“Ask him if he saw Commissar Rutkin killed last week,” Rostnikov said.
“Time doesn’t mean anything to an Evenk,” Galich said. “I can ask him if he saw someone killed in town but to an Evenk a week ago is like ten years ago. It is the past and the past merges. They think the past, present and future are the same.”
“Ask him, please.”
While the shaman mixed and then poured his concoction into a tea cup, he answered questions Rostnikov put to him through the former priest and discovered that the shaman had, indeed, seen the death of the man from the West, that he had been murdered, that the murder had been done by a man and not a demon.
“Ask him if he knows who the man is, could recognize the man,” Rostnikov said.
The shaman was holding Mirasnikov’s head up and urging him with grunts and words to finish the cool brew. Mirasnikov, eyes closed, was drinking and gurgling. He opened his eyes, saw Kurmu and closed them again. A thin line of the dark liquid trickled out of the corner of the old man’s mouth but most of it got into him.
Galich spoke and Kurmu, concentrating on his task, getting the last of the cup’s contents into the old man, said something quickly, and nodded at Galich.
“My God. He says the man who killed the other man is the one with the black bag, the white shaman,” said Galich.
The shaman slowly let Mirasnikov’s head back onto the thin, moist pillow. Then he stood, looked around the room, saw what he wanted and moved to a shelf against the wall where he pulled down a jar half full of dry beans. He emptied the beans into a bowl on a lower shelf and brought the jar back to the bed where he began to fill it with the remainder of the liquid he had mixed. While he poured, he spoke.
“He says the old woman should give him a full glass every water cycle which means, approximately, three times a day till it runs out.”
“Tell him we will see that it is done,” said Rostnikov.
The information was passed on and the shaman reached into his sack and pulled out a small, very old red leather bag. With his ginseng root in one hand and the sack in the other, he walked up to Rostnikov.
“What does he want?” Rostnikov asked looking into the shaman’s unemotional face.
“I don’t know,” said Galich.
Kurmu held up the ginseng root and nodded at it. Rostnikov reached up to touch the root and found it warm, almost hot to the touch.
“Hot?” asked Galich. “Not surprising. Hot ginseng roots have been reported for hundreds of years. Some think it’s some kind of natural radiation.”
Kurmu spoke softly, directly to Rostnikov, holding out the small sack.
“I didn’t hear him,” said Galich.
Rostnikov took the small sack, which contained something light that shifted like sand or grain, and pointed at Mirasnikov. The shaman shook his head no and pointed west. West, Rostnikov thought, toward Moscow. Porfiry Petrovich placed the red sack in his pocket and nodded his thanks. Kurmu smiled and looked over at Galich.
“So, Inspector,” Galich said with a massive yawn. “Your killer appears to be Dr. Samsonov, which should come as no great surprise. You’ve seen his temper. Rutkin must have come to a conclusion about his daughter’s death that he found unacceptable. Who knows? Samsonov certainly was bitter at Rutkin, at the entire Soviet system. In that, as you know, I am not in great disagreement.”
Kurmu turned, moved back to the bed and began packing.
“And my only witness is an Evenk shaman who speaks no English and doesn’t believe in time. What does he think about space?”
Galich smiled and said something to the shaman who was bending over his sack, back turned when he answered.
“It and time are endless, he said,” Galich translated. “And there is no point to thinking about it.”
The Evenk finished his packing, threw the sack over his shoulder and turned to Rostnikov, pointing at the jar of dark liquid. Rostnikov nodded and Kurmu headed for the door.
“I hope you’re not going to stop him from going,” said Galich. “I certainly won’t help you.”
“I’m not going to stop him,” said Rostnikov. “I’m going to have Emil Karpo arrest Dr. Samsonov. I’m going to tell Mirasnikov’s wife to give him the brew in that jar, and I am going to get a few hours of sleep.”
At the door, Kurmu said something and left without looking back.
“What did he say?” asked Rostnikov.
“He said that we should tell Mirasnikov when he awakens that there is no longer a need for demons, that there has been no need for demons since the whites came across the mountains and brought their own demons within their soul.”
“Religious philosophy,” said Rostnikov.
“Of the highest order,” Galich agreed. “Of the very highest order.”
When Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov awakened from his few hours of sleep, he was very hungry. He had slept on top of his bedding in his clothes, taking off only his boots. And now he awoke ravenous. He massaged his left leg into feeling, considered taking one of the pills Samsonov had given him and made his way past Karpo and Sokolov’s doors and down the stairs.
It was in the dining room, after he had gathered a bowl of cold soup and a half loaf of bread, that he found himself facing a quivering Sokolov who stood in his unbuttoned coat, his fingers clutching his hat. Sokolov’s mustache was drooping slightly on the left side.
“Comrade Inspector,” Sokolov said, his voice barely under control. “I have been informed that you have asked the commander of the weather station to allow no phone calls out of Tumsk.”
“You understand correctly, Comrade,” Rostnikov said putting his food on the table and sitting. “Join me.”
“I’m not hungry,” Sokolov said. “I am angry. You have arrested Samsonov, announced a public hearing this afternoon, informed me of nothing. Your actions are not those of an investigator but of a jailer.”
“A situation not unheard of in Siberia,” said Rostnikov dipping a torn piece of bread into the soup and taking a bite. The potato soup wasn’t as good as Sarah’s but it was better than just acceptable. The thought of Sarah brought him abruptly back to the small dining room in Siberia.
“You do not have the authority,” Sokolov hissed. “I wish to call the Procurator General’s Office in Moscow. I doubt that the government wishes to arrest Samsonov. I was under the impression that we were sent here to placate Samsonov, reassure him about his daughter’s death before he left the country. You are threatening … threatening glasnost.”
Rostnikov paused in his eating to look at Sokolov.
“Glasnost?”
“Better relations with the West,” Sokolov said impatiently.
“A very good idea,” Rostnikov agreed, putting the bread aside to get at the soup with the spoon he had brought from the kitchen.
“Then let Samsonov go,” shouted Sokolov.
“Even if he killed Commissar Rutkin?” asked Rostnikov.
“You have no evidence that he committed the murder.”
“A man named Kurmu is reported to have seen the murder and identified Samsonov as the killer,” said Rostnikov.
“Kurmu. Kurmu. Galich says he’s a native medicine man,” Sokolov shouted, pounding on the table. The bowl in front of Rostnikov rattled and a bit of soup splattered onto the table.
“Comrade, I was under the impression that you were here to observe my investigative methods, not to ruin my humble meals. And I thought I was here to find the person responsible for the death of Commissar Rutkin.”
“It is not that simple,” Sokolov said, making a fist for another assault on the table.
His hand started down but was intercepted by Rostnikov’s fingers which caught the fist as if it were a falling ball. Rostnikov had a spoon full of soup in his other hand. Not a drop spilled.
“No,” said Rostnikov releasing Sokolov’s fist. The investigator for the Deputy Procurator staggered back holding his aching fist.
“You attacked me,” he shouted. “As God is my witne
ss, you attacked me,”
“God is not considered a very reliable witness in a Soviet court, Comrade,” said Rostnikov. “And I’m rather surprised that you, an officer of the court, would invoke the name of God. I might have to put that in my reports, though it is an invocation I encounter with surprising frequency.”
With a combination of fear and face-saving front, Sokolov pulled himself together as he backed toward the door and muttered that things would be quite different when they returned to Moscow.
“Let us hope so, Comrade,” Rostnikov said, finishing the last of his soup by scouring his bowl with the remainder of the loaf of bread. “I’ll be over at the People’s Hall for the hearing as soon as I get my boots on.”
The killer paced back and forth across the room glancing from time to time at the window, trying to decide what to do. The hearing had been a disaster.
The People’s Hall had been set up by Famfanoff complete with chairs and a table behind which Rostnikov could sit like a judge conducting the hearing. To the left of Rostnikov the man from the Procurator’s Office, Sokolov, sat brooding throughout, his hands folded except when his left hand moved up to stroke his mustache. To the right of Rostnikov sat the ghost, the pale unblinking creature with the straight back who examined everyone, seemed to register everything. They looked like a comic version of the jury in the Pudovkin movie, Mother.
Famfanoff had served as warder of the court, hovering warningly over those who might shout, giving stern looks to those who coughed or whispered.
Samsonov had protested, shouted, screamed, claimed that he was being railroaded to cover his daughter’s murder. He had shouted that the western press would be incensed, that glasnost would be dealt a serious blow.
Rostnikov had sat there without the slightest hint of emotion, his eyes focused far off, though they occasionally scanned the faces in the hall and fell frequently on that of the killer.
When Rostnikov repeated that the primary evidence against Samsonov was the testimony of an Evenk shaman, Samsonov had to be restrained by Famfanoff who, surprisingly, found enough strength within his abused body to control the furious doctor.
The entire hearing had lasted no more than an hour. There were no speeches and very little evidence.
The hearing had closed with Rostnikov’s announcement that he was holding Samsonov for removal to Moscow for possible prosecution, that Famfanoff would keep the doctor under guard in a spare room volunteered by the commanding officer of the weather station. He further announced that no phone calls would be permitted for the next twenty-four hours.
The situation was a disaster. The killer’s mission would be ruined if Samsonov were brought to Moscow, tried and convicted or even refused the right to leave the country. The ultimate irony of the situation was that the killer knew Samsonov to be completely innocent of the crime.
Something had to be done and very quickly.
TWELVE
BY THE END OF THE day Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov would hear two confessions, watch someone die, conspire against the government and nearly meet his death for the second time since his arrival in Tumsk. At the moment, however, he stood over the bed of Sergei Mirasnikov who drank the dark liquid Kurmu had left for him.
Liana Mirasnikov held the cup in her shaking hands and the old man, who was already looking much better, complained constantly that she was trying to drown him.
“How are you feeling, Sergei Mirasnikov?” Rostnikov asked.
“Hungry,” gurgled the old man. “Hungry and stiff in the arms.”
“Good signs,” said Rostnikov.
“Good signs,” repeated Mirasnikov sarcastically after another sip from the cup. “If I died you would feel guilty the rest of your life because I got shot instead of you. So you feel relieved because it looks like I might live. Am I right or am I right?”
“You are right,” Rostnikov agreed.
That seemed to satisfy the old man who finished off the last of the drink and gave his wife an angry look as if the taste of the liquid were her doing. She shuffled away silently and Mirasnikov, who was no longer perspiring, looked up at the Inspector.
“I’m sick but I’m not deaf,” the old man said. “I heard things that happened. I remember seeing Kurmu.”
“He didn’t command a demon to kill Commissar Rutkin,” said Rostnikov.
“I know that,” said Mirasnikov irritably, and then he called to his wife, “Food. I need food, old creature.” And then to Rostnikov again. “And I know that Dr. Samsonov didn’t kill him either. How do you like that?”
“I am aware of that too,” said Rostnikov.
“You are … All right. All right. Lean over here and I’ll tell you something you didn’t know. I’ll tell you who your killer of Commissars is,” croaked Mirasnikov.
And so Inspector Rostnikov leaned forward, smelling the bitter warmth of the brew on Mirasnikov’s breath, and listened to the old man’s whispered information, information which did not surprise him in the least.
“So, what are you going to do?” Mirasnikov said when Rostnikov stood up. “Go. Go make your arrest. End this. Get out of my town. It may be a frozen hell here in the long winter and a bog of insects in the short summer, but no one tries to kill me when you are not around.”
“We will be going soon,” said Rostnikov. “Very soon.”
The old woman came hurrying back with two plates of food, small pieces of meat cooked soft, potatoes, beans.
“Well,” grumbled Mirasnikov. “You might as well eat something before you go. Sit down.”
So Rostnikov sat and thought and ate. Immediately after the hearing, Ludmilla Samsonov, her eyes moist, holding back tears, had asked Rostnikov to please let her speak to him as soon as possible. Rostnikov had nodded his agreement uncomfortably knowing that the woman would probably plead for her husband.
The first confession of the day came when Rostnikov returned to his room an hour later after hearing Mirasnikov’s accusation. Karpo was busily preparing reports in his room. Sokolov was off somewhere, probably, thought Rostnikov, trying to talk the naval officer into letting him use the phone.
Rostnikov wasn’t surprised to find General Krasnikov standing at the window in full uniform, his coat neatly draped over his left arm.
“I’ve come to confess,” the general said.
“Please take a seat, General,” said Rostnikov who had left his coat, hat and boots inside the downstairs door. “I’ll sit on the bed.”
“I’d prefer to stand,” Krasnikov said.
“So I have noticed,” said Rostnikov sitting on the bed, feeling the twinge in his leg.
“I killed Commissar Rutkin,” the general said.
“Yes.”
“That is all. I killed him.”
“Would you tell me why you killed him?” Rostnikov asked reaching for the pillow and hugging it to his chest.
“He was an insulting, meddling bureaucrat,” said Krasnikov.
“If we were to murder all the insulting, meddling bureaucrats in the Soviet Union, we would have to issue new incentives for women to replenish the depleted population,” Rostnikov said.
“I killed him. This is a confession and I demand that you release Samsonov immediately,” the general insisted.
“Would you still confess if I said that we would confiscate all of your property immediately and search through Samsonov’s possessions the moment you were arrested?” asked Rostnikov. “Would you like some tea? Everyone in Tumsk has been filling me with tea for two days. I’d like the opportunity to return the favor.”
“No tea,” said Krasnikov. “Arrest me. I demand, as a Soviet citizen, to be arrested for murder.”
“You did not kill Commissar Rutkin,” said Rostnikov, leaning over to scratch the bottoms of his feet through his thick wool socks. “I know who killed Rutkin.”
Krasnikov paused, looked at the man on the bed scratching his feet and said, “I don’t believe you.”
Rostnikov shrugged.
“Nonet
heless, I know, and the killer is not you.”
He stopped scratching, started rubbing, and went on.
“I admire your patriotism and conviction, however, Comrade General. To be willing to spend one’s life in prison or possibly to be executed for one’s beliefs is indeed admirable. One might guess, and mind you I am not doing so, that somewhere among the belongings of Lev or Ludmilla Samsonov is a manuscript, and that a military man who wrote that manuscript would do a great deal to get that manuscript carried to the West among the belongings of a notable dissident whose belongings are not likely to be searched carefully by a government wishing to let him leave as a sign of conciliation with the West. Does that not make sense?”
“Perhaps,” agreed Krasnikov.
“In what form would you guess this manuscript would appear? I know it does not exist but if it did?” Rostnikov asked leaning back against the wall.
Krasnikov looked out the window, bit his lower lip and paced the small room once, from the window to the wall and back to the window where he turned to Rostnikov who looked up at him attentively.
“You have a son in Afghanistan?”
“I have.”
“And you agree that the military operation there is improper for political, economic and humanitarian reasons?”
“I do,” said Rostnikov.
“I am concerned primarily with the military error,” Krasnikov said, looking as if he were about to resume pacing. “If I were to try to have a manuscript-length work carried out of the country by a departing citizen, a citizen who might not want to carry such a document, I would go through the painstaking process of actually printing one copy of the manuscript in book form and have it covered, bound and titled, probably giving it a title which an airport inspector or even a KGB officer would be likely to ignore.”
“Printing one copy of a book would be most difficult, require special printing equipment, binding equipment,” said Rostnikov, his eyes never leaving his visitor.
“It would probably take a year to do using crude equipment,” said Krasnikov.
“And the idea would be that instead of hiding the manuscript, one disguises it and puts it in plain sight,” said Rostnikov. “Clever.”
A Cold Red Sunrise Page 18