“All right, Jack. I have to go. If you change your mind about the furniture . . .”
“Sure, don’t worry. And say hello to Sue.”
Walter smiled. He said good-bye to Jack and returned to the car. Jack watched from the window as Walter told the driver his destination. He raised an eyebrow. Walter had his own chauffeur. He’d moved up in the world; that was for sure.
“Are you going to stand there all morning? Come on! Come in!”
Sergei’s imperious voice made Jack hobble into his office more quickly than was advisable, and he smarted from his physical exertion. Seeing this, Sergei stood up. “Still limping? May I ask what treatment my daughter’s giving you?”
Jack thanked Sergei for helping him into his seat. “Actually, I haven’t seen Dr. Natasha for a few days. In fact, I was almost back to normal, and I thought I’d restart work today, as we’d agreed, but I injured myself again and I can barely walk.”
“By Lenin’s whiskers! You Americans are made of butter! I remember the day I was hit three times in the battle for Saint Petersburg. One in the belly, here right in the middle; another in the arm, and another in the thigh. I was tended to by a veteran, and the next day I was back on the front line, drinking vodka and firing at the enemy.”
“It’s possible we’re made of different stuff. The point is that I wanted to explain my situation in person to you.”
“There’s no need to make excuses,” he interrupted. “I knew you were unwell; I didn’t make you come here to bid you a good morning. I know you spoke to Hewitt at the firing range. Did he tell you anything?”
“Nothing in particular. It seems he likes to shoot, and he invited me to the grand opening.”
“And you separated yourselves from his niece and Viktor to talk guns?”
“I was exhausted. I’d worked all night to finish Smirnov’s car, and I needed to sit down. Hewitt was kind enough to accompany me, and I didn’t see why I should refuse.”
“He didn’t tell you anything about the factory? About the arrests? About what’s happening with the Americans?”
“Only in passing, just taking an interest in his fellow countrymen,” he lied. “By the way, what’s their charge?” He took the opportunity to try to glean some information on his compatriots.
“Counterrevolutionary activities,” Sergei said with a sour expression as he crumpled up a report. “They are ungrateful people who have tried to slow down the unstoppable progress of Bolshevism!”
“It seems strange. The inhabitants of the American village are honorable people; all they think about is their family and their work.”
“What kind of honor are you talking about? The one that puts its own interests before those of the great Soviet family? Because I’m talking about rabble: individuals who use treachery and sabotage to pursue their objectives, siding with the small number of insurgents who still yearn for the days of the tsars.”
Jack listened in silence to Sergei’s rant. He resisted asking for more details because he knew that doing so would only align him more closely with the saboteurs. “All right. Well, if there’s nothing else . . .”
“There is.” He smoothed his graying mustache. “I’m putting Wilbur Hewitt under close surveillance, so from now on, if you want to have a conversation with him, whether by telephone or in person, you must have it in the presence of one of my men, or you’ll be arrested. As for your sudden inability to work, I think we’ll have to find a solution. Although the Soviet Union pays a benefit to sick workers, the amount is little more than symbolic, and it would be difficult for me to justify a wage like the one I promised you.”
“I don’t understand. You assured me I’d keep—”
“Yes, yes . . . I know what I said. But my daughter also said that you’d recover in a couple of weeks, and you’ve showed up here a wreck. So to resolve this inconvenience, until you get back on your feet, I’m going to do two things: first, authorize the opening of a Torgsin grocery store in the American village, and second, make you directly responsible for it.”
“That’s it?” Jack was suspicious. There was no Torgsin in Gorky, but Ivan Zarko had told him about the ones he’d seen in Moscow. They were state-authorized establishments where restricted goods were sold in exchange for hard currency and jewels.
“Well.” He smiled. “Between sales, it won’t do you any harm to speak to your customers. I’m sure there’ll be rumors that might be of interest to me. They may know things we don’t, and they won’t mind sharing them with you.”
The Soviet official waited for a response. Jack contemplated his stony, inscrutable gaze, imagining that, whatever Sergei’s plan was, there would be few loose strings that he could pull. But perhaps there would be one or two. He decided to play along. “I’d need help. People I trust. I’m struggling to stand up. If I can’t work at the Avtozavod, how will I be able to take care of a store?” he asked, confident that Sergei would agree to his request.
“You have friends. Choose a few who’d be prepared to give you a hand. While you recover, I’ll free them of their other duties. They’ll receive the same wage, but they’ll have a comfortable job and access to the best food. They’ll be grateful to you, I’m sure.”
“Very well. Give me a week to recover and get everything ready.”
“It’s yours.”
“As for the premises . . . I presume you don’t intend for me to do business from the latrines.”
“Of course not! I had a spare-parts warehouse in mind; it borders on the American village. I’ll have it fitted out. Any other questions?”
“Yes. Stock. Who’ll supply it, and at what prices?”
“Stock? There’s no stock.”
“I don’t understand.” He thought Sergei was playing games with him. “How do you expect people to do their shopping in an empty store?”
“You tell me. You haven’t had any problem with it until now.”
When Jack left the building, a car was waiting for him. He was annoyed to find Walter sitting comfortably inside it again, and despite his apparent friendliness, he was beginning to see him less as a friend and more as a guard dog with Sergei as his master. As they drove, Walter asked about the meeting, but Jack was evasive. He was deep in thought when, as they entered the compound, he saw that some of the bunkhouses were being closed down. “What’s going on?” He gestured to the structure that a motorized crane was demolishing.
“Rehousing. You chose a good moment to move.” He pointed at a couple that two guards were leading to a black car. “John Selleck and his wife, Lisa. They tried to escape yesterday but were intercepted at the first railway checkpoint.”
“Where’re they being taken?”
“To the ispravdom, I guess. Apparently, they’d colluded with some defectors wanting to leave the country. Poor fools!”