Stuart Kaminsky - Fall of a Cosmonaut

There were three experiments with each man, each time with a fresh deck, six decks all moved to the side after each experiment. First they were asked to concentrate on the deck before them and tell what the top card would be. They were then to turn over the card. When that experiment was finished with each man, Nadia repeated it, only she turned over the cards. Finally, with yet another deck, she picked up each card, looked at it, and asked each man what card she was looking at.

“Are we now finished?” asked Karpo.

“We are,” she said, standing.

“And?”

“You were well within the law of averages,” she said, looking at her notes. “No significant sign of telepathy or projection. You,” she added, looking at Zelach, who blinked nervously behind his glasses. “You got nothing right. You are phenomenally below the law of averages. It is extremely rare for someone to get not a single correct card in all three experiments. I’ll have to recheck the data.”

“I’m sorry,” said Zelach.

“No,” she said. “It is interesting.”

“You do not seem to be particularly disturbed by the murder of your colleague,” said Karpo suddenly.

“We each carry our grief in our own way, Inspector,” she said. “As you well know, as you have done.”

There were few times in his life when Karpo was unprepared for an eventuality. This was one of those times. Karpo’s loss had been enormous. The only woman who had gotten through to him emotionally-no, the only person who had gotten through to him-had been Mathilde Verson, the redheaded part-time prostitute who had been full of life, and who had seen something in the pale specter that challenged her. Mathilde had been killed in the crossfire of two Mafias while she drank coffee in a bar on a bright summer day.

“What do you know of me?” he asked.

“Little,” she said with a shrug. “But what you should know of me and would probably learn from the director is that I entered this line of research because I have psychic insights. I have, as they said in past centuries, visions. I cannot control them. I usually don’t know what they mean or what I am even seeing, but they are there. I am, in fact, in addition to my own research, a primary research source for Boris Adamovskovich. Who was also here during the murder.”

Zelach was looking from Karpo to Nadia Spectorski. He felt a tension but wasn’t at all sure what it was all about.

“It was an intuitive observation,” Karpo said.

“She had red hair,” responded Nadia Spectorski.

“You have done research on me in the last day,” Karpo said.

“No,” she answered. “I have not, but my job is not to convince you of anything. I have encountered hundreds of nonbelievers in psi phenomena. I have learned not to argue with them. Let’s go see the director now. I know he is expecting you.”

“Psychic knowledge?” asked Karpo as they all rose.

“No, you are scheduled.”

“Shall we argue now?” asked Elena.

They were seated at one of the hundreds of new outdoor cafes and coffee shops that had sprung up in the new Moscow. This one was on Gorky Street. The coffee was exceptional and the owner never charged the police, which was good for Elena and Sasha because they could not have otherwise afforded the two cups and the pastry they had been served. Elena had pushed the sweet ahlahd’yee s yahblahkalmee, “apple puff,” across the table to Sasha. Elena was watching her weight. She was about to be married, maybe, and she did not want to go the way of her mother and her Aunt Anna, who were decidedly overweight. Elena, as men had told her, was well toned and amply plump.

“No argument,” said Sasha, picking up the sweet and taking a bite. He looked at the people at the other tables and smiled.

“I will go to the exchange. I will pose as Yuri’s niece.”

“As you wish,” said Sasha. “You are sure you don’t want a small piece of this?”

“A small piece,” she said with a sigh as he pushed it back toward her. “You’ve changed, Sasha Tkach. Your wife takes your children and leaves you. Your mother who drives you mad moves in with you. And instead of being miserable, you’ve grown more cooperative. If one did not know, one might say you are content.”

“And this bothers you?” he asked.

“No, but it puzzles me. Are you happy that Maya left?”

“No. I want her back. I call her, write to her. I miss both of my children, perhaps Pulcharia most of all. It is almost her fourth birthday. I tell Maya I am changing. She doesn’t believe me. And, yes, even a day with my mother would have been enough to drive Lenin mad. I cannot explain my mood.”

“Nor can I,” she said, eating the rest of the apple puff. “But I will cease questioning it.”

“Proof,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Here are the tickets for the movie Yuri handed me. Take them. Go with Iosef.”

“Can’t,” she said. “We have other plans. Perhaps the new Sasha Tkach would like to take his mother.”

“It would be a true test,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I have taken my mother to movies in the past. It would be a true test. This morning, before I could escape, she followed me around, screaming that I should go to Kiev, beg Maya to come back. She said she would give me the money, that she would talk to Porfiry Petrovich. She misses her grandchildren. You know the Protopopovs, downstairs from us?”

“No.”

“It was so early and Lydia was so loud that they banged on the wall,” Sasha said. “I’m a policeman. They know it. Policemen don’t have their walls banged on. Even if you hear shots you don’t bang on a policeman’s wall. They banged.”

“What did you do?” Elena asked.

“After I escaped from my mother I knocked on their door and apologized,” he said. “Before Maya and the children left I would have pounded back and told the Protopopovs to be quiet. You see before you a very changed Sasha Tkach. Taking my mother to a movie will be the true test.”

There was a pause while Elena finished her coffee and Sasha gently drummed on the table with the fingers of his left hand and hummed tunelessly.

“Then I’m the niece?”

“Yes,” he said. “If you wish. And I will be a visiting producer from France. Would you like to hear my French accent?”

“I have heard it. It is fine. I will be the one making the exchange?”

“Yes,” said Sasha.

“I know what the movie is,” Elena said. “It’s English. Something called The Full Monty, a kahmyehdyeeyoo, ‘a comedy.’”

“What is a monty?” Sasha asked.

“I don’t know. Some kind of container, I think.”

“You know if it has subtitles?” Sasha asked hopefully, mindful of the dangers of his mother’s poor hearing, which, coupled with her willfulness and determination, could easily bring an entire audience to its knees or send it in flight from the theater.

“I think it is dubbed,” she said.

“A true test,” he repeated.

Porfiry Petrovich had gone to see Avrum Belinsky alone. Iosef had no interest in joining him. Iosef’s interests lay elsewhere. Besides, Rostnikov had a reason for seeing the rabbi alone.

The walk from Pushkin Square was short so his leg did not protest as he moved. Rostnikov entered the small synagogue that had gone through several incarnations, from church, to government office where work permits were issued, to a minor tourist attraction with minimal restoration so that it resembled a church, and then to a synagogue.

Belinsky was by himself, not in his tiny office just to the left of the entrance, but at the rostrum on the small platform which Rostnikov knew was called a bema. Belinsky seemed to be lost in thought, a pen in hand, looking down at some papers.