Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express

Chapter Six

"Do you think the sun will eventually burn out?” asked Rostnikov.

He was sitting in the Paris Café a few hundred yards from his apartment on Krasikov Street. The Paris Café bore no resemblance to anything Parisian, nor was it a café. It was a small shop that was sometimes open and sometimes not, depending on the whims and health of the old couple who ran it. There were six plastic tables with four chairs at each. The decor was simple. A painting of a dark jungle that looked decidedly un-Russian, with its huge palm trees and high waterfall in the distance, was the only decoration. The menu choices were almost as limited. In fact, there was no menu. The old woman or old man simply told you what was available at that moment in time besides coffee, tea, kvas, and vodka. Today, Rostnikov and the three people at the table with him had a choice of flat almond cakes of unknown vintage or puffy, small chocolate muffins of great durability. Rostnikov had ordered two of each.

Like most Moscow cafés, this one smelled of pungent, acrid Russian tobacco. The man and woman across from him were contributing to the smell. The four of them were the Paris Cafés only customers at the moment.

“The sun?” asked the man, looking at Rostnikov without understanding.

The man was large, perhaps forty, clean-shaven and rather resembling an ox. He wore a flannel shirt and solid-blue tie over his navy-blue coat. The woman at his side was a bit younger than the man. Her face was plain though her skin was smooth, unblemished. She was thin, nervous, dark, and wore a look showing that she was prepared for battle.

The man had been introduced by the woman as Dmitri. No last name had been given. The woman was Miriana. She had given no last name. Rostnikov needed none. Miriana was the daughter of Galina Panishkoya who sat heavily to Porfiry Petrovich’s right, her hands in her lap, looking at her daughter who did not meet her eyes.

Both Miriana and Dmitri were smoking cheap Russian cigarettes.

“Time is perhaps infinite, but our solar system, our galaxy, and certainly our lives are not,” said Rostnikov.

“I want my children,” Miriana said, looking defiantly at Rostnikov.

“You abandoned them, Mirya,” Galina said flatly. “You left them with me and …”

“Things have changed,” said Miriana, cutting off her mother, not looking at her. “Dmitri and I are getting married. The girls are mine.”

“But Mirya …” the older woman tried.

“No,” her daughter cut her off. “They are mine. The law is on my side.”

Galina looked at Rostnikov, who pursed his lips. He considered touching the grandmother’s shoulder to reassure her, but reassurance would come from action not gesture.

“Then you shall have the children,” Rostnikov said. “They are packed, ready. We anticipated this. My wife and I are looking forward to having the apartment to ourselves. Your mother can join you.

“My mother …” Miriana began.

“Or perhaps she can get a small room,” said Rostnikov. “I know someone who might help.”

Galina sobbed.

“Perhaps …” Dmitri began but stopped when Miriana raised her hand.

“You are bluffing,” the younger woman said.

Rostnikov shrugged.

“You do not want the children to go with me,” Miriana continued.

“I do not want the sun to burn out,” said Rostnikov, “but I believe it is as inevitable as the fact that all of us who sit at this table will die and eventually be forgotten.”

“Dmitri and I have a great deal of traveling to do in our business,” Miriana said, stubbing out her cigarette and holding out her hand for Dmitri to give her another. He did so and lit it.

“I see,” said Rostnikov.

“I might consider leaving my children with you if I can be compensated for being away from them.”

“You have been away for two years and seem to have survived,” said Rostnikov.

“But a mother’s heart has been full of concern,” she said, with no sign of concern in her voice that Rostnikov could discern.

“Understandable,” said Rostnikov. “What would you consider a fair compensation for our continuing to keep these children and your mother?”

“Two hundred rubles a month,” she said.

“Two hundred,” Rostnikov repeated as the old man placed a plate of cake and muffins on the table and retreated. “That is acceptable. Cake?”

Dmitri reached for a muffin.

“You can begin payment immediately, tonight,” said the woman.

“Begin payment?” Rostnikov said, carefully slicing the small cake with a knife the old man had placed next to it. “Yes, the payments can begin tonight. That would be nice. Very generous.”

Rostnikov tried the cake. It was slightly stale but he could still detect the flavor of almonds. He dunked the hard slice in his coffee.

“Well?” asked Miriana. “The first payment.”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov, putting the cake down on a small plate before him and wiping his hands on the napkin next to it. He put out his hand.

“What are you doing?” the woman asked.

“Waiting for my first payment,” said Rostnikov. “Time is passing. I’ve encountered no one in my experience who is getting younger.”

Miriana looked at her mother, who had been looking down and now was staring at Rostnikov.

“You expect me to pay you?” she said.

“For keeping your mother and children, yes. The cake is not at all bad. You should try a small piece. I’ll cut it for you.”

He reached forward with the knife to cut the cake. Miriana stood. Her green cloth coat was draped over the back of her chair. The chair looked as if it were going to fall backward. Dmitri, half-finished muffin in his left hand, reached over with his right to steady the chair.

“We’ll pick up the children,” the standing woman spat.

“As you wish,” said Rostnikov, taking the second slice of cake and offering it to Galina, who shook her head.

“I don’t think …” Dmitri began.

“No,” said Miriana, “you do not. He is bluffing. He doesn’t want us to take the children. We will call your bluff. Let’s get them.”

“Let me finish my cake and please have a slice. It really is reasonably good.”

“No more stalling,” Miriana said, still standing.

“Maryushka,” Galina said. “Please.”

“The law,” Rostnikov said, breaking off a small piece of cake and popping it into his mouth. “You mentioned the law. I know a bit about the law. I am a policeman.”

“That doesn’t frighten us,” said Miriana.

Dmitri’s eyes revealed that he might not fully share his companion’s courage.

“After having given it a moment’s thought, I think we will simply keep the girls,” said Rostnikov. “And you and your friend can go away and not be heard from again.”

Miriana leaned over the table, her face a foot from Rostnikov, who met her eyes.

“I am going to take this to the courts,” she said. “We will see what they say. I did not abandon my children. I had an accident. I was in a hospital in Lithuania, near death for more than a year. I thought I was going to die. I didn’t want the girls or my mother to know. Thanks to God I made a miraculous recovery.”

“That is what you plan to tell a judge?” asked Rostnikov.

“Yes,” she said. “I have now recovered and want to reunite my family.”

“Or collect several hundred rubles a month,” Rostnikov added.

“If that would be better for my children,” she said, sitting.

Rostnikov wiped his hands and wrapped the remainder of the cake in his paper napkin. Dmitri had already finished the second muffin.

“Miriana Panishkoya,” said Rostnikov. “Father of children unknown.”

“His name was Anatoli Ivanov,” she said. “He died in an oil-tanker explosion.”

“He died in prison,” said Rostnikov.

Miriana looked at her mother.

“Your mother did not tell me,” Rostnikov said. “Nor did she tell me that you have been arrested eight times that I am certain of, in several cities including Moscow, Tiraspol, Minsk, and Yalta. Five of those arrests were for attempts to rob men you had picked up as a prostitute, twice for selling drugs, and once for petty theft of clothing from an Italian-owned shop. You have not spent the last two years recuperating from accident or illness. Shortly after you abandoned your children, you were sent to a women’s prison in Lithuania.”

Miriana sat glaring at Rostnikov, who calmly placed the covered piece of cake in his jacket pocket. Her right hand shot out suddenly, fingernails aimed at his face. Rostnikov caught her hand with his own.

Dmitri moved, grabbing Rostnikov’s arm. Still holding Miriana’s wrist, Rostnikov reached over with his right hand, palm open, into the face of the man across the table. A sudden powerful push and Dmitri tumbled back, his chair falling with a clatter to the floor.

“Sit,” said Rostnikov, calmly releasing the woman’s wrist.

This time he did touch Galina’s shoulder to reassure her that everything was under control. Galina was not at all sure. Dmitri had clambered from the floor and was moving quickly toward Rostnikov, who reached under the table to plant his false leg on the floor before rising to meet the ox who moved toward him.

“No,” Rostnikov commanded firmly.

Dmitri did not obey. He pushed the table aside and went for the older man. Rostnikov took a step forward and rammed the charging man in the chest with his head. Dmitri halted. Rostnikov reached out and grabbed the man around his waist, lifting him from the ground. Dmitri punched frantically at the head of the smaller man, who had begun squeezing. The blows fell on the side of Rostnikov’s head. He squeezed harder. Dmitri groaned and stopped punching. Rostnikov turned and placed the man on the chair in which the policeman had been sitting.

“Ribs,” Dmitri groaned. “Broken.”

The old man who owned the Paris Café appeared, looked at the table, chair, and groaning man and asked, “Will there be anything else?”

“No, Ivan,” said Rostnikov.

“I’m going to be sick,” Dmitri said.

“The muffins,” Rostnikov said. “Ivan?”

“This way,” said the old man, helping Dmitri out of the chair and leading him toward the rest room. “Do not throw up on the floor.”

Rostnikov faced the stunned Miriana, who stood, mouth slightly open, watching Dmitri being led away.

“This is not right,” she said, and then to her mother: “You know this is not right. You do not do this to a daughter. You don’t know how hard it has been for me. I am entitled to something.”

“Perhaps,” Galina began, looking at Rostnikov. “We could get a small apartment. You, me, and the girls, Maryushka. I could get you a job at the bakery. We could …”

Miriana laughed. She wept and she laughed.

“You, me, and two little girls in a room? Me working in a bakery? Have you no ears, Mother? Have you no eyes? Can’t you see what is real?”

Rostnikov considered speaking but decided to let the scene play out.

“You are my daughter,” Galina said.

“No,” Miriana said. “I am a woman you gave birth to thirty-six years ago. And then we became strangers. My father must have been very smart. I must have gotten everything from him. I see nothing of me in you.”

“I see nothing of you in my grandchildren,” Galina said softly.

“Mother, I live in pain,” Miriana said. “Can you understand that? In pain?”

“We all live in pain,” Galina said, stepping toward her daughter. “We are blessed if we have someone to share the pain and the small good things.”

The younger woman fell into her mother’s arms. Galina wrapped her big hands around her daughter and let her cry. Rostnikov watched silently. And then Miriana stepped back.

“I need money,” she said, wiping her red eyes with the sleeve of her dress.

“I have a little,” Galina said. “In the apartment.”

Rostnikov took out his wallet. There was not much in it except for two bills, one of which he handed to the weeping woman.

“That is all,” he said. “There will be no more.”

“You don’t understand,” Miriana said, taking the bills. “I have nothing. What little looks I have are almost gone. I …”

Rostnikov stood silently. Ivan and Dmitri emerged from the small rest room.

“He did not throw up,” the old man announced. “Not yet.”

“Thank you, Ivan,” said Rostnikov, handing the old man his last remaining bill. “I am sorry about …”

“Something to tell Kolya and Anasta when we get home tonight. Nothing is broken.”

Dmitri reached out to put his arm around Miriana. She shrugged it off and headed for the door. He was a step behind her, moving slowly, in obvious pain.

At the door, Miriana turned, looked at her mother, and said, “I’m sorry, Mother.”

With that, the man and woman left the café. Galina took a few steps toward the door. Rostnikov put out a hand, not touching her but making clear that he thought it best if she stopped.

“My only child,” Galina said, turning to him.

“I know,” said Rostnikov. “Come. Let’s bring the cake home to the girls and Sarah. You really should try a piece.”

“I work in a bakery,” Galina reminded him. “I am surrounded by cake.”

“Take advantage of the pleasures of cake and children together and don’t worry about the sun. We have millions of years.”

“I wasn’t worried about the sun,” Galina said.

Inna Dalipovna sliced the sausage while her father drank his soup and read a report. Though the knife was sharp the sausage was very difficult to cut, especially using only her left hand. Her right wrist would bear almost no pressure. She had taped it tightly, which helped, but not enough.

“What is wrong with you?” Viktor said, looking over the top of his glasses at her.

“I think I sprained my wrist,” she said.

He put down the report and exhaled at the annoyance of having to deal with the problem. “How?” he asked:

“I fell on the street.” She went on painfully slicing.

“Tomorrow go to the clinic,” he said. “If it is broken, they can fix it. If not, they can tape it better.”

“Yes,” she said, biting her lower lip to keep from wincing with the pain of holding down the sausage.

“I have broken more bones than you have fingers,” he said. “Take a few pain pills. Go to the clinic in the morning.”

“Yes,” she said, feeling the tears in the corners of her eyes as she finished the final slice. She put the plate next to his bowl. He went back to his report, tearing a thick slice of bread and dipping it into what remained of his soup.

Inna sat and ate carefully, letting her right hand rest in her lap.

“No television tonight,” he said. “I have to work. I need silence.”

Inna nodded. She wanted to know what was being said about the man on the subway platform, but she could wait. She could read a little. She might even take one of the pills she was supposed to take three times a day. It might help the pain though it wasn’t for pain. It was to keep her sedate and calm. She did not want to be sedate and calm.

“The bread,” he said. “You didn’t slice it. How can we make sandwiches if … oh, yes. Your wrist. I’ll slice it. Hand me the knife.”

“I’ll get the bread knife,” she said, starting to rise.

“That one will do,” he said, holding out his hand.

She could not give it to him. He could not have it. It was her instrument, something like a religious icon, something he could not touch.

“Well, give me the knife,” he said with irritation she well recognized. His daughter was a lunatic. Inna was slow. Inna was a chain around his neck. Inna was a servant.

She swept her hand toward the knife and sent it spinning off the table toward the refrigerator.

“Inna,” her father said in exasperation.

“I am sorry,” she said, rising quickly. “I will clean it.”

She reached for the knife and took two steps to put it in the sink. Then she opened the drawer and pulled out the brown-handled serrated bread knife. She kept it sharp. She kept them all sharp but none as sharp as the one she had placed in the sink. It would need special work in the morning when her father had left. It might have nicks from its flight across the room, a smudge on the handle. She didn’t see anything immediately.

“Here,” she said, handing him the bread knife.

“Why don’t you go to bed early?” he asked. “After you clean up and do the dishes.”

Inna knew it was more than a suggestion.

“Yes,” she said.

“Take a pain pill and your regular pills and go to sleep. I will work in here.”

“Yes.”

“Eat something,” Viktor said, picking up a handful of red sausage slices with a fork and depositing them on her plate.

He watched her pick up a piece of sausage with her fingers and put it to her mouth, taking a small bite.

“Use your fork,” he said.

She nodded and picked up the fork. He went back to his report.

“I am reading a book,” she said.

“Good.”

“It is about the metro system,” she said.

“Good,” he repeated, giving her a small false smile followed by a look that made it clear he wanted to hear no more about the metro and sore wrists.

It was always like this. Sometimes her father talked about business, the government, about a plan he had made to save or earn money for his company. She was expected to nod and be attentive. She was not expected to understand.

There were many good things about her father. He had never struck her. He had never punished her. He had provided her with food and a home and enough clothing. He had never shouted at Inna or called her names. He had simply made it clear that she was a burden to be tolerated and not listened to, if he could avoid doing so.

And that was, as she remembered, how he had treated her mother. Inna was just the continuation of her mother. She wondered how he might react if she told him what she had done and planned to continue doing. Would he scream, hit her, pull her hair? It might well be worth telling him if she thought he might really do something other than make a phone call, have her taken away, and go back to reading his reports.

Inna waited till she was sure her father was finished with his dinner and then, using only her left hand, she slowly cleared the table while he drank coffee and made notes.

“What is the book?” asked Nina, standing next to the bed where Porfiry Petrovich was packing his suitcase.

Nina was eight years old and for the first two months she and her twelve-year-old sister, Laura, had lived with the Rostnikovs she had said nothing. Now, still very serious and thin, she was explosive with questions about everything.

“It is a book about policemen,” Rostnikov said.

The girl shook her head knowingly, her hands clasped behind her back, her body twisting slowly from side to side.

“Russian policemen?” she asked. “Like you?”

“American policemen,” he said. “In a place called Isola.”

He finished filling his bag, looked down, and removed the Ed McBain paperback novel Jigsaw and placed it in his pocket. It was badly dog-eared. He had read it three times over the past decade and looked forward to returning to it. He closed the suitcase.

“You are ready?” Nina asked.

“I am ready,” he said, straightening up and looking at her.

“My grandmother says you are going to Siberia,” she said. “What did you do wrong?”

“Many things,” he said. “Many things. But I am going to find a criminal. I will be back in a few days. I’m going on the Trans-Siberian Express.”

“What is that?”

“The greatest train in the world,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Almost six thousand miles long, the longest continuous railroad in the world. They began building it from Moscow and from Vladivostok in Siberia on the Sea of Japan in 1891.”

“Two places?”

“They met at a bridge in Khabarovsk in 1916. I’ll show you on the map. It is one of the world’s greatest accomplishments, one of Russia’s greatest triumphs. Thousands of miles of track had to be built and rebuilt. It cost more than a trillion rubles.”

“How much is that?”

“If you take rubles and piled them on top of each other, a trillion would reach almost to the space station.”

“The space station is as high as a star,” the girl said in awe.

“Not that high, but high enough. The train goes over hundreds of bridges and through almost a hundred tunnels, traveling at one hundred and twelve miles an hour between stops.”

“You’ve been on it’ many times,” she said.

“Never before,” answered Rostnikov, trying to think if he had forgotten something.

“Can I go with you?”

“Perhaps another time,” he said. “Perhaps when you are grown you can go with your husband.”

“I am not married,” she said seriously.

“Perhaps you will be,” he said, satisfied that he could think of nothing further to pack. “Let us go in with the others.”

“I am not going to get married,” the girl said. “I am going to be a foot doctor.”

“A noble ambition,” he said, taking her hand. “You can be my foot doctor.”

“I’ll only charge you half,” she said. “Because you have only one foot.”

“Most generous and fair. Maybe your sister will become an engineer and she can work on my other foot.”

“She wants to be a plumber,” Nina said as they moved through the bedroom door into the living room-dining room area. “Like you.

“An equally noble ambition,” said Rostnikov.

Sarah, Galina, and Laura were seated at the table. The adults had said nothing to the children about the meeting with their mother.

Sarah Rostnikov was talking about a concert they would be going to while he was gone. They had an extra ticket. Sarah’s cousin, Leon the doctor, was appearing with his quartet. Leon played piano, had a particular passion for Mozart, and made lots of money in his practice catering to those who could afford his services and held the widespread and almost mystical belief that Jewish doctors were far better than those who were not. Rostnikov was not a fan of classical music though he went dutifully to such concerts and found that he could lose himself in a dreamy, open-eyed meditation almost approaching the near-nirvana he felt when he lost himself in the pragmatic magic of a plumbing problem.

Sarah looked up at him and smiled. He nodded to show that he was packed. Sarah was still a beauty. Her natural and shiny red hair had grown out following her surgery and she had regained some but far from all of her former plumpness. Her pale smooth skin was a bit more pale than he thought looked healthy, but she’d survived. Except for the frequent headaches, Sarah had recovered enough to go back to work at the Dom music shop on a half-time basis.

Not for the first or thousandth time, Rostnikov thanked whatever gods might be (or common genetic chance) that their son had turned out to look like his mother. Porfiry Petrovich was not ugly, but he knew that he possessed the flat, homely face common to millions of Russians descended from dozens of generations of peasants. He was comfortable with his face, the face of his own father, and his body, the compact solid body that had earned him the nickname of “the Washtub.”

“The cake is good,” said Laura, who bore a resemblance to her mother even more striking than Iosef’s to Sarah.

“Your grandmother is the giver of all cakes and cookies,” he said. “Look at me. I have grown fat with the sweets she brings home from the bakery.”

“You are not fat,” Nina said, touching his stomach. “You are round and strong and have a plastic leg.”

“Thank you,” said Rostnikov.

There were five chairs at the table. Three matched. The other two did not. One of the solid metal chairs with the slightly padded seat was always left open for Porfiry Petrovich, who had learned from experience that the last few inches before he hit a chair with a slight thud could do great damage to a wooden chair. He had destroyed two of them and taken falls that would have embarrassed him had anyone but Sarah been present when they happened.

There was a mug in front of his place, his Dostoyevsky mug, white, with a drawing of Fyodor on the side. Dostoyevsky had been the favorite author of Porfiry Petrovich’s father. Porfiry Petrovich was, in fact, the name of the lawyer in Crime and Punishment to whom Raskolnikov eventually confesses. It was a name that played at least a small part in Rostnikov’s becoming a policeman when he got out of the army. He had been a child soldier. He had lost the use of his leg to a German tank outside of Rostov.

Sarah poured hot coffee into his mug and Rostnikov nodded thanks.

“Are you going to do the weights?” Laura asked.

It was one of the high points of the girls’ day. Rostnikov would solemnly open the cabinet under the television and CD/cassette player, pull out his bench and heavy rings of weights, turn on something by Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, or Ella Fitzgerald, and in his black gym shorts and one of his sweat shirts with the sleeves cut off, he would do curls, presses, and crunches with appropriate grunts and sprays of sweat. His favorite shirt was a black one with the words “The Truth Is Out There” in white letters across the front.

The girls would watch, sitting on the floor, enthralled by the spectacle of the powerful one-legged man turning red, the veins of his muscles expanding in purple bands.

“Yes,” Rostnikov said. “Very soon.”

Tonight he would wear his Chicago Bulls red sweat shirt, his second favorite. He would do his regular routine, shower, dress, call the cab, and then pick up Sasha and head for the train station.

“Which way is Siberia?” asked Nina.

“Toward the rising sun,” said Rostnikov.

“I had a dream about the sun,” Laura said.

They all looked at the girl.

“In the dream,” she said, “the sun faded away slowly, so slowly you couldn’t be sure it was disappearing.”

“Were you frightened?” Rostnikov asked with great interest.

“No,” she said. “It was in no hurry and neither was I, and something or someone said ‘Don’t worry.’ I think it was you.”

“It was,” said Rostnikov. “I have been thinking about the sun.”

Galina looked at him, remembering the conversation in the Paris Café with her daughter and Rostnikov’s curious comments about the sun.

“What have you been thinking?” Laura asked.

“That it is a miracle,” he said; “That if mankind has anything to worship, it is the sun. The ancient religions were right. We owe all to the sun. But the sun does not need our worship. It does not think. It simply is. Just enough of it means life. Too much exposure is dangerous.”

“I do not understand,” said Nina.

Rostnikov looked at Sarah, who smiled.

“Nor do I,” said Porfiry Petrovich. “Nor do I.”

“Are you going to do the weights now?” asked Laura.

“As soon as I finish my coffee,” he said.

The weights were round like the sun and the full moon. There was a wholeness to the circle. The circle Director Yaklovev had given him was not whole. It was not bright, a flawed icon. There was much he had not been told about his mission and much he had been told that rang of Russian fairy tale more than the reality of three hundred pounds of weights on a steel bar.

“Are you going to be in the weight-lifting contest in the park? Grandmother says you are.”

“I am,” Rostnikov said, removing the bench, bar, and weights from the cabinet under the television in the living room.

“Will you win?” Nina asked.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But there are other strong men in Moscow, many, and they do things to help them win.”

“Like what?” Laura asked as he slid the weights onto the bar.

“Take pills, herbs they think will make them stronger, legal pills,” he said, making sure the weights were balanced.

“Is that fair?” asked Nina.

“It is legal,” he said, getting next to the weight and lifting it so that he could set it atop the bracket at the end of the bench.

“What else do they do? To win?” asked Laura.

“When the judge claps his hand, the competitor must lift,” he said, lying on his back. “If one is watching the judge, one can begin an instant before the hands come together and have a fraction of a second more for the lift.”

He was reaching for the bar now, looking at the weights on either side.

“Do you do these things?” asked Laura.

“No,” said Rostnikov.

“You do not want to win?” the girl pressed.

“Yes, I want to win,” he said, “but I want to win knowing that I have followed the rules, my rules. If I do not, there is no pleasure in winning, simply a trophy which I do not feel I deserve. You understand?”

“Yes,” said the girl. “I think.”

“Good,” said Rostnikov, gripping the bar. “Now, when you are ready, clap your hands.”

Misha Lovski, the truly Naked Cossack, tapped his forehead on the steel bars to the driving beat of his own voice and guitar being played at concert volume.

He could feel the vibrations when he put his hands to the walls or wrapped them around the bars. The music had been playing for hours. He didn’t know how many hours. It might even have been days. He had tried to sleep but the bright lights and pounding music made it impossible.

He sang along with himself now.

Keep the clubs beating faster.

Keep the fists driving harder.

Drive them back against the wall.

Nail the fuckers one and all.

If you don’t kill them, they’ll kill you.

Do it to them before they do it to you.

You know who they are. Line up along the street.

Pull it out and beat your meat.

Slam the running slant-eyed freaks.

Smash the screaming Jewish beaks.

Ram the rotten queers and geeks.

Shout like Cossacks as they fall.

Then have a pint of blood alcohol.

His voice was almost gone. All that came out was a hoarse croak. He had cried and laughed, huddled in the corner with his mattress. He had crapped and pissed in the plastic bucket, using torn-up sheets of old newspaper that had been left for him. With his fingers he had eaten what they had given him, though he had no idea what the brown mush in the bowl was, something like meat mixed with kasha. And they had given him just enough water, also in a pot.

Like a trained monkey he had learned that when the lights went out and the music stopped, the door to the room beyond his cage would open, revealing nothing, and he would be expected to put out his bowls, which would be replaced by others.

He had tried to talk to the person whose footsteps he heard. He had tried each time.

“What do you want?” he had demanded the first time. “Money? Call my father. He’ll pay. Just get it done.”

No answer. Just a door closing. The next time it was, “Get me something to wear, you bastard, you gol-uboy, queer fucking bastard.”

No answer. Just a door closing. Then, after hours of light and blaring music, “Leave the lights on. Keep the music coming. It gives me something to do, something to sing and beat.”

No answer. Just a door closing. The last time it had been but his hoarse croak, “Turn it off. No more light. No more music. If I don’t get some sleep, you will kill me.”

No answer, so he added, “The hell with you. Drive me mad. Drive me crazy. I will go okhvet, nuts, but I will emerge a mad genius, more popular than ever, and I will find you and beat your head in with my guitar, drag you on stage and beat you till your putrid blood and brains run and smell. See, you inspire me. I have just written the words to a new song. I will call it ‘Surviving the Cage.’”

This time, just before the door closed, he heard a sound in the darkness, perhaps a laugh. It wasn’t much but he held onto it, tried to place it. But before he could, the lights were on and he heard his own voice screaming over the speaker, “Kill your mother. Kill your father. You never asked them to be born.”

He reached through the bars for the cracked metal bowl of brown mush and the cup of warm water. As he ate, he rocked his head. He knew it was only a matter of time before he was completely mad. The problem was that he did not know how much time had passed.

He stopped rocking. An idea had come. A project. Something to keep him busy. Yes. He smiled and looked beyond the bars at the far wall behind which he was certain they were watching him.

He touched the fuzz of his growing beard, leaving a stigma of brown mush, and smiled cunningly toward the wall.

The Naked Cossack had a plan.