Red Square (41 page)

   
Except on Friedrichstrasse, the Germans seemed to have slept soundly through the night. German television had closed its eyes at the accustomed time. Arkady assumed that the planners of the coup would, at the minimum, detain a round thousand of the leading reformers, take control of Soviet television and radio, close the airports and telephone lines. He had no doubt that City Prosecutor Rodionov deplored the necessity of a coup, but, as every Russian knew, grim tasks were best done quickly. What Arkady did not understand was why Max and Gubenko had rushed back. How could an international flight land if the airports were closed? This would be a good time to listen to Radio Liberty. He wondered what Stas was saying.

   
A fine sprinkling of rain arrived. Then the rustling of unseen birds in the hedges, like the excitement of extras in the wings. Over the hedges spread the window lights of early risers, a sea sound of traffic, the browsing of street cleaners.

   
The two/two time of high heels passed on the other side of the hedge. Rita came into view, in matching poppy-red raincoat and hat, walking briskly between the garden squares that made up the plaza, right hand in her pocket. Arkady had seen her at least start to sign a dinner bill; he knew she was right-handed. When she unlocked the ground-floor door, she kept her hand in the pocket and looked back at the street before she entered.

   
Ten minutes later an armed guard came out, yawned and stretched and went off with loggy steps in the opposite direction.

   
After another ten minutes, the gallery lights went out. Rita reappeared, locked the door and started back across the Plaza, holding a canvas bag by the handles with her left hand.

   
Arkady caught up with her on the bag side in the middle of the plaza and said, 'That's no way to treat a five-million-dollar painting.'

   
She was startled enough to stop. He appreciated the purity of her first reaction, which was fury. The contents of the bag were wrapped in plastic. 'I hope that's waterproof,' he said.

   
When Rita started walking again, he grabbed a handle of the bag. 'I'll shout for the police,' she said.

   
'Shout. I think the life of the German police is incredibly boring - at least it would be without Russians. The police would love to hear a story about you and Rudy Rosen, though the details might not help your business much. So Max and Borya left you all alone?'

   
Arkady liked Rita's resilience. She was used to dealing with men. A softer, more reasonable expression came over her face. 'I'm not going to wait around for Chechens to show up.' She offered a neutral smile. 'Can we talk out of the rain?'

   
He thought of slipping into an arbour, but Rita led him across the street to patio tables sheltered by an awning. It was the same restaurant as in the videotape, and she went to the same table at which she had raised her glass and said, 'I love you.' The inside of the restaurant was black. They had the patio and plaza to themselves.

   
Despite the early hour, Rita's face was made up in a mask that was ferocious and exotic. The red raincoat she wore had an oily quality that went well with her lips. Arkady unzipped her coat.

   
Rita asked, 'Why did you do that?'

   
'Let's say that you're an attractive woman.'

   
They sat, each with a hand on the bag under the table. Because her coat was open, the pockets hung straight down, out of her immediate reach.

   
Arkady asked, 'Do you remember a Russian girl called Rita?'

   
Margarita said, 'I remember her well. A hard-working girl. One thing she learned was that she could always do business with the militia.'

   
'And Borya.'

   
'The Long Pond people protected the girls in the hotel. Borya was a friend.'

   
'But to make real money Rita had to get out of Russia. She married a Jew.'

   
'No crime.'

   
'You didn't get to Israel.'

   
Margarita held up her right hand to show her long nails. 'Do you see these building a kibbutz in the desert?'

   
'And Borya followed.'

   
'Borya had a perfectly legal proposition. He needed someone to help him recruit girls to come and work in Germany, and he needed someone to watch over them while they were here. I had experience.'

   
'There's more to it than that. Borya bought papers that created a Boris Benz, which was convenient when he went searching for a foreign partner in Moscow. This way he could be both. When you married Boris Benz, that enabled you to stay here, too.'

   
'Borya and I have a special relationship.'

   
'And if the wrong person called, you could play his maid and say that Herr Benz was holidaying in Spain.'

   
'A good whore is a good mimic.'

   
'Do you think the Boris Benz identity was a good idea? It was a weak point. Too much depended on it.'

   
'It worked fine until you came along.'

   
Arkady looked around at the empty tables without taking his hand from the bag. 'You made a videotape here and sent it to Rudy. Why?'

   
'Identification. Rudy and I had never met. I didn't want to give him a name.'

   
'He wasn't a bad character.'

   
'He was helping you. After Rodionov told us, it was just a matter of how to get rid of Rudy to the best effect. He knew about the painting. We let him think if he got it authenticated he could make his own sale. I gave him a slightly different painting. Borya said that if there was a big enough explosion we could get rid of Rudy and give Rodionov a reason to wipe out the Chechens, both at the same time.'

   
'Did you think Borya was going to stay here at some point and become Boris Benz for good?'

   
'Where would you rather be, Moscow or Berlin?'

   
'So in the videotape when you said, "I love you," you were saying it to Borya.'

   
'We were happy here.'

   
'And you were willing to do things for Borya that his wife never would, like going back to Moscow and delivering a fire bomb to Rudy. I had to ask myself why an obviously well-to-do tourist would stay somewhere as shabby and far out of the city as the Soyuz Hotel. The answer was that it was the hotel closest to the black market and the shortest ride with a fire bomb that didn't have a timer. You were brave, taking a chance you wouldn't blow up too. That's love.'

   
Rita wet her lips. 'You're so good at questions, could I ask you one?'

   
'Go ahead.'

   
'Why don't you ask about Irina?'

   
'Like what?'

   
Rita leaned forward as if she were whispering in a crowd. 'What Irina got out of it. Do you think Max paid for her clothes and all her little gifts because she made good conversation? Ask yourself what she was willing to do for him.'

   
Arkady felt his skin start to heat.

   
'They were together for years,' Rita said. 'Practically man and wife, like Borya and me. I don't know what she's telling you now. I'm just saying what she's doing for you she did for him. Any woman would.'

   
His ears burned. A hot meridian spread across his face. 'What are you really trying to say?'

   
Rita's head rested sympathetically to one side. 'It sounds as if she hasn't told you everything. I've known men like you all my life. Somebody has to be a goddess, and everyone else is a whore. Irina slept with Max. He bragged what she would do.' Rita invited him to lean towards her and lowered her voice even more. 'I'll tell you and you can compare.'

   
As soon as he felt tension on the handle ease, Arkady lifted the canvas bag. 'Shoot now and you'll put a hole through the painting. I don't think it's insured for that,' he said.

   
'You prick.'

   
Arkady grabbed the pistol when she brought it over the table. It was Borya's .22. He bent her wrist and twisted the gun free.

   
'You fuck,' Rita said.

   
Borya had betrayed her, run to Moscow and abandoned her with this puny gun. Arkady removed the rounds from the breech and clip and tossed the empty pistol in her lap. 'I love you, too,' he said.

Chapter Thirty-Six

At an airport souvenir shop, Arkady bought a beer tray and a cotton shawl embroidered with the rats of Hamelin. In a lavatory cubicle, he covered the painting in the shawl, wrapped the tray in bubble plastic, put it in Rita's canvas bag, and then rejoined Peter and Irina in a corner of the transit lounge.

   
Arkady said, 'Think of all the paintings and manuscripts confiscated from artists and writers and poets for seventy years, hidden away by the Ministry of the Interior and the KGB. Nothing is thrown away. Poets may get a bullet in the back of the head, but the poem is stuffed in a box and buried in a cellar. Then, at a magical moment, when Russia joins the rest of the world, all that evidence becomes valuable assets.'

   
'But they can't sell it,' Irina said. 'Art more than fifty years old cannot legally be taken from the Soviet Union.'

   
'But it can be smuggled out,' Peter suggested.

   
Arkady said, 'Bribes will do. Armoured tanks, trains and crude oil have been moved across the border. To bring a painting out is relatively easy.'

   
'Even so,' Irina said, 'the sale isn't valid if Russian law is broken. Collectors and museums don't like to be involved in international disputes. Rita couldn't sell
Red Square
if it came from Russia.'

   
Peter said, 'Maybe it's a fake from Germany. There were fantastic forgers in East Berlin, all out of work now. Has this painting really been examined?'

   
Irina said, 'Completely. It's been dated, X-rayed and analysed. It even has Malevich's thumbprint.'

   
'All of that can be faked,' Peter said.

   
'Yes,' Irina admitted, 'but it's a curious thing about fakes. They can be the best forgeries on earth, with the correct wood, paints and technique, but they don't look right.'

   
Peter cleared his throat. 'This is becoming spiritual.'

   
Irina said, 'It's like knowing people. After a while you learn the fake from the real. A painting is an artist's idea, and ideas can't be forged.'

   
'How valuable did you say the painting is?' Peter asked.

   
'Perhaps five million dollars. That's not much here,' Arkady said, 'but in Russia it's four hundred million rubles.'

   
'Unless it's fake,' Peter pointed out.

   
Arkady said, '
Red Square
is real and it's from Russia.'

   
'But they found it in a Knauer crate,' Irina said.

   
Arkady said, 'The crate is fake.'

   
'The crate?' Peter sat up. Arkady could see him mentally rearranging. 'I hadn't thought from that direction before.'

   
Arkady said, 'Remember, Benz wasn't interested in the art your grandfather stole. He had his own. He was interested in the crates your grandfather built - with Knauer carpenters, if you remember.'

   
'That's good,' Peter said appreciatively. 'That's very good.'

   
Arkady laid the shawl on Peter's knees. Peter sat up straighter. 'What are you doing?'

   
'The cultural atmosphere is a little unsettled in Moscow right now.'

   
'I don't want it.'

   
'You're the only person I can leave it with,' Arkady said.

   
'How do you know I won't disappear with it?'

   
'There's a kind of justice in making you a guardian of Russian art. Besides, it's a trade.' Arkady patted the jacket pocket with the passport and visa Peter had returned to him and the ticket he had bought with Ali's money.

   
There had been no difficulty in getting on the regular Lufthansa flight to Moscow. There was nothing like a military coup at a destination for decimating a passenger list. What Arkady still didn't understand was why leaders of the new Emergency Committee were allowing planes to land at all.

Stas limped off the Munich flight with a tape recorder and a camera. He was full of perverse good cheer. 'Such a glorious idiocy. The Emergency Committee didn't arrest any of the democratic leaders. Now it's a stand-off. The tanks are in Moscow, but they just keep circling around. Standards for oppression have really dropped.'

   
'How do you know what's happening?' Arkady asked.

   
'People are calling us from Moscow,' Stas said.

   
Arkady was amazed. 'The telephone lines are open?'

   
'That's what I mean about idiocy.'

   
'Does Michael know you're going?'

   
'He tried to stop me. He says it's a security risk and an embarrassment to the station if we're caught. He says Max called from Moscow to say that it's business as usual and there's nothing for me to be so excited about.'

   
'Does he know Irina's going?'

   
'He asked. He doesn't know.'

   
Though boarding had started, Arkady dove into a telephone booth. A recorded message on the phone repeated over and over that the international circuits were busy. The only way he could get through was to call continuously. As he was about to give up, he noticed a fax centre.

   
Polina had said she would take Rudy's fax machine. At the desk, he wrote her telephone number and the message 'Looking forward to seeing you. If you have a painting of Uncle Rudy's, could you bring it with you? Drive very carefully.' He added his flight number and arrival time and signed the message 'Arkady'. Then he asked for a fax directory and wrote a second message to Federov: 'Followed advice. Please inform City Prosecutor Rodionov of return today. Renko.'

   
The assistant's eyes opened as wide as a doll's. 'You must be anxious to get home,' she said.

   
'I'm always anxious when I go home,' Arkady said.

   
Irina waved him to the gate, where Stas and Peter Schiller were regarding each other like examples of different species.

   
Peter grabbed Arkady and pulled him aside. 'You can't leave me with this.'

   
'I trust you.'

   
'My short experience with you suggests that's a curse. What am I going to do with it?'

   
'Hang it some place with-a constant temperature. Be an anonymous donor. Just don't give it to your grandfather. You know, the story about Malevich wasn't a lie. He did bring his paintings to Berlin to keep them safe. For the time being, do what he did.'

   
'It seems to me that Malevich's mistake was going back. What if Rita calls Moscow and says you took the painting? If Albov and Gubenko know you're coming, they'll be waiting for you.'

   
'I hope so. I wouldn't be able to find them, so they have to find me.'

   
'Maybe I should go with you.'

   
'Peter, you're too good. You'd scare them away.'

   
Peter shifted reluctantly.

   
Arkady said, 'Life can't be all fast cars and automatic weapons. You finally have a task worthy of you.'

   
'They'll kill you at the airport or on the way in. Revolutions are for settling scores. What's an extra body? At least here I can throw you in jail.'

   
'That sounds inviting.'

   
'We can keep you alive and extradite Albov and Guhenko.'

   
'No one has ever successfully extradited anyone from the Soviet Union. And who knows what government will be in place tomorrow? Max might be Minister of Finance and Gubenko might be Minister of Sport. Besides, if there's a decent investigation into Ali and his friends, I think you'll be glad I'm far away.'

   
A soft gong announced the last boarding call. Peter said, 'Germany goes straight downhill even time Russians show up.'

   
'And vice versa,' Arkady said.

   
'Remember, there's always a cell waiting for you in Munich.'

   
'
Danke
.'

   
'Be careful.'

   
Peter scanned the boarding queue as Arkady joined Stas and Irina. From halfway down the ramp, Arkady could see Peter's head over the crowd, still carrying out the duty of a rearguard. At last glimpse, Peter took a fresh grip on the shawl and slipped away.

The canvas bag fitted in the overhead compartment. Arkady sat on the aisle, Stas by the window, Irina in between. When they took off, Stas's face took on an even more ironic expression than usual. Irina held on to Arkady's arm. She looked exhausted, blank, not unhappy. Arkady thought the three of them resembled refugees so confused that they were going the wrong way.

   
A number of passengers seemed to be journalists and photographers
 
burdened
 
with
 
hand
 
luggage.
 
No one wanted to spend two hours at baggage reclaim while a revolution was going on.

   
Stas said, 'The Emergency Committee starts off by saying Gorby's sick. Three hours later, one of the ringleaders drops from hypertension. This is a strange coup.'

   
'You don't have visas. What makes you think they'll let you off the plane?' Arkady asked.

   
Stas said, 'You think any reporter here has a proper visa? Irina and I have American passports. We'll see what happens when we get there. This is the biggest story of our lives. How could we pass it up?'

   
'Coup or no coup, you're on a list of state criminals. So is she. You could be arrested.'

   
'You're going,' Stas said.

   
'I'm Russian.'

   
Though Irina's voice was soft, it possessed finality. 'We want to go.'

   
Germany stretched below, not the straight roads and quilted farms of the West, but narrower, more winding lanes and shabbier fields the further east they flew.

Irina rested her head on Arkady's shoulder. The feel of her hair cushioned against his cheek was so normal it was overpowering, as if he were briefly travelling through an alternative life he had missed. He never wanted to come down.

   
Stas talked nervously, like a radio at low volume. 'Historically, revolutions kill the people at the top. And usually Russians overdo it. The Bolsheviks killed the ruling class and then Stalin killed the original Bolsheviks. But this time the only difference between Gorby's government and the coup is that Gorby isn't in it. Did you hear the complete statement of the Emergency Committee? They're seizing power to protect the people from, among other things, "sex, violence and glaring
immorality". Meanwhile, troops keep moving into Moscow and people are erecting barricades to protect the White House.'

   
The White House was the Russian Parliament building on the river at the Red Presnya embankment. Presnya was an ancient neighbourhood given the honorific 'Red' for building barricades against the tsar.

   
Stas said, 'That won't stop tanks. What happened in Vilnius and Tbilisi were rehearsals. They'll wait until night. First they'll send in Internal troops with nerve gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd, and then KGB troops will storm the building. The Moscow commandant has printed three hundred thousand arrest forms, but the Committee doesn't want to use them. They expect people to see the tanks and slink away.'

   
Irina asked, 'What if Pavlov rang a bell and his dogs ignored him? They'd change history.'

   
'I'll tell you what else is strange,' Stas said. 'This is the longest I've ever seen so many journalists stay sober.'

Poland spread as dark as an ocean floor.

   
Food trolleys blocked the aisles. Cigarette smoke circulated along with theories. The army was moving already, to offer the world a
fait accompli
. The army would wait until dark to carry out its attack so that there would be fewer photographs. The Committee had the generals. The democrats had the Afghan vets. No one knew which way the young officers just back from Germany would lean.

   
'By the way,' Stas said, 'in the name of the Committee, City Prosecutor Rodionov has been rounding up businessmen and confiscating goods. Not all businessmen, just those against the Committee.'

   
When Arkady closed his eyes, he wondered what kind of Moscow he was returning to. It was a rare day that offered so many possibilities.