The Russian Affair

TWELVE



Leonid and the major were leaning over the opened box. “What shall we do with the contents?”

“Get rid of them,” said Leonid’s commanding officer, lost in thought.

Leonid noticed a mended area on the shoulder of his superior’s uniform. Did the major do his own sewing? “Get rid of everything?”

“What do you mean?”

“We let the men divide up one of the boxes of Japanese belt buckles we seized. And the same with the razor blades.”

The major went to his desk. “But this stuff isn’t razor blades or Malayan whiskey.”

“So we burn it?”

“I wonder …” The major pulled his uniform straight. “Do you know the little teahouse on the road to Kholmsk?” Leonid had heard of it. “Have you ever been there yourself?” The captain answered in the negative. “Many of the men drive there in the evenings. That has to stop.”

“You want us to close the teahouse on the road to Kholmsk?”

“A teahouse is a teahouse. On the other hand …” The major sat down with a sigh; the complexity of the problem exhausted him. “Prostitution is forbidden. Pornography is likewise forbidden. I wonder which of them does more harm.”

“There have been several accidents on the way back from Kholmsk,” Leonid replied. “The road goes through the mountains, and the men are drunk when they drive home.”

“Exactly.” The major’s face lit up. “Do you think the men would go to the little teahouse less often if we …” He waved his hand toward the box. Leonid’s expression indicated a cautious affirmative. The major raised his chin. “Place a box next to the drink machine. Make sure that each man takes only one magazine. I don’t want anybody trafficking in this stuff. And now send me the captain.” He took hold of the cutter’s documents and extracted her commander’s identification papers. “A Kyrgyz. I could have guessed.”

Back in his office, Leonid gave orders for the deployment of the fork-lift truck. The pallets, together with their load of boxes, were transported from the ship to a land carrier, handed over to the members of a second unit, and by them conveyed to the incinerator. Leonid had his men cast every box, except for one, into the fire. Before anyone had taken a look inside the boxes, they disappeared into the flames and were burned up within minutes.

After lunch, the sergeant informed him that the surviving box had been placed, as ordered, next to the drink machine, and that an hour had passed before the first soldier noticed it. Shortly after that, the sergeant reported, the “special consignment” was completely depleted. He inadvertently gave himself away when he declared he hadn’t expected Danish girls to be so scrawny.

Leonid concluded that this was the right evening to take another trip to the island’s capital city. Since his meeting with Galina, he’d been in the yurt-restaurant twice and waited for her to come in, but in vain. By now, almost half a year had passed; the surgeon had probably completed her work in the hospital and gone back home.

Leonid reserved a vehicle from the motor pool. It had been dark for a long time when his duty day ended. He brushed off the better of his two uniforms, put on a clean shirt, and polished his boots. He agreed to take along two soldiers on the condition that they would have to get back to the base on their own. The two young fellows were eagerly looking forward to the binge they were about to embark on. The weather was horrible; some lower stretches of the road were mud wallows, and at higher elevations, in the mountains, it was snowing hard. As they were finally descending into the valley, Leonid almost drove into a stalled truck. The driver was trying in vain to lever his vehicle’s wheel and axle out of the mud. The captain, delighted not to be carrying a towing rope—soiling his going-out uniform was not to be thought of—happily offered the driver a ride to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

He dropped off his passengers in the vicinity of the train station and parked his car in the neighborhood where the little eating and drinking places were. Unhurriedly, he entered the yurt-restaurant and drank a glass standing up. Then a table came free; Leonid ordered whale meat with rice and ate slowly, drinking tea between mouthfuls. When he stepped outside again, he found that an ice storm had swept through the streets and covered the pavement with a layer of reflective film. Amid pedestrians who were holding tightly to one another, falling, and laughing uproariously, Leonid groped his way up the hill. Eventually, he reached the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Hospital, walked across the dimly lit lobby, and asked at the reception desk for the Department of Surgery.

“You’re in the Department of Surgery,” the nurse replied. She wore a cylindrical cap on her head.

“May I speak to Doctor Korff, please?”

“I’ll see if I can reach her,” the nurse said, picking up the telephone.

In excited anticipation, Leonid paced a little, careful not to make any noise. Placards in display cases urged compliance with the rules of good hygiene.

“Here at the front desk,” he heard the nurse whisper into the phone. “No, he’s alone.”

Not a minute later, a swaddled figure came barreling around the corner: blue lab coat, blue pants, hair confined under a bonnet, white surgical mask covering mouth and nose. “You?” Galina Korff put her hands on her hips. “You’re scaring my girls!”

Leonid waved his arms in irritation. “How?”

“You come in here wearing your parade uniform, you march up and down. A person might think the army was occupying the hospital.”

“I wanted … no, please, I’m not here on duty,” he babbled, turning toward the nurse.

“So what do you want?” Galina’s eyes flashed up at him impatiently.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“Are you ill?”

“No.”

“Lonely, then.” She smiled under her mask.

He didn’t want to have such a conversation in the nurse’s presence. “Any chance you might have a minute later?”

“Cases are waiting for me: one internal bleeding, one severed thumb.” She pointed to the row of benches that was screwed into the wall. “If you’re willing to wait that long …”

“How did the thumb accident happen?”

“Circular saw in the fish factory.”

He shook off the bloody image. “Won’t you be too tired after all that?”

“That depends on you.” She pushed her bonnet back and scratched her head. “See you later, then.”

Leonid nodded to her departing shape, and only then did he become aware of how weary that day had made him. I talked to my son on the telephone, he thought; I didn’t perform too hopelessly during the salvage operation, and I confiscated some dirty magazines. Now I’ll be happy to sit here without having to undertake anything. He watched Doctor Korff disappear through the next swinging door.