'This is when we miss the vodka,' Stas said.
Rikki fell into a trough of silence.
Arkady asked, 'Tell me, when you broadcast to Georgia, do you often think of your mother and your daughter?'
Rikki said, 'Of course. Who do you think invited them here? I'm just surprised they came. And I'm surprised who they're turning out to be.'
'Having a loved one come sounds like a combination of reincarnation and hell,' Arkady said.
'Like that, yes.' Rikki lifted his eyes to the clock on the wall. 'I have to go. Stas, cover for me, please. Write something, whatever you want. You're a lovely man.' He heaved himself up and plodded tragically towards the door.
' "A lovely man",' Stas muttered. 'He'll go back. Half the people here will go back to Tbilisi, Moscow, Leningrad. What's crazy is that we, of all people, know better. We're the ones who tell the truth. But we're Russian, so we like lies too. Right now we're in a state of special confusion. We had a head of the Russian section, very competent, highly intelligent. He was a defector like me. About ten months ago he went back to Moscow. Not just to visit; he re-defected. A month later, he's a spokesman for Moscow appearing on American television, saying how democracy is alive and well, the Party is a friend of the market economy, the KGB is a guarantor of social stability. He's good; he should be, he learned here. He makes such a believable case that people at the station wonder: are we performing a real service or are we fossils of the Cold War? Why don't we all march home to Moscow?'
'Do you believe him?' Arkady asked.
'No. All I have to do is look at someone like you and ask, "Why is this man running?" '
Arkady left the question in the air. He said, 'I thought I was going to see Irina.'
Stas pointed to the lit red lamp above the door and ushered Arkady into a control booth. An engineer with a headset sat at the faint illumination of his console; otherwise, the booth was silent and dark. Arkady sat at the back, below the turning reels of a tape recorder. Needles danced on volume meters.
On the other side of soundproof glass, Irina was at a padded, hexagonal table with a central microphone and overhead light. Across from her sat a man in an intellectual's black sweater. Saliva sprayed like stoker's sweat when he talked. He joked, laughing at his own humour. Arkady wondered what he was saying.
Irina's head was slightly to one side, the pose of a good listener. Her eyes, in shadow, showed as deep-set reflections. Her lips, slightly open, held the promise of a smile, if not the smile itself.
It was not a flattering light. The man's forehead bunched in muscles, his eyebrows two hedgerows over the pits of his eyes. But the light flowed over Irina's even features and outlined in gold the corona of her cheek, her loose strands of hair, her arm. Arkady remembered the faint blue line that used to be under her right eye, a result of interrogation; the mark was gone now and she seemed flawless. An ashtray and a glass of water stood in front of her and the subject of her interview.
She said a few words and the effect was like blowing on coals. At once the man became even more animated, waving his hands like an axe.
Stas leaned across the console and turned on the sound.
'That's my point exactly!' the man in the sweater burst out. 'Intelligence agencies are always drawing psychological profiles of national leaders. It's even more necessary to understand the psychology of the people themselves. This has always been the province of psychology.'
'Could you give us an example?' Irina asked.
'Easily! The father of Russian psychology was Pavlov. He's best known to the world for his experiments with associative reflexes, particularly his work with dogs, accustoming them to associate their dinner with the ringing of a bell, so after a time they began to salivate just at the sound of the bell.'
'What do dogs have to do with national psychology?'
'Just this. Pavlov reported that there were some individual dogs that he could not train to salivate at the sound of the bell; in fact, he could not train them at all. He called them atavistic, throwbacks to their wolf ancestors. They were useless in the laboratory.'
'You're still talking about dogs.'
'Wait. Then Pavlov expanded. He called that atavistic trait a "reflex of freedom". He said that "reflex of freedom" existed in human populations the same as in dogs, but to different degrees. In Western societies the "reflex of freedom" was pronounced. In Russian society, however, he said there was a dominant "reflex of obedience". This was not a moral judgment, only a scientific observation. And since the October Revolution and seventy years of Communism, you can imagine how complete that "reflex of obedience" has become. So I'm simply saying that our expectations of any genuine democracy should be realistic.'
'Define realistic ' Irina said.
'Low.' He exuded the satisfaction of a man describing the death of a reprobate.
The engineer broke in from the booth.
'Irina, we get feedback when the professor gets close to the microphone. I'm going to play the tape back. Take a break.'
Arkady expected to hear the conversation over again, but the engineer listened on his headset as sound continued to feed into the booth from the studio.
Irina opened a bag for a cigarette and the professor almost jumped the table to light it. As she shifted, her hair swayed, revealing the glint of an earring. The blue cashmere top was more elegant than anything Arkady would have thought she would wear in a radio station. When she thanked her guest with her eyes he seemed content to squirm in them forever.
'That's a little harsh, don't you think? Comparing Russians with dogs?' she asked.
The professor folded his arms, still wrapped in self-satisfaction. 'No. Think about it logically. Those individuals who wouldn't obey were all killed or left long ago.'
Arkady saw contempt in her eyes, like the dilation of a flame. Or perhaps he was mistaken, because she responded with more amiable small talk. 'I know what you mean,' she said. 'There's a different type leaving Moscow now.'
'Precisely! The people who are coming today are the families who were left behind. They're stragglers, not leaders. This is not a moral judgement, merely an analysis of characteristics.'
Irina said, 'Not only families.'
'No, no. Former colleagues I haven't seen for twenty years are popping up everywhere.'
'Friends.'
'Friends?' It was a category he hadn't considered.
Smoke had collected at the light and turned it into a tactile nimbus around Irina. It was her contrast that was arresting. A mask with full mouth and eyes, dark hair cut severely but gently touching her shoulders. She glowed like ice.
Irina said, 'It can be embarrassing. They're decent people and it's so important to them to see you.'
The professor hunched forward, eager to commiserate. 'You're the only one they know.'
Irina said, 'You don't want to hurt them, but their expectations are fantasies.'
'They've lived in a state of unreality.'
'They've thought about you every day, but the fact is that too much time has gone by. You haven't thought of them for years,' Irina said.
'You've lived a different life, in a different world.'
'They want to pick up where you left off,' Irina said.
'They'd smother you.'
'They mean well.'
'They'd take over your life.'
'And who knows anymore where you left off?' Irina said. 'Whatever it was is dead.'
'You have to be friendly but stern.'
'It's like seeing a ghost.'
'Threatening?'
'More pathetic than threatening,' Irina said. 'You just have to wonder, after all this time, why do they come?'
'If they listen to you on the radio, I can just imagine the fantasies.'
'You don't want to be cruel.'
'You're not,' the professor assured her.
'It just seems... it seems to me that they actually would be happier if they stayed in Moscow with their dreams.'
'Irina?' the sound
engineer said. 'Let's re-tape the last two minutes. Please remind the professor not to get close to the microphone.'
The professor blinked, trying to look into the booth. 'Understood,' he said.
Irina twisted her cigarette into the ashtray. She took a drink of water, long fingers around the silvery glass. Red lips, white teeth. Cigarette bright as a broken bone.
The interview started again at Pavlov.
Shamefaced, Arkady sank as far into his chair and as deep into shadow as he could go. If shadow were water he would have drowned happily.
Chapter Nineteen
* * *
The phone in the booth rang exactly at five.
'Federov here,' Arkady said.
'This is Schiller at the Bayern-Franconia Bank. We spoke this morning. You had some questions about a firm called TransKom Services.'
'Thank you for calling back.'
'There is no TransKom in Munich. No local bank knows it. I spoke to several state offices and no TransKom is registered in Bavaria for workers' insurance.'
'It sounds as though you've been thorough,' Arkady said.
'I think I've done all your work for you.'
'What about Boris Benz?'
'Herr Federov, this is a free country. It is difficult to investigate a private citizen.'
'Is he an employee of Bayern-Franconia?'
'No.'
'Does he have a bank account with you?'
'No, but even if he did, there are safeguards of depositor confidentiality.'
'Does he have a police record?' Arkady asked.
'I've told you everything I can.'
'Someone who misrepresents an association with a bank has probably done so more than once. He could be a professional criminal.'
'There are professional criminals even in Germany. I have no idea whether Benz is one. You told me yourself that you might have misunderstood what he said.'
'But now the name of the Bayern-Franconia Bank is in the consulate reports,' Arkady said. 'Remove it.'
'It's not that simple. With such a major contract, there's sure to be an investigation.'
'That sounds like your problem.'
'Apparently Benz showed documents from Bayern-Franconia describing the bank's financial commitment. He took the papers with him, but Moscow will want to know why the bank is pulling out now.'
The voice on the other end spoke as distinctly as possible. 'There was no commitment.'
'Moscow will wonder why Bayern-Franconia isn't more interested in Benz. If the bank is being unfairly implicated by a criminal, why isn't it more cooperative about finding him?' Arkady asked.
'We've cooperated with everything.' Schiller sounded convincing, except there was that letter from him to Benz.
'Then you don't mind if we send a man over to see you?'
'Send him. Please. Just so we can get this over with.'
'His name is Renko.'
The third floor of the Soviet consulate was filled with women in such intricately embroidered blouses and full, brightly striped skirts that they looked like Easter eggs rolled pell-mell into the hall. Since each held a bouquet of roses, negotiating the corridor involved force and apologies.
Federov's desk stood among pails of water. He looked up from a stack of visas with a snarl that announced he had already fulfilled his day's quota of diplomacy. 'What the devil are you doing here?'
'Nice,' Arkady said. The office was small and windowless, the furniture modern and slightly miniature. Perhaps the occupant faced a subtle, nightmarish sense of growing larger every time he went to work. And getting wetter. A damp spot on the carpet showed where one pail had been kicked over. Arkady noted the dampness of Federov's trousers and sleeves, pink petals on Federov's lapel and the way Federov's tie had become not looser but tighter and twisted to one side. 'Like a florist's shop.'
'If we want to talk to you, we'll visit you. Don't come here.'
Besides the passports, the desk top bore sheets of consulate stationery, a pen-and-pencil set and a brace of telephones, all new and shiny as a start-up kit.
'I want my passport,' Arkady said.
'Renko, you're wasting your time. First of all, Platonov has your passport, not me. Second, the vice-consul is going to keep it until you get on the plane for Moscow, which will be tomorrow if all goes well.'
'Maybe I could make myself useful. It looks like you have your hands full.' Arkady nodded towards the hall.
'The Minsk Folkloric Chorus? We asked for ten, they sent thirty. They're going to have to sleep stacked like blini. I'll try to help them, but if they insist on tripling their visas they're going to have to suffer.'
'That's what a consulate is for,' Arkady said. 'Maybe I can help.'
Federov took a deep breath. 'No. I think you're about the last person I would choose as my assistant.'
'Maybe we could get together tomorrow, have lunch or tea, even dinner?'
'I'm on the run tomorrow. Delegation of Ukrainian Catholics in the morning, lunch with the Folkloric Chorus, catch up with the Catholics at the Frauenkirche in the afternoon, and an evening revival of Bertolt Brecht. Full up. Anyway, you'll probably be flying home by then. Now, if you don't mind, I'm really busy. If you want to do me a favour, don't come back.'
'Could I at least make a call?'
'No.'
Arkady reached for the phone. 'The lines to Moscow are always busy. Maybe I could get through from here.'
'No.'
Arkady picked up the receiver. 'It'll be quick.'
'No.'
As Federov grabbed the receiver, Arkady let go and the consular attaché stumbled backwards, tipping over another pail of water. Arkady tried from the wrong side of the desk to catch him; instead, he swept all the passports from the desk top. Red booklets landed on the carpet, in puddles, in pails.
'You idiot!' Federov said. He scrambled around the pails to pick up passports before they sank. Arkady used handfuls of stationery to soak water from the carpet.
'That's useless,' Federov said.
'I'm trying to help.'
Federov blotted passports on his shirt. 'Don't help me. Just go.' A thought occurred to him as palpably as the squeal of a brake. 'Wait!' Eyes on Arkady, he gathered all the passports on to his desk. Breathing hard, he counted them out carefully not once but twice, and checked to be positive the contents were, even if damp, still intact. 'Okay. You can go.'
'I'm very sorry,' Arkady said.
'Just leave.'
'On the way out, should I warn people below about the water?'
'No. Don't talk to anyone.'
Arkady regarded the overturned pails, the flood plain of the carpet. 'It's a shame, such a new office.'
'Yes. Goodbye, Renko.'
The door opened and a woman crowned by a felt hat draped with pearls peeped in. 'Dear Gennady Ivanovich, what are you doing? When do we eat?'
'In a second,' Federov said.
'We haven't eaten since Minsk,' she said.
She took a brave position inside the door and other folkloric singers followed. As they flowed into the room, Arkady went in the opposite direction, squeezing past skirts and ribbons, dodging thorns.
In a Polish secondhand shop west of the train station, Arkady found a manual typewriter with spindly type bars, shabby plastic case and Cyrillic characters. He turned it over. On the base was a stencilled military number.
'Red Army,' the shop owner said. 'They're getting out of East Germany and what the bastards don't want to take, they sell. They'd sell the tanks if they could.'
'May I try it?'
'Go ahead.' The shop owner was already moving to greet a better-dressed, more likely customer.
From his jacket Arkady took folded stationery and rolled a page into the machine. The paper was from Federov's desk. At the top was the embossed letterhead of the Soviet consulate, complete with hammer and sickle set in golden sheaves of grain. Arkady had considered trying to write in German, but he didn't trust his grasp of barbed Gothic letters. Besides
, for a certain roundness of style, only Russian would do.
He wrote:
Dear Herr Schiller,
This note is to introduce A. K. Renko, a senior investigator from the Moscow Prosecutor's Office. Renko has been assigned to enquire into questions concerning a proposed joint venture between certain Soviet entities and the German firm TransKom Services, and in particular the statements of its representative, Herr Boris Benz. Since the activities of TransKom and Benz may reflect badly on both the Soviet government and the Bayern-Franconia Bank, I hope we share a mutual interest in resolving this matter as rapidly and quietly as possible.
With every good wish, G. I. Federov.
The close sounded grandly Federovian to Arkady. He pulled the sheet out and signed it with a flourish.
'So it works?' the shop owner called.
'Amazing, isn't it?' Arkady said.
'I can give you a good price. An excellent price.'
Arkady shook his head. The truth was, he couldn't afford anything. 'Do you have many buyers for a Russian typewriter?'
The owner had to laugh.
The lights were still out in the Benz flat. At nine p.m., Arkady gave up. With a little planning, half his route back lay through parks: Englischer Garten, Finanzgarten, Hofgarten, Botanischer Garten. He wondered if this was the solace of rabbits – the whispered tread of paths, the soft arms of trees, the balm of shadows. From time to time, he stopped in the dark to listen. A student would wander by, nose in a book, hurrying to the light of the next lamp. Or a jogger at a serious, slow-motion pace. He heard no footsteps that stopped abruptly. It was as if when he had left Moscow he had stepped off the edge of the world. He had disappeared. He was in free fall. Who needed to follow?
He emerged from the Botanical Garden a block from the train station. He was crossing the street to check the videotape in the station locker when he saw pedestrians scatter from a car making an illegal U-turn. The civil outcry was so great that he didn't see the car itself. He stayed on the boulevard's central island and hurried past the station and along the switching yard. It was not an example of good survival planning to be surrounded by a wide boulevard with fast-moving traffic. The approaching street was Seidlstrasse, with his room and, farther on, the Soviet consulate. As tyres slowed behind him he turned to face a familiar, dishevelled Mercedes. At the wheel was Stas.
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