— Those scars on your ear, do they hurt?
— Yes, they hurt. Yes, they’re ugly. Yes, they look like the work of a savage dog. I know. I know.
Arkady raised his eyebrows. —Such a tone with me?
Kostya exhaled smoke. —I apologize, Arkady Dmitrievich.
— Those scars also turn dark red when you’re upset. That’s a dangerous giveaway.
— Can I hide nothing from you?
Emotion broke Arkady’s steady voice then: concern, dismay. —The sunlight…you’ve got grey hairs.
— Yes.
Arkady said nothing.
Songbirds landed near Kostya’s boots. —We should come here more often, Arkady Dmitrievich. Take a lunch together, here, Solonki, any place where it’s green.
— Such a scowl on you.
— My shoulder hurts.
— Learn to hide it.
— What do you know about it? Hey?
Arkady shook his head. The pain’s as bad as that? —I’ll speak to Scherba. At least sit up straight. You’re in uniform, and you slouch like some sneaky bezprizornik.
— Well, once I was a sneaky bezprizornik. Now I’m…
Kostya dug in his pouch for another cigarette.
I’m fucked in the mouth, that’s what.
Arkady leaned closer to Kostya’s ear. —You’re a damned war hero. When I got the telegram from Leningrad saying you were home, I almost said a prayer of thanks. And I’ve not prayed since 1905.
Please, old man, shut up. Wait, I didn’t send a telegram.
A new tone in Arkady’s voice startled Kostya: not quite a whisper, not quite a murmur, just the safety of the blasé. —Tatar, listen to me this time. Please. Things…changed while you were gone. We tread new soil and pretend not to notice the graves. The chief’s arrest upset everything. Even inside NKVD we’ve turned on one another. Secrets. Games. The guiltier the officer, the better the arrest.
Kostya said nothing.
— For the ones who make the arrest, I mean. They look brave, willing to confront the corruption—
— I know, Arkady Dmitrievich. I get the same memos you do, the same orders. I know.
Arkady’s eyes followed the path of a songbird as it rose and fell, then disappeared within a tree. —We’re Chekists, NKVD, the strongest guardians against treachery and rot, and now we’re under suspicion, too? I don’t…
At the crunch of footsteps, both Arkady and Kostya nodded to an elderly couple passing by, the woman leaning on the man’s arm, the man, despite a limp, jaunty.
— Enemies without and enemies within, Kostya. I cannot even give you a list.
The woman at the parachute tower, on her second turn now, kept silent on this fall. She landed on her feet. Impressed, Kostya nodded as if she could see him, and he admired, too, her lovely hair, all those loose brown curls. Laughing, the woman struggled to walk, to stay upright. She fell to her knees, and the parachute enveloped her. Her shadowed form struggled, stumbled, beat at the silk. Kostya stood, ready to run and help, unaware he did so. Then the woman emerged from the parachute, throwing it off. She ran to a waiting man and embraced him.
As Kostya sat down again, fire stabbed his shoulder. A spasm in the fingers: his cigarette and matches fell to the ground.
— I’ll get them, Tatar.
Arkady bent over to retrieve the matches; his own flesh got in the way. Snorting, Kostya bent at the waist with ease and grace, and Arkady wanted to punch him, perhaps in the small of the back, to teach him better manners. Kostya’s left hand darted out, fingers scrabbling against grass and little stones, water and cardboard, guano. Got it. Another spasm in his hand: he almost crushed the matchbox.
He sat back up, tucked a cigarette between his lips, and permitted Arkady to light it for him.
Arkady studied his lighter. —Has anyone at Lubyanka noticed you twitch like that?
— No.
— Keep it that way. Better?
Kostya sucked in smoke. —Better.
— Remember when you taught Misha to smoke, and he coughed til he made himself sick?
— I don’t want to talk about Misha.
Arkady recalled Vadym’s shaky voice: Misha is listed as missing. No one will tell me anything. —Then do you remember what I said to you both that night, when Misha was so embarrassed that he could not smoke while you could? He felt powerless next to you. What did I tell you both about power?
Kostya could chant it; Arkady had said it many times, in many situations.
He said it now. —The steppe surrenders in patches to forest, and the forest surrenders in patches to tundra, yet in places where you see no change, all the differences blend. Power works like that, Kostya. Deep intersections, almost invisible. Survival demands recognition of those intersections, and some fancy dance steps. You can’t always waltz your way out of trouble.
Grinning, Kostya tapped out another cigarette and gave the answer he’d not dared voice when an adolescent. —Can I mazurka instead?
— Nothing looks so good on a dance floor as a man’s shiny boots.
— Arkady Dmitrievich, that makes no sense.
Arkady gave a half-smile. When he spoke again, his voice made his words sound as ordinary as falling snow. —Whatever happened with Misha, I’m sorry.
— Enough. Enough with the interrogation games. I’m not some prisoner.
— Do you know where he is?
Silence.
— Kostya, what happened to Misha? Vadym loves him as he would love a son.
— I know.
— Not knowing is sometimes worse than—
— I know! I know it hurts him, Arkady Dmitrievich. I know I can’t trust anyone. I know, I know, I know. How can I not know what I know?
— You have orders to keep quiet?
Kostya leaned forward, elbows on knees.
Arkady placed a hand on Kostya’s bad shoulder, took it away. —You smoke too much.
— I know that, too.
— I should get back and finish the cleanup.
Arkady waited a moment for Kostya to answer, to offer again to help, to tell him to fuck off, anything.
Kostya exhaled smoke.
Telling himself Kostya would find his own way home, Arkady walked away.
Kostya counted Arkady’s footsteps and then the flowers in a nearby bed. Then he noticed how the light had changed, how ash defiled his boot, how his hands felt empty and cold.
— Comrade Major Minenkov?
Vadym looked up from the paperwork on his desk. —Comrade Captain Kuznets, good morning. How’s my soloist today?
— You should not single me out at the expense of the others. A choir is greater and more important than an individual.
Vadym blinked a few times, amused by this orthodoxy. —Yet sometimes one man possesses a gift. Sharing that gift becomes his duty, and you have carried out that duty with admirable grace.
— Thank you.
— But you’re not here to ask me about the choir. Oh, don’t look at me like that. Your body language, Kuznets. You might control your voice and every sound you make, but muscles twitch beneath blushing skin, just a gentle blush, yes? Muscles twitch and tell me a story.
Boris looked sheepish. —I can’t hide much from you.
— There no shame in it. I’ve done this work for a long time.
— I wonder, Comrade Major, what you might hide from me.
Vadym’s fingers stilled, pausing in their paper-push for just a moment, just a shred of a moment, but long enough, he knew, to betray anxiety. —Presumption always lands as a sour note.
— I apologize. Comrade Major, I…this is irregular, even silly, but may I look out your window?
— Of course.
Boris peered down at the courtyard. —A perk of the senior Chekist. I hope to have a top-floor office myself one day. Right now, I feel like a piece of flotsam, up and down, back and forth. Comrade Kuznets, you’re assigned to this department, no wait, to that one, oh wait, we need you over here instead.