Stuart Kaminsky - Tarnished Icons

“With the two last month, that makes six,” Belinsky said. “All from our congregation. We can’t and won’t lose more Jews. What are you doing to find the murderers?”

“What can you do to help us?” asked Rostnikov, thinking he felt a twinge in his no longer extant left leg.

“More questions for answers,” said Belinsky impatiently. “I have some information that might be relevant. But how do I know you and the rest of the police will bother with the murders of Jews?”

“My wife is Jewish,” said Rostnikov. “And my son, therefore, is half Jewish. In the old Soviet Union and the days of the czars, that would have made him entirely Jewish. As he discovered when he was in the army, under our new system too, he is considered Jewish.”

“And you don’t want that,” Belinsky said sarcastically, now taking off his jacket and draping it over his arm.

“I needn’t tell you it is difficult to be Jewish in Russia, now and always, Avrum Belinsky,” said Rostnikov. “You are not Russian, are you?”

“I’m Israeli,” said Belinsky. “I came here to help rebuild the Jewish community. We are not to be stopped. A Jewish community center just opened in Saint Petersburg where they estimate there are one hundred thousand Jews. There were only some sixty synagogues in all of the Soviet Union, half of them in Georgia. Now we are trying to reignite Judaism in Russia, to give dignity and faith to those who have too long been without it.”

“Is that a sermon?” asked Rostnikov.

“It comes from one of my sermons,” Belinsky admitted. “When you check on my file, you will find that I was an officer in the Israeli army, that I have been twice wounded. I volunteered for this job when a group of Jews in Moscow requested assistance. I was, you will also discover, a member of the Olympic team in Germany when the massacre took place. I knew the men who died there as I knew the men who have died here.”

“You were a wrestler?”

“Greco-Roman,” Belinsky said.

“You lift weights?” asked Rostnikov.

Belinsky looked irritated.

“Yes,” he said.

“There will be a meeting in a few hours of the Office of Special Investigation, in which I work,” said Rostnikov. “I will ask that I be assigned exclusively to this case with adequate support.”

Belinsky nodded, still wary.

“Don’t do anything on your own, rabbi,” Rostnikov said.

Belinsky didn’t answer.

“Now,” said Rostnikov, “let’s go to the canteen for some tea and talk.”

Belinsky hesitated and then nodded in agreement.

Sasha Tkach was running late. It seemed as if there were a few truths by which he could live with some certainty. First, he would never get enough sleep. Second, he would always be running late. Third, he would never escape from his nearly seventy-year-old mother, Lydia, who, though she now had a tiny apartment of her own, spent almost every evening and many nights in the already cramped apartment of her son, his wife, and their two children. Sasha had found her the small but neat room in a concrete one-story apartment building. Elena Timofeyeva, the only woman in the Office of Special Investigation, had arranged it.

Actually, Elena, who lived in one of the two-room apartments in the building, had enlisted the aid of her aunt, with whom she lived. Anna Timofeyeva, who still had friends who owed her favors from her days as first deputy director of the Moscow procurator’s office, had gotten Lydia into the building. Anna had laid down a series of rules by which Lydia Tkach could live there. The rules were in writing. First, Lydia could visit Anna and Elena only when invited or in the case of a real emergency. The determination of whether the situation was an emergency would depend on Anna’s assessment of information given in no more than two sentences. Second, Lydia must wear her hearing aid when visiting. If it was broken, she could not visit. Third, discussions of her son’s job or complaints about her daughter-in-law were not to be tolerated. Although it wasn’t a rule, Anna made it clear that she did not particularly want to hear about Lydia’s grandchildren unless it was Anna who brought up the subject. Lydia had agreed to abide by the rules. She still spent as much time at her son’s apartment as her daughter-in-law Maya’s tolerance would permit. As much as Maya disliked the frequency of her mother-in-law’s visits, she had to admit that Lydia’s willingness to take care of the children while Maya worked was extremely helpful.

Sasha was an investigator in the Office of Special Investigation. He and Emil Karpo had been transferred to the office with Rostnikov when Rostnikov had lost favor within the procurator general’s office. The Office of Special Investigation had been a strictly ceremonial dead end until the often confused regime of Yeltsin and the reformers, when it took on more important cases, often politically sensitive ones, that the other investigative branches-State Security (formerly the KGB), the Ministry of the Interior (including the mafia task force), the National Police (formerly the MVD), the procurator’s office, the tax police-did not want. It was not uncommon for disputes to rage at a crime scene as to which of the investigative branches had jurisdiction. Often, two police districts would engage in heated argument in front of the public about who was in charge. The criminal investigation system of Russia was not quite in a shambles, but everyone seemed to be lying back and waiting to see if the reformers would hold on to power or the new Communists and Zhirinovsky Nationalists would combine and seize control. No one wished to fail. It was easier to shift the difficult cases to the Office of Special Investigation.

Sasha, who was over thirty but looked no more than a few years past twenty, dressed quickly to the morning din of his apartment. Lydia has slept over, and now, refusing to wear her hearing aid, she was shouting about having slept badly. Pulcharia, who was nearing four years old, was telling Maya, her mother, that she did not want to stay with Grandma Lydia. Illya was gurgling calmly in his makeshift crib.

Sasha examined himself in the mirror of the tiny bathroom. The bulge of the gun in the holster under his jacket did not show. The suit he wore was baggy and a bit frayed. A new suit was out of the question. His salary and Maya’s combined were barely enough to keep the family fed, dressed, and in a reasonable two-room apartment. He adjusted his shirt, slightly yellow from too many washings, and decided this was the best he could do. Besides, he would be out on the streets in his coat and scarf most of the day.

He was alone in the bedroom with the baby. When Lydia slept over, which was often, she slept in this room on the bed with Pulcharia. The baby slept in the other room. Even with the door to the bedroom closed, Lydia’s snoring could be heard just below the decibel range of a metro. Pulcharia had always been completely oblivious of her grandmother’s snoring.

Sasha stepped out into the combination living room/dining room/kitchen where he and Maya slept on the floor. The futon had been rolled up and stored, and the room was reasonably neat, but the look from Maya as their eyes met let him know with sympathy that neither of them would escape the apartment this morning without conflict. Maya, dark, pretty, showing no sign of having had two babies, shrugged slightly and shook her head, her short, straight dark hair moving in near slow motion.

Maya was dressed for work, dark skirt, green blouse, shoes with a low heel. She looked beautiful. He wondered how many men made passes at his wife in the course of her day at the Council for International Business Advancement. Sasha tried to ignore his mother and moved to give his wife a kiss. She was already made up, so the kiss was nearly chaste.