The Kukotsky Enigma: A Novel

4

ON THE EVENING OF THE SAME DAY VITALY SET OUT FOR the Central Telegraph: for certain reasons he did not call America from his home phone. He and his father were connected very quickly. Ilya Iosifovich picked up the receiver, heard his son’s voice—quick, businesslike, without “hello” or “how are you doing.”

“Zhenya gave birth to a son. Congratulations! You’ve got a great-grandson.” With no superfluous comments.

He did it within one minute. Then it took him twenty minutes to get through to Leningrad. He told Sergei that everything was all right. She’d had a boy, without any complications.

“Can I come to see her?” Sergei asked.

“Call Zhenya when she gets out of the maternity hospital. Figure it out with her.”

He felt no particular weakness for this long-haired musician and was even a little jealous of his relationship with Zhenya. Whatever connection they shared was completely incomprehensible . . . Sergei also did not know what connected him with this girl who had been his daughter for a few years. But he didn’t think about it. He took his instrument and began to play his old composition, “Black Stones.”