A Fine Red Rain

CHAPTER TEN

Rostnikov waited till the entire arena was clear and then he turned, walked down three steps, and sat in the same seat in which he had sat for the entire performance. Five minutes later a squad of cleaning women in babushkas came out. They came through the main curtain like a new act, the jabbering cleaning women. Rostnikov watched them divide into duets and climb into the seats with their arsenals of brooms, rags, bags, and pans.

The two who had his section noticed Rostnikov later than they would have had he betrayed his presence with any movement, but notice him they did.

"Show is over," said the older and heavier of the two babushkas. "Not yet," said Rostnikov, his eyes not on her but on the entrance curtain.

"We've got to clean up," she said with one hand on her hip and the other using her broom to point to the rows of stands.

Rostnikov shifted slightly to remove his identity card. He held it up to the woman without looking at her. The other cleaning woman, a shorter version of the leader, leaned forward to look at the card.

"We'll clean around him," the older woman announced, and they went about their business. In less than twenty minutes the women had finished their cleaning act and exited as they had come. Some of the women turned their heads to look at the bulky man sitting alone in the arena. The older babushka who had seen his identification card spoke to a woman at her side as they departed, and more heads turned to look at him. Then they were gone and all that remained was the overhead humming of the lights. Suddenly the lights began to click off. There was a pattern. The lights behind Rostnikov went off first and then, like a row of dominoes, the other lights clicked off in a wave until the only illumination in the circus arena came from a quartet of night lights mounted on the floor. They cast a dull glow in the circle in front of Rostnikov as if waiting for a final, ghostly performance.

And still Rostnikov sat. He thought, after another five minutes or so, that he heard something in the darkness beyond the lights. The direction was uncertain. He sat almost certain that he was now being watched. He wanted to shift his leg to keep it from going stiff but he did not move. Another sound. In front? Above?

"The next performance isn't until tomorrow." Mazaraki's voice came from the darkness.

Rostnikov said nothing, did not try to find the man behind the voice.

Mazaraki laughed. The laughter echoed in the dark circle of the arena like the screams of a dozen madmen.

"You are in my world, policeman," Mazaraki said. Rostnikov thought the voice had moved. Yes, to the right in front of him and possibly above. No, definitely above.

"I am going to guess something, policeman. I'm going to guess that you have told no one else what you suspect. Am I right? I'm right. And now, policeman, you are trapped in the light like a fish in a tank."

Rostnikov was certain now where the voice was coming from. He turned his head upward and fixed his eyes directly on the point in the shadows where Mazaraki must be standing. "It is you who stand naked in the light, Dimitri Mazaraki."

From the darkness came the shuffling, slipping sound of Mazaraki taking a step backward.

Rostnikov stood up then and walked down two steps, ignoring the electric tingling in his leg. He walked to the center of the circle and beyond. Above him Mazaraki scrambled heavily, his footsteps echoing on metal. Rostnikov reached the far side of the circle and moved to one of the four lights that were fixed on the center of the arena. He reached down and with both hands pulled the metal light fixture. It was reluctant to move, but he forced it upward, upward. It was like a cannonball, a single a dumbbell heavier than any he had attempted before. It fought him for seconds and then gave up.

Above him Mazaraki continued to scramble. Rostnikov turned in front of the beam and looked upward. His own huge shadow was cast over the seatsa faint, broad shadowand just above the head of the shadow the faint light found Mazaraki, one foot on the rope ladder leading down from the high wire. Mazaraki, still clad in his red suit, looked down over his shoulder. His hat slipped from his head and floated like a bird in slow motion downward toward Rostnikov, who watched it land, bounce, roll in a circle, and stop.

"I'm coming, policeman," Mazaraki said.

"I'm here," replied Rostnikov as Mazaraki climbed down in the shadow of the policeman.

Mazaraki came steadily, without panting, without effort. Rostnikov was fascinated by the grace of the huge body and the pose the man in red took when he reached the ground. Mazaraki stood for an instant with his hands on his hips. There was a smile below his mustache. He took a dozen steps forward and beckoned for Rostnikov to meet him. Rostnikov made no reply in word or movement. His gray shadow now covered the hatless announcer, who took the final ten steps and stood in front of Rostnikov. Mazaraki was at least six inches taller. The big man's right hand came out and grasped Rostnikov's left arm above the elbow. The wool of the gray sweater scratched Rostnikov's arm. The eyes of the two men met, and Rostnikov reached over with his right hand, got a firm grip on Mazaraki's thick, hairy wrist, and began to squeeze slowly.

"The game will soon end," whispered Mazaraki. "Your moment in the ring will be over. I will crush your head and throw your body in the park."

The smile on Mazaraki's face was fixed, his teeth remarkably white and even, the teeth of a performer, but beads of sweat were forming on the big man's brow and his cheeks. Rostnikov's left arm was beginning to go numb where Mazaraki squeezed. The light Rostnikov had turned upward now hit the big man's face, casting the upward shadows Josef used to make with a lamp: the scary face, the dark eye sockets, the black mouth.

And then Mazaraki's dark smile contorted suddenly. He gasped, let go of Rostnikov's arm, and tried to pull his hand back, but Rostnikov didn't let it go. Mazaraki struggled to free himself, jerked back to make the smaller man release him, but Rostnikov didn't budge. His grip was like a metal spring trap on Mazaraki's wrist. Mazaraki lashed out with his left fist, a thundering hammer of a blow. Rostnikov stepped forward, leaned over, and rammed his head into Mazaraki's exposed stomach just below the blow, which barely touched the top of Rostnikov's head.

A wooof sound escaped from Mazaraki, and Rostnikov released his wrist. The announcer hi red fell on his rear into the center of the circle. He writhed on the ground, got to his knees holding his stomach, groaned, and slowly stood.

"I'm not going to jail," Mazaraki shouted defiantly, one hand on his stomach.

"I'm not taking you to jail," Rostnikov replied.

Mazaraki's new mask was one of puzzlement.

"You lie." He laughed, and his laughter once again echoed through the arena.

"Why would I lie?' Rostnikov said.

"I killed Pesknoko," Mazaraki said. "And Duznetzov.

He killed himself because he was afraid, afraid of what would be done to him because he was weak, because he might talk. Do you know what he might talk about?"

"You were smuggling people across the borders to the West," Rostnikov said as Mazaraki tried to straighten up, pull himself together for another frantic attack.

"Yes, but how did you…?" Mazaraki said, and then got an idea. He looked up at Rostnikov with a new understanding. "Yes," he said again, "I see. You're not going to put me in jail. You haven't told anyone. You want me to get you out. You, and some family members. A wife? Daughter? Huh? Ha. Now it is clear."

Rostnikov said nothing. He held his ground. But something had hit him low in the stomach. The voice of a warlock was speaking to him.

"It can be done," Mazaraki said in a whisper of conspiracy that would have been heard by anyone who happened to be in the darkness of the arena. "You take a vacation, say you are going to the mountains or Yalta, but you come with the troupe. We are about to go on tour. You come with the group to Lithuania. I have false papers so you can even cross the border into Poland. And in Poland I know people who can get you into Germany, West Germany. It can be done, policeman. I've done it dozens of times."

Nausea. Rostnikov felt nausea as he imagined for an instant himself, Sarah, Josef, each carrying a suitcase, climbing into a car with someone who spoke with a Polish accent.

"Katya Rashkovskaya," Rostnikov said, to pull himself away from the temptation of the image. "You tried to kill her."

"Of course," said Mazaraki through clenched teem, fighting off the last of the first shock of pain. "If I don't kill her, she will kill me."

"Kill you?" Rostnikov said as Mazaraki stood almost upright.

"Whose idea do you think all of this was?" Mazaraki said with a shake of his head. "I never thought about smuggling people, doing anything but some black marketing of a few radios from France. It was her idea when they joined the circus. She kept Pesknoko in line, Duznetzov. And then when Duznetzov weakened and said he could take no more she got me to threaten him. She decided that we had to get rid of Pesknoko. Then, only then, did I realize that she would have to kill me, have to get rid of me, or I might drag her down if I got caught. Don't you see? Don't you understand?"

"It makes" Rostnikov began.

But Mazaraki hulked forward and cut in, "I only tried to kill her to protect myself. You are a joke, policeman. You've done all this to protect the woman but she is the one you want. You are a joke but we can turn the joke. We can both get her and I can get you and your family into the West. You're thinking about it."

His voice was now a soothing whisper.

"I saw that look hi your eyes. I've seen it before in the eyes of black marketers, government bureaucrats, scientists, and even a KGB man. I can get you out, policeman. All you have to do is take my hand on it and it will cost you nothing, nothing at all."

Mazaraki's right hand was stretched out. Rostnikov for the first time stepped back, not wanting to touch or be touched by that hand, as if the touch would give him a disease of thought that he could not overcome, a disease he might welcome. Mazaraki stepped forward, leering now, and Rostnikov's good leg kicked the upturned light, sending out a crack of leather heel on metal, and with the crack Mazaraki stopped, a startled look on his face. He stopped, opened his mouth to speak, and whispered, "Nothing at…all."

And then the big man in red fell on his face. In the center of the back of the fallen man's red jacket Rostnikov could see an uneven wet pattern of an even darker red. Rostnikov looked up into the dark arena.

"Karya?" he said.

"Yes," came the woman's voice.

There really wasn't anything else to say. If he had been a younger man with a good leg, Rostnikov could have leaped over the lamp into the protection of darkness, but a leap was out of the question and a shuffling roll would be ludicrous and undignified. He felt the dull heat of the light directly behind his good leg. His weak leg could take no more man a pained instant of weight. He gave it that instant and kicked back at the light with his heel. The glass shattered and the bullet from the darkness hummed past him as he turned to his right and moved as quickly as he could into the darkness. She fired again. Three more shots. All three to Rostnikov's right. And then a pause. The body of Mazaraki lay silently. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the dead lamp, and a shuffling rush of footsteps came closer.

Something moved at the far reaches of the remaining light. He pressed himself against the wall behind him and waited for Katya Rashkovskaya to run across the ring, gun in hand, and find him. "Nichevo," he said to himself. If it were to be like this, then it would be like this.

She stepped into the light slowly, her hands at her side. She was dressed in white and, Rostnikov thought, looked quite darkly beautiful. And then someone appeared behind her and then someone else.

"Porfiry!" came Sarah's voice.

And into the light behind Katya Rashkovskaya stepped Sarah and Sasha Tkach. Sasha was holding a gun. Katya was empty-handed.

"I'm all right," Rostnikov said, stepping forward.

"I called," Sarah said, looking down at the dead man.

"I see," said Rostnikov, moving forward toward her.

Sasha pushed his unruly hair from his face and smiled at Rostnikov, who nodded. Katya didn't smile. She looked emotionlessly at Mazaraki's body and leaned over to pick up the red hat.

As Sarah put her head against his chest, Rostnikov wondered if he should wait till morning to retrieve the plumbing books he had loaned to Katya Rashkovskaya.

Deputy Procurator Khabolov was dreaming about Helsinki, which, even in his sleep, he found quite odd, for he had never been to Helsinki nor did he have any interest in going to Helsinki. He found himself walking the streets of Helsinki certain that he was getting lost, unable to retrace his steps because he did not know where he had begun, unable to ask anyone who passed him for directions because they all spoke to each other in a language that must have been Finnish. Suddenly, behind him, came a pounding noise. In his dream he turned as the noise came closer, became louder, more insistent. Fear pressed him against the brick wall of a building while he waited for the massive ball of iron that pounded toward him, would surely, suddenly, come around a corner to crush him. He looked for help at the Finns around him who did not stop but kept walking, smiling.

"Answer the door," one of the Finns said without moving his mouth, and Khabolov sat up in bed, awake, panting in fear. "The door," his wife repeated. "Someone's at the door."

Khabolov looked at his wife, who had turned her huge freckled back on him and was clutching a pillow to her head.

The knock came again. "Can you dream that people are speaking Finnish if you can't understand Finnish?" he asked.

"Answer the door," his wife replied, and Khabolov pushed back the covers, checked the buttons on his pajamas, smoothed down his hair with two hands, and looked at the clock on the dresser. Six o'clock in the morning. The knock came again, and he padded quickly out of the bedroom and toward the door. The knock came again.

"Who is it?" he called.

"Rostnikov" was the reply.

Khabolov checked himself in the mirror next to the door, didn't like what he saw, and shouted "One moment" as he hurried back to get the blue-and-white and too-warm-for-this-weather flannel robe in the closet. His wife said something half in sleep. He ignored her and closed the bedroom door on his way out.

When he opened the apartment door, Deputy Procurator Khabolov saw that Inspector Rostnikov was not alone. Tkach stood at his side, a bit pale, almost at attention.

"What is it?" Khabolov asked, assuming a terrible emergency. Rostnikov was not even working for the Procurator's Office any longer, and no inspector had ever visited, ever been invited to visit, Khabolov's apartment. Khabolov had no desire for anyone outside of his family and his few friends to see what he had accumulated in appliances and the minor luxuries that made life tolerable.

"May we come in for a moment, Comrade?" Rostnikov asked politely. Both were quite sober and serious, yet neither gave the impression that an emergency was in progress.

"I'd like to know…" Khabolov began and stopped when Rostnikov reached into his pocket and pulled out an oblong package wrapped in a brown paper bag. The object looked like a small book. Khabolov looked at both policemen sternly, discerned nothing, and took the package. He opened it and extracted something he recognized, a videotape.

"What is this?"

"A videotape," Rostnikov said.

Khabolov could see that it was a videotape. For a moment he thought he might still be dreaming. The scene made as much sense as his dream about Helsinki.

"We think," Rostnikov continued, "that you should look at it."

"Now?" Khabolov asked them.

"Now would be a very good time, or you could wait till later," said Rostnikov, letting his eyes focus beyond Khabolov on the interior of the room.

"What is it? Some murder evidence? Inspector Karpo included in his report on the apprehension of the prostitute killer that you had been instrumental in… It has nothing to do with that case?"

Rostnikov shook his head no, and Tkach remained at near-attention.

"I'm running out of patience," said Khabolov, bouncing the videotape in his hand as if it were growing warm. "Very well. Come in, but mark you, this had better be important."

Rostnikov and Tkach entered the room, and Khabolov closed the door quietly behind them.

"Come and be quiet. My wife is sleeping in there."

Neither man had known Khabolov had a wife, but mat did not surprise or interest them as much as the brown carpeting on the floor. Not a rug in the center of the room, but real carpeting. Sasha Tkach wondered if the apartment had more than one bedroom.

Khabolov led them across the room to a sofa facing a television set with a video machine on a table next to it.

"Better be important," Khabolov warned, turning on his machines and inserting the tape. A static-filled image came on with a flamelike sound and Khabolov plopped on the sofa to watch. He did not invite the two policemen to sit. They stood and watched the screen.

"It had better be important," Khabolov said again. "Murder evidence or"

"Profiteering," Rostnikov supplied. "Black market, probably. We think it important enough to consider turning over to the KGB. We thought you might be the one to do it."

"I see," said Khabolov, and for an instant he thought he did see. These two wanted to get on his good side. They had stumbled onto something important and had brought it to him. Rostnikov wanted his job back. Tkach wanted some assurance about his security. In exchange they were giving him something he could turn over to the KGB. And then the static stopped and a picture came on the screen. It was a bit dark. The camera jiggled but the picture was clear. There was no mistaking the interior of the Gorgasali trailer. And there were the Gorgasali brothers. Someone said something on the tape. Khabolov couldn't make it out. And then a figure came through the trailer door and Kha bolov leaped up from the sofa. He was looking at himself. He plunged his hands into the pockets of the robe and came up with a handkerchief. He threw it at the nearby table and missed. Before the Khabolov hi the picture could speak, the Khabolov in the apartment reached over and snapped the television off. "You are playing a dangerous game, you two," Khabolov said, retrieving the tape from the machine and plunging it into his now-empty pocket. "You may keep that one," Rostnikov said. "We have another copy." "Blackmail? You are daring to blackmail me?" Khabolov said, looking at Tkach, who looked at Rostnikov.

"It would appear so," said Rostnikov.

"I'll go to the Chief Procurator, tell him it's a fake, tell him you two are in on this. If I lose my job, you lose yours. If I go to jail, you go. Especially you, Tkach. You were the one who made contact with those two."

Khabolov pointed to the blank television screen to indicate that it held the Gorgasali brothers.

"Perhaps so, perhaps not," Rostnikov said. "The Chief Procurator might believe you. He might not. It might be reasonable to hear our terms before you try to make threats." "I don't deal with blackmailers," Khabolov said defiantly, but there was no backbone in his defiance. As he spoke, he pulled the sash of the flannel robe tightly around his waist as if he were suddenly cold. "Then, perhaps, those are the only criminals with whom you do not deal," sighed Rostnikov. "Or at least have not dealt with till now." "Say what you have to say and then get out," Khabolov said, looking from one man to the other with his sternest glare. It seemed to have no effect. "I'll decide what to do with you."

"The terms are simple," said Rostnikov. "May I sit? My teg…" "Sit, sit, sit, sit," said Khabolov with irritation. Rostnikov moved to a straight-backed wooden chair against the wall and sat.

"Keep your video machine, the tapes you have," said Rostnikov. "Destroy all records of your dealings with the Gorgasali brothers and never visit them again. No investigation of them was made. Inspector Tkach did not visit them. He did not talk to you about them."

"I'm listening," said Khabolov.

"Good," said Rostnikov. "If Sasha Tkach is mentioned in a report or involved in any way with your dealings in this or any other illegal matter, the tape goes to the Chief Procurator."

"And for yourself, eh?" Khabolov asked, shaking his head. "You want to be transferred back to the Procurator's Office."

"No," said Rostnikov. "You haven't the power to grant such a transfer. The decision was made above you and I have no desire to return. But a request for permanent transfer of Inspectors Tkach and Karpo to MVD investigation under Colonel Snitkonoy may be coming through and we would appreciate your doing your utmost to see to it that it is approved."

"Tkach?" Khabolov snapped.

"I have nothing to add," said Sasha, meeting Khabolov's eyes.

The deputy procurator bounced once on his bare feet and decided that he could live with this. It would be better, under the circumstances, to get rid of Tkach and Karpo, two spies for Rostnikov. Maybe someday in some way he would be able to get the original tape. The terms were ridiculous. They could have had much more, but, Khabolov realized, that was precisely why Rostnikov had asked for no more. It would be very easy to grant this, easy and relatively painless.

'I'll mink about this and decide what to do with you two," he said sternly. "Now get out."

"Be quiet out there," his wife shouted from the bedroom. "I've got to get up in an hour."

"Yes, my krasee' v/iy, my beauty," Khabolov called, and then he turned to the two men.

Rostnikov stood and walked across the room on the silent carpet with Sasha close behind. Khabolov marched ahead of them to open the door. They exited and Khabolov closed the door quietly behind them without another word.

"I think" Sasha began, but Rostnikov put his finger to his lips to quiet him.

Sasha nodded in understanding and looked at the door. He was tempted to turn around and knock in the hope that Khabolov had his ear pressed to the other side. The two men walked to the stairway and did not speak till they were down the two flights and out onto Zubovsky Boulevard.

"We won," Tkach said softly.

"More or less," Rostnikov agreed with a shrug.

"He won't destroy the Gorgasali file," said Tkach.

"Would you?"

"No," Sasha agreed as they walked. The morning sky was quickly darkening, and rain had been predicted by both the radio and Sasha's mother earlier that morning.

"It gives him the feeling that he has a secret, something with which to hold us at bay," said Rostnikov. "He won't destroy you if it means destroying himself. And besides, in a few weeks, a month, someone might pay a visit some afternoon to the deputy procurator's office or his home and the file on the Gorgasalis might disappear."

Sasha looked at Rostnikov as if seeing a madman for the first time. He was grateful to the chief inspector but this was all very risky, very dangerous, and Rostnikov seemed so matter-of-fact.

At the metro station they parted, going in different directions. Sasha was about to say something, to thank the chief inspector, but Rostnikov slapped Tkach gently on the cheek, grinned warmly but sadly, and walked away.

Twenty minutes later Sasha Tkach was at Petrovka checking his assignment file and deciding where he would take his family that night to celebrate.

Rostnikov got to the meeting room almost half an hour early, but he did not beat the Gray Wolfhound, whose brown, bemedaled uniform clung to him without a single wrinkle as he stood examining something he had written on the blackboard for the morning meeting.

"Good morning, Comrade Colonel," Rostnikov said, taking his seat.

Colonel Snitkonoy turned, standing erect, hands behind his back, to face the early arrival. On the board behind him Rostnikov could read, written in white chalk, "Surprise, Strength, Strategy," the lesson for the day.

"Early?" the Wolfhound observed without consulting his watch.

"I have a request," said Rostnikov.

"A request," Snitkonoy repeated with a smile, as if he were prepared for whatever surprise, strength, and strategy Rostnikov might display.

"That you consider the possibility of requesting the transfer of two more investigators from the deputy procurator's office," explained Rostnikov.

"Your men?" Snitkonoy asked, beginning to see the ploy.

"In a sense, but only in a sense," agreed Rostnikov. "Two outstanding men who would contribute greatly in their investigative skills to the success of your department."

"My staff size is limited by certain… considerations," the Wolfhound said with an eaglelike lifting of his perfect white-maned head.

The size of the staff was limited, Rostnikov knew, by the low esteem in which the Wolfhound was held. His staff was, simply, large enough to make it ceremonial.

"I have reason to believe that, because of certain considerations, the deputy procurator would be most cooperative in such a request," Rostnikov said, looking not at the Wolfhound but at the paper and pencil before him.

"An addition of two experienced investigators to my staff," Snitkonoy said, looking back at what he had written on the board. "I'll consider it."

Rostnikov reached for the pencil and began to draw.

His back still turned to the chief inspector, the Wolfhound said, "You had two messages waiting for you this morning. I have taken the liberty of placing them on the tray."

Rostnikov's eyes moved up from the pencil to the tray in the center of the table and found a single sheet of paper with a message neatly printed in the hand of one of the clerks. The time of receipt was early that morning, about the moment he and Tkach had entered Khabolov's apartment. The message read: "Major Zhenya called to inform you that Colonel Drozhkin died during the night. Major Zhenya requests that you come to Lubyanka this morning to discuss with him the unsatisfactory conclusion to the Mazaraki situation."

Rostnikov smiled and plunged the note into his pocket.

Back still turned, the Wolfhound said, "Trouble?"

"A bit," agreed Rostnikov.

The Wolfhound tapped the blackboard with the long piece of chalk in his hand. "Remember, surprise, strength, strategy."

"I'll bear that in mind," Rostnikov said, sketching something that looked like a book.

"I said there were two messages," Snitkonoy reminded him.

"Yes, Colonel."

"Your wife called and asked that one of the clerks tell you that your son will be home on leave in two days." With this Snitkonoy turned abruptly and faced the seated inspector, looking for a change in expression. Rostnikov satisfied him by putting down the pencil and letting the smile lose its sense of irony.

"Thank you, Colonel," Rostnikov said.

"And you say," the Wolfhound asked, tapping his cheek with a long, immaculate finger, "that I can add two men to my staff by simply requesting it?"

"Yes, Colonel."

"Is one of them tall?"

"Yes," said Rostnikov. "Quite tall."

"Good," said the colonel as Pankov came running into the meeting, a look of morning fear on his face. "We can use a bit of height on the staff."

When the Gray Wolfhound's official morning meeting began, Rostnikov's grin showed white, uneven teeth to the puzzled Pankov, who wondered and feared where this morning would end.

For Rostnikov the morning ended a few hours later in Arbat Square. When he entered the metro, the sky had been threatening and dark, with the rumble of thunder from the northwest in the direction of the town of Klin. When he climbed to the square on the steps of the Arbatskaya Metro Station, the rain had already begun, a fine, thin rain with a hint of red in it from the heavy traffic on Suvorov Boulevard. He stood in the shelter of the station next to one of the pillars facing Gogol Boulevard. Beside him a woman hesitated, looked at the dark sky, looked at him, covered her head with a magazine, and dashed toward the nearby Khudozhetvenny Cinema. The sky rumbled and Rostnikov looked toward the statue of the smiling Gogol, about the distance of a soccer field away. He shivered with a sudden slap of cool air and had the uncanny feeling that no time had passed since he had last stood in this same place, in a similar rain, looking toward that statue. He knew he had not dreamed the man on Gogol's head, but at the same time there was the feeling of a dream about the past few days, just as, to a lesser degree, there seemed to be the feeling of a dream to his life, as if he were not within his vulnerable body but an observer who could not be affected by the outside world, could not be affected in spite of the reminder of his leg, which even now throbbed a bit in the dampness, in spite of the' vulnerability of the people he knew and touched and who touched him.

The rain eased a bit and Rostnikov left the small group of people who were waiting under the cover of the metro station's roof. He limped slowly to the boulevard, found a break in the traffic, and crossed to the small park in front of Gogol's statue. The rain was now at that point where one cannot tell if it is still raining or one is only imagining it. The street was wet, puddled with reflections of people, traffic, sky, and it smelted the smell of city he remembered as a boy. When Josef came in on leave, he would bring him here, bring him to the sad Gogol a few blocks away in the courtyard of the building where Gogol had lived. He was not sure what he would say to Josef when they came, but he was sure his son would understand.

Rostnikov sighed deeply and looked at the clearing sky. Morning was over and he could put off no longer his trip to Lubyanka. Major Zhenya was waiting. If he hurried just a bit, he knew he could catch the bus that was just turning in at Arbat Street. As he crossed the street, he was certain that the rain had now stopped.