“No,” Max said in disbelief. Arkady saw that he had come to a totally different conclusion; he had carefully and confidently built a seamless, logical argument with only one way out, a perspective of Arkady disappearing over the horizon. Irina had ignored all of it. “No, I am not taking Renko to Berlin.”

“Then, go without me,” Irina said. “Arkady and I will do fine here.”

Max said, “We’re not staying at a hotel. We’ll be in the new apartment.”

“It’s a big apartment,” she said. “You can have it all to yourself if you want.”

Max reassembled his composure, but for a moment Arkady recognized one reason why the man had returned from Moscow. The worst of reasons.

Love curls around like a snake and crushes two men at the same time.

III

BERLIN
 
August 18–August 20, 1991

Max drove a Daimler, a sedan with the woodwork of an antique cabinet and the sound of a muted trumpet. His attitude was friendly, as if they were off on a lark, as if becoming a threesome had been his idea.

The German landscape lay under folds of rain. Sitting in front, Irina was the tangible warmth in the car. She propped her back against the door to include Arkady when she talked, almost as if to exclude Max.

“You’ll like the show. It’s a Russian show, but some of the pieces have never been seen in Moscow, not publicly.”

“Irina wrote the catalog,” Max said. “She really should be there.”

“It’s just about the provenance of the painting, Arkady, but the painting itself is beautiful.”

“Are critics allowed to use the word beautiful?” he asked.

“In this case,” she promised him, “it’s perfect.”

Arkady enjoyed hearing about this other life of hers, this new and independent mix of knowledge and opinions. He was now, as a benefit of experience, a skilled hauler of nets and gutter of fish. Why shouldn’t she be an expert on the arts? Max seemed just as proud.

From the backseat, he couldn’t tell at what point they crossed what had been the old East German border. As the highway narrowed they slowed for farm equipment that lunged in and out of the mist. When the road cleared, they raced ahead again, as if the three of them were in a bubble caught in a river fed by the rain.

There was a sense of suspended time in the situation. Part of it was Max’s self-control. Arkady thought Max had wanted to kill him in Moscow; instead he had let him escape to Munich. He was sure Max had wanted him dead in Munich, yet here he was driving him to Berlin. On the other hand, Arkady couldn’t touch Max. With what authority? As a refugee? He couldn’t even ask questions without Irina accusing him of using her again, without losing her a second time.