Londongrad

PART SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

I watched as Valentina Sverdloff strolled to the gate of her grandparents’ house. Half in a trance, I followed her. I had seen her in New York on her own bed, had felt for her pulse.

That day, I had sat beside her, held her cold hand, absorbed, after a while-I never knew how long-that she was dead.

She was dead, and after they took her away, the ME had cut her up and stitched her back together on a metal slab. Bobo Leven had told me. Tolya had told me. I had read the report.

Russia, this fucking country, I thought. A country that makes you see things, makes you believe in shit that doesn’t exist, in ghosts. It was all I could think. I’d left it the first time when I was a kid, only sixteen. I’d come back once, got sucked in, gone away, swore I’d never come back. Never again. It did weird things to you, every part of you.

I knew that Val was dead. Again I pictured her on her bed, saw myself lean down and put my mouth in front of hers. No breath had come out. No breath, no pulse, nothing. In New York she had been dead.

But she was here in this strange evening light, in front of me, tall, lanky, hair ruffled by the breeze, wearing the white jeans, swinging her arms, back to me, smoking a cigarette and almost at the gates of the old Sverdloff dacha. I put down my bag and started to run.

“Val?” I shouted, stumbling on a tangle of uncut grass. Valentina?

Even saying it made gooseflesh run up my arms. I pulled on my jacket. I’d been carrying it, and I put it on and zipped it up and fumbled in the pocket for cigarettes. Val, darling?

“Artie, right?”

“Yes.”

She had turned around and was coming towards me, still smoking. Now she tossed her cigarette on the stone path and crushed it under her red sneaker.

“You don’t recognize me, do you? I met you a while back. I’m Valentina’s sister. Her twin. You remember? Maria. Everybody calls me Molly.”

They were identical twins, but only in looks. Different voices.

“You know he’s dead, don’t you?” she said.

Tolya was dead.

I wasn’t sure I could stand this. For a second, I was so dizzy I had to lean against the garden wall. What would I do without him?

“Ask me, I’m glad Grisha is dead, you know,” said Molly. “I never liked him. He was bad, every which way, he was a shit.”

“Grisha Curtis?”

“Who did you think I meant?”

“It doesn’t matter. How?”

“I don’t know. Somebody said he was drugged, somebody said a knife, other people thought he was strangled. This is Russia, Artie. Somebody will find out, I don’t care, I’m glad!”

“When did you hear?”

“Yesterday. They all gossip, like crazy,” Molly said. “I’m staying over at my mom’s dacha about a mile away. Over in Barvika. Grisha’s uncle has a place. Somebody found him in the woods, it’s all I know. And everybody was excited because there were police around, that kind of shit.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure. You need a cigarette or something?”

“Yeah,” I said, taking the pack Molly offered. “Thank you.

Of course I remember you.”

“Val probably told you I was the good girl, the one who fit in, even in Florida, I dated boys who played football, I liked to shop, I was student president. You know my best friend in junior high was a little Russian tennis player from Almaty. When she lost some junior tournament, she killed herself. I decided I hated Russians right then.” Molly lit up, offered me her lighter.

Her hair was reddish brown, bangs over her forehead. A canvas bag was thrown over her shoulder. There was a wooden bench outside the dacha gates, and she sat on it. I sat next to her.

“He killed her, you know?” said Molly. “The bastard killed my lovely sister, he murdered her.”

“Grisha? You know that?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw him,” she said. “I saw him in Moscow a few days ago and he looked at me, and I could see he was terrified, as if he thought I was Val. I tried to find him again, but I couldn’t. He’s only met me a few times. I felt it. Twins feel things about each other. Did he?”

“I think so. Tell me what you know about him.”

“I met him a couple times.”

“What?”

“I met him in London last summer. He was very good-looking in a sort of spooky sci-fi way, you know? Very, very handsome, carved features, always smiling, great smile, good low voice, and funny, well, sort of funny,” said Molly. “I met Grisha’s mother at that sad little wedding in London. Val was all lit up. I think for the first time, just plain in love. Regular old-fashioned love and sex and somebody your own age, a nice good boy you were going to be with forever. She was a different kind of girl, but she had that in common with all of us.”

“Go on.”

“Val always liked older guys, rougher, smarter, remember Jack Santiago? She liked interesting people, which got her into trouble, she didn’t have real good pitch for emotional stuff. So at first I thought, wow, about fucking time Val met a regular guy, a nice guy, her age. But she was coy about Greg, or Grisha, or whatever the fuck he was called, I think she was shy, she told me to keep it to myself. My poor mom, Christ, she didn’t even know Val got married. I had to tell her after Val died.”

“What else?”

“Something went wrong between Grisha and Valentina the last few months, and then she was dead. My father went off his rocker. I went to her place and looked for all her diaries and stuff, but most of it was gone.”

“I was there.”

“Where?’

“In her apartment. Her stuff was all there, everything, her pictures, clothes, everything.”

“After she was murdered?” Molly said.

“Yes. So somebody was in there not long afterwards.”

“It was him.”

“Why did you come to Russia?”

“Like I said, our mom has a place not far away. She said she had to come here, she said she had to come to Russia, to her dacha, she’s half out of her skull because of Val, and because Dad went to New York to get her and bring her body back, apparently Val told him once she wanted to be with her grandparents in the cemetery, and I’m thinking, he’s out of his mind,” Molly added. “But I could imagine Val wanting it, for a while she became obsessed with Russia. We kind of stopped talking a lot, we were in different places,” she said. “Oh, shit, Artie, why did I make her feel bad?”

“No, she also loved New York. You didn’t make her feel bad.”

“I told her the Russian stuff was bullshit. Maybe it was because I always knew our dad preferred her. He never said or showed it, I just knew, they were connected in a different way.”

“I understand.”

“Thanks. Listen, I have to take my mom to New York. We don’t know if Daddy is ever coming. We’re leaving in the morning. But I wanted to see this place. I rode my bike over,” she said, pointing to the bicycle parked against the fence. “I don’t care about any of this Russian crap, you know, and the old house, our grandparents? It gives me the creeps. Daddy gave us the house, I told Val she could have my half. She said okay, but first we had to visit together, so we planned it for this summer.” She tossed her cigarette on the ground. “I miss her so bad, Artie.”

“Was she going to live here?”

“I think Val wanted to make it a country retreat for her kids.”

“Kids?”

“The girls she took care of. I don’t know what to do with it now.”

“Where’s your father?”

“I don’t know that either. We’ve only been here a few days. We were waiting for him. I think all that happens in this country is you get sucked in like quicksand and you can never get out. I hate it. It killed Val, and maybe it killed my dad. Fuck Russia, you know?” Her tone was defiant but her eyes were full of tears.

“When did you talk to him, to Tolya?”

“Over a week? Sunday? Maybe Monday. He was in London. He promised to come. He said, I’ll meet you. Wait for me. I’m still waiting. I called somebody in New York. Val’s body is still there.”

“You knew about Val when?”

“From my mom.”

I thought of something, “Do you ride a red Vespa?” I asked.

“Yes, why?”

“Somebody saw you on it not long before Val was murdered.”

“I brought it to the city, to New York. I was intending to give it to Val for a present, because I needed a car in Boston. I didn’t go right over to her place, I just rode around and saw friends, and I went out that night. My God, she was still alive while I was riding that fucking scooter, and I was too late after that. Somebody thought I was Val, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“I could have saved her.”

“No. Grisha killed her.”

“I’m glad the bastard is dead. Over in Barvika, they’re all talking about it, boo hoo. I bet he fucked every one of those stupid girls. All they want is to marry an oligarch,” said Molly. “I’m glad he’s dead.” I’m really glad you’re here. My dad always talks about you, like all the time. Like you would know how to deal with this kind of shit. He said if I was ever in trouble, and he was away, I should call you.”

I took a cigarette from her and we lit up and smoked for a few seconds in silence.

“We need to go inside the house,” I said finally.

“You think he’s here?” She glanced at the house where the windows were dark. “Maybe he’s hiding from somebody,” she said. “I need him to be here now,” she said. “I’m scared to go in.”

“Why?”

“I think I’ll find him in there. You know, not alive.”

“Why would he be hiding, who from?”

“It’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it Artie?”

“Yeah.”

“If Daddy knew Grisha killed my sister, what would he do?” said Molly. “He’s not like other people’s dads, you know? This is what we’re not saying, that if he found Grisha, that would be it. And then they’d get my dad, too, they’d put him away for murder.”

The light was fading, Russia closing in on us. I moved towards the house.

“Molly, look, I should tell you, just in case, I have a gun. I just don’t want to freak you out. Okay?”

She smiled.

“Oh, Artie, honey, I grew up in Florida, I’m like from America, from real America, from Florida where they fuck with the elections and everybody has guns,” she said. “It’s the American religion, you know that. My mother has a gun, for Pete’s sake, honey.” Molly had a slight Southern accent, and the sweet look of somebody who had been happy most of her life. She was a nice girl.

One hand in Molly’s, we went through the high gates, which were unlocked, then we stumbled through the weeds to the house.

The front door was locked. It had glass panes in the top half, and one was broken. I pushed it, and it fell in. I managed to push another one of the panes in too, and I heard it shatter lightly on wide planks inside the house.

It was very quiet. I listened to the house through the broken window. I couldn’t hear anything except a faint creaking noise, maybe a breeze, or a rat. Mice. Nobody was here. Sverdloff wasn’t here. Was he? It was a big house, two storeys. I listened some more.

“Let’s go,” said Molly. “Come on.”

I reached through the broken glass and found the doorknob, and turned it. The door opened and together we went inside the house.