Wolfhound Century: Radiant State Part 12

'Changing the subject?' said Moth. 'That's an answer of a kind. Do you know Lavrentina? She said she was coming back but she hasn't come back yet. Do you know where she is?'

'What do you have to do with her?'

'Oh, she knew us! There were more of us then and some of us she used for purposes and missions and death. Some liked it. It was purpose. Bez liked it a lot but he hasn't come back either. The word that Lavrentina liked was coterie but we didn't like all that my sisters and me. We kept from Lavrentina far away. Keep to the rafters when Lavrentina's about! Come down when she's gone! The rest of us have gone away but not the three sisters we like it here. Is Lavrentina ever coming back?'

'I don't think so,' said Lom.

'So answer the question then name's-not-Vissarion are you a danger thing?'

'Are you?'

'Not to you.'

'Then Moth,' said Lom. 'The answer is Moth.'

She laughed.

'I like you name's-not-Vissarion even if I don't believe you even if you bring us fire and death.'

'No,' said Lom. 'I don't.'

She frowned.

'We're not stupid,' she said. 'Listen this is how it is. The days pa.s.s slowly here it's quiet and cool there's shade and moonlight and the sun doesn't reach in here. There are other places like this across the city. But no giants, no rusalkas. No wind walkers. They've all left the city and gone far to the east under the trees. The Pollandore drew things to itself while it was here including us but all those ways are closed now. We consider ourselves abandoned the new city has no time for us they would hate us if they knew. This red man Kantor has no time for us Kantor you know Kantor? Has a new name but still the same we know we're memory. Ask us what we do here all the time I'll tell you what we do here all the time we read a lot. They took much but they didn't take it all away there's lots still here to read.'

She leaned in confidentially to whisper something in his ear, as if it was a secret.

'The libraries,' she said, 'have libraries in them.'

She paused.

'Do you understand anything I'm talking about?' she said. 'Anything? Anything at all?'

'Yes,' said Lom. 'I do. I understand it all.'

'I think you do,' said Moth. 'There's noise and fire in the city anxiousness hunger bombs it has not stopped yet it goes away but it doesn't it never stops. We go out sometimes to the city to forage. That's better now. More for us. No! Not killers idiot! The bins at the back of the market. You can stay here with us if you want. You'll find plenty to read. Stay out of the bas.e.m.e.nts though the corpses in the mortuary make a lot of noise they thrash about but they can't get out and anyway there's nowhere else for them to go.' She paused again and gazed deeply into his eyes. Hers were warm dark waters. 'I'd like to kiss you, name's-not-Vissarion, you smell good.'

'What?'

'Weren't you listening? I thought you were listening. I want to kiss you. Can I do that? Only once to see what it is like. You're very fierce and warm.'

'If you want,' said Lom. 'If you want to, yes.'

Moth's mouth on his was dry and cool and dark as a well and tasted faintly of fruit. Something inside her was buzzing lazily like a wasp in a sunlit afternoon window.

'What time is it now?' she said.

'I don't know,' said Lom.

'No you don't because the clocks don't work any more. Clocks tell you something, but it's not the time.'

Lom stayed in the Lodka, walking and thinking, long after Moth had left him alone. There was water in the basins and when he tired he went back to the reading room and slept. Better than in the Pension Forbat. Morning sun flooding the broken dome woke him. He didn't want to go back out into the city, but he went.

4.

There were three of them in Rizhin's office: Rizhin himself, Hunder Rond, Director of the Parallel Sector, and Secretary for Security and Justice Grigor Ekel.

'We are making good progress, Osip,' Ekel began. He opened a folder and consulted his notes. 'All my best people are working on this. Nothing is more-'

Rizhin held up his hand. 'Rond,' he said. 'Rond first.'

'The rifle that was used to shoot you,' said Rond, 'was a Zhodarev STV-04. Military sniper issue. It was found in the stairwell of the Mirgorod Hotel.'

Ekel jerked forward in his chair. 'You have it?' he said. 'You have the weapon? Why wasn't I told of this?'

Rond ignored him. 'Two sets of fingerprints,' he continued, speaking without notes. 'The majority belong to a woman. Name, Cornelius. Trained as a sniper by the VKBD but deserted. Operated as a lone shooter during the siege. History of involvement with dissident elements. Arrested. Deep interrogation. Two years in the Chesma Detention Centre.' He glanced at Ekel. 'Released. Disappeared. Presumed to have left Mirgorod. Evidently did not. This is your shooter, Generalissimus.'

'We must find this woman!' said Ekel. 'Why have the militia not been informed?'

'They have the name, Grigor,' said Rond. 'Didn't they tell you?'

'Two,' said Rizhin quietly. 'You said two sets of prints,'

'Yes. The other gave us a little trouble, but we tracked them down. They belong to a former senior investigator of the Political Police. A career in the eastern provinces. Effective but insubordinate, made no friends, under investigation for antisocial att.i.tudes when he came to Mirgorod six years ago and immediately got into trouble with Chazia. There's been no trace of him since. The a.s.sumption was, he was killed on Chazia's orders. His name-'

'Lom,' said Rizhin. 'Vissarion Yppolitovich Lom. From Podchornok.'

Rond looked at Rizhin in surprise. 'You know of him?'

Rizhin was sitting upright and leaning forward intently. 'Is he back, Rond?' he said. 'Is it him?'

'He was in the Hotel Mirgorod at the time you were shot. A clerk and a doorman identified his photograph. The same man took a room at the Pension Forbat the night before Victory Day under the name of Foma Drogashvili. He took the room for a week, stayed there two nights but has not returned since.'

Ekel's face was chalk. Neck flushed pink. The sheaf of papers in his hands trembled. A leaf in the breeze. He glared at Rond.

'None of this was shared-'

'There is more,' Rond said to Rizhin, taking no notice of Ekel. 'I had a conversation recently with an under-secretary in the Office for Progressive Cultural Enlightenment. Antimos. A man with a hitherto blame-free record who suddenly upped and started to search for some old files. Highly sensitive old files. During my conversation with Antimos he mentioned this same Lom. There was a history between them.' Rond glanced at Ekel meaningfully. He was about to enter into topics which Ekel must guess nothing of. 'It concerns a certain six-year-old mission that Lom has apparently reactivated. A certain former intelligence target.'

Rizhin nodded. Expressionless. 'I understand,' he said. 'Please go on.'

'Lom was blackmailing my friend Under-Secretary Antimos,' said Rond. 'He wanted Antimos to find and bring him files that were closed long ago.'

'Thank you, Rond,' said Rizhin. 'That's enough for the moment. I congratulate the Parallel Sector again.' He turned to Ekel. 'And now, Grigor, what do you have for me? Your report please? Tell me, what have the VKBD, the gendarmes, the militia and the secret police done to clear up after the attempt on my life you failed to prevent?'

Ekel was quivering with frustration and rage. Also fear. Primarily fear. He addressed Rizhin but he could not tear his eyes from Hunder Rond.

'This is a st.i.tch-up! My people have done their best, Osip!' Ekel's voice was becoming more high-pitched and nasal. 'I have done my best! But you see what I am up against? Obstruction... hiding evidence... deliberate betrayal! f.u.c.k!' He turned to face Rond. 'I will not let you do this to me! I will not be hung out to dry!'

'Someone must be,' said Rond quietly. 'In circ.u.mstances like this, it's an inevitable necessity. You know that, Ekel.'

'But not me, you f.u.c.ker! Not me! You see, Osip, see how he's trying to protect himself, that's all! But I know you see through him, like I do.'

'No, Grigor,' said Rizhin. 'It is you. I smell conspiracy on you. It's on your breath. You stink of it.' He put his right handfive fat fingerson his heart. 'You hurt me, Grigor, here. Just here. I gave you all you have. I gave you my trust, and you repay me how? You are complicit in this attempt on my life. There is no other explanation.'

'No! Osip, please! I have been more than just loyal. I like you, Osip. I'm not like the others. I love you. As a man I am your friend.'

'We will have the names of your gang out of you, Grigor. Then we will see.'

'The thing is,' Rond said to Rizhin after Grigor Ekel had been taken away, 'we think the archive Lom is looking for may actually exist. But we don't yet know where it is.'

'Archive?'

'Lavrentina Chazia kept her own personal files, and it seems they have not been destroyed. They are still out there somewhere. Antimos was on their trail but he hadn't found them yet. They're likely to contain compromising material.'

'Of course they'd be compromising. That mad old vixen Lavrentina Chazia was a cunning poisonous b.i.t.c.h. Find what she kept, Rond, and bring it all to me.'

'Of course,' said Hunder Rond. 'We'll find the Cornelius woman too.'

Rizhin shrugged. 'Naturally, but she won't be anything much. Find Lom. He's the one that matters. Him I want alive. Him I want to talk to.'

5.

The railway station at Belatinsk is crowded for the departure of the Mirgorod train. Fors.h.i.+n's Philosophy League has booked an entire carriage. They struggle with chests and suitcases full of books and papers. The atmosphere is grim determination under a bleak grey sky. Dusty wind whips at their clothes.

'I put on a mask of good cheer for the others,' says Fors.h.i.+n to Kamilova, 'and perhaps above all for myself, but I do not underestimate the task ahead.'

There are forms to be filled out in triplicate. Munic.i.p.al officials search their luggage for what they can confiscate. Brutskoi's wife weeps and protests at the loss of all her roubles and silver. A gendarme ruffles Yeva and Galina's hair in search of hidden jewels.

'Let us exult in leaving this place, comrades,' says Fors.h.i.+n, waving his cane at the lowering sky. 'We carry with us the flame of our people's future. No customs officer can confiscate that!'

Kamilova and the girls climb aboard at last. They have no baggage. Yeva and Galina huddle together, looking out of the window. The locomotive trembles. Steam is up.

'Don't worry, Galina,' says Yeva. 'You know we'll see our mother soon.'

6.

Lom reached Kommunalka Subbotin No. 19 early and ran up the steps two at a time in fresh midsummer Rizhin-morning suns.h.i.+ne. There was a fresh efficient woman in the gla.s.sy walled lobby cubicle: patterned cardigan, horn-rim spectacles, blond hair tied back, young and cheerful, not unsmiling, ready for the day.

'What is the number of the apartment of Elena Cornelius, please?' he asked her.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'There is n.o.body of that name. Not here.'

'Perhaps she left recently?'

'I've worked here ever since the building opened. Eleven months. I know all the residents. There is no Cornelius here and there never has been. I'm afraid you have the wrong address.'

It was not yet eight o'clock. Lom waited on a bench with a view of the exit. Perhaps she was using another name. Perhaps she had married again. It was possible.

Forty minutes later he saw her come out alone, in her dark clothes again, intense and purposeful, not looking around. She was coming his way. When she got near he rose to meet her.

'Can we talk?' he said. 'Not here. Is there a place?'

'I have to be at work.'

'Say you were sick.'

'I'm never sick.'

'Then they'll believe you.'

She hesitated.

'Please,' he said.

'All right then. OK.'

She took him to a workers' dining hall. Long wooden benches and sticky chrome-legged tables. Yellow-flecked laminate tabletops. The floor was sticky too. The place was crowded with people taking breakfastyoung women mostly, girls in sneakers and overalls with tied-back hair. Sweet smells of make-up and scent at war with the black bread and apricot conserve, tea and coffee and steam. The din of cutlery and crockery, the chatter of women with the workday ahead.

Lom and Elena found a s.p.a.ce at the end of a bench, near a wide window which looked across an empty paved square to an identical dining hall on the other side.

'Where's Maroussia?' said Elena. She held her cup awkwardly in clawed, broken hands.

'I lost her.'