I thanked him and went into the little hut, closing the door behind me in case there was anything in there I could steal. The first things, I saw were a bar of soap and a piece of bread. Not the shorni that we plenis received, but belii, the white bread, and before I even looked at Gebhardt’s body I stuffed my mouth full of what should have been his last meal. This would have been reward enough for the job I was doing, except that I saw some cigarettes and matches, and as soon as I had swallowed the bread I lit one and smoked it in a state of near ecstasy. I hadn’t smoked a cigarette in six months. Still ignoring the body on the bed, I looked around the hut for something to drink and my eyes fell on a small bottle of vodka. And finally, smoking my cigarette and taking little bites off Gebhardt’s bottle, I started to behave like a real detective.

The hut was about ten feet square, with a small window that was covered with an iron grille meant to keep the occupant safe from the rest of us plenis. It hadn’t worked. There was a lock on the wooden door, but the key was nowhere to be seen. There was a table, a stove, and a chair, and feeling a little faint—probably from the cigarette and the vodka—I sat down. On the wall were two propaganda portraits—cheap, frameless posters of Lenin and Stalin—and, collecting some phlegm at the back of my throat, I let the great leader have it.