Stuart Kaminsky: The Man Who Walked Like a Bear

Schroeder again looked at Rostnikov for an instant. “I’ll be honest with you, Comrade. Bulgarin is a party member, not because of his political zeal but because he has relatives who are … well connected. I’ve said more than I should, but I expect I can trust to your discretion.”

“Why?” Rostnikov asked again.

“I just-” Schroeder began in some confusion.

“Why do you expect you can trust to my discretion? You’ve never met me before, and I am a policeman.”

“I don’t … I … am I incorrect?”

“No,” said Rostnikov. “What is Bulgarin’s problem?”

“A breakdown. He-”

“No,” Rostnikov interrupted again. “He appeared to have some delusion. What is the nature of that delusion? He said something about a devil devouring the factory.”

Schroeder shrugged nervously and adjusted his tie.

“Who knows?” he said. “Devils, spacemen, talking animals, plots. We have a woman here who speaks to Karl Marx. Who knows with these? I can summon the physician assigned to his case.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Rostnikov, standing.

“You are in some physical distress?” said Schroeder, rising from his chair and proving to be considerably shorter than Rostnikov had thought.

“An ancient wound,” said Rostnikov. “I thought I hid it reasonably well.”

“You do,” said Schroeder. “But remember, though I am not a physician, I have almost thirty years of experience with symptoms. Can I tell you anything else?”

“Your name is German,” Rostnikov said, walking to the door.

“Yes, my parents moved to the Soviet Union before I was born. I can’t even speak German.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” said Rostnikov.

“Not at all,” said Schroeder, coming out from behind the desk. “Such incidents are rare, very rare, and, besides, Bulgarin is quite harmless. I’m assured he is quite harmless. Your wife is quite safe.”

“I wasn’t concerned about her safety,” said Rostnikov.

“Well, you know-”

And with that Rostnikov departed, closing the door behind him.

The morning was pleasant, cool, and the sky a bit threatening. Rostnikov reminded himself to take the umbrella the next day. He frequently reminded himself, but invariably forgot unless Sarah was home and caught him before he left the apartment.

There was an MVD car, a not reliable 1974 Zhiguli, waiting for him in front of the hospital. Officially Rostnikov was a member of the MVD, the uniformed and non-uniformed police responsible for maintaining order, preventing crime, and pursuing lawbreakers for all but political and economic offenses. Political and economic offenses were the mission of the KGB, the Komityet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, or State Security Agency. And Rostnikov had discovered when still a young policeman that any crime was political or economic in the Soviet Union if the KGB chose to see it as such, even the beating of a wife by her husband or the murder of the husband by a beaten wife.

Rostnikov climbed into the back of the car. He did not drive. He knew how to do it and had done it many years ago. The skill was probably still there, but the desire had never glowed. Driving was a distraction. Rostnikov’s superior, Colonel Snitkonoy, the Gray Wolfhound, had insisted on Rostnikov’s taking the car and uniformed driver, and Rostnikov had not refused.

“I want you back as quickly as possible,” the Wolfhound had said, standing tall, hands folded behind his back, brown uniform perfectly pressed and glowing with medals. “There is much to be done, and I can’t afford to have you wasting your time on buses. You understand.”

“Completely,” Rostnikov had said.

And so he sat in the backseat of the car, heading back to Moscow along the Volokolamsk Highway while the young woman driver made no conversation. Rostnikov always sat in the back of the car, though the custom was to sit in the front to keep from looking like an elitist. Rostnikov had no concern about such accusations, and the distance from the driver relieved them both of the obligation to carry on an unwanted conversation.

Schroeder, he was sure, had been lying. Rostnikov wasn’t sure about how much lying he had done, but he had lied. The administrator had been too ready, too cooperative. The busy administrator had been sitting there waiting for Rostnikov, possibly expecting him. And Schroeder had been sweating. There was nothing wrong with sweating. Many people sweated in the presence of a policeman, even if they were guilty of no crime. In fact, it was almost impossible in the Soviet Union to be innocent of all crimes, since the definition of crime included intent. Someone could be guilty of thinking improperly. Yes, things had changed recently. People talked of demokratizatsiya, democratization, but those things could change back again with a bullet, a quiet coup. It wasn’t that Schroeder sweated but that he did not take the handkerchief out of his pocket and wipe his brow. It had been important to Schroeder to make it seem that he was not nervous. Something was being hidden. It might be anything, from illegal purchase of medical supplies to the use of banned medications, but Rostnikov didn’t think so. He was convinced that it had something to do with Bulgarin, the man who walked like a bear.

Rostnikov pulled the worn paperback from his pocket and turned to the page where Carella had just learned about the headless magician.

The woman sat looking straight ahead, her coat still buttoned, her mouth firmly set. She was somewhere in her late forties and, Sasha was sure, wanted to be thought of as a stylish modern person. He discerned this because of the woman’s short haircut, her use of makeup, and the stylish if somewhat worn imitation leather coat she wore.

She was also a challenge. She had been sitting silently in the small interrogation room of Petrovka for more than fifteen minutes and had said nothing after informing the uniformed officer at the entrance that she had something of importance to say to a policeman. Petrovka consists of two ten-story L-shaped buildings on Petrovka Street. It is modern, imposing, utilitarian, and very busy. It is a place most Muscovites avoid. Often citizens will come through the doors determined to be heard and seen, only to change their mind at the sight of the humorless young officers carrying dark automatic weapons. But this woman, though afraid, had persisted.

Sasha Tkach had the unfortunate luck to be seated at his desk opposite Zelach when the woman was brought up. Sasha was usually successful with reluctant witnesses. He was handsome if a bit thin and looked much younger than his twenty-nine years. His hair fell over his eyes, and he had an engaging habit of throwing his head back to clear his vision. He also had a rather large space between his upper teeth, which seemed to bring out the maternal response in most women, but this woman, whose identification confirmed that her name was Elena Vostoyavek, did not respond to Sasha’s charms and, truth be told, Sasha had other things on his mind, particularly the fight he had had that very morning with his wife, Maya, over whether Sasha’s mother, Lydia, would be moving with them and the baby to the new apartment. It had been an unusually difficult fight because Lydia, deaf as she was, had been in the next room and might hear.

Sasha did not need this silent challenge before him. He needed a simple day of desk work, distracting, absorbing desk work without human contact. He had a pile of reports to write. He longed to write those reports, to lose himself in the routine of those reports, and so he decided to charm the reluctant woman.

“Can I get you some tea?” Sasha said, leaning close to her and smiling.

No answer.

“This must be difficult for you,” he went on, speaking softly, intimately. “Whatever it is you have to tell us must be important, and we appreciate your sense of responsibility. Too many citizens walk away from their responsibility.”