“I’ll be fine,” she forced herself to say.
“Women,” he chuckled and rolled over to his side after giving her a pat on the shoulder. He was sure that whatever he had seen on her face, that mask of stone, had been an illusion from his own dreams. He was asleep almost instantly.
She was well aware that the Russians claimed to have achieved equality of the sexes, but she was equally aware that it was a hollow claim, that women were rarely given anything but token positions of importance, that, in fact, women were expected to work at full-time jobs and to be responsible for homemaking as well, while men complained and continued to run things, just as they had done in the past. It was the same everywhere. What she had, she had taken by her own intellect and strength. She had long since decided not to take part in the world of men like this one next to her. But her motivation was not a feminist one. No, she felt far above and outside such considerations. Any “ism” was an illusion created by individuals or groups to give false meaning and direction to essentially meaningless lives. All that counted was one’s image of oneself, not what others saw. One lived only to have the satisfaction of achievement and control. It was a game she would lose, but she would not play by false rules. She would create her own rules.
She got up as quietly as she could. He stirred behind her but did not wake. She bent over her flight bag, unlocked it and found the small aspirin bottle. Silently, she removed two tablets, which were not aspirin, from the bottom of the bottle and tucked them into the pocket of her shirt. When the proper moment arrived later in the day, she would dissolve the pills in a beverage and be sure he drank it all. The dosage would probably not kill him, but would make him ill and dazed and keep him out of her way. If he was going to be killed, this one, she wanted to do it with her own hands. She wanted him to know what she was doing.
Thinking about the day and the night helped ease the feeling of liquid weight. She moved to the window, pushed the grubby curtain aside, and looked out at the city. Somewhere they were looking for her, that barrel of an inspector and the lean monk of a detective she had deceived at the Metropole.
The feeling that ran through her now was not fear, but a sensation of inevitability. Thinking about the lean one had brought on that feeling. Perhaps it had been part of her nightmare.
The phone call they’d placed to Iosef came through at six on Sunday morning. Rostnikov heard it but dimly, wondering if it was the bells of some imagined church. Sarah roused herself quickly and picked up the telephone.
“It’s Iosef,” she said, poking Rostnikov, who grunted and let go of the dream image of a large bottle of Czech pilsner beer.
“Up, I’m getting up,” he said and reached out for the phone.
“When I’m done,” she said, slapping his hand away.
Rostnikov sat up, scratched his stomach, and held one hand to his ear as he pointed to the corner where he had discovered the tiny microphone. Sarah nodded.
Rostnikov heard Sarah ask Iosef how he was, what he was doing. She told him about Rostnikov’s weight-lifting trophy.
When he saw the tear in the corner of her eye, Rostnikov reached for the phone. Sarah pulled back, then sighed deeply and gave it to him.
“Iosef,” he said.
“Father,” replied Iosef in a voice almost forgotten in the past year. The familiar tones jolted Rostnikov’s emotions. He looked at Sarah and closed his eyes. “Yes, you are well?”
“I’m well,” said Iosef. “Congratulations on your trophy.”
“It’s a fine trophy,” said Rostnikov, looking across the room to where it stood on a table near the cabinet that contained the weights. “Iosef, we would like to see you. It has been a long time. Have you applied for leave?”
“Difficult,” he said. “Those of us who have been-”
“I know,” Rostnikov stepped in. It didn’t have to be spoken. Those who had been to Afghanistan were being kept under tight security, at least for the present. “Perhaps things will change. You are well?”
“You just asked that,” Iosef laughed. “I’m well. Are you catching criminals?”
“No criminal is safe with Rostnikov in Moscow.” He laughed, too.
Sarah reached for the phone back, but he turned away to continue the conversation.
What there was to say couldn’t be said on the phone.
“Was there anything special?” Iosef asked after a brief pause.
“Special? No, nothing special. We just hadn’t heard your voice for some time,” Rostnikov went on. “The film festival is going on here. Lots of visitors, a carnival. You remember.”
“I remember,” said Iosef. “Do you remember when you took me to my first movie? Jane Powell.”
“Yes.” Rostnikov remembered. “She was almost as good as Deanna Durbin.”
“I have to go now,” said Iosef cheerily. “The officer in charge has just told me my time is up. So, good-bye and take care.”
“And you, too,” said Rostnikov. “Say good-bye to your mother.”
He handed the phone to Sarah who managed not to sob as she said good-bye. She listened to something Iosef said and then hung up.
They looked at each other for a few seconds in silence.
“I forgot to tell him Illya asked about him,” Sarah said looking at the phone.
“Put it in a letter,” he said, standing up. He looked around the room for his pants, though he always put them in the same place, draped over a wooden chair in the corner.
“You can go back to sleep for a while, Porfiry Petrovich,” Sarah said, sitting on the bed and looking up at him.
“No, I have work to do,” he said, lifting his pants from the chair and sitting down as he wondered what time his German would get out of bed to begin what might be the most important day of both their lives.
After Iosef Rostnikov hung up the phone, he walked slowly and correctly to the door of the small squad room without facing the lieutenant who sat behind the desk a few feet away. The officer, Galinarov, had listened openly and intently to Iosef’s side of the conversation with his hands folded in front of him. He had been instructed to do so, but he would have listened anyway because he did not like Rostnikov.
Iosef looked far more like his mother’s side of the family than his father’s which, in the mind of Galinarov who knew the histories of every man under his command, made the younger Rostnikov a Jew. Galinarov had nothing in particular against the Jews, just as he had nothing against the Mongols and Tatars who were forming a larger and larger percentage of the militia. That worried Galinarov and others above him. There had always been a rather high percentage of Jews in the Russian army, going back to the days of the czars. The reason was simple: Jews could not buy their way out, and it was believed that an important function of the army was to control and contain the Jews.
During the rule of the czars, soldiers would go to the Jewish villages once a year to round up their quota of boys twelve and older. The boys would serve for a period of five to forty years. The longer they served, the more likely they were either to die or to accept Christ, though the Jews had proved stubborn, and deaths had always outnumbered conversions among Hebrew soldiers.
Since the Revolution, the goal of the military was no longer to convert the Jewish conscripts to Christianity or even to communism, since the majority of the Jews seemed to embrace socialism with the great hope that it would ease their lot in life. No, the roots of the army’s hostility to the Jews were deeply anchored in the Russian psyche, nurtured by suspicion of Jewish separateness and intellectualism.
“Rostnikov,” said Galinarov as the young corporal reached the door.
“Yes, Comrade,” Rostnikov answered without turning, which was a mild but obvious insult.
“Turn around,” said Galinarov.
Iosef turned around and faced the officer, who was almost exactly a year younger than he was.