A pot clattered. —Good thing I’m not a drunkard, then. Where’s the powdered milk? I’m sure I saw some.
— Second shelf in the cupboard left of the sink.
— How precise you are, Efim Antonovich, and how correct. Nadia, come here, so I can tell you a secret. Go into my closet and look to the left-hand side. On a hanger near the wall, you’ll find an old woolen coat, dark blue. In the inner chest pocket is a packet of sugar. It’s granulated and already torn open, so the sugar might run free. Be very careful, and cup the packet in your hands, yes? And next to the sugar, there’s a string of beads. Bring me those, too.
Asking herself if she was truly awake, Temerity fetched the sugar and the beads. She gave them to Kostya, then sat at the little fold-down table with Efim.
— Thank you. Now both of you, please, relax. I know it’s hard, but tonight you’re safe. I promise.
Temerity and Efim looked at each other, then at the table.
Kostya placed the sugar and beads next to the stove. —I wish we had honey and cinnamon.
Wishing, too, that he could rid his mind of the noise of agitated dogs at the poligon, Kostya drew water from the samovar into a small pot and added powdered milk. He broke the lumps with precision and care, then placed the pot on the stove.
Then Efim laughed, shrill at first. —Look at us. Our night clothes. Ragbags, all of us.
Temerity chortled, worked to control it. Kostya’s mouth twitched. Then all three of them laughed, hard. Thinking of clothes, Kostya almost told them how people might be arrested naked, during a sex act if necessary, and how he’d done so. He stopped, just as his first word got lost beneath the noise. One must coddle laughter, he thought. Best keep that story to myself.
Almost breathless now, Efim shook his head. —Hot milk, Konstantin?
— My grandfather would make hot milk for me when I had a nightmare.
Temerity pointed to the pot. —Don’t let it boil.
— It’s in no danger of boiling, Nadia.
Temerity nodded. Kostya had hesitated before saying Nadia; perhaps he’d wanted to say something else.
Kostya stirred the milk, then poured in sugar; white particles glistened as they fell. —This may interest you, Efim. He was a doctor. A good one, too. Semyon Mikhailovich Berendei. People came to the house all hours, and he treated them. He never turned anyone away, even when he knew damned well he wouldn’t get paid. He charged on a scale. My grandparents raised me; I never knew my parents. My grandmother died when I was nine, and then my grandfather disappeared when I was twelve.
Temerity and Efim said nothing.
Kostya poured sweetened hot milk into three tea glasses. Temerity carried two of them to the table, gave one to Efim. Kostya followed her with his own glass and the beads. He set them down and tugged at his gymnastyorka.
Temerity sipped the hot milk. —Thank you.
— I wish I could give you something else. Nadia, may I sit near you? I’m cold.
Finding this formal courtesy odd for a man addressing his live-in mistress, Efim retrieved a light blanket from his drawer in the stenka and placed it over Kostya’s shoulders. Then Kostya snuggled into Temerity, and she put her arm around him.
They drank the hot milk.
Rubbing beads between his fingers, Kostya sighed. —Cinnamon. It needs cinnamon. And real milk would be nice, too. I can’t make it like he did.
— It’s fine.
— It’s terrible. You’re a sweet liar, Nadia, but powdered milk is terrible.
Temerity kissed Kostya on the cheek; Efim stood up and returned to his bedroom.
Kostya smelled Temerity’s perfume again and ran his fingers through her hair. Then he took his hand away. —Did you fall asleep in the armchair?
— Yes.
— I want you to lie down in the bed now. I’ll go back to the floor.
She sighed. —Come to the bed with me.
— What?
— Just to lie down.
— You trust me?
She studied him for a long moment, standing there in his undershorts and a uniform piece, beads dangling from one hand. —It’s almost three in the morning, Kostya. Try to rest.
DOGS’ HEADS AND BROOMSTICKS 2
Thursday 10 June
Evgenia shook her head. —You look terrible.
Kostya rubbed at his gritty eyes. —Didn’t sleep well. Make my tea strong, yes? Please?
— And extra sugar. Here are your dossiers for review.
— Comrade Ismailovna, I need your help.
At the samovar now, she glanced over her shoulder, eyes wide. —My help?
— Yes. Why not?
She gave him the tea, its scent so pungent that it tickled his nose. —Ask away.
— Some of the confessions. They’re nigh-on incoherent, and I know not every single prisoner is illiterate. Nor is every officer stupid.
Evgenia snorted and smirked, then made an effort to look serious.
— And the pattern of guilt: it plays out the same way, again and again. What if I wrote up three or four different styles of confession, and then you type them up…
Careful not to nudge a perilously high pile of paperwork, Evgenia dropped two pieces of sugar from the tongs into Kostya’s hand. —And if we don’t use them as straight templates, at least they could be guidelines. It might speed things up.
— Ismailovna, you read my mind.
— No. But I am under the same pressure you are. More more more, now now now.
As Kostya thanked her, a smell reached him, iron, copper, and spice: old blood.
A large shadow blotched Evgenia’s desk. —The famous Nikto?
Kostya turned around.
A broad and fleshy man, built like Arkady, squinted at him. —I thought I recognized you by the stories of the scars. How did you get those?
Kostya forced himself to keep still and look into the man’s eyes, to ignore the fat fingers reaching for him. —An accident.
The broad man stroked Kostya’s neck, fondled his ear, tapped his insignia. —You got off easy. And promoted to senior lieutenant. Well done.
Kostya glanced at the man’s fingernails. Blood in the cuticles?
Evgenia’s voice betrayed warmth. —We’re very proud of him in this department, Comrade Commandant Blokhin.
He gestured to Kostya’s dossiers. —Buried in paperwork?
— Yes, Comrade Commandant, aren’t we all?
— Paperwork slows me down. You’ll notice my hands are empty.
And with that, he walked towards Boris Kuznets’s office.
Evgenia took in a sharp breath. —Do you know who that is?
Kostya nodded. Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin, Lubyanka’s chief executioner and a man who loved his wet work. Blokhin, who would likely shoot Yagoda.
Evgenia stamped a form. —Nice of him to single you out.
— Yes. I need the smaller meeting room for half an hour this morning.
— This morning? I’m afraid you need to book that in advance, and then have the department head sign his approval.
Kostya slurped his tea. —Well, I just got this memo this morning, typed by no less than you, yes? I’m to enjoy a respite from arrest duties myself and instead take command of eighteen men, most of them new recruits. Where else can I put eighteen men if not in that smaller meeting room?
— There’s not enough room for them to sit.
— They can stand. I promise you, Captain Kuznets would approve.
Evgenia dug beneath a stack of paper for a notebook, then flipped some pages. —The room is free, comrade. You’re lucky.
Pretty and lucky, Misha had called him when they were cadets. Lucky, Yury had snarled, schastlivyy, schastlivyy, schastlivyy.