Chapter Seventeen

Pale sunlight filtered through the faded yellow cottage curtains. The kind lady coughed softly. Koshka leapt to his feet. Sunlight. Daylight. How long had he slept? Water hissed in a kettle on the stove. "Breakfast time, little beastie!' said the lady, and she set some chicken scraps in a tin plate on the floor.

Koshka ate with relish, not knowing when the next meal would be. If this was morning, which it seemed to be, then he had been out of the Glasnost Hotel for two days, and there was no time to lose. This was the morning of February twentieth.

"You will be my little beastie now," chimed the lady at the sink. She wiped a glass. "My husband's gone six days out of seven--on the railroad." She studied the glass, frowned, and wiped it again. "You and I--we will be such good friends! My name is Valya, and--and I think I'll call you, let's see, I'll call you 'Kalinka.'"

Koshka grimaced.

"I'm so very, very lonely, Kalinka!" sighed Valya. "It's a blessing you came into my life!"

Koshka looked up into Valya's tired eyes, and he felt sorry for her. He was sorry too that soon, in fact, as soon as possible, he would have to leave her. But for now, the door was bolted and latched, and Valya was ladling out some thick cream onto a saucer. "Here, Kalinka, this is a treat for you!"

The cream was as sweet as any Koshka had ever tasted. He groomed himself after the wonderful breakfast and purred a grateful "thank-you."

"We'll keep each-other company, you and I," said Valya.

She looked so nice in her flower print dress and fuzzy warm sweater, her hair tied back under a kerchief. She had pretty eyes, almost like Anna's. Anna! Koshka remembered the Glasnost Hotel again, the widow Petrova, the plot.

Valya hummed as she dusted and then swept the floor. She opened the door while balancing a full dust pan in her hand.

He felt sorry for the lonely lady in the sweater and kerchief, but there was work to be done--a mission only he could perform, a mission that had to be performed. S-w-o-o-sh-sh-sh! Koshka shot out of the cottage like a cannon ball.

"Oh, please come back, my little Kalinka!" Valya cried out, but Koshka ran faster. From behind, he could see her run after him, then stop, then put her hands to her face. "No one stays with me. No one!" the poor lady wailed.

He kept running, through the village, around parked trucks and cars, under market stalls, and back out to the highway, where the walls soon turned to fences and then the fences turned to trees.

The dim sky turned pale blue and the snow grew whiter, deeper. He followed the ruts in the road. It was like shooting through an endless white gun barrel, except he was no free-flying bullet. His legs were tired and his eye was sore, but he kept running, his breath keeping pace with the pat-pat-pat-pat of his paws on the frozen snow.

There was a sign ahead. It was a long wooden arrow, with a list of villages coming up on the road. There were six of them, each with a long name--probably all of them filled with snow-ball-throwing children and trucks and cars, he decided. Then the sign said "Leningrad," but it was crossed out, and underneath it, somebody had painted in "Saint Petersburg." Koshka's heart jumped and his pace magically quickened. At least he was running in the right direction. Saint Petersburg. Saint Petersburg. The name took on a rhythm of its own and his paws matched the rhythm. Saint Petersburg. Saint Petersburg. He would make it.

Then all of a sudden the ground shook mightily, and a train roared by to the right of the road. Koshka ran faster but his pace seemed to slow, when compared to the train dashing by. Soon, it was hardly visible. A whistle blew in the distance. He got an idea.

He crawled over the tracks, behind the station, but there were too many people milling around--old ladies with bundles, small, curious children with wet noses, men with briefcases. No, it was not safe. He'd never get on a passenger train.

He walked alongside the station, keeping close to the wall.

"Meow!" came a tiny cry from a crevice in the wall.

"Who is it?" Koshka asked warily.

"Meow!' came the tiny response.

"Are you friend or foe of a city cat?"

"Meow!"

Koshka peered into the little crevice. He found a tiny brown kitty cowering in the corner. "What's wrong?' Koshka asked.

"I've been abandoned!" wailed the kitten. "I--I had a little girl who cared for me--and her mother too. Then the father came back, and I put me in a sack, and--and, he left me here! Now I'll--I'll die!"

"No, you don't need to die," said Koshka softly. "Plenty of us cats have been abandoned, and we survived. You can too."

"But--but what can I do?" the kitten pleaded.

Koshka looked over the pathetic little creature. "Here's what you do," he said, licking the grime from the poor kitten's fur. "Here's exactly what you do. You get yourself cleaned up here--I'll help. Then you head down that road right there--the one I just came on. And you keep walking alongside that road until you come to a cottage with blue shutters and a blue door. There's a tall tree next to the cottage, and inside, there's a woman named Valya. She'll be waiting for you."

Koshka made sure the kitten was cleaned and groomed, and showed him on his way. "Good luck to you, my friend!" said Koshka. "And brace yourself to be called 'Kalinka'," Koshka said to himself.

But time was rushing by. Koshka peered into the station window. Yes, the calendar said February twentieth, in undeniable thick black ciphers. He had one day left.

There was no time to lose. He spied a line of freight cars behind the station. That was the answer! A quick ride into Saint Petersburg! He slid between the tracks, staying low to the ground.

Bang! One car rolled all by itself down a track. It backed into another, then another, then another. Cars were rolling down a single track, bumping into one-another, then giant metal jaws between them clamped shut. They were coupling. This was how trains were made, he decided. Another car came rolling down the track. He jumped through an open door, landing on a wooden floor. It was cold, but there was hay--enough to build a temporary shelter.

W-o-o-o-sh! A line of rats--five or six of them--scurried off the car. Koshka shivered. He hated rats. Mice were fun, but rats made him shudder. He was glad they left.

Up ahead, he heard the puff-puff-puff of a locomotive, and then the sound of a horn. The cars jerked and banged backwards, then forwards in a giant thrust. They were moving. Clack. Clack. Clack. Then faster and faster. They were out of the village, and the train was moving faster yet. It would have taken Koshka an hour to cover the same distance already, and the train was still gaining speed. Clack-clack-clack-CLACK. Clack-clack-clack-CLACK. It was a constant rhythm, ever increasing in speed. Tree trunks flashed by. Fence posts too. Clack-clack-clack-CLACK. He stood at the door, hypnotized by the flashes of sunlight momentarily splattered across windows and posts. Clack-clack-clack-CLACK.

Clouds filled the sky, the sun fading before his eyes. There was a trail of smoke too, from the locomotive. Sagging buildings, weighted down with snow, flashed past. Then a train rushing off into the opposite direction. There were flashes, instants--images of people in lit windows, like a film moved fast-forward.

The train hit a grade, and slowed. He could hear the locomotive straining. The countryside passed, birches and lindens, jack pines and ash--all begging and bending for light. Koshka stood transfixed, hypnotized, his head peeking out of the doorway. Then he passed cracked, stained stucco walls, out-buildings and faded cottages with slanting shutters. Villages. Old ladies bent over, sweeping snow with short-handled straw brooms. Stations, and the blank expressions of their pale-skinned inhabitants wrapped in fur, flashed by almost too fast to register in his brain. He saw cracked windows. Crumbling walls. Clack-clack-clack-CLACK. Broken fences. A whole country passing by. Oh, Russia! Most holy and venerable land. Most defiled and humbled land. Clack-clack-clack-CLACK. The whistle pierced the cold air. The train labored on.

Koshka settled into the straw. How long it would take--he didn't know. The passing scenery would tell when they got closer, he decided--the probably gradual shift from forests and wooden villages, then finally to stone buildings and walls. And even then, after the train found the station, how would he find his way to the hotel? He didn't know--he, who had never been more than a mile from Popov Street? He'd find it, he decided. Because he simply had to.

Now it was time to rest, even if he was too tensed and sore to be sleepy. It was time to save energy and gather strength, time to make a bed in the hay.

His ears pricked. What was it? There was a movement in the straw, across the dark car. Just the train rocking and bouncing? No, instinct said. Just the wind perhaps, the shifting of hay in a speeding car. Of course. But then there it was again--the slightest noise--as if more a movement than a noise, seen with the ear, heard by the eye. He kept perfectly still. His eye focused, trying to penetrate the darkness. Was there something in the shadows of straw and straw? His eye said no and his ears said probably no, but his instincts said lie perfectly still, do not move, hold every muscle relaxed yet ready to flex, tense, and flash in any second. Another rustle of straw. Then darkness. The train was back in the forest. Tall pines flashing by, pale sunlight deflecting off branches and bows.

Then a flash, a singular momentary thing. What was it? It looked like an eyeball. A round yellow eyeball. Koshka lay motionless, his paws and legs ready underneath. Ears turned. His good eye strained for two. Oh, what a time to be lacking an eye!

An eye! What he saw was an eye. A round, demonic, empty kind of eye. Across the floor, under the hay. Then the smell. Yes, the dank, damp cursed unmistakable smell. A rat!

And in a flash shorter than an instant, Koshka was up on all fours, hind legs coiled, fangs bared, ears pressed forward. Two dead yellow eyes stared at him now, with a hatred born of the ages. Koshka made out the outline of a flat, dank, black body, the shape and size of a blackened old skillet. There was the stench of thick, short fur, and the yellow, unblinking eyes, the smell of death and decay swirling from its mouth.

The two animals remained motionless, crouched, locked in centuries of hatred and dread. The cat was instinct now--all eyes and paws and ears and legs. His fur bristled with electricity.

Then! Then the black skillet flew and the yellow eyes flashed forward, getting bigger and closer. The straw bent back and wham! A long, black body came hurtling through the air, low to the floor, towards Koshka. There was a hideous, unworldly squeal, the devil's own snarl. A showing of teeth, a quick spin on the floor and ow! Two fangs digging into Koshka's warm fur.

"M-m-m-r-r-r-o-o-o-w-w-w-!" A cry that could awaken cats from the dead. Koshka spun, his tail dispatching swishing straw across the floor. The rat spun around and lunged again, but Koshka spun a second time too, faster, his teeth catching the black, dank, musty fur creature by the neck. Like an expert killer, Koshka raised his head with his prey, and with a mighty, powerful snap of his neck--a full-arched coiling and uncoiling off all the energy life ever gave him, he hurled the rat to the wall. Snap! It lay lifeless but jerking, its head joking sideways with its body.

With one paw and one long, continuous swipe, Koshka swept the trembling animal out of the car. Clack-clack-clack-CLACK.

His fur still bristling, his heart beating, the blood still coursing through his veins, Koshka took battle inventory. One eye, still hurting, but he could see. A paw throbbing and swollen. A bite into the fur--two round, deep holes in his side from the creature of the damned, but the bleeding was light, the wound superficial, stretching out from the center to merely scratches.

He would live, he decided. He had prevailed. But the beating heart and the charged, bristling fur did not calm down until later, and Koshka sat at the door of the car as the train coursed through the forest.

#

Borya Smetanov took a swig of vodka in the old peasant manner, and prepared for another. Pickle in one hand, bottle held in the other, his head went back, and his insides felt hot and fiery and alive all the way down to his stomach. "Ah!" he said. "That is the way to drink!" He bit into the pickle, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "Not like those damned Amerikans with their damned sipping! There's no soul to anything they do, the bastards!" He lifted the bottle to the icon on the wall. "Hail, dear old Rossiya!" he toasted. "Hail! And long live!"

"Borya!" There was a shriek. "Are you drinking that god-forsaken slop again?" Liuba Smetanova entered the room, Hagia Sophia in her arms. "That vile, awful stuff!"

Borya wiped his lips. "Akh, I suppose you'd prefer me drinking that god-awful kapitalist skotch viskey, for instance?"

"It would be better than that slop!" She set Hagia Sophia down on the floor. "Look at you, sitting their like a peasant! You're shirt's dirty. No neck-tie. Why, those baggy pants went out of style years ago! You look like Khrushchev, you bumpkin! And, why, even your cigarettes are out of date! Just look at these stupid hollow cardboard sticks!"

"Those are 'papyrosi,'" he snapped. "If I wanted some namby-pamby Amerikan kapitalist smoke, I'd get one of their cigarettes. As for me. Give me a real smoke! I'm no namby-pamby kapitalist!"

"You're a mess, that's what you are! And you're getting worse every year! You're behind the times, a remnant of the past that nobody wants. You're useless to me, to the country!"

His face turned red with blood, and the veins in his temples pounded. "Look! I am a Russian! And proud to be one! I'm not like you--putting on all those silly foreign airs! You're nothing but a--but a whore!"

"How dare you!" She rapped him on the head with a vase that rattled and cracked. "If you weren't so drunk, you'd never talk back to me, you peasant!"

"Nothing but a whore! Nothing but a whore!" he chanted. "Anybody offering anything flashy and foreign--you'd give them whatever they want! You, and your whole damn government!"

"How dare you speak to me that way, you drunken sot!"

Borya stood up, his hands holding onto the table edge. "And if I wasn't drunk, I couldn't stand to be around the likes of you!"

"You're just a drunken peasant, you are!" She bent down for the cat. "Come, dearest Sophie, let us escape this country bumpkin! The odor enough can kill you! Sweat and dirty old clothes and vodka--how repulsive!" She and the cat marched out of the room. "Too bad he's not at all refined, like me and you, kitty!"

Borya grabbed for the bottle. "You're all whores!" he yelled after her. Then, more to himself, he said, "These people call themselves Russians! They hate who they are! They don't even know who they are! And they're pushed around by a bunch of foreigners and Jews! Akh, I can't stand it!" He swung around the room, bottle in hand, drinking toasts to his icons, to his painting of Nicholas II, to the picture of Alexander III, to the portrait of Ivan the Terrible. "Long live Mother Russia!" he said, taking another swig from the bottle. "Long live Mother Russia!"

He reached into his desk drawer, pulling out a gun. Then he crossed himself. "I, Boris Borisovich Smetanov, will go down in history! I will change the face of this country. Soon, Russia will be Russia again, and all the damned foreigners can leave, and all the Jews can leave with them!"

He reached for the phone, the receiver fumbling like a toy in his thick hand. He dialed. "Allo! Allo!" he shouted. "Valentin! This is Boris! Yes! Boris Smetanov! Come over! We have to talk. No, it is safe, I tell you. Just come over!"

Borya hung up the phone, put the gun back into the drawer, and proceeded to fall asleep in his chair

. #

Across town, Valentin slipped out of his dingy apartment on the far end of Vasilievsky Island, walked to the subway station, and picked the third phone from the left--one he was convinced was secure.

"Hello," he said gruffly. "This is Valentin. I'm worried about 'B'. I don't think he's reliable enough, or quiet enough."

"It's too late to change plans now," Valentin heard in reply. "Just get over there and get a feeling for what's going on."

Valentin took the subway, transferring twice and circling the station, for added measure. No one followed him, he was convinced. He walked into the Glasnost Hotel. Rodion, now wearing a red-and-black doorman's cap, sat snoozing at the doorway.

"Boris Borisovich Smetanov!" said Valentin.

"No, I'm Rodion Rodionovich!" said Rodion, snapping to attention.

"Oh, wake up, you fool! I want to see Boris Smetanov."

"Then why didn't you say so?"

Valentin scowled and stepped into the hotel. Two minutes later, after checking the lobby, he was in Borya's room. "So, what is the problem?" he asked.

Borya snorted and wiped his eyes. "Who sent for you? I mean, isn't it a little--a little extraordinary for you to come here?"

"You sent for me, you idiot!" snarled Valentin. He grabbed Borya by the shirt. "Stay off the sauce until after!" Valentin leaned forward and whispered in Borya's ear. "Now listen, just make sure that you follow the plan to the letter! Get it? To the letter!"

Borya nodded.

"Now, you repeat it to me, to the letter!" Valentin tugged at Borya's shirt, nearly pulling the man up from his chair.

"Okay. Okay. Let go of me!"

"Repeat it to me, then I'll let go."

"I let you in the back way. I--I give you access to the office, and you take care of the rest--that's all."

Valentin scowled and his hand tightened on Borya's shirt.

Borya's face turned redder. "Oh yes, I make sure the gun is loaded, and it's in the drawer."

Valentin's hands dropped from Borya's shirt. "And don't you forget any of it!"

"I won't. The gun--it's loaded now. Already."

"Good! Now don't bother me or call me again, unless there's a serious change in plans."

Borya squirmed. "But how will you make sure we're not suspected, or caught, or arrested afterwards?"

"That's where my plan comes in," whispered Valentin. "We have it set up so an American takes the rap."

"Oh," said Borya. "An American?"

"Of course! If people think an American did it, they'll swing that much faster back to the proper path! No more foreigners! Got it?"

Borya nodded.

"Good! And remember, there's a ministry job in it for you. A comfortable salary, all the perks--including a dacha and a car."

"And girls too?"

"All the girls you could ever want! You like young ones?"

Borya nodded and licked his lips.

"Good! You'll get more than you can handle. Do this thing right, and soon, things will be better than they ever were!"

"Borya!" It was Liuba's sing-song from down the hall.

"Who's that?" hissed Valentin.

"My wife."

Valentin turned quickly towards the door. "Just remember," he whispered. "Do everything as planned, unless you hear otherwise from us. Do not--I repeat, do not contact us for any reason!"

With that, he slipped out the door.

"Who were you talking to?" asked Liuba.

"Oh, just one of the contractors."

"Probably one of your 'Slav Brotherhood' or 'Pamyat' peasant friends!" She threw him his coat and hat. "Now go down to the fish market and get some pickled herring!"

"But it's snowing out, my sweet, and we ate dinner already anyway!"

"It's for the cat!" hissed Liuba. "Not for you! Now do what you're told!"

Borya put on his coat and hat and fumbled for his mittens. "Yes, my sweet."

Outside the door, he made an obscene gesture. "Just you wait, you foreign slut!" he said under his breath. "And I'll have all the young girls I want! High School girls with firm breasts!"

#

Anna and David and the widow finished the soup and sausage.

"You know," said the widow. "They've changed this poor old building so much, I hardly recognize it. Poor old thing!" she sighed, with a half-smile on her face. "If I had a friend subjected to such torments, such forced, unnatural changes, I'd weep for her! And somehow, I want to weep for this building too. It has its own personality, its own character and history. And what they've done to it is a shame!"

Anna looked at David. "It's a shame, it is!" She picked at the last of her sausage. "Too bad nothing can be done about it, right, David?"

He swallowed hard. "I--I've tried. But they won't listen. They tell me I'm not even involved with this project--in any direct way, that is. I'm just interpreting for the government agencies involved--that's all." His words came out slower. "They tell me to do my job and mind my own business. 'We are just following our orders,' they say."

"We've all heard that line," said Anna taking on a fake German accent. "I vas only following orders, herr kapitan!"

"Now, I don't think that's fair!" said David. "I too think it's sad. I mean, I wish--if they'd wanted to build a shiny new hotel, they should have built a new one somewhere. Why did they ever pick this old place?"

"It's a long story," said the widow. "When this building went up, it was a jewel of construction, it was said. And a marvel of contemporary, turn-of-the-century architecture. People came from around the world just to see it. But then the revolution came, and the building was abused, ignored--violated as it were. After years of neglect, balconies started to fall off and stairways collapsed. One poor man sat down on a toilet on the fifth floor and he ended up on the third floor-everything crumbled under him. Then new tenants refused to move in--even though housing was scarce, and even though this was the time of Stalin. So the building was empty for years, then it was somebody's idea to make it a hotel and construction crews came in. Then it didn't work as a hotel. It was empty, until some committee finally decided to make it an apartment building again. It filled up in no time. But the committee failed to change all the papers, so for some bureaus it was listed as a hotel, and for others as an apartment building. And these bureaus never talked with one-another, and the result is, as it always is in such situations--chaos, pure and simple. And the chaos remains today."

"It's sad," said David. "It's such an unusual building--part art nouveau, part deco, part classical--it really ought to be treasured."

"Yes, treasured instead of--of ransacked!" said Anna.

"I agree," said David. "In America, people tear down perfectly good buildings or they take old buildings and perform massive, ugly conversions, but I think this building is especially sad. Someone should save it."

"You!" said Anna.

"I wish I could," David answered quietly. "But look, this project has been in the plans for years. I just came on board in the very last stages, and now it's almost completed." He shook his head. "I hate to say it, but I think it's too late. And I'm sorry."

The widow sighed. "You're right, I suppose. I've tried everything. I wrote every committee, pestered every official. You don't know how many reception areas I've sat in, waiting for an audience from a high official who refused to see me! I tried everything. The Baron tried too, in his more lucid moments." She wiped her eyes. "I guess, sometimes you just have to accept life as it is--with all its losses and changes. I must learn to do that. Now, you'll excuse me." She took her glasses and a book from her shelf and walked off to her room.

#

"Excellent! Excellent!" said Rassolnikov, inspecting the Perestroika Buffet and Snack Bar. "Tables all in place. Kitchen spic-and-span. Everything is ready for tomorrow?"

Perezhitkov rubbed his eyes and nodded. "Yes, I think so."

"You'd better know so!" snapped Rassolnikov. "The prezident comes tomorrow. And we want no slip-ups, understand?"

Perezhitkov yawned, then nodded.

"Here!" said Rassolnikov, peering into the kitchen. "Take those old boards out of here! Put them in the cellar!"

"There's no room there. The cellar's already stuffed with boards and planks and chandeliers and brass fixtures already."

"Then put them in the attic!"

Perezhitkov sighed. "There's less room in the attic than in the cellar. That's where we put the old panelling and the stair railings."

"Well, get rid of them!" said Rassolnikov.

Perezhitkov yawned and nodded.

"Come with me!" said Rassolnikov. "I will inspect the lobby. Bring clipboard and pencil, so you can record my remarks!"

They took the newly-repaired lift downstairs. About halfway down, it jerked hard, and Rassolnikov grabbed the railing. "What in the devil's name was that?"

"It's a bend in the shaft," said Perezhitkov. "We can't repair it without taking the whole building apart."

Rassolnikov frowned. "Make a note of it on your clip board. 'Elevator jerks.' Put it down!"

The lift sped down to the lobby, coming to an abrupt halt that almost left Perezhitkov's lunch somewhere up on the second floor.

They stepped into the lobby, and Rassolnikov spun on his heels, admiring his handiwork. There were signs and banners, ribbons and balloons. "Looks good. Looks good," he said.

The front door opened. "Where's that god-forsaken drunken doorman?" demanded Rassolnikov.

"Rodion?" asked Perezhitkov. "I don't know."

"You're the building manager, for God's sake! You must know everything. Now write that down. 'Doorman must be present at door at all times.' Write it, just as I say!"

The Baron stepped into the lobby.

"That kook again!" muttered Rassolnikov. "Now write this down. "Evict Baron by morning."

Perezhitkov swallowed. "But, he's lived here so long, and he has nowhere to go!"

"Get rid of your useless sentiments, Perezhitkov!" yelled Rassolnikov. "Write that down! 'Get rid of useless sentiments.' And to show you how, I want you personally to evict him, and the widow too, by morning. Those are my orders. Write it down. 'Evict widow, and evict Baron!' Those are my orders."

"Your orders, are they?" It was a voice from the shadows. From the stairway stepped a short figure with very small shoes and a very tiny hat. "Your orders, Comrade Rassolnikov?"

"Why, yes, Comrade Fyodorov-Fyedinka. Good--good evening!"

The Moscow delegate's tiny mouth opened wide. "Your orders?" he bellowed in a tenor voice. "You want to evict a hero of socialist labor, a holder of the Lenin prize, a hero of international communism?"

Rassolnikov was silent.

Fyodor Fyodorov-Fyedinka stepped into the center of the foyer. He was holding a cane, and two cats followed him out of the shadows. "How dare you! Have you no heart? This 'Baron,' as you so humbly call him, is the Baron von Seinehaus auf NederNederland. He was a personal friend of Vladimir Illych Lenin, an early supporter when there were very few supporters, a hero!"

"Oh, I, ah--I didn't know," offered Rassolnikov.

"Well, find out the background of things before you change anything!" thundered Comrade Fyodor Fyodorov-Fyedinka in a voice that was much larger than his body. "Otherwise, you will always remain a mere functionary!"

The Baron removed his hat and bowed low with one continuous, gallant gesture. "The earth shall rise on new foundations!" he sang as he passed Rassolnikov and Fyodorov-Fyedinka.

"So right you are, Comrade!" said Fyodorov-Fyedinka. "We have been naught, we shall be all!"

The Baron nodded and smiled. "It is a very long struggle, is it not?"

"A very long one indeed. And sometimes it goes backwards, not forwards," sighed Fyodorov-Fyedinka.

"I am too old to allow myself any room for pessimism, young man," said the Baron. Then he broke out into a rich singing voice, unlike his usual voice, It was more like the voice of a young man. "For justice thunders condemnation! A better world's in birth!"

"There walks a real hero!" said Fyodorov-Fyedinka after the Baron had passed. "I am honored to have crossed his path." He turned to Rassolnikov. "Now you, rescind all your eviction orders! Whoever lived here and lives here now can continue to live here! You can run your profit-oriented, quasi-capitalist hotel enterprise around them."

"Yes, comrade," said Rassolnikov in a low voice.

#

Borya Smetanov was late for his cell meeting. The "Pamyat" splinter group met in a small room with blackened windows on the far side of Vasilievsky Island.

A gramophone played a scratchy rendition of "God Save the Czar" at low volume. The men sat in a circle, surrounded by flickering candles, icons, and tiny portraits.

"Hail, slavdom!" they chanted together, at barely a whisper. "Hail Russian slavdom!"

Borya quickly slipped into a chair and took up the chant. "Down with International Zionism! Down with the Protocol of the Elders of Zion! Down with godless communism! Down with Roman Catholicism! Down with all the foreign poisons that stifle our great Mother Russia!"

A short man with no neck stood up. "Let us repeat all our vows this evening, brethren! We must purge the Motherland of all evil!" he chanted. "We must eliminate all pernicious influences before it is too late, from wherever they come--inside or out! And we must be ever-vigilant for turn-coats, for traitors among us!"

A cheer went up. Then a short man in thick glasses stood up. "Let us vow to rid Mother Russia of the poison!"

"Yes! Yes!" went the members.

"Let us eliminate corrupting foreign influence!"

"Yes! Yes!"

"Down with rock-and-roll and punk music and heavy metal bands! Down with music that perverts our pure youth, and down with mini-skirts on the virgin bodies of our girls and down with tight jeans on the pure bodies of our strapping boys, and down with all foreign contamination of our sweet Mother Russia!"

All cheered.

The words tumbled around inside Borya's head. Pernicious influences. Turn-coats. Pure young virgins. Rock-and-roll. Little did this "Pamyat" circle know that he, one of their quietest members, would be their hero tomorrow. He liked the sound of it. His chest swelled with pride and anticipation. Boris Borisovich Smetanov, Hero and Savior of all Russia!

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