Stalin’s Ghost

7

The harpist onstage in the Metropol dining room played in languid, circular strokes, eyes closed, apparently oblivious of the Americans having breakfast at the nearest table. Wiley had a full face and fine hair like a six-foot baby in a business suit. He filled his bowl with cereal; here was a man, Arkady guessed, who planned to die healthy. Pacheco looked like his protection. In his forties with a bald spot and a bull neck, Pacheco was starting his day with steak and a stack of blini.

Why, Arkady had asked himself, would a scruffy character like Petya Petrov write the Metropol telephone number in a book of matches for a “gentlemen’s club” called Tahiti? What members of the Metropol’s international set might Petya know? Arkady could only think of the two Americans on the Metro platform at Chistye Prudy, and he recognized them as he entered the dining room. The maitre d’ surrendered their names from a buffet sign-in sheet and Arkady waited for the Americans to begin eating before he wended his way between pink tablecloths and red banquettes.

“Do you mind if I join you?” Arkady showed his ID as he sat. Socially, it was a little awkward, like pushing into a rowboat already occupied.

The Americans were unfazed. Wiley handed the ID back. “Not a bit. Cup of coffee? Breakfast? Load up.”

“Just don’t kick everything over like you did last night.” Pacheco had a voice deepened by a lifetime of cigarettes.

“Coffee at the very least.” Wiley waved to the waiter.

“So you do remember last night? Stalin on the Metro?”

“The way you broke it up? How can I forget?”

“I apologize.”

Pacheco had a rough face and small black eyes. “The man speaks English better than me.”

“Ernie is from Texas.” Wiley said. “He’s a cowboy.”

“Shh.” Pacheco put up a finger as the harpist drifted from “Für Elise” to “Lara’s Theme.” “Ever see Doctor Zhivago?”

Wiley said, “There’s a chance that Investigator Renko has even read the book.”

“Two Americans show up at a Metro platform in the middle of the night. They don’t get off or board the train. Instead, they participate in the illegal videotaping of a ceremony in honor of Stalin. Do you both speak Russian?”

Wiley said, “I minored in Russian.”

“I was a marine sergeant at the embassy.” Pacheco sawed his meat and corralled it. “Back in the Cold War.”

“All I can tell you is that we were doing our job.”

“In Moscow? What would that job be?”

“I’m in marketing. I help people sell things. They can be soda pop, faster automobiles, fresher detergents, whatever and anywhere, Moscow, New York, Mexico City.”

“You want to sell Stalin in America?”

“No. In the States, Stalin is dead. Now, Hitler’s different. In America, Hitler continues to be hot. History Channel, street fashion, video games. But here in Russia, Stalin is the king. Long story short, we’re using nostalgia for Stalin to publicize the Russian Patriot political party. It’s a start-up party with only three weeks left before the election; it needs an instant identity and an attractive candidate. A good-looking war hero, if possible.”

“Brandy?” Pacheco asked Arkady.

“For breakfast?”

“It’s not over yet.”

Arkady tried to get back on track. “But Russian elections are Russian business. You are Americans.”

Wiley said, “Remember Boris Yeltsin’s return from the dead? He had an approval rating of two percent-he was a drunk, he was a clown, you name it-but American political consultants like me came on board, ran an American-style campaign and Yeltsin won, thirty-six percent to thirty-four percent for the Communists. Nikolai Isakov’s favorable rating is at least that. He will make an impact.”

“You do this for anyone? For either side?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a mercenary.”

“A professional. The main thing is-and I want to stress this-what I do is perfectly legitimate.”

“How is the campaign for Isakov going?”

Wiley paused. “Better than expected.”

“My questions aren’t offensive, I hope.”

“No, we’ve been expecting them. To be honest, Arkady, we’ve been expecting you.”

“Me?”

“You see, with any candidate we do a kind of questionnaire. Pluses and minuses. Mainly minuses because we need to anticipate any potential line of attack the opposition may take: drugs, assault, corruption, sexual orientation. We need to see the client naked, so to speak, because you never know when personal issues are going to go public. So far it looks like the only thing we have to worry about is you.”

“Me?”

Pacheco had twisted in his chair to watch the harpist. “Isn’t she an angel? Golden hair, white skin, white gown. All she needs is a pair of wings. Imagine what it’s like for her, getting up at five in the morning, dressing, riding the subway from God knows where to waste beautiful music on a crowd with their faces in their shredded wheat.”

Wiley hunched closer to Arkady. “Your wife ran off with Isakov. Are you going to make a stink about that?”

“She’s not my wife.”

Wiley’s face lit up. “Oh, I misunderstood. That’s a huge relief.”

The brandy came and Arkady drank half a snifter in one hot swallow.

“See, you did want it,” Pacheco said.

“What was the trick?” Arkady asked.

“Pardon?”

“Getting people to say they saw Stalin. What was the trick?”

Wiley smiled. “That’s simple. Create the right conditions and people will do the rest.”

“What do you mean?”

“People create their own reality. If four people see Stalin and you don’t, who are you, Arkady, to dispute the majority opinion?”

“I was there.”

“So were they. Millions of devout pilgrims believe in visions of the Virgin Mary,” Pacheco said.

“Stalin was not the Virgin Mary.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Wiley said. “If four out of five people say they saw Stalin in the Metro, then Stalin was there as much as you. From what I’m told, your father did pretty well by the old butcher, so maybe you should have given him a salute instead of breaking up the party.”

As soon as Arkady left the Metropol he used his cell phone to call Eva’s. There was no answer. He called the apartment phone. Again, no answer. He called the number of the clinic desk and the receptionist said Eva wasn’t there either.

“Do you know when she left this morning?”

“Doctor Kazka wasn’t on duty this morning.”

“Last night, then.”

“She wasn’t on last night. Who is this?”

Arkady turned the phone off.

The sun was up, backlighting the snow. From the parking lot of the Metropol he looked directly at Theatre Square. The Bolshoi was being renovated and a chariot drawn by four horses was trapped high in the scaffolding. A man and woman walked arm in arm along the theater steps. They had a melancholy air, the classic scene of lovers hiding from a jealous mate.

“How would you describe yourself? A cheerful, sunny personality? Or serious, perhaps melancholy?” Tatiana Levina asked.

“Cheerful. Definitely sunny,” Arkady said.

“Do you like the outdoors? Sports? Or do you prefer indoor, intellectual activities?”

“The great outdoors. Skiing, soccer, long walks in the mud.”

“Do you have books?”

“Television.”

“Would you prefer a concert of Beethoven or gambling at a casino?”

“Of who?”

“Smoke?”

“Cutting back.”

“Drink?”

“Perhaps a glass of wine with dinner.”

Arkady had told Tatiana that he was a Russian American hoping to find a Russian bride. The matchmaker eyed him dubiously from his thin Russian shoes to his winter pallor, but her salesmanship responded to the challenge.

“Our women expect to meet American Americans, not Russian Americans. Also, I have this feeling you are a little more intense than you may be aware of. We try to match men and women who are alike in their interests and personalities. Opposites attract…and then they divorce. Tea?”

Tatiana had bright hennaed hair, an optimistic smile and a scent of sachet. She filled two cups from an electric kettle and wondered aloud how Arkady had found Cupid’s basement office with so much snow on the Arbat. The Arbat was a pedestrian thoroughfare designed to funnel strolling tourists into shops selling amber, vodka, nesting dolls, imperial knickknacks and T-shirts with Lenin’s face. Or, in Cupid’s case, introductions to Russian women. Today the snow had blown away the sketch artists, jugglers, Gypsies and all but the hardiest tourist. Arkady had seen Zoya leave, sleek in a full-length fur coat and matching hat, but the office lights had stayed on and he thought that before Victor descended on the morgue again it might be wise to see the business Zoya co-owned with the husband she wanted dead. Victor had stopped by the apartment and jumped to copy Petrov’s mini cassettes. Pornography was wasted on Arkady, who had dashed through it, but all evidence demanded study, Victor maintained. Anything less was unprofessional.

Cupid had a waiting area, a conference space where the matchmaker and Arkady sat, two cubicles separated by frosted glass and a closed inner office he assumed was Zoya’s. Framed photographs of happy couples covered the walls. The wives were young and Russian; the husbands were middle-aged Americans, Australians, Canadians.

“What is most important is that you and your mate are alike. Wouldn’t you want someone educated, cultured and deep?”

“That sounds exhausting. Did you introduce some of these?” He pointed to a photo of a man in a cowboy hat with his meaty arm wrapped around an embarrassed woman transported from Moscow? Murmansk? Smolensk?

“I’m here only part-time, but I have put some very nice couples together. The problem is we don’t usually do Russian and Russian.”

“I noticed.” His eyes fell on a stack of American visa forms.

“Well, what can I say about Russian-American matches? Nothing in common, true. But Russian women don’t want a Russian man who lies on the couch and does nothing but drink and complain about life. American men don’t want an American woman who’s either spoiled or aggressive. We serve mature, traditional men who want women whose intelligence and education does not get in the way of their femininity.”

The cell phone vibrated in Arkady’s jacket pocket and he checked the caller ID. Zurin. Arkady turned the phone off. “I’m sorry.”

“We’re not just a Web site and a telephone. We’re not a club or a dating service. We don’t just take fifty dollars and send you a list of e-mail addresses of God knows what kind of women, or of women who have moved or married or died. At Cupid we take you by the hand and lead you to your soul mate. May I?” She opened what looked like a wedding album and turned the pages for him. On each was a professional-quality photograph of an attractive woman in a gown or tennis gear; her first name-Elena, Julia, or whatever-and her vital statistics, education, profession, interests, languages, and a personal statement. Julia, for example, yearned for a man with a good heart and his feet on the ground. Once or twice Tatiana stopped at a page to mutter, “She’s been on the shelf awhile. Maybe…”

Arkady noticed a blonde named Tanya in a ski outfit who looked like she could have a good man’s heart for dinner.

“A dancer, I believe.”

“Not only a dancer, a harpist. She plays at the Metropol. I just saw her.”

“Take my word, she’s not your type.”

As distant as Tanya had seemed with the harp, her smile in the picture was fully charged. Her ski suit was made of tight silvery material only very good skiing could justify. The signs in the snow behind her were black diamonds.

“Anyway, she’s taken,” Tatiana said. “Not available.”

“Well, if I were interested in someone else, what is Cupid’s fee?”

“American men pay for quality,” she said. For $500, Cupid promised three serious introductions, preparation of the man’s special “fiancé visa” to Russia, and if romance bloomed, all the legal paperwork for her visit to his American hometown. Travel and hotel were his responsibility. “We make sure you find your soul mate.”

She opened another album and flipped through photos of satisfied couples at the front door of a house, at a fireplace, around a backyard grill, by a Christmas tree.

“If I don’t find my soul mate in three tries?”

“We discount for the next three.”

“Maybe because I’m Russian the price could be adjusted even further.”

“I’d have to ask the owner.”

“Who is?”

“Zoya. You nearly met on the stairs.”

“I met a man who said he ran an agency like this. His name was Filotov.”

“Hardly. Zoya’s in charge.”

“Now that you mention it he didn’t seem the type. He had a short fuse.”

“When he drinks.”

“When does he drink?”

“Every day.”

“He seemed…” Arkady paused as if looking for the right word.

“Disruptive. He advised some girls to get tattooed. An American adult is going to marry a tattooed Russian girl? I think not. Filotov even told them where to hide it, but sooner or later, the American finds it. He’d have to be blind not to.”

Arkady was afraid to ask more than “Any particular tattoo?”

“I wouldn’t know. I tell the girls, if you have a tattoo join a motorcycle gang, don’t waste our time.”

“What about the American? How do you know he isn’t a serial killer and has two or three dead Russian girls in his freezer?”

“My God!” The matchmaker looked around as if someone else might hear. “We don’t joke about such things. What an awful imagination.”

“It’s a curse.” He thought of Petya’s matchbook and decided to go for broke. “Have you ever heard of a gentlemen’s club called Tahiti?”

Ice formed on Tatiana’s gaze.

“Perhaps you should try another agency.”

While Arkady returned to his car, he called the Izvestia editorial office and was told that Ginsberg, the reporter who wrote the newspaper article about Isakov’s heroic OMON troops, was covering “the pizza trial,” the case of the ex-Black Beret who killed a pizza deliveryman. The trial was being heard in a new courthouse still under construction.

“How will I recognize Ginsberg?” Arkady asked.

“Unless there’s more than one hunchback there shouldn’t be any problem.”