Stroika

Prologue

^LENINGRAD

Miniature lakes form where the pavement has subsided. People hunch against the wet, making their way home, skirt familiar tarns, avoiding the kerb, wary of cars and trucks and soaking sheets. Grey turns to darker grey as the run-down façade of the Nevsky Prospect undergoes an unambiguous Soviet metamorphosis.

She rubs the wet off the dial. He is late, fifteen minutes. She takes cover under the overhang of a tall building, her eyes searching the crowd.

He is easy to spot. She can see him now, a hundred metres off, head up, running full tilt through the open spaces in the crowd. Two men some way behind are giving chase but the gap is widening.

A pedestrian inadvertently steps in his path. He slips, regains his balance. The gap between him and his pursuers closes momentarily. His hand moves inside his jacket, reaches for something. He is only metres from her now. She steps out into the pavement, directly in front of him, and braces herself for the impact. He sends her reeling.

Concerned passers-by help her up, ask if she’s all right. Does she need assistance home? She says no, brushing the water from her coat; her gaze fixed a hundred metres ahead.

A car blocks his path. The men following grab him from behind. He doesn’t struggle. He raises his hands, protesting.

They pull his jacket off, search him, find nothing, and drop it onto the wet pavement. A policeman arrives on the scene and quickly exits. A man climbs out of the back of the car and walks over to the small group. She can see him gesturing with his fist, a look of fury on his face. He lands a heavy blow to the man’s arm and they release him, pushing him roughly forward. He stumbles and nearly falls. Empty-handed, they move off, leaving him alone and rubbing his arm.

Passers-by pay him no attention. He retrieves his sodden jacket and looks back, finds her and smiles. She smiles back, turns and walks away.