Mother Russia by Robert Littell Read Free Book Online

Nadezhda writes her answer under the question, “with a blue flower tattooed on her cheek.” Nadezhda looks at Pravdin quizzically, then scribbles: “Why do you write your question?”
    “So that anyone listening will hear only the scratching of a pencil,” he writes back.

CHAPTER 3
Pravdin, squinting
into the morning …
    Pravdin, squinting into the morning so that the comers of his eyes look like tiny fans, leans over the sill with the eucalyptus branch to see what the commotion is about.
    “Sorry if we woke you, Comrade Eisenhower,” calls Ophelia Long Legs, looking up from scattering bread crumbs to a flock of pigeons.
    Pravdin closes the window, dresses, gulps down an obligatory cup of black coffee, ransacks the attic for his appointment calendar, finds it under several copies of Solzhenitsyn’s First Circle in German, confirms the breakfast for the Lithuanian physicist at the Metropole. He pulls on his Eisenhower jacket, double knots the laces on his basketball sneakers, fills hisbriefcase with Q-Tips and assorted odds and ends until it is bulging, starts downstairs. Count your blessings , Pravdin mumbles under his breath. You’re reasonably healthy, relatively wealthy and you live in the last wooden house in central Moscow. Touch wood. (His knuckles rap on the banister.)
    Ophelia sits on the bottom step of the porch, her long legs stretched out before her, absently chewing gum and contemplating the milling pigeons. “Which came first,” she asks suddenly, “the Second World War or the Korean war?”
    “The Second World War,” Pravdin informs her. “Why are you asking such a question?”
    “Oh, just like that.” Ophelia shrugs. “I suppose you could say I’m naturally curious.”
    The screen door bangs behind them. Ophelia’s first floor neighbor, Porfiry Yakolev, the weatherman with the handlebar mustache, steps briskly into the sunlight, takes several deep breaths.
    “Pravdin, Robespierre Isayevich,” Pravdin announces, “at your beck and call.”
    “Yakolev, Porfiry Osifovich,” the weatherman returns the greeting. He shifts his umbrella and raincoat and briefcase to his left hand, shakes with Pravdin.
    “Why all the rain gear?” Ophelia teases. “You predicted sunshine on television last night.”
    The weatherman casts a professional eye at the crystal sky, sniffs the air as if it is vintage wine, frowns. “Low front moving in from the east,” he murmurs, “overcast by midafternoon with the possibility of scattered showers toward evening.” He nods formally to Pravdin and hurries off down the alley.
    Master Embalmer of the Soviet Union Yan Ernestovich Makusky emerges a few minutes later. He is a small, nervous old maid of a man who chews passionately on his cuticles in any kind of social situation. Pravdin creates one by introducinghimself. Blinking anxiously, the master embalmer attacks the cuticles on one hand, shakes with the other. Pravdin’s nostrils flare delicately; the odor of formaldehyde has reached his nose—or is it his imagination? He suddenly remembers what Ophelia whispered to him when he arrived: he is holding the hand that touches the clenched fist, combs the beard, adjusts the facial expression even of the Great Leader, the Living Light, Vladimir Ilyich himself. (“Waak, help,” echoes in Pravdin’s head.) “Is it true, comrade embalmer,” he demands urgently, drawing closer to Makusky, “that you are in personal charge of the body of our beloved Lenin?”
    Makusky tugs until Pravdin is obliged to let go of his hand, brings a hangnail to his lips, acknowledges the fact with a downward jerk of his head.
    “Tell me, if it’s not a state secret, comrade embalmer,” Pravdin urges, his lips almost against Makusky’s ear. “Is it really Vladimir Ilyich there in the flesh, or a wax dummy?”
    Makusky turns to stare at Pravdin with a hurt look in his eyes. Pravdin (sure now that the formaldehyde is not a figment of his imagination) backs off. “Consider the