Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [92]
Stas asked Ludmilla, “Did you know that the Kremlin has exactly as many bathrooms as the Temple of Jerusalem? Think about it.”
Ludmilla backed away.
Stas filled a glass for Arkady. “I wonder if she’ll report that to Michael.” He cast a consumptive’s sardonic gaze around the room, not sparing anyone. “A mixed bag.”
The party blossomed into arguments. Arkady took shelter on the stairs with another misanthrope, a German dressed in intellectual black. A girl sobbed at the bottom of the stairs. At any decent Russian party there were arguments and a girl crying at the bottom of the stairs, Arkady thought.
“I’m waiting to talk to Irina,” the German said. He was in his twenties, with furtive eyes and nervous English.
“Me, too,” Arkady said.
There was a silence, comfortable enough to Arkady, until the boy blurted out, “Malevich was in Munich.”
“And Lenin,” Arkady said. “Or was it Meyer?”
“The artist.”
“Oh, the artist. That Malevich.” The artist of the Russian Revolution. Arkady felt slightly stupid.
“There is a tradition of contact between Russian and German art.”
“Yes.” No one could argue with that, Arkady thought.
The boy examined his nails, which were bitten to the quick. “The red square symbolized the Revolution. The black square symbolized the end of art.”
“Right.” Arkady downed half his vodka in a swallow.
The boy giggled as if he had remembered something worth sharing. “Malevich said in 1918 that ‘footballs of entangled centuries would burn out in the sparks of bubbling light waves.’ ”
“Bubbling light waves?”
“Bubbling light waves.”
“Amazing.” Arkady wondered what Malevich drank.
Irina was never alone long enough for Arkady to approach her. While he maneuvered between groups, he was snared by Tommy and led to an enormous map of Eastern Europe tacked to a wall, with German and Russian positions on the eve of Hitler’s invasion marked by swastikas and red stars.
Tommy said, “This is terrific. I just learned who your father was. One of the great military minds of the war. What I’d love to do is mark exactly where your father was when the Germans rolled in. If you could point that out, it would be great.”
It was a Wehrmacht map. Place names and rivers were in German. Widely spaced lines climbed the Ukrainian steppe, dashes warned of swamps in Bessarabia, swastikas were massed to sweep on separate fronts to Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad.
“I have no idea,” Arkady said.
“Not a hint? Did he leave you any anecdotes?” Tommy asked.
“Only tactics.” Max joined them. “Hide in a hole and stab your enemy in the back. Not bad tactics when you’re overwhelmed and overrun.” He turned to Arkady. “Are you feeling overwhelmed and overrun? Question retracted. What interests me, however, is that the father becomes a general and the son becomes an investigator. There’s a similarity there, an inclination towards violence. What do you think, Professor? You’re a medical man.”
The psychologist who had arrived with Max was still tagging along. He ventured, “Perhaps a discomfort with normal society.”
“Soviet society is not normal society,” Arkady said.
“Then you tell us,” Max said. “Explain to us why you are an investigator. Your father chose to kill people. That’s why men become generals. To say a general hates war is to say that a writer hates books. You’re different. You choose to arrive after the murder. You get the blood without the fun.”
“Much like the victim,” Arkady said.
“Then, what draws you? You live in one of the worst societies on earth, and then you choose the worst part of it. What is the morbid appeal? Picking over bodies? Sending one more hopeless soul to jail for the rest of his life? As my friend Tommy would say, what’s in it for you?”
They weren’t bad questions. Arkady had asked them about himself. “Permission,” he said.
“Permission?” Max repeated.
“Yes. When someone is killed, for a short time people have to answer questions. An investigator has permission to go to different levels and see how the world is built. A murder is a little like a house splitting