Red Square

  'You won,' Arkady said.

  Stas finished the bottle and lit a cigarette. His narrow face was wan, his eyes two bright matches. 'Won? Then why only now do I feel like an émigré? Say you leave your native land because you were forced out, or because you thought you could help more from the outside than in? Democrats of the world applaud your noble effort. But it wasn't because of any effort of mine that the Soviet Union dropped to its knees and stretched out its long neck. It was history. It was gravity. The battle isn't in Munich, it's in Moscow. History has marooned us and gone in a different direction. We don't look like heroes any more; we look like fools. Americans look at us – not Michael and Gilmartin, they're concerned about their jobs and keeping the station alive – but other Americans read headlines about what's happening in Moscow and look at us and say, "They should have stayed." It doesn't matter whether we were forced out or risked our lives or wanted to save the world; now Americans say, 'They should have stayed.' They look at someone like you and say, "See, he stayed." '

  'I didn't have a choice. I made a bargain. They'd only leave Irina alone if I stayed. Anyway, that was long ago.'

  Stas peered into his empty glass. 'If you'd had the choice, would you have left with her?'

  Arkady was silent. Stas leaned forward and waved smoke away to see him more clearly. 'Would you?'

  'I was Russian. I don't think I could have gone.'

  Stas was silent.

  Arkady added, ' My staying in Moscow certainly had no effect on history. Maybe I was the fool.'

  Stas stirred, went to the kitchen and returned with another bottle. Laika kept her attention on Arkady in case he produced a bomb, a gun or a sharpened umbrella against her master.

  'Irina had a difficult time in New York. She was in films in Moscow?' Stas asked.

  'She was actually a student until she was thrown out of the university. Then she got work at Mosfilm as a wardrobe mistress,' Arkady said.

  'In New York she did stage costumes and make-up, fell in with an artistic crowd and worked in art galleries, first there and then in Berlin, all the time defending herself from saviours. The pattern was always the same: an American would fall in love with Irina and then rationalize it as a political good deed. I think Radio Liberty must have been a relief. To give him credit, Max was the one who recognized how good she was. She wasn't a regular at first, just filling in, but he said there was a quality in her voice on the air, as if she were speaking to someone she knew. People listened. I was sceptical at first because she had no professional training. He gave me the job of teaching her how to hit her marks and watch the clock. People have no idea how fast they talk. Irina could run through a script once and almost have it memorized. With training, she was the best.'

  Stas opened the bottle. 'So there we were, Max and I, two sculptors working on the same beautiful statue. Naturally we both fell in love with Irina. We did everything together – Max, Stas and Irina. Dinners, skiing in the Alps, musical sidetrips to Salzburg. An inseparable trio, neither Max nor I ever gaining an edge on the other. I didn't actually ski. I read down in the lodge, secure in the knowledge that Max was making no romantic headway on the slopes because, in fact, our trio was really a quartet.' He poured the vodka. 'There was always that man in Irina's past. The one who saved her life and stayed, the one she was waiting for. How could anyone beat a hero like that?'

  'Maybe no one needed to. Maybe she just got tired of waiting,' Arkady said.

  They drank at the same time, like two men chained to the same oar.

  'No,' Stas said. 'I'm not talking about long ago. When Max went to Moscow last year I thought I was in command of the field. But I was outmanoeuvred to a degree I never anticipated, in a manner that only proves Max's genius. Because you see what Max did?'

  'No,' Arkady admitted.

  'Max came back. Max loved her and he came back for her. It was what I couldn't do and what you never did. Now he's the hero and I'm demoted to mere "dear friend".'

  Stas's eyes looked fuelled by vodka. Arkady wondered if he had ever actually seen the man eat. He swirled the vodka in his own glass so that it rolled around like mercury. 'What was Max before he ever came to the West?'

  'He was a film director. He defected at a film festival. Hollywood, however, was not interested in his work.'

  'What kind of films had he done?'

  'War epics, killing Germans, Japanese, Israeli terrorists – the usual. Max did have the tastes of a famous director: custom-made suits, fine wine, beautiful women.'

  'Where is he staying in Munich?' Arkady asked again.

  'I don't know. What I'm trying to say is that my last hope is you.'

  'Max has outmanoeuvred me, too.'

  'No, I know Max. He only attacks when he has to. If you weren't a threat he'd be your best friend.'

  'Not much of a threat. As far as Irina is concerned, I'm dead.' That was the word she'd used in Tommy's kitchen, like a knife she'd found on the table.

  'But did she tell you to go?'

  'No.'

  'So she hasn't really made up her mind.'

  'Irina doesn't care whether I come or go. I don't think she even sees me.'

  'Irina hasn't smoked for years. The first time she saw you she asked for a cigarette. She sees you.'

  Laika's head turned towards the balcony and she rose to her forepaws, then stood, ears sharp. Stas motioned for Arkady to be quiet, then reached for the light fixture and turned it off.

  The room was black. Outside were the percussive noises of Volkswagens and a bell chasing someone from a bike lane. Closer, Arkady heard the toeholds of rubber soles, the easing of a rail, the soft landing of a big man on to the balcony. Laika was invisible but Arkady located her by an anticipatory growl in the darkness. As a step crossed the balcony he felt the dog coil to attack.

  There was an audible intake of breath and a voice in pain. 'Stas, please! Stas!'

  Stas turned the lights on. 'Sit, Laika. Good girl, sit, sit.'

  Rikki staggered through the door. Arkady had met the Georgian actor-turned-broadcaster in the station cafeteria and at Tommy's party. Each time Rikki had appeared distraught, or at the least histrionic. Now he was again. The back of one hand was covered in spines. 'The cactus,' he moaned.

  'I rearranged them,' Stas said.

  Arkady turned on the outdoor light. Under a hanging lamp were a metal table, two chairs, a bucket of empty beer bottles and a semicircle of various potted cacti, some of them pincushions with short spines and some that resembled serrated bayonets.

  'It's an alarm system,' Stas said.

  A shock wave went through Rikki with each needle that Stas pulled out. 'Everyone else has geraniums on their balcony. I have geraniums. The geranium is a lovely flower,' he said.

  'Rikki lives upstairs.' Stas plucked the final spine.

  Red puncture marks dotted Rikki's hand. He looked at them mournfully.

  'Do you always visit this way?' Arkady asked.

  'I was trapped.' Remembering, he pulled Stas and Arkady away from the balcony. 'They're at my door.'

  'Who?' Stas asked.

  'My mother and my daughter. All these years waiting to see them and now they're here. My mother wants to take the television. My daughter wants to drive back in the car.'

  'Your car?' Stas asked.

  'Her car, once she gets to Georgia.' Rikki explained to Arkady, 'In a moment of weakness, I said she could. But I have a new BMW. What is a girl going to do with that in Georgia?'

  'Have fun,' Arkady said.

  'I knew this would happen. These people have no control. They're so greedy it makes me ashamed.' Rikki's face fell tragically.

  Stas said, 'Don't answer your door and they'll go away.'

  'Not them.' Rikki's eyes lifted to the ceiling. 'They'll wait me out.'

  'You can go down the stairs from here,' Arkady said.

  Rikki said, 'I told them to wait a minute. I can't simply disappear. I have to open the door sometime.'

  Stas asked, 'Then wh
y come here?'

  'Do you have any brandy?' Rikki examined his hand, which was already starting to swell.

  'No. Vodka,' Stas offered.

  'It will have to do.' He allowed himself to be helped to a chair and given a glass. 'This is my plan: let her take a different car.'

  Stas said, 'You picked her up at the airport. She knows your car. She loves your car.'

  'I'll say it's yours – that I borrowed it from you to impress her.'

  'Ah. And what car are you going to let her take?' Stas asked.

  'Stas.' Rikki batted his eyes. 'Stas, we're close friends. Your Mercedes is ten years old, bought used – a dog bed, if I may speak frankly. My daughter is a woman of some taste. She'll take one look at your car and will refuse to touch it. I was hoping we could trade keys.'

  Stas poured two more vodkas and said to Arkady, 'You wouldn't know it now, but Rikki once swam the Black Sea. He had a wet suit and a compass. He dived through nets and mines and swam under patrol boats. It was a heroic escape. Now here he is, hiding from his daughter.'

  'You won't trade?' Rikki asked.

  'Life has caught up with you. I think your daughter's going to make you pay for years,' Stas said. 'The car is only a beginning.'

  The vodka seemed to stick in Rikki's throat. He drew himself up with dignity, walked out to the balcony and spat over the rail. 'Damn her! And you!' he told Stas. He set the glass on the balcony table and hoisted himself up on the waterpipe that ran down the front of the building. For a man his size he was still agile. Arkady saw his legs swing to the upper balcony. As he thrashed, geranium petals rained.

  Arkady awoke on the sofa. It was two a.m. by his watch. There is no hole deeper than two in the morning, the hour when fear rules the world. Stas had avoided the question twice. Where was Max staying?

  By nature, Russians did not like hotels. Visitors stayed with friends. Other friends knew where. The idea that Max was lying alongside Irina made Arkady stare into the bluish dark of the room. He could almost see them in bed, as if it were just on the other side of the living-room table. See Max's arm locked around her; hear Max breathe the perfume of her hair.

  He lit a match. Chairs, desk and bookshelves crept out of the dark and towards the flame. He threw off his blanket. On the desk he had seen the telephone. Feeling around the top, he found a small address book. He lit another match clumsily with one hand, opened the front of the book and found 'Irina Asanova' and her number. The flame was at his fingers. He pinched it out and picked up the phone. Would he say he was sorry to wake her but they had to talk? She had already made it clear she had nothing to say to him, especially if Max was lying next to her. Arkady could warn her. How jealous and inept that would sound, with Max right there.

  Or when she answered he could ask for Max. That would let her know he was aware of how things stood. Or if she asked who was calling, he could say, 'Boris', then see how she reacted to that.

  Arkady punched her number, but when he started to lift the phone to his ear, his wrist was clamped. Damp teeth held the hand and phone down. When he made the slightest effort to raise the phone, the jaws tightened. He moved his other hand to the phone and a growl resonated through his arm.

  On the other end of the line he heard the characteristic two rings of a German phone. 'Hello?' Irina said.

  Arkady tried to wrench his arm free and the jaws closed.

  'Who is this?' Irina asked.

  The whole weight of the dog hung from his arm.

  A click was followed by a dial tone.

  As Arkady let his arm fall, the jaws relaxed. When he replaced the phone on the cradle, the teeth let go. He felt the dog waiting to make sure he left the phone alone.

  Save me, Arkady thought. Save me from myself.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  * * *

  The secret was that Stas did all his eating at breakfast: liver, smoked salmon, potato salad and pots of coffee. He also had the VCR and enormous television of an unmarried man.

  With a remote control, Arkady played the videotape. On fast forward, the television screen raced through monks, Marienplatz, beer garden, modern traffic, beer hall, swans, opera, Oktoberfest, Alps, beer garden. Stopped. He rewound to the start of the last scene. It was a sun-dappled garden in a wall of honeysuckle tended by bees. Diners sat exhausted by the effort of a heavy lunch, all but the woman at one table. He froze the frame where she raised her glass.

  'Never seen her before,' Stas said. 'What amazes me is that I've never been in this beer garden. I thought I'd been in them all.'

  The screen came back to life. The woman raised her glass higher. Blonde hair swept back almost ferociously, gold necklace bedded on black cashmere, cat-eyed sunglasses that expressed amusement, red nails and lips that promised in Russian, 'I love you.'

  Stas shook his head. 'I'd remember her.'

  'Not at Radio Liberty?' Arkady asked.

  'Hardly.'

  'Around Tommy?'

  'Possibly, but I've never met her.'

  Arkady tried a different tack. 'I'd like to see where Tommy worked.'

  'The Red Archive? The next time I try to sign you in, the guards will call Michael. I don't mind annoying him, but he'll just tell the guards not to give you a pass.'

  'Is Michael always at the station?'

  'No. Between eleven and twelve he plays tennis at the club across the street. But he takes his phone everywhere.'

  'You'll be at the station?'

  'I'll be at my desk until noon. I'm a writer. I turn the decline and fall of the Soviet Union into bite-sized words.'

  When Stas left, Arkady neatened the couch, washed the dishes and ironed the clothes that Federov had squashed into his bag the day before. Arkady's wrist was ringed with bruises, but the skin wasn't broken; Stas had seen the marks and said nothing. Every step Arkady took, from sofa to sink to ironing board, he was followed by Laika. So far, she found his behaviour acceptable.

  While he ironed, Arkady ran the tape again. As the camera panned, he realized he might be looking at a restaurant patio rather than a beer garden. There was indoor dining, though the light outside was too intense to see through the windows.

  What did he know about her? She might at one time have been a Moscow putana called Rita. She could be the globe-trotting Frau Benz. The only hard evidence of her existence was this tape. This time he noticed that her table was set for two. She had an almost theatrical presence. The gold necklace was Teutonic, but the angles of her face were distinctly Russian. Thick make-up – that was more Russian, too. He wished that just once she would take off her glasses. Slowly her lips formed a smile and said to Rudy Rosen, 'I love you.'

  Laika whined, walked towards the television set and sat again.

  Arkady rewound and froze every other frame. Backwards from her glasses. Retreat from her table. Turn from the diners. Embroidery of vines and bees. Trolley of linen, utensils, water carafes. Stucco. Honeysuckle. Window with one pane that reflected the person with the camera standing before a solid wall of green. That was another question: who took the film? A man with distinctively broad shoulders in a sweater that was red-white-and-black. Marlboro colours.

  He played it again. Motes floated in the sunlight. Bees stirred and diners came back to semi-life. The woman in the glasses repeated, 'I love you.'

  At the Luitpold garage, an elongated Mercedes with a red car phone was parked by the attendant's booth. Remembering the Arabs at the Hilton, Arkady climbed the ramp to the next level, chose a BMW that looked light on its feet and gave it a firm shove. The car woke at once with blinking lights and a sounding horn. He heaved into Mercedes, Audis, Daimlers and Maseratis until the entire level reverberated with an orchestra of alarms. When he saw the attendant come racing up the ramp, he ran down the stairs.

  In the booth were ticket punch, register, car tools and a long knife for opening locked car doors. The knife demanded patience that Arkady didn't have time for. He took a lug wrench. As he broke the window of the Mercedes, the limousine's alar
m joined the woodwinds, but in five seconds he was walking out of the garage exit with the phone.

  In Moscow, he was a senior investigator of the city prosecutor's office; here, after less than a week in the West, he was a thief. He knew he should feel guilty; instead, he felt alive. Even smart enough to turn off the phone.

  It was after eleven by the time he got to Radio Liberty. Across the street, and hidden by parked cars and wire fences, were a clubhouse, patio tables and steps leading down to clay tennis courts where players in whites and pastels patrolled the baseline and traded top spin. What a delightful world, Arkady thought. Imagine having the leisure in the middle of the day to pull on shorts, chase a fuzzy ball, work up an athletic sweat. He looked into Michael's Porsche. Its red cellular phone, the plastic sceptre, was gone.

  Michael was on a court near the clubhouse. He wore shorts and a V-necked sweater and played with the indolent ease of someone who had been given his first tennis ball in the crib. His opponent, whose back was to Arkady, swung wildly and moved as unsteadily as a man on a trampoline. Behind him and directly in Michael's line of sight was a table with the phone, its antenna fully extended. The other tables were empty.

  While Arkady considered an approach, he noticed that life offered its own distractions. Michael's opponent hit balls left and right and over Michael's head to the screen. Other times he missed the ball completely. Sometimes he got tangled up in his shorts. The game seemed not just foreign to him but from a planet with a different gravity.

  During a conference at the net, Arkady was surprised to overhear his own name. As the opponent returned to the baseline, he got a good look. Federov. The consular aide's next serve flew over the screen and bounced into a far court where two women were playing. They wore short skirts that displayed scissory, tanned legs, and they regarded the ball as a breach of form. Michael strolled to the fence and apologized with a tone that suggested his empathy. Waving his racquet and making too much noise for a tennis court, Federov ran to join him. By then Arkady had walked by the table and switched phones.