Infrequent streetlamps came hurtling toward them, between dark blocks of neighborhoods without a single light, where life seemed to have died out, and then up ahead the hazy, yellowish bulk of the synagogue appeared, and Andrei saw the Building.
It was standing there firmly and confidently, as if it had always occupied that space between the wall of the synagogue, daubed all over with swastikas, and the trashy movie theater, which had been fined the previous week for showing pornographic films at night—standing in the very same spot where yesterday scraggy little trees were growing, an anemic little fountain was splashing in a preposterously large, drab concrete basin, and a motley assortment of little kids were squealing as they dangled from rope swings.
It really was red, built of brick, with four stories, the windows of the first floor were closed off with shutters, and several windows on the second and third floors glowed yellow and pink, but the roof was covered with galvanized tin, and a strange antenna with several crosspieces had been installed beside the one and only chimney. There really was a porch with four stone steps leading up to the door, and a gleaming brass door handle, and the longer Andrei looked at this building, the more distinctly he heard a strange melody, solemn and gloomy, ringing in his ears, and he recalled in passing that many of the witnesses had testified that there was music playing in the Building…
Andrei adjusted the visor of his uniform cap so that it didn’t obstruct his view and glanced at the police motorcyclist. The fat, surly man was sitting there huddled up, with his head pulled down into his raised collar, and smoking drowsily, holding the cigarette in his teeth.
“Do you see it?” Andrei asked in a low voice.
The fat man awkwardly swung his head around and turned down his collar. “Eh?”
“The building. I asked if you can see it,” Andrei said, starting to get annoyed.
“I’m not blind,” the policeman replied morosely.
“And have you seen it here before?”
“No,” said the policeman. “Not here. But I’ve seen it in other places. What of it? You see weirder things than that around here at night.”
The music was roaring in Andrei’s ears with such tragic power that he couldn’t really hear the policeman very well. There was some kind of immense funeral taking place, with thousands and thousands of people weeping as they saw off their near ones and dear ones, and the roaring of the music gave them no chance to compose themselves, calm down, and disconnect themselves from it all…
“Wait for me here,” Andrei told the policeman, but the policeman didn’t answer, which wasn’t really very surprising, since he was already on the far side of the street, and Andrei was standing on the stone porch, facing the oak door with the brass handle.
Then Andrei looked to the right along Main Street, into the murky haze, and to the left along Main Street, into the murky haze, and said good-bye to all of this, just in case, and set his gloved hand on the ornately patterned, gleaming brass.
Behind the door was a small, quiet entrance hall, illuminated by a dim, yellowish light, with bunches of greatcoats, overcoats, and raincoats dangling from a coat stand with splayed branches, like a palm tree. Underfoot was a worn carpet with pale, indistinct patterns, and straight ahead there was a broad marble staircase with a soft, red runner, squeezed tight against the steps by well-polished metal rods. There were also pictures of some kind on the walls, and something else behind an oak barrier on the right, and someone nearby, who politely took Andrei’s portfolio and whispered, “Upstairs, please…” Andrei couldn’t make out any of this very clearly, because the visor of his cap obstructed his view very badly by sliding down right over his eyes, so that he could only see what was right under his feet. Halfway up the stairs it occurred to him that he ought to have checked the damned cap at the cloakroom with that gold-braid-festooned character who had sideburns right down to his waist, but it was too late now, and everything here was arranged so that you had to do things at the right time or not do them at all, and it was impossible to take back a single move or a single action that he had made. And with a sigh of relief he strode up the final step and took off the cap.
The moment he appeared in the doorway, everyone got to their feet, but he didn’t look at any of them. He saw only his partner, a short, elderly man in a prewar-style uniform and gleaming box-calf-leather boots, who reminded him painfully of someone and at the same time was entirely unfamiliar.
Everyone stood motionless along the walls, the white marble walls decorated in gold and purple and draped with bright, multicolored banners… no, not multicolored—everything was red and gold, only red and gold, and huge panels of purple and gold fabric hung down from the infinitely distant ceiling, like the materialized ribbons of some incredible northern lights. They all stood along the walls with their tall, semicircular niches, and hiding in the twilight of the niches were haughtily modest busts of marble, plaster, bronze, gold, malachite, stainless steel… those niches breathed out the chill of the grave, everyone was freezing, everyone was furtively rubbing their hands together and huddling up against the cold, but they all stood at attention, looking straight ahead, and only the elderly man in the semimilitary uniform, Andrei’s partner, Andrei’s adversary, strode about slowly with silent steps in the empty space at the center of the hall, with his massive, graying head tilted slightly forward and his hands held behind his back, with the left hand clutching the wrist of the right. And when Andrei walked in, and when everyone got up and had already been standing for some time, and when the faint sigh, as if of relief, had already faded away under the vaults of the hall, after tangling itself in the purple and the gold, this man continued to stride about, and then suddenly, in midstride, he stopped and looked at Andrei very intently, without smiling, and Andrei saw that the hair on the large cranium was sparse and gray, the forehead was low, the magnificent mustache was really sparse, but neatly trimmed, and the indifferent face was yellowish, with bumpy skin, as if it had been dug over.
There was no need for introductions, and there was no need for speeches of greeting. They sat down at a small encrusted table, and Andrei turned out to have the black pieces, while his elderly partner had the white ones, not actually white but yellowish, and the man with the dug-over skin reached out a small, hairless hand, picked up a pawn between his finger and thumb, and made the first move. To meet it Andrei immediately moved out his own pawn—the quiet, reliable Wang, who had always wanted only one thing, to be left in peace, and here he would be granted a certain peace, dubious and relative though it was, here, in the very center of events, which would unfold, of course, which were inevitable, and Wang would have a tough time of it, but here was the precise spot where Andrei could bolster him, cover him, protect him—for a long time and, if he so wished, an infinitely long time.
The two pawns stood facing each other, forehead to forehead—they could touch each other, they could exchange meaningless words, they could simply be quietly proud of themselves, proud of the fact that they, simple pawns, had defined the main axis around which the entire game would now unfold. But they couldn’t do anything to each other, they were neutral toward each other, they were in different combat dimensions—small, yellow, shapeless Wang with his head pulled down into his shoulders in customary fashion, and a thickset little individual with crooked cavalryman’s legs, wearing a Caucasian felt cloak and a tall astrakhan hat, with a prodigiously opulent mustache, high cheekbones, and slightly slanting eyes.