Vodka (27 page)

“The Petrovka canteen is renowned throughout the federation for its haute cuisine,” Irk said, but not the faintest trace of a smile disturbed Sabirzhan’s fat cheeks.

They ate in silence. Irk left the third piece of bread for Sabirzhan. It sat on the floor between them for more than an hour—that was Irk’s estimate, anyway—before Sabirzhan picked it up. He crammed it into his mouth with the frenzy of a man sliding down a slope.

Sabirzhan lay on the floor and closed his eyes. Irk couldn’t tell whether he was sleeping or merely pretending; either way, he chose not to disturb him. The KGB manual would have counseled sleep deprivation for subjects as a matter of course. Irk would therefore do the opposite. The KGB had thrived on inhumanity; how better to subvert it than through humanity?

Sabirzhan began talking when he opened his eyes.

“Thou shalt not kill is a sanctimonious commandment, Investigator.”

“Why so?” There was curiosity in Irk’s voice; no excitement, no sense of triumph.

“The proletariat should approach this rule in strictly utilitarian fashion, from the point of view of class utility. Murder of the most incorrigible enemy of the revolution, murder committed in an organized manner by a class collective on the order of class rulers in the name of salvation of the proletarian revolution is
lawful, ethical murder. The metaphysical values of human life do not exist for the proletariat, for whom there exist only the interests of the proletarian revolution.”

“Zalkind,” Irk said.
“Revolution and Youth.”

Sabirzhan smiled, thrilling and unnerving in the gloaming. “An educated man!”

“Are we talking about Vladimir Kullam and Raisa Rustanova here?”

“What do you think, Investigator?”

“What about the informers you keep?” Irk asked.

“What about them?”

“How do you select them?”

“Select them?” Sabirzhan snorted. “People line up to volunteer, Investigator.”

“For what reasons?”

“They want to serve their country. They want the money. They’re angling for promotion.”

“Do you promise you’ll help them out?”

“All the time.”

“And do you keep your word?”

“Things don’t always work out, Investigator. People insist that you promise them the moon, and then wonder why you can’t make good on those promises.”

“But by that time they’re working for you anyway.”

“Exactly.”

“They all sign the statements?”

“Of course.” Sabirzhan began to recite the text; Irk had seen enough such statements to know how they ran. “‘I, Ivanov, Ivan Ivanovich, voluntarily declare my wish to cooperate with the organs of state security. I have been warned of the penalties for divulging the fact of cooperation. I will sign the material I submit with the
pseudonym “X,” followed by the date and signature.’ It’s very necessary, Investigator. There are enemies of the people in all branches of industry.”

“The system’s finished, Tengiz.”

“The system will
never
be finished, Investigator. You know why? Because we’re all involved. People bleat about how awful and unfair it is, but it couldn’t have happened without them. Only men like Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn are exempt; they held out, and suffered the consequences. Everyone else is to blame. You let Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn suffer; you let it happen.”

They talked like old friends; trading stories, arguing, putting the world to rights. Irk had split his mind in two, one half chatting away and keeping the conversation going, the other filtering everything Sabirzhan said for something he could work on, and finding nothing.

“It’s a funny thing, Investigator. A year ago, I’d never have been here, being interrogated by you. The KGB was the power, everybody was terrified of us.”

“And now they’re not.”

“Not as much; and they resent us because they despise
themselves
for having submitted. It’s a hard shift to accept, Investigator.”

He still maintained his innocence, though he admitted a sneaking admiration for the perpetrator. Not for the killings, of course—they were reprehensible—but for covering his tracks in a manner worthy of the KGB.

Thursday, January 16, 1992

I
rk spent the night with Sabirzhan. They slept with their backs against the walls and their legs on the floor, like drunks passed out. They had neither blankets nor pillows, and when the bulb popped in their solitary lamp, they had no light either. They took it in turns to fumble for the bucket that Irk had agreed to accept for calls of nature; and still, in their windowless prison, Sabirzhan did not confess, even when Irk said: “I’m your friend, Tengiz. Friends don’t lie to each other.”

Denisov himself came to the interrogation chamber and asked Irk to come to his office. Irk left the room on wobbly legs, screwing his eyes up against even the corridor’s dim glow. Streetlights dropped amber pools through windows. “What time is it?” he asked as he followed Denisov up the stairs.

“Half past seven.”

“Morning or evening?” It would be dark in either case. Denisov stopped and looked around.

“Are you serious?”

“Perfectly.”

“Morning.” Denisov shook his head. “No wonder you look like shit.”

In his office, Denisov sat down behind his desk without offering Irk a chair. Irk looked at a Soviet propaganda poster that showed Andropov opening a new school, and read the caption below:
Children are our only privileged class.

“How are you doing with him?” Denisov asked.

Irk puffed his cheeks. “Slowly, slowly.”

“Slowly’s no good. Go get yourself tidied up, Juku, then either charge Sabirzhan or release him.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Irk shook his head; Denisov and jokes were mutually exclusive concepts. “I’ll have him in another week, no problem. Three days, then another seven, that’s how we work, isn’t it?”

“Not in this case.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you think, Juku? Sabirzhan’s KGB; he still has friends in high places.”

“You let me take him in to start with.”

“Yes, but now we cut him some slack.”

“I thought I had ten days. I’d have done things differently if I’d known otherwise.”

“Too bad. You know how it is.” Denisov shrugged.

Irk did indeed. Power in Russia is a complex and mutable entity; Sabirzhan didn’t have enough influence to save him from arrest, not when Lev had given his approval, but he had enough to ensure that he was released as quickly as the law provided. “Three days expires this afternoon, Denis Denisovich. I won’t get him to confess in that time.”

“Then you’ll have to let him go.”

Much as Irk wanted to will Sabirzhan into confessing, he could find no way in which to do it. His strategy had been predicated on time; time to lower Sabirzhan’s guard, time to establish trust, time to wheedle away until he broke. Hurrying things up now, after a visit
from the prosecutor general, would only have alerted Sabirzhan to Irk’s desperation and therefore to his own imminent release, and he’d have clammed up with the speed and finality of a Venus flytrap. Since he had to let Sabirzhan go, Irk decided that his best course would be to act as if he’d given up on him; send Sabirzhan on his way with the impression that Irk’s interest in him was over, then see what he could dig up on the sly.

Sabirzhan went straight back to Red October. Lev poured him a glass of Russkaya.

“I’m not going to apologize for what I did, Tengiz,” Lev said. “I had no other option. This thing needs to be solved, and I’ll do anything to make that happen.”

“You suspected me?”

“The prosecutor’s office suspected you. I’m glad they let you go.”

Sabirzhan shrugged. “It’s no big deal. No hard feelings.” His hand disappeared inside Lev’s, a gesture of conciliation. “Really, none. The investigator and I had a good talk. He understands, you know.”

“Understands what?”

“How difficult it is for a man like me to make sense of what’s going on in Russia right now.”

“For us all, Tengiz. It’s happening, whether we like it or not. We must adapt or die.”

“You had a good meeting with the American woman?”

“Very much so. I made her give up more than I conceded, much more.”

“I’d have expected nothing less.”

Lev searched Sabirzhan’s face for insincerity or mockery, and found none. Sabirzhan seemed serious
enough, though Lev would reserve final judgment for now. Lev had been used to thinking of Sabirzhan as a creature who swam in murky waters; now Sabirzhan seemed … well,
cleansed
, for lack of a better word. It was not what Lev had intended when he’d allowed Irk to take Sabirzhan away three days before; then again, it was not a result of which he disapproved.

The salt taste of disappointment grazed at the back of Irk’s throat. First Denisov had made him extract a confession from a man quite obviously innocent; now he’d insisted on the opposite. Irk’s job was hard enough as it was, harder still if his boss kept pulling the rug from under him. He should go up to Denisov’s office and have it out with him, but what good would it do? Denisov wouldn’t relieve him of the case; he was on it until he found proof that this was related either to privatization or to the Mafia. Besides, every other investigator Irk could think of was incompetent, corrupt or both. All he could do was keep plugging away and hope for a break.

Irk’s phone rang. He picked up the receiver. “Prosecutor’s office.”

“It’s Galina Khruminscha here.” Her voice was high, and she was talking fast. “I’m at the apartment. You must come, Juku, quick as you can. Something awful’s happened.”

The rain was falling hard, which made Moscow driving even more hazardous than usual, as did the fact that Irk had left his windshield wipers at home. Wiper blades were in short supply—what wasn’t?—and a vehicle left unattended with blades attached didn’t remain that way very long. In many ways, he reflected, driving without
wipers was easier on the nerves; what he couldn’t see couldn’t hurt him.

The Khruminsches’ front door had splintered at the hinges, and their living room was covered in blood. Irk’s first thought was that one of the family must have been injured—or worse—but they were all there waiting for him, and all unhurt.

That was as far as the good news went. Galina had her hands clasped to her temples, as though to keep her head from bursting; Svetlana was sobbing in heaving wet gulps; and Rodion’s jaw was set into a snarl of masculine impotence at whoever had done this.

The cats were dead, islands of blue and silver in an archipelago of red. Lying on their sides, they could have been asleep, except for the slashes across their throats. Seven Russian blues, fed on vitamin pills and zucchini and washed every other day in laundry detergent; all with the life now drained from them. The prize rosettes on the wall swam as wreathes in Irk’s vision.

“Fucking Chechens,” Rodion said. “Fucking,
fucking
black bastards.”

“They said they’d be back, didn’t they?” Galina berated herself. “And I ignored them, I thought they wouldn’t dare, and look what they did … Mama, they were your pride and joy, I’m so sorry.”

Svetlana turned to her daughter-in-law. “It’s not your fault, my sweet.”

“She’s right, Galya. You mustn’t blame yourself,” Irk said. He moved as though to hug her, but the gesture felt awkward and he turned it into a stretch of his arms. Galina sank to her haunches and hugged Rodion, kissing his forehead; Svetlana rested her head against Irk’s shoulder.

“Let’s clean this place up, anyway, and give them a proper burial,” Rodion said.

“What about the police?” Galina said. “This is a crime scene, isn’t it?”

Rodion belched a snort of derisive laughter. “You think the police would be bothered by something like
this?
They wouldn’t give this the time of day, would they, Juku?”

Irk shook his head and flushed; he felt the failings of the force as his own. “I’m afraid Rodya’s right. Let’s clean this place up, and I’ll find someone to fix the door.”

The men shooed Svetlana and Galina out of the living room and set about clearing the cats away. The first corpse flopped over Irk’s hands as he lifted it from the floor into a plastic bucket; he took to grasping the others by the back of the neck, as if he were scragging them. Feline cadavers were no more appealing than human ones, and Irk tried not to look at them. The dull squelch as he dropped each one into the bucket was sufficient test for his squeamishness.

Rodion skidded on his stumps from blood lake to blood lake, soaking up the gore with cloths that he wrung dripping into the bucket before scrubbing angrily at the remaining stains. He worked with such a frenzy that Irk felt it best to keep silent; not that he felt much like chatting.

Even though none of them were hungry, Svetlana cooked dinner and pressed it on them. She bustled from table to kitchen counter and back again with salted salmon, telling them as she did so how it was best
cooked: remove the small bones from the fillet, sprinkle with coarse salt, let it stay at room temperature for three days and then serve.

Galina and Rodion were silent; Irk’s appreciative noises at the food were drowned by Svetlana’s incessant chattering. “I reuse everything rather than discard it,” she said. “Stale bread goes to the guy along the corridor who keeps chickens at his dacha, milk that’s gone bad is boiled and used for cooking, old jars are kept to store food.” She even filed papers in colanders and sieves rather than drawers or folders, she said. Irk didn’t try to shut her up or encourage the others to talk. He’d seen the shock that followed trauma many times. Everyone handled tragedy in their own way, and there was nothing he could do except be there for them when they needed him.