Madness Treads Lightly

CHAPTER 20

Late that evening, lying in a warm, lavender-scented bath, Regina started humming a tune, and then remembered the words:

Regina had an excellent memory for texts, especially poetry. She’d had occasion to listen to a great many songs with Venya at auditions and sat in occasionally on recording sessions. Often some random snippet would stick in her memory, and she’d find herself singing it, days, even years, later. What’s that? Where is it from? It’s not pop. The melody’s totally different, and the text…

Swaddled in her soft terry robe, Regina tucked her feet under her in her big leather armchair and lit a cigarette.

That was when she remembered the tall young man on the Pioneer stage where Venya listened to all kinds of street performers. The young man didn’t stand like the others; he sat on the edge of the stage. A guitar in his lap. Big hands and strong, agile fingers. A very pleasant voice.

“Sinitsyn!” Regina actually slapped her bare knee. “Of course. It’s a snippet of a song by Sinitsyn. Sinitsyn, who started this whole mess.”

“Why did you blow him off like that?” she’d asked Venya when the tall young man had left. “I thought he had something.”

“And I didn’t,” Venya replied, irritated. “That kind of music was fine for Moscow kitchens in the early eighties, but it won’t work today.”

“You know best.” Regina shrugged.

That evening, under hypnosis, Venya had told the story of the nighttime picnic on the banks of the Tobol and added new details.

“Venya, you have to keep that fellow under control,” Regina said later at dinner. “You shouldn’t have blown him off. He could be dangerous. It would have been better to promote him and shoot a couple of videos for him. You know it’s just like getting someone on the needle. He’d be tame and quiet. He’d forget everything that happened fourteen years ago—if he even remembers anything at all.”

“He remembers. It’s hard for me to look at him. I’m afraid.”

“Fine.” Regina sighed. “I’ll take care of it.”

It didn’t take her very long to determine that Mitya’s Sinitsyn’s wife Katya was an addict. Regina called them at home.

“Hello, Mitya. This is Regina Gradskaya. Do you remember me?”

“Yes, of course. Hello.” She could tell he was thrilled to hear from her. Of course he remembered her. His audition had only been three days before.

“I have to tell you, your songs made a very powerful impression on me. We should meet and talk. What are you doing this evening?”

“I… I’m free.”

“That’s excellent. I can come to your place in an hour, if that’s convenient.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled, embarrassed. “But I live on the outskirts, in Vykhino.”

“That’s nothing.” Regina smiled into the phone. “I have my car. I’ll take down the address.”

“Sometimes Veniamin Borisovich’s taste and mine don’t coincide,” she said later that evening, sitting on the old couch in the shabby two-room apartment in Vykhino. “He’s a practical and harsh man. He didn’t see the prospects in your songs, but I haven’t been able to forget them.

She sang his song quietly and accurately, with a pensive smile.

Sinitsyn blushed with pleasure.

“Did you really memorize it on the spot?” skinny, cropped Katya asked, shifting her eyes from their visitor to her husband.

“I did. I have a good memory for exceptional verse. There’s so little of it nowadays, and in the pop music business, none at all. Will you give me a cassette?”

“Yes, certainly. With pleasure,” Mitya said.

Katya immediately jumped up and ran into the other room. She came back a minute later holding an entire box of cassettes.

“Babe, why so many?” Sinitsyn was embarrassed.

Regina spent a couple of hours with them, drinking their awful instant coffee and talking about literature and music and about the mysterious nature of talent. She made no promises. She just admired Mitya’s songs and complained about the lack of talent in modern pop music and about her husband’s cold pragmatism.

“See me to my car, Mitya,” she asked when he gave her her coat in the front hall.

They stepped out into the empty, snow-drifted courtyard. It was a starry January night.

“I can see Katya has serious problems.” Regina tried to speak as gently and sympathetically as she could.

“Well, she does have a few health complications.”

“You don’t have to beat around the bush with me, Mitya. I’m a doctor. In fact, I am exactly the kind of doctor your wife needs. Katya’s addicted to drugs.”

“Is it really that obvious?” he asked in fright.

“To me, yes. But I’m a specialist.”

“It’s been going on for a year and a half. I’ve been trying to fight it, but without success. Sometimes I think it’s hopeless.”

“You’re mistaken, Mitya. In my opinion, there is hope. Assuming we don’t delay, of course.”

“She’s already been in the hospital and we’ve gone to private specialists as well. It’s very expensive and it’s had no effect.”

“You know what?” Regina touched his hand. “I’ll try to help. I’ll work with Katya. Don’t worry about money. I’ve been treating people for free for a long time. I can always tell whether a person is my patient or not. I only take someone on when the case interests me.”

“I don’t know how to thank you, Regina Valentinovna.”

“Go inside, Mitya. It’s cold and you’re just wearing a sweater.” She smiled as she got behind the wheel of her dark blue Volvo.

In a month’s time she made herself indispensable to the Sinitsyns. She visited them often and held hypnosis sessions with Katya. She really might have been able to cure this quiet, broken girl with the deep complexes, which stemmed from childhood.

Katya Sinitsyna was quite suggestible and trusting. She worshipped Regina. But Regina had no intention of curing this child of her addiction. She just eased the symptoms slightly and made very slight improvements in her condition.

Katya was sure she was on the mend. She thought she might reduce her dose. In fact, Regina had been periodically changing out her morphine ampoules for a higher concentration.

Mitya was effusive in his thanks and tried as hard as he could to please their new benefactor. He, too, was trusting and suggestible. He never said a word to her about his songs. Regina Valentinovna had done so much for them as it was, treating Katya for free, out of the goodness of her heart.

One day he said, blushing and embarrassed, “Forgive me, Regina Valentinovna, I’m going to ask you an immodest question. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“Ask away, Mitya,” she replied condescendingly.

“What connects you to that man?” Regina understood who he was talking about, naturally.

“Veniamin Borisovich is my husband,” she replied with a smile. “That says it all.”

“But are you sure you know everything about your husband?”

“Mitya.” She burst out in cheerful laughter. “Are you trying to suggest that he’s sleeping with models and aspiring singers?”

“No,” Mitya said, embarrassed. “No, you’ve misunderstood me. It just seems to me that Volkov is a very cruel and cold person. Whereas you… are you ever afraid of him?”

“Explain what you mean by afraid.”

“Well, aren’t you afraid to live with someone who’s capable of anything? Show business is a cruel business, a bloody one even, and closely connected with the criminal world. But you’re different. You’re sophisticated, intelligent, and noble. I’m sorry, I’m rattling on.”

“Why do you say that, Mitya? In your way, you’re right. I really am out of place in the foul, dirty world of entertainment. I don’t have any friends there. I think that’s partly why I’ve become so attached to your family. But life takes different forms. Fourteen years ago, I met Veniamin Borisovich. Trust me. He was different then.”

“Yes.” Mitya nodded. “He may have been different then.”

“Are you saying you’ve met him before?” Regina’s eyebrows rose up in surprise.

“No, never,” Mitya mumbled, not looking her in the eyes.

A few days after this conversation, Sinitsyn sat down with Venya at a small table in the bar at Ostankino.

It was night, and Venya had stopped in for coffee. The bar was nearly empty. Venya was exhausted after taping a popular game show. He wanted to be alone, so he told his bodyguard to wait in the car. Ostankino was like home. A man like Volkov didn’t go into it with his bodyguard!

He smoked and thought, sipping coffee from a mug. They’d made it just the way he liked it, with heavy cream.

“Hello, Veniamin Borisovich,” Sinitsyn said softly, sitting down across from him.

“Good evening. To what do I owe this pleasure?” Venya glanced at him indifferently.

“Don’t you like my songs at all?” Sinitsyn lit a cigarette.

“I do. But I don’t see a future in them.”

“You told them to let me through for an audition without waiting in line. Did you recognize me?”

The waiter came over. Sinitsyn ordered coffee, cognac, and some roasted nuts.

“And why should I recognize you?” Venya replied when the waiter had moved away.

“Haven’t we met before? Young Communist?”

“I don’t seem to recall.” Venya shrugged.

“The summer of ’82, in Tobolsk.” Sinitsyn smiled. “You were in charge of the City Committee’s Culture Department. You took us around.”

“I took a lot of people around. I can’t remember them all.”

“But I doubt you forgot Lena Polyanskaya, Young Communist. You liked her an awful lot.”

“Polyanskaya? Never heard of her.”

“Really? And Olga, my sister? You don’t remember her, either?”

“No.”

The waiter brought Sinitsyn’s order.

“Have some nuts, Young Communist. Help yourself.” Sinitsyn moved the bowl of hazelnuts to the middle of the table. “You fed us! You treated us to some excellent shish kebab and took us to the Party bathhouse in Tobolsk.”

Sinitsyn drank the cognac in one swallow, made a face, and tossed a nut into his mouth.

“You know, I never forgot you all these years. I remember especially clearly that night on the banks of the Tobol. You arranged that farewell picnic for us. You grilled some terrific shish kebab, Young Communist. You got ahold of excellent pork, lean and tender. You’d marinated it in a special wine sauce. Do you remember the recipe for that sauce? No? Of course not. You haven’t grilled shish kebab in a long time.

“Sometimes I even dream of that night. You cut the onion with a razor-sharp knife. Then you threaded the thin slices on the skewer. The onion didn’t make your eyes water. Ours were all watering like crazy. We were laughing and crying while you were handling that knife with such a serious face. And you kept sneaking peeks at Lena.”

“This is all very interesting.” Venya tried to smile. “But I don’t remember any Lena. Yes, sometimes I did arrange picnics for our guests. A lot of people came—from Moscow and from Leningrad. I would meet them and take them around.”

“You mean you don’t remember us? And the girl they found in the morning on the riverbank, not far from our campfire? You don’t remember her, either? That’s impossible! All Tobolsk was talking about that murder. People were even discussing it in Khanty. ‘Something’s happened to my memory,’” he sang unexpectedly loudly.

The few people sitting at the bar turned around.

“You’re drunk, Sinitsyn,” Venya said softly. “Go home.”

“No, Young Communist. I’m not drunk. I’m no young lady getting tipsy on one cognac. You know, I was prepared to forget this. So many years have passed. I’ve had so many problems of my own. And then one day I saw you on TV. You were giving an interview about philanthropy. The correspondent was hanging on your every word.

“Later, right after the interview with you, they showed an episode of Criminal Russia, the documentary series. This particular episode was about a serial killer who operated in Tyumen Province in the early eighties. He raped and murdered six girls ages fifteen to eighteen. He strangled four. Slit the throats of two. They found him. A vile man, an alcoholic. He got caught at a beer stand selling some cheap jewelry taken off one of his victims. But he never did admit to a single murder. No matter what they did to him, and they worked him over pretty good. Eventually he was executed, but he never did confess. Up until the very last minute, he insisted he hadn’t killed anyone. How do you like that story, Young Communist?”

Sinitsyn spoke quietly and quickly. He leaned across the table and breathed cognac and tobacco into Volkov’s face. Volkov listened in silence. He could feel sweat soaking through his shirt.

“Here you are sitting in front of me, pale and sweaty, and you don’t know what to say.” Sinitsyn grinned. “Tell me you remember us coming to Tobolsk. Tell me you remember Lena Polyanskaya and my sister Olga. And you recognized me right away. But you didn’t kill the girls. That never happened. Go on, say it, Venya. All I need is your word, and I’ll believe you. No one’s going to hear us now. You and I are talking about something known only to the two of us—you and me. I confess, at first I wanted to blackmail you. But that made me feel dirty. I don’t want your money or to be in one of your videos. Just tell me you didn’t kill those six girls. I’ll take your word for it.”

“You’re drunk. Go sleep it off,” Volkov said softly and added loudly, “Get out of here. I’m sick of you!”

“If you say so.” Sinitsyn shrugged, got up from the table, gulped down the rest of his cold coffee, went over to the counter to pay the waiter, and left the bar slowly.

Volkov wasn’t able to tell Regina about the conversation right away. She wasn’t in Moscow. She’d flown to Paris for a few days.

She’d returned and gone straight from the airport to the Status Club, where they were releasing Yuri Azarov’s new album. She liked turning up like that, straight from an international flight to a party. Actually, there wasn’t much of a party at the Status, just a buffet.

After sauntering around the room and schmoozing with everyone they needed to, she and Venya got ready to leave and headed slowly to the door. Azarov was seeing them out.

All of a sudden Sinitsyn materialized out of nowhere. They had no idea how he’d gotten into the private club, and wearing jeans and an old sweater.

He walked straight up to Venya and said quietly, “Listen, Young Communist, that was no nosebleed. You lied. It was that girl’s blood. And you took that heart pendant from the girl you killed in Tyumen. You do remember the dance at the vocational school, don’t you? Do you know what that girl’s name was? Natasha! She was all her mother had. Her mother died of a heart attack. Immediately. After she learned what had happened to her daughter. The drunk they executed was right not to confess. He didn’t kill those girls, you did. They executed him in your place, Young Communist.”

Sinitsyn’s voice was getting louder and louder, but the crowd drowned out what he was saying. Regina was the first to recover.

“Is there security here or not, damn it!” she said calmly. “Get this madman away from us!”

Two broad-shouldered toughs in formal suits dragged Sinitsyn to the exit.

“You’re a maniac, Young Communist! A serial killer! Regina Valentinovna, he’ll kill you! Be careful!” Mitya cried out as he was carried to the exit.

Looking around, Regina encountered Azarov’s cold, attentive eyes.