The Sin Collector

INNOKENTY

“Listen, I already told the detectives everything I know,” the swimmer told Innokenty as he tossed his wet towel on a bench. “If the investigation’s at a dead end or whatever, that doesn’t mean you’ve gotta come around asking questions for the twentieth time, does it?”

Innokenty didn’t respond. He had just spent an hour waiting for this guy to finish his training session, watching through a window in the locker room as the swimmer cut through the pool’s unnaturally blue water, back and forth, tirelessly. His head looked small against the smooth surface of the water and perfectly streamlined, disappearing and reappearing at even intervals. Innokenty, who preferred mental labor, was spellbound by this astounding concentration, this subordination of the self to the body.

But a whole hour of waiting around, breathing the stale smell of chlorine and sweat, was enough to sour his mood. Now they stood facing one another, one in a gray tweed jacket and a nice pair of trousers, the other almost naked, showing off the generous span of his muscular shoulders and his surprisingly sharp face, all pointy nose and jutting chin.

“I won’t take up too much of your time,” said Innokenty, quietly but with authority.

They were the same height. The swimmer tried to size him up, then shook his head like a wet dog. A few drops splattered onto Innokenty’s shirt, and he looked down, annoyed, as they soaked into the fabric.

“Sorry,” said the swimmer, and finally extended his hand. “Nikolay Snegurov.”

They sat down right there on the wooden benches. There was nobody else around.

“You were Solyanko’s friend and colleague. Could you try to tell me what kind of guy he was?”

Snegurov looked at Innokenty, and the blue sheen of the pool seemed frozen in his eyes.

“There’s one thing you need to get straight,” he said. “Solyanko wasn’t my friend. Maybe writers or scientists can be friends, but in sports, it doesn’t happen. You have to be a winner, third place at worst. And you don’t have much time. We’re like ballet dancers. One step closer to retirement every year. You work your ass off maybe twenty years tops, the injuries pile up, and you’re off to the showers. When I hear people talk about ‘healthy competition,’ it makes me want to vomit. We’re not some pansy fucking naval officers riding desks at the Admiralty. Here, if you don’t make it at the Olympics, then you train for another four years, and in four years anything could happen.

“Know why I’m telling you all this? Because Solyanko was a piece of shit. I don’t give a fuck that you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead. I was just a kid when I started swimming, I wasn’t even ten, and I was always busy, away at sports camps. No reading books, no chasing girls. We give up our whole lives. All for a higher good, right?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Innokenty said carefully.

“You don’t? Maybe they didn’t write it down before, didn’t think it was important. Or they checked out my alibi. It’s airtight, thank God. Solyanko and I were the leaders of the Russian team. Everyone thought either Solyanko or Snegurov would take home a medal, defend the country’s honor. They even called us the SS Squad, for our initials. So naturally we trained like we were possessed. We were young, right? At our peak. It was our big chance. Solyanko and I hardly ever spoke in those days. Not just because I never liked him, but because we were too busy training. So, you know, rumors started to spread. That Solyanko was taking EPO.”

“What was he taking?”

“EPO. Erythropoietin. It’s a drug, improves your endurance. Increases the oxygen in your blood, or something like that. It can improve your performance by fifteen percent, basically.”

“So, doping.”

“Oooo, bad, right? The big bad wolf! Doping in sports!” Snegurov made a menacing face.

Innokenty was glad, suddenly, that Masha wasn’t with them. The guy really looked monstrous.

“I’m so fucking tired of that. Know why? Because it’s so—what’s the word?—yeah, hypocritical. All these fucking bureaucrats, looking so serious, going, Oh, we would never permit doping in our young champions! But everyone does it, you know? Everyone! Every competition these days is all doped-up athletes. Furosemide, EPO, growth hormones for muscle mass… We get word about ‘surprise’ testing a couple days ahead, or the test results go missing, or you use blood you drew a couple days before. So the tests never find anything. And you know why I’m telling you this? Everyone out here has at least tried it once. And everyone thinks the International Swimming Federation is way too strict. But the government officials… On the one hand, they desperately want us to win. On the other hand, Russia needs to act like it’s fighting doping as much as any country, maybe more. And then on the other other hand, at the Olympics in Sochi, we all heard what the president said about doping. And that’s when they found a packet in my locker. Someone leaked it to one of the sports papers that same day and, since the Federation couldn’t cover it up, they decided to make an example of me. Suddenly it was 1937 around here, a big fucking purge. You’re presumed guilty, right? I was banned from competition for two years and I missed my Olympics. While my lawyer was trying to prove that the packet wasn’t mine, I missed out on my gold.”

“And the drugs really weren’t yours?” Innokenty asked.

Snegurov huffed sadly. “I don’t have any reason to lie about it now. But I know someone who could have benefited from making me look bad, who could have tipped off the press, who could have planted the packet, no problem. Except, as you know, Solyanko never made it to the Olympics. That freaky murder didn’t have anything to do with doping, obviously, but you asked what kind of guy he was. A piece of shit.”

Snegurov stood up, and Innokenty rose, too. They shook hands.

“We’re not Olympians,” said the failed champion, shaking his head. “We’re gladiators, paying with our sweat and blood for the right to survive.”

Kenty thought that Snegurov must have found the time to read a couple of books, after all.

“Who won your event?” he asked, when the swimmer’s wide back had already passed through a doorway.

“Some guy from China.” Snegurov turned back and grinned like a wolf. “And a couple of years later, they caught his coach with a suitcase full of growth hormones.”