Sashenka

She took the elevator down to the grey marble lobby, damp as wet rat fur, and walked through to another hall, where she climbed the steps, followed a corridor left then right and finally opened a red curtain to reveal a little cubbyhole with three tables and an old woman in a minuscule kitchen. The tempting tang of cooking fat and the music of sizzling eggs welcomed her. A young English journalist and an ancient Armenian man were at their usual tables, sipping espresso coffees.

“Morning, senorita,” said the old woman in a blue apron, speaking bad Russian. Her brown face, with its large jaw, was deeply wrinkled. “Spanish omelette?”

“The usual,” said Katinka. The cook was an old Spaniard who claimed to have been cooking in this cubbyhole since the Spanish Civil War.

“The best cook in Moscow!” murmured the Armenian, kissing his hand and blowing it toward the old woman.

An hour later, Katinka walked slowly up Tverskaya—the new name for Gorky Street—and then took a left through an archway that led down to the Patriarchy Ponds, a square with a park in the middle containing two lakes surrounded by trees. Bulgakov, she knew, had lived around here, when he was writing The Master and Margarita. She bought an ice cream at the open-air café and sat watching the couples, the children promenading, the old folk watching her watching them. Why did the Marmoset want to meet her here and not at the Lubianka? Could he be bringing the documents? No, that was impossible. So why? She did not trust these people.

At 2:00 p.m. she walked out of the square and looked around the far end of the street. There it was—a black and white sign, BAR-CAFÉ PIANO. She went in. Rod Stewart was singing “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” on the stereo. The small café was empty except for a specter-thin grey-haired man behind the bar, smoking a cigarette as he poured out three thimbles of vodka, and two men at a chrome table. One of them was the Marmoset, Colonel Lentin, wearing a green sports coat and a Wimbledon tennis tie. He stood up and offered his hand.

“Come and sit down, girl.” He guided her to a chair. “Let me introduce you to my comrade here, Oleg Sergeievich Trofimsky.”

“Delighted, Katinka, delighted. Yes, sit!” Trofimsky’s head was wide and misshapen and looked as if it had been fired out of a medieval cannon, and his pitchfork beard gave him the air of an aging magician. The barman brought the vodkas and slammed them down on the table.

“No, no,” the Magician remonstrated coarsely. “Dima, bring us your oldest Scotch whiskey. This young lady’s much too cultured for mere Russian vodka.”

The barman shrugged and returned to the bar.

“Dima’s a retired comrade,” explained the Magician to Katinka, “so we—shall we say—patronize his establishment. He’s used to my tastes, aren’t you, Dima?”

The barman rolled his eyes and brought the amber liquid.

The Magician turned back to Katinka. “Now, drink carefully. This is fifty years old, aged in oaken barrels in the Scottish isles. Its name? Laphroaig. Taste it: you see? You can taste the peat; that is the soil there. When I was in the London Embassy—my work was, shall we say, clandestine—I toured the Caledonian isles. The British royal family drink only this when they are hunting in the Scottish region. Go on, drink!”

Katinka drank, but only a sip.

“You’re a historian, are you not?” asked the Magician, stroking his pitchfork beard.

“Yes, I specialize in the eighteenth century.”

“I’ve studied history myself and I know the Velvet Book intimately, the Romanovs, Saxe-Coburgs, even the collateral lines,” he said. “It’s a hobby, shall we say. But now I’ve taught you something about civilized living, let me get straight to the point. You are researching something very different? The period of the Cult of Personality?”

“Yes, one family,” answered Katinka, cautiously.

“I know, I know, Colonel Lentin has told me. And you weren’t satisfied with the documents you were shown?”

“I would like to see others,” she said.

“Well, you may, that is totally possible. You will see them.”

“Thank you,” said Katinka, surprised. “When?”

The Magician waved a finger at her. “We’re adapting to the new era, aren’t we, Colonel Lentin? We’re embracing it! But we’re still patriots. We don’t wish to be American. Make no mistake, girl, we in the Competent Organs are the conscience of this country. We’ll make it strong again!”

“But what about the documents? When can I see them?”

“You’re young, in a hurry. As soon as tomorrow?”

“Yes, please,” she said, as eager as she was uneasy.

“Can we do it tomorrow, Colonel?” asked the Magician.

“Three days perhaps,” said the Marmoset, clearly the junior partner here. “Maybe a week.”

“Then that is that,” said the Magician. “And it won’t be too expensive.”

“Expensive?” cried Katinka. “But…”