‘I don’t think that would be wise,’ he said.
‘Afraid you’d lose me to a less wrinkly version of yourself?’
‘Afraid I’d lose my son to a lascivious succubus.’
She leaned over him. He felt her breast brush against his chest. ‘I’d be offended if I knew what that meant,’ she said.
He raised his head so that their noses touched. ‘A dirty whore,’ he whispered. There had been a time when such a reference to her former profession would have offended her. Now they both revelled in it.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’d better keep my attention from straying then, hadn’t you?’
He pushed himself up off the bed with his elbow and flipped her on to her back. She looked up at him and he gazed down into her eyes. Still they revealed more of her vulnerability than any of the cool, pale flesh that lay beneath him.
Part of him knew he should be in the next room, working on the translation of the notebook, but the mysteries of a few pages of English offered little temptation in comparison with this Russian enigma, which he had so often unravelled, but which always revealed yet one more conundrum within.
However many times Dmitry visited Red Square, he could never get over the vastness of it. In the past, he’d only come here as a tourist, but since he’d been living in Moscow, although he’d walked through it or close to it almost every day, it had still failed to diminish in its impact. He’d crept into the square through the market stalls between Saint Vasiliy’s and the river, arriving at about half past eight; thirty minutes before the appointed time. This was where he had followed his father the previous week, and where he did not now need to follow him, but simply to hide and wait for him to arrive.
He skirted round to the east of the cathedral. Glancing up, he saw that no one had yet repaired the broken glass of the window in the central tower. They might not even have noticed. From there he edged along the side of the square, finally secreting himself amongst the low, wooden shops on the eastern perimeter. He could see the Lobnoye Mesto clearly, though the entrance – a gap cut in its cylindrical wall – was on the opposite side from him. Even so, no one would be able to reach that entrance without him seeing their approach.
By a quarter past nine, there was still no sign of anyone. He – like his father – had doubted whether Kyesha would show up, but he had at least expected Aleksei to. Perhaps he had been delayed. Perhaps Kyesha had intercepted him on his way to the rendezvous and… It was unlikely. Aleksei might brag, but Dmitry felt convinced that the stories of his defeats of these creatures, told to him hurriedly since that first revelation inside Saint Vasiliy’s, meant that he would not be so easily caught out. And he was right to reason that Kyesha did not seem to be a threat to either of them.
Suddenly, a head popped above the parapet of the Lobnoye Mesto. A figure hoisted itself up on to the wall and then sat there, one leg out straight, the other slightly bent. It was Aleksei. He must have been inside the platform, sitting too low to be seen, even before Dmitry had arrived. There was a brief flash of light, and Dmitry realized that his father was lighting a flame. Only the wide crescent moon illuminated the scene, giving Aleksei an ethereal pallor, but Dmitry could still see the small clay pipe grasped in his hand as he drew deeply on its smoke.
It was unusual for Aleksei to smoke, though not completely unheard of. The reason might be that he couldn’t get a drink here in the middle of the square. But on the other hand, Dmitry couldn’t help but notice the way his father gazed up at the moon, its rays splintered by the many domes of the cathedral, and observe how contented he looked for once in his life.
It was no surprise. She was a beautiful woman. Domnikiia Semyonovna – that was her name. Dmitry had not known that much before. He’d known she worked for the Lavrovs, but not in what capacity. He wondered if they knew that the nanny to their little daughter was being fucked every night by one of their oldest friends. He doubted it. Anyway, it was their fault for taking a woman like that into the house.
Even so, she had been enchanting – that glint in her eyes. Could Dmitry have mistaken the way she looked at him? He didn’t think so. And that was the worst of it. He felt ashamed at any subconscious response he might have given her that could suggest there was any prospect of something happening between them. At her age, she flattered herself. That his father should betray his mother was one thing, but that the woman could even think of betraying Aleksei with his own son was madness.
Dmitry realized he had raised himself to his feet. His father did not appear to have noticed. He stepped back into the shadows and continued to watch. Did it matter that his father was fooling his mother, and was himself being taken for a ride? Until last Thursday – when what he had witnessed inside the cathedral had changed his view of the entire world – it had. But now Dmitry’s concerns for Aleksei were far more substantial. And his esteem for his father, which had been at such a low stock for so many years, had risen.
He sat and watched for another hour, during which Aleksei hardly moved, except to take the pipe to and from his lips, and once to refill it. Then, when it was almost half past ten, he dropped back inside the Lobnoye Mesto, and moments later could be seen emerging from it to head north. The shortest route to his hotel was in the opposite direction, but Dmitry had not expected him to go there. He had given up on Kyesha, and Dmitry suspected he was right to. As promised, the voordalak had departed the city.
Dmitry waited until his father had disappeared from view, then made his own way home.
Today, Aleksei knew, he must stick to his work. The notebook and dictionary sat in front of him on his desk – the former open, the latter closed. It was early, scarcely nine o’clock, but Tamara had woken them long before. To sleep late was one of the benefits of his other home in Petersburg, but one which he gladly forwent.
He continued his random approach to the text, although he kept notes to make sure he did not go over the same section twice. It was an infuriating procedure. He had uncovered a number of consecutive sections on what the author – Cain – described as ‘the healing process’, which was a term Aleksei understood well enough, but the details of which made no sense. By Aleksei’s translation, one rat (he had settled, for now, on those being the poor creatures in question) that had the most minor of wounds would succumb to them, while another would struggle through and survive the most terrible ordeals. He doubted his own translation, and in many cases hoped he was wrong.
It was when he looked at the text for 22 August, only two days before the final entry, that the tone moved away from the scientific. Before that, there had been a gap of a week without anything being written. Aleksei felt comfortable in his translation of these more mundane matters.
I have contacted APR. He will prevaricate, but he will come. It may take time. I have returned to the peninsula and will wait. Word will be sent when APR departs.
The text then dissolved into another tract of scientific gibberish, which Aleksei shied away from. He moved to the following day’s entry.
I have looked over APR’s residence. It seems humble for him, but regardless of that, Taganrog is not the place to act against him.
Aleksei went back over the word again. There was no possibility of mistranslation, it was mere transliteration. Whatever alphabet was used, the word was the same.
Taganrog
It was the town where the tsar and tsaritsa were spending the winter. The letters APR suddenly made sense as well. Aleksandr Pavlovich Romanov – the tsar himself. Whatever the meaning of the text, it was clear that Cain had some intention to act against the tsar. The words in English could have unknown subtleties, but there was no doubt that something underhand was intended.