the interpreter’s notes.”

“Notes about what?”

“You tell me. Tatiana kept it secret. It was going to be the capper of her career. She was headed for sainthood. Instead, here comes the Kremlin’s smear campaign. She was a subverter of youth, an agent of the West, a wanton woman. They throw mud at you even as they kill you; that’s the way they work.”

“Who is ‘they’?”

“ ‘They’ are those persons in the Kremlin who determine whether a journalist is digging too deep or reaching too high. The persons who like to say that only a coffin corrects a hunchback.”

“Where is Tatiana’s dog?”

“Polo? With Maxim, the last I heard. Renko, why is it you still sound like an investigator?”

“Habit.” Arkady looked idly around the office. A cactus on the windowsill looked shriveled and defeated. “What happened to Tatiana’s manuscript?”

“It disappeared. She was going to give me a rough draft the day she died. All I have is this notebook.”

“May I see?”

Obolensky laughed. “Take a look.”

Arkady turned to the first page. Second, third, and his confusion only grew. It was drawings. It was arrows, boxes, teardrops, fish, a cat and more, as if someone had poured out the contents of a typographer’s box and tossed in gnostic symbols, dollar signs, stick figures and, most improbably, “Natalya Goncharova,” the name of the unfaithful wife for whom the poet Pushkin lost his life.

“What does it mean?” Arkady asked.

“Who knows?” Obolensky took back the notebook and returned it to the drawer. “Sorry, I’m saving it for the writer I’ve assigned to do a follow-up article on Tatiana.”

“After the attack on the demonstration I thought you stopped making waves.”

“We did, we did. Nonetheless, we have a reporter who’s eager to try. How can I deny her?”

“Who?”

“Anya. It’s her big chance, don’t you think?”

• • •

Arkady’s car was just out of the repair shop, and now that he had it back, he was as edgy as a parent. Every vehicle was within a millimeter of another’s skin. Other drivers made no eye contact and gave no quarter.

Victor gloated. “It’s like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, but in slow motion. It’s good to see your car again. A bit macho for my taste, if you know what I mean.”

“I can only guess.”

“The problem is the precinct commander says that since Tatiana Petrovna’s death was clearly a suicide, there is no basis for further investigation. That means no depositions, no subpoenas and no lawyers. The body’s disappeared. The commander has turned me down. So we have overfulfilled our quota of nothing. Where are we going?”

“To see our witness.”

“The neighbor? Svetlana?”

“I told you, she heard screams.”

“Okay, let’s say you have approval for an investigation-which you don’t, but never mind-did she actually see anything? Was she under the influence of any drugs? Could she swear to the time? Was she with a customer? This is some witness.”