The Sin Collector

MASHA

The first thing she saw was an icon. It had its own honored place in one corner, as tradition dictated. Masha jumped and exchanged a glance with Andrey, who was nice enough to say nothing. As she looked around, memories crowded in. Memories from her childhood, from the days she hadn’t yet been poisoned by her father’s death.

There, at that table, they had sat together cleaning mushrooms they’d found in the woods. Irina had taught her to string the right kind of mushroom on a thick white thread, which they would hang over the round stove like a Christmas garland to dry. And there on that veranda, Mama had laughed while she and Nick-Nick washed the lunch dishes in a tub. In the old rocking chair, Papa had stretched out his legs and talked with Irina, who was always stitching away at something, mending or knitting, and listening uneasily to Natasha’s laughter pouring in from the veranda, which Fyodor never seemed to notice. The memories were so vivid that Masha almost forgot why they had come. She looked at the row of folded-up cots on the veranda and ran a hand over the worn lacquer of the old buffet. It held ceramic knick-knacks, probably heirlooms from Irina’s parents. A little boy in ice skates. A little girl with skis. She thought she could even remember Irina saying how much she loved those little pieces of bourgeois charm, kitschy as they were. Mama hadn’t understood, of course.

A loud scraping noise shook her out of her reverie. It was Andrey, moving the heavy table aside and lifting the cheerful little striped rug. Underneath was the trap door leading down to the cellar. Masha nodded. She remembered the cellar, too. As a girl, she had helped Irina carry jars of pickled mushrooms and jam down there.

Down they went, into a room that stank of mold and neglect. Masha’s foot knocked against an empty jar, which clattered away in the darkness. Andrey pulled a cord, and a dim, swinging light bulb illuminated the room. The walls were lined with racks of shelves, which in Masha’s childhood had been full of provisions for the winter, sacks of potatoes, and apples. Now all that decorated those shelves were rows of large, empty jars. There were gaps in the rows, like missing teeth.

“I thought—I was sure, actually, that the cellar was bigger than this.” Masha’s voice echoed strangely in the neglected, dusty place.

“Everything looks big when we’re kids,” Andrey answered glumly.

“I wonder why Nick-Nick’s wife quit gardening.” She ran a finger thoughtfully over one of the dusty jars. “She used to get so excited about her jams and pickles! They don’t have kids, you know, and—”

“Shhhhh!”

Andrey was rapping his knuckles on the back of one of the racks of shelves.

“You’re right. This cellar really is a lot bigger than it looks. Come help me.”

Together, the two of them began taking jars off the shelves. When the rack was completely empty, Andrey gave it a tug, first in one direction, then the other. All of a sudden it gave way with a groan and swung slowly away. The sickly light bulb only illuminated a few inches into the space hidden on the other side of that shelf, a room that did not look dusty at all.

Andrey told her to wait, and Masha obeyed. She didn’t want to see what was in there. She yearned for knowledge, as her father used to say, like a sunflower reaching for the sun, but she also realized that she had reached a certain boundary, a limit. And that boundary was drawn right there, where this uncertain light met the deep blackness on the other side of the cellar. Andrey took out a flashlight and walked in, and Masha sat down on an old overturned bucket to wait, struggling to keep her eyes fixed on her dusty fingers.

For a while, the flashlight danced over a hastily whitewashed wall, but then Andrey found another switch, a far brighter light poured down, and a brilliant new world emerged from the darkness, ruled by a remorseless truth. Masha felt left behind in the dark. In that other world, she could see things on the walls. An enormous map of old Moscow hung next to a map of Jerusalem. Next to that was a modern-day map with red flags neatly pinned onto it. Masha gulped. She had one of those, too, and hers had pins in just the same places. She saw the eyepiece of a video camera. Did he observe his victims through that lens? There was a massive professional-grade refrigerator where, apparently, Yelnik had spent half a year. Some carpentry tools. Masha remembered, with a start, how her mother used to urge her father to be more like Nick-Nick, who was a real handyman. But you, Fyodor! You couldn’t hammer a nail into the kitchen wall! Farther back, there was a simple, solid workbench. Masha didn’t need to get any closer to see that it was covered with dark stains.

“Look at this.” Andrey walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out one thin volume. St. Theodora’s Journey. He opened the fridge. “It’s switched off, but it’s definitely the right size,” he said, and pulled out something that looked like an aquarium.

“What is that?” Masha asked, her voice trembling, still not getting up off her bucket.

“Maybe some kind of incubator?” Andrey turned the glass box over carefully in his hands. “To hold—”

“Ants.” Masha finished his sentence in a whisper. “Let’s get out of here!”

Andrey picked up a metal-tipped whip, and put it down again.

“Yeah. Let’s go,” he said. “I’ve seen enough.”

He had raised his hand to turn off the light when Masha stood up and called, “Wait!”

Trying not to look around, she marched across the room and, in one quick swipe, ripped the map with the red pins off the wall. It rolled up in her hands.

“Now let’s go,” she said. But halfway up the stairs, she couldn’t resist looking back at the black hole where the secret hideout had been. So that’s where you were, she told herself. Heavenly Jerusalem. Right here in this dark basement, for Nick-Nick—her Nick-Nick!—the light had shone down from on high and the angels had sung in chorus. Oh my God… She stumbled up the last few steps, ran out of the house, leaned over the railing of the porch, and threw up. Then Masha sat on the steps for a long while, gasping in the frosty air, while Andrey kept an arm wrapped around her shoulders, trying to fend off the trembling that wracked her body.

When they got in the car, Masha had almost stopped shaking. She looked silently at the map rolled up in her lap. Andrey called Petrovka and told them to send some forensics experts out to the dacha. He decided to leave the front door, and the entrance to the cellar, wide open. He also asked Fomin to stop by and see if Katyshev was in his office. He turned out not to be, and he wasn’t answering his phone. Masha called his home number. Irina answered and said her husband wasn’t at home. After a pause, she asked, “And how’s your mom?”

So Masha got stuck updating Irina on her mother’s progress and her own, trying hard not to ask any sort of question that might tip her off. She listened submissively to Irina’s worried advice. (“You need to get more rest, Mashenka! At least eight hours of sleep a night, try some mint tea or chamomile.”) It was enough to make Masha think that she, and the whole world, had finally lost their minds. Masha made herself glance in the rearview mirror at the forest disappearing behind them in the early dusk. There was only one person she knew who was crazy—though of course he must not think so.

When their conversation was wrapping up, Masha asked casually, “Do you two go to your dacha much anymore?”

For a second, she thought the call might have been disconnected. But then Irina answered, her voice sad.

“You know, we never go at all anymore. He doesn’t have the time, and it’s no fun when it’s just me. And Nikolay says the house is falling apart, and he never gets around to fixing it up, because he spends all his energy bringing his bad guys to justice.” She laughed, awkwardly, and Masha shuddered at what an apt description that was.

“Well, Mashenka! Tell your mother I said hello, and get well soon,” Irina said, and they hung up.

“So,” said Andrey, “that means Katyshev isn’t anywhere. Do you think he knows we’ve fingered him?”

“I don’t know,” said Masha. “But I think so,” she added, more confidently.

Andrey gave her a worried look. “If he knows we’re on his trail, he might try to run.”

Masha shook her head. “No. If he knows we’re on his trail, he’ll try to finish what he set out to do.”

“Are you sure?” asked Andrey, glancing over at her.

Masha laughed sadly. “Positive. I know Nick-Nick. He’s very conscientious.”