Stalin’s Ghost (6 page)

The American lifted both hands.

Zelensky held up a red-on-white T-shirt that said, “I am a Russian Patriot.” Bora began to circulate through the crowd to distribute similar shirts. An interesting group, Arkady thought: the elderly joined by the mildly curious, the seriously drunk, four cold prostitutes and American puppet masters.

“‘I am a Russian Patriot,’” Zelensky read the shirt aloud. “If you are not a Russian Patriot, what are you?”

The pensioners Mendeleyev and Antipenko each took a shirt. The American waved, and the camera found the photogenic Marfa Bourdenova. Until now the schoolgirl had hidden in the crowd like a dove on a bough. She looked likely, by the way she hung on Zelensky’s every word, to miss her curfew once again. Arkady felt a rush of anger at the filmmaker, at the willing believers and the make-believe shrine, because in Moscow this was enough to summon the past. The videotape might be even more effective for being clumsily staged and poorly lit, the sort of documentary that was the stuff of rumors. And all of it stage-managed by Americans. Arkady asked himself, what would Stalin do?

Zelensky caught Arkady’s approach and began to rush his delivery.

“Russian Patriots honor the past. We will return to the visionary and humanitarian—”

Arkady walked behind Zelensky and kicked the candle and holder across the track. He took a step back and did the same with the flowers.

“Are you crazy?” Zelensky said.

Arkady held up his ID for all to see and announced, “Filming in the Metro is prohibited. Also this gathering is delaying the scheduled cleaning and maintenance of the Metro, putting the public safety at risk. It’s now over. Go home.”

Zelensky said, “I don’t see any cleaning women or maintenance men.”

“A schedule is a schedule.” Arkady picked up the Stalin photograph.

“No!” A dozen voices protested.

“Then we’ll trade.” Arkady shoved the photo into the cameraman’s free hand and relieved his other of the camera. Arkady popped out a mini cassette and slipped it into his coat.

“That’s my property,” Zelensky said.

“It’s evidence now,” Arkady announced and gave back the camera. He went into the crowd to grab Marfa Bourdenova by the wrist and started for the escalator. She screamed. Platonov padded alongside. Uncertainty froze everyone else except the two Americans. They had disappeared.

Ahead, Bora set down the duffel bag. No longer on the rolling deck of a subway car, he seemed more sure-footed. Arkady headed straight at him.

Zelensky shouted after, “We’ll just shoot a new tape tomorrow. We don’t even need to do it in Chistye Prudy Station. We’ll just say it’s Chistye Prudy.”

“Each station is individual,” Platonov shouted back. “People will know.”

“Please, don’t help,” Arkady said.

Bora waited for a signal from Zelensky.

“Let me go, you bastard!” Marfa Bourdenova tried hitting Arkady but he dragged her too fast for her to connect solidly.

Bora reluctantly gave way. Once on the escalator, Arkady kept moving.

Marfa shrieked for help.

Arkady said, “I’ll let you go at the top. I know you’ll run back to him, only notice, he’s not going to wait for you at the bottom. He only wants the tape.”

At the top of the escalator Arkady released her wrist and, as predicted, the girl bolted for the down escalator. Bora and the cameraman were already on their way up, two steps at a time.

The night sparkled. Platonov wanted to search for a taxi, but Arkady struck out for the park behind the station.

“Renko, we won’t find a taxi this way, that’s obvious.”

“Then it’s also obvious to Zelensky. He’ll look here last.”

“Shouldn’t we discuss this?” Platonov said.

“No.”

“I thought you were supposed to protect my life, not endanger it.”

“If no one sees us, we’ll be fine.”

The park was open space the length of a football field, slightly dished, a white sheet of snow edged by a blur of plane trees and wrought iron fences. The snow reflected the light of boulevards on either side, but there were no paths or lamps within the park and even side by side the two men looked to each other like shadows.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” Platonov asked.

“Yes.”

“Consider yourself fired, dismissed.”

The footing was uneven, a surface of fine snow over icy sled tracks. As a kid, Arkady had sledded and skated in the park a hundred times.

“Be careful.”

“Don’t worry about my health. This is the man who asked me if
I
made enemies.”

“If you have to talk, whisper.”

“I’m not talking to you. Consider this conversation finished.” Platonov trudged in silence for a step or two. “Do you even know who the Russian Patriots are?”

“They sound a lot like Communists.”

“They
sound
like us, that’s the idea. The Kremlin brought in Americans. The Americans polled people and asked which political figure they most admired. The answer was Stalin. They asked why, and the answer was that Stalin was a Russian patriot. Then they asked people if they would vote for a party called Russian Patriot, which didn’t even exist. Fifty percent said they would. So the Kremlin put Russian Patriot on the ballot. Just on their name they’ll get votes. It’s a subversion of the democratic process.”

“What if Stalin comes back from the dead and campaigns for them?”

“That’s the outrageous part. Stalin belongs to us. Stalin belongs to the Party.”

“Maybe you can copyright him, like Coca-Cola.”

Platonov stopped to catch his breath. Arkady heard shouts and saw two figures on the snow fifty meters behind. The beam of a flashlight swung from side to side.

“It’s Bora and the cameraman,” Arkady said.

“I knew we should look for a car. Why did I listen to you?”

Platonov started moving again, but at a slower, shambling pace.

“How is your heart?” Arkady asked.

“It’s a little late to be concerned about my health. Don’t you have a gun?”

“No.”

“You know the trouble with you, Renko? You’re a pantywaist. You’re too soft for your job. An investigator should have a gun.”

What they needed was wings, Arkady thought. Bora seemed to fly over the snow, correcting the false first impression of clumsiness.

“Where are we going?” Platonov demanded. They had been headed down the middle of the park. Now Arkady turned toward the street.

“Just stay with me.”

“This makes no sense at all.”

Bora had already halved the difference and far outstripped the cameraman and the reach of the flashlight. By the way he pumped his knees he might have been a professional athlete, Arkady thought. Arkady admired men in that sort of physical condition; he never seemed to find the time.

Platonov took air in gasps. Arkady pulled him by the sleeve back in the direction they had originally been headed; it was like helping a camel through the snow. The two turns had cost time and distance. Finally, Platonov could go no further and hung onto an oil barrel in which shovels were deposited.

Bora approached through hanging flakes. Something bright hung from his hand. Left far behind, the cameraman shouted at him to stop. Bora took quicker, more purposeful strides.

“You laughed,” he told Arkady.

“When?”

“In the Metro. For that I will carve out your eyes and fuck you in the face.”

Bora drew his arm back. He was in midstride when he plunged through the snow and vanished. Snowflakes seesawed in his place. Arkady brushed snow aside and saw a hand pressed against the underside of ice.

The cameraman caught up, his beard frosted from his breath. He was just a boy, soft and heavy with red flannel cheeks.

“I tried to warn him,” the cameraman said.

“The name should have been a hint,” Arkady said.

The wartime Kirov Station had been renamed Chistye Prudy for the “clear pond” that cooled the park in the summertime and provided skating in the winter. Soft spots were posted with Danger—Thin Ice! signs that were perfectly visible in the daytime. The pool was shallow and the hole Bora had plunged through was just out of reach, but by a freakish chance he was on his back under more solid ice and faced the wrong direction. He couldn’t get his feet under him and, with such poor leverage, could only use his fists, knees and head. Arkady had only expected Bora to get soaked in icy water. This was a bonus.

“Your name?” Arkady asked the cameraman.

“Petrov. Don’t you think we should—”

“Your flashlight and papers, please?”

“But—”

“Flashlight and papers.”

Arkady matched the cameraman to the ID photo of a clean-shaven Pyetr Semyonovich Petrov; age: twenty-two; residence: Olympic Village, Moscow; ethnicity: Russian through and through. Petrov was a pack rat. Arkady delved deeper into the holder and came up with a business card for Cinema Zelensky, membership in Mensa, video club cards, a second mini cassette, a matchbook from a “gentlemen’s club” called Tahiti and a condom. A telephone number was scribbled inside the matchbook. Arkady pocketed the matchbook and tape and gave the ID back.

Bora squeezed his face against the ice. He was moving less.

Arkady put his arm around the cameraman. “Pyetr, may I call you Petya?”

“Yes.”

“Petya, I am going to ask you a question and I want you to answer as if your life depended on it. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Be honest. When passengers on the Metro think they see Stalin, what are they really seeing? What is the trick?”

“There’s no trick.”

“No special effects?”

“No.”

“Then how do people see him?”

“They just do.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Arkady took a snow shovel from the oil barrel, raised it high, walked onto the ice and chopped at the ice over Bora’s head. The blade skipped and sang. No other effect. Petya aimed the flashlight at Bora’s eyes. They had the flat stare of a fish on ice. A second chop. A third. Bora didn’t flinch. Arkady wondered whether he might have waited a little too long. Platonov gaped from the edge of the pond. Arkady swung the shovel and the first cracks showed as prisms in the flashlight’s beam. Swung again and as the ice split Arkady sank halfway to his knees in water, no worse than stepping into a tube of ice cubes. He worked from the head down until he got a hold under Bora’s arms and hauled him out onto land. Bora was white and rubbery. Arkady turned him face down, straddled him and pushed on his back. With all of his weight, he pushed and relaxed while his own teeth chattered. Pushed and relaxed and chattered. When Arkady had come to Chistye Prudy as a kid, he was always watched by Sergeant Belov, who taught Arkady to catch snow on his tongue. The sergeant would tell Arkady, this delicious one has your name on it. Here’s another. And another. When Arkady skated, he chased snowflakes like a greedy swallow.

Bora gagged. He doubled up as pool water spewed from his mouth. Caught a deep breath draped with saliva. Retched again, wringing himself out. Sodden and freezing, he shivered not in any ordinary way but violently, as if he were in the grip of an invisible hand. He twisted his eyes up toward Arkady.

“It’s a miracle,” Petya said.

“Back from the dead,” said Platonov. He hovered, blocking half the light.

Bora turned onto his back and laid a knife against Arkady’s throat. He had returned from the dead with a trump card. The blade scraped a hair Arkady had missed when shaving.

“Thank you…and now…I fuck you,” Bora said.

But the cold overwhelmed him. His shivering grew uncontrollable and hard enough to break bones. His teeth chattered like a runaway machine and his arms wrapped straitjacket-style tight around his body.

“Find the knife,” Arkady told the boy with the flashlight.

“What knife?”

Arkady got to his feet and took the flashlight. “Bora’s.”

“I didn’t see one,” Platonov said.

“He had a knife.” Arkady nudged Bora over not with a kick, but firmly. No knife. Arkady played the beam in and around the water where Bora had fallen through, where he had freed Bora from the ice and finally, trying to reverse time, on Bora’s tracks across the snow.

“A magnificent night,” Platonov declared. “A night like this you can only find in Moscow. This is the most fun I’ve had for years. And that you had your car parked here by the pond? Brilliant! Thinking two moves ahead!” He slapped the Zhiguli’s dashboard with satisfaction. The lamps of the Boulevard Ring rolled by; Platonov still hadn’t said where he wanted to go.

Arkady said, “Make up your mind. My feet are wet and numb.”

“Want me to drive?”

“No, thanks.” He had seen Platonov walk.

“You know who I saw tonight? I saw your father the General. I saw him in you. The apple does not fall far from the tree. Although I’m sorry you let that hooligan go.”

“You didn’t see his knife.”

“Neither did the boy with the flashlight. I take your word for it.”

“That’s what I mean. All you could testify to is that Bora fell through the ice.”

“Anyway, you taught him a lesson. He’ll be frozen solid for a day or two.”

“He’ll be back.”

“Then you’ll finish him off, I’m confident. It is a shame about the knife. You think it will turn up in the pond?”

“Tomorrow, next week.”

“Maybe when the ice melts. Can you hold a man in prison until the snow melts? I like the sound of it.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Platonov said, “You know, I met your father during the war on the Kalinin Front.”

“Did you play chess?”

Platonov smiled. “As a matter of fact, I was playing simultaneous games to entertain the troops when he sat down and took a board. He was very young for a general and so covered in mud I couldn’t see his rank. It was extraordinary. Most amateurs trip over their knights. Your father had an instinctive understanding of the special mayhem caused by that piece.”

“Who won?”

“Well, I won. The point is he played a serious game.”

“I don’t think my father was ever on the Kalinin Front.”

“That’s where I saw him. He was cheated.”

“Out of what?”