Wolves Eat Dogs (20 page)

"We re not crazy."

Arkady felt his heart rate start to slow. He pointed to the empty boat. "I'm looking for the man who came in that."

The Woropays shrugged and asked how Arkady knew there had been someone in it. People hid boats around the cooling pond. The wind could have blown the boat in. And since when did they take orders from fucking Russians? And maybe they could use a fucking outboard engine of their own. They made the last comment too late, after Arkady had switched boats and retied the lines and was towing Vanko's boat away, under power, into the face of a squall that drenched any idea of pursuit.

Arkady switched boats again at the causeway to take Vanko's back downstream. At least this time he would have the current working with him. A stork with a red beak as sharp as a bayonet and white wings trimmed in black sailed by and passed over another stork that waded in slow motion along the edge of the river, painstakingly stalking a victim. The streets of Chernobyl were empty, but the river was full of life. Or murder, which was sometimes the same thing.

As he began to row, however, the mist cleared enough for the apartment blocks of Pripyat to loom like giant headstones. Hadn't Oksana Katamay described her block in Pripyat as overlooking the river? He swung the boat around.

The Katamay apartment wasn't difficult to find. Oksana had given him the address, and although the flat was on the eighth floor, the stairs were clear of the usual debris. The door was open and the view from the living room took in the power station, the river, the dark wormholes of former river tracks and banks of steamy mist. Arkady could imagine Oleksander Katamay, Chief of Construction, standing like a colossus before such a panorama.

The family must have returned on the sly to remove items they hadn't been able to carry with them at the evacuation. This bare wall had been covered by a tapestry. Those empty shelves had held books or a stuffed menagerie. Overall, however, the family had been selective and Arkady had the impression that squatters and scavengers knew to give the Katamay flat a pass. Sofa and chairs still sat in the parlor; wiring and plumbing still seemed intact. Someone had cleaned out the refrigerator, taped a broken window, made the beds, scrubbed the tub. The place was practically in move-in condition, disregarding radiation.

One bedroom was, Arkady guessed, the grandfather's; it was stripped clean but for a few pails of taxidermy degreaser and crusted glue. A second bedroom was decorated with Happy Faces, pictures of pop stars and posters of girl gymnasts tumbling with manic energy on a mat. Names swam back from the past: Abba, Korbut, Comaneci. Stuffed toys sat on the bed. Arkady ran a dosimeter over a lion and produced a little roar.

Karel's room was at the end of the hall. He must have been about eight at the time of the accident, but he was already a marksman. Paper targets punched in the middle were taped to the wall, along with a boy's selection of posters of heavy metal musicians with painted faces. The shelves were lined with Red Army tanks, fighter planes, shark's teeth and dinosaurs. A broken ski leaned in a corner. A bedpost was hung with ribbons and medals for a variety of sports: hockey, soccer, swimming. Taped over the bed was a photograph of Karel at a fun fair with his big sister Oksana; she was no more than thirteen, with straight dark hair that hung to her waist. Also pictures of Karel fishing with his grandfather and posing with a soccer ball and two surly teammates, the proto-Woropays. Squares of peeled paint were left where tape had peeled off. Under the bed Arkady found pictures that had fallen: a team picture of the Kiev Dynamo soccer team, the ice hockey great Fetisov, Muhammad Ali and, finally, a snapshot of Karel posed with his fists up with a boxer. Karel was in trunks just like a real fighter. The boxer wore trunks and gloves. He was maybe eighteen, a skinny, slope-shouldered boy as white as soap, and his autograph was scrawled across the photograph: "To My Good Friend Karel. May we always be pals. Anton Obodovsky."

Roman introduced Arkady to a pig that rubbed with exquisite pleasure against the slats of its sty as Roman poured in slops.

"Oink, oink," said Roman, "oink, oink," his cheeks apple red from the rays of the setting sun and pride of ownership. It was possible that Roman had had a nip before Arkady arrived. Alex and Vanko followed in Arkady's footsteps; the rain had stopped but left the farmyard ankle-deep in mud. The scene reminded Arkady of the official inspections that had once been Soviet fare: "Party Secretary Visits Collective Farm and Vows More Fertilizer." "Oink, oink," said Roman, the soul of wit. He seemed delighted to be leading the tour without his wife's assistance. "Russians raise pigs for meat, we raise pigs for fat. But we're saving Sumo. Aren't we, Sumo?"

"For what?" asked Arkady.

Roman placed a finger to his lips and winked. A secret. Which struck Arkady as appropriate for an illegal resident of the Zone. Roman led the way to a chicken coop. In the cool after the rain, Arkady felt the heat of the sitting hens. The old man showed Arkady how he tied the bar of the door shut with a twist of wire. "Foxes are very clever."

"Perhaps you should have a dog," Arkady suggested.

"Wolves eat dogs." That did seem to be the consensus of the village, Arkady thought. Roman shook his head as if he'd given the matter a lot of consideration. "Wolves hate dogs. Wolves hunt down dogs because they regard them as traitors. If you think about it, dogs are dogs only because of humans; otherwise they'd all be wolves, right? And where will we be when all the dogs are gone? It will be the end of civilization." He opened a barn with an array of shovels and hoes, rakes and scythes, a grindstone, a pulley hanging from a crossbeam and bins of potatoes and beets. "Did you meet Lydia?"

"The cow? Yes, thank you."

A pair of huge eyes in the depths of a stall beseeched the tour to leave her alone to masticate her hay. Which reminded Arkady of Captain Marchenko when Arkady alerted him to the possibility of a body floating in the cooling pond. The captain had suggested that a loose boat was not sufficient reason to leave a dry office, and the pond was a large body of water to go pounding around in the rain or the dark. The empty vodka bottle aside, had there been blood in the boat? Signs of struggle? Professional to professional, didn't this sound like a wild goose chase?

Roman led his guests out by a half-shed packed so tight with firewood that not another piece could have been inserted. Arkady suspected that when Roman was too drunk to stand, he could still stack wood with lapidary care. Roman waved to an orchard and identified cherries, pears, plums and apples.

Arkady asked Alex, "Have you gone around the yard with a dosimeter?"

"What's the use? This is a couple in their eighties, and their own food tastes better to them than starving in the city. This is heaven."

Maybe, Arkady thought. Roman and Maria's house was a weathered blue, windows trimmed with carving, one corner resting country-style on a tree stump. It shone amid abandoned houses that were as black as if they'd been burned, with tumbledown barns and fruit trees wrapped in brambles. One dirt path led from the house to the village center; another climbed toward the wrought-iron fence and crosses of the cemetery, within a few steps a compass of peasant life and death.

The interior was a single room: a combination kitchen, bedroom and parlor centered around a whitewashed brick stove that heated the house, cooked the food, baked the bread and—peasant genius!—on especially cold nights provided a second sleeping bench directly over the oven. Lamps and candles lit walls covered with embroidered cloths, tapestries with forest scenes, family photos and picture calendars collected from various years. Photos framed a younger Roman and Maria, he in a rubber apron, she holding an enormous braid of garlic, together with an urbanized group that must have been their son and his family, a timorous wife and a skinny girl about four years of age. A separate picture of the girl showed her maybe a year older, in a sun hat by a rust-pocked sign that said Havana club.

Maria glowed so, she could have been polished for the occasion. She wore an embroidered shirt and apron, a tasseled shawl and, of course, her brilliant blue eyes and steel smile. Despite the crowded quarters, she was everywhere at once, setting out bowls of cucumbers, pickled mushrooms, pickles in honey, thin and fat sausages, apple salad, cabbage in sour cream, dark bread and home-churned butter and a center plate of salted fat with an alabaster glow.

"Don't even think about your dosimeter," Alex whispered to Arkady.

"How often do you cat here?"

"When I feel lucky."

The rattle of a car muffler drew up outside, and a moment later, Eva Kazka appeared with flowers. She also wore a scarf. It seemed to be her style.

"Renko, I didn't know you were going to be here," Eva said. "Is this part of your investigation?"

"No. Purely social."

"Social is as social does." Roman arranged a row of small glasses around a bottle of vodka. The party had gone a long time without vodka, Arkady thought; Vanko looked as if he had crawled on his knees to a water hole. The host poured every glass to the trembling brim, and Maria watched proudly as he distributed each without the loss of a drop. "Wait!" Roman magisterially struck a match and lit his glassful like a candle, a yellow flame dancing on the surface of the liquid. "Good. It's ready." He blew out the flame and raised his glass. "To Russia and Ukraine. May we lie in the same ditch."

Arkady took a swallow and gasped, "Not vodka."

"Samogon." Alex wiped his eyes. "Moonshine from fermented sugar, yeast and maybe a potato. It doesn't get much purer than that."

"How pure?"

"Maybe eighty percent."

The samogon had its effect: Eva looked more dangerous, Vanko more dignified, Roman's ears went red and Maria glistened. There was a solemn dipping into the food while Roman poured another round. Arkady found the pickles crisp and sour, with perhaps a hint of strontium. Roman asked him, "You went fishing in Vanko's boat? Did you catch anything?"

"No, although I did see a very large fish. A Chernobyl Giant, people said." He noticed Vanko smirking at Alex. "You know about this fish?"

Eva said, "The catfish? It's Alex's joke."

"A catfish is a catfish," Vanko said.

"Not quite," said Alex. "People here are accustomed to channel catfish that grow to a paltry meter or two. Someone—I couldn't say who—seems to have imported Danube catfish, which grow to the size of a truck. That's a respectable fish."

"It's a sick joke," Eva said. "Alex would like a plague to sweep across Europe and kill all the people to make room for his stupid animals."

"Present company excluded, of course," Alex said. Maria smiled. The party seemed to be off to a nice start.

"What shall we drink to?" Roman asked.

"Oblivion," Alex suggested.

Arkady was better prepared for his second samogon, but he still had to step back from the impact. Eva declared herself warm. She loosened her scarf but didn't remove it.

Maria advised Arkady to eat a slice of fat. "It will grease the stomach."

"Actually, I'm feeling fairly well greased. This picture of the girl by the Havana Club sign was taken in Cuba?"

"Their granddaughter," Vanko said.

"Maria, after me," Maria said.

Alex said, "Every year Cuba takes Chernobyl kids for therapy. It's very nice, all palm trees and beaches, except the last thing those kids need is solar radiation."

Arkady was aware of having introduced an element of unease. Roman cleared his throat and said, "We're not sitting. This is irregular. We should be sitting."

In such a small cabin, there were only two chairs and room for only two on the bench. Alex pulled Eva down on his lap, and Arkady stood.

"Truly, how is the investigation going?" Alex asked.

Arkady said, "It's not going anywhere. I've never made less progress."

"You told me that you weren't a good investigator," Eva said.

"So when I tell you that I've never made less progress, that's saying something."

"And we hope you never make any progress," said Alex. "That way you can stay with us forever."

"I'll drink to that," Vanko said hopefully.

Eva said, "None of us makes progress, that's the nature of this place. I will never cure people who live in radioactive houses. I will never cure children whose tumors appear ten years after exposure. This is not a medical program, this is an experiment."

"Well, that's a downer," Alex said. "Let's go back to the dead Russian."

"Of course," said Eva, and she filled her own glass.

Alex said, "I can understand why a Russian business tycoon would have his throat slit. I just don't understand why he would come all the way to this little village to have it done."

"I've wondered the same thing," Arkady said.

"There must have been plenty of people in Moscow willing to accommodate him," Alex said.

"I'm sure there were."

"He was protected by bodyguards, which means he had to escape his own security to be killed. He must have been coming here for protection. From whom? But death was inevitable. It was like an appointment in Samarra. Wherever he went, death was waiting."