House of Many Gods (45 page)

She raised her glass and drank down half the beer. “I … I’ve never felt so desperate. Niki returned to Moscow two months ago. We can’t reach him by phone or mail. I came here to find him.”

She showed him a slip of paper with the address. “I went there. It doesn’t exist. Just blocks of demolition sites.”

“Neighborhoods are vanishing,” he said. “When your friend left Moscow, perhaps were buildings there. Now they replace it with high-rise for rich, foreign investors. Even rename streets. Tell me, you are American. But, from which part?”

She was suddenly aware of her broad features, her tan skin.

“From the islands of Hawai‘i. I met Niki in Honolulu. Have you heard of it?”

“
Da!
Pearl Harbor, your strategic port. But you were saying … ?”

Something about him had subtly changed. He seemed more attentive, leaning forward as she spoke.

“Niki was traveling round the Pacific, making this documentary film about … I guess you could say it’s about environmental pollution.”

“Subject Russians know too well.”

“He was in Honolulu on a grant while he worked on this project. We became … very close. He came back to Russia to finish the film. An important final segment.”

Volodya spoke very carefully. “Do you know what was this final segment?”

She hesitated, not knowing who this man was, where he was from. “I’m not really sure. But he shouldn’t have come back. He needs medical attention. I’m not sure he’ll get it here.”

“
Da
. Hospitals real nightmares.”

Ana was mildly dizzy from the beer. “He should have stayed with me. But he felt in the way. Felt I didn’t … care enough.”

“And, did you?”

She suddenly felt a need to confess, to purge all her frustrations.

“I didn’t know how much until he left. You see, I’m a doctor, still finishing my residency in obstetrics and gynecology. I work long hours. I thought I didn’t have the time, the energy for him. And now, I’m here.”

She looked up imploringly, as if this man could give her absolution. He lit a cigarette, flicking the match with a yellow thumbnail.

“Ana Kapakahi. Who let her lover go. Now you are here to take him back. Tell me, is life so easy in the West? Make decision, snap your fingers, and it’s done? How wonderful.”

Inside the phone rang. Someone shouted for Volodya.

He came back smiling. “A friend will join us. She might help you in your search.”

Ana wondered if she should offer him money, if that was expected.

As if reading her thoughts, he smiled. “Think nothing. We have idle time, and are very curious to talk to Americans.”

Within minutes a striking blonde arrived. Tall, well dressed, with topaz eyes.

“This is Katya.”

“Hello, Ana!” She shook hands like a man, then asked Volodya for a whiskey.

While he was gone, she pulled high-tech baubles from her handbag. “Boyfriend calls me gadget-girl. Look what he brings me today! Mini cell phone. Mini-Walkman. Look, this lighter, voice-activated recorder, good for spies! Also wristwatch TV.”

She whipped out a sleek, little palm-sized camera. “Latest model Polaroid, tiny, excellent. Wait, I take your picture. Smile!”

She pressed a button, heard a click, then pointed it at Volodya, bringing out her drink. She had Ana take a picture of her and Volodya, then one of him with Ana. Within minutes they had a row of perfect prints.

Volodya laughed. “All hijacked. Sell everything. Before gangster-boyfriend is arrested.”

“Never arrested,” Katya said. “Will be shot to death. Pride thing
with them.” She abruptly turned to Ana. “So. You are looking for Nikolai Volenko.”

She felt her heart beat. “You know him?”

“Maybe I have heard of him. Maybe he is out of Moscow. Making film.”

Ana leaned forward. “But where outside of Moscow? Do you have a phone number? Address?”

The woman shook her head. “Maybe he call my boyfriend when needing new video camera, black-market price. Maybe he went east. Novgorod. Yekaterinburg. Big cities. Weapons plants, going now to rust.”

Ana looked from one to the other. “Please. How can I get word to him?”

Katya shook her head. “I think … impossible. Why is so important for you to contact this man?”

“He’s sick. He will get sicker. I want to take him home, take care of him.”

Almost nonchalantly, Katya examined her long nails. “You know how hard for Russians to leave Russia now? Especially returning Russians. Why coming back? Very suspicious. Old Soviet passport no longer valid. New passport taking months, maybe years. Maybe never. How you would get him out?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. He told me anything could be bought. Passports, visas …”

“
Da
. Maybe. But you have first to find him, no?”

Ana sat up straight, refusing to break down in front of these tough Russians. “I’ll find him. However long it takes.”

Then she slumped a little. “The truth is, I wasn’t prepared for your country.”

Volodya leaned back and smiled. “Ahh, Russia. To understand us, you must listen closely to everything we say. Then, reverse it.”

“How far are these cities you mentioned? Could I get there by train?”

“Impossible. Novgorod, eight hours. Yekaterinburg, almost twenty-four hours. You don’t speak Russian. You would be robbed. Or, you would disappear.”

A dish of
zakuski
, little tasties, appeared—radishes, cucumbers, meats, and cheese, tiny pancakes filled with roe. Toying with the food, Volodya stabbed a radish with a sharp knife, and offered it to Katya. She swallowed her whiskey, then wet her lips and took the radish between her teeth, slowly sliding it off the blade.

Almost dusk now, a warm, summer dusk that would draw couples to
linger over bridges, to sit together under linden trees. Vendors turned on electric lights. Something passed between Volodya and Katya.

He stood, offering his hand. “Ana. I must leave. I will make more calls. You will come again tomorrow? Katya now will drive you home.”

She jumped up and shook his hand. “Thank you. Thank you. I don’t know how …”

“Not problem! Maybe one day you do
us
favor.”

She followed Katya to a sleek new car, and while she struggled with the air conditioner, Ana studied her slim legs, her pale hair that fell seductively over her face. Except for a certain toughness, she was rather beautiful.

“Your boyfriend is lucky.”

Katya laughed. “Today gangsters like rock stars. Live hard, then die. He has many girls. I must be clever, get all I can. Liquidate. Then, get out of Russia.”

“What about your family?”

“Parents die-hard Soviets. No longer do we speak. Is sad. But life is sad, no?”

As they wheeled into traffic, she beat on the dashboard, cursing the faulty air-conditioning.

“I, too, was artist, Ana. Very
avant
, very good. No one buying. Now I am something else. I help other artists. Buy beef, fresh vegetables, so they are never starving.”

Ana watched entranced as she steered the wheel with her knees while working a lighter and holding a cigarette. Then she stabbed a cassette into the player. Asking Ana about her life, her work, she pulled out makeup and looked in the rearview, combing her hair, touching up her lipstick, then waved her fist out the window as they highballed across an intersection.

Searching for a business card, Katya dug deep into her handbag, throwing out all her gadgets. She emptied the glove compartment, tossing things to the floor. Then she reached over the backseat into a leather briefcase. Still steering with her knees, she carefully selected a card, wrote down a number, and ceremoniously handed it to Ana. As they skidded up to Ana’s hotel, she took Ana’s hand in both of hers.

“So. Ana! I see you tomorrow, yes?”

Then she drove off, hands busy lighting another cigarette, adjusting the rearview mirror. In the twenty-minute drive across the city, Ana had not seen the woman’s hands touch the steering wheel.

———

M
OSCOW SEEMED TO HAVE ENTERED A HEAT WAVE; IN AN ALMOST
trancelike state Ana threw open her windows. They were still in the ebb of Russia’s “White Nights.” At eight o’clock the sky was a pale, reverberating green like the dying light of a fluorescent bulb, making everything look ill. In spite of the city’s glittering façade, the air was filthy and polluted. Her shoes were covered with grime. Her mouth had the aftertaste of metal. Worrying about the effect on her child, she ran to the bathroom and heaved.

After a while she washed her face, then lay down, exhausted. She thought of the two Russians, how they had humored her, a silly American looking for her lover. And she began to pray for him, for what they had created. She prayed herself into a half sleep. When the phone rang she jumped up as if the thing had bit her.

“Ana? Is Raiza, your guide. We have been missing you. You are coming tonight? Our famous Moscow Circus! Bus is downstairs, forty minutes. We are waiting you with ticket.”

A
CROWD OF HUNDREDS UNDER THE GLITTERING
B
IG
T
OP, THEIR
faces upturned to the whirling iridescence of aerialists. Dwarfs rode in on elephants. Clowns threw white mice at the audience. Ten Siberian tigers entered, roaring at the crowd. Magnificent creatures, they snarled and tossed their heads like angry princes. The audience clapped wildly.

Then a girl appeared on a trapeze, soaring alone like a wandering star. The band struck up a waltz as she swung out in a lazy swoop and hung from the bar by her arms, legs stretched in a perfect arabesque. In a return swoop, she hung by the back of her bent knees, then only by one knee. The crowd applauded, calling out her name. She pulled off a bracelet and flung it to them. She threw them kisses and soared.

Ana closed her eyes.

 … A small, graceful girl, a glittering moth lifting a young man’s eyes. He reaches up, surrendering … And they are happy for a while. And then he holds her, naked, until her face becomes the snow
 …

A
T 6:00 A.M. HER PHONE RANG.
“G
ood morning
, A
NA!
I h
AVE
waked you?”

She sat up instantly alert. “Katya. Do you have any news?”

“Not yet. But we are asking. Meanwhile, I invite you to breakfast. I come at eight o’clock.”

Ana glanced at the day’s itinerary to see what she would miss. Tretaykov Galleries. The Armory Museum—Imperial thrones, Fabergé eggs. The city was offering her everything but what she needed.

In the Iobby Katya stood flirting with a ponytailed security guard wearing a flowered shirt.

“You are looking very
glasnostic
,” she told him.
“Molodets.”
Good for you.

Guiding Ana to the car, she laughed. “Such peasant. Ponytail. Aloha shirt. This look went out with Andropov.”

On New Arbat Street she took Ana to a smart café. “Boyfriend is partner here.”

Bending over an American-style breakfast, Katya wolfed down the food with an endearing greediness, then sat back and sighed.

“Sorry. As girl I grew up on potato peels.”

Feeling exhausted, Ana sipped orange juice so fresh it bit her tongue. “How do you sleep in these White Nights?”

“I never sleep. You are tired, Ana?”

Katya’s behavior was different today, her voice softer, more intimate.
Yet she seemed slightly nervous, apprehensive. Later, they turned onto Old Arbat Street, as artists yawned and hung their canvases.

“No government support for them,” she said. “No official recognition. Same as beggars in the streets. What will future civilizations find when digging up Russia. Poetry? Art?
Nyet
. Only bones. Eight thousand square miles of human bones.”

“…  And Lenin’s mummy.” Volodya came up behind them with two men he introduced as Sandro and Ulan.

They were dark and swarthy, wearing black leather. As Ana shook their hands, their bodies gave off such heat she felt she was standing beside a panting locomotive.

“Don’t mind them,” Volodya said. “Hot weather makes their thick Siberian blood boil!”

“So,” he continued, taking her arm. “We inquire up, down the street like yesterday. Then have a coffee.”

As they moved along, she had the sense of Sandro and Ulan hovering, moving to either side of her so that she felt protected, or closely observed. Several artists recognized Ana from the day before, but no one had news for her.

“It’s too late,” she whispered. “I’ve wasted too much time.”

Volodya placed his hand on her shoulder. “Ana. I ask you to be patient. Today we invite you to lunch. An interesting place …”

She shook her head. “I’ve got three days left to find him. I’m sorry, I don’t have time to linger over lunch.”

He leaned down close. “Yes. You have time … to linger over lunch. Believe me.”

His voice was different now, it frightened her. He steered her to a side street, an ancient-looking restaurant whose dining room was underground.
This is where I disappear
, she thought.

It was called the Palace of Small Amusements, its interior perfectly preserved from the 1940s, what Volodya called Stalin Gothic.