The Stylist

She flushed. He was wrong, she hadn’t been thinking of Solovyov at all. Moreover, judging from his lifestyle, the publishers weren’t cheating him. But Lyoshka was suspicious anyway. He seemed hurt, even. How could she have been so clumsy? What had made her discuss these books with him?

“You’re wrong, darling,” she said in a steady voice. “Solovyov has nothing to do with it. It’s a coincidence that it’s his books we’re discussing.”

“Fine,” he said. “If you say so. What are your plans for Saturday? Going to work?”

“No, I’m home tomorrow. I need to use the computer.” “When’s the next visit to Solovyov’s?”

“Lyoshka!”

“Now, now, I’m as cool as a frozen mammoth. I just need to know for the car. When will you need it?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to go Sunday afternoon. But if you need the car, I can go tomorrow or Monday.”

“Do what you were planning,” he said. “I’ll be home Sunday.” “Thanks.”

The air was thick with tension and Nastya tried to think of a way of discharging it. But nothing original came to mind.

“Lyoshka, I can’t stand to watch you torture yourself,” she said decisively. “I’ve told you that we’re dealing here with a serious crime. Nine boys have died, teenagers who were missing persons. Somewhere in Moscow or nearby there is a monster who keeps them locked up, pumping them full of drugs, sleeping with them until they die of an overdose. He is crazy, a maniac. Every day I live in horror that more parents will show up to report yet another missing boy. The only lead I have is connected to the place where Solovyov lives. I have to go there, please understand. It’s my duty. It’s my responsibility before the poor parents who wait months for word of their son and find only his corpse. But your feelings are just as important to me. You are my husband, I love you, and for your peace of mind I am ready to do anything. I don’t want you to suffer from baseless jealousy. But if you can’t stop yourself, then I’ll have to stop.” “What are you trying to say?”

“I’ll stop going to Solovyov’s.”

“What about the boys? Their parents?”

“Nothing. Let someone else look for the maniac, someone whose husband isn’t so jealous.”

Lyoshka smiled in chagrin, but with evident relief. He seemed embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, Nastya. I didn’t think it upset you so much. No more, I’ll stop.”

“And I can see Solovyov?”

“As much as you like.”

“And you won’t have fits over it?”

“I will.” He burst out laughing. “Strictly out of stubbornness. To spite you. So that you see what it’s like for me when you’re upset and I don’t know why or how to help.”

“Being difficult, eh?”

Nastya knew it was over. The conflict had been brewing for a week, since last Friday, when she first went to see Solovyov and wish him a happy birthday. Wariness, tension, and cool alienation had hung over the apartment for a week, even though they both behaved normally – calm, peaceful, and amiable. Hidden conflicts are very dangerous, leaving permanent wounds, despite the absence of shouting, yelling, or other loud and colorful manifestations. She remembered a line from a section of The Blade she had just read: “A person with sad eyes is a person who never cried as a child when scolded or beaten.” The line seemed vaguely familiar, but Nastya wasn’t in a mood to dig around in her memories.

Chapter 5

The era of video technology brought with it many changes. The first and most noticeable was the transformation of movie theaters from places where films were shown into showrooms for furniture, automobiles, electronics, and even wedding dresses. The spacious and once festive lobbies were now filled with computer games and neon signs advertising “Currency Exchange” and there was no reminder that once film had reigned here – once considered an art form. Unfortunately, it had long been the norm for commerce and primitive amusements to crowd out art.

The second consequence that everyone noticed was the gradual shift of teenagers from the street into apartments. Naturally, if they could have played a VCR on a bench in the park, kids would do that, because watching movies was much better outdoors, in a group, with a cigarette between your teeth and a glass of fake winelike crap in your hand, and most importantly, without parental controls. However, since technological progress had not yet caught up with the needs of minors, movies had to be watched at home. Parents were pleased – the kids weren’t out in the streets, and the kids in turn were pleased that they could relax and have fun instead of reading boring fat books about some war and peace. Inspectors from the prevention of crimes by minors units breathed a sigh of relief. Teachers shrugged hopelessly, tired of waiting for their students to deign to read the required literature. With every year, children read less and made more grammatical errors in their written work.

You could buy videotapes on every corner. And in almost each of those places you could rent videos. There were two kinds of rentals – the nameless trusting one, that is, not serious and expensive, and the registered, that is, serious and cheap. In the former, a person came to the video store, took a video, leaving a down payment equal to the cost of the video, which he got back when he returned the tape, less the cost of the rental. And you could stick whatever you wanted into the brightly labeled box, for instance, you could keep the latest hit and return something very old and non-box-office. A variant of this not very nice behavior was returning not the cassette you had received but a copy made on very poor equipment and therefore streaked, tinny sounding, and otherwise marred. The tapes were not checked when they were returned. But the cost of rental in these places was high: the owner knew his level of risk, because when he did discover a switch he was not able to find the sneaky client, and therefore he hiked the price of rental to have a financial reserve to buy new copies in these situations.

With the register system, the rental personnel actually asked the clients for their names and even asked for identification with address. And they charged almost nothing for the rental. But that was on paper. In fact, it was quite different. They did not always ask for ID, even though they did write down the name. And they charged a bit more for the rental than they were supposed to when the client showed a passport, but of course, not as much as the no-name places. Somewhere in the middle. And there were seventy-four such rental places that used registers in the capital. And Nastya was going to work on the materials from the thirty that Gennady Svalov had visited.

The day couldn’t have been better for staying home and working diligently. Just yesterday the sun had shone brightly, casting doubt on the ability of some weak-willed citizens to withstand the lure of a leisurely walk. But the weather on Saturday morning wasn’t luring anyone anywhere. Beneath the lowering clouds it was grim, gray, damp, and drizzling, and the thought of a walk did not elicit any pleasant associations.

Nastya, naturally, could not resist pampering herself a little and slept until ten-thirty. She liked sleeping late, especially on such dark rainy days. Alexei had gotten up much earlier, and when she finally forced her eyes open she saw that her husband had had breakfast and was in the kitchen working on a lecture he was giving that evening at some commercial school that prepared economists and included a required course in higher mathematics.

Dragging her feet and feeling achy all over, Nastya got in the shower and started waking up. In order to get her brain going, she tried to remember the titles of all fourteen films stolen by the strange thief. Not only the titles, but the genres as well. At the third title she turned the knob a bit, slightly lowering the water temperature. At the seventh title, the process stalled: the title was long and complicated. Angrily, Nastya twisted the knob with the blue circle and under the streams of suddenly cold water, the difficult title floated to the surface of her memory. Her body was covered in goose bumps, but she bravely tormented her half-awakened brain until she got all fourteen titles.

However, after the execution by shower, she showed up in the kitchen with rosy cheeks and glimmering eyes. Alexei pushed his papers to one side, making room for his wife’s breakfast.

“Lyoshka, why don’t I make something special for dinner tonight, your choice,” Nastya offered.

After yesterday’s talk she still felt guilty for making her husband go through so much anxiety, and she wanted to smooth it over somehow.

Alexei looked up at her with interest.

“For instance?”

“Well, I don’t know. You choose. What would you like?”

“Sturgeon. On a skewer, if possible. Can you handle that?”

“I’ll try,” she said bravely.

Nastya was not at all sure she could cook sturgeon on a skewer, but the main thing was to get started, and then she’d see – after all she could check a cookbook or ask him. She savored her two cups of strong coffee, had a cheese sandwich, and got dressed to go to the store. Alexei watched her with undisguised mockery, good-humored, of course. When the wife decides to go to the store every three months or so without the husband, it can be amusing. Usually they went marketing on the weekend together or, if Nastya was working, Alexei did it himself.

Wearing her jacket and running shoes, she peeked into the kitchen. “Lyoshka, what should I get?”

“There’s a fine howdy-do.” He made a production of exasperation. “What are you planning to use in the grilled sturgeon – veal cutlets?”

“Come on,” she wailed. “I don’t know what kind of sturgeon to get. Frozen, fresh, in a box, filets, who knows.”

Alexei sighed bitterly and gave a detailed explanation of the closest place to get the kind of fish they needed, how much to get, and how to select it.

“And don’t forget tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, potatoes, and a can of mushrooms. And if you see any marinated julienne beets, get some.”

“What for?” Nastya asked.

“For a side dish. If we’re spending money on sturgeon, we should serve it properly. Do what your elders tell you and don’t get smart.”

“Big deal!” she snorted as she put some plastic shopping bags into her purse. “Eight months, that’s all you have on me, and you act as if…”

“Take the car, my adult darling,” Chistyakov said. “You need to get a lot of vegetables, for the whole week.”

“I don’t need it,” Nastya insisted.

“You do. Or your back will go out again. Don’t argue with me, please.”

“I don’t like taking the car to the market. It’s showing off somehow. And then, you have to find a parking space, it’s crowded, you know. I just don’t want to.”