He had almost forgotten the two dented cans of Norwegian salmon.
Later, after he had eaten, Aleksandr allowed himself a small glass of Nitin wine, on sale last week at the Volga at a bargain. He was not particularly fond of the wine, but it held memories.
After cleaning up the kitchen, Aleksandr took off his clothes and put on a pair of loose-fitting gray jogging shorts and an oversized red T-shirt. He moved to the sole window and sat down in his comfortable chair. A headache, which he had up to now refused to admit, made one last effort to burrow into him.
It was then that he looked out the window and across the space between his building and the next. Sometimes he would see the old couple in the window, sometimes only one. They sometimes nodded to him and he nodded back. They sometimes had their heavy curtains completely draped closed. But not tonight. Tonight the curtains were open. Tonight seated in the window directly across from him was, not two nodding old pensioners, but the policeman with the artificial leg.
The policeman with one leg had not been on the bench.
On his way home from school, and a decidedly unpleasant experience resulting from a confrontation with two other students over the Russian invasion in Georgia, Yuri had looked for the policeman for about ten minutes before heading home.
Now, Yuri opened the door of the apartment to the smell of shchi, cabbage soup, and tefteli, meatballs, and the sight of his grandfather sitting across the room in his personal chair. Yuri Michaelovich spent most of his time watching news and interview shows on television. He cursed and shook his head in disagreement with almost everything he witnessed on the screen. He even grew red in the face second-guessing soccer coaches and players when he occasionally watched a game.
Young Yuri’s grandfather, lean, with shoulders sloped forward and wild mop of white hair bobbing, glanced up at Yuri, waved a hand, and turned his eyes back to the television.
Yuri’s mother stepped out of the cupboard-size kitchen when she heard the door open and said, “You are on time today.”
His grandfather rubbed his stubbled chin, contemplating the folly of all but himself and those of the past who ran the world as he had known it. The Communists had run a much bigger world with much greater efficiency.
Young Yuri’s mother ladled food into two blue ceramic bowls in the kitchen and then stepped around her father and nodded toward the table.
“Sit,” she said.
Olga Platkov was thirty-five and very pretty. She had passed on her large brown eyes and curly dark hair to her son. Now, Yuri thought, putting down his backpack, she looks tired.
Six mornings a week she got up before dawn, dressed, ate what was left over, and began her almost-two-hour train and bus trek to the Coca-Cola bottling plant. She had recently become a shift manager, which meant she got up even earlier and came home later.
Yuri went around the blaring television to the bathroom, where he washed his hands, after which he went briefly into the bedroom he shared with his grandfather. There young Yuri removed the book he was reading and took it back into the living / dining room. He sat at the table in his usual seat. There were only three plates on the table, which meant his father had already left for the Volga Restaurant, where he worked behind the bar.
“Father,” young Yuri’s mother said.
Yuri’s grandfather held up a hand to silence her.
“One minute,” he said.
Yuri and his mother sat and each reached for a thick slice of dark bread.
“I met a policeman in the park,” Yuri said. “He is looking for the Maniac.”
“There is no Maniac,” Yuri’s grandfather shouted, rising from his chair and joining them at the table. “It is a rumor created by this new government working with capitalists.”
Yuri’s grandfather had been a commissar before the fall of the Soviet Union. Yuri did not remember it, but he was often told by his grandfather that they had lived in a large apartment on Kalinin Street, a high-rise with an elevator. Young Yuri’s grandfather had been the Communist Party commissar for the entire street, a big job with a small office on the first floor of the building in which they lived. It had been his job to respond to political complaints and nonpolitical complaints ranging from the price of fish at the market to requests for annuities.
“You know what we need?” he asked, reaching for the bread and butter and looking down at his soup.
“Stalin,” said Yuri automatically.
“Stalin” was the answer to almost every question Yuri’s grandfather posed.
“Yes,” he said. “Stalin. Stalin was a Georgian, like us. Did you know that?”
Yuri knew it well.
“Stalin would have taken care of the problem,” said Yuri’s grandfather, starting to eat the thick soup before him.
Yuri did not know what the problem was, but he nodded his understanding and agreement. His mother smiled at him and slowly began to eat.
“There is no Maniac in the park,” his grandfather repeated more to himself than to his daughter and grandson.
“The policeman has one leg,” Yuri said.
“He is not a policeman. He is a molester of children. No one with one leg is allowed to be a policeman. Stay away from him.”
Yuri knew better than to argue. They ate in silence to the ranting of voices from the television set. When the meal was over, Yuri’s grandfather rose once more, saying, “Policemen with one leg. Maniacs in the park. You read too many wild stories.”
With that Yuri’s grandfather left the apartment to go downstairs and outside, where he could smoke two cigarettes. He had been told by doctors that he had to stop completely, but he had no intention of doing so. He was only sixty years old. Others he knew who smoked were older than he. Doctors since the fall of the Soviet Union told everyone they had to stop smoking.
“There is a Maniac and there is a policeman,” Yuri said, helping to clear the table and put the leftovers in plastic containers. “And he is not a molester of children.”
“I have heard these tales of a Maniac,” Yuri’s mother said, turning the volume of the television set down to a whisper. “I think there was even something on the news. Was that in our park?”
“Yes,” said Yuri.
“And your policeman with one leg is there to catch him?”
“Yes.”
Yuri had not mentioned the candy that the policeman had shared with him. He knew it would not be a good idea.
“Solachkin is a jackass,” his grandfather said, bursting through the door. “A fool, a jackass, a. . jackass.”
Yuri welcomed his grandfather’s return. It interrupted the conversation with his mother, a conversation about the policeman that was beginning to make Yuri uncomfortable.
“You know what that ti sleepoy, asleyp mudak, that impotent bastard, said?” Yuri’s grandfather said between his nearly closed teeth. “He believes in your Maniac? I told him that it was just a trick to divert the minds of the public from the invasion of Ossetia by Putin and his puppet Medvedev. When the police have wrung the last sweat of rumor from the streets they will find some fool to accuse of their make-believe murders and lock him away or even shoot him.”
Yuri had an open book before him. As he was picking it up to retreat to the bedroom, his grandfather strode across the room, beating Yuri to the bedroom. Wherever his grandfather roosted, Yuri would go in the other room.
Through the open door of the bedroom, Yuri heard something rattling and the voice of his grandfather saying, “Betrayed, betrayed by Putin. I am not afraid to say it. Betrayed. I thought KGB Putin would resurrect the Communist Party, but what has he done?”