‘Worn?’
‘Badly.’
Arkady hung up and looked at his shoes. Not only were the heels worn, but the original green color of the leather showed through black polish.
‘Son of a bitch!’ the man had said when Arkady bit him. Americans say that. An American son of a bitch.
‘These German girls,’ Pasha said as he listened to a tape through his headset. ‘Secretaries for the German Export Bank. Live at the Rossiya Hotel and pick up men right on the hotel dance floor. A Russian prostitute, one of our own, would be thrown out of the Rossiya on her ass.’
Arkady’s own tapes had peccadilloes. He eavesdropped on the tirades of a French-speaking liberation fighter from Chad who roomed at the Peking Hotel. The would-be national leader had a sexual appetite matched only by his difficulty in procuring partners. Girls were afraid that after fornicating once with a black man, years hence they might give birth to ‘a monkey’. Up with Soviet education!
The demand for so many tapes and transcripts was only to scare Pribluda. It didn’t matter that sensitive material wouldn’t be delivered; someone in the KGB’s chain of command only had to know that the holy of holies (tapes and transcripts, those other people’s secrets that only the initiated were empowered to paw) were in the hands of a rival organization. Any transgression was transgression enough. The cartons would go back, and with them, Arkady was sure, the whole investigation. He hadn’t mentioned yet that the man who’d roughed him up was probably American, or that he’d taken Beauty’s head to Andreev. He couldn’t prove the one, and nothing had happened with the other.
He listened to the tape of one tourist while he read the transcript of another. The microphones were in the hotel-room telephones, so he heard calls and conversations alike. The French all complained about the food, and the Americans and English all complained about the waiters. Travel was so irritating.
During lunch in a cafeteria off the hotel lobby, Arkady called Zoya’s school. For once, she came to the phone.
‘I want to come over and talk to you,’ he said.
‘It’s the month before May Day, you know how that is,’ Zoya answered.
‘I can pick you up after school.’
‘No!’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know. Later on, when I know what I’m doing. I have to go.’
Before she hung up he heard Schmidt in the background.
The afternoon was endless, though the time came when Pasha and Fet put on their hats and coats and went home. Arkady stopped work for coffee. In the dark he made out two more of His skyscrapers close by, Moscow University to the east and the Foreign Ministry right over the river. Their ruby stars glowed to each other.
Alone, listening again to tapes, he heard his first familiar voice. The tape was of an American’s party given on January 12 at the Rossiya Hotel. The voice was that of a Russian guest, an angry woman:
‘Chekhov, naturally. Always relevant, they say, because of his critical attitude toward the petty bourgeoisie, his deep-rooted Democratic feelings and his absolute faith in the strength of the people. The truth is, in a Chekhov film you can dress the actresses in decent hats instead of scarves. Once a year they want a film with nice hats.’
Arkady recognized the voice of Irina Asanova, the girl at Mosfilm. There was a dulcet protest against her from the actresses present.
Latecomers arrived.
‘Yevgeny, now what did you bring me?’
A door closed.
‘A late Happy New Year, John.’
‘Gloves! How thoughtful. I shall wear these.’
‘Wear them, show them off. Come by tomorrow and I’ll give you a hundred thousand to sell.’
The American’s name was John Osborne. His room at the Rossiya was just off Red Square, most likely a real suite with cut flowers. The Ukraina was a railway station in comparison with the Rossiya. Osborne’s Russian was good and strangely suave. But Arkady wanted to hear the girl again.
More voices rushed onto the tape.
‘ . . . wonderful performance.’
‘Yes, I gave a reception for her when the whole ballet company came to New York. Dedicated to her art.’
‘With the Moiseyev?’
‘Wonderful energy.’
Arkady listened to more welcomes, toasts to Russian art, questions about the Kennedys; there was nothing more from Irina Asanova. He felt his eyelids grow heavy, as if he were an unseen guest buried beneath warm coats and the drone of half-heard words, four-month-old echoes of a room and faces he’d never seen. The flapping of tape in his earphones snapped him to attention. On the chance that Irina Asanova would speak again, Arkady turned over the tape.
The same party, later. Osborne speaking.
‘The Gorky Tannery already gives me ready-made gloves. Ten years ago I did try to import leather – calfskin I could undercut the Spanish and Italians with. Fortunately, I checked the goods in Leningrad. I’d been given stomach linings. Tripe. I traced the shipment back to a cattle collective in Alma Ata, which had shipped on the same day my calfskins to Leningrad and soup tripe to Vogvozdino.’
Vogvozdino? But the American wouldn’t know about the prison camp there, Arkady thought.
‘They contacted the authorities in Vogvozdino, who said their shipment has arrived, been made into soup and devoured with gusto. So the collective was vindicated. I must not have tripe because, certainly, Russians would not eat gloves. I lost twenty thousand dollars, and now never order soup east of Moscow.’
A nervous silence was followed by nervous laughter. Arkady smoked and found he had laid three matches before him on the table.
‘I can’t understand why you people ever defect to the United States. For money? You would learn that Americans, no matter how much money they have, always find something finally that they can’t buy. When they do, they say, “We can’t afford it, we’re too poor to buy it.” Never, “We’re not rich enough.” You don’t want to be poor Americans, do you? Here you will always be rich.’
The pages from the file on Osborne were onionskin, with the KGB seal embossed in red:
John Dusen Osborne, citizen U.S.A., born 16/5/20 in Tarrytown, New York, U.S.A. Non-party member. Unmarried. Current residence, New York, N.Y. First entry to U.S.S.R. 1942 at Murmansk with Lend-Lease advisory group. Resided 1942–44 in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk on assignment from U.S. Foreign Service as transportation adviser, during which time the subject performed significant services to the anti-Fascist war effort. The subject resigned from the Foreign Service in 1948 during a period of rightist hysteria and initiated a private career in the importation of Russian furs. The subject has sponsored many goodwill missions and cultural exchanges and is a yearly visitor to the U.S.S.R.
The second page of the dossier mentioned offices of Osborne Fur Imports, Inc., and Osborne Fur Creations, Inc., in New York, Palm Springs and Paris, and listed Osborne’s visits to Russia over the past five years. His last trip had been from January 2 to February 2. There was a penciled note crossed out, but Arkady could read: ‘Personal Reference: I. V. Mendel, Ministry of Trade.’
The third page said: ‘See: Annals of Soviet-American Cooperation in the Great Patriotic War, Pravda, 1967.’
Also: ‘See: Department One.’
Arkady recalled Mendel. The man was one of those lobsters who molted and grew fatter with each season, first as supervisor of ‘relocation’ for kulaks, then wartime commissioner for the Murmansk Region, next director of Disinformation for the KGB, and finally, his claws as great as dredges, deputy minister of Trade. Mendel had died last year, but Osborne was sure to have more friends of the same species.
‘It’s your humility that makes you charming. A Russian feels inferior to anyone but an Arab or another Russian.’
Russian giggles proved Osborne’s point. It was the worldly tone that seduced them. Anyway, he was a safe foreigner.
‘When in Russia, a wise man stays away from beautiful women, intellectuals and Jews. Or to put it more simp
ly, Jews.’
A sadistic pearl with the one necessary element, Arkady conceded: a grain of truth.
His much amused audience was wrong, however. The dossier notation, ‘Department One’, stood for the KGB’s North American Bureau. Osborne was no agent; no tapes would have been passed on if he were. Osborne, the notation meant, was simply cooperative, a patron of Russian arts and an informant on Russian artists. No doubt more than one dancer basking in his hospitality had uttered statements in New York that found a second audience in Moscow. Arkady was relieved that there was no more sound of Irina Asanova on the tape.
Misha had invited Arkady for supper. Before going, he checked on what his detectives had been up to. Fet’s Scandinavian tapes were stacked neatly by notepapers and two pencils sharpened to pinpoints. Pasha’s table was a mess. Arkady glanced at the detective’s transcripts of Golodkin’s telephone calls. One transcript made the day before was curious. Golodkin spoke nothing but English on this call, and whoever was on the other end spoke nothing but Russian:
G: Good morning. This is Feodor. Remember, on your last trip we were going to go to the museum together.
X: Дa.
G: How do you do? I want to show you the museum today. Is today convenient for you?
X: Извинитe, oчeнь зaнят Moжeт, в cлeдyющпй paз.
G: You are sure?
The transcribed Russian of the unidentified person was perfectly colloquial. It was a matter of faith, though, that no one could really speak Russian except Russians, and apparently the black marketeer thought, contrary to the evidence, that he had to use English. Golodkin was speaking to a foreigner.
Arkady found the tape that matched the transcript and put it on the machine. This time he heard what he’d read.
‘Good morning. This is Feodor. Remember, on your last trip we were going to go to the museum together.’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you do? I want to show you the museum today. Is today convenient for you?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m very busy. Maybe next year.’
‘You are sure?’
Click.
Arkady recognized the other voice at once because he’d listened to it for hours. It was Osborne. The American was back in Moscow.
The Mikoyans had a large flat – five rooms including one with two grand pianos that Misha had inherited, along with the flat, from his parents, who had performed as a team with the Radio Symphony Orchestra. The parents’ collection of revolutionary cinema posters decorated the walls, together with Misha and Natasha’s peasant wood carvings. Misha directed Arkady to the bathroom, one corner of which was occupied by a new clothes washer of immaculate white enamel.
‘The Siberia. Top of the line. A hundred fifty-five rubles. We waited ten months for this.’
An extension cord led to an outlet, and a hose was draped over the side of the tub. Exactly what Zoya wanted.
‘We could have had the ZIV or the Riga in four months, but we wanted the best.’ Misha picked up a copy of The Commercial Bulletin, which had been lying on the toilet. ‘Very highly rated.’
‘And not in the least bourgeois.’ Maybe Schmidt had one in his seraglio.
Misha gave Arkady a black look and handed him his glass. They were drinking peppered vodka and were already a little unsteady. Misha pulled a lump of wet underwear from the agitator tub and stuffed the clothes into the spin dryer.
‘I’ll show you!’
He twisted the spin dryer’s knob. With a roar, the machine began vibrating. The roar grew, as if a plane were taking off in the bathroom. Water spewed from the hose into the bathtub. Misha leaned back dreamily.
‘Fantastic?’ he shouted.
‘Poetry,’ Arkady said. ‘Mayakovsky’s poetry, but still poetry.’
The machine stopped. Misha checked the plug and the knob, which wouldn’t turn.
‘Something the matter?’
Misha encompassed Arkady and the machine with a glare. He pounded its side, and the machine began vibrating again.
‘Definitely a Russian washer.’ Arkady remembered an old verb which meant ‘to whip one’s serf’ and wondered, sipping, if there would be a new one: ‘to whip one’s machine.’
Misha stood with arms akimbo. ‘Anything new has a break-in period,’ he explained.
‘It’s to be expected.’
‘It’s really rolling now.’
Shaking to be precise. Misha had crammed four underpants into the spin dryer. At that rate, Arkady estimated, moving laundry from the agitator tub to the spin dryer and on to the communal clothesline, a week’s wash could be done in . . . a week. Nevertheless, the machine was nearly lifting itself from the bathroom floor in its fervor. Misha took an anxious step back. The noise was deafening. The drainage hose popped off and water sprayed the wall.
‘What!’ Misha alertly crammed a towel against the drain hole with one hand and twisted the control knob with the other. When the knob came loose in his fingers, he fell to kicking the machine, which dodged his efforts until Arkady pulled the plug.
‘Fuck your mother!’ Misha kicked his stationary target. ‘Fuck your mother. Ten months’ – he wheeled on Arkady – ‘ten months!’
He snatched up The Commercial Bulletin and tried to tear it in two. ‘I’ll show those bastards! I wonder how much they got paid off!’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’ll write them!’ Misha threw the journal into the bathtub. At once he was on his knees ripping out the editorial page. ‘State quality label? I’ll show you a quality label.’ He rolled the page into a ball, threw it into the toilet bowl, pulled the flush chain and whooped triumphantly.
‘Now, how do you know who to write?’
‘Sshh!’ Misha put a finger to his lips for silence. He took back his drink. ‘Don’t let Natasha hear you. She just got her machine. Act as if nothing happened.’
Natasha served a supper of forcemeat patties, pickles, sausage and white bread, hardly touching her wine but sitting in an aura of contentment.
‘To your coffin, Arkasha.’ Misha raised his glass. ‘Which will be lined with embroidered silk, have a satin pillow, your name and titles on a gold plate, and silver handles set in the finest cedar one hundred years old from a tree I will plant in the morning.’
He drank, pleased with himself. ‘Or,’ he added, ‘I could just order it from the Ministry of Light Industry. That should take about as long.’
‘I’m sorry about the supper,’ Natasha told Arkady. ‘If we had someone else to shop . . . you know.’
‘She thinks you’re going to pump her about Zoya. We refuse to get in the middle between you two,’ Misha said, and turned to Natasha. ‘Have you seen Zoya? What did she say about Arkasha?’
‘If we had a bigger refrigerator,’ Natasha explained, ‘or one with a freezer.’
‘They talked about refrigerators, clearly,’ Misha rolled his eyes at Arkady. ‘Incidentally, you don’t happen to know any murderer-repairmen who owe you a favor?’
Natasha cut her meat patty into small sections. ‘I know some doctors.’ She smiled.
Her knife stopped as her eyes finally picked up the control knob lying by Misha’s plate.
‘A little problem, love,’ Misha said. ‘The washer isn’t quite working.’
‘That’s all right. We can still show it to people.’
She seemed genuinely content.
Chapter Six
Man was not born criminal but fell into error through unfortunate circumstances or the influence of negative elements. All crimes great and small could be traced to postcapitalist avarice, egoism, sloth, parasitism, drunkenness, religious prejudices or inherited depravity.
The killer Tsypin, for example, was born of a killer and a gold speculator, whose forebears included killers, thieves and monks. Tsypin was brought up an urka, a professional criminal. He wore an urka’s blue tattoos – snakes, dragons, the names of assorted lovers – in such profusion that they curled out from under his shirt
cuffs and collar. Once he’d shown Arkady the red cock tattooed on his penis. Tsypin’s murder of an accomplice was, fortunately for him, committed during a time when only state crimes were deemed to merit the death penalty. Tsypin got ten years. In camp he added another tattoo, ‘Fucked by the Party,’ across his forehead. Again he was lucky. Such ‘corporal’ anti-Soviet propaganda had been a state crime until a week before his act, so he merely got some skin added to his head from his ass and five years added to his sentence, a term suspended on the event of the hundredth anniversary of Lenin’s birth.
‘I take the long view now,’ he told Arkady. ‘The crime rate goes up, it goes down. Judges loosen up, then they break your balls. Like the moon and the tide. Anyway, now I have a good situation.’
Tsypin was a machinist. But he made his real money off truck drivers. Drivers would fill up their tanks to deliver goods to some village in the country. Just outside Moscow, however, they’d siphon some gas, sell it at a cut rate to Tsypin, change their odometers and, at day’s end, return to their terminal with the always plausible story of bad roads and detours. Tsypin, in turn, sold the gas to private car owners. The authorities were aware of his activities, but as there were so few gas stations in Moscow and there was such pressure from car owners for more, profiteers such as Tsypin were covertly allowed to perform a needed social service.
‘The last thing anybody wants is a crackdown, and if I knew who killed three people in Gorky Park, I’d be the first to tell you. In fact, whoever pulled something like that should have his balls cut off. We have standards too, you know.’
More urkas took the chair in Arkady’s office at Novokuznetskaya, each repeating that no one was crazy enough to shoot anyone in Gorky Park and, from the other point of view, no one was missing. The last was Zharkov, a former Army man who traded in guns.