— Ah…
— You should go. Concerts, ballets, it’s good for you.
Kostya knew what that meant: good for him to be seen in the right places by the right people. Anyone of power, and most of those who desired such power, attended ballets, concerts, and plays at the Bolshoi. Sometimes they even enjoyed the event for its own sake.
— Here’s what I want from you, Nikto. It’s for the internal NKVD magazine, and for the department. We need some photographs, old and new, revolution, continuity, that sort of thing. I can’t think of anything better than a portrait of you and Balakirev, new NKVD and old Cheka, flower and roots. Him seated, I think, and you standing to attention just behind his shoulder. Hope for the future.
The future?
— Nikto? You’ll tell Balakirev?
— Of course.
— Warn him to expect a summons. For the photograph.
Place your head in the wooden bracket, comrade. Hold the slate up. A little higher. Good.
Kostya inclined his head to his superior officer. —He’ll be flattered.
— So he wants us to pose for a portrait.
Voice blending into the general racket of the cafeteria, Kostya shook pepper into his bowl of shchi. Nothing fell.
Arkady took the pepper shaker from Kostya, gave it a hard rap on the table, and turned it upside down again. Still, no pepper fell. Snorting, Arkady knocked the pepper shaker on its side.
Vadym dipped bread into his shchi. —Balakirev, you photogenic old goat. Glory at last.
Arkady mumbled his answer around a piece of bread. —Kuznets just wants to blind me with the flash.
— If he did, the bloat in your face might go down. How long have you squinted like that?
Arkady looked to Kostya, pleading for intervention.
Kostya sat back in his chair and tilted his head to one side. —What-ever do you mean, Dima? Surely not that Arkady Dmitrievich looks unwell?
Now Arkady glared at him.
Vadym prattled on. —Arkasha, really, your eyelids should not be so puffy, nor your cheeks. Look, your hands are swollen. What about your legs?
— I could tap them like trees and drain off sap. What of it?
Kostya slurped soup and hoped that hid his alarm.
Vadym scowled. —Have you consulted with a doctor any time since, oh, I don’t know, the Revolution?
Grunting, Arkady stood up. —I need to take a leak.
Vadym forced a chuckle as Arkady left the table. —I believe I’ve hit a nerve.
— You’re right, Dima. He’s not well.
— No, he can’t be, not the way he looks and behaves. Kostya, he listens to you.
— Like hell he does.
— Can you convince him to see a doctor?
Not wanting to get nudged and brushed, Kostya leaned away from the men passing the table. Even here, in the cafeteria, where one might expect the noise to allow a more intimate conversation, one must acknowledge the press of other people, so many other people. —Maybe.
— I have to ask you something else.
Kostya waited. Guessed.
The words fell out of Vadym’s mouth, a speedy confession. —I’m worried sick about Misha. I know he’s missing.
Kostya knocked his glass of water against the side of his bowl. Hard.
Vadym took the hint and lowered his voice. —Did you—
Craning his neck, Kostya spotted Yury and Boris approaching the table. He tapped his glass against the bowl a second time.
Vadym turned to greet them. —Hello, hello, come sit down.
Kostya nodded and gestured to empty chairs at the neighbouring table. Oh, the old man will love this.
Yury and Boris approached their table, Yury bearing two full trays of bread and shchi. The soup slopped over the bowls. As Yury struggled to place the trays on the neighbouring table without further spill, Boris pulled a chair over to Kostya and Vadym’s table. —Vadym Pavlovich, I owe you an apology. I missed choir practice this morning. Trouble in the cells.
— I guessed you were busy.
— Yes, teaching scales to a young woman. Not yet seventeen and stubborn as a woman of fifty.
As Vadym shut his eyes and sighed, Kostya noticed Arkady striding across the cafeteria, returning to the table.
So did Boris. —And you, Konstantin Arkadievich, did you tell himself about the portrait? Ah, as my father would say, speak of the devil.
Nodding to Boris, Arkady tugged his chair a little closer to Kostya’s.
Boris glanced at Yury, who still stood at the other table. —Go ahead and start, Yury. Don’t let your soup get cold. So, Arkady Dmitrievich, you’ll pose for the photos?
— Why wouldn’t I?
Yury winced as his soup burnt his mouth.
Boris winked at Vadym, as if sharing a secret. Then he dug in his pouch and gave an object to Kostya wrapped in a pristine white handkerchief. —Don’t drop it.
Kostya parted the fabric and revealed a small bottle, heavy for its size, shaped in a fat oval and balanced on a pedestal, the blue glass cut with further perpendicular ovals. A tassel dangled on the bottle’s neck. Such a strange object, strange and beautiful. It contained perfume, and it bore a name in the Latin alphabet: Shalimar.
Arkady loomed close enough to Kostya to throw a shadow over the remains of his lunch. He seemed to bite back his words. Even so, he sounded angry, betrayed. —What is this?
Boris laughed. —A little present for our Konstantin. Just a token of my admiration for his loyalty and hard work. Yury tells me it’s a very fine perfume. French, of course.
Just catching sight of Matvei Katelnikov as he took a seat at Yury’s table, Kostya removed the chipped stopper, sniffed, sniffed again, and then held the stopper under Arkady’s nose.
Arkady sniffed. —Well, it’s not Krasnaya Moskva. Similar. No, wait. Some rose, I think. Iris? That sweetness: lemon? Leather? Your nose is better than mine, Kostya. Ugh, something is ruining the flowers. It smells almost dirty.
Yury supplied the answer with his mouth full of shredded carrot. —Civet. Little animals, like wild cats. They secrete musk from their perineums. You can kill them and harvest the glands or keep them in solitary cages, near other civets so they can smell them. Then you can just scrape the secretions. The cages are a much better idea. Keep them alive and productive, well, until they die.
None of the other men had anything to say to that.
Watching Yury wipe up spat carrot, Kostya replaced the perfume stopper. I know this scent. Startled by this recognition, and by the recognitions hiding within it, he almost spoke. The briefest of warnings, surely just a trick of the light, flashed in Arkady’s eyes. No. Kostya saw it. The old man knew where this perfume came from: a British woman’s handbag. He’d found it and offered it to Boris as a bribe, and now Boris had given it to Kostya to prove something to Arkady.
Boris shook his head at Yury’s mess. Then he looked at Kostya again. —Should you wish to please a woman, now you can. Beyond the obvious, I mean.
Yury, too, had advice. —Or save it for a gift for another man, to get his help. You may never see another bottle of French perfume again.
Arkady stared at blue glass.
Yury raised his glass of water as if in a toast. —Too bad Misha’s not here.
Vadym dropped his spoon; it clattered in the soup bowl. Kostya stared hard at Yury. So did Arkady.
Yury’s eyes widened. —I mean, we’re all together here, well, Katelnikov’s new. Katelnikov. Isn’t that a Doukhobor name? Has that not caused you any trouble?
Matvei shook his head.
Grinning to hide his anger, Kostya turned away from Yury to face Boris. I won’t forget that, Little Yurochka. I’ll pay you back. —Thank you, Comrade Captain. This is beautiful.