The Metronome

The Metronome Page 2

by D. R. Bell

PART 2: UNDER SIEGE

  Friday, June 9, early evening

  I come about from a strong smell of urine. I am sitting in a puddle. There are people standing around me, blocking the light, I only see their legs. Someone says, “Let’s just do him and get it over with!” A voice that sounds familiar disagrees, “The colonel’s orders were to take the package and let him be.” The first voice grumbles unintelligibly, and the legs disappear, leaving me alone. I remain on the ground staring at a sliver of cloudy sky, my chest heaving. A tiny voice in my brain reminds me to slow down my breathing. I try to speak up, but my throat hurts and my voice betrays me. I slowly get up to my knees, holding to the wall behind me. I am in a dark passage between two buildings. My backpack is on the ground by the other wall. I crawl towards it. The external pocket is open, and my father’s package is gone; everything else is still there. The smell of urine follows me. I look back and realize that’s the puddle I was sitting in. My jeans are soaked in some drunkard’s urine. I sit by the backpack, exhausted.

  The pain and throbbing in my throat subsides a bit. It’s getting darker. My breaths are still ragged and my hands shake, but the blind panic gave way to disjointed thinking. I can’t stay here. I can’t go to a hotel like this. I pull my Blackberry out of the backpack. After being gone for twenty years, the only Moscow phone number I still have is that of Yakov Weinstein, my old university professor. I gather my courage for a few minutes, and then dial the number.

  After all these years, he recognizes my voice immediately. I apologize and haltingly explain my immediate situation. He tells me to come out to the street in ten minutes and watch for a blue Toyota. I remain on the ground, thinking of what I will tell him. After about ten minutes, I get up and make my way to the street. I must look and smell awful because a passing woman grimaces and mutters, “Damn drunks!” A small blue Toyota is slowly cruising by, and I tentatively raise my arm.

  The car stops. It’s Anya. Why did he have to send his daughter? I wish for the ground to open up and swallow me. Suppressing an instinct to run away, I walk over, open the passenger door and say, “Anya, I am sorry, it was a really bad idea. I’ll go to a hotel.”

  “Pavel, get in.”

  “I can’t. My jeans are soaked in urine.”

  “Pavel, please get in. We are holding up traffic.”

  As if on cue, cars start honking. I get in, feeling my face turning crimson.

  She says, “I have not seen you in twenty years; I was wondering what you would look like. You still have that strong jaw and at least they did not break those nice full lips. But otherwise, you look like shit!”

  We both start laughing hysterically, so hard that she has to pull over.

  Then she sniffs the air and says, “Yes, we better keep going, get you into a hot bath.” My former professor’s place is only a few minutes away. I steal a sideways glance at Anya. I am 45, so she must be 42 now. The years have been kinder to her than to me: she is slender, almost feline, a wide mouth ready to curl into a smile. The years have left their imprint in the crow’s feet and frown lines on her face.

  Professor Weinstein still lives in a high rise on Donskaya Street, a mile away from the Academy of Sciences. From the balcony of his 15th story apartment, one looks straight at the Gorky Park. If you turn to the right, you see Kremlin. I used to come here regularly. Now, I am awkwardly riding a narrow lift with Anya, guilty and embarrassed.

  But, the professor seems to be genuinely glad to see me, with a smile, a big hug, and a Russian kiss on both cheeks. He is short, like Anya, and has to rise up on tiptoes to reach me. Yakov is in his seventies now; he stoops even more that I remember, and his face is a spider web of lines. His hair is still all there, Einstein-like unruly, only all white now. Yakov studied under the famous Lev Landau and was known in the department for the saying, “That’s not how Lev Davidovich would approach the problem” whenever he disagreed with someone. His wife passed away three years ago; I sent a card but could not bring myself to call.

  Yakov ushers me into a small bathroom with a tub full of steaming water. “I took the liberty of drawing you a bath; undress and get in.”

  I would have preferred a hot shower in a more American fashion, but right now I’ll take anything to get out of these soaked jeans and wash off the smell of urine. I climb in, soap myself, and close my eyes.

  There is a knock and the door slowly opens. It’s Anya. I try to cover myself.

  She laughs. “Pavel, I’ve seen you naked. You’ve gained some weight since then. Here’s something for you to change into.”

  She sets down a set of clothes, picks up the stinky dirty pile from the floor, and leaves. I luxuriate for a few more minutes, but as the water grows colder I pull the plug from the drain, rinse myself, and change into the clothes that Anya left: boxers, white linen shirt, brown pants. They can’t be Yakov’s; he is much smaller than I.

  I come out of the bathroom and go to the kitchen, where the voices are. There I find Yakov, Anya, and a boy of about nine sitting around a small table. Anya introduces him. “Pavel, this is my son, David.”

  She pronounces “David” in an English manner, with an emphasis on the first syllable. David is a shy blond kid with bright eyes, flat nose, and high cheekbones. There is not much of Anya in him, at least visually. Yakov suggests that we should eat now so that David can go to bed, and then we’ll talk. The dinner consists of a salad, meat stew, and potatoes, plus a bottle of vodka for my benefit. Yakov explains to David that I was his student back in the 1980s – “one of the most talented students I have ever had” – but then I moved to America.

  David’s eyes light up. “Are you working in particle physics? I love physics!”

  Evidently, Yakov had brainwashed him already. I disappoint the boy by saying that I left physics for finance, and he loses interest. By the time we finish eating, it’s dark outside. Anya motions to David, he kisses his grandfather, politely wishes me good night, and Anya takes him away.

  Yakov shakes his head. “Pavel, Pavel, I know it’s not the time, but I don’t see you very often. How could you have traded physics, the queen of sciences, for this pseudo-scientific financial mumbo-jumbo?”

  “It’s not mumbo-jumbo,” I protest. “We use models and sophisticated math equations.”

  “Models? Equations? You can write down all the elegant equations you want, but your theories have the empirical validity of alchemists trying to turn lead into gold. I am 74, and I still stand in awe of trying to discover the God-given laws of physics. They are permanent and exact. You, on the other hand, are pretending that you can precisely model human behavior, which is inherently impermanent and inexact.”

  “It’s not true; we have historical data to base our models on. And we don’t try to predict each individual behavior; we use probabilistic distributions.”

  “Historical data? How can you rely on historical data when the very system you are trying to model is being changed by the application of your models? I’ve seen some of the formulas you use; you just borrowed the heat transfer equation with normal distribution from physics. It works in physics precisely because its laws are permanent. In finance, the human behavior causes extreme events that are not subject to the normal bell curve distribution. Mandelbrot proved it, and you all ignored him because you are now practicing this Stalinist approach of politically correct science, when in reality you are just like Roman augurs, divining birds’ entrails to justify whatever campaign the leaders want. I think you’ve lost your way.”

  Anya saves me by her return.

  “Come on, Dad, you have not seen him in twenty years and that’s what you start with?”

  She turns to me with a smile.

  “My dad does not tolerate betrayal of his first love: physics. But why don’t you tell us how you ended up in a puddle of urine in a dark alley?”

  Grateful for the change of subject, I tell them everything starting with the middle-of-the-night call from Vakunin. Well, almost everything – I skip the part about Sar
ah. When I finish, Anya pours everyone another small shot of vodka.

  Yakov refuses his.

  “I am too old, you youngsters go ahead. It seems to me that they – whoever ‘they’ are – thought that your dad must have mailed you some information and have been following you in order to get it.”

  “Yes, I think they’ve been playing me all along,” I agree.

  “You said that your dad came to visit you last year?” asks Anya.

  “Yes, he did, in March.”

  “Was that the first time he visited you in America?”

  “Yes. There was a distance between us since my mother’s death. I thought he could do more to save her, to prolong her life. And he did not approve of me marrying Karen, did not come to the wedding. About seven years ago, we took a trip to Europe and came to St. Petersburg. That was the only time we saw him until last March.”

  “How long did he stay with you?”

  “Only a few days. He continued to Los Angeles. I remember taking him to a local travel agency; he had to make a slight change.”

  Yakov has that look of concentration that I remember from classes long ago. “Do you know why your dad flew to Los Angeles?”

  “He said he wanted to see California. I thought he was going to meet Simon – that’s my son’s name – who is going to university there, but they never connected.”

  “And where did he go from Los Angeles?”

  “I presume back to Russia.”

  “And how old was he at the time?

  “He was 80. But he was still in pretty good shape.”

  “So your dad, who is not known to travel internationally, at 80 decides to fly all the way to America, spends only a couple of days with his son, and then goes to Los Angeles where he does not even meet his grandson,” muses Yakov.

  When presented this way, things do look somewhat strange. My father came with gifts of books and kitschy matryoushkas. Karen thought the visit was his way of saying goodbye. I was too busy with a new job to give his actions or reasons much thought.

  Yakov asks, “And what happened with you after that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I asked. I tried to follow your career a bit; there was something about you managing a money fund.”

  “A hedge fund. Well, after I left academia I went to work on Wall Street as a quant, basically an analyst developing and programming trading models. As a quant, you make an OK salary, but to do well you have to move into trading or, even better, become a hedge fund manager. But it’s hard to become one, as that is everyone’s goal. So, in April of last year, when an acquaintance asked me if I’d be interested in co-managing a fund with him, I jumped at the chance.”

  “Who was this acquaintance and why did he offer you such an opportunity?”

  “His name is Martin Shoffman. We moved in the same social circle; Karen and I went out with Martin and his wife Sarah together a few times and became friends. He was more of a sales person, did not have a strong analytical background. He told me he wanted me as a partner because we complemented each other and the prospective investors wanted to see a well-rounded management team.”

  “And what happened after?”

  “Martin did have investors, although it was really just one large investor putting up the bulk of the money.”

  “Who was that large investor?”

  “It was a Cayman Islands limited partnership, very secretive, we only met their attorneys. But their money was real. Their main requirement was that Martin and I should put our own ‘skin in the game,’ as their attorneys put it.”

  “And you did?”

  “Yes. Martin and I mortgaged our houses in order to put up the money.”

  Yakov is silent.

  “We opened in May with over a hundred million in funds,” I continue. “We’d been doing well for a while, but in February things turned sharply against us. It felt like some of our leveraged positions were being pressured by a large player. In particular, I thought that the housing market was overheated and went against it, but the value of our positions has declined. I wanted to cut our losses, but Martin thought we’d be kicked out as the fund managers and we doubled down instead. The fund lost a lot of money that quarter, and the major investor’s attorneys descended on us. Turns out there was a provision in the funding agreement allowing the majority investor to liquidate the fund for poor performance and to have priority on recovering their money.”

  “What does it mean?” asks Anya.

  “The fund was closed, they took over the assets, Martin and I lost everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Yes. We mortgaged our houses and put everything we had into the fund.”

  “That was rather risky, wasn’t it?” Yakov spreads his hands in wonderment.

  “Yes,” I admit. “We were afraid of missing our chance at running a fund and risked too much.”

  “Was that a typical provision?”

  “No, it was not. I am not a lawyer, in the initial excitement I did not read some of the fine print, counting on our attorney catching things like this.”

  “Did you have an attorney review the agreement?”

  “Martin did.”

  Yakov wonders out loud. “Your partner gets you into a bad agreement, and then encourages you to take big risks. How much of a partner was he?”

  “I am not happy about his decisions, but he lost his house just like I did. And his marriage broke up like mine.”

  Yakov ponders things for a while.

  “Sometimes you do a physical experiment, and the results neatly fit one theory. Then you do another experiment, and the first theory does not look like such a sure thing, while some of the seemingly random data points in the first set don’t look so random. Your description looks entirely logical. But when I combine it with the events of the last few days, I am not so sure. You may want to recheck some assumptions back in America.”

  He gets up.

  “I am sorry. It’s late for an old guy like me. Let’s sleep on it. As a Russian proverb goes, ‘Morning is wiser than evening.’ Good night.”

  Once he leaves the room, Anya says, “So where are your kids now? You have a boy and a girl, right?”

  “Yes, Simon and Jennifer. They are both at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Jennifer just finished her first year, Simon is a year ahead.”

  “Why are they so far away from you? Don’t you have great colleges where you live?”

  “My father-in-law went there and pushed really hard for them to follow. Plus, California’s year-round sunshine was hard to pass on.”

  “Is your breakup hard on them?”

  “On Jennifer, yes. Fortunately, she was in college already. Simon, he grew distant a while ago. Tell me about David.”

  “His father’s name is Jim Morton; he was in Moscow with the American-funded Reconstruction and Development Bank back in the 90s. He has a wife and two daughters back in New York, I am not sure he ever plans to leave them. Jim comes here on business once or twice a year; I don’t think his wife even knows about his son. It’s his clothes you are wearing.”

  “Don’t you want more?”

  “Jim helps financially,” Anya stops, looks down at her hands pinching folds of her skirt. “Yes, I would have wanted more. But I no longer expect it from him. Meanwhile, I have David. I hope Jim will eventually gather up the courage to officially accept his son. I teach physics, I never had the same brilliance that my father and you share, but I am good at teaching. And, all the spare time I have goes to my son and my father. It’s a quiet life.”

  She gets up, too. “I can’t stay up too late; I share a bedroom with David. I made you a bed on the living room’s sofa, let me show you.”

  In the living room, I sit down on the sofa and without thinking take Anya’s hand and try to draw her to me.

  She gently removes her hand. “Pavel, I survived you twenty years ago, I am at peace now. You can’t go back in time. Please don’t sta
rt something you are not ready for.”

  She leaves, and I silently grieve over the old hurt I inflicted – and Yakov’s words about losing my way hurt more than he knew.

  Saturday, June 10

  My inner clock is somewhere in Western Europe for when I get up the sun is high up in the sky. Between bad dreams and an uncomfortable bed, I woke up a few times during the night. I make my way to the kitchen wearing Jim Morton’s PJ’s. To my surprise, everyone is there.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Anya seeing my befuddled expression.

  “Well, I thought David would be in school by now.”

  “Pavel, today is Saturday.”

  Of course. I lost track of days. I pour myself a cup of strong black coffee.

  Yakov looks at me expectantly. “So, is your morning wiser than the last evening?”

  “I think so, thanks to you.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I will head back to New York and try to check on few things.”

  Yakov nods. “I figured you would.”

  Anya asks, “Do you want to stay for a day or two, see some old friends?”

  “No, I want to figure it out if possible; I can’t rest until I do. Besides, what friends do I have here besides you?”

  I don’t explain that after what Pemin told me, I am weary of staying in Russia. I did not tell them about Pemin’s insinuation. With my father being an investigator, I’ve heard too many stories about people being framed and disappearing into the Gulag. Perhaps things have changed, but I don’t want to tempt the fate.

  “I wager he’ll be back,” smiles Yakov.

  Anya drives me to the Sheremetyevo Airport. I am back in my washed and dried out clothes, the backpack is on my lap.

  “Did you say that Jim Morton lives in New York?”

  “He works in New York for an investment bank, lives somewhere in the suburbs.”

  “Have you been to New York?”

  “No. I hope to take David there one day.”

  She pulls in front of the terminal, leans over to kiss me on the cheek. “I hope it’ll be less than twenty years before I see you again. Be careful.”

  I get out of the car, close the door and stand there looking at her. She pulls away from the curb without looking back.

  The next flight to New York is on Delta. I use my U.S. passport to get a ticket. This being Saturday, the flight is not completely booked, and I get an aisle with an empty seat next to me. I wonder about paying all the credit card bills I am running up, but that’s a worry for the later. I am anxious about being prevented from leaving the country, keep glancing over my shoulders. But nobody bothers me and I board the plane without further adventures.

  The flight is not full, but noisy, with a quite a few kids. Must be some well-to-do Russians heading on vacations to the exotic U.S. of A. Karen and I have had our share of long flights with the kids, and I am sympathetic to frazzled parents trying to keep up. Thankfully, there are no loud neighbors in adjacent seats: an older woman in the window seat puts on an eye mask and goes to sleep soon after the takeoff, while a teenager boy across the aisle is totally engrossed in his computer. I am still jet-lagged and tired, it’s midnight in New York, and I try to nap.

  The plane is somewhere over the ocean when I come to. I reach into the overhead compartment and get the diary out of my backpack. I never expected that my father would have a diary. Perhaps we just can’t picture our parents as young people. At least I have never thought of my father at seventeen. I take a deep breath: he was not a talkative person and I feel like I am about to open a box full of secrets. I feel a knot in my stomach.

  18 August, 1941

  My name is Vladimir Rostin. Mother gave me this diary notebook today, on my 17th birthday. She bought it in May, before the war. She knows I want to be a writer like Maxim Gorky or Arkady Gaidar, she thought keeping a diary would help me to develop my writing skills. I was going to apply to study literature at the Leningrad State University, but I may have to wait until the next year. Now I can capture the events of the war here in Leningrad, and make them into a book after we defeat the Nazis.

  My father, a newspaper editor, signed up with the Fourth People’s Volunteer Division and left for the front earlier. I was not home, I was mobilized to dig defensive trenches and did not have a chance to say goodbye. I want to volunteer for the same division. I hope the war will last long enough for me to join him, but I doubt it will. Radio reports say that we are inflicting very heavy casualties on the Nazis and when they are all exhausted, we’ll go on counterattack all the way to Berlin.

  At home it’s me, my mother Svetlana, and her father, my grandfather Viktor. My mother is a musician, grandfather retired. He is spending all his time going around the city, trying to buy food. Mother laughs at him, but he just says, “During the war, the most important thing is to have food.”

  We live in a communal apartment on Liteyniy Prospekt, near the center of the city. Two other families, Monastev’s and Leontsev’s, live in the apartment; we share the kitchen and the bathroom. Monastev’s have a mother and two daughters, Nastya, 16, and Serafima, 8. Their father has been called to the war. Leontsev’s have only the mother and Andrei, 5. Andrei’s father has been arrested two years earlier, without the right of correspondence. It’s crowded sometimes, but we mostly get along. Yesterday I bumped into Nastya on the stairs, she smiled and asked me how I am doing. Like a fool, I mumbled something and ran, jumping stairs two at a time. Then I was thinking about her, but I should be thinking of defeating the Germans instead.

  I have to go now, mother is calling. I will continue later.

  My mother’s name was Nastya, is it her? My parents never told me how they’ve met. Perhaps they were neighbors?

  My elbow takes a direct hit from a food cart, and the attendant apologizes profusely. I tell her it’s my fault for sticking it out into the aisle. She insists on making amends and offers a drink of my choice. I don’t want to refuse a free drink and opt for scotch.

  My heart is sick with thoughts of my father as a young boy not understanding the hell that is about to be unleashed on his family and his city.

  10 September, 1941

  I was sent to dig trenches again. This time we dug them only a few kilometers from the city. We were sleeping on the ground, cold, dirty, hungry. And then the German planes attacked. Two people on my right have been killed, a boy of 16 and an older woman. On September 3rd, an officer came and told us to get out, go home. It took me a day to walk back. At home, there is food rationing. We, as dependents, get only 300 grams of bread a day.

  Two days ago, there was a big air raid. I was on the roof; it’s my responsibility to extinguish incendiary bombs. Then suddenly a huge cloud started to grow, it turned bronze and black, a giant fire. In the morning people said the Germans bombed the Badayev warehouses where all the city food has been stored, and now the food is gone. I can’t believe it, I am sure the government did not have all the food in one place. Later that day, a man from the building came back from the front. He was in the Fourth People’s Volunteer Division, like my father. He did not see my father, but said very few survived because on August 11th they counterattacked with old rifles against German tanks, and most volunteers have been mowed down. Then the NKVD secret police came and took the man away.

  We gather around the radio when we can. Poetess Olga Berggoltz is reading poetry every day, mother really likes her. She wrote down some of the verses:

  I speak with you to the sound of exploding shells,

  Lit up by eerie fires.

  I speak with you from Leningrad,

  My country, my heartbroken country.

  When there are no news announcements, music, or poetry reading, the station turns on the sound of metronome: “click…click…click.” The soft rhythm is soothing, like a sound of a beating heart.

  People are saying that the city has been completely encircled and no supplies can come in. We have to break the encirclement. This morning, I volunt
eered for the army. The enlisting officer was from our block, he knew me and told me I am not old enough. I protested that I am big for my age. He looked at me, wrote something down on a piece of paper, and told me to go to the militzia station on Suvorovskiy Prospekt and give the message to Ivan Mershov. I did as told and found militzia’s officer Mershov. Mershov read the message and told me he’ll enlist me into the militzia starting tomorrow. “This way you’ll at least have a bigger ration,” he said. So starting tomorrow I will be a militzia man. My mother was upset that I signed up for a dangerous job, but glad that at least I was not sent to the front. She is crying all the time now, thinking that my father is dead. But I still have hope.

  I remember the name Mershov, someone like that was at my parents’ birthday parties when I was a child. I can vaguely recall the face, but I don’t think his name was Ivan and he was not older than my father.

  1 October, 1941

  The rations have been cut again today, 400 grams for workers, 200 grams for dependents. We are hungry all the time. Thankfully, my grandfather Viktor managed to buy and store some food when it was still available. He rations it, saying it will be a long winter.

  I am now a regular militziaman, doing patrols around the city. Mershov paired me with an old militziaman named Makar. Makar is always grouchy, a real curmudgeon. I carry an old heavy rifle, I did not get to fire it yet. There are always rumors of German spies in the city, and we have to be on a lookout. Yesterday an old woman came to us pointing at a tall man wearing a green jacket and screamed: “Arrest him, he must be a spy, he is wearing a foreign green jacket!” The poor man turned pale, but Makar just replied: “Be quiet, you old fool! If we start shooting everyone wearing a colorful jacket, there will be no people left in the city.” The man came over to thank us.

  My mother has been visiting hospitals, hoping to find my father there. She did not, but she’s met a wounded man that saw him on the morning of August 11th. He said that very few from the Fourth People’s Volunteer Division have survived.

  A few days ago, poetess Anna Akhmatova gave a speech on the radio. Mother was listening, then started crying, “She is Russia’s greatest poetess and they persecuted her for years, would not allow publishing her work.” She did not say who “they” were.

  The Monastev’s received the news that their father has been killed near Pskov, back in July. All this time they were hoping for his return, and he was no longer.

  My mother told me that her father was killed in the army, early in the war. The Nastya in the diary must be her.

  14 October, 1941

  We killed a man today. Makar and I had been on patrol when we heard screams from the direction of the bakery. We ran there and saw people from the bread line screaming at a man in a long fur coat. Another patrol was already there. They searched the man and found dozens of ration cards; he must have been stealing them. Makar and another militziaman pushed him against the wall and shot him. People from the bread line rushed to pick the coupons lying on the ground, but Makar gave a warning shot in the air, then picked up and tore the coupons.

  It’s getting colder every day. Grandfather Viktor is now mostly lying in bed covered by blankets. Just a few weeks ago, he was a robust man, but these days his yellowish face is tired and drawn, covered by a gray beard. When he gets up, which is infrequent, he moves carefully, with enormous effort. Grandfather used to read, now he just listens to the radio. Mother is giving concerts to wounded soldiers in hospitals. She is getting weaker. We all are getting weaker. It’s not only the cold and the hunger. Sounds of falling bombs, exploding shells, the fear…they all wear you down.

  26 October, 1941

  Grandfather died. We were not home when it happened. I was on patrol, my mother working in a hospital. He was lying in bed, all skin and bones. When we lifted the blanket, his left hand was clutching a bag full of dried up bread. Turns out for weeks he’s been starving himself, saving much of his ration for us. He probably hid the bag on the side of the bed and with his last strength got it out today, making sure we don’t miss it. I started crying. My mother hugged me and said “He is not suffering anymore, he escaped.” But I saw that she cried silently.

  We had to take him to the cemetery. Snow is covering the ground, and I went to Leontsevs to borrow Andrei’s sled. Andrei’s mother looks like a ghost. Much of the wallpaper is gone from their walls - they scraped off the paste because it’s edible. But their apartment is warm, they have a little burzhuika stove that they feed with their books. I gave them a potato for the use of the sled. Mother and I wrapped Viktor into a white linen and took him to the cemetery. We walk slowly, and it took us three hours.

  “Are you OK?”

  The older woman in the window seat is touching my arm.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Your hand. And you were making a sound like it is hard for you to breathe.”

  I look at my right hand and realize that I was biting it, teeth marks clearly visible on the skin.

  “She is not suffering anymore.” That’s what he said when my mother died and I hated him for it.

  “I am sorry,” I say to the woman. “I did not mean to bother you.”

  “This looks like an old notebook,” she replies. The woman is about seventy, intelligent face crisscrossed with lines of years.

  “My father’s. From the war.”

  “Where was he?”

  “In Leningrad. He was seventeen.”

  She starts crying. “I was in Kiev; they evacuated us to Siberia in July 1941, that’s how we survived. I heard the stories about what it was like in Leningrad. I am so sorry.”

  4 November, 1941

  Our neighbor Nastya moved in with us. Her sister Serafima died two days before. Nastya and her mother were taking Serafima to a cemetery when they got caught in German bombardment. Nastya survived, but she is the only one left from their family.

  It’s very cold. The three of us sleep in the same bed, in our clothes and covered by all the blankets we have. My mother is in the middle for propriety, although I am not sure how much this matters. All we care about, all we can think about, is food. Our little stash is down to only a few frozen potatoes. We are now scraping the wallpaper paste and boiling any leather we can find.

  Makar and I are still doing our patrols. We shuffle on swollen feet. In this cold, it’s important to keep moving. You stop, you die. Some of the militziamen have died, and we can’t cover their territory. Makar says the city is slipping into anarchy.

  It hits me: If this Nastya is, as I suspect, my mother, then I just read how my maternal grandmother died. I just knew that she was killed in the war.

  16 November, 1941

  There are four of us now. Three days ago, my mother went to check on Leontsev’s and found Andrei barely alive, his mother’s body frozen on the bed. She’d been beaten to death with a can of ham. Whoever did this must have had plenty of food, as he left the bloody, mangled can lying next to the body. Andrei told us that men were coming to see his mother. The last one was in a military uniform; Andrei saw his face through a little opening in the curtain that covered Andrei’s bed.

  There is no water or heating in our building any longer. Nastya is responsible for the water. Every day she goes to the river and brings two buckets back on Andrei’s sled. She has to climb down to the ice, fill the buckets, then climb back onto the embankment, one bucket at a time. Every day I wonder if she’ll make it. Then we have to boil the water. We brought in the burzhuika stove from the Leontsevs’ apartment. I think between heating and boiling water we only have enough books and furniture to burn for a month.

  Anna Akhmatova was on the radio, reading her new poetry:

  Birds of death are high in the sky.

  Who will come to help Leningrad?

  Be quiet – he is breathing,

  He is still alive, he hears everything.

  Hears how his people lament in their sleep,

  How out of his depth screams “Bread!”

  Reach out to h
eaven.

  But the steel has no pity

  And death is looking from every window.

  The rations have been cut again, to only 125 grams per day for dependents. I used to suffer from hunger, but now the pain stopped. You have to prolong the process of eating the little that you have, fool your body, cut the bread into small pieces, let the bread melt in your mouth for as long as possible. Two months ago, we were human. Now, we are starving animals. I don’t understand, for years we sacrificed in order to be ready for the war. We’ve been singing how we’ll swiftly defeat any invader! How come we are surrounded and starving?

  Some pages were torn here. They had been torn carefully, slowly, but you can see that at least two pages are missing.

  5 December, 1941

  It’s only the three of us: Nastya, Andrei, and I. We have no food supplies left, it’s just the bread rations. Andrei is in bed most of the time; we force him to get up and walk around once a day. Nastya’s breathing is shallow, it takes all her strength to bring in a bucket of water. We manage with one bucket a day. There is enough fuel left for perhaps two weeks. We are skeletons, covered by yellow skin with red spots. Our unwashed bodies smell, our breaths sour. Because we wear hats all the time, our hair is dirty and matted. It is freezing cold, the thermometer outside the window is stuck at -40 degrees. My feet are so swollen, it’s difficult to squeeze them into the boots. Nastya massages them at night, I am embarrassed that she handles my grimy stinky feet.

  Makar and I continue our patrols. Have to walk carefully, for ice is hiding treacherously under the snow. You fall, break your ankle, you are done for. My beautiful city is now a majestic graveyard. The wind howls through the canyons of stone, piercing us to our bones. Today I saw a man sit on a bench, then slowly roll over and fall. He became one of many frozen corpses, lining the streets like statues. Bare blue legs protrude from snow drifts. Life and death coexist right in front of our eyes; there is only a thin line between the two. People show little emotion. All they talk about is food. It’s mostly a city of women, as men and children die faster.

  Winter days are short. I leave in the dark, come back in the dark, crawl onto the mattress where Nastya and Andrei are bundled up. Sometimes I write in this diary, but we are down to the last candle and we have no fuel for the wick lamp. Burzhuika gives out heat, but no light for reading. We try to sleep as much as possible, to save our energy. We still hand crank the radio, listen to occasional music, reading of poetry. Olga Berggoltz read her new work today:

  My dear neighbor,

  Let’s sit down and talk,

  Just the two of us.

  Let’s talk about peace,

  The peace we want so badly.

  Almost six months of war,

  Of bombs falling from the dark sky,

  Shuddering earth, collapsing buildings,

  Tiny rationed slice of bread

  That weighs as little as a feather.

  To live under siege,

  To listen to deadly whistle of bombs,

  How much strength do we need,

  How much hatred and love.

  But mostly it’s a “click, click, click” sound of the metronome, the heartbeat of the starving, frozen city. We are not living, we are surviving one day at a time.

  What happened to his mother, my grandmother? There were four of them and now only three. It must be in the missing pages. Flight attendants are distributing food. It’s a long day, and I take a break to eat, then go back to the diary.

  9 December, 1941

  In addition to the water, Nastya takes responsibility for getting our bread rations. It’s a dangerous assignment; people will look to steal your coupons and your bread. Every morning, she goes to the bakery. As she leaves, Nastya carefully locks the door and tells Andrei to not open for anyone.

  I convinced Makar to alter our patrol route to pass the bakery. Sometimes we see Nastya in the bread line, and she smiles at us. “Pretty girl,” says Makar.

  Yesterday I had a day off. We took Andrei to the Puppet Theater. They only perform during the day now, when the Germans eat their lunch and stop shelling us for a while. There were more adults than children in the frozen theater. For the first time since we took him, I saw Andrei laugh.

  I broke the crank handle of our radio. We have to get a new one, but we have nothing to trade for it.

  Another torn page here.

  17 December, 1941

  Today, our apartment building took a hit from an artillery shell. The apartment of our third-floor neighbor is now laid bare: sofa, burzhuika, half of the bookcase, pictures on the wall. The people that lived there are dead. Our apartment has been spared, except all the windows have been shattered, and we have nothing to close the gaping holes with.

  The building is not safe, but it’s dark, and we have nowhere else to go. We spent the night in our place. The wind is shrieking and the whole building is complaining. Andrei is crying, “We are going to die…” Nastya cradles him, says, “If we do, we’ll die together.” We are all on the death row, we just don’t know the exact time. My soul has been exhausted. I’ve never prayed, I’ve been told that religion is the opium for the masses, but I am praying tonight: “God, please get us through this night. Let us see the light of day.”

  18 December, 1941

  Ivan Mershov arranges for us to move to an empty apartment on Malaya Sadovaya. The previous occupants have all died. He gives me the rest of the day off.

  We move the burzhuika, the radio, and a few of our possessions using Andrei’s sled. The good news is that the new apartment has furniture that we can burn, as all of ours is gone. The other good news is that we find two boxes of candles. I light one up. Our shadows sneak along the walls. And the best news is that the apartment has a radio. I crank it up and we sit around the little wooden box, listening to the news of our victories near Moscow. It is strange to be in someone else’s home. But home is not a physical place any longer; it’s where the three of us, the burzhuika, and the radio are. Like this candle, it’s a flicker of life in the sea of death.

  So that’s how we ended up in our apartment on Malaya Sadovaya. They had to move after their place was hit in a bombardment. Sixty plus years ago, and now I am talking to Evgeny Zorkin about selling the place.

  20 December, 1941

  I killed a man today. It was at the end of our patrol. We heard a woman screaming and ran to the sound. She rushed out of a dark alley, collided with Makar; they both fell. A man charged after her, big, well-fed, carrying an ax. Seeing us, he turned around and ran back into the alley. Without thinking, I pulled the rifle off my shoulder and shot at him. He staggered, dropped his ax, but continued moving. I ran after him and shot him again, this time for good. The woman explained that she took a shortcut trying to get home before dark and the man jumped out of a door, tried to grab her, missed and then went after her. Another cannibal…the city is now full of them.

  I felt sick when I got home, my teeth were chattering. I told Nastya what happened; she held me and cried. “He was no longer human,” she said. “Hunger took his mind.”

  Was it really like this? Did people turn into cannibals? I was walking these streets just a couple of days ago; it’s hard to imagine someone coming at you with an ax to kill and eat you.

  24 December, 1941

  For the last three days, Makar and I were on a new kind of patrol: going through apartments. We would go into freezing caves that were rooms, check who is alive. In many places, the whole families were dead in their beds. Sometimes, we would find places where parents died but children were still alive. We would take them to a hospital, for evacuation out of the city over the frozen Ladoga Lake.

  One of the days, we check buildings along the frozen Fontanka River. There are signs of artillery bombardment everywhere. The Horse Tamers statues are gone from the bridge, Makar says they’ve been buried in the nearby Anichkov Palace. The ice of the river is covered with people. When I look closer, I realize that these are corpses, left there by the
relatives that had not strength to get them all the way to a cemetery. Most are wrapped in shrouds, but some have been stripped of warm clothing.

  In our new apartment with its supply of candles, I started reading Andrei one of my favorite books, The Count of Monte Cristo. He listens, transfixed, as poor innocent Edmund Dantès is condemned to life imprisonment. Andrei asks how big the food portions were in the Château d'If prison; I reply they are similar to our rations.

  The book takes our minds off hunger. Our little extra supply from the cinema has run out. We live on the mattress by the burzhuika stove, swathed in blankets. Getting up in the morning is so hard. Sometimes I just want to stay on that mattress, not move, slip into nothingness. I force myself to get up for Nastya and Andrei. The three of us, bound by an invisible bond.

  We try to keep the radio on; Nastya winds it up with whatever little energy she has. There is still a daily reading of poetry or occasional music, but mostly it’s the metronome ticking. I feel a mystical connection to it – as long as the metronome is beating, we are alive. It’s like a tiny beam of light in the midst of darkness.

  Supply from the cinema? More pages are gone. Where are they? Were they used to light the burzhuika in 1941?

  31 December, 1941

  At the end of our patrol, Makar gives me a box of cookies wrapped in a paper. When I protest, he waves me off. “You have a child to care for. My wife’s been saving this for him. Happy New Year!”

  We have our little celebration. Nastya saved a little bit of tea, and we open a can of ham and spread it on three pieces of bread. There were eight of us just a few weeks ago, only three are now left, one from each family. We listen to the broadcast from Moscow, which has not fallen, and we cheer the New Year hoping that’s the year we’ll break the blockade. Olga Berggoltz is on the radio:

  It will come,

  The bright day of victory,

  Of quiet, and peace,

  And aroma of fresh bread.

  Hope is everything. So many times this winter I wanted to die. I kept going only for Nastya and Andrei. This night, I want to live.

  The plane’s captain announces we are an hour away. I have to stop; I am overcome with emotion and can’t read anymore. I’ll finish the diary later.

  I get to my apartment by 4 p.m. It’s been just over three days since I left home. A few voicemails on my answering service, only two of significance: one from Sarah wondering about my well-being; one from Jennifer, my daughter, asking when I’ll come to visit. I want to talk to both of them.

  But first I look up Mary Gorossian, the travel agent we’ve used. I figure, correctly, that she works during the summer Saturdays.

  “Mary, hi, it’s Pavel Rostin. Remember me?”

  “Of course, how are you? I am so sorry…”

  Evidently, everyone in our Connecticut town knows about my bad fortune. “Thank you. Look, do you remember me bringing in my father last year? He needed to make some changes to his itinerary and I left him with you while I was doing shopping in town.”

  “Yes, I remember him. He was a dear, trying to use his little dictionary to explain things.”

  “Do you remember what he wanted?”

  “Yes, I do, it was kind of unusual. He had a ticket to Los Angeles, but he wanted to get to Santa Barbara. He was not sure about renting a car and driving, so he asked me to arrange for a commuter plane and a hotel.”

  “Santa Barbara? Did he explain why? He was not a wine country type person…”

  “Well, that’s what was so unusual – he wanted a place near the Santa Barbara Police Department.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, my reaction exactly! I’ve been a travel agent for eight years and nobody ever asked me for a hotel near a police department. But I found him a nice little place called The Garden Inn only a block away, booked him for two nights. I also checked on a taxi service from Santa Barbara airport to the hotel.”

  “Do you know where his was going after these two nights?”

  “I am sorry, I don’t remember. He already had his itinerary, I only helped with the Santa Barbara trip.”

  I thank Mary and hang up. The Santa Barbara Police Department? What was my father doing?

  I call Jennifer. She screams in delight, “Dad!” and my heart melts. I don’t know if it’s a special father-daughter connection, but Jennifer and I always have been close. I think Karen has been a bit jealous about it.

  There are voices in the background.

  “Sweetheart, where are you?” I ask.

  “We are in Laguna Beach, in grandpa’s and grandma’s house. Mom and Simon are here. So are Uncle Roger and Aunt Toni. Dad, where are you?”

  “I am in New York.”

  “Are you going to come over and see us?”

  I hesitate. I don’t really want to visit my in-laws, but I do want to see my children. And Karen. And I probably should go visit the Santa Barbara Police Department.

  “I’ll try to. I’ll give you a call beforehand. Are you all done with your classes at USC?”

  “Yes, I am done! I’ve got a 3.7 average!”

  “I am so proud of you. I love you.” I have to stop because tears well in my eyes.

  “I love you, too, Dad. I miss you, please come see us soon.”

  “I will sweetheart, I will.”

  I have to take a couple of deep breaths after hanging up. She is in my in-laws grand estate, overlooking the ocean. My in-laws are loaded from the chain of automotive dealerships that my mother-in-law inherited. My father-in-law parlayed the money into a long political career. He became a congressman in 1984, and over twenty years has built a network tied by mutual favors. “Uncle Roger” is their only son, with political aspirations of his own. “Aunt Toni” is Roger’s wife and the only person in this family I have a human connection with. No, that’s not fair. I had a deep connection with Karen. I am not sure if it’s completely broken or there is still a strand holding us together.

  I call Sarah next. She sounds genuinely happy to hear from me. I tell her a little bit about my last three days and say I want to find out more about Martin.

  She sighs theatrically. “You are just using me to get the dirt on your ex-partner. Well, I am a willing participant, happy to oblige. You had a rough week, so give me your address and I’ll be over 8-ish with dinner and more.”

  As I hang up, I realize that I am really excited to see her.

  I search through the boxes I brought in and dumped in the corner of my small apartment when I moved here from Connecticut. I am looking for the original agreement establishing the Grand Castle Rock investment fund that Martin and I managed into the ground. The official name of the primary investor was the New Treasury Island ELP, based in the Caymans. I have to find who really was behind this. In looking through the Blackberry’s “Rolodex,” most people there would no longer take my calls now that I am tainted with a scent of failure.

  I come across Jack Mikulski’s name…the risk manager at the investment bank where I worked before getting involved with Martin. The old curmudgeon has been pushed aside into a position where no one would listen to him, because he kept warning of the risks of leverage, accumulating collateralized debt obligations, and other strategies that were generating enormous profits – and bonuses. He has not been pushed out completely because he knew where too many bodies have been buried, just made irrelevant. “The old Cassandra” became his nickname. Well, Jack was one of very few that called me after the Grand Castle Rock investment fund collapsed. I always liked him and I think he liked me back.

  I dial Jack’s cell phone number.

  “Hello?”

  “Jack? This is Pavel Rostin.”

  “Pavel? How are you? I am sorry about your fund; you got a pretty raw deal there.”

  “Thanks, you told me earlier. Jack, look, I want to find out more about the main investor into our fund, the one that caused the liquidation.”

  “Hmmm, where are they based?”

  “The Caymans.”


  “Oh, that’s a tough one.”

  “That’s why I am calling you.”

  He cackles. “Flattery will get you everywhere. How about lunch next week?”

  “I may need to fly out to California. Can we meet tomorrow?”

  “You are a pushy SOB; you need something and you want it on a Sunday! I’ve got a life, you know?”

  The line is quiet, Jack must be thinking. Finally, he sighs:

  “All right, you have helped me in the past with these crazy formulas that you quants were making up. I owe you one. I have someone in mind to help; let me check and I’ll call you back tomorrow morning.”

  I give him my number and hang up, grateful for not being told to go and pound sand or worse.

  The intercom rings; Sarah is downstairs. Funny how we ended up in the same Murray Hill neighborhood. It’s relatively inexpensive for Manhattan and conveniently located. A great place to hide amongst millions of people. She energetically sweeps into the apartment, declaring, “Chinese food, a bottle of wine, and a pretty girl!”

  Despite surface cheerfulness, I detect a note of anxiety in her voice. I am anxious, too; I am excited to see Sarah and am not sure what it means.

  While I was gone, Sarah changed her hairstyle: her dark hair is now cut short, framing her oval face and diamond-shaped eyes. I think every woman in my life has a facial feature that makes her stand out. In Sarah’s case, it’s her lips, full and bow-shaped.

  I provide a partial story of my trip while we eat, omitting the story about the package. I am not sure how to explain my suddenly strong interest in Martin.

  Sarah is a smart girl, she sees that I am not telling her everything. “So why exactly did you come back so quickly?”

  “The Russian investigator insinuated that my father may have been murdered, and that I am a suspect. I did not want to hang around.”

  “Wow! You said it looked like a suicide.”

  “Yes, and the man in the morgue said so as well. But I was still weary.”

  “And how is Martin connected to this?” she asks incredulously.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “There is probably no connection. But I had time to ask myself some questions that I probably should have asked much earlier.”

  She sips the wine, thinks about it, then says, “OK, you are my FWB, I’ll tell you.”

  “What’s FWB?”

  “Friend with benefits,” she laughs. “I picked up this phrase from a girlfriend. I am freshly liberated, I like you, and I would enjoy a bit of revenge on my ex.” She takes a deep breath. “Martin and I have been on the rocks for a long time. We married young, and I think that at some point Martin decided that he wanted a wife that could help him to climb the ladder so to speak, not a third-generation schoolteacher.”

  I knew that Sarah taught elementary school; I did not realize it was a family thing. Seeing my puzzled look, she confirms, “Yes, three generations of schoolteachers. I wonder if this is some kind of a record. Do I sound bitter about Martin? I guess I am. I wanted children and a simple life. He wanted success and no children. ‘I want to be a player,’ is how he put it to me. We’ve been discussing divorce for over a year, but I was hoping to walk out with a bit of money from your hedge fund venture. I got greedy and paid for it – not only there was no money after your fund’s disaster, we lost the house, and the attorney told me that if I go to court I may even have to pay Martin since he doesn’t have a job. I just signed the damn papers and moved to New York.”

  “Do you know anything about that investor that Martin brought in? How did he find them?”

  “No, we did not talk about his work much.”

  “What is Martin doing now?”

  “No contact with him since the papers have been signed a month ago.” She shakes her head. “Sorry, Pavel. I guess I am not much help to you.”

  “No, Sarah, you’ve been a great help. And it’s great to see you.”

  Sarah pours herself more wine and drinks it all. “Here, I needed this to gather up the courage. Are you up for the ‘benefits’ part of the FWB? There was always that bit of a pull between us, wasn’t there? Or did I imagine it all this time?” Her hand sneaks up my leg.

  “You did not imagine it. I am just worried that my body doesn’t even know what time zone it’s in now. This morning I was in Moscow, I am working on a thirty-plus hour day.”

  She waves it off. “No worries, we’ll try another time. Just my luck, I gather up the courage and the guy is dead tired.”

  I can’t help but laugh at her easy-going cheerfulness.

  She says more seriously. “Look, don’t be fooled by my acting. You are the only man I slept with since the breakup. But I’ve known and liked you for years and I need some closeness now.”

  I reach for her. We do make it to bed as we dump our clothes on the floor. Sarah gets into her favorite position on top – I know from our first encounter – plants palms into my chest and starts slowly grinding her lithe body into mine. Unlike Karen, she does not ask to turn off the lights and I watch her face. Sarah’s eyes are open, looking into mine.

  I squeeze out, “I am going to come.”

  She slows. “Not yet, not yet. When we first made love four days ago, I was afraid you are just using me for revenge ….” The last word hangs in the air, tagging an unfinished sentence.

  “Revenge for what?”

  She is silent, moving slowly, not looking me in the eye now.

  “Sarah, revenge for what?”

  I grab her hips and pull myself out.

  She climbs off and stretches on the bed not looking at me, then says in a halting voice:

  “I thought you wanted to get back at Martin and Karen for their affair.”

  “What?”

  “I am sorry, I am such an idiot. You did not know? I assumed you did.”

  “Karen and Martin?”

  “Yes, for at least a year. I guess it was a bad time to bring it up. Hey, it’s not like you were an angel. You’ve been doing that barista from the downtown’s coffee shop.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Pavel, do you really think that paying cash at a motel five miles down the highway would prevent people from knowing? Half the town knew.”

  “Did Karen know?”

  “I am sure she did.”

  “Karen and Martin? Why?”

  “I don’t know why Karen was doing it; she may have been pissed at you. Martin was serious. Perhaps he thought she was the ticket he needed, a daughter of a prominent congressman. Karen did not have any real interest in him, she dropped Martin like a hot potato when she left for the West Coast.”

  “And what about you? We were still going out as two couples as this was going on.”

  “I had nothing against Karen, it was over between Martin and me by then. Deep inside, I was hoping you’ll find out and reach for me. Are you OK?”

  “I feel like that guy in The Truman Show – everyone knows what’s going on, except for me.”

  Like most married man, I loved Karen and I also wanted to be free, to have other women. Poor barista Michelle…She was the one that started flirting first. What was that line about cream in my coffee? Double meaning but delivered in a way that was not double at all. I was flattered, getting that ‘I still have it’ feeling. Funny, that’s what she said checking herself in the mirror the first time in a roadside motel. She wanted re-affirmation that she was still desirable after a lousy divorce.

  What was I trying to re-affirm? That after eighteen years of marriage, a woman not named Karen could find me attractive? I imagined myself as the aging hero of Chekhov’s The Lady with the Dog, when he thinks of having two lives – one, open, seen and known by all, and another life running its course in secret, and everything that was essential to him was hidden from others. I did not have a secret life and perhaps unconsciously imagined that by creating one I’d find something of value. Except that it only made me feel like a foolish middle-aged Casanova. My secret life gave me no pleasure and carried
no significance, only the embarrassment of trying to let Michelle down gently while finding a new place to get my morning coffee. And now it turns out that half the town knew about this “secret.”

  Sunday, June 11

  I tend to sleep on my right-hand side, on the right side of the bed. I wake up with Sarah spooned around my back, snuggled to me, her breath warming my neck. I move, she wakes up and we make love. First slowly, in a pleasant, still half-sleepy state, then more frantically. Karen always closed her eyes during sex, as if she traveled to a different place. Sarah is all here, pinned under me, her eyes searching mine, looking to merge together in a single spasm. Afterward, we lay side by side, breathing heavily, spent. I feel the bed rock slightly, look to my left. Sarah turned away from me, crying quietly, shoulders quivering. I raise myself above her:

  “What’s the matter?”

  Sarah shakes her head, says nothing.

  We stayed in bed until almost noon, interrupted only by me running downstairs to get us some breakfast.

  “What are you going to do?” Sarah asks.

  “I am planning to fly to California tomorrow morning.”

  “To see Karen?” I sense a twinge of hurt in her voice.

  “Sarah, I would like to see my kids; I have not seen them in months. And I plan to retrace my father’s steps. When he visited us last year, turns out he went to Santa Barbara from all places. I want to find out why.”

  She nods. “Where are your kids now?”

  “At their grandparents in Southern California.”

  “And Karen is there, too?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  She sits up. “Please be careful.” She kisses me hard on the lips.

  Sarah leaves. Strange how you’ve known someone for years and discover the person anew.

  I google New Treasury Island ELP, but the pickings are slim, and I can’t figure out who is really behind it. I try calling Martin, leave a voicemail. Then I buy tickets to Los Angeles for tomorrow morning, reserve a rental car, and book myself into Santa Barbara’s Garden Inn for a night.

  My rolling bag, with my travel clothes, is in St. Petersburg. I go to buy a new one. It’s a hot summer day, and the streets are bustling with people: youngsters enjoying the-school-year-just-ended freedom, locals picking out places to eat, tourists with half-folded maps, young mothers pushing strollers, young fathers with babies resting in high-tech baby carriers. Bare skin is everywhere; unlike Californians with their year-round sunshine, New Yorkers are eager to grab as much sun as they can during the summer, skirts get very short, blouses cut low, sleeves disappear. I get a hot dog from a street vendor, then stop at a nearby travel shop and browse through rolling bags until I settle on a dark-blue TravelPro. As I am paying, my phone rings. It’s Jack Mikulski.

  “Pavel, can you meet me and my researcher at Langan’s on the 47th? 5 p.m.? Dinner is on you.” He cackles.

  “OK, Jack, thank you for meeting me on Sunday.”

  I booked an early morning flight, so I pack quickly. I have just enough time to walk to Langan’s. June is the best time to walk in New York, as it’s warm but not yet humid.

  Jack shows up with a pretty young Asian woman in her twenties.

  “Suzy Yamamoto – Pavel Rostin. Suzy graduated from Harvard Law School last year; prior to that she went to Berkeley where she studied finance. She did some research for a hedge fund in Connecticut; now she is interning at our investment bank.”

  Suzy volunteers that she is not looking for a permanent job and is exploring her interests while waiting for her fiancée to finish medical school.

  Jack chimes back in, “The HR could not pass up on someone with Suzy’s credentials. But the trading department does not want her around; they don’t think women mesh well with that testosterone-charged pit. She does not program, so the quantitative group does not know what to do with her either. So they sent her to the dead-end corner of risk management. Out of sight, out of mind. Suzy is going to a theater with friends, we don’t have her for long, so let’s order and get on with the story.”

  For the second time in three days, I explain the sorry brief history of the Grand Castle Rock investment fund. Suzy throws out some questions related to the fund’s registration and disclosures, clearly she knows quite a bit about the field. But there is not much to go on, the Grand Castle Rock had only a few “accredited” clients. I did bring my file with the funding agreement, list of holdings and some of the subsequent paperwork. Suzy is hesitant because of confidentiality. Jack laughs and takes the file with a “she is young” comment.

  I turn to the New Treasury Island ELP and my former partner Martin Shoffman. Jack listens for a while, then casually throws out, “I heard Martin was at the BJH Financial Products Group last week, trying to buy CDO insurance for a large anonymous client.”

  Seeing my dumbfound expression, he bursts out laughing.

  “Pavel, you are a babe in the woods, a babe in the woods. Sitting here, feeling sorry for your poor destitute partner. Martin must have sold you five ways to Sunday. Let me says this: I think the holdings of the Grand Castle Rock have not been liquidated. Instead, assets have been transferred to the Cayman’s fund.”

  “Why do you say this?”

  “Firstly, many of your holdings were not liquid; it would have been difficult to sell them. Secondly, your former partner trying to buy similar assets should be a clue even to a naïf like you.”

  “You mean the insurance policies on CDOs?”

  “Yes. The kind that Martin is shopping for.”

  “Why have you bought them in the first place?” wonders Suzy. “There is literally no market for them,”

  I take a sip of my drink, ponder how to explain months of strategy in a couple of minutes. “CDOs are ‘collateralized debt obligations.’ They are basically a product of mortgages that people took on their homes. Bankers sliced and diced the expected cash flows from these mortgages to create new securities, such as CDOs.”

  “And in the process they completely destroyed the natural risk management process.” Jack motions for another drink, he is warming up. “Back in the times of It’s a Wonderful Life, before extending you a loan the banker would think really hard whether you’ll pay it back. But then our government decided that people have this basic right to get loans, and now the bankers don’t care whether you’ll pay the loan back or not, they just turn around and hand it over to one of the government-sponsored organizations.”

  “To make the long story short,” I say, taking back the conversation, “we modeled what would happen to these CDOs if the real estate market cooled off, and we realized that they are grossly overpriced.”

  “Why?” asked Suzy. “In school, they teach you that markets are efficient.”

  Jack laughs so hard, he almost hits his head on the table. “Efficient, my ass!”

  I also smile. “You see, Suzy, in combining multiple mortgages in one big pile, the bankers argued to the rating agencies that they have diversified the risk and that the combined security is much safer than individual mortgages. But it’s a false diversification because when the real estate market cools off, it affects most mortgages. Nevertheless, the ratings agencies bought this argument, and slapped the highest AAA rating on many CDOs. That’s why they are overpriced. That was our big idea – to buy CDO insurance from BJH. It’s a gamble but with a possibly very high payoff.”

  “It’s not a gamble; it’s a sure thing as long as you can hold the position,” Jack grimly states. “Eventually the proverbial you-know-what will hit the fan.”

  Suzy has to go, but Jack asks me to hang on for a while. “Pavel, are you telling me everything?”

  “Why do you think I’m not?”

  “Suzy is a smart cookie, and she’ll dig out what dirt can be dug out here. But I’ve been around this business for thirty years, and I don’t need a ton of research to figure out the big picture. It sure looks to me like you’ve been set up in this whole ‘fund management’ thing. Someone knew where you were v
ulnerable and exploited your naiveté to screw you over. But what I can’t understand is ‘Why?’ Pardon me, but it’s not like you had any real money to be swindled out of. What is it you have that someone wants?”

  I’ve known Jack for eleven years, he is not your usual business school-produced banker. He was an officer in Vietnam, came to the Wall Street in the 1970s, worked in corporate bonds for many years. Jack has been cynical about the business for a long time, claimed that computer-driven trading will destroy us all, has been labeled a Luddite old-timer and moved to risk management where he is writing scary memos that the management ignores. The bank is just waiting for him to retire. I worked with Jack on some of his risk-assessment models, did not think he was a Luddite at all, just a bit old-fashioned and conservative.

  I tell Jack that my father had died in St. Petersburg last week and left me an expensive apartment, but that I don’t see how it can be connected to the fund business. I feel that I am crossing the line between an omission and a lie, but I am just not ready to share more.

  Jack nods, though I am not sure he believes me. “I am sorry about your father. You never talked about him.”

  “He and I have not seen each other often.”

  “So there is nothing else you can think of?” says Jack, looking straight at me, probably trying to watch my body language.

  I am tempted to tell Jack about the stolen package, but resist.

  “No, nothing else.”

  “OK. It’s puzzling that we don’t know the motive here.”

  I agree, it is puzzling.

  Monday, June 12

  I am back on a plane, this time heading to Los Angeles. Some people like traveling; I am not one of them. I am susceptible to jet lag, and the whole process wears me down. At least I luck out again and the seat next to me is empty.

  I open my father’s diary and go to the first 1942 entry, where I stopped on Saturday.

  29 January, 1942

  Mershov sent me on another visit to Smolniy. I get to deliver a package to Zhdanov again. He is in a good mood, not screaming at anyone. Zhdanov asks me:

  “You look kind of young for a militziaman. What’s your name, how old are you?”

  “I am Vladimir Rostin, seventeen,” I answer honestly.

  “Where are your parents?”

  “My mother was killed when she was giving a concert to the troops. My father was in the Fourth People’s Volunteer Division, he was last seen on August 11th counter-attacking the Germans.”

  “Your parents died as heroes, you should be proud of them,” Zhdanov lectures me. “Their sacrifice was not in vain, they stopped the invaders. The most important work is to protect the Party. The Party will save the country. Are you living by yourself?”

  “No, with a neighbor and a small child whose parents are dead.”

  Zhdanov lifts up the phone:

  “Bring me a food package. The usual: bread, jams, ham, sausages.”

  I feel dirty taking it. But I think of Nastya and Andrei. We have to survive.

  Listening to the radio. Olga Berggoltz’s husband died today from starvation. She was crying as she read her new poem:

  I can’t feel grief or sorrow any longer.

  I have to serve out my cursed sentence!

  Your love condemned me to live

  And to be brave.

  Nastya breaks down, whimpering “my mother, my sister.” Little Andrei hugs her and they sway together.

  Zhdanov in Smolniy…That’s the Smolniy Institute, the former aristocratic girls’ school from which Lenin had directed the 1917 putsch. It became the party’s headquarters in Leningrad. Stalin started the Great Terror here by assassinating Sergei Kirov, his potential rival within the party.

  Zhdanov was the Leningrad’s party chief during the war. He personally signed hundreds of execution lists, condemning thousands to death. At one point, he was Stalin’s likely successor but died from alcoholism. The author of zhdanovshchina, the cultural and artistic code of the Soviet Union, he was an incompetent dilettante that prosecuted great artists and tried to reduce all of culture to a chart of simple moral values.

  But why did my father write “Zhdanov again”? And “mother was killed during a concert”? Must have been in the missing pages.

  22 February, 1942

  The bread rations have been increased to 300 grams for dependents. This is not enough to survive, but we still have a bit left from the Zhdanov’s package. The days are getting longer, the darkness starts to retreat.

  We gather round the radio, taking in Olga Berggoltz’ latest poem:

  Another day of siege.

  A girlfriend came over,

  Without tears told me that yesterday she buried her best friend,

  And we sat silent until the morning.

  We ate the bread that I saved,

  Wrapped ourselves into a shawl for warmth.

  Leningrad became very quiet,

  Only the metronome kept working.

  In our small nightly ritual, I am reading the book to Andrei and Nastya. Dantès, disguised as the Count of Monte Cristo, is almost done exacting his revenge against de Morcerf, Danglars, and Villefort. He tells Fernand, “How did I plan this moment? With pleasure!”

  But Nastya does not like it. “He became like his enemies,” she says. “He is not saving anyone; it’s all about vengeance.”

  11 March, 1942

  A few banyas in the city reopened, and Nastya went to one, saying “I want to feel like a human being again.” I went yesterday with Andrei. We sat in a warm communal bath for the longest time. Andrei is six now, but he weighs as little as a three-year-old. Most men in the bath looked like us, bones rattling inside bags made of grimy yellowish skin.

  Our last candle burned out as we were finishing the book. Valentine and Maximilien get reunited and inherit the Dantès’ fortune while he sails away with his concubine Haydée. Dumas tells us to “Wait and Hope.” That’s what we do, wait, hope, try to survive.

  15 April, 1942

  It’s Nastya’s 17th birthday, and Mershov gives me a day off. The sun is out, and it’s almost warm. The Germans are shelling, but the three of us decide to go for a walk while the sun is shining. Nastya puts on a blue dress she had saved from the old apartment. She lost a lot of weight, and it dangles on her like on a hanger despite a belt she tightened, but after many months spent swaddled into every conceivable piece of clothing, she looks like the young woman she is. I don’t have a suit, so I put on a jacket that the previous occupants left in the closet. It’s a bit large but not too bad. We convince Andrei to put away his toy soldiers and come with us.

  On the street, Nastya tries to make a dance move with me and almost falls. I catch her, and we all laugh; it’s wonderful to see color in Andrei’s face. We walk down the Nevskiy Prospekt that’s been cleared from the snow, stopping frequently because we are out of breath. Very few people are out, but it’s no longer a graveyard, just a beautiful empty city, an architectural museum. It’s like the city itself has a lean, hard, starved look. Suddenly a tram goes by, I have not seen one moving in months. It stops, and we climb aboard. The tram takes us almost to the Admiralty. From there, we walk to the Bronze Horseman. It’s covered to shield against the bombardment, but it’s still there, protecting his city. The legend has it that as long as Peter the Great rides his stallion, the city won’t fall.

  We stand before the statue, cold northern sun warming our faces just a bit. Nastya starts crying, remembering her parents, her sister, my mother, Andrei’s mother. I put my arms around her and say, “But we are alive!” She nods, whispers, “Yes, we are!” Nastya lifts her face, wet with tears, and kisses me hard on the lips. I stroke her face, smell her hair, her sharp scent.

  It feels strange reading about my parents’ courtship. If one can call it that. Starving, frozen, taking care of a little boy. The first dinner I had alone with Sarah, I complained when my food was overcooked.

  29 May, 1942

  It took us almost a month to teac
h Andrei to sleep in the other room. He would only fall asleep once he crawled between us. He was always holding Nastya’s hand, and the moment she tried to get up, he would start screaming. Nastya sat by his new bed night after night until he finally was able to sleep on his own.

  The first night he did, we made love. It was my first time, and so was hers. I desire her so much; I wish I had more strength. We are still weak and malnourished, we moved slowly, whispering to each other. She murmured through tears, “I wanted to remain human, to remain a woman.”

  She fell asleep, and I sat by the window, enjoying the warm air of an early white night. Northern lights give a performance, dancing across the sky.

  A page is torn.

  26 July, 1942

  Knowing that I will be called into the army soon, Nastya and I got married today. A one-armed officer officiated; Mershov and Makar served as witnesses. Andrei carried the rings. The rings were made of brass, not gold. We had a small reception afterward. Thanks to Mershov and Lieutenant Kulikov, we had vodka and food. There are now small garden plots everywhere, and we are no longer starving. We have very little, but we’re happy because we don’t have much to lose. Except for each other, of course.

  Makar gets drunk, toasts us for saving Andrei, then starts talking about “fat pigs” that live off the others while hundreds of thousands die. Mershov takes him outside to sober up. Kulikov looks down, you can tell he is feeling guilty.

  We were supposed to evacuate Andrei, but he cried so hard that we did not have the heart. He is skinny and gets out of breath after the shortest exercise, how can we send him to some orphanage in Siberia? Here, he has us and a friend, a five-year-old from the floor below that also survived the winter. Andrei does not have to go to school for another year. Mershov frowns disapprovingly, but says nothing. I can see that Makar approves.

  I asked Kulikov whether Andrei’s father may still be alive. He shakes his head. “Ten years without the right of correspondence” is a sham sentence for the relatives; it means the father was killed soon after his arrest in 1938.

  Yesterday, they paraded German prisoners down the Nevskiy. Some women were screaming, but most watched in silence. What is the mentality of the people that indifferently and deliberately attempt to starve millions of old men, women, and children? I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

  Who is Lieutenant Kulikov? I don’t recall him being mentioned before.

  August 9, 1942

  Today, Leningrad performed Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony. I could not get tickets, so we listened on our radio by the open window. It felt like the performance started with an artillery barrage, only it was our artillery keeping the Nazis in their dugouts. The metronome kept us alive, and now the symphony is telling them: “We are alive! You have not conquered us!”

  20 August, 1942

  Tomorrow, I am leaving for the army. Rumors are the Germans are preparing another offensive, and we have to stop them. Nastya’s and Andrei’s eyes are red. I call Andrei aside and tell him to look after Nastya.

  Mershov and Makar promise to take care of both of them.

  27 March, 1943

  I had a slight wound, really just a scratch, but it has earned me a two week’s break from the army. Nastya and Andrei are doing well, but the extra food I brought in helps. Mershov is keeping an eye on them. Makar was killed by a German shell a month after I left.

  We broke the blockade in January. The Germans are still close and continue shelling the city, but we are no longer encircled. I was lucky, I missed the Sinyavino offensive, not many came back from that one. Our fighting was brutal, but the Germans are weakening.

  Again, a page is torn. Does not seem they needed it for the burzhuika any longer. They were removed on purpose. Why? By whom?

  May 3, 1944

  I got two weeks off after months of non-stop fighting on the Leningrad Front. In January, we finally threw the Nazis away from the city. Then it was the Narva offensive. Half of my battalion’s been killed or wounded. The things we saw…the things we did in return. Brutality, evil – it’s in all of us. Just scratch the surface.

  Leningrad is busy. People are coming back from evacuation, repairing factories, schools, hospitals. The life is returning to the city. Andrei is finishing first grade; he is a quiet, studious boy. Nastya is almost done with her 10th grade in the same school, she is the oldest student there. Not many girls from her year survived to finish their studies. She wants to be a teacher. Nastya tells me that Andrei often wakes up screaming; sometimes he breaks down crying. She took him to see a doctor, who said there is nothing obviously wrong with the boy but added, “Nobody survives what he survived without paying the price. Nobody.”

  The exhibit of “Heroic Defense of Leningrad” opened last week in a building on Market Street. We all went to see it yesterday. Paintings, photographs, letters, documents, bread cards, pieces of clothing shredded by artillery shells…Hundreds of people walked in silence, interrupted by sobs.

  We are trying to have a child. There are very few children in the city; Mershov told me that only a few hundred have been born in the last year. A few hundred newborns in a city that used to have four million people.

  While still on the front, I started writing a play about a family living through the siege. I wrote on small pieces of paper when I could find a quiet minute during fighting. My fellow soldiers first laughed at me but then asked me to read to them. Gruff, foul-mouthed men were crying when they heard what the winter of 1941 in the city was like. Our lieutenant, who taught school literature in Pskov, told me “You must tell this story, you have a gift.”

  June 16, 1945

  The war is over! I was demobilized almost immediately, Mershov requested that I be released to work in the Leningrad militzia. I am honest with him that I don’t plan to stay for long. Nastya is done with her first year in university, Andrei with the second grade. They are helping out in the “Defense of Leningrad” museum, collecting and organizing exhibits.

  Andrei was struggling in school at times; the malnutrition must have had an impact. There was another malnutrition impact as well: a doctor has told Nastya that she is not likely to conceive. She is devastated, crying all the time. I try to console her, tell her that many orphaned children now need parents, but I am heart-broken myself.

  I finished the first draft of my play that I call “The Metronome.” I plan to enroll in night studies at the university. In the meantime, I gathered my courage and went to the Zvezda magazine to ask for help. Instead of laughing me out of the office, the editor-in-chief remembered my father’s name, an editor like himself, and called out “Misha” to a fifty-something man. It was Mikhail Zoshchenko, a famous writer. I’ve made a fool of myself telling Zoshchenko how much my parents and I loved his stories. He thanked me and volunteered to review and critique my play. I ran home, unable to believe my luck.

  October 6, 1945

  Yesterday, Zoshchenko took me to meet Anna Akhmatova. She lives in a small room in the Sheremetyev Palace. We had to check in and show our documents at the entrance. It was strange – are they protecting her?

  At least a dozen people crowded into a small room. Olga Berggoltz was there, too. I told her how her poetry readings gave us hope, helped keep us alive. She remembered my father. We stood silent for a minute, to honor him, Olga’s husband, and countless others who died.

  The diary ends with a few torn pages, leaving me with a lot of questions. What happened to my father’s play? And what about Andrei? I don’t recall anyone by that name growing up.

  We land in LAX on time, I take a shuttle to a rental car, and by 1 p.m. I am on the 405 freeway heading north. After fighting my way through a seemingly endless suburban sprawl, I am driving along the ocean. Years back, we leisurely drove from Laguna Beach to San Francisco. Kids were bored, but it was one of my favorite vacations. Driving with the Pacific stretching to the horizon has a calming effect on me.

  I go to the Garden Inn first. While checking in, I show them my father’s
picture, the one I brought with me from St. Petersburg.

  An indifferent clerk shakes her head. “No, don’t remember him.”

  “He stayed here in March of last year.”

  “I was not working here then.”

  The police station is indeed only a short walk away, in a neat Spanish-style building. I come to the reception area, show a policewoman the picture and ask if they remember seeing my father. She shakes her head, then calls her male colleague to come over.

  The officer looks at the picture and nods. “I remember the older guy. He was here last year, wearing the same sweater.”

  “What did he want?”

  The officer looks at me suspiciously. “And why do you want to know?”

  ‘It’s my father. He’s been killed, and I am trying to find out why.”

  My reply takes them by surprise. The male officer mulls over the picture. “Give me your name and number. I have to talk to someone. You don’t have to wait here, but don’t go too far.”

  I retrieve the picture and walk over to the major thoroughfare of State Street, a tourist trap I remember from the last visit to Santa Barbara. I am hungry, so I stop at a small Italian restaurant and order pasta and a glass of wine. Before the food arrives, my Blackberry rings.

  “Mr. Rostin, this is Detective Rozen. You are looking for the person that met with your father last year?”

  “Yes.”

  “That would be me. Where are you?”

  “Palazzio on State Street.”

  “Stay there, I’ll come over in ten minutes.”

  I am still working on my pasta when I sense someone standing over me. I look up and see a short, bald man in his fifties, wearing khaki pants and a checkered jacket.

  “Mr. Rostin?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  He points to a half-empty restaurant. “I would be a really bad detective if I did not. Besides, there is a resemblance. Do you mind if I sit down?”

  “Please, thank you for seeing me.”

  He noisily squeezes himself into a chair. “He told me your name. I am sorry, I don’t remember what it is; my memory is not what it used to be.”

  “It’s Pavel.”

  “Yes, yes. I recall now. You live on the East Coast, you are a physicist. He was very proud of you.”

  I swallow hard and say nothing. The waiter must know him, because he brings a glass of ice tea without asking.

  Rozen continues, “I am sorry to hear about your father. You said at the station he’s been killed?”

  “Yes, I did. Although it’s not clear whether it was a murder or a suicide. It happened last week in St. Petersburg.”

  “And that’s why you are here?”

  “Yes.”

  “What makes you think that a visit to Santa Barbara would lead to your dad’s death?”

  “I don’t know if it did; I am just trying to understand why he came here. He was not exactly a traveling kind, but at 80 he flies half across the world to visit a police station in a small city? There must have been a reason.”

  Rozen drums fingers on the table, probably deciding how much to tell me. “It’s getting close to 5, the place will fill up. Why don’t we go back to the station and talk there?”

  At the station, I follow Rozen into a small, cluttered office with two desks facing each other. Rozen sits behind one of the desks, points to the chair in front of it. “Make yourself comfortable. The other detective is out today; we have our privacy.” After I sit, he casually throws out, “Do you remember the case of John Brockton?”

  Rozen must have wanted to be an actor; he enjoys the dramatic effect of a perfectly delivered surprise, but after a few seconds and my stunned nod he can’t hide a proud smile.

  “Yes, the biggest case to grace Santa Barbara in God knows how long. A filthy rich financier and his mistress, Natalya Streltsova, get killed by a son of someone who committed suicide over the losses inflicted by that very financier. Murder, greed, sex, the Russian connection – the media had a field day with this.”

  “I read that this was an open-and-shut case. The murderer had the weapon and literally blood on his hands?”

  “Most people thought so. Imagine my surprise when a barely-speaking-English old man shows up here in March of last year, claims to be a private investigator from Russia, and asks for me. People at the front thought the old man was a nut case, but it was a slow day and they amused themselves by directing him here. The guy pulls out an old badge with Cyrillic letters and says in a prepared sentence that he used to be a detective in St. Petersburg, retired in 1992, but still takes on cases, and that a client hired him to investigate the Brockton’s murder.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I took his name and made some inquiries via Interpol. I used to work in Washington before I decided to head to a smaller city and warmer climes, so I had my connections. To my surprise, they confirmed that indeed Vladimir Rostin was a detective in the St. Petersburg militzia, now retired.”

  “Did he tell you who hired him?”

  “He did not, but I can guess. During the trial, we had a visitor from Russia who came to see me – Mark Bezginovich, Streltsova’s brother, an attorney from Moscow. Streltsova was a name she took for TV work. He thought that Natalya was the target. He would be my number one suspect amongst potential clients.”

  Rozen starts finger-drumming again.

  “And?”

  “Well, Mr. Rostin, I told your father things that were not in the newspapers, and now he is dead. So I wonder how much I should tell you.”

  I rub my forehead. “Detective, I appreciate your concern. I don’t have a death wish. But I do want to know what happened. This may end up having nothing to do with my father’s death.”

  “That might be,” agrees the detective. “Anyway, there are things about this case that never smelled right, and that’s been eating away at me. I have trouble letting go when something does not add up.”

  “What did not add up?”

  “OK, let’s start at the beginning. Back to the basics, so to speak.” He pulls a thick file from the middle of the stack on his right. “As you can see, the file is still on my desk. John Brockton, born 1965, blah blah blah, Harvard Law School 1989, joins Millennium Mutual in 1992, in 1995 moves to Moscow to run the Russian Leveraged Equity (LRE) fund. In 1996, the fund was up 71%. In 1997, up 192%. In 1998, down 86%, investors wiped out. But the smart guy Brockton left in July 1998, right before the Russian devaluation and crash. Earned $4 million in 1996, $22 million in 1997. Bought a ranch near Santa Barbara in 1999. Killed in 2003, together with his girlfriend Natalya Streltsova. With me so far?”

  I nod.

  “Jeff Kron, the convicted murderer. In 2003 he turned 21. Was a student at San Francisco State, dropped out due to financial difficulties. His father, Stanley Kron, killed himself in 2002. It is believed he was depressed over his financial losses; he lost a lot in the LRE’s wipeout, then took a mortgage on the house to finance Jeff’s education. Was laid off in the recession that followed the dot-com market crash of 2000. The mortgage loan reset to a higher rate in 2002, he lost the house and had nothing left.”

  Rozen flips through the file pulls out a photo and looks at it without showing me.

  “John Brockton and Natalya Streltsova were killed with a knife. The knife was found near their bodies, with Kron’s fingerprints. Kron was stopped for reckless driving the night of the murder and immediately arrested. He was incoherent, had blood on him that was later shown to belong to the victims, and had a gun in his pocket. A parking ticket would prove that he’d been ‘casing’ the Brockton’s house for days. As you said, open and shut case, right?”

  I shrug, already know that the case is anything but.

  Rozen continues, “Well, the prosecutor certainly thought so. Plus, such a high profile case is a rare opportunity to get a name recognition, perhaps start a political career. So the whole show was staged pretty dramatically. The murderer was actually portrayed as a sym
pathetic but misguided person, no death penalty was requested. Jeff Kron was represented by a well-known attorney but would have been better off with a public defender: the well-known one took the case to get his name into the limelight, his pompous defense only turned off the jury. Jeff Kron is now serving a life sentence about an hour from here; with a good behavior he might get out in twenty years.”

  “But Kron never admitted his guilt?”

  “No. He admitted that he was watching the house and went there to scare Brockton; he wanted Brockton to know that Stanley Kron’s blood was on his hands. But he claimed that when he walked into the door, Brockton and Streltsova were already dead, lying in pools of blood. And that someone grabbed his neck from behind, he lost conscience, and when he came to he was lying next to Brockton and Streltsova with a knife in his hand. He dropped the knife and ran to his car.”

  I shudder at the mention of Kron’s neck being grabbed from behind.

  “Anything wrong?” Rozen picks up on my movement.

  “No. I did not follow the case, but this seems to be the official version. The jury did not believe Kron. Did he not also get around the bodyguard?”

  “Brockton did have a bodyguard, Alexander Shchukin, but that day of the week a local restaurant had a veal special that Brockton and Streltsova liked, so they sent Shchukin for takeout. As a matter of fact, this has been done four weeks in a row – a pattern.”

  “It sounds to me like you believe the Kron’s version?”

  “It’s not that I believe it out of some vague feeling,” demurs Rozen. “It’s that there are quite a few little things that don’t fit the official version.”

  “Like what?”

  “For one, in the official version Kron went to the house with both a gun and a knife. That’s unusual given that he was a student, not a professional assassin. Moreover, I would have expected him to use a gun. Kron is a big, strong guy, but still, to quickly kill two people with a knife is not an easy task unless you are trained for this. And there was nothing in his background to indicate such training.” Rozen pauses for effect. “Streltsova used to be an anchor and an investigative reporter on the Russian TV station Telenovostiy. There was practically a war in Russia between different oligarchs, and Telenovostiy was owned by the oligarch Sosnovsky that fell out of favor with the new Russian president. She had enemies, and it’s possible that she was the intended target, not Brockton. In which case, Kron had no motive for the murder.”

  “I remember this possibility was raised but never went anywhere.”

  “No, but your father thought this was worth looking into. I think that’s why he came here. There were other things that did not quite add up. We checked against the insurance records and some of the expensive jewelry items were missing. Kron did not have these items when police stopped him. Where did they go? Why was the door of the house open and Kron able to just walk in? And last, but not least: Streltsova’s computer was not in the house.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Nowhere. We did not find it.”

  “Perhaps she did not have a computer at the moment. Had it repaired in a shop or something?”

  “She was seen with her laptop just two days prior, and we checked all the computer repair places in the area. The last big investigation she worked on was that of terrorist bombings in Moscow in 1999. It was blamed on the Chechen separatists, but she questioned and raised a possibility of the Russian security services, the FSB, as being behind the bombings. That also made her a potential target.”

  This all is pretty confusing, but the mention of the FSB really gets my attention. Did my father find something that the FSB did not want him to?

  “Detective, to my earlier question: You don’t believe the official version of Kron killing Brockman and Streltsova, do you?”

  Rozen sits up, all serious. “As I said, these unanswered inconsistencies bother me. Each can be explained away, but there are just too many here for my taste. And if your father was killed over this, then all the more reason to believe that the truth did not come out and someone is trying to keep it that way. Besides, I might be wrong but Jeff Kron never struck me as a killer. Sometimes you just have to trust your judgment. Do you want to form your own? He is less than an hour drive from here. Your father had met with him.”

  When stated this way, it’s hard to refuse.

  “Of course. But don’t you have to schedule an appointment in advance?”

  “I am a police detective, I don’t need much of an advance. Meet me here at 10 a.m. tomorrow.”

  I return to the hotel and check my e-mails. Months ago, I was getting hundreds of e-mails a day. Now they are in the low dozens, and only a handful are not junk. A message from Jennifer, asking me when I am coming to Laguna Beach, ending with “Dad, can’t wait to see you!” and a hug emoticon. A “how are you” message from Sarah, ending with “miss you” and a kiss emoticon. Perhaps this is becoming more than the FWB thing between us?

  And then a message from Nikolai Pemin, wondering why I left Russia in such a hurry, reminding me that I am a suspect and should get in touch with them. I puzzle for a second how he got my e-mail, then remember that they had no problem finding my new and unlisted cell phone number.

  I make my way back to State Street, stroll around enjoying warm summer night, sounds of people laughing, music drifting from some of the restaurants. Come to a quaint outdoor shopping mall with tiled pavement and outdoor seating. It reminds me of Malaya Sadovaya Street. I grab a small table at a Hawaiian-themed restaurant, order fish tacos and a glass of syrah, and watch people saunter by.

  A couple stops to look at the posted menu. A woman tentatively offers “This looks OK,” but the man is having none of it: “I want a place where I can order a good rare steak.” He is heavy and breathing hard from walking. His high-pitched voice bothers me as if he is scratching a blackboard with his fingernails. I am old enough to remember blackboards and chalk. Another scratchy voice pops into my head: “The colonel’s orders were to take the package and let him be.” The recognition that was at the back of my consciousness comes rushing to the front: Petr Saratov, the man at the cemetery. It was him directing others in a dark passageway off the Leninskiy Prospekt. He must have followed me on the same flight from St. Petersburg to Moscow. If only I was paying more attention instead of trying to hide, in fear that they’d stop me. They did not want to stop me, they wanted me to go and retrieve the package.

  Who can I talk to who may have an insight into my father’s work? I search through my wallet, find the card of the “very interested” Evgeny Zorkin. It’s 8:45 p.m. here, so before 8 a.m. in St. Petersburg; he might still be asleep. I dial the number.

  It rings and rings, and then a sleepy and unhappy voice comes on:

  “Allo?”

  “Mr. Zorkin? This is Pavel Rostin.”

  The voice changes, it now oozes a delight at being woken up. “Pavel Vladimirovich, so nice to hear from you! Have you given any thought to our conversation?”

  “Yes, I have. But I do have a small favor to ask.”

  “Please, anything.”

  “Do you remember the old man with a cane at my father’s burial? His name was Anton.”

  The voice is now less sure about the favor. “No, I am afraid I don’t remember or know the gentleman.”

  “Can you find him for me?”

  “Pavel Vladimirovich, I can greatly expedite the transaction, I have wonderful connections in the City Hall…”

  “Mr. Zorkin, at this time I don’t need to expedite the transaction, I need to find that old man.”

  “How would I do that?”

  “You told me, you are a resourceful man. I promise to negotiate exclusively with you at this time. Do you want to buy the apartment or not?”

  Half a world away, I can sense fear and greed fighting within Evgeny Zorkin. The fear of getting involved in something dangerous, the greed of the whole third floor of a Malaya Sadovaya building being his. “All right, Pavel Vladimirovich, I wi
ll look for him. Should I call you back on this number?”

  As I expected, greed wins out. “Yes, please.”

  “You understand, I can’t promise anything.”

  I hang up without responding, to make him think that the old man is his key to the apartment. I have no idea if this is a complete wild goose chase; the old man knew my father, and Vakunin prevented him from talking to me. That’s a sufficient reason to find him.

  I take a slow walk back to the hotel. I like the names of the streets: Anacapa, Canon Perdido, De La Guerra. It’s a slow Monday night, the streets off the main drag are empty. I pause at a light to cross the street, and my brain suddenly registers a scary quiet. Scary because I just heard steps, and they abruptly stopped. I take a quick look behind me; there is no one there. I start walking again, and the steps resume. I turn to my left to cross in the other direction and steal a glance. I see a figure in the shadow on the opposite side. A knot forms in my stomach, and I hurry back to the hotel while listening intently. I hear steps, but they don’t come closer. When I get to my room, I lock and latch the door. I need a few minutes to regain normal breathing.

  Tuesday, June 13

  When I come out of my room in the morning, I scan the street. There are people out, but nobody seems to be watching me. I am not sure whether someone was following me last night or if I was just being paranoid, but I still tell Rozen about this.

  I’ve never been to a prison, not even as a visitor. The ugly building announces “United States Penitentiary” in giant letters, as if someone can be mistaken into thinking it’s a normal residence. We are taken to a visiting area. Along the way, Sal Rozen informed me that Jeff Kron is lucky to be here in a medium security facility, only because they have a “special housing unit.”

  Having just met someone, people often say afterward “He was not what I imagined.” Well, Jeff Kron is pretty much what I imagined: tall, thin, blond, looking unsure and scared. He appears confused when a guard escorts him in and points to me, but then he sees Rozen and smiles.

  “This is not a regular visiting day, so I was wondering who came to see me,” he says. “I am glad it’s you, Detective Rozen.”

  Kron looks at me expectantly, Rozen makes an introduction. “Jeff Kron – Pavel Rostin.”

  “Rostin? You are, you are…”

  “He is the son of Vladimir Rostin, the man you saw last year,” Rozen finishes for him.

  “Oh, wow! How is he?”

  “I am afraid he is dead,” says Rozen, without going into details.

  Kron exhales, puts his right hand on his heart, tears well up. “I am so sorry.”

  “Jeff, I know you’ve done it many times before, but please tell Mr. Rostin what you were doing the night that Mr. Brockton and Ms. Streltsova were killed?”

  Kron swallows hard, continues in a soft voice. “I was outside of their property. I just wanted him to see the picture of my dad, to know what he’d done, to feel a little bit of what we felt…I don’t know why, but I was obsessing to know if he cared even a little bit about those he ruined. I moved to Santa Barbara a month before, worked in a fast food place, gathering the courage to talk to him. I was coming to the place for three weeks; a few times I would park my car and walk around.”

  “And that evening?”

  “I saw the other guy leave, the tall, strong one. I figured that was my chance. I climbed over the fence, went to the door, and rang a bell. There was no answer, and I pushed the door open. I took a few steps inside, and then on the right, in the kitchen, I saw a big dark spot on the floor. I went toward it, and I saw a woman’s leg.”

  Kron stopped, hesitated. Rozen made a hand movement, encouraging him to continue.

  “I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, I tried to turn but someone grabbed me from behind, squeezed my neck, and everything went dark. When I came to, I was lying on the floor between two bodies, a knife in my hand. I dropped the knife, ran out of there, climbed over the fence, got into my car and drove down the hill. There were two police cars driving up, and then another one at the bottom stopped me.”

  “Why did you have a gun on you?” asked Rozen.

  “I would have been too scared to go there otherwise. I just wanted him to see my father’s picture…”

  When we left, I asked Rozen, “Did he have his father’s picture?”

  “Yes, it was in his pocket.”

  “Who triggered the alarm?”

  “We don’t know, it was never explained. Hey, it’s almost noon, and there is a great Mexican restaurant on the way; how about some lunch?”

  We’ve come to a very casual taqueria, with predominantly Latino faces and everyone speaking Spanish. As we walk in, the only blond woman in the place waves to us, “Sal!”

  Rozen and the woman hug each other, then Rozen introduces me:

  “Melissa Korn – Pavel Rostin.”

  “You are…” we both exclaim in unison, and Rozen enjoys the effect.

  “Yes, Melissa is Jeff’s sister, and Pavel is the son of Vladimir Rostin.”

  “I have not met your father, but Sal told me about him,” says Melissa. She is older than Jeff, I guess in her late 20s, with a pretty but severe face. Melissa is the only one in this place dressed in business attire.

  “How is your dad?” she asks.

  “He is dead,” I say.

  “He may have been killed,” says Rozen.

  Melissa covers her face, breathes heavily and almost falls but for Rozen’s supporting arm.

  We sit down.

  “How many must die?” Melissa now has her hands in her lap and sways back and forth, tears streaming down her face.

  I try to be objective. “We don’t know if there is a connection here. I am just trying to retrace my father’s steps.”

  She shakes her head, not dissuaded.

  Rozen orders us lunch. While we eat, I find out that Melissa is a lawyer. Last year she finished law school in Chicago and moved to Lompoc to be near her brother because “I am all he has” and because he needed “an attorney that cares.” Their mother outlived their father by barely a year, Melissa and Jeff were the only ones left from the family. She is doing legal paperwork for local wineries (“It’s not much of a business, but I get free wine”) and sees Jeff twice a week, the maximum allowed. Melissa is, of course, completely convinced of her brother’s innocence. She rattles all the reasons why her brother did not do it, I heard them all except for one: the camera.

  Rozen nods solemnly. “Yes, I forgot to mention the camera. The house had a number of security cameras, and the one in front shows Jeff coming in and then running away. It does not show anyone else. But we found the camera trained on the rear door stuck in a position that does not show the actual entrance.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Don’t know. Could have been a malfunction with suspicious timing.”

  “It was not a malfunction,” protests Melissa. “Someone disabled the security camera and walked in through the back door.” She turns to me. “I am so sorry about your dad. I believe the answer to this murder is in Russia. Your dad may have found it and was killed.”

  I don’t bother correcting her; I don’t know if my father was killed or took his own life.

  She gives me her card as we leave. “If you find something to help in my brother’s defense, please let me know. But, most of all, please be careful. I don’t want any more people to die.”

  In the car, I turn to Rozen. “Why did you bring me to see them?”

  “Your father came here to meet him. He believed, like I do, that it’s important to see the accused.”

  “And his sister?”

  “I try to see her when I come here. And I thought it was important for her to know that someone was possibly killed for investigating this case.”

  “You really believe Kron is innocent?”

  He drives for a couple of minutes without answering then says, “Yes, I do. Unfortunately, I can’t prove it. Most of the people we convict are guilty
as hell. But when you put away a person and you don’t believe he is guilty…it’s hard to sleep at night.”

  I change the subject. “Is it difficult to make someone unconscious by pressing on his neck?”

  “Not for a well-trained person. You cut off the blood flow without cutting off the oxygen. Police used to apply chokehold; it’s not as popular now because of the risks. But if you don’t expect it, a strong, practiced person that approaches you from behind will put your lights out in seconds.”

  We drive the rest of the way in silence. As Rozen drops me off, he leans out the window and hands me a manila envelope:

  “This is a copy of the papers that were found in a book on Streltsova’s nightstand. She must have been reading and marking them.”

  “Did you give them to my father?”

  “Yes. Interesting that her computer was gone and we could not find any of her working papers, but for these few pages. It’s like someone carefully removed her work, but missed what was stuck into a book. And Kron did not have any of Streltsova’s materials. I think Melissa is right, the answer is in Russia. Be careful. Don’t look around, but there is an unmarked car with two detectives across the street. I was keeping an eye on the rearview mirror and noticed the same van appear behind us a few times. The detectives will watch you drive off and see if anyone follows.”

  As I retrieve my things and the rental car from the hotel, my Blackberry rings. It’s Zorkin. “Pavel Vladimirovich, I found the man! His name is Anton Rimsky; he used to work with your dad.”

  “Great, let me write down his number.”

  “Unfortunately, he does not have a phone. Probably living off a state pension, does not have the money.”

  “How I am going to contact him then?”

  “I have his address, you can come see him. Or write to him.”

  I know Zorkin’s vulnerability, the power of his greed, so I go for the throat. “Look, Mr. Zorkin, I am half a world away at the moment. I told you I need to talk to this man.”

  “You said you needed me to find him,” whines Zorkin, “and I did.”

  “So tomorrow you go to Anton Rimsky, bring your phone with you, call me and hand the phone to him.”

  “I have a very busy day tomorrow,” complains Zorkin in a defeated voice.

  I add one last kick. “And remember the eleven hour time difference.”

  I call Jennifer from the car.

  “Sweetheart, it’s dad. Is it OK if I come see you and Simon later today?”

  She squeals with delight, “Yes, yes, this is great!”

  “Let me talk to mom.”

  “I’ll let her know.” Poor Jennifer is afraid that Karen will block my visit.

  “No, sweetheart, it’s for me to let her know.”

  “OK,” Jennifer sighs. “I’ll go look for her.”

  I hear voices in the background, then Karen comes on. “You are going to just show up without bothering to let me know even a day in advance? You are such an ass.”

  “Karen, I am sorry, I am in California on business, I did not know whether I’d be able to visit. I am not going to inconvenience you or your parents. I will stay in a hotel somewhere nearby, I’ll come take Simon and Jennifer to dinner tonight and perhaps breakfast tomorrow.”

  “We have guests and dinner plans tonight,” Karen informs me, “you can’t take the kids.”

  “I want to see my kids!” I grip the wheel so hard, the car swerves and I am hit with a horn blast from the car in the next lane.

  “Well, then you should have…” Muffled conversation in the background, then Karen comes back on. “All right, my dad says you should come and stay here.”

  I am dumbfounded; the man hates my guts. Let me correct that, he hates failure. He liked me well enough in the beginning, when the reflection of Karen’s and mine notoriety was good for the new congressman. Now he is afraid that my problems will somehow be used against him during the upcoming election.

  “You are coming for one night only, right?” confirms Karen.

  My Blackberry phone rings again. It’s Rozen. “You were not mistaken, someone was trying to keep you company.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s a local private investigator. He pulled from the curb just after you drove off. The detectives followed him until the next exit on the 101 freeway, then brought him in. He usually does medical disability cases, stakes out people that cheat insurance companies. Yesterday, in the late afternoon, he received a call from someone offering him a thousand a day to follow you and report on your movements. Soon after, a messenger delivered an envelope with payment for two days, your picture, and the message that you were likely to be at the police department. He’s been following you since.”

  “So who hired him?”

  “He does not know. He is not exactly a selective type. We are trying to find the delivery person, but it does not look promising.”

  By the time I get to L.A., it’s past three and the traffic has built up. I resign myself to a slow slog. Gas pedal, brake pedal, gas pedal, brake pedal…

  January 1986. The country has a new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. He just met with Ronald Reagan; a smell of détente is in the air. A group of American students on their winter break come to visit Moscow and the Moscow State University. A few of us, the supposedly more reliable and presentable ones, are chosen to go meet with the Americans. I often wondered if whoever qualified me for this meeting has been demoted later. But one can’t blame him or her; not only was I a good student with no blemishes on my record, I spoke decent English and had just defended my doctoral dissertation. Perhaps the idea was to impress the Americans with our brain power. Not wanting to rely on the intellect alone, I went to a banya the night before and sweated all the dirt and smells out of my pores.

  We meet in a designated room of the Lenin’s Library; the organizer must have thought that choosing a library would give the whole affair some kind of intellectual undertone. The meeting starts awkwardly, with introductions and forced conversations. Turns out “the others” don’t have horns or hoofs and seem to be very similar human beings. There are a dozen of us and perhaps ten Americans. I am introduced as “one of our brilliant young physicists.” At that, two pretty American girls smile at me. I look aside in embarrassment, then steal a glance at the girls and suddenly lock eyes with one of them. Everything freezes for a second. I feel the jolt of recollection, as if I have met her before, although this is of course utterly impossible. Her expression turns serious, smile disappears. My face is hot, I must be turning crimson. I feel like everyone is staring at me, so I stand up, mumble something and escape. Now everyone is really staring. In the restroom, I wash my face with cold water and wait for palpitations to subside.

  When I get back, the organizer announces that it’s time to “visit the Red Square and then go to a restaurant.” We are told to stay together as we start walking to the square in a bitter cold. Snowflakes are dancing in the air like little dervishes. The two American girls are just in front of me, they are clearly freezing. I hear a whisper in my ear, “Pavel, let’s split. It’s too damn cold, I have a flat nearby, and I just cashed in the Kremlin store coupons.”

  It’s Leonid Krasnov, usually known by the diminutive Lyonechka. He is a graduate student in my department, smart but much more interested in parties and girls than in physics. He can get away with pretty much anything because he comes from a pure lineage of old Bolsheviks: his great-grandparents defended Moscow from the White armies, his grand-parents were Party’s stalwarts that managed to avoid Stalin’s purges and died from natural causes, rare case for the people of their time and position. Many nights they must have woken up in a cold sweat, hearing noises and heavy steps, but there were no knocks on their door. Now his parents are important diplomats in the Foreign Service. They live abroad and Lyonechka has a free reign of their large three-room apartment in the center of Moscow, making his friends indirect beneficiaries. By the Soviet standards, the apartment was richly, even over-the-top decorate
d: paintings, Persian rugs, crystal goblets, delicate jade vases, extensive collection of good books – all displayed as a sign of social prestige.

  Foreigners don’t understand what having an apartment meant in the 1980’s Soviet Union, where privacy was at a great premium. Lyonechka, despite his slight stature and rather bland looks, was one of the most popular people in the University. Young lovers were always asking him for permission to use the apartment for their trysts. I admit to using the flat a few times with Anya. Rumors flew that even some of the faculty took advantage. To Lyonechka’s credit, he was generous with his favors and did not try to profit from his position beyond reason, although he’s been known to sleep with some of the girls that needed a place to stay for a few days. Lyonechka also threw great parties that featured alcohol and food from the Kremlin food store. One had to have special coupons to shop there, which Lyonechka’s parents had been receiving monthly. I’ve been to a few of these parties, they pretty much always ended up in general intoxication, sex, and women’s underwear disappearing – which Lyonechka was supposedly collecting. There was only one rule: Don’t break things. Two students that broke a vase by drunkenly tossing it back and forth had been permanently banned from the apartment.

  In these circumstances, Lyonechka was trouble and I obviously should have known better. But the thought of delicacies and having a shot of vodka on a bitterly cold day clouds my judgment. I was not the only one seduced by Lyonechka’s offer: somehow six of us separate under the cover of falling snow – Lyonechka, me, Olga and Vadim, a couple from the theater department, and the two American girls that smiled at me in the library. Lyonechka quickly ducks into a back street, and we follow, giggling in a youthful excitement of doing something that we are not supposed to do. One of the American girls, the one I locked eyes with, puts her arm through mine. Despite the cold, my face gets hot again. I hope she does not see it. I did not get her name during the introductions, so I ask her in a stammering voice.

  “Karen Baker,” she says.

  “I am Pavel Rostin,” I reciprocate.

  “I know, you are the brilliant physicist.” She laughs.

  Her teeth are chattering. I free my arm and put it around her shoulders. She snuggles to me and puts her arm around my waist. Her touch feels natural and familiar, like we have gone together for years.

  Lyonechka was telling the truth about cashing in his Kremlin store coupons. The kitchen has caviar, smoked salmon, sausages, meats, salads, fruits and plenty of vodka and champagne. I sit next to Karen Baker. The flat is warm, so we peel off our heavy overcoats, hats, jackets. Karen is almost as tall as I am, with straight blonde hair reaching half-way down her spine, a cute button nose, brown eyes, and a beautiful smile showing two rows of perfect white teeth. Her skirt is riding up, showing nice legs. I feel the heat of her body next to mine.

  Karen is a senior in college, studying history. We are all having a great time trying to converse in broken English. We drink for friendship between our countries, for world peace, for victory over the Nazi Germany, for beautiful women. In the back of my mind, I think that someone must be looking for us and this will not end well, but I chase the worry away with a drink.

  After a third glass of vodka, I lose some of my inhibitions, stand up, and read my bad version of one of Pushkin’s poems:

  My angel, perhaps my sins

  Make me unworthy of your love.

  But please pretend!

  Your one look will easily deceive me,

  And I am only too happy to be deceived!

  Everyone laughs and applauds. I am not going to tell them that last year I worked with a tutor to improve my English by making translations of Pushkin’s poems. Of course, my translations are amateurish, and normally I would not dare to utter them in public, but vodka is a great equalizer.

  In my mind, I see Anya’s image. We’ve been making out on this very couch not long ago. After three years of dating, her parents treated my as their son-in-law. Hot feeling of shame washes over me. I chase the thought away, I am here, I am free, I am excited. I don’t need the guilt. I have to understand the jolt of recollection that surged through my body when I locked eyes with Karen Baker.

  Olga asks me to read more, and I oblige:

  I love you, even though

  I am mad at myself for this passion,

  As I confess in despair at your feet.

  Lyonechka enjoys watching me making a fool of myself, and he laughs. “Poetry in Russia is a serious business, especially with women.”

  “Yes, poetry in Russia is respected, it gets people killed,” I reply. In response to puzzled looks, I explain, “It was not me who said it, it was Osip Mandelstam. He was killed by Stalin’s goons.”

  Karen leans to me and whispers, “Read some poetry just for me.”

  Her breast is hot against my side. She smells good. I whisper back:

  I remember the magic moment

  When you appeared before me,

  A fleeting vision of perfect beauty.

  Olga starts making out with Vadim, her boyfriend. I lean over to Karen and carefully kiss her lips. She swings her arm around my neck, and her tongue slips into my mouth. I touch her breast; we are still locked in a kiss and I feel how her breathing quickens and her other hand presses on the top of my leg. I never wanted someone this bad. The couple that was making out disappears. Now Lyonechka and the other American girl start kissing in the corner of the room. Karen pulls my hand, and we go to a bedroom, but it’s already occupied by the first couple, unmistakably having sex. We wander through a dark apartment and find another room. We are so excited, we can barely wait to close the door.

  I wake up in the morning from the cold. Snow is still falling outside. Karen is quietly snoring next to me; we are covered by a thin blanket of unknown origin. I move her hair and uncover a small, delicate ear. I look at her and then shut my eyes from the wave of tenderness that spreads through my body. Her image is engraved in me as if we have known each other for hundreds of years. I suddenly can’t imagine the world without this girl that I’ve met only a few hours ago. She wakes up, looks at me, kisses me hard and whispers, “More poetry, please.”

  I recite Akhmatova’s words about love:

  Love is like a snake,

  It coils, enchanting the heart.

  “You are a strange physicist,” murmurs Karen. We warm each other up by making love again. Then the other two couples show up, wearing blankets. An argument ensues between Karen and the other American girl; we figure out that the other girl is concerned about being away from their group, which Karen does not want to go back to yet.

  The other girl laughs, points at me, and says “She wants to marry you!” Everyone laughs, except for Karen and me. I realize that we’ll have to part soon and for a moment I can’t breathe. We find more food and stay in until the late morning. The snow stops, the sun makes an appearance, and we all venture outside and go to the Alexander Gardens by the Kremlin walls, fresh snow sparkling and crunching under our feet.

  Karen holds on to my arm and starts crying. The other American girl says, “She does not want to leave,” and looks at me as if I am the one at fault here. At that, Lyonechka comes up with “We can get you married today.” We laugh because it’s ridiculous and completely impossible, but he insists: “I know a refusenik that lives not too far, he applied to emigrate back in 1978, never got the permission, so he became a rabbi. He can marry you.”

  This makes no sense whatsoever, but we don’t want the adventure to end yet, so the four of us take the metro to refusenik’s flat. Olga and Vadim peel off, sensing trouble. The unfortunate refusenik is there and foolishly lets us in. We explain our purpose. His first question is, “Are you Jewish?” I am not. Turns out neither is Karen.

  The rabbi walks out of the room and comes back with a bottle of vodka. “I am sorry, I am not experienced. This requires some thinking.” He drinks and deliberates out loud. “I don’t think there is anything in the Jewish tradition that forbids me from
officiating at non-Jewish marriages. It will not be a valid wedding under Jewish law, halachah, but since you are non-Jews, it does not matter to you. As long as you make a commitment to each other in good times and bad, yes, I think I can marry you.”

  In good times and bad…That’s the tough part, is not it?

  Karen and I walked out of the refusenik’s flat with a handwritten marriage certificate drawn on a piece of lined notebook paper, still treating this as an adventure, not quite comprehending what just happened. Lyonechka and I took Karen and her friend to the hotel they were staying in. Karen threw her arms around my neck and kissed me, giving rise to lewd smiles of a small assortment of KGB and “Intourist” personnel around. As she was about to enter the hotel, Karen turned back to look at me, her eyes full of blame: “How can you let me go?” An overweight woman from the delegation grabbed her arm and gave me an angry stare. I almost screamed: “Don’t touch her! Let her come back!”

  Less than a block away, I am stopped by two plain-clothed officers. I expect to be taken to the infamous Lubyanka, but they just question me in their car. I am given a dressing down, reminding me how I did not behave in a manner appropriate to the Soviet standards. Turns out there was a major commotion about the American tourists that disappeared, and our chaperones contacted the university. According to the propiska, the Soviet system of residence permits, both Lyonechka and I lived in the dormitory. It was only this morning that someone at the university figured out where we were given Lyonechka’s involvement – but they must have missed us by a few minutes.

  Before they let me out, one of the officers asks conspiratorially, “So, how was it fucking an American? Did she have any special tricks?”

  They both laugh. I grind my teeth and say nothing.

  The second officer adds, “Well, she was probably curious to see if the Russian dick is any different. She’ll have stories to tell for her American friends. Don’t worry, you won’t hear from her again.”

  From time to time, I looked at the handwritten marriage certificate, reminding me that this really happened and wondering whether it’ll mean anything or just remain a piece of paper that will gather dust in a drawer of my desk. The life went back to its normal routine, I had research to do, courses to teach. Lyonechka got in trouble, but his parents bailed him out. Except that Anya and I were awkwardly avoiding each other. Except for that moment when I woke up and could not imagine the world without Karen kept coming back to me in the early morning hours.

  Sometime later, I received a visit from two different officers. They again asked me about Karen Baker, I admitted to the events but blamed the vodka. After nodding in understanding, one of the officers said, “Do you know who Sam Baker is?” I had no idea. Turns out Karen’s father was a U.S. congressman. And then the other officer added, “And she is pregnant.” U.S. newspapers picked up the story, making it sound like the Soviet government was preventing me from re-uniting with my pregnant wife. “Let Pavel Rostin Go!” headline was smack on the front page. Star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, you name it – every cliché had been dragged out and splashed on newspapers’ pages and TV screens. Partly out of those early mornings’ memories, partly due to guilt – what kind of a man abandons his child? – I requested the permission to be reunited with my wife.

  In a bizarre development, the local army office, voenkomat, had called me in. Generally, the mandatory service in the glorious Soviet Army would be deferred while one was in college, often indefinitely if you are doing some work of importance. But there I was, requesting permission to unite with some capitalist adventuress. I looked like a perfect target for three years of psychological and physical abuse in the army. But when I dutifully appeared as summoned, the colonel in the recruitment department was confused. Technically, I was an officer by virtue of going through years of ROTC-like service in college. The logical thing would have been to strip me of my lieutenant’s rank and ship me off to some remote and dangerous location where no U.S. congressman would find me. The war in Afghanistan was still going on. But the Soviet Union was one massive, centrally managed bureaucratic state, and the bureaucracy does not easily deal with exceptions. The wheels of the military due process had ground to a halt; they did not want to take me as an officer, but they also could not strip me of my rank just because I got an American pregnant while being a civilian.

  After months of uncertainty, I was called back to voenkomat. Portraits of Lenin and the murderous “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky stared accusingly from the wall behind the colonel, as he moved his lips and eyebrows in disgust and told me that I don’t deserve the honor of serving in the Soviet Army.

  If that was only a couple of years earlier, my application would have been denied and I would have turned into another refusenik, likely sweeping the streets for a living. But warmer winds were blowing, and I was allowed to leave. Very few people showed up to say goodbye. I still remember seeing Anya’s teary face in the back.

  Gas pedal, brake pedal, gas pedal, brake pedal…A chain of random events twenty years ago – falling snow, Lyonechka and his apartment nearby, too much vodka available, authorities fumbling of finding us – and I am now stuck in traffic crawling past the Los Angeles Airport that everyone calls LAX.

  I believe Karen did love me. But in the end, she was her father’s daughter, and she wanted her place in the society. I could not provide it. I am surprised I have not gotten the divorce papers served to me yet, it’s been over two months since she left.

  I steer the rental car into a small parking space left in front of Sam Baker’s apartment on Ocean Way, blocking two Mercedes’s in the process. As I make my way into the house, Jennifer flies out and hangs herself around my neck. She does not say anything, just nuzzles her face in my neck and softly cries. I am silent as well, unsuccessfully trying to hold back tears.

  After a couple of minutes, she untangles herself and says, “I missed you so much.”

  “I missed you too,” I choke out. I don’t care how cliché it is; sometimes kids make all the pain worth bearing. She looks just like Karen twenty years ago: tall, long blonde hair, a cute little nose, almond-shaped brown eyes, and a smile that lights up the room.

  Jennifer takes me into the house and we make our way to the familiar huge patio overlooking Woods Cove. Karen gives me a polite hug and an air kiss. Her father shakes my hand. “Good to see you, Pavel,” he says and introduces me to another congressman and his wife. Karen’s mom singsongs, “Hello, Pavel,” Karen’s brother is there with a firm handshake, his wife Toni greets me with a mischievous smile and a peck on the cheek. Toni and I get along because she does not take the whole “upper crust society” thing seriously.

  I am pleasantly surprised by the greeting I received, but I would like to see Simon. After wondering through the humongous house, I finally find him engrossed in a video game of strange characters making their way through fantasy land. He stops the game, hugs me. I try to ask about his college, but his eyes wander back to the TV screen and I let him go. I return to the patio, get myself a drink, and sit with Jennifer in the corner discussing her studies.

  As the sun sets, we all have dinner on the patio, under the heat lamps. I sit next to Karen; she is polite, not a word about our separation. The visiting congressman makes fun of Sam’s prospective opponent in the upcoming November elections and raises a toast to Sam becoming a chairman of the House Means and Resources Committee, “a well-deserved post.” After dinner, everyone piles into the living room to watch a recorded show of Desperate Housewives on the latest and greatest large-screen TV. Simon and I sneak out, he probably to play his game, I go back to the patio to watch the waves. The ocean sparkles in the moonlight. I think of the sparkling snow in the darkness of 1941 Leningrad.

  Someone slips into the chair next to mine. It’s Toni. She says, “I am sorry about you and Karen.”

  “Thanks. How are you?”

  “OK. Roger has political ambitions otherwise we would have been in the same boat.” She pats my hand. “Sam
has an important election coming up. The ambition is their weak point.”

  By ‘their’ she must mean the whole class of Sam-like people.

  When I get to my assigned room, I open the computer but discover that the Wi-Fi password has changed since the last time I was here. I am not sure I’ll be trusted with the new one, so I pull out the envelope that Rozen gave me. Inside there is a printout titled:

  “Statement of Richard Palmer on the Infiltration of the Western Financial System by Elements of Russian Organized Crime before the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services on September 21, 1999.”

  From the introduction, Palmer was a CIA station chief in Russia. Some sections of his statement have been highlighted by a light-color marker, probably by Streltsova:

  Plans for the looting of then Soviet State were first discussed in 1984 by specific sectors of the Soviet Politburo, the top officials of the Communist government. However, one must keep in mind that this massive effort included many of the highest officials of the Soviet government, several elements of the KGB (now FSB), and others. Their primary goal was to ensure their financial and political status in the future, by taking control of the vast funds and resources of the Party and converting them into personal assets.

  By late 1986, the informal planning committee had been given the services of two KGB officers who were experienced in moving funds overseas. The Chairman of this planning group was Central Committee Treasurer Nikolai Kruchina.

  The following plan was carried out to gradually build the enormous support structure that would eventually be needed and then secure their wealth.

  1. Initially, smuggled “suitcases” of cash and the diplomatic pouch would be used to move limited amounts of funds to help sustain the initial firms that were to be founded and foreign accounts to be opened (This occurred between 1986 - 1989.).

  2. In the second phase, Russian organizations were used to simply transfer large amounts of funds for national reasons to their related offices and firms in the Soviet republics and, where possible, to the West. These funds were to be used to fund firms and banks with no obvious ties to the party. (This occurred between 1986-1989.)

  3. Simultaneously, trading firms were founded to act as “intermediary” firms to sell Russian resources, such as oil, natural gas, non-ferrous metals, diamonds, chemicals and cotton. These firms received these materials at state-subsidized “internal prices” and sold them at world market prices. Profits from these operations were deposited in tax havens such as Switzerland, Cyprus, the Caribbean, Panama, Hong Kong, Ireland and the British Channel Islands. (This was typical of the period between 1989-1991.).

  4. In the fourth phase, from 1989-1992, larger firms and banks could be founded in Russia and the former republics, as well as in the West. When possible, the off-shore accounts that had been previously established were to be used to discreetly purchase controlling interests in existing banks and firms with good reputations.

  5. In the fifth stage, from 1989 -1991, “shell” corporations were founded in Western countries such as Germany and Britain, as well as Ireland and Switzerland, and the United States (especially in Delaware and California).

  6. In the sixth stage, from 1994 to the present, the criminal structure became highly developed and was capable of creating new income by using its contacts in Russia and selected republics for “profitable investments,” such as purchasing materials and natural resources at rock bottom discount prices (or receiving more material than was shown on the shipping documents and contracts), as well as from legitimate investments in the West.

  In October 1990, several KGB Foreign Intelligence workers were shifted to work in the Party Central Committee Property Directorate, so that a structure that was capable of coordinating the Party’s economic activities could be established. The basis for this new group was an agreement between deputy General Secretary of the Central Committee, Vladimir Ivashko; the Central Committee Treasurer Nikolai Kruchina; KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov; and, KGB Deputy Director Filipp Bobkov. Bobkov later became the chief of Security for MOST Bank. Also in October 1990, Bobkov sent a directive to selected overseas KGB residencies stating that they should immediately begin to submit proposals for the creation of covert KGB commercial firms and financial establishments.

  Colonel L. Veselovsky was called in November 1990 from abroad. He was a specialist in international economics and was transferred to the work on management of the Central Committee…The firing of Veselovsky two weeks before the August putsch is especially noteworthy. Veselovsky immediately left for Switzerland.

  In the margins are Streltsova’s notes in Cyrillic:

  Kruchina killed in August of 91, right after the Putsch – covering up the tracks?

  $300+ billion moved?

  Stage 7: from 2001?

  Nemtsov? Nemschev?

  The Putsch she is referring to must be the failed attempt by the Communists and the KGB to retake power in August 1991. The KGB largely dispersed after that and then was officially disbanded.

  Wednesday, June 14

  In the morning, the guests are gone and so is Sam’s good disposition. He corners me after breakfast. “You have some nerve showing up here uninvited!”

  “I wanted to see my kids. Don’t worry, I am not planning to stay.”

  Sam changes tack. He is one of few people I know that doesn’t skip a beat when switching between good and bad cop roles. “Look, I am sorry things did not work out. You understand, I have to protect my daughter. Let’s not rush into anything, you two take some time off from each other, then we’ll see. You are still a family, we take care of our own.”

  I understand. The divorce papers must have been drawn, but won’t be served until after the elections.

  I find Karen alone on the patio. She is still beautiful, now mature and stately, with some hard lines around her mouth. She is polite but cold, until I tell her about my father’s death. Karen starts crying. I can see she is genuinely upset; she only saw him twice but liked the “old curmudgeon,” as she referred to him. I don’t go into any details, suggesting he may have been depressed.

  “What are you doing now?” asks Karen. “Why are you in California?”

  “My father went to California last year; I was trying to understand why.”

  “Millions of tourists come to California every year. If you wanted to come see the kids, you should have just said so.”

  I guess it’ll be one of those conversations where I better expect an accusation to be thrown at me at every opportunity. “Yes, I wanted to see the kids,” I allow. “Karen, how are you?”

  “I am fine. My father told me you’ve been seen with Sarah Shoffman, is that true?”

  “Is your father following me?”

  “True or not?”

  “It’s true. But your father has no right to spy on me! Is this what we came to? And you’ve been ‘seen’ with Martin Shoffman, have you not?”

  “You ask me after half the town knew that you were screwing that coffee girl?” hisses Karen, then starts crying again.

  The ocean is still today, no waves to cheer up the surfers. Karen’s words disconnect me from myself; I feel like it was some stranger rather than I that did these stupid, reckless things. Seagulls are having a dispute on the beach, filling the air with angry screeches.

  Karen gets up, stands in front of me. She cautiously caresses my hair.

  “I am sorry if my father spied on you; I did not ask him to do this, and I’ll tell him to stop this crap immediately. And I am sorry about Martin; I was just so mad at you for not only having the affair but also being foolishly indiscreet about it. I felt people snickering behind my back over that fling of yours. It was like you wanted to get caught, not even bothering to drive to the next county or something. But don’t you understand what’s most important? All these years I wanted to be independent from my father. And I wanted our children to be independent from him. Instead, we are back in his house because we have nowhere else to go. You are so sel
f-absorbed you can’t even see what’s right in front of your nose. If you wonder why Simon is the way he is, just look in the mirror!”

  I take her hand into mine, kiss it. There is still this deep connection between us, my heart is full of sorrow. Akhmatova’s words come to me:

  In closeness there’s a special place

  Where love and passion cannot reach,

  Even when lips come together in silence

  And love breaks the heart into pieces.

  I look at Karen as I say the words. Her face convulses in anguish. “I am sorry, Pavel, we are beyond poetry now.” She frees her hand and walks away, wiping tears.

  I clamp a hand over my mouth to not cry out from a sudden stomach pain. Guilt and anger boil in my insides. Years ago, on a backpacking trip, I had to cross a raging creek on a narrow log. That’s what being married and having kids sometimes felt like: walking on a wet log with a heavy backpack, pretending that you know what you are doing, trying not to look down. At some point I slipped.

  Just then my phone rings. Polite, but somewhat less friendly Mr. Zorkin is on the line with an elderly gentleman.

  “Allo, this is Anton Rimsky,” strains the weak and hoarse voice of a long-time smoker.

  “Mr. Rimsky, this is Pavel Rostin. I think you wanted to talk to me last week.”

  I hear Rimsky telling Zorkin that he needs privacy, shuffling of feet, door closing. “Yes, Pavel, I wanted to talk to you. I am so sorry about your father.”

  “Mr. Rimsky, how did you know my father?”

  “I worked with him for over thirty years. He was my mentor in the militzia, he was already an experienced investigator when I joined. I’ve met you, I’ve been to your place a few times, although Volodya did not mix work and family much.”

  That’s why he looked familiar.

  Rimsky takes a breath. “I retired five years ago, but for a while I was offering private investigation services, sometimes working with your father. The pension is not enough with the current prices.”

  “Are you still a private investigator?”

  “No, I stopped about a year ago. My health is bad, and there was practically no income, I can’t compete with young people. I just try to manage my expenses now.”

  “But my father continued working as a private investigator? He was older than you!”

  I hear Rimsky taking a drink of water. “Yes, but physically and mentally he was in a better shape. He exercised daily. And he still liked a good challenge. He did not want to sit around.”

  “And people would hire an 80-year old man?”

  “Your dad had a reputation as a capable investigator and someone who can be relied on for confidentiality. He learned computers, spoke a bit of English. People trusted him.”

  “Do you know what he was working on last?”

  “He kept his clients’ information secret. I just know he did a lot of traveling lately.”

  “He didn’t tell you where he went?”

  “No, as I said, he kept things confidential.”

  I am about to hang up as I think of another question. “Do you know about a little boy Andrei that survived the blockade with my parents?”

  “Yes, of course. Your parents adopted Andrei, even though they were just a few years older than he.”

  Adopted? I hear the word, but I can’t quite comprehend its meaning.

  “What happened to him?”

  “So they never told you…He was drafted into the army and in 1956 his unit was sent to crush the Hungarian anti-communist uprising. He was arrested after an incident there, sent to the Gulag.”

  “Why didn’t they tell me?”

  “Perhaps your parents tried to protect you. Or bury the memories. Frankly, your dad was never much for the Party. He was careful not to talk about this, but I could sense it from small comments. He never got promoted because he did not join the Party.”

  I thought of my father’s diary.

  “Do you remember Ivan Mershov, his militzia boss during the blockade? I think I recall him coming over.”

  “You can’t remember Ivan; he died soon after you were born. You are probably thinking of his son Kostya. Kostya was friends with your dad. He started in the militzia but then transferred to the KGB and moved to Moscow in the 1970s; I lost track of him since.”

  I usually try to be calm and analytical, but my understanding of the world is breaking down. There is a 500-year-old globe in the New York Public Library that carries a “Here are dragons” inscription on the unknown land. I managed to live with Karen for twenty years and not fully understand what makes her tick. And now I find out my parents adopted someone. Which makes him my brother? A brother I’ve never met? I am in the land of dragons now.

  I want to take Jennifer and Simon to lunch before I leave, but Simon is glued to his video game. When I suggest that he might be spending too much time gaming, he protests, “But Dad, this is The Kingdom of Soma, the coolest game ever!”

  I let him be.

  Jennifer and I drive to the tiny downtown, walk along the beach, eat her favorite deep dish pizza, talk about the first year in college, her life in California, plans for the summer. However badly Karen and I screwed up, we did create this wonderful human being.

  Jennifer wants to change her major, “Dad, I want to be a scientist, like you. I love research.”

  “That’s great! I am sure you’ll do well. What kind of science are you interested in?”

  “Physics or computer science, I have not decided yet. The only thing is, Grandpa won’t let me. He says I should study business administration or policy. He won’t pay for me to go to school and study science. But mom and I will talk to him again.”

  I cringe inside, understanding Karen’s words that much better. Her father uses his money to control everything.

  I tell Jennifer about my father as I drop her off. She starts crying, then asks, “Are you trying to find out what happened?”

  “I am looking into it.”

  “Please, be careful.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I always land on my feet.”

  As Jennifer walks back into the house, I see Karen in the second-story window, looking at us. I wave to her to come down, but she shakes her head. It feels like her way of saying “farewell.”

  Back on the freeway, stuck in the famous Orange County traffic. Alone with my memories.

  No matter how strong we are,

  We are still prisoners of our memory.

  It was my mother who taught me Akhmatova’s poems. My father never quoted her. It’s only from his diary that I found out how much he loved her poetry.

  When I boarded that flight to New York twenty years ago, I was scared out of my wits: I have burned all the bridges to unite with someone I knew for just one day. A magical day, but only one. But when Karen met me in the JFK airport, already visibly pregnant, it was like we have not parted. The magic was still there.

  How do you grow apart? One day at a time. In movies, couples discuss their differences, the man says something profound about his devotion that he couldn’t express before, the woman falls into his arms. In real life, wounds go deep.

  I think we were happy in the beginning. After Simon came Jennifer. I was teaching physics in college. We lived in a small two-bedroom apartment, but I did not know any better. Then the in-laws started talking how much better private schools are and how we really should live in a big house with a yard. All for the kids, of course. I left physics and went to work on Wall Street, in the 1990s when hiring physics professors as “quants” was all the rage. Wall Street tried to gain respectability by portraying finance as a science. In fairness to Karen, she did not push me. But she liked that I almost tripled my salary in the move; we sent the kids to a private school, we bought a small house, then a bigger one. Karen kept an orderly home. As an influential congressman’s daughter, she started getting traction in the society. I became another mid-level Wall Street functionary. Actually, a lower mid-level one – in our Connecticut town t
he upper middle social strata was reserved for people with seven-figure incomes.

  And as I was marching on, I limited my field of vision to what others told me was needed. Nobody forced me to, I put the blinders on voluntarily, even willingly. At some point, my careful life stopped feeling real to me. I was acting in a movie where a character named Pavel Rostin worked, tried to climb to the top, collected objects, people and stomach problems along the way. In trying to become a “player,” I took one chance too many. Suddenly the performance has ended and I stood exposed, real, mortified, angry at Karen for what I was about to do to her.

  That evening when I came home and, drunk with terror, told her that we are broke and the house, the one she’s been building and decorating for the past four years, is no longer ours, she did not raise her voice.

  She sat there quietly staring into space and asked, “When do we have to move?”

  “We can live here until they kick us out.”

  “I don’t want to be kicked out. Pavel, I love you, but I am leaving.”

  If you love me, why are you leaving? I wanted to say. In my world, if you love someone you stay with them. Perhaps we needed a new dictionary: “Love according to Karen” vs. “Love according to Pavel.”

  But I just asked: “Where will you go?”

  “I will go to California to stay with my kids.” It’s my kids now.

  That night, she took off her nightgown and made love to me for the first time in a year. When I woke up, she was gone. As the traffic crawls past a giant billboard of one of Sam Baker’s dealerships, I think how Karen craved to be free from her father but at the same time wanted me to be like him.

  By the time I get to LAX and turn in my rental car, it’s past 4 p.m. and my only choice is an overnight flight leaving in five hours. I hate red eyes, can never sleep on the plane, but don’t see other options. I make myself comfortable in a bar by the gate, and call Jack Mikulski,

  “Jack? Pavel Rostin here.”

  “You missed me, you really missed me,” comes a cackling laughter. “You want your results already?”

  “No, but I will be in New York tomorrow.”

  “OK, why don’t we meet in The Ketch at 5? They have a good bar.”

  “Sounds good, Jack. Look, I have one more name for you to check out.”

  “Ha! I knew you wouldn’t be able to hold out on me! What’s the name?”

  “John Brockton.”

  The voice on the other end changes: “John Brockton? The same one that was killed in California with his Russian girlfriend? Is that why you are in California, you crazy Russian?”

  “Look, I just want someone to look at his fund’s transactions, public information, nothing more.”

  “OK, but we’ll have to keep it pretty tight, I don’t want to jeopardize Suzy.”

  Neither do I. And I don’t want to jeopardize you, Jack. I don’t say this to him.

  I get a pen and a pad of paper and start drawing pictures. As my father taught me, “Pavel, when in doubt, get organized. Focus on the facts, on things you know.”

  In one corner of the page, I draw a circle I call “Grand Castle Rock Fund.” Under the circle I put down Martin Shoffman. Overweight, balding, always ready with a broad smile, a joke, and a firm handshake. Referring to his wife Sarah as “my much better half, I don’t know how she can put up with me.” Turns out she couldn’t. Martin, who signed a bad agreement for us and now seems to be quietly working for another hedge fund. Martin, who brought in the New Treasury Island ELP that pulled the rug from under my fund. Was his smile just a mask? Did he sell me out from the beginning?

  In the other corner: a “Brockton-Streltsova’s murder” circle. Under it, Sal Rozen, Jeff Kron, Michelle Kron, Mark Bezginovich.

  Jeff Kron, the man convicted of murder but proclaiming his innocence. Don’t all the murderers insist that they did not do it?

  Michelle Kron, a lawyer who sacrificed her career to move to a small California town in the middle of nowhere because she believes in her brother’s innocence. And because she has nobody else left, the family destroyed by someone else’s greed.

  Sal Rozen, a detective who thinks that Jeff Kron did not commit the murder.

  Bezgonovich, Streltsova’s brother, who may have hired my father to investigate.

  That’s three people that do not believe the official version.

  Into the third corner goes “Streltsova’s investigation” circle. All I can place under is “Nemtsov? Nemschev?” from Streltsova’s notes. What was she investigating during the last days of her life? Terrorist bombings in Moscow? Laundering of money out of the failing Soviet Union? If hundreds of billions have been stolen, that’s the kind of money that someone would kill to keep secret.

  In the last remaining corner, I make the list of people that may play some role but I am not sure to which circle they belong:

  Major Vakunin, who finds new and unlisted numbers in hours. He must have worked with my father, but who would care about an old guy that retired many years ago? Unless that old guy’s been working on something of interest.

  Investigator Pemin who commands militzia majors and dresses like a Wall Street financier. During the meeting, Vakunin have been clearly playing a second fiddle to Pemin. Either Pemin is very well connected for an investigator or he is not an investigator at all.

  Petr Saratov, who follows orders of some colonel. Why did he say he knew my father? Not likely they worked together, Saratov seemed to be too young for that. He wanted the papers my father sent. Why did they let me live?

  Sam Baker, who has people following me, probably just for divorce blackmail purposes. I don’t see him being involved in any of these cases, but I leave his name on the list for completeness. And because he spies on me.

  In the middle, I put my father.

  So far, Natalya Streltsova is the only connection between these circles.

  Famous physicist Richard Feynman compared particle physics experiments to smashing two watches into each other as hard as you can and then trying to figure out their workings by picking up the pieces. I am looking at the pieces, sensing there is a complex mechanism behind them.

  Thursday, June 15

  The red eye flight wipes me out, as usual. I get home and climb into bed for a nap, but sleep does not come. The noisy weekday world keeps intruding.

  I sit at the computer, pull out the pad of paper from yesterday, and start methodically googling names.

  Natalya Streltsova: Nothing before 1998 when she first appears as an investigative reporter on the Russian TV station Telenovostiy. Born in Moscow in 1970. The station is acquired by Boris Sosnovsky, one of the most powerful Russian oligarchs with strong ties to the government. In 2000, Streltsova became an anchor of a popular weekly program reporting on corruption, graft, and government-sanctioned pilfering. There is a picture - very pretty, blonde, willowy, tall, smiling fearlessly into the camera. She raises questions about the terrorist bombings in Russia that killed hundreds and are used to justify the second war in Chechnya. Except that Telenovostiy claims that the bombings have been orchestrated by the FSB and the GRU, the descendants of the KGB, to create a pretext for war. The TV station was sold in 2001 and the Telenovostiy’s investigative program gets canceled. Streltsova continues as an investigative reporter for an independent newspaper, but there is nothing on her from late 2002 until late 2003 when she is found dead in Santa Barbara. I make a mental note to do more research about the bombings.

  Mark Bezginovich: A newspaper article from 2001 describing a “new kind of successful Russian attorney.” Other references are not as kind, labeling him an “attorney for the mob” and mentioning his name in a number of high profile cases. There is a phone number which I write down from the Yellow Pages.

  John Brockton: Born 1965 in Chicago, degree in Russian Literature from the University of Chicago in 1986, Harvard Law School in 1989. Climbs up the ranks of Millennium Mutual. A 1997 article has his picture as a “new breed of American emerging market money m
anager” that lives in the “emerging country” (Russia), speaks the language, and guided his fund to a fivefold appreciation in only three years. A small announcement about Brockton leaving in July 1998 “to pursue other interests.” An article from the Santa Barbara News-Press about a young multi-millionaire buying a “magnificent property” in 1999. All quiet until 2003, when the news world erupts with a sensational murder case.

  Martin Shoffman: Born in 1966 in Boston, marketing degree from the University of Iowa in 1988, Wharton Business School in 1993. Assorted Wall Street jobs, Lehman, Salomon, Barclay. Not really getting anywhere until becoming a co-manager of a hedge fund in 2005.

  Boris Sosnovsky: A powerful Russian oligarch with strong ties to Yeltsin’s family. But as the government changes in 1999, Sosnovsy finds himself on the wrong side of the new president. Sosnovsy is forced to sell the TV station in 2001. He moved to Paris but continued agitating about the Russian government, blaming it for staging the bombings in Moscow and other things. In February of this year, he was found hanging in a locked bathroom. Police declared it a suicide.

  Sam Barker: U.S. congressman since 1984, currently the third longest serving congressman. Being pegged for the chairmanship of the powerful House Means and Resources Committee. Has been dogged by allegations of enriching himself by acquiring real estate that would jump in value following Congress’ decisions. Being challenged in the 2006 elections by a populist district attorney who dug up Baker’s lucrative purchase of a cheap track of land just a couple of months before freeway construction was unexpectedly funded.

  What ties them together if anything?

  I dial the number I found for Bezginovich. It’s an answering service. I leave my name and phone number.

  I get to the Captain’s Ketch early, saunter to the bar, get a beer, and watch the testimony of the Fed chairman. A few months ago, I would be glued to the TV, hanging on each and every word. Now I just casually follow the text running along the bottom of the screen, proclaiming that there is no bubble of any kind in U.S. real estate.

  A familiar cackling laughter scares the few present patrons and makes the bartender smile. Jack hits my shoulder. “These clowns won’t know a bubble if it had a neon sign posted saying B-U-B-B-L-E!”

  Suzy follows him at a slight distance, probably embarrassed by his display.

  It’s early, so we get ourselves a quiet corner table. The waiter makes a face when he hears we are partaking only in drinks and appetizers, but it’s too late to reseat us.

  Suzy pulls out two manila folders and opens the thicker one. “The Treasure Island Exempt Limited Partnership was set up with $110 million in April of 2005. You won’t easily find this - the Cayman Islands are a jurisdiction that’s short on taxes and long on privacy. Judging by the amount and the timing, it looks like the Partnership was specifically set up to finance your hedge fund. The directors are a usual bunch of for-hire Cayman bodies, most of whom sit on hundreds of boards, get a little bit from each, and know nothing. While nominally an independent fund, the beneficial ownership and the manager indicate that it’s effectively a ‘feeder’ fund to a larger ‘master’ hedge fund by the name of White Sycamore ELP. The White Sycamore has a number of other feeder funds, with about $800 million under management. No names of interest on the management or directors roster. Here’s where it gets interesting: The White Sycamore is a ‘special purpose vehicle’ for another fund called Douglas Fir Holdings.”

  “Why?”

  “Generally, it’s used to separate different types of investments. In this case, perhaps to hide the true size of Douglas Fir Holdings - it appears to have a number of special purpose ‘side pockets’ and feeder funds, with likely tens of billions under management. Ownership of Douglas Fir points to The Birch Grove, a company in Cyprus. Cyprus is also known for its excellent tax treatment and privacy.”

  “And for being a money-laundering haven for the Russian mafia and oligarchs,” adds Jack.

  “The Birch Grove has other subsidiaries. Ultimately, it probably manages hundreds of billions of dollars - we can’t estimate. It is in turn owned by Kedr II Holdings of Switzerland. Unlike the other companies I mentioned, the Kedr is not a financial management group but a diverse conglomerate - there is a bank and a network of trading companies, mostly registered in Antigua and Panama.” Suzy draws her finger through various printouts.

  “Bearer shares …” says Jack knowingly, and Suzy nods.

  I hate to admit ignorance, but I have to ask. “What are bearer shares?”

  “Shares that are not registered to a particular name; you claim ownership by presenting them,” Suzy patiently explains. “The ultimate in secrecy, money laundering, tax evasion… Very few jurisdictions allow them.”

  “And who owns the Kedr?”

  “The ownership points to Der Hornstrauch Anstalt, which is an offshore company in Liechtenstein. So far the trail ended there, Anstalts are Liechtenstein’s financial institutions that don’t disclose beneficial ownership.”

  Suzy moves to the last printout page in the manila folder.

  “One more thing,” she says. “This looks like a network of companies carefully set up for opaqueness. The financial management arm, The Birch Grove and her feeder companies, are relatively new, nothing before 2000. The Kedr II Holdings and other companies go back to the early 1990s. Even if we, along with unlikely help of legal authorities, get through the Caymans’ veil, we then have to pierce the veil in Cyprus, and then Liechtenstein, and we don’t even know if it ends there. I went through the names of directors and administrators for all of these companies, they are included in the printout, but I did not see anything of interest. Then I started looking for the earliest documents, and one name caught my eye: Greg Voron.”

  She leans back, enjoying the effect as both Jack and I drop our jaws in surprise.

  “Voron?” Jack and I say in unison.

  Greg Voron is a rising star amongst private equity managers in New York City. He was profiled not long ago in New York Finance magazine. At 36, he already manages reportedly over $7 billion. Originally from Russia, he came to the United States in 1999 for an executive management study at Columbia. Started the Eastern Cottonwood private equity fund in 2001, in the midst of the post-Internet bubble recession, purchased distressed companies cheaply and rode the market recovery.

  “Yes, Voron,” confirms Suzy. “He was there at the beginning of The Birch Grove. His name disappears after 2002, but it’s on the early documents.”

  “Perhaps he figured out that they are money-laundering fronts and resigned?” My suggestion earns me a You are such an idiot look from Jack, who wryly observes, “Yes, I am sure this is just an innocent coincidence. And all these funds named after trees…”

  I see Jack’s eyes suddenly narrow and I instinctively start turning around. Before I have a chance to do that, I spill my drink because someone hits me on the shoulder, too hard to be friendly

  “Look who’s here! An old Luddite from the risk management, a Russian quant that blew up his hedge fund, and a pretty Oriental woman. Are you planning a little ménage-a-trois?”

  It’s Bob Cleyton from the trading desk. Loud and obnoxious, he despises all quants because “it’s the sales skills that matter.”

  Cleyton laughs at his own joke, then turns to Jack. “Mikulski, I am warning you, I have had it with your memos trying to sabotage my business!”

  Jack turns red from anger: “Your business? You are trying to sell that poor county in Missouri a lousy swap deal that will end up losing them tens of millions! A deal that you’re betting against behind their back! If you don’t care about the hardships and layoffs you are going to create for them, perhaps you should think about the potential lawsuit that you are subjecting our bank to!”

  Cleyton stabs his index finger at Jack. “Mikulski, I am telling you again, sit quietly in your office, wait for retirement, and do not interfere with me!”

  “Or what? You have not screwed enough grandmothers in California, you now
have to screw some in Missouri?”

  Cleyton leans his fists on our table, spits out, “I will bury you!” and leaves.

  “What was that about screwing California grandmothers?” Suzy sounds very confused.

  “Bob Cleyton used to be a trader at Enron,” explains Jack. “It was his group that gamed the electricity market in California and that was caught on tape laughing how they screwed ‘Grandma Millie.’ He should have never been allowed back into the business, but here he is, racking up tens of millions in potential damages for the bank. I’ve been trying to stop him for a while, but nobody listens. The bank president’s motto now is ‘Take risks!’ At the weekly executive meetings, they sometimes ask me to leave the room so I don’t remind them of exposure or liability.”

  Jack glares across the room at the table where Cleyton is laughing with three other men. “Look at them. The one with a goatee, sitting across from Cleyton, loaded our bank’s balance sheet with billions of dollars in high-risk CDOs and dicey mortgages using leveraged funds. The one in dark glasses is an analyst who a few years ago took a dozen internet companies public. He knew them to be worthless, but there was a lot of IPO money at stake. He is now handing out recommendations for technology stocks. The main requirement for a positive opinion is for the company to give our bank some business. The last one, with his back to us, is a lawyer that makes sure that none of them is personally liable when things go wrong. They are all way too smart not to know that what they are doing is a fraud. But they don’t care, they want their multi-million dollar bonuses and to hell with the consequences! Greedy predators, preying on others.”

  Suzy seems to be taken aback by Jack’s outburst. “But Jack, there are laws in place to prevent this. There are underwriting standards, securities laws….”

  Mikulski shakes his head. “Even if we enforced the laws, which we don’t, it’s next to impossible for the regulators to deal with the organized, complicated thievery of extremely clever financial criminals. There is that great lie at the core of our financial system. We evolved a massive network of thieves that propagate this false narrative of creating value.”

  He takes a drink, puts down his glass. “Let’s get back to Pavel’s business. Suzy, any more surprises in that folder of yours?”

  “Not in this one.” She smiles and picks up the second folder. “But there is a bonus: Brockton! I only had a few hours, so I started by looking at the history and performance of the Russian Leveraged Equity fund he ran. One thing jumped at me immediately.” She starts pointing to circled and underlined numbers in the printout. “In 1995, the fund underperformed its peers. In 1996, it outperformed them by a bit. In 1997, Brockton hit it out of the park, Number 1 fund in Eastern Europe, mentions in the financial press, etc., etc. But when the Russian financial crisis hit in 1998, the fund was by far hit the worst. Brockton was already gone.” Suzy catches her breath and continues. “I reviewed the holdings in the quarterly reports and noticed a pattern. Look at this.”

  Jack and I lean in.

  “Mobile Electrosvyaz. If you round the numbers, you can see how their holdings go from six million shares to five million, then back to six, back to five, back to six.”

  “That does not make any sense,” I say. “A fund manager usually builds a position and then sells it.”

  Jack asks Suzy, “What’s the float?”

  She smiles. “Mobile Electrosvyaz had 10 million shares, after the 1993 privatization insiders owned 40%.”

  “He made the market,” says Jack.

  “He made the market,” agrees Suzy. “And that was true for the four of his largest positions that I had the time to check on.”

  Even I get it by now. “It was a Ponzi scheme, sucking in new investors into his fund by showing jacked-up returns. He’s been running up the market in his holdings by trading back and forth, recycling the shares. That’s why the fund dropped so much: when the music stopped, there was no buyers. But he had to have partners in order to do this.”

  “He had to have partners,” agrees Suzy. “And at least one of these partners must have been hurt badly, because they had the shares that were being recycled at the moment. The fund holders were not the only ones who got burned.”

  “There must have been quite a few people that wanted to kill Mr. Brockton,” observes Jack. He laughs, surprising me. “How well do you know history? Brockton’s scheme is exactly what Goldman Sachs did in the late 1920s with various investment trusts they controlled, like Shenandoah and Blue Ridge. Different time, different place, same grift.”

  Suzy has to leave, to see her fiancé who was coming into town from Boston. As she walks away, Jack says, “Isn’t she something?” He looks as proud as if he trained her himself, then turns to me. “You still not going to tell me more?”

  I shake my head. I feel like I am protecting people by not giving them too much information.

  “Pavel, Pavel…if you were not in such a hurry to become a fund manager, you could have paid for a good attorney with some investigative capabilities and smelled a rat before they got you.”

  Yes. But they knew my weaknesses. I change the subject. “Jack, what do you think is going to happen when this real estate bubble blows up? It’s a big one.”

  Jack rattles ice in his glass, contemplates for a moment. “Yeah, it’s a big one. I don’t think it’s the big one though. There is a lot of resiliency in the U.S. system; we can take a few body punches, we can afford a few trillions in losses. This blow won’t fell us. The next one after that, who knows?”

  “Do you think there will be a next one?”

  “I am afraid so. We took some heavy hits in the past, and we recovered by changing how we do things. When we had a crash seventy something years ago, we took the bitter medicine and enacted new laws to prevent the next one. Six years ago, we had a bubble and a crash, and we responded by blowing another bubble. It’s the hubris of very smart people: they think they can control everything, that there is always another adjustment they can make, another knob to turn. But the more knobs they turn, the more fragile the system becomes.”

  “I am such a slut,” says Sarah. “Run into your bed whenever you are in town. But I feel like you are my comrade in arms, a survivor of the same battle.”

  During dinner, she asked me how my trip to California went. I told her about my father investigating the Brockton murder but skipped the part about Streltsova’s notes. I talked about Jennifer and her troubles with my father-in-law.

  Sarah asked carefully, “And how was it seeing Karen?”

  I took my time to answer, not sure what to say. “She is angry at me. Angry about becoming dependent on her father again. Angry about the coffee girl. Angry about you.”

  “About me?”

  “Yes, her father told her we are seeing each other.”

  “But how, how…” Sarah stared at me in horror.

  “How did he know when we only met a couple of times?”

  She nodded silently.

  “He probably had me followed, to gather dirt for the upcoming divorce.”

  Sarah took an angry breath: “Well, let’s go to my place then.”

  Now she sits up, the sheet slides, her small breasts exposed.

  “I saw the beautiful assistant that you and Martin had in the office in NYC and I wondered who was doing her. Then one night I came by the office late to pick up Martin and she was coming out of your office, buttoning her blouse, straightening her skirt. She looked at me, she knew that I knew and she did not care. I wish it was him, not you. It was such a cliché, a successful finance guy banging his secretary. I wanted to cry.”

  I remember Oksana, young, dark-haired, elegant, the fine fabric of her clothes, the contour of her body with the sun shining through the fabric as she stood in front of my desk. It was Martin who hired her. When she would leave the office afterward, I would feel an exhilaration of power, the thrill of having everything available. I hid behind my “master of the universe” mask, free from guilt and scruples.

/>   I clench my fists until they hurt.

  Friday, June 16

  In the morning, I look for Jim Morton, find him at a respectable boutique investment bank. The web page shows a confident-looking man in this late forties. He could be a walking advertisement for a hair coloring system, with just the right touch of silver in his hair to demonstrate a proper combination of energy and experience. I call the bank and leave a message “from a friend of Anya Weinstein.”

  He calls me back quickly, anger in his voice seeping through politeness. “Mr. Rostin? Why are you calling me?”

  “Mr. Morton, I’d like to talk to you. How about lunch today?”

  “I already have plans. What do you want, and why did you mention Anya?”

  “I have no intention of blackmailing you.” I figure mentioning the word will make him more amenable. “I just need some first-hand information about the Russian financial markets in the 1990s.”

  He breathes into the microphone, considers his predicament, decides to play along. “I can meet you next week.”

  “I am afraid it must be today, I have to leave for Moscow.”

  We arrange to meet at a coffee shop two blocks from his bank.

  My phone rings. A smooth, confident, friendly voice, speaking in an accented English. “It’s Mark Bezginovich. Mr. Rostin, you were looking for me?”

  “Yes, I was. If you have time, I wanted to ask a couple of questions,” I say neutrally, not sure if there is a connection between him and my father.

  Bezginovich clears this up immediately. “I was wondering when I would hear from you, Pavel. I am sorry about your father.”

  “Why did you think you were going to hear from me?”

  “Don’t play mind games with me, Pavel.” Bezginovich sounds more weary than irritated. “We both lost loved ones.”

  This stings, because he must have truly cared about his sister, while I thought of my father as a cold-blooded bastard.

  “OK,” I concede. “Can we talk?”

  “I’d rather not. It’ll be best for both of us to leave this behind.” But he does not hang up.

  I rush with, “Mark, please. I just want to know what my father worked on. I am not trying to reopen anything.”

  Hesitation on the other end, then “OK, but don’t expect much and not on the phone. We can talk in person. Call me when you are in Moscow. Write down the number.”

  I look up what I can find on Greg Voron. A degree from Moscow State University, but after I was already gone. Not a whole lot about his early years. A puff piece in the New York Finance magazine informs me about Greg’s tastes in pets, music, literature, colors and more. I wondered whether the magazine had a matchmaking business on the side, because that’s what the article feels like, a matchmaking agency profile. I glanced at the history of the Eastern Cottonwood private equity fund, the list of acquisitions includes a building materials manufacturer, a company making home security systems, a subprime mortgage lender, a mid-size bank, and more. His recipe is to shake up the management, bring in the latest technology and financial tools, aggressively acquire market share. All the usual buzzwords.

  I play a hunch and call detective Sal Rozen in Santa Barbara. “Sal, the home security system in Brockton’s house, was it made by…” I consult the list, “Hardrock Security Company?”

  “Hold on,” says Sal, “let me check.” He disappears for a few minutes, then comes back on the line: “It was installed by a local company, but the equipment was from Hardrock Security.”

  “When was it installed?”

  “Let me see…about two months prior to the murder. We questioned the installer because of the rear camera malfunction, he said Hardrock Security really dropped their prices and advertised very heavily in our area at the time. Do you want to tell me what this is about?”

  “Probably just a coincidence.”

  “Sure,” says Sal, “a coincidence.”

  That’s a second intersection between different strands in my diagram. I print out a page with Voron’s picture.

  Jim Morton is already waiting for me, looking a bit worse than his picture on the company’s web page. I introduce myself. Jim responds with, “I looked you up; I now understand how you know Anya.” I keep silent, so he continues, his eyes not focused on me. “So, about me and Anya…it’s really complicated…”

  I raise my hand to stop him. “I am not here to ask questions about Anya or David. I am interested in John Brockton. You must have known him when he was in Moscow.”

  Morton’s eyes widen in shock. “Yes, of course I knew him. What does that have to do with Anya or David?”

  “Absolutely nothing. I need to know who Brockton worked with in Moscow.”

  “Why do you think I know anything?” Morton hesitates – and that tells me he knows something.

  “Let’s not take this conversation to the place neither of us wants it to go,” I look to the side, then back at Morton.

  Morton chews his lip. “We all suspected that the wonder boy Brockton ran a Ponzi scheme, so I was not too sorry to hear he paid for it. I know he worked with Avtotorgoviy Securities, run by two brothers that hustled in Moscow during that time. They were meeting a lot, the brothers joined him during parties.”

  “Do you know how to get in touch with them?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “What about their names?”

  “I am sorry, I don’t remember.”

  Back at home, I search for Avtotorgoviy Securities. A few small hits from the 1990s, nothing since 1998. Nothing about the brothers or their names.

  I update the notepad, adding Voron and Avtotorgoviy. All my leads are in Russia. Yakov was right when he said that I’ll be back soon. Truth be told, I am scared to go back. But I don’t see another choice. Too many questions, I can’t figure out how the pieces of this puzzle fit together. I have to find out.

  I call Sarah to tell her I’ll be heading back to Moscow and to see if she wants to meet for dinner. She thinks for a minute, then says quietly, “No, I’ll wait until you are back…if you are back.”

 

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