'Where are –'
For a moment there was nothing but the sound of water running over the rims of the fountain. Then he heard Ali lift the dead man and the suction as he pulled out the knife. With Makhmud off the glass tiles there was more light in the bath. Arkady saw All's feet turn around. 'Who's here?' Ali asked.
Arkady was silent. Two more Chechens were outside the door, and more were at different areas around the spa, he thought. Ali had only to call. 'I know you're here,' he said.
There was a flurry in the mist, a flutter of water particles spinning as Ali slashed at steam. He was partially impeded by the fountain. Arkady tried to slide by towards the door and felt a hot line draw across his back. He retreated. Ali had also felt contact. His next move was a thrust into the wood by Arkady's hand.
Arkady kicked out and Ali rocked. The fountain shifted, too. A hand grabbed Arkady's foot and dragged him down on to the bench, then to the floor. Ali took a handful of hair and pulled Arkady's head back, but the motion made him slip on the slick floor and lose the knife. Arkady heard it rattle on the far side of the bath.
They crawled over each other towards the sound. Ali had enough weight to force Arkady down and reach ahead. He got to his feet, a red buddha rising through clouds, with the knife in his hand. It was a boning knife with a long, narrow blade. Arkady hit him. Ali slid back and came forward again. Arkady feinted another punch and Ali leaned forward to keep his momentum. When the punch didn't come, he started to slide. He swung the knife and grabbed Arkady on the way down. They skated clumsily together for a second and landed under the fountain.
Ali heaved free and sat against the bench. He looked down, where his stomach was sliced open on a curve from his left hip to his right rib. He tried to hold his stomach together, but it was running out like the contents of a spilled cup. Ali sucked air. He couldn't get enough to talk. He had the expression of a man who had willingly jumped from a height to find to his horror and disbelief that this time there was no safety cord. He thought Arkady was helping him up, but Arkady was taking the key chain off his wrist.
Arkady gathered his towel and slippers and left the bath. The two Chechens had moved down to the pool, though Rita was gone. He was aware he was covered in blood. He dived into the nearest sitting pool, which was frigid, and climbed out, leaving red curls unravelling in the water. He rinsed in the second, heated pool and dried himself as he went to the changing room.
Ali's locker contained his shiny suit and a Louis Vuitton bag with a machine pistol, three clips and a Vuitton wallet fat with high-denomination Deutschemarks. Arkady dressed at normal speed and on the way down the stairs passed office workers who were hurrying up for after-hours relaxation and didn't seem to find it unusual how badly a Russian's clothes could fit. He returned his slippers to the cashier on the way out.
Chapter Thirty-Four
* * *
At Friedrichstrasse the garage door was still wedged open. Arkady climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. He left the lights off while he found his holdall and changed clothes. Ali's shoes pinched; he would have to get new ones tomorrow.
Timing was everything. If Borya heard that two bodies were found in the bath, he would be reassured. If he heard that both were Chechen, he'd be warned. The police would put together a description of the man who had left in Ali's suit. Beno and the other Chechens would already be looking for him.
Arkady was no expert on small arms, but he recognized the machine pistol as a Czech Skorpion, an automatic with a snout sticking out of an oversized slide. The clips each held twenty rounds, which the pistol could empty in two seconds. Perfect Ali fireworks; with a Skorpion, no one needed to aim.
When the door opened behind him, Arkady pushed home a clip and turned to fire.
Irina was in the doorway, so frozen in place she balanced between the light of the hall and the dark of the room. Arkady looked to see whether anyone else was in the hall, then pulled her in by the wrist and shut the door.
'I thought I heard you,' she said. Her voice came out as small as a pre-recorded tape.
'Where's Max?'
'Why do you have a gun?'
'Where is Max?'
'Dinner was over early. The Americans had to catch a plane. Max went to the gallery to see Rita. I came here to see you.' She pulled her wrist free. 'Why is it dark in here?'
When she tried to reach the switch, he pushed her hand away. She tried to open the door and he kicked it shut.
'I can't believe this, Arkady. It's happening again. You didn't come back for me, you came for someone else. You used me again.'
'No.'
'Yes, you did. Who are you after?'
Arkady was silent.
'Who else?' she asked.
He said, 'Max. Rita. Boris Benz, except that his real name is Borya Gubenko.'
He felt her pull away. She said, 'I used to think that the day I left you was the worst day of my life. This is worse, though. You've come back and outdone yourself. I've wasted my life on these two days.'
'You –'
'Five minutes ago I was yours. I ran down here. What do I see? Investigator Renko.'
'They killed a money dealer in Moscow.'
'What do I care about Soviet laws?'
'They murdered my partner.'
'Why should I care about Soviet police?'
'They killed Tommy.'
'People around you get killed. Max wouldn't hurt me. Max loves me, he'd do anything for me.'
'I love you.'
She hit him. First with the flat of her hand as hard as she could, then with her fists. He stood like a man leaning into the wind and let the pistol hang. He let it slide down his leg to the floor.
'I want to see your face,' Irina said.
She found the switch and turned it on. At once he could see something was wrong from the shock in her eyes. He put his hand up and felt a tender swelling from his temple to his brow. It had ballooned since he had left the bathhouse.
She looked at Ali's shirt on the floor. The back was soaked through, red as a flag. She unbuttoned the shirt he was wearing. He pulled it off and she turned him around to look. He heard her breath stop: 'You're cut.'
'It's not deep.'
'You're still bleeding.'
They turned on the bathroom light. In the cabinet mirror Arkady saw that Ali had slashed him from the right shoulder blade down to his belt. Irina tried to swab the blood from his back, but a facecloth was inadequate. Arkady set the pistol in the basin of the sink, undressed and stepped into the shower. She set the water on cool and cleaned him around the long red slice.
His muscles bunched and shook from the temperature of the water, then eased at the touch of her hand on his back. Her fingers found a scar on his rib, and, as if tactilely remembering, went to a puckered mark on his leg and then up to a slick ridge in the middle of his stomach, as if he were a map with four limbs.
Arkady turned off the water. He emerged from the shower while she pulled off her skirt and slipped in two steps from her pants. He lifted her up. She held on to his neck, wrapped her legs around his waist and arched herself so he could enter.
She opened herself even as she held him tight. Her mouth was hot. Her eyes were wide, as if afraid to close. Outside they were locked. Inside he travelled to the heart of her. They rocked, his back against the wall.
She cried with sharp intakes of breath. In the mirror, he saw the wall wiped with his blood. They looked like they were climbing together from a black pit to the light, on one pair of legs that had never been so strong before. She held on, her fingers curling in his hair.
'Arkasha!' She leaned back while inside he drove closer to a yielding balm. She held on as desperately, her mouth on his again, on his cheek and against his ear whispering with a voice as hoarse as his until the last inner resistance dissolved.
As his legs failed, they dropped slowly to their knees on the tiles of the floor, then he rolled on his back with her astride.
There was a moment of softness. She
pulled her blouse up over her head. Her breasts were bare, the tips dark and hard. He felt himself grow large again.
He filled his mouth with her breast. Her hair hung in a curtain around her face. Her tears sluiced down her neck and between her breasts to. him, a mixed taste of salt and sweet. And forgiveness. This was the absolution from and for herself. When she threw her head back, he saw below her right eye a delicate blue flaw, her own Moscow scar. As she rode, her eyes closed as if he were rising inside along her spine up to her throat.
She twisted to be beneath him and spread to take him even further in, her legs high, in flight. He drove her along the tiles. Inside, she carried him deeper, as if they could shed their bodies, shed the lost years, shed the pain. Save each other. Two persons in one skin.
They lay on the bathroom floor as if in bed, her head pillowed on his chest, her leg resting over his so that he felt her brush of hair against his thigh, a subtle contract of trust. So what if their flanks were red from the blood on the tiles? If Orpheus and Eurydice had emerged intact from hell, what would they look like?
Even in shadow, Irina looked exhausted. 'I think you're wrong. Max isn't a killer. He's smart. As soon as reforms started in Russia, he said it wasn't reform, it was collapse. He was unhappy because our relationship hadn't developed the way he'd hoped. He wanted to come back a hero.'
'By defecting again?'
'By making money. He said the people in Moscow needed him more than he needed them.'
'He must have been right.' If he had been wrong, Max could never have returned to Germany.
'He wants to prove he's smarter than you.'
'He is.'
'Oh, no, you're brilliant. I said I'd never let you close to me again, yet here I am.'
'You think Max and I can work out our misunderstanding?'
'He helped you get to Munich, he helped you get to Berlin. He'd help again if I asked. Just wait.'
They sat on the floor by the living-room window with the lights off. They were classic refugees, Arkady thought, he in trousers, Irina in his shirt. Dried, the cut on his back looked like a zipper.
Where could they go? The police were searching for Makhmud's and Ali's killer. Assuming their guidelines were like the militia's, the Germans would broadcast his description, watch the airport and train stations, alert hospitals and pharmacies. Meanwhile, Borya's people and the Chechens would search the streets. Of course the Chechens would also be hunting Borya.
After midnight there was little traffic. Before Arkady saw cars down on the street he could identify their voices. The asthmatic rattle of Trabis, the clockwork ticking of diesel Mercedes. A white Mercedes went by at the speed of a trolling boat.
'Do you want to help?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'Get dressed and go up to your floor.' He gave her Peter's telephone number. 'Tell the person who answers where we are, then stay there until I come up.'
'Why don't we go up together? You can call.'
'I'll be with you in a minute. Keep calling until you get an answer. Sometimes he doesn't pick up right away.'
Irina didn't argue. She pulled on her skirt and went barefoot into the hall. The brief glimpse of light was blinding.
Below, the white Mercedes passed by again. Arkady heard the organ note of the Daimler before he saw it slowly approaching from the other direction. Max and Borya had to protect each other from Chechens as much as hunt for him. Max would be the one coming up, but Irina was right, he wouldn't hurt her.
The two cars passed each other in front of the building and drove on.
In a few years, when developers were done, Friedrichstrasse would be pulsing like a regular artery with department stores, fast-food outlets and espresso bars. Arkady felt he was keeping watch in the graveyard of the old East Berlin.
The two cars appeared again from the same directions as before. They must have circled the block. The Mercedes parked across the street. The Daimler swung into the building garage.
There wasn't a lot of protection in an unfurnished flat. Arkady set his holdall directly in front of the door so that anyone opening it would focus first on the bag. He lay down on the far side of the floor facing the door to present as small a target as possible. Through the floorboards, Arkady felt the lift engage. He doubted Max would be alone. The crystal sconces in the lift were bright. Arkady wanted Max's irises and those of any friends dazzled, tight as pins.
The pistol came with a folding wire stock that Arkady straightened and put against his shoulder. He pushed the safety-rate selector to full automatic and laid the three other ammo clips in front of him like extra cards. The hall light edged the black rectangle of the door. In this frame the door seemed to vibrate.
In the hall, the lift stopped. He heard the doors slide open, pause, then shut. The lift went on up to the sixth floor.
There was a knock. Irina slipped in and shut the door behind her. Her eyes found Arkady. 'I knew you weren't coming up.'
'Did you call?'
'A machine answered. I left a message.'
'You're missing Max,' Arkady said. 'He's going up right now.'
'I know. I used the stairs. Don't try to make me leave without you. I did that before. That was my mistake.'
Arkady didn't take his eyes from the door. Max might be temporarily confused to discover Irina gone, he thought. The lift stayed on the sixth floor for ten minutes though, longer than made sense unless Max was quietly coming down the stairs. But when the lift activated again it went straight down to the garage and seconds later Irina said she saw the Daimler leave, with the Mercedes following.
Chapter Thirty-Five
* * *
Irina said, 'I always imagined who you were with. I saw someone very young, for some reason. Small and dark, bright, passionate. I thought of places you would walk, what you'd talk about. When I wanted to torture myself, I imagined an entire day at the beach – blankets, sand, sunglasses, the sound of waves. She tunes a short-wave radio looking for romantic music when she happens to hear me. She stops, because the station is Russian after all. Then she moves the dial and you let her; you don't say a word. So I imagined my revenge. She gets a trip to Germany. By coincidence we share the same compartment of a train, and as it's a long trip we talk, and naturally I discover who she is. We usually end up on an icy platform in the Alps. She's a nice woman. I push her off the platform anyway for taking my place.'
'You kill her, not me?'
'I'm mad, I'm not crazy.'
From the floor of the flat, the street had a sound like surf. A wash of headlights moved across the ceiling.
Arkady saw a car park one block north on Friedrichstrasse. He couldn't tell the make, though he could see that no one got out. A second car parked a block south.
• • •
As the hours passed, he told her about Rudy and Jaak, about Max and Rodionov, about Borya and Rita. To him it was an interesting tale. He remembered his walk with Feldman, the art professor describing the revolutionary Moscow that had been. 'The squares will be our palettes!' We ourselves are palettes, Arkady thought. Possibilities. Inside Borya Gubenko was a Boris Benz. Inside an Intourist prostitute known as Rita was the Berlin gallery owner Margarita Benz.
Irina said, 'The question is who can we be? If we get out alive. Russian? German? American?'
'Whatever you want. I'll be putty.'
'Putty is not what comes to mind when I think of you.'
'I can be American. I can whistle and chew gum.'
'Once you wanted to live like the Indians.'
'Too late for that now, but I can live like a cowboy.'
'Rope and ride?'
'Drive cattle. Or stay here. Drive on the autobahn, climb the Alps.'
'Be a German? That's easier.'
'Easier?'
'You can't be American unless you stop smoking.'
'I can do that,' Arkady said, although he lit another cigarette. He exhaled and watched the smoke.
He screwed the cigarette out on the floor,
put his finger to her lips and motioned her to move away. It had taken him a moment to realize that the shift in the smoke was air stirring under the door. Stairwells produced suction, though he wouldn't have felt the draught if he hadn't been lying down.
He put his ear to the floor. See, he could live like an Indian. He heard the easing of shoes in the hallway.
Irina stood against a wall, not trying to hide or get small.
Around his holdall, Arkady saw the light at the bottom of the door, a white bar fading at one end.
He pressed his stomach into the floorboards. If he were any flatter he could slide under the door himself. He glanced at Irina. Her eyes watched him like hands keeping a man from falling off a cliff.
The door swung open. Light fanned in and a familiar bulk stepped across the threshold.
'You could get killed that way, Peter,' Arkady said.
Peter Schiller kicked the bag aside. He snorted at the sight of Arkady. 'Is this a shooting range?'
'We were expecting other people.'
'I'm sure you were.' Peter saw Irina, who returned his stare undiminished. 'Renko, we have Russians running all over Berlin. We have two dead mafiosos at the Europa Centre, cut up by someone who looked like you. What happened to your back?'
'I slipped.' Arkady got to his feet and shut the door.
'Arkady was with me,' Irina said.
'How long?' Peter asked.
'All day.'
'Lies,' Peter said. 'This is a gang war, isn't it. Benz is connected to one of them. The more I know about the Soviet Union, the more it sounds like one endless gang war.'
'In a way,' Arkady conceded.
'This afternoon you said you didn't even know this woman. Tonight she's your witness.' Peter walked around the room. He had the size and vigour of a Borya, but he was more Wagnerian, Arkady thought. A Lohengrin who had stumbled into the wrong opera.
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