The Zil came back. Because the car’s headlights were dark, it was too late when Arkady realized it was coming straight at him. When he started to run for the museum, the Zil followed, its bumper almost on his heels. He darted left toward the tomb and the big car roared by and cut in front. He dodged the rear bumper and headed for Cherny Street. The Zil tipped, settled and lumbered toward him in a wider circle, the car’s centrifugal force accelerating.

When his escape intersected the path of the car, Arkady dove. He rose and started dizzily back toward St. Basil’s but slipped on the stones. Headlights rose up. He fell to one knee and raised his arm across his eyes.

The Zil stopped directly in front of him. Four uniforms emerged from the halos exploding in his eyes. Dark dress-green general’s uniforms with brass stars, fringed shoulder boards and mosaics of medals behind ropes of golden braid. But as his vision returned, Arkady saw that the men inside the uniforms were strangely shrunken, holding each other up. As the driver got out he almost fell. He wore a civilian sweater and jacket, topped by a sergeant major’s cap. He was drunk and his eyes were leaking tears that rolled from his eyes to his jowls.

“Belov?” Arkady asked as he stood.

“Arkasha.” Belov’s voice was as deep and hollow as a barrel. “We were at your address and you were not at home. We went to your office and you weren’t there. We were just driving around when we saw you, and then you ran.”

Arkady dimly recognized the generals, though they were gray and stunted versions of the tall, impressive officers who used to trail behind his father. Here were the staunch heroes of the Siege of Moscow, the tank commanders of the Bessarabian offensive, the vanguard of the push to Berlin, each of the four properly wearing an Order of Lenin awarded for “a decisive action that significantly altered the course of the war.” Except that Shuksin, who had always slapped his boots with a crop, was now so shriveled and bent that he was hardly much higher than the top of those boots, and Ivanov, who had always claimed the privilege of carrying his father’s field case of plans, was as stooped as an ape. Kuznetsov had turned as round as a child, whereas Gul was a skeleton, his vigor and ferocity reduced to hair bristling from his brows and ears. Though Arkady had hated them all his life—despised them, really, because they had abused him out of sycophancy rather than evil—he was astonished at their feebleness.