— He’ll be drunk for days, at this rate.
Efim tied a tourniquet on Kostya’s left arm. —Lie down. No, not on your back, in case you vomit. On your good side. You’ll feel a pinch.
Arkady watched the liquid flow into Kostya’s vein. Then, careful not to jostle the injured shoulder, he tucked the grey blanket around Kostya.
Efim fastened his medical bag shut and thought he should admire Arkady’s tenderness, yet all he wanted to do was spit. —I need to get back to the flat.
— Rest here, at least until the metro is running.
— No, I can’t impose. I should go.
— It’s half-past two in the morning. If NKVD see you out on the street, they will want to know why. I will call for a car and driver.
— Comrade Major, that’s not necessary.
Arkady had already picked up his telephone’s receiver and now spoke to an operator.
After an awkward wait of twenty-three minutes, during which Efim tried different ways to sneak a peek at his watch, headlights shone on the front window. Arkady walked Efim to the waiting car and ordered the driver to bring the good doctor home. The officer stepped out and held the door so Efim could climb into the back seat. Efim looked over his shoulder; Arkady nodded, so pleasant, so courteous. The air smelled of iris.
Fucked in the mouth, what did I do to my head?
Snow fell from a white ceiling. Then Kostya got his eyes open further, chasing away a dream of snow at his wedding, a wedding that proceeded despite the unacknowledged absence of the bride. Annoyed by the dampness of the sheets, he sat up, and that worsened his headache. The stink of bile and wine from his soiled gymastyorka and undershirt on the floor added to his nausea, which then got urgent. Despite a difficult journey of staggering gait and burning eyes, he ascended the stairs and reached the bathroom in time. Then he sat a while on the floor, resting his face against the cool toilet bowl. His memories of the day before settled like silt.
What did I say to Andrei?
Irises.
I hit her.
Dima’s chair.
He turned and retched.
Shoulder aching, he grasped the sink, hauled himself up, and splashed some water on his face. Arkady’s razor and shaving soap lay in their usual spot, and Kostya picked them up, just as he’d done after release from hospital, recalling the fever dream on the train in 1918: Baba Yaga and her menacing comment on his Russian smell.
He said it to the mirror. —I smell like a Chekist because I use the Chekist’s soap.
He got himself back to the study, noticing the good Persian rug, the one he’d wrapped Nadia in at the party, rumpled on the couch in the parlour.
— Arkady Dmitrievich?
The cat flap squeaked; one of the toms, Borodin, slinked through the porch.
Kostya ignored the cat, and the cat, as ever, ignored him. Then Kostya called louder, up over the stairs. —Arkady Dmitrievich, are you still here?
Nothing.
Back in the study he found a note on the desk.
Good morning. Or afternoon. I telephoned Kuznets. You’re on leave for bereavement. The funeral is tomorrow, ten o’clock. The cleaning women are due at four today. Be certain you leave nothing on the floor. Do not make their work more difficult than it needs to be. You’ve already done that to me. Once you’re clean and civilized, make yourself useful and fetch the items listed on the other sheet for the funeral reception. And do not disgrace me with any more sloppy drunkenness. We all mourn here, Kostya. Grief entitles you to nothing. You’ll find some civilian clothes in your old closet and some bromide salts in the pantry for your headache.
Kostya opened the curtains and stared out at the garden: so much greenery, so much space, not another human being in sight. That meant nothing, really, but in that moment, he believed in the garden’s offer of privacy and peeled off his galife pants, shorts, and socks. Naked, he strode upstairs to the bathroom again, recalling first he must visit the linen closet for a towel.
He passed Arkady’s bedroom, hesitated.
He’d not dared to look for the papers and passport there.
Boris Kuznets had come and gone from this house as he pleased over the last six weeks.
Kostya checked the dresser drawers, the clothes in the closet, the mattress, the bedding, the pillows, the rug, and the high closet shelf. He flinched when the telephone rang, then ignored it, wondering again if Arkady had buried the passport and papers in the garden.
The dessert parties: the one thing he knew he hated about Arkady, and yet he craved invitation. Once allowed to attend, he’d always chosen a woman, always enjoyed himself.
Blood weighted his penis.
A memory of sensation: the surrender of Nadia’s cheek beneath his fingers as he backhanded her face. He’d enjoyed it.
No, it’s not like that.
Forcing her to sit on the stool in the Lubyanka cell.
Duty.
Arkady forcing him to sit on a stool in a Lubyanka cell.
He cares about me.
Arkady beating him as an adolescent, as a grown man. The conversation with Arkady after the last beating, the absurd attempt at a bargain.
His erection twitched.
He shut his eyes, picked up the towel and held it to his face.
A long shower washed away nothing.
The watchwoman in the lobby slept on as Kostya climbed the stairs to his flat. He fumbled his key in the lock, grateful he’d not lost the key last night, and heard the jangle of the telephone. He strode past both a note on the table and the closed door to his bedroom and picked up the receiver by the bathroom door.
— Yes, this is Nikto. Yes, yes, I just said that.
The operator asked him to stand by for a call from Lubyanka.
A woman’s voice, not Evgenia Ismailovna, greeted him with a crisp efficiency that made Kostya wince. Then she informed him he must report to work.
— What, today? Comrade, I’m…German, yes. Italian, yes, very close to Spanish, but can this not wait until…Fine. Yes, thank you. Give me…I’ll be there as soon as I can.
He eased the receiver into its cradle and sighed, further irritated by the darkness in the hallway. —Nadia?
Nothing.
The air in the flat seemed heavy, stale.
Slow and careful, he eased the bedroom door open, padded to the closet, and took uniform pieces from their hangers. Asleep, Temerity did not move.
In the kitchen, he found some bread and cheese and a note on the table. As he took a small bite of bread and picked up the note, he caught another whiff, another touch of that heaviness, a scent he knew.
Old blood.
The note read: Let her rest. Come see me at the Lab.
Struggling to swallow the dry chunk of bread, Kostya considered the mysteries of women’s courses, of which he knew very little. Sometimes, women in the Lubyanka cells smelled of blood, even when no one had struck them. In Spain one night, Kostya had wondered how women in the field managed, or the nurses in the clinics, and he’d wondered this in moonlight as he flicked a cigarette butt into the spreading pool of blood at his feet. Trotskyist, tsarist, Red, White: all blood smelled the same. In defiance and pride then, Kostya had lit a second cigarette, baiting any sniper who might be nearby, daring him.
Go on. Take a shot. Kill me.
Nothing.
The men he hunted in Spain: he’d shot most of them. Once he’d cut a throat — quiet, but more difficult than he’d expected, as his target heard him and lunged almost out of reach. When he shot the five-litre tin of type O-negative in the clinic, the spatter reached his mouth, his nose, even the curves of his ears. Blood, blood, blood.