When Viktor Smirnov opened the door with his dressing gown half open and a glass of champagne in his hand to find himself face-to-face with his unexpected visitor, his smile instantly disappeared. Jack greeted him coldly.
“Jack! What’re you doing here?” He looked from side to side, to make sure that Jack was alone.
“I’m sorry to show without warning, but I needed to speak to you about a serious matter.”
“Oh. Well, now really isn’t a good time. I’m celebrating with some friends from Moscow, and we were about to drink a toast.”
Jack could hear heels clicking and women’s laughter. “It won’t take long.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about Sergei’s statement. There’s something that doesn’t add up, and I thought you must know about it.”
“Oh?” He looked back into the house, as if weighing whether to return to the fun that awaited him or deal with Jack. “All right. Let’s go upstairs, then. We can speak more freely up there.”
As they went down the hall toward the stairs, Jack heard the laughter of the women who, scantily dressed, were dancing and exchanging kisses with some officers whom he’d never seen before. One of the young women appeared, her breasts uncovered, and called to Viktor to come down. She stumbled over her words but insisted.
“I’ll be right there!” Smirnov replied to the girl. “Old friends,” he explained to Jack, as if that could hide that they were prostitutes. “Right. You were saying?” He closed the door to his study and sat in a magnificent leather chair.
Jack accepted Viktor’s invitation and copied him. He didn’t know where to begin. He took off his ushanka and gazed around the room. The music from the gramophone was putting him on edge. “Quite a party. I’m sorry I’ve interrupted you.”
“And so am I.” Viktor served himself a glass from the bottle of champagne he’d picked up in the hall. Though there were glasses nearby on a sideboard, he didn’t offer Jack one. “So, what is so important that you had to come disturb me at this hour?”
“I think”—Jack took a deep breath—“I think Sergei’s lying.”
“Oh? And how can you be so sure?” He savored a sip of champagne very slowly, without taking his eyes off Jack.
Jack hesitated. Something inside him told him not to tell the truth. “I don’t know. It might be nothing. I . . .”
“Come on, Jack. You can’t have come here in the middle of the night just to interrupt our party.”
“No, of course not.” He dried the sweat from his hands. “I . . . Does the name Vladimir Mamayev mean anything to you?” he finally asked, and Viktor coughed as if the champagne had flooded his lungs.
What was left of his drink spilled onto the desk. Jack hurried to help him. But while he mopped up the spillage with his own ushanka, he saw a framed photograph that made his heart freeze.
“Excuse me,” Viktor apologized. “I’ve drunk too much tonight. No. I don’t know anyone named Mamayev. Why? Is there something wrong?”
“No, of course not.”
Jack fell silent as he gazed at the photograph of a young woman in Viktor Smirnov’s arms. It was Natasha, with a gigantic diamond on her finger.
A convenient unbearable pain in his hip had provided the perfect excuse to end Jack’s meeting with Smirnov. Now he lurched down Gorky’s deserted avenues like a sleepwalker, the snow whipping his face until it was wrapped in a shroud of ice.
He imagined Natasha and Smirnov, plotting together with Sergei. They had all fooled him. All of them. Even Hewitt. Bastards! he thought to himself.
On the way home, he wondered why Natasha had hidden her relationship with Smirnov from him. Though he had distanced himself from her in recent days, he couldn’t help but feel betrayed. It tortured him to think that her pleasant face—without a trace of duplicity, those honest eyes—was masking a huge lie. That her kisses, embraces, and sighs were those of a fleeting encounter. But then, why had he caught her arguing with Smirnov in her office?
He could barely think. Did it really matter? He was overwhelmed by having reached a crossroads where, whichever path he chose, he would be heading into the abyss. He cursed everyone angrily, then hardened his heart and picked up his pace. If his rage hadn’t prevented it, he might have shed a tear for his own soul, but there was no time to cry. Only escape could save him. It was time to flee, or die trying.
He was approaching his house when he came across a wild mob, running down the streets from home to home and vandalizing everything in its path. He tried to ask a passerby what was happening, but the man ducked into a nearby doorway. When he turned to ask someone else, there was a sharp bang. Jack stopped in his tracks. There were some screams, and the sound of a vehicle speeding off. Then there were more cries, followed by more gunshots.
Jack ran to his house and yelled to Elizabeth to come down to the living room. As the young woman dressed, he began to gather the possessions he’d need during his escape: warm clothes, his savings, the incriminating reports, and McMillan’s passport. When she came down, she asked what was happening.
“There’s no time to talk. Gather your clothes. Only the essentials. And see what you can salvage from the kitchen. Anything edible—potatoes, bread, whatever.”
“Now? Where’re we going?”
“I don’t know. I’ll get Ivan Zarko to hide us somewhere safe.”
“But why? And what are those bangs?”
“They sound like gunfire. It looks like the OGPU is raiding houses indiscriminately.”
“Have you heard anything about my uncle?”
“We can’t do anything for him now. Get your coat and do what I say. Quickly. We’ll worry about your uncle later.”
“I’m not going to flee and leave the only family I have here. My uncle Wilbur hasn’t done anything wrong, and—”
“He hasn’t? How can you be so sure? Do you know where he got the money for the passports from? What would you know? Wilbur Hewitt lied to me. He got me into this mess. He killed George McMillan, the person I replaced at the Avtozavod, and—”
“What?” Elizabeth’s face was twisted with disbelief.
“You heard. I didn’t tell you to spare your feelings, but a witness saw your uncle kill George McMillan.”
“George? That’s absurd! My uncle wouldn’t kill a fly. I don’t know how you can believe it.”
Some nearby gunshots made both of them give a start.
“Well, I believe it because there’s a witness who described how, a few days after arriving in Moscow, your uncle strangled that man with his own hands on the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge and threw his body into the river.”
Elizabeth was left dumbfounded, looking at Jack as if he were a ghost. “But, Jack, don’t you remember?”
“Don’t I remember what?”