cheeks had collapsed to form loose jowls at the level of his chin.
‘Raku Vishnik,’ said Lom. ‘Apartment 4.’
‘No visitors after nine.’
‘He’s expecting me. He keeps late hours.’
The dvornik looked at Lom’s scruffy valise. His sodden clothes. His dripping hair.
‘No overnights.’
Lom fumbled in his pocket. ‘I appreciate the inconvenience. Twenty kopeks should cover it’
‘A hundred.’
‘Fifty.’
The dvornik grunted and held out a hand. He wore thick fingerless woollen gloves: even in the sparse lamplight they looked in need of a wash.
‘Second floor. Don’t use the lift and don’t turn on the lights.’
The stairs were dark and narrow, lit by street light falling through high small windows. Stale cooking smells. A thin carpet in the corridor. The bell of Number 4 sounded faint and toy-like, like it was made of tin.
Lom waited. Nobody came. He stood there, dripping, in the dark passageway. He realised that he was shaking, and not just with cold and hunger and the fatigue of carrying his case through the empty streets. The taste of the living rain was in his mouth. The smell of it on his face and his clothes. He had heard of such things, the possibilities of them. You didn’t live at the edge of the forest without being sometimes aware of the wakefulness of the wilder things: the life of the wind, the sentience of the watchful trees. The memory of the damp, living earth. But not in Mirgorod. He had not expected to find such things here: Mirgorod was the capital of solidity, the Founder’s Strength, the Vlast of the One Truth.
He needed Vishnik to open up. He rang the bell again. Nothing happened. Maybe Vishnik was already in bed. He rang twice more and banged on the door. There was a muffled sound of movement within, and it opened slowly. A pale, drawn face appeared. Dark eyes, blank and unfocused, looked into his own.
‘Yes?’
‘Raku?’
The dark eyes looked past him to see if someone else was in the corridor. Vishnik was dressed to go out: an unbuttoned gabardine draped from his shoulders, a small overnight bag in his hand. He was taller than Lom remembered, but the same glossy fringe of black hair flopped across his forehead. The same dark brown eyes behind rimless circular lenses. But the eyes were glassy with fear.
‘Raku. It’s me. Vissarion.’
Vishnik’s hands were balled in tight fists. He was shaking with anger. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘Fuck. What the fuck are you doing.’
‘Raku? Didn’t you get my telegram?’
‘No I didn’t get any fucking telegram. Shit. What are you doing? I don’t see you for half a lifetime and then you’re hammering on my door in the middle of the night.’
‘I wired. Five, six days ago. I said I would be coming. I said it would be late.’
Vishnik held up his bag. Shoved it at Lom. ‘See this? What’s this? Clothes. Bread. So I don’t have to go in my pyjamas when they come. How did you get in here anyway? The dvornik shouldn’t have—’
‘I gave him fifty kopeks.’
‘Fifty? That’s not enough. He has to report visitors to the police.’
‘What’s he going to report? I am the police.’
‘Some fucking policeman. Look at you. Dripping on the carpet.’ He looked at Lom’s valise. ‘You got dry things in there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wait.’
Vishnik disappeared. Rain seeped out of Lom’s hair and down his face. Rain dripped from the hem of his cloak and spilled from his trouser cuffs.
Vishnik came back carrying a towel.
‘There’s a bathroom at the end of the corridor.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Yeah. Shit. Well, get dry.’
Lom tucked the towel under his arm, picked up the valise and started down the corridor.
‘Oh, and Vissarion.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s good to see you. I thought I never would.’
Fifteen minutes later Lom was sitting on Vishnik’s couch with a glass of aquavit. There was food on the table. Solyanka with cabbage and lamb. Thick black bread. He leaned back and let the room wrap itself around him. Heavy velvet curtains of a faded brick colour hung across the window. Electric table lamps cast warm shadows. A paraffin heater burned in the corner. Bookshelves everywhere. More books piled on the floor and stacked on the desk. And on a side table, carefully arranged, a strange assemblage of objects: a broken red lacquer tea caddy; a grey and blue mocha mug with no handle; a china dog; a piece of stained wood, stuck through with bent and rusting nails; broken shards of ceramic and glass; a feather; a bowl of damp black earth. Odd things that could have been picked up in the street. Set