Part 39 (1/2)

”It is never explained,” Daniella said, thinking now of something Uncle Vadim told her when her mother had died. ”That is an impossibility. It is, rather, resolved.”

”Resolved?” He said it as if he had never heard of the word before.

”Yes,” Daniella said. ”In one's own mind. A kind of inner peace. An ending to the hurt.”

Maluta closed his eyes for a moment. His lips seemed to move as if he were murmuring a prayer. Or perhaps it was only a momentary trembling. ”I see,” he said at last. ”An inner peace.” This last was said in the peculiar tone of voice reserved for uttering such concepts as ”A hundred billion rubles,” that were both personally un.o.btainable and difficult to grasp. ”Then you sleep at night.”

”What?”

”Do you sleep at night?” Maluta asked.

”Yes.”

”And do you dream?”

”Sometimes.”

”Only sometimes,” he said wistfully. ”I dream all the time.” He turned away, put on music. Tchaikovsky. Swan Lake.

Clouds had broken apart and there was moonlight on the Moskva. Daniella could almost imagine the alchemical transformation of animal into human that had so bewitched Tchaikovsky's hunter. They sold their souls to you.

Daniella crossed to the sideboard. The record player, an outdated affair so different from the one Lantin had bought to play his black-market foreign pressings, was crowded along its top with framed photographs of Maluta as a young man, as a boy with his mother and father, with his mother alone, lifted onto her broad shoulder as she laughed into his startled face. Behind them, two rows of well-bound books, foreign editions.

In a sterling-silver frame, a young woman who might have been his sister except for the obvious age of the photograph, looked at the camera, wide-eyed, unafraid, even with a bit of aggression to which Daniella could relate. Beside this studied portrait was a snapshot in a similar silver frame. It was of a dark-haired Georgian beauty with the typically wide, flat-planed face with powerful cheekbones and jawline. Her coal-black eyes dominated an already strong, almost haunting face. Daniella had never seen a picture of Oleg Maluta's wife but she was certain that this was the woman.

”Oreanda,” she said, quite without thinking.

Maluta s.n.a.t.c.hed the photograph out of her hand, tilted it away as if even by looking at it she would sully its pristine nature.

”She was quite a handsome woman,” Daniella said, wondering how far she could take this.

Maluta grunted. He put the photo face down beside the bar as if it meant nothing to him. ”It is late. Time we were saying our good nights.” But he did not move and Daniella remained where she was. All she need do was reach out and pick up the snapshot of Oreanda Maluta, burnt to a crisp in a conflagration of mysterious origin that ravaged the first dacha built on this parcel of land.

Daniella saw in her mind the woman's countenance, so full of strength and an almost regal bearing. One saw that rarely in Russian women. She wondered again whether Oreanda was the key to Oleg Maluta.

”I'm not tired,” she said. ”If you don't mind, I'd prefer to stay here and read for a while.”

”Do you wish a book? I have an extensive library of Russian authors.”

”I brought my own, thank you,” Daniella said. ”The Marquis deSade.” She put aside her tea. ”Do you know his creation, Justine?” She watched his face carefully. This was one of the volumes she had seen on the shelf here. She could hardly believe it was his kind of reading; Crime and Punishment was more his style. Had it been Oreanda's?

Maluta's eyes had narrowed. ”What do you know about me?” They have conferred to you on bended knee a ”You picked that t.i.tle. I do not believe in coincidence.” a all that made them powerful, ”Who have you been talking to? There is no one who knows about Oreanda. No one but myself.”

”Then that answers the question.” Daniella kept her voice light, a small smile on her face. She was on the right path, she saw it in his breathing. ”I have spoken to no one about your wife.”

”Yet you know!” Grabbing her wrist, as if by this gesture he could wrench the knowledge out of her.

”I know how beautiful Oreanda was. How strong”

”Strong, yes. Strong. So unlike a female personality.”

She had only meant her face but had allowed him to finish the thought she had begun. This was turning into a psychological interrogation. It was a matter now of feeding him the right cues, of fanning the fire that had already begun.

”There could never be another woman like her,” Daniella said softly. She was very close. They key was to remain near him, proximity equaling intimacy in this equation. ”She was special. So special.”

”Special.” His eyes opened wide. ”Oh, yes, she was special. She was a world unto herself. She was like Justine.” A fierce, cold light emanating from his face that Daniella struggled to decipher. ”Everything changes when I return to Moscow. I can breathe again. After her tears flow, after the moonlight disappears from the Moskva, after the air clears and the rain settles the dust onto the pavement.”

She recalled his earlier questions concerning faith, G.o.d. ”Your love for her will never die.”

”No, no, no!” He was suddenly wild, his grip on her wrist painful. ”Oreanda!” Calling her name. Not in love and remembrance but rather in anger and in fear. ”It is she who will never die. Never, never, never!”

”But she is dead, Comrade, Oreanda is nine years dead.”

Those eyes fevered even in the brightest light. ”Burnt up, black as night. I saw the corpse, even as they pulled it out of the wreckage, the skeletal arm falling away at the socket, the eyeless skull staring up at me, mocking. Was it her? Was it Oreanda?”

”The coroner's office must have checked. There had to be a positive I.D. for the death certificate to be issued. Dental records.”

His head bobbed. ”Dental records, yes. That was how it was done. It was Oreanda. The coroner had no doubt.”

”Then she is dead, Comrade. What”

”No!” Maluta shouted her down. ”She is here! I built this for her. She made me build it for her, on the same spot!”

Then Daniella knew, it all fell into place: Maluta's almost schizophrenic behavior, the uncontrollable bouts of rage, the malicious hatred of women, of her, his torturing her, his saying, They sold their souls to you, bowed their heads before you. How wrong she had been!

This was the magic he had conferred upon her: the power that had resided in Oreanda, the power that made him hate her fully as much as he must have loved her; the power that had chained him, Everything changes when I return to Moscow. I can breathe again.

Had he set the fire that had killed her? Had Oleg Maluta murdered his beloved wife? She was determined to find out.

Took his hand, saying, ”You're wrong, Oleg,” the first time that she had used his given name. ”Oreanda is gone, gone, gone.” Drew his hand inward to the juncture of her thighs. ”This is what remains.” Then to the bulge in his groin. ”And this.” Felt it growing and put her thumb and forefinger around its tip. Twisted her wrist and his hand fell away, freeing her.

Slipped to her knees, deftly undid his trousers. Took him out, slipped her lips over the semihard member. Bathing him in warmth until she felt his own heat rising. Then she began to use her tongue, swiping it along the length, curling it as she went. Fluttering it against the underside of the head until she felt the powerful muscles along the insides of his thighs begin to jump and convulse. Then she stopped.

Stood up in front of him.

”What” he said, almost gasping. ”What are you doing?”

”Starting?” she said. ”Or stopping?” Her half-open lips were wet, s.h.i.+ny with saliva and his own precoital fluids.

He gave a s.h.i.+ver. Of antic.i.p.ation or of fear?

”Stopping,” he said in a shaky voice.

She put the flat of her hand over his heart, could feel the thunder of its beat. ”I can't go on,” she said. ”Oreanda wouldn't like it. You're her husband, her lover. You're hers alone.”

He s.h.i.+vered once more, his eyelids fluttering closed. ”I can breathe again,” he whispered.

”The moonlight on the Moskva,” Daniella said in his ear, thenlicked it with the tip of her tongue. All the while the tip of his p.e.n.i.s was grinding into the palm of her hand. Grazed her fingernails at its base.

”I can breathe again,” he coughed.