This was the first time Rostnikov had been in the American’s apartment. He had taken it all in without letting his curiosity show, and now, as he worked on the sink, the American sat at his desk in the other room, working at his computer.
“Why do you fix toilets and sinks and drains?” Nina asked.
Rostnikov inserted the wrench in the pitted seat of the faucet. He had already used his seat cutter on the problem and now began working with the wrench.
“Because,” he told the eight year old, “plumbing presents a problem that always has a solution. During the day I must deal with people, and problems that almost never have a clear solution. Plumbing, on the other hand, can always, with the right tools, be taken care of. There is a satisfaction to this. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” said Nina, who was now seated on the closed toilet next to the sink. “Yes, I think so. Laura and I like to watch you fix plumbing and lift weights.”
“Ah, the lifting is another story,” Rostnikov said, removing the wrench and looking down at his work. “Lifting is a meditation. Plumbing presents problems. The weights are a friendly challenge. When I lift the weights I am absorbed by the challenge, and the world disappears so that there is only the action and the music. Do you understand?”
“No, but I am young. I will understand when I am older, older than Laura. Now, I just like watching.”
“Good,” he said, reaching over to touch the girl’s cheek.
He left a smudge of grease. He unrolled some toilet paper, moistened it with the water from the faucet on which he was not working, and removed the smudge from the little girl’s face. She giggled. When the girl and her sister had come to the Rostnikovs, their grandmother was in jail, their mother had left them, and they did not smile or talk. That had changed; gradually, that had changed.
Rostnikov had now repacked the faucet and replaced the washer. He put the handle back in place, tightened the screw, and tapped in the escutcheon.
“Finished,” he said, turning the handle.
Water rushed into the sink. The faucet was fixed.
The child helped Rostnikov put the tools back and clean the sink.
On the way out, Rostnikov would ask the American writer if he knew Ed McBain or had read his books. Perhaps he would ask the American if he played chess. He was an American. He probably played badly, which was what Rostnikov needed. Porfiry Petrovich was not a great player of chess, but he liked to play.
He picked up the closed toolbox as the girl stood up.
“Enough,” he said. “We have done enough this day.”
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-cf5a54-9bb2-bc4b-b198-89ba-f701-73629d
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 04.09.2008
Created using: calibre 0.9.36, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Stuart M. Kaminsky
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Fall of a Cosmonaut ir-13 Page 27