"How could you tell?"
"The bizarre detail. Keep lies simple."
"Yeah?"
"It's always worked for me. Give me your hands."
The Woropays shifted anxiously, but Katamay put out his hands, palms up. Arkady turned them over to look at purpled fingernails. He motioned Katamay to lean forward, and held up the lantern to observe tendrils of bleeding capillaries in the whites of Katamay's eyes.
"So tell me the truth," said Katamay. "Am I fucked or am I fucked?"
"Cesium?"
"Fucked as they come."
"Is there a treatment?"
"You can take Prussian blue; it picks up cesium as it passes through the body. But it has to be administered early. It wasn't. There's no point going to the hospital now."
"What happened? How did you get exposed?"
"Ah, that's a different story."
"Maybe not. Three men suffered from cesium poisoning: your Russian, his business partner and you. You don't think they're related?"
"I don't know. It depends how you look at it. History moves in funny ways, right? We've gone through evolution, now we're going through de-evolution. Everything is breaking down. No borders, no boundaries. No limits, no treaties. Suicide bombers, kids with guns. AIDS, Ebola, mad cow. It's all breaking down, and I'm breaking down with it. I'm bleeding internally. No platelets. No stomach lining. Infected. The reason I agreed to see you was to say that my family had nothing to do with this. Dymtrus and Taras had nothing to do with any of this, either." Katamay stopped for a spasm of wet coughs. The Woropays were solicitous as nurses, wiping blood from his lips. He raised his head and smiled. "Much better than a hospital. I had my theater debut here in Peter and the Wolf. I played the wolf. I thought I was a wolf until I met a real one."
"Who is that?"
"You'll know when you know. Anyway, we stray. Just the Russian I found, we agreed."
"His car. You towed it. Was there anything inside? Papers, maps, directions?"
"No."
Arkady reviewed his notes. "His watch, you said it was a Rolex?"
"Yes. Oh, that was sneaky. You caught me." Katamay held up an arm to show a gold Rolex like a bauble.
Dymtrus punched Arkady in the back of the head. He obviously did not appreciate lèse-majesté.
Katamay said, "No, no, fair is fair. He caught me. It doesn't matter, anyway."
"It doesn't, does it?" Arkady said.
"Give Dymtrus back his gun. He's embarrassed."
"Sure."
Arkady returned the pistol to Dymtrus, who muttered, "Gretzky."
"Okay, there was a checkpoint pass and directions," Katamay said.
"To where, exactly?"
"The cemetery."
"Where are the directions now?"
"I don't know."
"Typewritten?"
"Hardly." Katamay was amused.
"But the pass was signed by Captain Marchenko?"
"Maybe."
"It's just a form that could be snatched off a desk?"
"Pretty much."
"You saw the pass and directions when you found the body or when you towed the car?"
"When we found the body."
You said you found the body while you were canvassing houses about theft. The cemetery gate is fifty meters from the nearest occupied house. Why were you at the gate?"
"I don't remember."
"That was cute, towing the car and hiding it at Bela's yard."
"Right under Bela's nose and where Marchenko couldn't go. I hear Bela walks the whole yard every day now." Karel's laugh turned into a cough; every word seemed to cost him.
"You disappeared at the same time. Were you sick then?"
"A little."
"But you still wanted money from a stolen car?"
"I thought I could leave something... to someone."
"Who?" Arkady asked, but Katamay stopped for breath. "Leave me something. Who was the 'squatter' who led you to the gate?"
"Hulak," Katamay got out.
"Boris Hulak? The body pulled out of the cooling pond?"
"That's the only reason I'm telling you." Karel sank out of sight against the cushions with a laugh no more than a sigh. "There's nothing you can do about it anyway."
As Arkady rode by the sarcophagus, he felt the monster shift within its steel plates and razor wire. But the monster wasn't only there. It was riding a Ferris wheel here, swirling though a bloodstream there, seeping into the river, rooting in a million bones. What leitmotif for this kind of beast? An ominous cello. One note. Sustained. For fifty thousand years.
The closer Arkady got to the turnoff to Eva's cabin, the more each passing radiation marker sounded like the stroke of an ax. He didn't have to go back. She wouldn't answer any questions. She was a complication. The truth was that, after such close contact with Karel Katamay, part of Arkady craved nothing more than a chance to burn his own clothes, to scrub himself with a stiff brush and ride as far away as he could.
By itself, the motorbike seemed to turn her way. He rode over the rattle of the bridge and along nodding catkins to the house among the birches, where he found her sitting in bed in her bathrobe, smoking, cradling a glass and an ashtray between her legs. She looked as if she had stared a hole through the door since he'd left.
Arkady asked, "Are we drinking?"
"We're drinking."
There was a sharpness in the air that said it wasn't water.
"Do you think we drink too much?"
"It depends on the circumstances. I used to go over patient files in the evening, but since you arrived, I have been trying to understand who you are. When I get the answer, I may not want to be sober."
"Ask me." He tried to take the bottle, but she held on.
"No, no, you're the Question Man. Alex says most people get over asking why by the age of ten, only you never did."
"Was Alex here?"
"See? The problem is, I hate questions and poking into other people's lives. I don't see much of a future for us."
He pulled a chair up to the bed and sat. Being with her was like watching a bird beat against a pane of glass. Anything he did could be disastrous. "Well, I had a question."
"No questions."
"What's your opinion of Noah?" Arkady asked.
"From the Bible?"
"The Bible, the Flood, the ark."
"You are a strange man." He felt her tease around the question, searching for his angle. Eva said, "My opinion of Noah is low, my opinion of God is lower. Why on earth do you ask?"
"I was wondering 'Why Noah?' Was he a carpenter or a sailor?"
"A carpenter. All he had to do was float, and muck the stupid animals. It wasn't as if he was going anywhere."
"How do you know?"
"God would have given him directions."
"You're right." If Timofeyev had driven from Moscow to the Ukraine, to a small village he had never seen before, he would have needed directions. "Do you think the ark could have settled here?"
"Why not? It's a nice place," Eva said. "Full of murdered Poles, Jews, Reds and Whites, not to mention the victims starved to death by Stalin or hung by the Germans, but still nice. The best milk, best apples, best pears. We used to spend the summer on the river, in boats or on the beach. We fished. The Pripyat was famous for pike in those days. I would lie down on a towel on the beach and watch fluffy clouds and dream of dancing and traveling to foreign countries where I would meet a famous pianist, a passionate genius, and marry him and have six or seven children. We would live in London, but we would always spend our summers here. I'll let you guess: what part of that have I not accomplished?"
"Is this a trick question?"
"Definitely not. A trick question is, how long will you be here? When will you suddenly disappear? People do that. They're here for a week or two, and poof, they're gone, taking with them their fascinating tales of living with the exotic natives of the Zone."
"Let's dance." Arkady took the glass.
 
; "Are you a good dancer?"
"Awful, but I remember you dancing with Alex."
"You were dancing with Vanko, after all."
"It wasn't the same thing."
"Slow?"
"Please."
"I didn't think you were coming back."
"But I did."
She slipped out of bed over to a cassette player. "A waltz at midnight. This is romantic. You're surprising. You can cut wheat like a farmer, you can dance."
"I surprise myself."
"A midnight waltz in Chornobyl, that's kicking death in the teeth."
"Exactly."
He took her in his arms and executed a practice dip. She was incredibly light for being so much trouble.
Arkady's mobile phone rang.
"Ignore it," Eva said.
"I'll just see who it is."
He assumed the caller was Victor or Olga Andreevna, but it was Zurin the prosecutor, calling from Moscow.
"Good news, Renko. Sorry to ring you in the middle of the night. We're bringing you home."
It took Arkady a moment to absorb the news. "What are you talking about?"
"You're coming back to Moscow. We've booked you on the six a.m. Aeroflot. There'll be a ticket waiting for you at the airport counter. How do you feel about that?"
"I'm not done."
"It's not a failure, not a bit. You've been working hard, I'm sure. However, we've decided to wrap up things at Chernobyl, at least on the Russian side. I thought you'd be delighted."
Arkady turned with the phone away from Eva. "There is no Ukrainian side to this investigation."
"So be it. This matter should have been shouldered by the Ukrainians from the start. They can't always depend on us to wipe up their spilled milk."
"The victim was Russian."
"Killed in the Ukraine. If he'd been killed in France or Germany, would we have investigated? Of course not. Why should the Ukraine be any different?"
"Because it is."
"They wanted to be independent, now they are. There's also a manpower issue. I can't have a senior investigator staying indefinitely in Chernobyl. At a risk to his health, let me add."
"I need more time," Arkady said.
"Which will become more time and more time. No, it's been decided. Get to the airport, catch the early flight and I'll expect to see you in my office by noon tomorrow."
"What about Timofeyev?"
"Unfortunately, he died at the wrong place."
"And Ivanov?"
"Wrong way. We're not reopening a suicide."
"I'm not finished."
"One last thing. Before you come into the office, take a shower and burn your clothes," Zurin said and hung up.
Eva refilled two glasses like a good barmaid. "Marching orders? And where are you going from here? You must be going someplace."
"I don't know."
"Don't look so sad. You can't be stuck here forever. Someone must be getting killed in Moscow."
"I'm sure."
"How long can you sleep with a radioactive woman? I'd say the odds against that are not very good."
"You're not radioactive."
"Don't quibble with me, I'm the doctor. I simply need to understand the situation. The prognosis. It sounds as if you're leaving soon."
"That's not up to me."
"Oh, it isn't? I had taken you for a different kind of man."
"What kind?"
"Imaginary." Eva delivered a smile. "I'm sorry, that's unfair. You were enjoying yourself so much, and I was enjoying you. 'Never pop a bubble' is a good rule. But you should be happy to go. Out of exile, back among the living."
"That's what I'm told." He felt his mind race in ten directions.
"Secretly, aren't you a wee bit happy, a little relieved to have the decision taken out of your hands? I'm happy for you, if that helps."
"It doesn't."
"Just as well, because I don't think we really made the ideal couple. You obviously hate histrionics, and I am completely histrionic. Not to mention damaged goods. When, exactly, are you going?"
"I have to go now."
"Oh." Her smile began to sink. "That was fast. Hardly more than a one-night stand." She drank half her glass in a swallow and set it down. "Not samogon. We will always have our samogon party. Well, they say short farewells are the best."
"I will be back in a day. Two at the most."
"Don't even –" She pulled her robe tight and picked up the gun when he approached. Shining streaks ran down her face. "The Zone is an exclusive club, a very exclusive club, and you have just been voted out. So get out."
Chapter Fifteen
* * *
Arkady found Bobby Hoffman sitting with a lantern in a backyard that was wild with roses and thorny canes that reached into the dark. Someone had once put beehives in the garden, and a colony still thrived; a dozen had been lured out by Bobby's light, in spite of the hour. Bobby let a bee crawl over the back of one hand to another and around his fingers like a coin trick. Other bees wandered on his hat.
"My father kept hives on Long Island. It was his hobby. Sometimes he wore a beekeeper's mask, but usually not. In cold winters he'd drive the hives down to Florida. I loved that drive. Cold cigar in the corner of his mouth. He never lit up around the bees. The neighbors would complain, 'Mr. Hoffman, what if they sting?' My father would say, 'You like flowers, you like apples, you like peaches? Then you put up with the fucking bees.' One year, just to make his point, he sent me around the neighborhood to collect money from people, depending on how many flowers and fruit trees they had, like we should get a cut. I made some change, too. When I was thirteen, I was bar-mitzvahed, and he took me to the Copa. A club. Everyone knew him: big guy, big voice. He had one of the chorus girls sit on my lap, and he gave her a pin in the shape of a bee with diamond eyes. He did everything to the hilt. If he liked you, you were in. If he didn't, forget it. One of our drives down south, a couple of crackers saw our license plate and asked if I was a New York Jewboy. He beat them half to death. Motel manager had to pull him off. That was loyalty. The first time I met Pasha, I said, 'Jesus, it's the old man.' "
"We've got to go," Arkady said.
"The old man was tight with the Irish. They thought he was Irish because he could drink and sing and fight. Women? They were like bees. My mother would say, 'So you've been with your shiksa ho'ahs?' She was very religious. The funny thing is, he was just as strict about me going to a yeshiva. He'd say, 'Bobby, what makes the Jews special is that we don't just worship God, we have a contract with Him in writing. It's the Torah. Figure out the fine print in that, and you can figure out the fine print in anything.' "
"Tell him again," Yakov said. He was watching the street.
Arkady said, "I got a call from Prosecutor Zurin ordering me back to Moscow. He was happy to keep me here on ice forever, so there's only one reason I can think of for him to pull me out in such a rush: Colonel Ozhogin is on his way."
"Remember the nice police?" said Yakov.
"Captain Marchenko at the café?" Arkady reminded Bobby. "The one who wanted your business? I think that little lightbulb in his head went on. I think he called Ozhogin, and to judge by the urgency in Zurin's voice, Ozhogin is commandeering a company jet to come and get you. Not to arrest you; they would have kept me here for that."
"He wants to give Bobby a beating?" Yakov asked. "We could let him have Bobby for ten minutes. A little pain..."
Bobby laughed gently, so as not to disturb the bees browsing on his hat. "He's not flying in from Moscow just for ten minutes of 'Pound the Jew.'"
Arkady said, "It won't just be punishment – there's also the threat to NoviRus as long as you're around."
Bobby shrugged, and it struck Arkady that, day by day, Bobby had been getting more inert.
"This is just guesswork on your part," Bobby said. "You have no proof that the colonel is coming."
"Do you want to wait and find out? If I'm wrong, you leave the Zone a day early. If I'm right and you
stay, you won't last the day."
Bobby shrugged.
Arkady asked, "What happened to the old elusive Bobby Hoffman?
"He got tired."
Yakov asked, "What happened to your father?"
"Prison killed him. The feds tossed him in just to make him name his associates. He was a stand-up individual, and he named no one, so they kept handing him more years. Six years in, he got diabetes and bad circulation. But decent medical treatment? Not a chance. They started whittling him down, one leg and then the other. They took a big man like my father and turned him into a dwarf. His last words to me were 'Don't ever let them put you inside, or I will come back from the grave to beat the living shit out of you.' When I think of him, I remember how he was before they put him inside, and whenever I see a bee, I know what the old man would be thinking: Where's this little guy going? To an apple blossom? A pear tree? Or is he just buzzing around in the sun?
"But not just waiting to be stepped on," Arkady said.
Bobby blinked. "Touché."
"Time to go, Bobby."
"In more ways than one?" A wan smile, but awake.
"The dormitory. It's a short walk and it's dark."
"We're not taking the car?"
"No. I don't think your car can get through a checkpoint now."
"Why are you doing this? What's in this for you?"
"A little help."
"A quid pro quo. Something for you, too."
"That's right. There's something I want you to see."
Bobby nodded. He gently blew the bee off his fingers, got to his feet and shook the bees from his jacket, removed his hat and, with soft puffs, blew the bees off the brim.
Arkady led Bobby and Yakov to the room next to his, heard the vague tumult of a cheering stadium and knocked.
When no one answered Arkady used the phone card Victor had given him and popped the latch. Professor Campbell sat in a chair, his eyes shut and his head tucked into his chest, as stiff as a mummy, an empty bottle at his feet. Empties on the desk reflected the dim light of the television, where a soccer match surged back and forth, and the home crowd swayed and sang its fight song.
Arkady listened to Campbell's breath, which was deep and smelled nearly combustible.