Madness Treads Lightly

CHAPTER 4

“Veniamin Borisovich, the Butterfly duo is still waiting for you,” his elderly secretary, dressed in a pink wool suit, told him.

“No.” He shook his head. “Tell them to come the day after tomorrow. Even better, Monday at eleven.”

“Veniamin Borisovich, you’ve been putting them off for more than a month. Just take a look at them. They’re pretty girls, I promise.”

Butterfly—the two eighteen-year-old singers Ira and Lera—had in fact been coming for more than a month to audition, but he never had the time or energy for them.

In forty days they’d managed to give his secretary, Inna Evgenievna, everything from big boxes of Mozart chocolates to the latest Chanel perfume. The secretary accepted these offerings with casual benevolence, as if she were doing them a favor. It all vanished immediately into her desk drawers, where it was instantly forgotten.

Only today did it occur to the blonde, Ira, who was sharper and more practical, just to slip three bills—US hundred-dollar bills—in a white envelope into Inna Evgenievna’s jacket pocket.

“Veniamin Borisovich, you do know I have a practiced eye,” his secretary persisted. “They’re unusual girls. Just take a look at them. There’s demand for their type.”

“All right.” He sighed. “Bring me coffee. Have them come in. Only directly to the stage, and warn them there won’t be any lip-syncing.”

“Veniamin Borisovich! What lip-syncing?” Inna Evgenievna took offense on the duo’s behalf. “So far they haven’t done anything but live shows.”

“Age?”

“Eighteen. Both.”

“Where from?”

“Moscow.”

“Fine, call them in. Only get me that coffee quick, and make it strong.”

Auditioning novice performers was the hardest and most thankless part of his job. Every time, sitting in the small auditorium of the district’s former House of Pioneers, he felt like a tired and grubby prospector stubbornly panning ore in search of the smallest flecks of gold. When those rare flecks did come his way, though, they paid him back with interest for the exhaustion and the bad voices and the tired and tiresome tunes.

He’d bought this late eighteenth-century, two-story private home in the very center of Moscow three years ago. He hadn’t scrimped on renovating and furnishing the wooden, almost rotten merchant’s home that had miraculously survived the 1812 fire. Now he had his office, sound studio, and editing room here. Even music video producers sometimes worked here.

The house’s insides were entirely new, and the walls had been rebuilt altogether. Inside, everything gleamed the way the studio and office of a billionaire’s production company should. But there was one room Veniamin Volkov wouldn’t let anyone touch.

In the last two centuries, the largest room in the house had served as a drawing room for the former owners, the Kalashnikovs, Moscow merchants who traded in textiles. In the 1930s, the house became the district House of Pioneers, and the former drawing room had served as its auditorium. Drama and dance clubs had used it right up until the early 1990s.

A varnished, time-dimmed barre ran along the walls, which were bedecked with bugles, banners, and other Pioneer symbols. Two little steps, smoothed over the years by thousands of children’s feet, led to the small plank wall. Behind the stage there was a tiny, windowless room that still contained parts of plywood stage sets.

He wouldn’t allow anything in that room touched. It was here that he did his hardest, most exhausting work.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, in another life, fifth-grader and Pioneer Venya Volkov got up on the same kind of wooden stage and sang the Civil War–era song “Far Away, Across the River” to the accompaniment of an aged, out-of-tune piano. That was in the Tobolsk House of Pioneers, not the Moscow one, in a similar old merchant’s home, in an auditorium with bugles and banners covering the oil-painted walls.

For the seven minutes the song lasted, thirty boys and girls in the small hall were listening just to him, looking just at him, plain, skinny, towheaded little Venya.

He was singing for just one little girl, fifth-grader Tanya Kostylyova. He put his heart and soul into that song as he looked at Tanya’s gentle, slightly elongated face, at her slender, defenseless little neck wound round with a red silk tie. At the time, he didn’t understand what those feelings were or what the dense, unbearable fever that filled his whole body would later lead to.

He sang the intensely sad melody perfectly, not garbling a single note. At the time, thirty years ago, he didn’t understand anything about himself, but now he suddenly thought that it would have been better if back then, right on that creaking wooden stage, he’d been struck dead, instantly and painlessly, without finishing the pretty little song. Yes, that would have been better for him and for the slender-necked fifth-grader in the silk tie—and for many, many others.

“Veniamin Borisovich!” his secretary’s voice called sweetly.

She deftly rolled in a tall mahogany serving cart with a big, heavy ceramic mug on it. Venya couldn’t stand small, delicate teacups. He drank his coffee strong and sweet with lots of heavy cream. He liked his coffee and his mug substantial.

Two pretty young things in tight blue jeans were already on the stage. Butterfly. He hadn’t even noticed them come into the room. For a few seconds he scrutinized them silently. They really were no more than eighteen. One was a cropped blonde, a little plump, with soft, heavy breasts under a thin sweater. The other was a skinny brunette with straight, shoulder-length hair. The blonde was definitely sexier, but in a conventional way. The brunette was more interesting. There was something unusual about her, her high forehead, the arrogant slant of her eyes, her slender hands. Yes, you could sense the thoroughbred in her. Inna may have been right. The combination could be interesting—a standard and overt sexuality alongside something else entirely, an unexpected novelty, a thoroughbred.

Frames of possible videos automatically flashed through his head. Have I really lucked out? he thought with cautious excitement, and said, nodding kindly, “Begin, girls. There won’t be any accompaniment or mic. For now. Sing your first song standing still. Just sing. Is that clear?”

They waited silently. This was exactly how he always started an audition. What he cared most about were their faces and their voices. You could always add choreography later. Without dances, accompaniment, or a mic, it was terribly hard to perform the pop junk these boys and girls usually brought him. He knew that alone with the empty, meaningless words, a performer was basically naked and defenseless. You could see all of him.

None of his colleagues, his former competitors, bothered with anything this tedious. They made money not on people who could sing but on people who were anxious to see themselves or their wives, children, or lovers in a professionally produced music video. There were plenty of takers for that. Success didn’t come from the performer but from the money behind him. You could turn a telegraph pole into a household name—given the right amount of money.

Veniamin Volkov had never succumbed to the temptation of fast, easy money. Everyone else did business for the present, with no thought for the future. For everyone else, the decision was easy: better a thousand right now than a million next week. When it’s all dirty money, there’s no guarantee you’ll live to the end of the week anyway.

Consequently, Veniamin Productions was the only entertainment company that created genuine stars. To make a star, you have to have quality raw material. Other producers turned shit into candy, sickly-sweet lemon drops that made even the Russian consumer’s teeth crumble and his belly ache. Veniamin Volkov spared neither time nor effort in creating his stars—and he wasn’t afraid of taking risks. He understood that if there were nothing but butts flashing across the television screen, the public would eventually want to see the occasional face.

Standing onstage, arms at their sides, the girls sang some typical garbage, most likely of their own composition, in thin but pleasant voices. He wasn’t really listening. He examined their faces and tried to tell whether he could sense the delicate aura of success.

Success in his business was an unpredictable thing. The public’s taste can’t be calculated using logic, but it can be divined. It just took a special talent. Which Veniamin Volkov liked to think he had. He’d worked long and hard to get to this point, through blood, mud, and mob shoot-outs. He’d stepped over others so many times, he could relax now and enjoy his success.

Smoking, sipping his thick, sweet, creamy coffee, he was annoyed to realize that these girls were just the latest fluff. There wasn’t a whiff of success about them. He might get a decent video out of it if he played on the contrast of types, but to do that he’d have to train them for a long time. They weren’t worth the effort.

“Thanks, that will do,” he interrupted the song, clapping softly.

They broke off in the middle of the beat.

“Veniamin Borisovich, can we sing you one more song?” the blonde suddenly suggested loudly.

“No, that’s enough. I know what I need to know. You can go, girls.”

“Just one verse, please,” the blonde insisted. “Two minutes.”

“All right, go ahead.” He couldn’t be bothered to drive them away, and they clearly weren’t going to leave without singing their verse.

The skinny brunette’s voice was lower and deeper. She started, and then the blonde came in. The ballad by Kim from some 1970s movie was beautiful and sad. But that wasn’t important now.

He lowered his eyelids. It was very pleasant. Something came to him from far away. A campfire on a steep bank, a June morning, the dawn’s delicate fog hanging over the river like torn lace, the dense city park, and a melody:

His heart beat harder. His hands got hot, burning hot. Blood pulsed hotly in his temples.

Two young women, a vivid, plump blonde and a skinny, thoroughbred brunette. A sex kitten and a stray dog.

Soon they would notice how hard he was shaking. Pretty soon he would get up, walk toward the stage, and go up the stairs. His right hand instinctively squeezed his Parker pen with the sharp gold nib. The cap was already off, and the pen lay on his open planner. A very sharp nib.

The girls were carried away with their singing and didn’t notice how red in the face he was, how his right hand was shaking the pen it clutched. Fourteen years ago, to the sounds of this very song, he had forced himself to stand up and quickly escape into the swelling darkness of the city park that transitioned smoothly into taiga.

He stabbed the pad of his thumb on the sharp nib. It pierced his skin deeply, but he felt no pain. His blood mixed with the black ink.

“That’s enough,” he said in a muffled voice, trying to stop his teeth from chattering. “You can go. Leave!”

When they’d left, he walked quickly to the tiny room behind the stage where the dusty, broken-down stage sets from the Pioneer drama club’s shows were stored. Without turning on the light, he locked the door from the inside and stayed there in the dusty darkness, which smelled of old paint, for nearly half an hour.

His secretary glanced cautiously into the empty auditorium, saw the door to the room shut, and tiptoed away. Her boss had quite a few eccentricities.

In the funeral chapel at the Archangel Nicholas Mortuary, there were loud, heartrending sobs. Katya Sinitsyna rushed toward the open casket and kissed her husband’s icy-cold hands.

“Mitya! Dear Mitya! Forgive me!” she cried.

“Hurry it up, please. We have another funeral in this room after this one.” The mortuary employee, a striking redhead in a flawless black suit and white blouse, frowning in irritation, whispered to Olga, who was standing nearby.

A Bach organ fugue poured out of hidden speakers. Olga walked over to Katya, took her by the shoulders, whispered something in her ear, and tried to lead her away from the casket. Two young men, Mitya’s friends, approached to help, but Katya wouldn’t let her husband’s dead fingers go and continued sobbing loudly.

Lena Polyanskaya was standing nearby with Mitya’s eighty-year-old grandmother, Zinaida Lukinichna. Up until that moment the old woman had put on a brave face. But Katya’s sobs were the final blow, and she began sinking, slowly and heavily. Lena barely managed to catch her.

“Zinaida Lukinichna,” she asked her softly. “What is it? Your heart?”

“No, child,” the old woman whispered in reply. “I’m just dizzy.”

Olga had asked Lena to come to the funeral specifically for her grandmother’s sake.

“I’ll be with my parents,” she had explained. “And his wife is probably going to break down. And it’s up to me to organize everything. Please forgive me. I know your Seryozha is leaving for England, but I can’t entrust my grandmother to anyone but you. I’m afraid for her, given her age. And you’ve always had a calming effect on her. She’s always had a soft spot for you.”

“Dear relatives,” the funeral home employee said loudly, glancing at her watch. “Anyone who wishes to say good-bye to the deceased, please do so now.”

Members of the next funeral party were peeking impatiently through the room’s half-open door. Behind them would be others, and others, and so on, from morning till night. A conveyor belt of death.

Lena thought that you have to have a special emotional profile to work with death, with daily, even hourly, grief. She imagined this redheaded woman drinking her morning tea or coffee, putting on makeup, setting out for work, and returning home in the evening. She wondered whether she discussed her day with her family, her husband and children. Did she share her feelings? Did she even have any feelings about her work anymore?

What am I going on about? Lena pulled herself up irritably. A job’s a job. Someone has to do it. There are lots of professions that bring you in constant contact with death and grief. Over and over, my own husband has to go look at dead bodies. Then there are the medical examiners, the ambulance doctors, the paramedics, the gravediggers, and the people who work here, behind the mortuary’s black curtains. What makes this elegant woman any different from an ordinary person, other than the fact that each workday she has to pretend, to depict grief with her face and voice, and to utter perfunctory words of sympathy?

The investigator investigates murders, the medical examiner examines dead bodies, the ambulance doctors and the paramedics try to save the injured and dying, the gravedigger digs the grave, and the people behind the curtains mind the oven. But the redheaded woman just stands from morning to night, feigning sorrow, hurrying some along, inviting others in.

“Lena, child, help me go to him,” Zinaida Lukinichna asked her.

Supporting the old woman by the elbow, Lena carefully led her to the casket. Zinaida Lukinichna stroked her dead grandson’s blond curls with her wrinkled hand, kissed his lifeless brow, and made the sign of the cross over him.

“Citizens, it’s time!” the redhead’s voice announced from the back of the room.

“A little longer, please.” Olga quickly slipped another bill into her hand.

“What can I do?” the lady said, more softly now. “There are people waiting.”

Lena had never seen a suicide’s face before. She was surprised that Mitya’s face was calm and untroubled, as if he’d just fallen asleep.

“Lord, forgive him. Lord!” Zinaida Lukinichna whispered. “He knew not what he did… My grandson, my Mitya, my baby. I’ll try to pray away your sin, my child, my grandson… My dearest Mitya…”

Lena put her arm around the old woman’s trembling shoulders.

Lord, I’m not made of iron, either, she thought.

Right then, her eye fell on Mitya’s large, strong hands, with the fingers of a professional guitarist. She noticed a few fine scratches on his right arm. It looked like Mitya had been hurt right before he died. What could he have scratched himself on? Something fine and sharp. A needle!

Looking more closely, Lena noticed several fine wounds between his fingers and on his wrist. Yes, they were definitely needle marks. The policemen and doctors had noticed them and had immediately told Olga, “Your brother was an addict.” But why were the needle marks on his right hand? There wasn’t anything on his left. Mitya wasn’t left-handed. That Lena knew for sure.

“Lena dear, will you come by our house now, at least for an hour?” Zinaida Lukinichna asked once the casket slid behind the black curtains.

No! Lena wanted to say. I can’t. My husband’s leaving tonight, I haven’t seen my daughter since early this morning, I have piles of work, and all this is hard for me. I want to get home as fast as I can.

“Of course, Zinaida Lukinichna,” she said.

There were lots of people at the Sinitsyns’. Relatives had taken care of the funeral table. As the guests took their seats, they tried to move the chairs as quietly as they could and spoke in low voices.

Katya had another loud breakdown.

“Lena, take her out to the stairs, I beg of you,” Olga whispered. “Go out with her and smoke. Let her shoot up quietly there. I can’t take this.”

Lena was shocked by Olga’s suggestion to let Katya shoot up. Ultimately, Katya had lost a husband, a partner she’d spent eight years with, and it was Katya herself who’d had to pull him out of the noose. You couldn’t ascribe her emotional breakdown to drug withdrawal alone.

“Here’s her purse.” Olga handed her the worn leather bag. “It’s all there. Do it quickly! Gleb’s already picked up on something.”

It was true. Thirteen-year-old Gleb, Olga’s older son, was already standing in the doorway and listening closely to their conversation.

“Ma, Katya’s doing really bad. Maybe we should call a doctor?”

“We’ll manage without a doctor.” Olga cut him off. “Now go to your room and don’t hover.”

Two minutes later Lena was leading a sobbing Katya by the arm out onto the stairs. When the front door closed behind them, Lena took out a pack of cigarettes. It’s not the easiest thing to tell a woman you barely know that it would be acceptable for her to shoot herself up with heroin.

Katya took a greedy drag—and only then noticed her own purse hanging from Lena’s elbow. Her eyes dried up and flashed.

“Katya,” Lena said gently, “could you hold off a little longer?”

The question sounded silly. This was neither the time nor the place to get Katya off drugs, but she still couldn’t bring herself to actually suggest that someone shoot up.

“If you don’t like looking, you can turn away,” Katya said and nervously licked her lips. “Don’t worry. I’ll be quick.”

“Fine.” Lena sighed. “Only let’s go up and stand between floors, at the windowsill, otherwise the elevator will come up and someone might see.”

“If you like, you can stand here and I’ll go up,” Katya offered.

“Yes, that’s better.” Lena didn’t have the slightest desire to watch her shoot up.

It was only a few minutes before Katya came back down the stairs with a calm, almost placid face. Some color had even returned to her cheeks.

“Can I have another cigarette?” she asked.

Lena held out the pack and noticed a few fine, light scratches on Katya’s birdlike hand. There were dots on her swollen, blue veins… Only it was her left hand.

“Katya, tell me, please, when did Mitya manage to scratch his arm?”

“His arm?” Katya blinked, not understanding. “Which arm?”

“I don’t remember which one,” Lena lied. “I just noticed he had scratches on his wrist.”

“You think he was shooting up like me?” Katya asked with a perfectly calm voice and released a stream of smoke in the direction of the elevator.

“I don’t think anything. I’m just asking. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“No.” Katya shook her cropped head. “It does. Mitya didn’t shoot up. Ever. Not once in his life. He detested drugs. It’s all my fault he’s dead, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t give him a child, I kept asking for money, and he put up with it because he loved me.”

Lena got scared that she was about to break down again, despite the drugs she had only recently shot up. It’s time for me to go home, she thought sadly. Seryozha will be back from work soon, he’ll pick up Liza from Vera Fyodorovna’s, and they’ll be waiting for me.

“Katya, why do you shoot up in your wrist instead of your elbow?” she asked, and then immediately wondered why she’d asked. What difference does it make? Why should I care?

Katya silently rolled up her sweater sleeve and showed Lena the bend in her elbow, which was dominated by a large, puffy black bruise speckled with brown scabs. Lena suddenly felt pity for this skinny little girl, now utterly alone, who no one in the world cared about.

Katya’s parents lived somewhere in the Far East, Khabarovsk maybe. They had long since divorced, her father was a drunk, and her mother had a new family and no time for Katya. Lena remembered Mitya telling her all this once, in some long-ago conversation. At the time she was happy for him. He absolutely beamed talking about his dear Katya. He really did love her very much.

Now no one cared about this unfortunate addict. Olga wasn’t going to have anything more to do with her. She’d only done so for Mitya’s sake.

“How did it start for you?” Lena asked quietly.

“After my third miscarriage,” Katya told her calmly. “Before that, I didn’t even drink or smoke. Mitya and I wanted a baby so badly, but it didn’t work out. After the third miscarriage they told me that was it, it would never happen. That’s when I got into junk. Someone I knew felt sorry for me and suggested I give it a try—to stop the pain and forget everything. I thought I’d do it once and that would be it. Just to forget.”

“Did you?” Lena asked.

“We’ve had our little talk. That’s enough. I don’t give a damn about any of it. I’m nobody to you and you’re nobody to me. What business do you have prying? I’m scum, a user. You’re a decent woman. You have a husband and child. What? You thought you’d take pity on me? Sympathize? I’d prefer money. Olga won’t give me any now. After the funeral I’m out on my ass. I’ll be lucky if they don’t kick me out of the apartment. In her place I would. She was the one who bought us the apartment.”

I can’t take any more! Lena thought. This is straight out of Dostoyevsky, in the worst way. That’s all I need, Smerdyakov with a syringe!

“Fine, let’s go back in,” she said, and she rang the bell.

Olga’s younger son, blond, blue-eyed Gosha, eleven and a half years old, opened the door.

Late that night, in her quiet, empty apartment in Vykhino, Katya Sinitsyna stood under a hot shower in panties and a T-shirt. Tears streamed from her eyes, mixing with the hot water. She was so tired from crying, but she couldn’t stop. Only now, back from the funeral, did it hit her what had happened.

Mitya was gone. Who cared about her now? Her stash was going to run out very soon, and she wasn’t going to be able to get any money for more. If Olga didn’t drive her out of the apartment, she might try renting one room or selling the apartment and buying a smaller one. No, it would never work. The apartment was registered in Mitya’s name, and Olga had probably done something to make sure Katya couldn’t sell it without her consent. She was nobody now. She didn’t even have anyone to call since all her friends were Mitya’s.

For some reason she was dying to call someone, anyone, to hear her own name through the phone. There was only the noose for her now. But that was too scary. Scarier even than her loneliness. This way at least her soul remained. Here you suffer, but afterward your soul can rest.

Who’d she been talking to recently about her immortal soul? Someone nice, kind, good… of course! Regina Valentinovna! Why hadn’t she thought of her sooner?

Katya turned off the water, pulled off her wet clothes, wrapped a big towel around herself, slapped her bare wet feet to the kitchen, sat down at the table, lit a cigarette, and picked up the phone.

For a second her gaze rested on the thick gas pipe that passed over the kitchen doorway, and once again Mitya appeared before her, dead. Her heart hurt. It boomed. Shaking her head, Katya drove away the vision and dialed the number.

“Regina Valentinovna, forgive me for calling so late.”

“That’s fine, Katya. I wasn’t asleep. You’ve had a very hard day. I was expecting your call.”

“Really?” Katya rejoiced. “Maybe we can do a little work right now?”

“Certainly, child. We should!”

Closing her eyes, Katya began speaking into the receiver in a strange monotone.

“Mitya’s gone. I didn’t realize it until now, when I came back from the funeral and was totally alone. Being alone scares me. Olga might throw me out of the apartment. I have no money. I have nothing. I even asked Olga’s friend for money today. We went out onto the stairs to smoke. Olga realized I needed to shoot up, so she sent this Lena out on the stairs with me.

“Lena started feeling sorry for me and asking questions. She even asked whether Mitya had shot up. How could she think that about him? She saw some scratches on his arm. He was lying in the casket, and she noticed the scratches.”

“Lena Polyanskaya?” the voice in the receiver asked cautiously.

“I think it’s Polyanskaya. I don’t remember exactly.”

“Was it unpleasant for you talking with her?”

“Yes. I said that if she was so good and wanted to pity me, I’d prefer she give me money. Now I’m ashamed. I have the feeling I’m going to start asking everyone for money soon. I’ve got some ampoules left, but they won’t last me long. I’m afraid I won’t be able to take it.”

“Yes you will, child.” The voice in the receiver was calm and kind. “Go on, please.”

“Then there was a meal. It’s all pretty foggy. I don’t even remember who brought me home. I just have this bad taste in my mouth from having asked a stranger for money. Mostly I’m afraid I’ll start asking others. And also, it hurts when people think badly of Mitya. I know, I know for sure he wasn’t shooting up. But that woman saw the scratches on his arm.

“She was with their grandmother the whole time at the funeral. That old woman is a rock. She didn’t shed a tear. They’re all rocks. No one was crying over Mitya but me. Olga thought I was hysterical because I needed a fix. She doesn’t even understand how someone can cry over losing someone. All she cares about is that her precious children don’t notice anything, that no one knows I shoot up.

“It’s always like that with them. As long as everything is proper on the outside, they couldn’t care less what’s really going on. I’m a human being, after all. No one felt sorry for me. And now no one loves me.

“They have everything, and I have nothing. My father and mother don’t need me, and Mitya abandoned me. He really did abandon me, and in a horrible way. He got sick and tired of dealing with me. My addiction ate up his energy. But he couldn’t leave or divorce me. That wasn’t his way. Lord, what am I saying?” As if coming to her senses, Katya opened her eyes and took a drag on a cigarette.

“Don’t get upset, child. Whatever gets said gets said. Remember our method: you have to wrap everything bad in words, like garbage in a newspaper, and throw it out. Only then will your soul be cleansed.” The voice in the receiver was soft and reassuring. “Katya, dear, you have to unburden yourself of every last detail. You mustn’t forget a thing.”

“Maybe I should go to church?” Katya asked suddenly. “Maybe a convent? That’s better than the noose.”

“Try not to get sidetracked, child. If you do, you won’t be able to sleep tonight. And you need to get some sleep. That’s what you need most right now, a good night’s sleep. Please, continue, Katya. Polyanskaya hurt you. She noticed scratches on Mitya’s arm. What else did the two of you talk about?”

“Nothing. She realized the conversation was upsetting me. She was in a hurry to get home. Her husband’s flying to England tonight, and her little daughter… She didn’t even join us at the table. She just stopped into their grandmother’s room to say good-bye. The old woman had already gone to her room to lie down. I don’t remember anything after that.”

“Did Olga see the scratches on Mitya’s arm?”

“I don’t know. Olga didn’t talk to me. She can barely stand my presence. It seems to me all she thinks about is why it happened to Mitya and not to me. She wishes it was me dangling in the noose. That would have been better for everyone, including me. And Olga doesn’t believe Mitya did it himself. Neither does Polyanskaya, I don’t think. They think someone helped him.”

“Did they tell you that? Did they ask about anything?”

“Olga asked me in detail how we’d spent the day, minute by minute. But that was a long time ago, not today. I don’t remember exactly when. I just got the feeling she was torturing me with her endless questions.”

“And Polyanskaya?”

“Polyanskaya only asked about the scratches.”

“Then why do you think she doesn’t believe Mitya committed suicide?”

“I just have a feeling. It’s as if they all think I’m to blame.”

“Have you heard any talk? Where did you get this idea?”

“Does it really matter who thinks what?” Katya shouted into the receiver. “Let them think what they want about me and about Mitya. What’s does any of it matter now?”

“All right, child. Don’t get upset. I can see you’re already feeling better. Now you’re going to hang up and go to bed. You’ll sleep soundly and sweetly. You’ll fall asleep right away. You’ll shoot up one last time and then sleep for a very long time. You’ll sleep long and hard. You’re already feeling very sleepy. Your legs are heavy and warm. You feel calm. You’re going to put down the phone, give yourself a shot, and go to sleep. Sleep. A shot and sleep.”

Katya walked to the front hall on limp legs and found her purse lying on the floor. Right now all she could think about was that she had a needle and ampoule in that bag. There was one there, another two in the desk drawer, and three more on the bookshelf, in the case from Mitya’s old electric shaver. The case was on the bookshelf, and there were three more ampoules there. Katya remembered that precisely, but nothing more.

She was very sleepy, and her eyes kept shutting, like a doll placed on its back. The needle wouldn’t go in where it should, and she scratched her skin, but it didn’t hurt at all.