Stuart Kaminsky - Fall of a Cosmonaut

But now … she suddenly felt weak. Her knees threatened to abandon her. A vision. Brief. A computer monitor with a file open on the screen. The file had a name. She could read the name. Sergei Bolskanov. The name was suddenly deleted. The vision was gone.

Nadia put one hand on the bed, adjusted her glasses with the other, and moved to the window to whisper to her cactus and look through her kaleidoscope.

In the morning, Iosef awakened and looked at his watch. It was after seven. He had stayed up late, reading. When he had been a soldier, for three years Iosef had gone to bed early and been awakened early. When he had left the army and become a self-employed and not-successful playwright and actor, he had gone to bed late and awakened well after eleven. And now he found himself caught between two routines. He went to bed late and got up early.

The sun was up. The day was slightly overcast.

He got out of bed, rubbed his stomach to be sure it hadn’t ballooned to a grotesque size, and walked across the small room in his underpants to put on his trousers. On top of his trousers, someone had placed a towel and a very small bar of soap. He picked them up and went in search of somewhere to shave.

On the narrow landing he saw that the door to his fathers room and that of the man who called himself Primazon were open. Iosef looked into both rooms. They were empty. A woman was in Porfiry Petrovich’s room making the bed. He had noticed her the day before. With the sun behind her through the window, she reminded Iosef of a painting by Vermeer. The illusion was shattered when she sensed him watching her and turned to face him with a smile. It was a good smile but one in need of serious orthodontia.

He smiled back as she brushed her hair from her eyes and examined his bare upper body.

“ Gdyeh tooahlyeht? ‘Toilet?’ ‘Wash room?’” he asked.

“Downstairs,” she said.

He nodded, took his towel, soap, toothbrush, and razor and walked barefoot down the wooden stairs, following now the sound of voices. The shop was empty. The voices came from behind a curtain. Iosef followed them and found himself in a large room, surrounded by cabinets containing dishes, pots, books, candlesticks, and children’s board games.

In the center of the room was a round table with six chairs. Only three of the chairs were occupied. Porfiry Petrovich, fully dressed and shaved, sat in one chair, drinking tea. In another chair, also fully dressed, sat Anatoli Primazon, tearing pieces of bread from a loaf in the center of the table and popping them into his mouth. The third person at the table was Boris Vladovka, who looked somber and pale and was neither eating nor drinking.

“Bathroom?” asked Iosef.

Primazon pointed deeper into the room to another curtain.

Whatever they had been talking about, they had stopped when Iosef entered.

Iosef looked at his father, who turned his head to face his son.

“There is a pot of tea in the other room,” Rostnikov said. “And a refrigerator. Alexander Podgorny’s wife has been kind enough to also make some noodle soup.”

“From a can,” the umbrella man, who did not have his umbrella at the moment, said with a smile. “A bit too salty for me. High blood pressure. I take pills. Little round brown pills.”

Iosef nodded. “Then I better …” he began.

“Boris Vladovka has just told us something of great importance,” said Porfiry Petrovich.

Iosef looked at the large man and understood that the expression on his face was not simply somber but one of grief.

“Something about Tsimion Vladovka,” said Primazon, looking at the somber man.

“My son,” said Vladovka, holding back tears, “is dead.”

“Dead?” asked Iosef, glancing at his father and then at Primazon.

“Natural causes,” said the umbrella man.

“When?” asked Iosef.

“A week ago,” said Vladovka. “He had been ill for a long time. Liver disease. He had kept it a secret. He wanted to die at home. We buried him four days ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Iosef, looking to his father for help and receiving none.

“Before he died, he asked us not to,” said Boris. “He was afraid someone would be coming from Moscow and want to dig him up.”

Iosef was confused. He felt suddenly naked. He draped the towel over his shoulder.

“Why would anyone want to dig him up?”

“Tsimion had been in outer space. He had heard that other cosmonauts had been cut open when they died, cut open to see what, if anything, flying around the earth had done to their bodies.”

“And so …” Iosef tried.

“And so,” Boris went on, “here you are, from Moscow.”

“I am afraid we will have to see the body,” said Primazon, chewing on a piece of bread. “It will take only a few moments. We need identification.”

“Identification?” asked Boris, looking at the umbrella man.

“Verification,” Primazon said. “That he is dead.”

“Doctor Verushkin from Yerkistanitza gave me this,” Boris said, reaching into his pocket. “I’m sure you can talk to him. He is new in the area. We don’t really know him, but the old doctor, Feydov, he died. Feydov delivered both my sons and …”

Boris Vladovka’s voice trailed off. He started to raise his hands as if in a prelude to a new thought, but none came.

Primazon wiped his hands on the napkin in his lap and looked at the death certificate witnessed by a nurse and a deputy mayor.

“Liver disease,” Primazon confirmed. “Still …”

“I anticipated someone like you. My remaining son and his friends have dug up the coffin. It is next to the grave. The sky is clear but it has been raining. The clouds rush in from the east and …”

“We’re coming,” said Primazon. “Inspector Rostnikov?”

Rostnikov nodded, put down his tea, and got up along with Boris Vladovka.

“I’ll hurry,” said Iosef. “I can wash and shave later.”

“You saw the cemetery when you came in?” asked Boris.

“Yes,” said Iosef.

“We will be there.”

Iosef ran up the stairs, listening to the three men below him heading through the shop toward the front door. There was no mistaking his father’s footsteps, the sound of the slight limp.

The young woman was still in his room, making up his bed. She looked up at him and smiled again as he pulled a fresh shirt from his bag, put it on quickly, slipped on his socks and shoes, and grabbed his blue zipper jacket.

He found the driver, Ivan Laminski, standing next to the Mustang, reading a St. Petersburg newspaper. Laminski was still wearing his blue uniform, but Iosef noticed that the shirt under his open jacket was definitely wrinkled. Laminski looked up and nodded soberly.

Iosef trotted toward the cemetery just outside of town. He could see a very small group: his father, Boris, Primazon, Konstantin Vladovka, and another man holding a shovel.

Iosef slowed down and walked up to the open coffin in time to hear Porfiry Petrovich say, “It is him.”

Primazon looked at the dead man and then at Boris and said, “Yes, but I have a request. I would rather not make it, but it is essential. I was supposed to protect your son from harm. Now I would like to protect myself from the censure of my superiors. I would like a copy of the death certificate and I would like to take a photograph of your son.”

Boris Vladovka took a step toward Primazon, who was now carrying his umbrella, but his son stepped between them.

“It can do no harm, Father.”

“Take your photograph,” said Boris, turning away and heading back to the village.

Primazon tucked the umbrella under his arm and awkwardly reached into his pocket to produce a very small camera.

“Important in my work,” he explained.