Death of a Dissident

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Something approaching a smile touched Sasha Tkach’s mouth and he brushed back his hair.

  “I haven’t given you a reprieve,” said Rostnikov, rubbing his leg, “only a minor task. Please do it.”

  Gas is not easy to get in Moscow, which is one of the reasons so few Muscovites own automobiles. But there are many other reasons. Automobiles are very expensive and the laws governing their use are many. But the worst thing about owning an automobile in Moscow is the repairs. There are less than a dozen shops in Moscow authorized to repair automobiles. Working in these shops are mechanics who frequently resent the fact that they must work on these automobiles without any prospect of ever owning one themselves. Parts are difficult to get and repair work is usually done quickly and badly. The mechanics get paid the same for good or bad work, and the customers really have no choice.

  Vera Alleyenovskya, a second cellist in the Bolshoi theater orchestra, was a near tireless perfectionist; her only indulgence was the automobile. Her Volga had been repaired four times in the last month only to develop the same problem anew each time. And each time she had patiently returned it for repair. The car spent more days in the shop that month than on the road. Vera Alleyenovskya was beginning to consider getting rid of the car. This thought was connected in her mind with the possibility of accepting the offer of marriage of Igor Petschensky, the tuba player. Both would involve a radical change in self-image for which she was preparing herself.

  Vera Alleyenovskya looked at herself in the rearview mirror when she got into her car, which had now been running for two days without a breakdown. Her blond hair was tied straight back, her eyes were blue, her skin clear and pale, her face a bit chunky. At moments like this, she tended to push the sale of the car and the proposal of Petschensky deep into the recesses of her mind. After all, it was one thing to deal with a tuba as part of the total sound of the Rimsky-Korsikov, but to hear the individual rehearsal might be too much in spite of Petchensky’s admirable mustache. Vera Alleyenovskya saw something else in her mirror this evening, and it was to have a profound effect on her life.

  In the mirror was the face of a young man. Vera Alleyenovskya turned quickly with a half scream.

  “No,” said the young man, showing a long, rusty scissors and glancing out of the window to see if any passerby noticed what was happening inside the parked car. Then Vera Alleyenovskya saw the young girl. The man had one arm around her, holding her mouth. The girl’s eyes were wide and frightened.

  “What do you want?” asked Vera quietly. “What are you doing in my car? With that child?”

  “I want you to turn around and start the car,” Ilyusha Malenko said. “Now. I can easily kill you and drive myself, but then I’d have to do something with little Natasha here and I don’t want anything to happen to her, not now. So drive.”

  Vera Alleyenovskya drove. She had no idea of who the young man was. Her primary source of information was the Moscow Pravda.

  “We’re cold,” said the young man, looking over her shoulder into traffic. “We’ve been sitting in here on the floor for hours. Turn on the heat.”

  “It takes a while to work,” Vera said. “Where shall I take you?”

  “Later,” he said, tapping her on the shoulder with the scissors. “Later. And don’t think clever thoughts. I am clever too, and I have grown quite used to doing what I must. There are three dead to prove it.”

  The young man sounded proud of his accomplishment. A look in the rearview mirror at both him and the girl seemed to support what should have been a confession but sounded like a boast.

  “I do not have an inexhaustable supply of petrol,” Vera said, driving through the new falling snow.

  “Later,” he growled. “How do you come to own a car?”

  “I’m a musician,” Vera explained.

  “My father owns two cars and a woman.”

  Vera had nothing to say. She nodded and drove.

  “Drive out of the city,’’ he said a few minutes later. Then to the young girl beside him. “I’m going to let you go. My hand is tired of holding you. You are to sit back in the corner and say nothing and not whimper. You understand?”

  Vera couldn’t see if the girl nodded, but she did hear a sudden gasp for air and the young girl’s lungs taking in air loudly and quickly.

  Vera drove along the highway past apartments and houses for almost an hour.

  “Turn here,” he ordered at one point, and she skidded, almost missing the road where he told her to turn. “Now drive.”

  Vera drove down the small highway for ten minutes and then the blades of the scissors clicked in the air near her cheek.

  “There, there, there up ahead, turn into that road,” said the young man.

  She turned. The road was small and unpaved; the snow was piling up quickly.

  “We can’t go far,” she said. “Too much snow. I should try to turn back.”

  “Never mind,” said the young man. “Just get out. Leave the key and get out.

  “Wait,” she tried.

  “Out,” he shouted and Vera got out.

  Her hope now was that this madman would simply abandon her and take the car. It had been a long while since they passed anything that looked like a house, and it was possible that any house she found now would not have a phone, but still it would mean safety. Her hope was short-lived. The young man stepped out of the back of the car, closing it behind him.

  “You are going to leave me here?” Vera said firmly.

  “Yes,” he said, stepping toward her in the thick snow at the side of the road.

  “Then I’ll start walking,” she said, backing away.

  The white snow now mixed into the hair of the young man and stuck to his eyebrows and face. His head was nodding slowly.

  “You’ll tell the police,” he said. “I can’t have that.”

  “Why should I tell the police?” Vera said, taking another step back and almost falling.

  “Because you would be a fool not to,” he said reasonably.

  “Now, wait…” Vera began taking a step toward Ilyusha with her hands out as if she were going to plead with him. He put his hands to his sides to let her come near, and shifted the scissors in his grip. The handle was cold and solid. He was ready, but not for what happened. Vera Alleyenovskya did not plead or beg or whimper. It was simply not in her to do so. Instead she threw her one hundred thirty pounds at the young man with her hands extended. He slid in the snow and stumbled backward against the car, and she turned to run toward a clump of fir trees about fifty yards away across an open field. She could hear him get up behind her as she moved against the resistance of the accumulated snow, and after twenty yards she knew he was coming. Twenty yards further he had narrowed the gap, and just as she was about to touch the first birch tree, she could clearly hear two things: the heavy close footsteps of the man behind her and the opening of her car door.

  She kept going, and heard the steps stop abruptly behind her. Panting, the cold air burning her lungs, she leaned against a tree and looked back. The young man was racing back across the field. Through the snow she could see the young girl standing indecisively next to the car, unsure of which way to run. She took a step back down the road and then considered going the other way. It was clear to Vera that the girl had neither the stamina nor will to get away from the young man, but she herself was now confident of survival. She took a deep, cold breath, warmed her mittened hands under her armpits and plunged through the trees.

  Ilyusha caught Natasha Granovsky no more than ten feet from the car. He had to hold her for five minutes before he could either catch his breath or speak. Only then did he force her back into the car. He drove slowly, the girl at his side, the scissors in his hand as he gripped the steering wheel. In five minutes, he could drive no further. The road was too little and the snow too much.

  “Out,” he ordered. She was wearing boots, coat, and a warm hat and he a jacket. He pulled his scarf from his neck and tied it over his head and ears.r />
  “That way,” he ordered, pointing down the road with his scissors.

  In ten minutes, the snow stopped and the moon came out. They walked. As steadily as the moon would guide him, they walked along the side of the road through the trees. Ilyusha led the way, feeling the chill patiently taking over his body. Behind him he could hear the light steps of the girl, who walked on numbly, allowing herself an occasional sob.

  In Ilyusha’s mind was a crude map almost eighteen years old. He had no idea whether he would reach his goal, or die in the snow.

  They were a pitiful sight against the sky, the one lean figure in front, a scarf around his head, and a thin figure in back, stumbling. Ilyusha was muttering and lurched forward, step after step, the scissors clinking open and closed in his hand and echoing through the trees.

  When they broke through the woods into an open field, Natasha sagged against a birch tree, and Ilyusha was forced to abandon his reverie and turn his attention to the girl.

  “I think we’re getting near,” he told her. “We’ll find a place to sleep.”

  Ilyusha led the way again for twenty minutes until they found a small, darkened farm. They crept to a low barn and crawled through a wooden door. A cow snorted and rustled, ignoring the two intruders who fell heavily against the cold stone wall.

  Ilyusha’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, and he could make out the cow, the walls, a small window, and finally the girl, who lay next to him with eyes open, afraid to sleep. She looked feverish to Ilyusha.

  “You’re sick,” he whispered.

  “Because of you,” she cried.

  “I’m doing what I must,” he said. “

  In the morning maybe I’ll milk the cow for you. Sleep. I won’t hurt you.”

  Inside Ilyusha, vying with the bloody face of the cab driver on Petro street, was the vision of himself and the girl making their way to his destination. He would steal something to eat in the morning early and get going. Ilyusha fought down the image of his wife Marie dangling in their apartment, her face…

  Suddenly, he did not want to die. He sat up quickly and looked around, afraid. The small barn threatened to grow large. He could kill the girl, that might stop the barn from growing, but then he would be alone and he did not want to be alone. The sound of the cow and the steady breathing of the girl soothed and blanketed his thoughts. He lay back and slept but did not dream.

  With first light, the barn door flew open and so did Ilyusha’s eyes. The boy who looked at him was frightened, and for a moment Ilyusha did not know where he was. He had the feeling that the boy was himself eighteen years’ earlier, that he was looking at himself.

  The boy stopped and turned.

  “My name is Ilyusha,” Ilyusha shouted, and Natasha sat up suddenly. “This is my sister. Our automobile got stuck on the road last night, and we wandered in here.”

  The boy stood about a step outside, framed in the sunlight and snow. Ilyusha made no move to rise and frighten him. He tucked the scissors carefully into his pocket and kept his hand on it. The boy’s black eyes were curious and traveled from the voice in the darkness of the small bam to the safety of his own house behind him.

  “My sister is ill,” Ilyusha said softly. “We would be grateful for some water and maybe some bread.”

  The boy turned and ran into the house. Ilyusha reached down and forced the girl up. She was dazed and ill, a weight without thought.

  “Say nothing or you die,” he whispered. “You know I’ll do it.”

  Ilyusha prodded her toward the door and looked back at the cow. The cow, he could see, had some kind of growth near its udder and Ilyusha shuddered, thinking that he had considered touching and taking milk from the animal. The world was indeed rotten.

  The madman and the girl stood stiffly in the morning cold and sun. They turned to face the house and the voices inside. From the farmhouse, a one-story mud and wood building tilted slightly to the west from age, the boy and a man came out. The man held an axe. He was lean and wearing a cowhide jacket. His face was bearded and dark, and he did not squint into the sun.

  “We’re from Moscow,” Ilyusha explained. “We’re on our way to visit relatives.”

  “Come into the house,” the man said nodding his head. The little boy stepped back and allowed Ilyusha and Natasha to step in ahead of him. The lean man held tightly to his axe as he followed, watching them. The girl stumbled and Ilyusha led her to a chair where he took a position behind her.

  The room was dark in spite of the windows letting in the morning light. A bed stood in the middle of the room against the wall, and on the bed lay a thin woman looking at them. Next to the bed was a set of crutches.

  “My wife,” explained the man, putting his axe against the wall but staying near as he ordered his son to pour tea for the two young visitors. The woman on the bed did not speak or move. She watched Ilyusha for a second and then fixed her eyes on Natasha Granovsky. Then she turned to the window, where her eyes remained.

  “You can have some tea and bread,” said the man. “We haven’t much at the moment.”

  “We are grateful for whatever you can share with us, and I’m sure—”

  “Are they coming here?” the man interrupted.

  “Who?” asked Ilyusha, starting to pull out his scissor, trying to determine if he could get to the man before the man reached the axe.

  “Whoever is after you. The girl’s parents, brothers?”

  “I—” began Ilyusha.

  “When you finish, you leave,” said the man, gesturing to the boy, who hurried to refill the visitors’ cups with tea.

  They ate in silence and rose.

  Ilyusha asked the man if he was on the right road to his destination. The man replied that he was.

  “In an hour, maybe less if the road is clear, you’ll come to Nartchev Road. Take it left.”

  “We thank you,” said Ilyusha, taking the girl’s arm and leading her out the door. The boy and man remained inside. He urged the girl to hurry. When they reached the road, Ilyusha goaded her into a trot. He began to smile again. The sun was out, and he knew where he was going.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE NIGHT HAD BEEN LONG for Rostnikov and Tkach as they dozed in his office. However, Rostnikov thought, it had been a much longer night for Sonya Granovsky and her daughter—if she were still alive—and for Emil Karpo, and even for Ilyusha Malenko.

  The sun had not yet come up, but Rostnikov’s watch told him it was five in the morning. He looked at Tkach and was surprised to see the stubble of a yellow beard that made the junior inspector look even younger.

  “Let’s shave,” Rostnikov said, clearing his throat. “I have a razor in a drawer here someplace.”

  Rostnikov leaned over to open a drawer and discovered that the pain in his leg had neither gone away nor eased. He found the razor and handed it to Tkach, who took it with a nod and left the room.

  As soon as he was gone, Rostnikov picked up the phone and called his home. Sarah answered before the second ring.

  “I’m still in the office,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t tell you last night, but I have reason to believe that Iosef may be on his way back to Kiev or possibly on his way here.”

  “How could you…” she began and stopped. “I don’t care. Is it true?”

  “I think so,” he said quietly. “We’ll know soon.”

  “What did you have to do to get this information?” Sarah said with sympathy.

  “Nothing I don’t have to do every day of my life,” he said. “Now I must go back to work. I’ll let you know if anything…if I learn more.”

  “You’ll be careful, Porfiry,” she said.

  “About what?” he chuckled.

  “I don’t know,” said his wife and hung up.

  Tkach came back in five minutes, clean-shaven and bearing hot tea and hard rolls. Rostnikov ate quickly and took the razor.

  “Can I use the phone to call my wife?” he asked Rostnikov, who limped painfully to the door.
/>   “Call,” said Rostnikov.

  His leg would not bend without great pain, so he marched stiff-legged past the desks of the few junior officers who were either still on duty from the night before or had come in early. A phone rang, and Zelach picked it up about fifteen feet in front of the slow-moving Rostnikov.

  “Yes,” came the officer’s voice. “I understand. The location. Yes. Inspector.” Zelach had his hand over the mouthpiece as he called to Rostnikov. “I think we have a woman on the phone who had her car taken by Malenko.”

  Rostnikov hobbled over to the desk and grabbed the phone.

  “Yes,” he said swiftly.

  “My name is Vera Alleyanovskya, and my car was stolen last night by a mad young man with a young girl.”

  “Where did this happen and why didn’t you call us earlier?” Rostnikov said, motioning for Zelach to go to his office and get Tkach.

  “I almost died in the woods,” she explained. “Some people on a farm took me in. They had no phone.”

  “Tell me where you are, and I’ll have a man out there to pick you up immediately.”

  She told him, and Rostnikov hung up just as Tkach moved to his side.

  “Another chance, Sasha,” he said. “Take Zelach and a car and find this woman whose car was stolen. Try to follow Malenko’s trail.” Tkach nodded and motioned for Zelach to get his coat.

  What, thought Rostnikov, is Malenko doing out there? The thinking of this madman still eluded him. He headed for the washroom, to shave. He would worry later about thinking.

  By six in the morning, Emil Karpo was prepared for surgery. He lay in the preparation room next to another patient, a woman who, he heard, had a stomach cancer. They said nothing to each other. Karpo’s arm had ceased to hurt. It had no feeling at all, which allowed Karpo to channel his thoughts elsewhere.

  “Emil,” came a voice through his thoughts. He looked up at Rostnikov, whose eyes were heavy with sleeplessness.

  “Inspector,” said Karpo, his mouth surprisingly dry. He tried to lick his lips but there was no moisture. “They are going to take the arm.”