Chapters (51)
“By the way,” Stas said, “in the name of the Committee, City Prosecutor Rodionov has been rounding up businessmen and confiscating goods. Not all businessmen, just those against the Committee.”
When Arkady closed his eyes, he wondered what kind of Moscow he was returning to. It was a rare day that offered so many possibilities.
Stas said, “It’s been so long. I have a brother I haven’t seen in twenty years. We call once a year, at New Year’s. He called this morning to tell me he was going to the Parliament building to defend it. He’s a fat little man with kids. How is he going to stop a tank?”
“Do you think you can find him?” Arkady asked.
“He told me not to come. Can you imagine that?” Stas stared out of the window for a long while. Vapor had condensed into balls of water between the double panes. “He said he’d wear a red ski cap.”
“What is Rikki doing?”
“Rikki went to Georgia. He put his mother, daughter, TV and VCR in his new BMW and they went tootling off. I knew he would. He’s a lovely man.”
The closer they got to Moscow, the more Irina looked like the girl who had left it, like someone returning to a fire with a particular glow. As if the rest of the world were an unlit, interim place. As if she were coming back with a vengeance.
Arkady thought he could be swept up by her and follow. Happily, once he was done with Borya and Max.
How much of all this was his private score, to atone in some small measure for Rudy, Tommy and Jaak? The dead aside, how much was because of Irina? Dealing with Max wouldn’t erase the years she had known him. He could call them émigré years, but seen from a height Russia was a nation of émigrés, inside and out. Everyone was compromised to some degree. Russia had a history of such confusion that when a few moments of clarity arrived, everyone naturally rushed to the event.
In any case, Max and Borya were more likely to be the thriving specimens of a new age than he was.
As they crossed into Soviet airspace, Arkady expected the plane to be ordered to turn around. When they approached Moscow, he thought it would be directed to a military base, refueled and sent home. When seat-belt signs lit, there was a general, last-second extinguishing of cigarettes.
Out the window were the familiar low woods, power lines and gray-green fields that led to Sheremetyevo.
Stas held his breath like a man diving.
Irina held Arkady’s hand as if she were the one bringing him home.
