A Whisper to the Living

16

Without looking up, Zelach knew his mother was at the top of the stairs. He even knew what she was wearing, but that was not a prescient knowledge. She always wore the same thing, a dull dark smock with bright flowers. She had three of them of variously minimal hues.

“You are all right?” she said softly.

“I am all right,” he said, trudging up the stairs, trying not to bother Mr. and Mrs. Gornick in the apartment next to theirs or the Volstoys right below them.

“A giant attacked you,” his mother said.

“Yes,” he said. “But I am fine.”

He was not surprised by her observation. She had extra-sensory powers, which had been tested and tested, checked and rechecked, at the Moscow Institute of Paranormal Research. He too had been tested, examined, prodded, and punctured and found to have abilities that did not match those of his mother.

He was at the top of the stairs now. She reached out and touched his left cheek.

“You are hungry,” she said. “I have sausage and cabbage for you.”

The sweet smell of sausage and cabbage filled the stairway.

“I am hungry,” he said.

She put up her right hand to hold the smock closed against her pendulous breasts. She was overweight and had a heart problem. She ate carefully, but both mother and son knew the battle with heart disease would soon end.

He followed her into the apartment, took off his jacket, and deposited it on the chair near the door with a heavy thump.

He sat and she poured him a small glass of white wine. She joined him. He did not ask how she knew when he would be home so that she could have his dinner on the table. That was one of the things he would miss, one of many things, when she was gone.

“You have a question, Akardy,” she said, picking up her fork.

He ate slowly and considered his response, though he knew he was about to ask his question. The only issue was how he would couch it.

“Do you believe in an almost instant deep attraction of one person to another?”

“You mean love,” she said.

He said nothing for a moment, forkful of sausage on the way to his mouth, and then, “What if your affection is addressed toward someone with great problems?”

“Akardy, there are some things I cannot penetrate that require normal conversation.”

“Love,” he said. “I think I am in love.”

“The problem?”

“She murdered her husband and tried to kill an innocent woman.”

“And you love her?”

“Her rage at her husband was well justified. Her life has been one of misfortune.”

“Sometimes one cannot help being attracted to or falling in love with the wrong person.”

He shrugged and went on eating. Then he sensed a sudden stiffening of his mother’s body, a catching of breath. At first he thought it might be her heart, but then she sat upright and said, “She will not go to jail.”

He believed his mother.

“I think you will help her. I think you may regret it.”

“You are certain?”

“No,” she said. “Never, but as close to certainty as one can get. One more thing.”

“What?”

“Do you not know?”

It came to him.

“For dessert you have plum pudding.”

“Yes,” she said. “Tell me more about this woman you love who murdered her husband.”

Yuri Platkov sat at the end of the bench gnawing at a bright orange carrot. In the middle of the bench sat the one-legged policeman. Both the boy, who was on his way home from school, and Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov watched the afternoon traffic go by.

Over the last two days, the temperature had risen again, and a wet snow that turned to slush formed a thin, shoe-penetrating lake of dirty water.

Finally, Rostnikov, without looking at the boy, said, “We have switched from less-than-nutritious candy to healthy vegetables.”

Yuri looked at what was left of his carrot, which was not much, and answered, “The school.”

The boy, fair skinned, thin, with dark hair sticking out around the earflaps of his woolen shirt, crunched loudly on his carrot.

Rostnikov nodded in understanding.

“Carrots are not bad.”

Rostnikov, hands folded in his lap, nodded.

“Would you like one? I have two more.”

“Yes.”

The boy dug a plastic Baggie from his book bag, unzipped it, and handed Rostnikov a carrot.

“You got him, the Maniac.”

Rostnikov took a bite of carrot.

“He was eternally detained.”

The boy nodded as he pulled his legs back to avoid the splash of a group of hurrying men and women anxious to get home.

“Shot when he was going to try to kill you. A SWAT team.”

“Would you believe me if I told you I was never in any danger from the Maniac, that I could have brought him in if men firing automatic weapons had not appeared?”

“Yes, I believe.”

“However, I was shot.”

“How? Where?”

Yuri was looking at the policeman with great interest.

“In my leg and shoulder. Fortunately, one bullet hit my artificial leg, where it was removed without pain. The other bullet went through my arm and scraped a bone.”

“Does it hurt?”

“A bit.”

“May I see the bullet holes?” asked Yuri.

Rostnikov awkwardly leaned forward, pulled up the leg of his pants, and pushed down his sock. The sight of the washtub of a man displaying his artificial leg for the boy in the slushy cold caused usually weary commuters to hesitate, look, and continue. A few considered informing the police. More simply averted their eyes and walked on.

The boy looked at the dent on the artificial leg, which the policeman pointed out.

“To show you the wound in my shoulder would require me removing my coat, shirt, and undershirt and you would see only a white bandage. I am sorry.”

“Do not be. You found him, for which I am pleased.”

Rostnikov pulled up his sock, dropped his trouser leg, and sat back.

“My grandfather, who has been known to stumble around the park and on the street, might have been next.”

“And you have great affection for your grandfather?”

“No. Maybe. Sometimes. You are telling me a great deal about your case. Do you usually go about telling boys in the park what you are doing?”

“No, I do not. I suppose I like you.”

“I like you too. Another carrot?”

Rostnikov looked down at his hand. The carrot was gone. He had not even noted its passing.

“I think not,” said Rostnikov.

“Then it is over. No reason to return to this bench, the park.”

Rostnikov let out a small grunt as he watched a young woman make a dangerous crossing of the street. She held a large purse in one hand and kept her small hat in place with the other.

There were still the copycats to deal with. He was not prepared to share that information with the boy on the bench.

“Perhaps I will find myself back here from time to time,” said Rostnikov. “It is a pleasant place to watch pretty girls, to think, to find stimulating conversation.”

“You like superheroes?” said Yuri.

“X-Files. My son gave me an ‘I Want to Believe’ T-shirt some years ago. I frequently sleep in it.”

“Your son?”

“He is a policeman too and probably older than your mother and father.”

“Then you are old?”

“As old as Moscow itself.”

“I am going to be a policeman,” said the boy. “Of course I am only eleven, so I may change my mind.”

“Return to this bench and keep me informed of your various changes of mind.”

“I should go home now.”

“We should both go home now.”

The boy bounced up. Rostnikov positioned his nonexistent leg and pushed himself up slowly with a hand on either side of him.

Yuri Platkov held out a thin right hand and Rostnikov took it lightly with respect.

“It is nice to see you again. My name is Yuri Sergievich Platkov.”

“And mine is Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov.”

“That sounds like a very old-fashioned name.”

“I am a very old-fashioned man.”

The sun had begun to rise by the time Emil Karpo reached the street on which he lived. He had traveled without luggage and had not slept going or coming back from London.

One block away, he could see a gathering in an alcove near the entrance to his building. As he moved quietly closer, he could see that it was a group of six boys, bezprizorniki, children of the streets, homeless, dangerous. They were all bent over, looking down at something he could not see, calling out encouraging words.

Karpo touched the shoulders of two of the boys in his way. They looked up at him and parted. In the doorway was a boy with a stick. He was perhaps fifteen years old. He was dirty, as were they all, and their clothes were odd in size and they were obviously not slaves to fashion. The older boy was jabbing a black cat trapped against the door. With nowhere to go, the cat sat back and waved a paw at the prodding stick.

The boys called out, “Get him, Borka. Kill him. Let’s eat him.”

Karpo leaned over, took the stick from the boy called Borka, broke it, and dropped it on the pavement.

Borka, whose face was lopsided to the left, stood up in anger. He was almost half a foot shorter than Karpo, who knelt to pick up the cat, which did not resist.

Karpo tucked the cat under his right arm and faced the boy as he rose.

The boy could not decide whether to search for a way to back down or attack the intruder. There were six of them and only one of him. Every boy in the group had been through fights over food or shelter in which their lives were at stake. They would win, though something about the man’s pale, expressionless face made Borka hesitate.

“Give us your money and we will let you pass,” said Borka, moving to block the entrance.

“I cannot do that,” said Karpo.

“Why not?” asked one boy to his left.

“Because I am a police officer.”

Karpo pulled his badge from his back pocket and held it up.

Borka glanced at it and said, “We have faced policemen before.”

“Then,” said Karpo, returning his wallet to his pocket. “We shall have to see how you manage with this one.”

A caw of insults came from the mouths of those surrounding him as he moved to the door and removed the key from his pocket.

“Meduk, asshole.”

“Govniuk, shit head.”

Karpo could sense one of the boys, not Borka, step behind his back. He turned and faced a boy of no more than ten with a six-inch piece of pipe in his right hand.

The insults stopped. There was a mad look in the eyes of the boy and Borka stood at his shoulder.

“Bash him, Nicki,” a boy in the semicircle called.

As the boy was about to strike, Emil Karpo softly said, “No,” and the boy lowered his weapon. Karpo entered his apartment building and with his free hand made sure the door was locked behind him.

“We know where you live,” called Borka.

The threat meant little to Karpo. They would not want to do battle with a policeman, a policeman who would certainly have a hidden gun. There was nothing to be gained from confronting this unblinking ghost. The gang would almost certainly not return.

After climbing the stairs, he checked the door for the telltale hair that would inform him whether he had had company. There were no signs of company. He entered and put the cat down. The room was cold. The window was open. Nothing had been moved. Nothing had been touched. The narrow bed was hunched in one corner. The chest of drawers stood against one wall, with the freestanding closet at its side. Under the window stood a small, round wooden table with two chairs, and at the foot of the bed against the wall was a small sink and counter, with minimal dishes and utensils and a microwave. A few groceries, most conspicuously a large box of instant oatmeal, were lined up next to the microwave.

The entire remaining wall was covered with notebooks dealing with the investigations of all cases with which Karpo had been involved. The unresolved ones, the ones he worked on in the evenings and on his days off, were neatly labeled to the left on plain wooden shelves he had built.

He removed his clothes and placed them all neatly on a chair after removing something from his pocket. He held it up, looked at it, and brought the ocarina that Porfiry Petrovich had given to him to his lips. He blew into it gently, one note only. The cat’s ears turned to him and twitched. He placed the ocarina on his desk.

After two hours of rest on his bed in the nude and cold, he would rise and report to Chief Inspector Rostnikov.

Completely nude, Emil Karpo lay back atop the tautly tucked rough khaki military blanket on his bed and closed his eyes. Seconds later he was aware of a gentle movement on the bed to his left. The cat nestled down against his hip. Emil Karpo’s fingers touched smooth, silky hair. Then cat and man fell asleep.

Iosef knew that Elena was as uncomfortable as he as they stood before the desk of the ZAGS officer.

ZAGS (Zapis Aktov Grazhdanskogo Sostoyaniya), the official bureau that handled Russia’s weddings, had to grant permission for every wedding, and once a request was denied, little or no recourse existed in the Russian bureaucracy.

ZAGS, an unimposing two-story half-block-long building, sat on the Butyrsky Ulitsa. In front of the shoe-box building, traffic ran heavily down the wide street and horns blared.

The mandatory thirty-second day after they had applied for their wedding license had come to an end. This was the final chance for either of them to back out of the brakosochetanie, the minimal but official service in the sparse office in which a fluorescent light twinkled and pinged.

Behind them stood the witnesses, Iosef’s mother and father and Elena’s aunt and cousin Edith. Iosef thought his father, two days out of the hospital, should not be there. Elena thought her aunt Anna, who awaited her probably inevitable fourth heart attack, should not be there. Elena and Iosef had no luck in convincing either one of them. Both Porfiry Petrovich and Anna Timofeyeva stood a few paces back, with Anna Timofeyeva between Porfiry Petrovich and Sara. Once Elena’s aunt had been a robust and often-uniformed procurator in the Soviet Union with Rostnikov as her chief investigator. But then both Anna Timofeyeva and the Soviet Union had collapsed.

According to tradition, Iosef had been picked up at his apartment by his parents, and Elena had come with her aunt and cousin. An unmarked police car, a black ZiL, had been provided by Porfiry Petrovich to transport Elena.

They had all met in the stark lobby that carried a nervous echo. Iosef wore his only suit, heavy and navy blue, with a white shirt and a blue-and-red-striped tie. Elena wore a white dress that Iosef had not seen before. She also wore a touch of makeup. To Iosef she looked healthy and beautiful.

Papers had been signed. The ZAGS officer, a lean, smiling man of about sixty, bore an uncanny resemblance to the American actor John Carradine. Iosef remembered an old movie in which Carradine, a consumptive prisoner in an Australian hellhole, saved the life of Brian Aherne by killing an oppressive guard by throwing sheep shears into the guard’s back. Iosef imagined the ZAGS officer reaching into his desk, pulling out scissors, and hurling them toward someone in the room.

The officer spoke, but Iosef, on the one hand, did not hear from his hiding place in the Australian outback. Elena, on the other hand, struggled to keep her attention on the words.

Abruptly the officer stopped and looked at both of them, waiting. Neither knew what to say or do. They looked at each other and smiled broadly, sharing a thought about the officer and the ceremony.

Iosef was instantly happy and Elena’s look conveyed that she was too. They embraced, kissed. Iosef took in the distinct scent of Elena mixed with an unfamiliar perfume while Elena was aware of his smell of bath soap and the familiar touch of perspiration.

Porfiry Petrovich handed his son two plain gold marriage bands. Iosef placed one ring on the ring finger of his right hand. He then placed the other band on the same finger of Elena’s right hand.

Then on to the party, which began with a toast from Porfiry Petrovich, who raised his glass and said, “Za molodykh, to the newlyweds.”

A Russian wedding traditionally takes at least two days. Elena and Iosef had decided theirs would take one afternoon. Traditionally, the guests drank vodka and got drunk. Elena and Iosef had decided that vodka would be poured freely, but the length of the party would minimize drunkenness. Traditionally, the groom’s friends would block his way to the waiting bride. They would demand answers to embarrassing questions and, if not satisfied, would reject passage, forcing him to find another way into her room, possibly through a window. Elena and Iosef would skip that too, though they had both laughed one afternoon while at Petrovka imagining Karpo, Tkach, and Zelach blocking a stairwell. They added Paulinin, the Yak, and Pankov for more broken-up laughter.

The party, held in the small third-story corner apartment of Sara and Porfiry Petrovich, quickly spilled into the hallway, where several neighbors joined in. Elena and Iosef stood in the living room greeting guests who brought white envelopes containing traditional gifts of money. The envelopes were handed to Porfiry Petrovich, who handed them to his wife.

A twig of an old man from the second floor congratulated Iosef and Elena saying, “Your father fixed my toilet.”

“Good,” said Iosef.

“It was full of shit and wouldn’t flush. The man is a great plumber.”

“Thank you for sharing that,” said Elena with a straight face.

Iosef couldn’t hold back. He turned and pretended to cough.

On the stairwell, Galina’s granddaughters, Laura and Nina, had come upstairs tentatively but had soon met Pulcharia Tkach, who took them under her wing along with her four-year-old brother. The four of them played on the stairs with squeals and shouts.

In the crowded living room sat a table continually being restocked with glasses, knives, forks, and plates. New rounds of tableware and empty trays were constantly being gathered and washed in the small kitchen by Galina and Lydia, whose shrill voice could be heard chattering above the rumble of conversations around her. Having left her hearing aids in her apartment, she was barely aware that anyone was speaking.

In addition to vodka, bowls and platters piled high with food crowded together, some threatening to topple to the floor. The food included pelmeny, small balls of minced meat covered with pastry; vareniky, pastry filled with berries; soleniye ogurscy, cucumbers prepared for two weeks in salt water with spices; vinegret, pieces of herring, chopped beef, beets, cucumber, carrot, potato, and oil; and yazyk, slices of boiled beef tongue with horse radish.

On the sofa with a glass of Pepsi-Cola in hand sat Anna Timofeyeva, who was keeping a secret that weighed upon her; she had promised to keep it, and keep it she would. Next to her sat Maya Tkach, who looked no happier than Anna Timofeyeva or the other person on the couch of gloom, Sasha Tkach. Sasha held a plate that had been piled high with food and handed to him by his mother. With the plate in one hand and a fork in the other, he ate dutifully.

A man laughed, more the sound of a horse than a human. A man whom Porfiry Petrovich did not recognize called out, “Has anyone seen Victor?” A glass broke. The party went on.

In the middle of the room with Pankov dutifully at his side, Igor Yaklovev, in a perfectly fitted blue suit and red tie, checked the time on his gold pocket watch. The watch was rumored to be a gift from Vladimir Putin. The Yak and Pankov were given room by the guests, who either knew who they were or recognized the presence of persons of power. It did not hurt this aura that the Yak looked very much like Lenin.

Against the wall leaned Emil Karpo and Akardy Zelach. Hands folded in front of him, Karpo looked like a sentry before a secret conclave. An unbidden thought came to Emil Karpo, the flash of the face of Mathilde Verson, killed in the cross fire between a Chechen and a Russian gang. Mathilde, the only woman he had ever been involved with, had been a prostitute. That did not matter to either of them. She found him amusing and worried about him, but it was she who had been flung back against the window of a restaurant, her waves of red hair flowing as she flew.

“Can I get you anything?” asked Zelach.

The image was gone. Mathilde was gone.

“No, nothing.”

Zelach leaned back against the wall again and caught a glimpse of Sasha Tkach.

Zelach knew that Maya had agreed to come to the wedding reception, where she would decide whether or not to return to Moscow. Sasha had told him this. Zelach had given him sympathy but no advice.

Akardy Zelach slouched forward, face close to his plate of yazyk and vinegret, his eyes on his food, his thoughts with his mother at home too ill to come to the party. Zelach longed for a way to leave, and then Porfiry Petrovich appeared before him and said, “How is your mother?”

“Poorly.”

“You should be with her.”

“Yes.”

“Go. Bring her some food. Tell her I hope that she will get well soon. Go.”

Porfiry Petrovich smiled and touched Zelach’s arm and then repeated, “Go.”

“Thank you. I will just finish this quickly.”

“And you, Emil Karpo, are you well?” asked Rostnikov.

“Perfectly,” said Karpo.

Rostnikov decided not to press the issue, not at his son’s wedding reception, but knew that something was troubling the gaunt detective. Karpo’s emotionless façade had been showing subtle signs of distress, which Rostnikov was reasonably sure that no one but he would notice.

“Good,” said Rostnikov, turning to make his way back through the crowd.

Anna Timofeyeva left first. Escorted by Elena’s cousin. Porfiry Petrovich guided them through the crowd and down the stairs. At the curb stood an unmarked police car for which Rostnikov had arranged.

Just before Anna got into the car, she did something she had never done before. She touched and then kissed the cheek of her former chief investigator and said, “Rad za tebya, I am happy for you.”

After two hours of pressing bodies, loud and shrill voices that created an unpleasant cacophony, Colonel Igor Yaklovev looked at his pocket watch. Time to leave. He had given the couple a suitable gift of cash and had wished them the best. Iosef sensed a slight tension in the Yak’s good-bye to him. Iosef had long shown signs of often-sullen disagreement with some of the work he had been assigned to do and some of the lies he was forced to tell. His father had kept him in line, and Iosef had performed with distinction.

The Yak had met with Porfiry Petrovich while he was in the hospital. They had agreed that when Iosef and Elena returned they would no longer be teamed on an investigation. Porfiry Petrovich, however, took issue with the Yak’s wish that Rostnikov not team with either his son or new daughter-in-law.

Colonel Yaklovev reconsidered. The decision that Porfiry Petrovich not work with Elena or Iosef had been a wish, not an order. Had it been an order, the Colonel was sure his Chief Inspector would have acquiesced.

Pankov left the party with Colonel Yaklovev. He felt that he may have given a greater cash gift than necessary. He had asked his highly unreliable neighbor Mrs. Olga Ferinova how much he should give. Olga Ferinova, a huge woman who supervised two street-cleaning crews, was certain about everything. She had told him what was proper, and he had done it.

On the way out, the Yak almost bumped into eleven-year-old Laura, who looked up at him and stopped laughing. Once outside, the Yak climbed into the waiting black police car at the curb. Pankov followed. The Yak had work to do.

With the departure of Colonel Yaklovev, the party got even louder and the vodka began to flow even more freely.

Zelach was next to leave, with a bag of food Lydia Tkach had prepared for his mother. He shook the hands of bride and groom. Iosef held Zelach’s hand a bit longer than he would hold others. Iosef smiled and Akardy returned the smile. When he touched Elena’s hand, he felt again that she held something back. She seemed to sense that he knew her secret. She gave him a reassuring touch on the arm.

Emil Karpo stepped through the dwindling crowd, shook the hands of Porfiry Petrovich, Sara, Elena, and Iosef, and left without a word. The departure of the ghostly figure in black further emboldened the remaining guests to consume even more vodka. More bottles were brought out. The empty ones were carried clinking to the cartons from which they had come.

A few of the now-drunken neighbors had to be politely urged to return to their apartments by Sara and Porfiry Petrovich. That left only Maya, Sasha, their children, and Lydia, in addition to Galina and her granddaughters. Maya had risen from the sofa to join her mother-in-law, Galina, and Sara in cleaning up, which they did with efficiency. Sasha watched his wife for signs of her intent to stay or go back to Kiev. He could detect nothing. He prided himself on his ability to see the small signs of intent in suspects. It was an ability he could not exercise on his wife. The children, a plate of food in each lap, sat on the floor of the now nearly empty living room.

The bride and groom moved to the bedroom to be alone before leaving for a four-day honeymoon in Yalta.

“Sit,” she said, gently ordering Iosef to his parents’ bed.

He obeyed and she paced nervously, touching the unfamiliar ring on her finger.

“I have to tell you something,” she said. “I should have told you this before we were married.”

“You mean about the baby?” he said, looking up at her.

She stopped fidgeting and pacing and met his eyes.

“You know.”

“I am a detective,” he said with a grin.

“And?”

“A girl would be nice. So would a boy.”

“My aunt knows,” she said.

“Do you want to tell your parents?”

“Certainly.”

He stood now. She moved into his arms with a sigh of great relief.

“I love you,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

The couple thanked Iosef’s mother and father when there was no one else in the apartment and the door finally closed. At that point, Elena told Sara and Porfiry Petrovich that they were going to be grandparents.