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the Party …” The Invalid liked hitting that nail, Arkady thought. Never mind dismissal and exile; the real punishment, the fear of every apparatchik, was losing his Party card. Molotov, for example, was denounced for writing up the murder lists of thousands of Stalin’s victims. He wasn’t in real trouble, though, until they took away his card.
    “Membership in the Party was too great an honor. I could not bear it.”
    “So it seems.” Volovoi pondered the file again. Perhaps the words were too painful. He lifted his eyes to the bookshelves, as if no story there could be so tawdry. “The captain, of course, is a Party member. Like many sea captains, however, he has a decisive nature, a personality that enjoys risk. He’s astute about fishing, about avoiding icebergs, simply going to starboard or port. But politics and human personality are more complicated, more dangerous. Of course he wants to know what happened to the dead girl. We all do. Nothing is more important. That’s why the proper control of any inquiry is vital.”
    “I’ve heard that before,” Arkady admitted.
    “And didn’t listen. Then you were a Party member, a high official, a man with a title. I see by your file that you haven’t been on shore for almost a year. Renko, you’re a prisoner on this ship. When we return to Vladivostok, while your cabin mates return to their girlfriends or families, you will be met by the Border Guard, an armof State Security. You know that or you would have left the ship the last time we were home. You have no home, no place to go. Your only hope is a strongly positive evaluation from the
Polar Star
. I am the officer who writes that evaluation.”
    “What do you want?”
    “I expect,” Volovoi said, “to be closely and quietly informed before any report is made to the captain.”
    “Ah.” Arkady bowed his head. “Well, it’s not an investigation; it’s only asking questions for a day. I’m not in charge.”
    “Since Slava Bukovsky speaks little English, it’s obvious you will do some of the questioning. Questions have to be asked, the truth ascertained, before any proper conclusion can be reached. It’s important that no information be given to the Americans.”
    “I can only do my best. Would you like accidental death? We’ve considered food poisoning. Homicide?”
    “It’s also important to protect the name of the ship.”
    “Suicide comes in many forms.”
    “And the reputation of the unfortunate worker.”
    “We could declare her still alive and name her the Queen of Fisherman’s Day. Whatever you want. Write it out and I’ll sign it right now.”
    Volovoi slowly closed the dossier, dropped it into his briefcase, pushed back his chair, and stood. His pinkish eyes became a little redder and more fixed, the instinctive reaction of a man sighting a natural enemy.
    Arkady gazed back.
I know you, too
. “Do I have permission to leave, Comrade?”
    “Yes.” Volovoi’s voice had gone dry. “Renko,” he added as Arkady turned to go.
    “Yes?”
    “Suicide, I think, is what you’re best at.”

4 Zina Patiashvili lay on the table, her head resting on a wooden block. She had been pretty, with the nearly Grecian profile that Georgian girls sometimes possessed. Full lips, a graceful neck and limbs, a black pubic stripe and a head of blond hair. What had she wanted to be, a Scandinavian? She had gone into the sea, touched bottom and returned with no apparent signs of corruption aside from the stillness of death. After the tension of rigor mortis all flesh became slack on the bone: breasts sagged on the ribs, mouth and jaw were loose, eyes flattened under half-open lids, the skin bore a luminous pallor mottled with bruises. And the smell. The operating room was no morgue, with a morgue’s investment of formaldehyde, and the body was enough to fill the room with an odor like the stench of soured milk.
    Arkady lit a second Belomor straight from the first and filled his lungs again. Russian