Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [164]
Polina pulled her hair away from her eyes to give Arkady a sharp glance, dropped her newspaper and marched out. Through the window, he watched her join a male friend who was sitting on a scooter at the curb. The friend came to attention and moved to the rear saddle. Polina sat in front, stomped the starter pedal with more fury than weight and drove off.
Arkady walked up the hall, took the seat she had left and looked at the newspaper, which said, “The measures that are being taken are temporary. They in no way signal a renunciation of the course aimed at profound reforms.… ”
Under the newspaper were car keys and a note that said, “White Zhiguli license X65523MO. You shouldn’t have come back.” Translated from Polina-ese, this meant, “Welcome home.”
The Zhiguli was parked in the front rank of the terminal lot. On its floor was a square canvas covered in red paint. Arkady removed the beer tray from the plastic wrap, replaced it with the painting and put it into Margarita’s bag.
He took the highway south to Moscow. As he reached the dark of an underpass, he rolled down the passenger window and sailed the beer tray out.
At first the road seemed normal. The same unrepaired cars rolled at high speed over the same potholes, as if he had been gone for a single morning. Then, set back from the highway behind a row of alders, he saw the dark outline of a tank; once he spotted one, he saw more tanks like dark watermarks on a screen of green.
There were no tanks on the highway, in fact, no sign of the military at all until the side road at Kurkino, where an endless line of armored personnel carriers filled the slow lane. Soldiers wearing campaign caps rode in open hatches. They were boys with eyes tearing in the wind. Where the highway crossed the Ring Road and became the Leningrad Road, the caravan exited and headed into the city.
Arkady sped up and slowed down while a sleek metallic-blue motorcycle with two riders stayed a steady hundred meters behind him. They could simply put a bullet in his head as they drove by. Except for the painting, on which they wouldn’t want a scratch.
A light rain cleaned the street. Arkady looked on the dashboard shelf. No wipers. He turned on the radio and after Tchaikovsky heard instructions on how to remain calm. “Report the agitation of provocateurs. Allow responsible organs to carry out their sacred duty. Remember the tragic events of Tiananmen Square, when pseudo-democratic agents provoked unnecessary bloodshed.” The accent seemed to be on unnecessary. He also found a station operating from the House of Soviets that denounced the coup.
At a red light, the motorcycle pulled up behind him. It was a Suzuki, the same model he and Jaak had admired outside a cellar in Lyubertsy. The driver wore a black helmet, leather jacket and pants sculpted like armor. When Minin hopped off the back, raincoat flapping, hand on hat, Arkady floored the accelerator, raced through the cross traffic and left the bike behind.
The Voikovskaya metro station was surrounded by Muscovites who had emerged from rush-hour trains to study the clouds, arrange their raincoats and gather resolve for the dash home. Calmer souls loitered at the entrance to buy roses, ice cream, piroshki. The scene was surreal because it was so normal that Arkady began to wonder whether the coup was taking place in another city.
Cooperatives no bigger than shacks had set up business behind the station. He got in line at one that sold Gauloises, razor blades, Pepsi and canned pineapples, and bought himself a bottle of carbonated mineral water and a tall lavender aerosol can of “Romantic” deodorant. He went on to a secondhand