Stuart Kaminsky - Death of a Dissident

“You sat up all night watching me sleep?” she asked with sarcasm.

“No,” he said, moving to the sink to heat water so he could shave. “Forget it. You didn’t sleep.”

“Don’t humor me,” she said angrily. “You think I slept all night.”

Rostnikov turned on the light in the corner. The sun was not yet up out the window. He looked into the darkness outside and then at her.

“Iosef will be all right,” he said.

“Now you’re a god,” she said, glaring at him.

“No. He will be all right.”

Sarah looked at him for an instant and then turned her head away into her pillow. He finished his shaving, dressed, found some bread in the cupboard and a piece of cheese, and made himself a lunch, which he rolled in some newspaper and placed in his worn briefcase.

At the door he paused.

“Goodbye,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He wanted to repeat that Iosef would be all right, but his mouth went dry and the words called him a liar. The Volga and the new driver were waiting for Rostnikov at the curb in front of his house. People hurrying to work in the near dawn glanced to see who was important enough in the neighborhood to merit a car and driver.

“Why are you here?” Rostnikov asked.

“Orders from the Procurator’s office,” he responded instantly. “I am to pick you up and be available throughout your current investigation.”

“That will be most helpful, Michael Veselivitch Dolguruki,” Rostnikov answered getting into the back seat.

“You remembered my name,” said the driver, pulling into the nearly empty street.

“You are an unusually talkative driver,” said Rostnikov.

“I’m sorry, comrade,” answered the driver. “I assume that is a rebuke.”

“Assume only that you made some impression on me,” said Rostnikov, looking out the window. “Do you know where the K.G.B. headquarters is?”

“Of course,” said the driver.

“That is where we are going.”

This time Rostnikov did not wait at all. He announced himself at the front desk, and seconds later the man named Zhenya appeared to lead him up to Colonel Drozhkin’s office. Again, Rostnikov had to hurry behind him to keep pace.

“Go right in,” said Zhenya.

“Thank you,” replied Rostnikov, reaching down to massage his leg. Zhenya watched him for a second and then turned and left. Rostnikov knocked and entered the room before waiting for an answer.

“Rostnikov,” said Drozhkin, without rising. Rostnikov decided that the colonel resembled the dead branch of a birch tree. The image pleased him and gave him a secret to sustain him through the conversation.

“I called you here to say that we appreciate the speed with which you conducted the Granovsky investigation,” said Drozhkin, looking up with a pained look on his face that Rostnikov took to be a smile.

“Thank you, Colonel,” said Rostnikov. He was not offered a seat, and Drozhkin seemed not to have noticed. Then the colonel realized the situation and said, “Please sit down.”

Rostnikov sat and nothing was said for a few seconds.

“This Vonovich will be given a quick trial,” Drozhkin said, fixing his eyes on Rostnikov, who returned the look while holding a gentle smile on his face.

“That,” said Rostnikov, “is up to Procurator Timoteyeva.”

“Of course,” said Drozhkin, standing nervously. “I was not asking a question. I was making an observation. I understand that you are already on another murder, an entirely unrelated murder.”

“I am on another murder,” said Rostnikov.

Drozhkin paced to a corner nervously, looked out of the window behind him and turned to face Rostnikov with hands behind his back.

“Neither of us is a fool, Inspector.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Good,” Drozhkin said, returning to his desk. “I understand that troops are being rotated in Afghanistan this very day. I know this because we have direct contact with agents who are there. We can get information and relay orders instantly. While our relations with the military have been strained in the past, this is a new era, especially where political matters are involved. It is hypothetical, of course, but we could have individual soldiers transferred or even recalled from the front if we thought it necessary.”

“I see,” sighed Rostnikov.

“Good,” said Drozhkin. “Well, I hope you catch your new murderer as swiftly as you caught your last one. And I hope you will be hearing from your son very soon.”

Drozhkin started to rise again but changed his mind, and Rostnikov moved slowly to the door.

“Thank you, Colonel,” Rostnikov said.

The K.G.B. officer did not answer.

Zhenya was waiting outside the door to escort Rostnikov out, but Rostnikov had no intention of rushing after him. He walked slowly, and Zhenya was forced to stop and wait twice.

At the door, Rostnkov said “Thank you, comrade,” to the retreating back of Zhenya and moved to the waiting car.

“Next time you wait for me,” Rostnikov said, sinking back into the seat, “turn off the engine. You waste petrol.”

“Yes, sir,” said the driver.

A blanket of heat lay on Sonya Granovsky like a wet cat, as she tried to read by the light of the single bulb in the apartment on Dimitry Ulanov Street. She was as far from where her husband’s body had been as she could be. The police had tried to keep her from returning, but she had threatened to go to the housing board. The apartment was hers. If they had completed their investigation, she wanted to return with her daughter. Apartments were not easy to get and she didn’t want this one picked cold by some policeman who wanted to move his family in over the body of her husband. She would fight them at every step. She didn’t know why the apartment was so warm. Perhaps it wasn’t warm at all. Perhaps she was feverish. It was possible.

It was almost dawn. In the hall two tenants were arguing about something. She could make out few of their words and didn’t want to listen to them. She had been unable to sleep. In the other room, her daughter Natasha lay dreaming fitfully, tossing and moaning. There was nothing Sonya wanted to do, but what she wanted least was to sit alone in that smothering dark room. It had, she admitted, been terrible here when Aleksander was alive. They had never been happy and she had never liked him, though she had loved him and respected him. He had provided the focus of meaning in her life. She knew no other.

The voices in the hall grew louder, a man and a woman. It had something to do with using hot water. Sonya wanted to go to the door and shout at them to be quiet, but she couldn’t bear to be part of what would follow such an act. She couldn’t rise. Moist hands of heat pushed her down trickling wet under her print dress, between her breasts and thighs, into the hair between her legs, making her shudder and whimper. She closed her eyes again and opened them to her daughter standing in the door to the second room.

“What’s the noise?” she asked sleepily.

Sonya thought there was contempt in the girl’s eyes as she looked down at her, as if she knew her thoughts and feelings, as if she probed her mind and body and shame. Sonya had seen this look in Aleksander’s eyes.

“Just some neighbors fighting, arguing,” Sonya said. “Go back to sleep for a while. Are you warm?”

Natasha, whose hair was wound in braids, was wearing long-sleeved flannel pajamas that had been Sonya’s.

“No,” said the girl, heading back into the dark room.

The fight stopped abruptly in the hall, and a door closed. Footsteps went down the corridor, and there was silence. Sonya pushed herself from the chair, her back soaked with sweat and her bare lower legs sticky. The wooden floor boards creaked when she crossed the room and went to look out the window into near darkness.