Stuart Kaminsky - A Whisper to the Living

“You are all right?” she said softly.

“I am all right,” he said, trudging up the stairs, trying not to bother Mr. and Mrs. Gornick in the apartment next to theirs or the Volstoys right below them.

“A giant attacked you,” his mother said.

“Yes,” he said. “But I am fine.”

He was not surprised by her observation. She had extra-sensory powers, which had been tested and tested, checked and rechecked, at the Moscow Institute of Paranormal Research. He too had been tested, examined, prodded, and punctured and found to have abilities that did not match those of his mother.

He was at the top of the stairs now. She reached out and touched his left cheek.

“You are hungry,” she said. “I have sausage and cabbage for you.”

The sweet smell of sausage and cabbage filled the stairway.

“I am hungry,” he said.

She put up her right hand to hold the smock closed against her pendulous breasts. She was overweight and had a heart problem. She ate carefully, but both mother and son knew the battle with heart disease would soon end.

He followed her into the apartment, took off his jacket, and deposited it on the chair near the door with a heavy thump.

He sat and she poured him a small glass of white wine. She joined him. He did not ask how she knew when he would be home so that she could have his dinner on the table. That was one of the things he would miss, one of many things, when she was gone.

“You have a question, Akardy,” she said, picking up her fork.

He ate slowly and considered his response, though he knew he was about to ask his question. The only issue was how he would couch it.

“Do you believe in an almost instant deep attraction of one person to another?”

“You mean love,” she said.

He said nothing for a moment, forkful of sausage on the way to his mouth, and then, “What if your affection is addressed toward someone with great problems?”

“Akardy, there are some things I cannot penetrate that require normal conversation.”

“Love,” he said. “I think I am in love.”

“The problem?”

“She murdered her husband and tried to kill an innocent woman.”

“And you love her?”

“Her rage at her husband was well justified. Her life has been one of misfortune.”

“Sometimes one cannot help being attracted to or falling in love with the wrong person.”

He shrugged and went on eating. Then he sensed a sudden stiffening of his mother’s body, a catching of breath. At first he thought it might be her heart, but then she sat upright and said, “She will not go to jail.”

He believed his mother.

“I think you will help her. I think you may regret it.”

“You are certain?”

“No,” she said. “Never, but as close to certainty as one can get. One more thing.”

“What?”

“Do you not know?”

It came to him.

“For dessert you have plum pudding.”

“Yes,” she said. “Tell me more about this woman you love who murdered her husband.”

Yuri Platkovsat at the end of the bench gnawing at a bright orange carrot. In the middle of the bench sat the one-legged policeman. Both the boy, who was on his way home from school, and Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov watched the afternoon traffic go by.

Over the last two days, the temperature had risen again, and a wet snow that turned to slush formed a thin, shoe-penetrating lake of dirty water.

Finally, Rostnikov, without looking at the boy, said, “We have switched from less-than-nutritious candy to healthy vegetables.”

Yuri looked at what was left of his carrot, which was not much, and answered, “The school.”

The boy, fair skinned, thin, with dark hair sticking out around the earflaps of his woolen shirt, crunched loudly on his carrot.

Rostnikov nodded in understanding.

“Carrots are not bad.”

Rostnikov, hands folded in his lap, nodded.

“Would you like one? I have two more.”

“Yes.”

The boy dug a plastic Baggie from his book bag, unzipped it, and handed Rostnikov a carrot.

“You got him, the Maniac.”

Rostnikov took a bite of carrot.

“He was eternally detained.”

The boy nodded as he pulled his legs back to avoid the splash of a group of hurrying men and women anxious to get home.

“Shot when he was going to try to kill you. A SWAT team.”

“Would you believe me if I told you I was never in any danger from the Maniac, that I could have brought him in if men firing automatic weapons had not appeared?”

“Yes, I believe.”

“However, I was shot.”

“How? Where?”

Yuri was looking at the policeman with great interest.

“In my leg and shoulder. Fortunately, one bullet hit my artificial leg, where it was removed without pain. The other bullet went through my arm and scraped a bone.”

“Does it hurt?”

“A bit.”

“May I see the bullet holes?” asked Yuri.

Rostnikov awkwardly leaned forward, pulled up the leg of his pants, and pushed down his sock. The sight of the washtub of a man displaying his artificial leg for the boy in the slushy cold caused usually weary commuters to hesitate, look, and continue. A few considered informing the police. More simply averted their eyes and walked on.

The boy looked at the dent on the artificial leg, which the policeman pointed out.

“To show you the wound in my shoulder would require me removing my coat, shirt, and undershirt and you would see only a white bandage. I am sorry.”

“Do not be. You found him, for which I am pleased.”

Rostnikov pulled up his sock, dropped his trouser leg, and sat back.

“My grandfather, who has been known to stumble around the park and on the street, might have been next.”

“And you have great affection for your grandfather?”

“No. Maybe. Sometimes. You are telling me a great deal about your case. Do you usually go about telling boys in the park what you are doing?”

“No, I do not. I suppose I like you.”

“I like you too. Another carrot?”

Rostnikov looked down at his hand. The carrot was gone. He had not even noted its passing.

“I think not,” said Rostnikov.

“Then it is over. No reason to return to this bench, the park.”

Rostnikov let out a small grunt as he watched a young woman make a dangerous crossing of the street. She held a large purse in one hand and kept her small hat in place with the other.

There were still the copycats to deal with. He was not prepared to share that information with the boy on the bench.

“Perhaps I will find myself back here from time to time,” said Rostnikov. “It is a pleasant place to watch pretty girls, to think, to find stimulating conversation.”

“You like superheroes?” said Yuri.

“ X-Files . My son gave me an ‘I Want to Believe’ T-shirt some years ago. I frequently sleep in it.”

“Your son?”

“He is a policeman too and probably older than your mother and father.”

“Then you are old?”

“As old as Moscow itself.”

“I am going to be a policeman,” said the boy. “Of course I am only eleven, so I may change my mind.”

“Return to this bench and keep me informed of your various changes of mind.”

“I should go home now.”

“We should both go home now.”

The boy bounced up. Rostnikov positioned his nonexistent leg and pushed himself up slowly with a hand on either side of him.

Yuri Platkov held out a thin right hand and Rostnikov took it lightly with respect.

“It is nice to see you again. My name is Yuri Sergievich Platkov.”

“And mine is Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov.”

“That sounds like a very old-fashioned name.”