Stuart Kaminsky: Red Chameleon

“Lev,” the boy said, holding his sister’s arm firmly. “My name is Lev.”

“Why don’t we all sit down after you get me a drink of water,” Rostnikov said, finding a kitchen chair and lowering himself into it. Lev considered whether there might be a trap in the request and then cautiously moved to the sink in the kitchen section of the room. Officer Drubkova watched the boy suspiciously, as if he might grab the glass of water and make a mad escape with it into the hall.

“Officer Drubkova,” Rostnikov said, taking the glass of tepid water. “Find a phone and be sure the evidence truck is on the way. Comrade-”

“Her name is Sofiya,” Lev said, leading his sister to a chair.

“Sofiya,” Rostnikov said, sipping the water, “where is there a phone in this building?”

“There’s one-” Lev began, but Rostnikov put a finger to his lips, and the boy stopped.

“Comrade Sofiya?” Rostnikov repeated to the staring woman. “A phone. I need help here.”

Sofiya made an effort to refocus, came back into the world temporarily, and said, “Thirty-three, Vosteksky has a phone.”

Officer Drubkova nodded and went in search of the phone, closing the door behind her.

“Your father is dead,” Rostnikov said to the two in front of him. The boy was now standing, holding his sister, his hands on her shoulders. “And we should like to find out who killed him and why. Do you have an answer to either question?”

“Two men,” said Lev. “A young one and a very old one like-”

“Like me,” finished Rostnikov.

“No, older, like my, my-”

“And you have never seen them before?” Rostnikov said, finishing the water and putting the glass on the table, which was covered with a slightly worn flower-patterned tablecloth made from some oilclothlike material.

“Never,” said Lev.

“And you, Sofiya? You have never seen them before?” Rostnikov said gently.

“I’ve seen the old one,” she said, looking through Rostnikov into eternity.

“Good.” Rostnikov sighed with a gentle smile, thinking that perhaps he could wrap all this up and get home before ten for a decent dinner. “He is a neighbor, a friend, an old enemy?”

Sofiya glanced around the room as if looking for someone or something and then brought her puzzled glance back to Rostnikov. Her answer made him revise his plans for a reasonable dinnertime and the possibility of an hour of weight lifting before the hockey match on his little television.

“I don’t know where, but I’ve seen him, but it wasn’t quite him. Do you know what I mean?”

“Exactly,” Rostnikov said reassuringly, though he had no idea of what she meant. “Try to remember where you have seen him. Now, your father, what was his business, his work?”

“He didn’t work,” Lev said, and Rostnikov thought there was a touch of something, perhaps resentment, in the words.

“He was ill,” Sofiya jumped in. “He used to be in the Party, but when my mother died, I don’t know how long ago, he became ill and didn’t work. I work. I teach children at the Kalinina School. I teach reading, shorthand, and-”

“Did your father talk about enemies?” Rostnikov put in before she could launch into an irrelevant discussion of the Soviet educational system.

“He imagined many enemies,” Lev said. “Mostly the police, the KGB, others.”

“Imagined?”

“He claimed he had an old friend in the government,” Sofiya said. “Someone who was having him watched.”

“And you think that might have been true?” Rostnikov asked.

“No,” Sofiya said. “He lied a lot.”

She seemed on the verge of crying, which was all right with Rostnikov, but he had information to get, and he would prefer to get it before she began. Then he would even help her to cry, throw her some cue that would set her free to moan and rejoin the world, but he wanted to do that as he left, after he had drained her of information. Anything else was wasteful.

“Did these men take anything?” Rostnikov asked, turning his attention to Lev, whose hand had come to his mouth as if to hold back a cry. The eyes continued to scan, but more slowly now. He was becoming a bit more calm.

“I don’t know,” the boy said, looking around the not very spacious and not overly filled room. “Sofie?”

The woman shook her head to indicate that she did not know.

Rostnikov stood up with some difficulty. “Why don’t you look around and let me know. I’ll go down the hall and come back.”

“How did you injure your leg?” the woman asked.

“War,” answered Rostnikov, draping his jacket over the chair he had vacated to make it clear to them that he was coming right back. “When I was a boy not much older than your brother. And you?”

“I was born with it,” she said, shuddering. “My father and mother gave it to me as a birthday present. You know I loved my father?”

“I can see that,” Rostnikov said, moving as quickly as he could to the door.

“I did, too,” said Lev, a bit defiantly.

“Did you?” asked Rostnikov, opening the door. He suddenly felt hungry and cursed the fact that he had not joined Zelach in a quick blinchik or two.

“No,” said Sofiya, her eyes challenging. “I did not love him. I hated him.”

“I understand,” said Rostnikov.

“And I loved him.”

“I understand that, too,” he said to her gently, going out into the hall.

The wood of the door was thin. He expected a loud wail when he closed it, but instead he heard gentle sobbing. He had to strain to determine which of the two was crying and knew with certainty only when he heard the woman’s voice. “Shh, Lev. Shh. We will be fine.”

The door to the communal bathroom was open, and Officer Drubkova was now guarding it.

“I called in,” she greeted him. “They will be here in minutes.”

Rostnikov grunted and stepped past her, resisting the urge to compliment her or say something pleasant. The Officer Drubkovas of the MVD were sustained by efficiency and self-satisfaction, a belief that those above them were above human feeling, images of an idealized Lenin. To compliment Drubkova would have been to diminish himself in her eyes.

Zelach was on his knees in front of the old tub, which looked as if. it had belonged to a relative of the czar’s. It stood on clawed legs that gripped metal balls pitted with age and wear. Zelach had found a towel and placed it on the floor for his knee. He was methodically examining the grotesque body in the tub without emotion, concentrating on his task.

For a moment Rostnikov took in the scene. The water was almost orange with blood, and the sticky remnant of Izvestia quivered just below the surface. Rostnikov could see a photograph on the front page, though he could not, through the orange film, make out who it was. The dead old man was very thin and very white. One arm hung out of the tub, pointing down at the tile floor. The other was under the water, hidden, touching a secret place or thing. The old man’s chest was thin and covered with wisps of gray hair. Two black holes in his chest peeked through, caked with blood. The old man’s face was gray bearded and, like that of the boy, thin. The features were regular, and even in death there was something about him that said, “I’ve been cheated. You, anyone who comes near me, are out only for one thing, to cheat me out of something that is my own.”

“And?” said Rostnikov.

“Shot,” said Zelach.

“I am surprised.” Rostnikov, sitting on the closed toilet seat, sighed.

“No, look, the bullet holes are quite evident-” Zelach began. Rostnikov put his head down and almost whispered, “I see, Zelach. I see. I was attempting to engage in a bit of humor. Levity.”