• • •

Two things kept Dimka awake that night. One was guilt: just when his wife was giving birth in bloodshed and agony, he had been kissing Natalya. The other was rage at the way he had been outwitted and humiliated by Max and Josef. It was not he but Natalya who had been robbed, but he felt no less indignant and resentful.

Next morning on the way to work he drove his motorcycle to the Central Market. For half the night he had rehearsed what he would say to Max. “My name is Dmitri Ilich Dvorkin. Check who I am. Check who I work for. Check who my uncle is and who my father was. Then meet me here tomorrow with Natalya’s money, and beg me not to take the revenge you deserve.” He wondered whether he had the nerve to say all that; whether Max would be impressed or scornful; whether the speech would be threatening enough to retrieve Natalya’s money and Dimka’s pride.

Max was not sitting at the pine table. He was not in the room. Dimka did not know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

Josef was standing by the door to the back room. Dimka wondered whether to unleash his speech on the youngster. He probably did not have the power to get the money back, but it might relieve Dimka’s feelings. While Dimka hesitated he noticed that Josef had lost the threatening arrogance he had displayed yesterday. To Dimka’s astonishment, before he had a chance to open his mouth Josef backed away from him, looking scared. “I’m sorry!” Josef said. “I’m sorry!”

Dimka could not account for this transformation. If Josef had found out, overnight, that Dimka worked in the Kremlin and came from a politically powerful family, he might be apologetic and conciliatory, and he might even give the money back, but he would not look as if he were afraid for his life. “I just want Natalya’s money,” Dimka said.

“We gave it back! We already did!”

Dimka was puzzled. Had Natalya been here before him? “Who did you give it to?”

“Those two men.”

Dimka could not make sense of this. “Where is Max?” he said.

“In the hospital,” said Josef. “They broke both his arms, isn’t that enough for you?”

Dimka reflected for a moment. Unless this was all some charade, it seemed that two unknown men had beaten Max severely and forced him to give them the money he had taken from Natalya. Who were they? And why had they done this?

Clearly Josef knew no more. Bemused, Dimka turned and left the store.

It was not the police who had done this, he reasoned as he walked back to his bike, nor the army nor the KGB. Anyone official would have arrested Max and taken him to prison and broken his arms in private. Someone unofficial, then.

Unofficial meant gangland. So there were nasty criminals among Natalya’s friends or family.

No wonder she never said much about her private life.