— Did he, now?
— He was a doctor. Why did those people take his house?
— Leave that behind, Kostya. Those thieves will get what they deserve.
— When I’m grown, I’ll go back and—
— It’s out of your control.
— Shall I wait for God to set it right? God who no longer exists?
Arkady couldn’t answer Kostya’s question then. He couldn’t answer it now. Sitting on the edge of his bed and leaning forward, he hid his face in his hands.
I stole him. I stole a doctor’s grandson with a gift for languages. And if that doctor had lived, how would he have guided Kostya? Force him into medical school? No, Kostya was alone in this world. I didn’t steal him. I saved him.
Maybe a week after the incident with the Odessa herring merchant, Arkady had received a message. He sat down on the cot next to Kostya and put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. —I’m ordered back to Moscow.
— I won’t eat much.
Arkady sighed. You’re quick, boy. Too quick. —Kostya, I can’t.
— I’ve got no one here!
— Go back to the catacombs. It’s getting warmer.
Snorting, Kostya wriggled free of Arkady’s protective arm. —The other street kids hate me. They will kill me. I’m the Chekist’s lapdog now. You know this!
Arkady took off his glove and caught some of Kostya’s tears on his fingers.
Kostya’s voice sounded deeper. —Why did you even come here?
— Orders. Luck.
— Fucked in the mouth, then, aren’t I?
Arkady said it before he’d even accepted the fact himself. —I would have to steal you.
— How can you steal me? I’m no dog.
— Correct. You are free, Kostya, free to live in the catacombs.
— Free to die!
Arkady tugged his glove back on.
— Steal me.
— Kostya…
The bezprizornik knelt before the Chekist, raised his arms and reached for the dangling amber beads. Then he rested his face on Arkady’s knee. —Steal me.
Steal me, Kostya had said. Begged.
Arkady rubbed his eyes. I am so tired.
A cupboard hinge creaked, the cupboard where he kept salt and tea.
The cats couldn’t open latched cupboards.
Already? No, we don’t arrest until after midnight. It’s not that dark. Is it?
Silence.
Despite the growing ache in his back, Arkady dared not move.
A rustle in the study: someone opened the closet.
Arkady’s itch deepened as he imagined the path of the intruder. The clack of a light switch signalled his descent to the basement and furnace. Gentle clanks against the furnace wall and grate travelled throughout the house.
He even rakes the ashes in the furnace.
Then Arkady bit his lip. Those near-silent footfalls on the steps as the intruder ascended meant either a very good burglar or NKVD. Whoever crept up those steps knew to skip the final one, for it creaked.
The electric light switch clacked off.
Is that you, Little Tatar?
Of course not, Arkady told himself, refusing to consider the British woman or her handbag. Kostya had no reason to sneak around this house.
The intruder left through the front door.
Arkady counted to fifty, then stood up, wincing at the pain in his back and legs as he descended the stairs to the parlour and front door. He had locked the door earlier and taken the key. If his phantom existed, then he had his own key to lock the door behind him.
Arkady wrenched the knob.
Locked.
Either he’d hallucinated, or Kostya had just searched the house. Neither possibility held any appeal.
Weeping, Arkady poured a large measure of vodka. A cat returned, slipping through the cat flap and leaping onto the table, where he dropped his newest slaughter: a mouse. No, Arkady thought, tracing a finger along the dead animal’s long tail, a small rat. Still warm. Praising the cat for his courageous efficiency, hoping the cat would then curl up in his lap, Arkady stared through the growing dusk at his telephone. He scratched the cat in his favourite spots, around his ears, at the base of his tail. The cat purred, rubbed his jaws against the side of Arkady’s hand, and ran off.
The soil’s freshest here.
Smelling lemon, pepper, and earth, Kostya placed the tea packet from Arkady’s pantry to one side and dug his fingers deep into the soil near the hedge. Then he caught another scent he recognized, from one of the perennial beds: iris.
Her perfume at Lubyanka.
Years ago, Misha and Kostya would listen to Arkady drone on about flowers: perennials, annuals, patience, beauty, and roots. Both boys found the subject a painful bore, yet they listened, and, when quizzed, they answered. As Misha got older, he took up flowers as a small hobby of his own, learning how to please women with arranged bouquets. Iris, he told Kostya, looks and smells like cunt.
Dirty to his elbows, Kostya tangled his fingers in shredded silk stockings.
He glanced over his shoulder, back at the house. No lights burned. The old man’s still out.
Engine. NKVD car.
Soil invaded Kostya’s mouth as he struggled to hide himself. Explain digging in Major Balakirev’s shrubbery at night? Not a hope in hell.
The officers drove past the house, their errand elsewhere.
Kostya buried the stockings again and got to his feet, smearing his trousers as he brushed damp earth from his legs. Then he patted a pocket to make sure he’d not lost his keys.
Upstairs, the bathroom and the old man’s bedroom. Go back inside and search there.
He stared up at the study window, its curtains open, and his shoulder ached.
Shadow on the glass? Is he there?
Mating cats yowled and hissed; dogs barked.
Walking to the metro station, switching the packet of tea from hand to hand, Kostya wanted to spit at the quiet houses and peaceful blocks of flats. You all sleep. How dare you sleep? You know nothing of night duty.
Headlight beams caught him from behind: another NKVD car. The driver did not slow down, and Kostya thought he recognized the eyes reflected in the rear-view mirror.
Back in his own lobby, despite his quiet tread, he woke the watchwoman called Elena Petrovna.
— Comrade Nikto.
— Good evening, Grandmother.
Then he thought of his own grandmother. She’d never dressed like this, all black layers. She’d bobbed her hair, favoured white blouses and purple skirts, and wore perfume, lavender or rose. Wondering how old Elena might be, Kostya gave her a light bow.
— Why, Comrade Nikto.
— Yes, Grandmother?
— Whatever did you do to get so dirty? Dig a grave?
Aware of the weights of stolen tea and missing passports, Kostya ascended the stairs.
Yes, Grandmother.
ALL THE TEA IN MOSCOW CAN’T HELP THIS HEADACHE
Wednesday 9 June
Accepting dossiers and a glass of tea from Evgenia Ismailovna, Kostya squinted in a sudden glare of sunlight, planned a careful return to his office through the heaving crowd behind him, and pretended not to notice the rapid approach of Yury Stepanov.
Yury would not be ignored. —Nikto, I need you.
— Join the queue. See this pile in my arms? The department is busier than Finlyandsky Station. Perhaps you’ve noticed?
— Who pissed in your kasha this morning? Down in the cells. I’ve got a Kazakh.