William Ryan - The Twelfth Department

So Korolev emptied his mind, allowed his feet to float up till his toes broke the surface and ignored the conversations going on around him. He focused on the ornate ceiling, on the gilded knots and twirls, on the occasional damp patch that marred the decoration, and squinted away the sweat that rolled down into his eyes. It occurred to him that this was as good a way as any to forget all about the day he’d just had. And, after half an hour of floating, a long stretch in the sauna and a few pages of the newspaper, he found he felt more like a human being again. In fact, by the time he come back out onto the street, his clothes dry and ironed, and looking better than they had for some time, he felt as relaxed as anyone had any right to expect these days. The evening sky was a deep blue and the light that the low sun cast flattered the older Moscow buildings and burnished the newer ones. His son was at home waiting for him and nothing more could be desired from life, really.

It was only because Korolev happened to be walking past the Lubyanka’s side-entrance that he allowed himself to even think of anything to do with State Security. They were doing more work on the building, he saw. More cells, he supposed, or more offices for more Chekists. The comrades from State Security were busier than ever these days.

“Papa?”

Yuri’s voice came from the other side of the bedroom. Two streets away a cockerel crowed, as it did every morning, and Korolev, as he did every morning, wondered how the bird had managed to survive this long. There were plenty of people in Moscow who’d happily eat a cockerel given half a chance, cooked or uncooked. Its owner must guard it well.

“Yuri?” Korolev said. His voice sounded like the creak of a barn door.

“You’re sure you won’t have to go to work today?”

“As I told you,” Korolev said, his eyes still firmly shut, “they’ve assigned the investigation to someone else. Which means we can do anything we want.”

“Anything?”

“Yes,” Korolev said, but he didn’t fully trust his answer. Who knew what a twelve-year-old boy might want to do?

He heard Yuri get out of bed and pad over to him.

“We could go to the zoo then, couldn’t we?”

Korolev opened his left eye to see Yuri looking down at him. Weak sunlight was streaming in through the gap in the curtains and footsteps were moving back and forth above his head as the people upstairs prepared to face the day. They wouldn’t be so loud if they put down a carpet. He should mention it to them.

“The zoo?” Korolev looked at his watch. A quarter past six already. “Isn’t it a bit early for the zoo?”

“Natasha says they feed the lions at eight.” Yuri crossed his arms and turned his face toward the window, avoiding Korolev’s gaze as if expecting a refusal. “With red meat.”

Something about the thought of the red meat seemed to cheer Yuri up, however, and he smiled slowly. No doubt he was imagining the gore.

“Red meat, you say?” Korolev allowed his open eye to close naturally.

“Blood red. She says sometimes they give them a goat. A whole goat. But not alive—at least I don’t think so anyway. Although Natasha says sometimes the goats are alive, but I’m sure that can’t be right.” Yuri paused, his mouth twisting sideways as he considered this.

“That Natasha says a lot.” Korolev turned onto his side so that now he was facing his son.

“Well,” Yuri said, “I suppose the goats might be alive—every now and then. You know, for authenticity—what good would a lion be if it didn’t remember what it was to hunt?”

“That’s a good question.” Korolev made the effort to open both his eyes now, look at his son fondly and smile. He even managed to push himself up onto his elbow. This was what it was to be young, he supposed—to think that anything was possible.

Yuri, after a moment, smiled back.

“Torn to pieces?” Korolev continued, fighting a yawn. “Now that would be a sight to see.”

Moscow’s zoo was located only a few streets from where Korolev had lived when he was Yuri’s age. And sometimes back then—not often, but occasionally—a boy might hear a lion roar—a strange and marvelous sound in the middle of a Moscow winter. The memory persuaded Korolev to push down the sheet and get out of bed.

“But I thought the zoo didn’t open until nine?”

“That’s the best thing of all, Valentina Nikolayevna called her friend there yesterday evening and she can give us a tour before it even opens. A whole zoo just for us.”

Korolev remembered something about this friend of Valentina’s from the morning before.

“So she called her, did she?” Korolev looked down at his son—the boy looked a little unsure, apprehensive even. And it occurred to Korolev that he must seem a remote figure to Yuri. They barely saw each other these days. Well, if Zhenia was going to pair up with some fellow back in Zagorsk, then it would be no bad thing if the boy took away a memory or two from this trip that was worth savoring.

“They could be alive, I suppose—the goats.” Korolev stretched his arms above his head. “It would be a shame to miss it if they were.”

Yuri said nothing—but his smile was so broad that Korolev wondered whether the youngster’s face was wide enough to hold it all in.

From then on, things moved quickly—not least because Natasha and Yuri nipped around the adults’ heels like sheepdogs, urging them here and there. Natasha and Yuri seemed to be engaged in some kind of competition as to who could have their parent ready first. As a result, washing and dressing was brisker than Korolev might have liked, while breakfast was a rushed but hearty affair. In no time at all, it seemed, they were boarding a tram, which then hurtled around the Boulevard Ring. And by 7:50 they were exchanging comradely greetings with the famous Vera beside the zoo’s newly colonnaded entrance.

Korolev’s last visit had been his only visit, even though he’d grown up not five minutes’ walk along what was now Barrikadnaya Street—back then there hadn’t been enough spare money to come to places such as this. The exception, however, had been the day before Korolev had departed for the German War—he’d had a month’s pay in his pocket and he’d decided to treat his mother while he still could.

“Is there something on your mind?” Valentina asked him. They were following Vera, who, at the children’s insistence, was taking them straight to the lion enclosure. Valentina’s voice was gentle and she took his elbow as if to reassure him that whatever he was thinking of, it was nothing to worry about.

“I was just recalling the last time I was here.”

He looked around him and thought it was strange that he could remember, as though it were yesterday, the weight and feel of the uniform he’d been wearing, the heat of the day, the sound of church bells somewhere near and, oddly, the smell of a woman’s perfume—and yet he couldn’t recall anything about the place itself. It was as if he’d never been here before. Oddest of all was that he’d no recollection of his mother—and that afternoon had been the last time he’d seen her.

“Dead,” Yuri said, and Korolev looked down at him in surprise, wondering if he’d been talking aloud. But Yuri only had eyes for the lions and the creature they were devouring. Korolev followed his gaze and couldn’t tell what animal the carcass might have been.

“A sheep,” Vera said, as if reading his mind.

“We must have come on the wrong day,” Natasha whispered. “Or perhaps it had a heart attack when it saw the lions.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting we’d ever feed a live animal to them, Natasha. That would be barbaric.”