Madness Treads Lightly

CHAPTER 9

John Condy usually held onto his future victim for several days. It was as if he was trying to get at the person’s essence. He said he was like a sponge, soaking up another living being’s energy. In solitary confinement at Goldsworthy Prison in Indiana, Condy spoke at length and with pleasure about his sensations—before, during, and after a murder. He is credited with a well-known sentence in forensic psychiatry literature: “I conquered death by killing.”

Condy saw himself as something of a murderer-philosopher, capable not only of thinking abstractly but also of articulately expressing his thoughts. John Condy was motivated to kill not by a surge of passion or hatred or by sexual desire.

“From early childhood I was oppressed by death’s inevitability. Usually children don’t give death much thought, but I was the unlucky exception. When I looked at the world around me, I didn’t see people, I saw puppets. Some cruel and mocking being had carved them out of clay, filled them with passions, and given some of them talent, others wealth, and made others unlucky and ugly. Each one of these puppets was destined to decay and turn into mud. This remote and all-powerful someone was just having fun, but people bowed down before that someone and called that someone God. My mother was a proper Protestant, and she dragged me to church every week, but from early childhood all I felt there was cold and death.

“Death was the most irrevocable, powerful, and concrete thing in the universe, the sole reality, and it attracted me, drew me to it. I wanted to come in contact with it again and again. For me, killing was an act of love for, and horror in, the face of death. A greedy killer is boring. It’s like love for money or the love of a prostitute. Death is so important in and of itself that one should only kill for the sake of death itself.”

Lena Polyanskaya was translating the last section of David Crowell’s article “Cruelty and the Victim” and wondering whether she should cut some of the more gruesome bits. She knew full well that readers loved those kinds of details and that many would read the article for the pathology, not the psychology. But those details made Lena a little queasy. The author had obviously gotten carried away with that very thing, aware that this was what turned a scientific article into literature.

Lena realized he was right to do so. No successful general-interest magazine would publish an article consisting of nothing but psychological observations, no matter how interesting, fresh, and lively they may be. It was foolish to expect that kind of pure psychology to appeal to Smart’s readers. If she cut even half of the horrific details, the editor in chief was going to ask, “What happened to the good parts? You’re insulting the reader, Elena.” And he’d be right. The reader grew bored without a little blood.

Liza woke up in the next room and called out loudly, “Mama!”

Lena was happy to be pulled away from her work and to take a break from the philosophizing of a serial killer.

While she was feeding Liza a chicken cutlet and mashed potatoes, the doorbell rang.

At the door, Lena looked out the peephole and saw an older woman, a stranger. Her unbuttoned coat was thrown over a white lab coat and she had a stethoscope hanging around her neck.

“Hello, I’m from the Filatov Hospital,” said the voice on the other side of the door. “We’re conducting a week of wellness checks for children under the age of three before the next immunization campaign.”

The Filatov Hospital’s clinic was their neighborhood clinic, where all forms got filled out and wellness checks were done rather frequently, so Lena opened the door.

“We’re up-to-date on our shots,” Lena told her, helping the woman off with her coat.

“We’re planning to introduce an additional flu shot soon.” The woman smiled. “Not for nursing infants, of course. Is your card at home or at the registry?”

“The registry. I’m sorry, we’re having dinner now.”

“That’s all right. Take your time and finish. I’ll wait.” The woman followed Lena into the kitchen.

“Hello, Liza dear,” she said. “What are you eating?”

“Potatoes and chicken,” Liza told her seriously from her high chair at the table.

“That’s wonderful how well she speaks. Perfectly splendid for her age. She’s not two yet, am I right?”

“She turned two five days ago. Please have a seat. Some tea perhaps?”

“Thank you. I won’t say no. Only a little later. You finish eating now, then I’ll examine Liza, and then I’ll have some tea.”

Liza finished very quickly. As they walked down the hall to the nursery, the doctor noticed the computer screen glowing through the doorway and asked, “How do you manage to find the time to work with such a young child?”

“I have no choice.”

“Money problems?”

“More like professional.”

“I understand. You work for a private company without maternity or unpaid leave.” The doctor shook her head. “What can you do? As the saying goes, you get what you ask for. I’ll bet you don’t get enough sleep, either.”

“Sometimes.” Lena smiled.

As she examined Liza, listened to her, and looked at her throat, the doctor kept asking Lena casual questions about her job and personal life. She made them sound perfectly tactful and unobtrusive.

“What firm do you work for, if I may ask?”

“I head up a department at Smart.”

“Oh, I know that magazine. So, how many teeth do we have?” She counted Liza’s little teeth, recorded something in her notebook, and then went back to asking Lena questions about her job.

“Which department?”

“Literature and art. You know, Doctor, sometimes she gets constipated, and I can’t figure out why.”

“Soak a few prunes in cold boiled water for twenty-four hours, and give her a spoonful of the fruit and juice three times a day before meals. But if you’re really worried, we can test her intestinal bacteria levels. She has a bit of a rash. Nothing terrible, but not to be neglected.”

“Thank you so much.”

Lena noticed that the pediatrician had long, sharp nails and wore pale, flesh-colored polish. That seemed a little odd. Ordinarily doctors and nurses who deal with small children cut their nails short to keep from scratching children accidentally.

After examining Liza, the doctor smiled politely and guiltily reminded Lena about her earlier offer of tea.

“Would you like coffee instead?” Lena suggested.

She was so happy to have the chance to talk at length and at leisure with an intelligent pediatrician. She didn’t take Liza to the clinic very often and called a doctor to the house even less.

Svetlana Igorevna, the district pediatrician, was a very sweet person and a well-educated doctor, but she was always in a hurry. She always politely refused Lena’s offers of tea or coffee, and Lena felt bad about detaining her with additional questions and conversation. Her head was spinning already from the ten to fifteen house calls she made each day. And there was always a long line to see her at the clinic.

“I’m sorry, I forgot to ask you your name.” Lena poured strong coffee for the doctor and herself.

“Valentina Yurievna,” the doctor introduced herself. “You make excellent coffee. Tell me, who do you leave Liza with when you go to your office?”

“My neighbor. We’re very lucky. She’s a lonely older woman, and she watches the child for very modest pay.”

“Yes,” Valentina Yurievna agreed. “That’s great luck. It’s very hard to find a reliable and affordable nanny these days. And I’m not even talking about day care, of course. The children are constantly sick there. You stay at home with a healthy child, and the moment you put her in day care, you have to stay at home with a sick one. If you can do it, it’s far better to keep your child at home until she is old enough for school. Unfortunately, not everyone has that option.” The doctor smiled sadly and sipped her coffee. “Do you have to go to the office often?”

“I have two office days a week, but mostly I work at home. The magazine has been accommodating. Tell me, Valentina Yurievna, what should I do when my child takes a long time to fall asleep?”

“Your Liza is a very calm child. Does she really have a problem with that?”

“Occasionally. We spoil her and sometimes let her stay up late with us.”

“Don’t make too much of it. A child will always get what she needs. If she doesn’t eat or sleep today, she’ll make up for it tomorrow. As for spoiling her, when can we spoil them if not at this age? Soon enough comes school and lessons and responsibilities. Tell me, Lena, do you write anything for the magazine yourself?”

“Once in a while. Mostly I work with the authors and translate.”

This kind of curiosity on the part of a stranger, a pediatrician, surprised Lena, but didn’t put her on her guard. Smart was a well-known and popular magazine. If a middle-aged woman had looked at a few issues, naturally she’d find it interesting to chat with the head of a department over a cup of coffee.

It was a little odd that, unlike her colleagues, she was in no hurry to get on with her house visits. There were lots of small children and never enough doctors and nurses, even at the prestigious Filatov Clinic.

“What are you working on now, if I may ask?”

“Right now I’m translating an article by a trendy American psychologist.”

“How wonderful! To be honest, I’m very interested in psychology, especially the modern American school. Who are you translating?”

“David Crowell. It’s an article on the psychology of serial killers.”

“How interesting!” For some reason the doctor laughed, though her face then immediately became serious. “I have to tell you, I became interested in the psychology of suicides recently. There was a terrible case. A young woman, the mother of two children, killed herself, just like that, out of the blue. Everything in her life seemed to be great. Her husband doted on her, healthy children, plenty of money, and yet she hanged herself.”

Lena started feeling uncomfortable. All this time she couldn’t get Mitya Sinitsyn out of her mind. He, too, had hanged himself out of the blue.

“Yes, life is full of surprises,” she said quickly. “More coffee?”

Liza ran into the kitchen crying.

“Mama, my doll’s head broke and the blue ball is hiding,” she reported tragically. Lena went to the nursery.

She expected the doctor to take this opportunity to leave, but instead she followed Lena and helped fix the beheaded rubber doll and search for the ball, which had rolled under the sofa. Then she went back to the kitchen, and drank two more cups of coffee with Lena. More surprisingly, she returned to the psychology of suicides.

Lena had come to regret her hospitality. The doctor ended up staying an hour and a half, finally remembering suddenly that she had to run out and continue her rounds.

After she’d gone, Lena was left with an odd, unsettling feeling. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but she felt dreary inside, she was all thumbs, and her head even started to hurt.

Liza played calmly, telling stories to her toys. Lena could well have gone back to her translating and worked another forty minutes or so, but when she sat down at her computer, she discovered her thoughts were tangling and slipping off in all directions. Even the simplest words escaped her, the tiny letters on the screen danced before her eyes. She shut down the computer, washed the dishes, and managed to break her favorite coffee cup in the process.

What’s wrong with me? she thought irritably. Maybe I just need some sleep. I’m probably overestimating my capabilities. I can’t sleep so little. It takes a toll eventually. My head hurts, I’m breaking cups, and kind doctors are making me think ill of them. That’s wrong. I should take Liza for a walk right now and try to get to bed earlier tonight. Forget about work and finally get a good night’s sleep.

She got Liza dressed and decided to go all the way to Patriarch Ponds, where there was the illusion of fresh air and the paths were relatively clear. It wasn’t all that far, but she’d have to carry the stroller up and down the stairs at the underground crossing at the Ring Road. Lena was used to that, though, and sometimes someone helped.

“That was a mean lady,” Liza suddenly pronounced as Lena heroically lifted the stroller and carried it down the stairs, which were slippery with the evening frost.

“Why mean, Liza?” she asked after safely navigating the slippery stairs and putting the stroller wheels on the smooth floor of the underground passage.

“Bad,” Liza said gloomily. “A mean lady.” A boy of twelve or so was walking toward them, leading a big black dog in a muzzle on a leash. Liza bounced up and down in her stroller and cried joyfully, “What a dog! Oh, what a big dog! Why does she have a boot on her face?”

“That’s a muzzle,” Lena explained. “They put it on big dogs just in case the dog suddenly didn’t like something and wanted to bite.”

“It doesn’t hurt her?” Liza asked, concerned.

Liza loved dogs. Their old dachshund, Pinya, had died just two months ago, and she remembered him still, though children that young usually have short memories. Of course, she didn’t understand what “dead” meant. They told her Pinya had gone to a fairy-tale dogland.

Now all the brown dachshunds they met on the street were Pinya for her, but she reacted passionately to big dogs. A dog in a muzzle was more interesting than a “mean lady.” The dog was here and now and the lady had gone, and Liza quickly forgot her. Lena was happy not to revisit the subject.

Going up with the stroller wasn’t as dangerous as going down. There was less chance of slipping on frozen stairs, although it was much heavier. Lena was lucky, though, as an older man helped her get it up the stairs.

“Why, if it isn’t Liza Krotova!” Lena heard behind her.

The stroller was already at the top, and an older woman popped up next to the man. Lena recognized the district doctor, Svetlana Igorevna. The man who’d helped with the stroller was her husband.

They lived not far from Patriarch Ponds, so Lena walked them home.

“We had a visit today from the clinic. You’re doing some kind of wellness checkups,” Lena told her.

“We are? Checkups?” Svetlana Igorevna was surprised. “What do you mean? We’re not doing anything of the kind. Who was it who came to see you? Did you ask her name?”

Lena felt a nasty chill in her belly. She recounted the visit briefly, hoping it might have something to do with the clinic after all.

“What did you say the woman’s name was? Valentina Yurievna?” Svetlana Igorevna asked, concerned.

Lena nodded.

“And she spent nearly two hours with you? Did you make sure nothing was missing?”

“To be honest, it didn’t occur to me,” Lena admitted in dismay. “She was wearing a white coat and a stethoscope, and she examined the child quite professionally.”

“You can’t be so trusting these days.” Svetlana Igorevna’s husband shook his head. “There are so many apartment break-ins nowadays. She could have been there to case the apartment. You hadn’t called for a doctor; you let a complete stranger into your home!”

The chill in her belly wouldn’t pass, and then her knees started shaking. On the way home, Lena recalled all the details of her conversation with the “doctor,” and her head constructed a bizarre chain that led from the stranger to suicide, and from suicide to Mitya Sinitsyn.

If Seryozha had been home, it wouldn’t have been so frightening, but he was in London and wasn’t going to be back any time soon. Lena tried to convince herself that there couldn’t possibly be a connection between the fake doctor and Mitya’s suicide. The doctor had just been casing her place. She had to make sure nothing had gone missing. She’d call Misha Sichkin for advice on how to protect herself.

But this was a bizarre way to case an apartment—spending so much time, professionally examining Liza, giving sensible advice, and then discussing the psychology of suicides. Although how would I know how people act when they’re casing a place?

She was especially creeped out that she’d let this strange woman touch her child.