Madness Treads Lightly

CHAPTER 7

The dark blue Volvo with the tinted glass sailed smoothly toward the gates of the old mansion in the middle of Moscow. The gates parted without a sound, let the car through, and then closed right behind it.

“Good evening, Regina Valentinovna!” The armed guard opened the front door of her car and held out his arm to the tall, thin woman sitting at the wheel. The woman cautiously placed one suede high-heeled boot on the ground and, leaning on the guard’s arm, climbed out of the car.

“Hello, Gena. Don’t take it to the garage. I won’t be long.”

Entering the house, Regina Valentinovna dropped her light mink coat into the arms of the maid who had run up. In the big mirror in the black antique wooden frame, Regina Valentinovna saw an elegant forty-year-old lady in a severe silk suit with a long-legged, tapered figure and a perfectly regular face. Her thick, straight hair the color of ripe wheat had been cut in a simple, severe bob without bangs and barely covered her sleek, slender neck.

Behind her in the mirror there appeared a very pale male face, slightly puffy around the eyes. The man was disheveled, and yesterday’s blond stubble gleamed on his sunken cheeks. His pale blue eyes gazed into Regina Valentinovna’s calm brown eyes dully and senselessly. She looked around abruptly and noticed that the man’s hands were shaking and his right thumb had an ugly black slash from a new scab that looked fresh.

“You should shave, Venya,” she said quietly and, walking up to the man, ran her hand over his cheek. She was wearing pale, flesh-colored matte polish.

“Regina, I’m dying. I can’t do this,” Veniamin Volkov cried out in a loud whisper. “Do something, please. I can’t do this.”

Quickly looking around to make sure that there was no maid, secretary, or guard in the vicinity, Regina gave him a good slap on the face and said quietly, “Silence, beast!”

Venya’s hands stopped trembling. His eyes acquired an intelligent but frightened expression.

“You see? You have to do something,” he said in a perfectly calm, matter-of-fact voice. “Any more of this and I’ll explode.”

“Well, you’re a long way from an explosion, I think,” Regina responded in the same calm, matter-of-fact voice. She and Volkov had identical intonations.

“No.” He shook his head despairingly. “It nearly happened today.”

“But it didn’t. You were able to control yourself. You’ve been healthy for fourteen years. That’s quite a long time, Venya.”

Volkov showed her his injured right thumb. After a careful glance at the ink- and blood-stained pad of his thumb, Regina shrugged.

“You could have gotten along without the pain. You were just tired. What did you use? A pen?”

“My Parker.”

“Too bad, it was a nice Parker.” Regina sighed. “All right, let’s go.”

“Only in your car!” He smiled weakly. “The air in it’s better.”

“The air in the Volvo is better than the Lincoln?” Regina laughed cheerfully. “Yes, Venya, you’re definitely tired.”

A little over an hour later, Regina Valentinovna Gradskaya parked the dark blue Volvo next to an old two-story dacha in Peredelkino, just outside Moscow. The house was surrounded by a high metal fence, and there was a guard booth just inside the gates.

“Asleep on the job again,” Regina remarked good-naturedly, getting the remote out of the glove compartment and opening the tall gates with a press of the button.

The guard’s sleepy face appeared in the booth, after which he leapt out into the light of day as if he’d been scalded and out of habit respectfully saluted his bosses.

“Good morning, Retired Captain!” his boss greeted him sarcastically. “How’s the sleeping going this evening?”

“My apologies, Regina Valentinovna!” the guard reported. “Honest to God, I didn’t even notice I’d fallen asleep!”

“Thank you for not doing it on the living room couch.” Regina snickered amiably. “All right, you can go to the kitchen and let Lyudmila feed you. And drink some coffee. It’s no good sleeping at your post, Comrade Retired Captain. Watch out or I’ll have to fire you.” Regina turned to a silent Venya. “He’s afraid of losing his job, but he’s too tired to stay awake, the rascal.”

Venya followed her into the house.

The dacha had once belonged to a famous Soviet writer, a Stalin Prize winner. His heirs had sold it to Volkov for a hefty price, but neither he nor Regina regretted the cost. Regina had long had her eye on this particular place in the small, elite writers’ colony. She liked the fact that it was on the corner, well down the road, with one side adjoining a picturesque birch grove and the other, a small pond where, in the summer, bright lemon-yellow buttercups bloomed.

“Think up something for supper for us, Lyudmila,” Regina said to the plump, pink-cheeked young woman who met them on the threshold. “Only make it something light, like fish or a small salad.”

“I understand, Regina Valentinovna. Should I bake the sturgeon or grill it?”

“Venya, are you asleep or something?” Regina touched his shoulder. “How do you want your sturgeon, baked with mushrooms or grilled?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Fine. Lyudmila, do it on the grill the way I like it, no salt or sauce, just a spritz of lemon. Some new potatoes for him, too, just a few, four or so, boil them and sprinkle them with dill. And for me, asparagus. Plain.”

When the cook had gone, Regina cast a cold, assessing look at Volkov and asked, “Well, my unhappy man, will you let me have a smoke, or should we work for the half hour until supper?”

“You can see for yourself.”

She saw a fine white film dusting his lips and his hands trembling again.

“Fine, let’s go.”

In the writer’s former study, there was a small eighteenth-century lady’s writing table, and the bookshelves were filled with The Great Medical Encyclopedia, books on psychiatry in four languages—Russian, English, German, and French—and also works by Nietzsche, Freud, and Roerich. Only philosophical, psychological, and mystical literature livened the three walls covered floor to ceiling with bookshelves.

Pulling off her suede boots, Regina sat on the low, wide couch and tucked her slender legs underneath her. Volkov sat directly on the floor, opposite her, and fell still, looking steadily into her brown eyes, which flickered strangely in the light of the table lamp.

“They came to see me today,” he began. “They came from the past. They even sang the same song as back then, on the Tobol.”

“Don’t tense up. We haven’t even started yet,” Regina interrupted him. “Who came?”

“Two girls, for an audition. A blonde and a brunette, each eighteen. At first I didn’t notice anything, but when they started singing the ballad, I suddenly saw them.”

“You realize it wasn’t them?” Regina asked quickly.

“Yes. But I’m afraid how everything is coming together like this. First that fellow who had to be done away with. Now these girls. I could barely contain myself, and you know how I’ve contained myself all these years. But when that fellow showed up…”

“He’s gone now,” Regina reminded him.

“How did you do it? Why don’t you want to say?”

“I didn’t do it. He did it himself.”

“But you were there?” Venya squeezed his fists so hard his sharp knuckles turned white.

“You know very well I was with you.”

“Who did you send?”

“I told you, he did it himself! If you don’t believe me, at least believe the police report.” She laughed out loud. “The investigators were there, and they did an autopsy. Suicide.”

“And the singer?”

“The singer was offed by the same thugs who attacked Thrush at his birthday party. Stop it, Venya. You really aren’t your best. Watch out or pretty soon you’ll be sleeping on the job, like our retired captain. Okay, then, let’s begin…”

Volkov closed his eyes and began rocking slowly, seated cross-legged on the carpet. Regina began in a low monotone that came from somewhere in her belly.

“Your legs are soft, heavy, and warm; your muscles are slowly relaxing; your arms are dropping, growing heavy; you are warm but not hot, your skin is smoothing out like the surface of the sea, soft and cool. Not a single wave and no breeze, you hear and smell nothing, you feel warm and good. There is nothing but my voice. The rest is silence, peace, nonbeing. My voice is the way out of nonbeing, you’re on it, like a moonbeam path, moving toward the light…”

Regina’s voice grew quieter and quieter. Volkov rocked to the rhythm of her words. He was breathing deeply, slowly, and infrequently.

“Venya, can you hear me?” she asked at last.

“Yes.”

“Now try to remember. Feel your way. Don’t hurry and don’t be afraid. It wasn’t you. You weren’t there at all, and you have nothing to be afraid of.”

“There are three of them on the banks of the Tobol, in the city park,” Volkov mumbled almost inaudibly. “And I’m the fourth. Two girls, a blonde and a brunette. The blonde is very striking, with blue eyes, a little plump. Like the girls who used to come out in folk headdresses offering bread and salt to greet visiting Party bigwigs. The brunette’s pretty, too, but in a different way. You sense the breeding in her. People like her were shot in ’18 just for their faces, for the curve of their eyebrows and the expression in their eyes. My granddad could immediately recognize bourgeois or noble bones from their hands. Noble bones are slender but firm. My granddad chopped them with his sword… he could take a swing and chop them in two.”

“Venya, don’t get distracted. Leave your granddad in peace,” Regina intervened cautiously.

“Arrogant eyes,” Venya jerked his head back slightly. “Mocking, dark gray… slender hands, a long neck. If she were to… I couldn’t do anything. I stood up and walked deep into the park. A tipsy girl in a sparkly blouse broke off from her friends. The blouse had gold threads, prickly and shiny. A crude, pimply face, the smell of vodka and sweat… Afterward I wanted to jump into the Tobol, fully clothed, I had blood on me and I stank of someone else’s sweat. The bank was too steep and I heard their voices very close by. The first one to reach me was Mitya. He saw the blood. And he saw my face. My soul was still back there, deep in the park, and he could tell it from my face. It was getting very light, and the dawn was so bright the mosquitoes were buzzing.

“I hadn’t had time to wash the blood from my clothes. I’d wanted them to think I’d been so drunk I’d fallen in the water. All four of us were kind of drunk. By the time the girls came up, I had a grip on myself and they didn’t notice a thing. I said I’d had a nosebleed and they got excited and started fussing over me.”

Regina knew the first part of his memories by heart. Her husband was consistent in his revelations. It had been years since this story, uttered in a state of deep hypnotic sleep, had had a single detail added. Only quite recently had a few substantive details appeared.

“He saw my face and he understood everything. Not right away, but after.” Volkov’s voice was a hoarse monotone. “Eventually he figured it out. It was fourteen years later when he came to see me. He came for me from there and there were the two others behind him, and that meant they’d never let me forget.”

“He’s gone now,” Regina reminded him gently. “And the girls didn’t notice anything then and won’t be able to remember now. It’s been fourteen years. They’re different people now. They’re gone, too, essentially.”

“They’re gone…”

Naturally, it would be better if they really were out of the picture, literally, not figuratively, Regina thought, but that involves a lot of effort, and I have to weigh the risks.

“Clean, clear water is shining all around you. It’s light and warm and tickles your skin in a pleasant way,” she said in her well-modulated voice.

“She’s red from the blood,” Venya whispered, swallowing with difficulty. “It’s dark red and thick. It’s boiling and bubbling, and I’m choking and covered in blisters.” He started breathing hard and fast, gulping air with an open mouth, throwing his head back, pounding his chest with his fists.

“Regina Valentinovna!” The cook’s voice came up from downstairs. “Supper’s ready!”

Regina didn’t answer. She knew Lyudmila wouldn’t call a second time because that was the rule: if the mistress didn’t come right away or respond, that meant she was very busy and not to be disturbed.

Volkov’s face turned scarlet. Fat blue veins bulged on his forehead. He was breathing raspily, beating the air with his fists, and muttering something unintelligible. Anyone walking in on this scene would have thought the billionaire producer was having an epileptic fit, or in his death throes while his wife observed the scene calmly. He could die here and now and she wouldn’t bat an eye.

When it seemed as though Volkov was just about to give up the ghost, Regina clapped lightly and said one word in English: “Enough!”

Volkov fell still, first tensely, in an unnatural pose, his head drawn back, his mouth wide open and his arms flung up and back, and then he started to relax, slowly, like a balloon having its air let out. His breathing became calmer and slower, and his face turned abruptly white before taking on a normal, healthy color.

He opened his eyes and sat calmly on the rug. Even in the low light of the table lamp he looked not just good but excellent, as if he’d just been on vacation at an expensive resort—only without the tan.

“Thank you, Regina dear,” he said in a low, velvety voice, kissing his wife’s cool hand. He sprang up lightly from the rug and, wiping his damp palms, asked, “How are we doing on supper?”