Now she understood it all: Klim’s wife had left him for a millionaire, but she hadn’t enjoyed living with her new husband and had started meeting her ex-husband again.

Galina wondered if Mr. Reich knew Klim Rogov was bringing pineapples to his wife?

When she got home, Galina went straight to see her neighbor, Mitrofanych.

“I need everything you have in the archives on Nina Reich,” she said. “Nina Kupina and Nina Reich are the same person.”

Mitrofanych brightened up at her words. “And what do I get in return?”

After a pause, Galina began to undo the buttons of her blouse.

2

Drachenblut placed a pile of sealed packages of banknotes before Oscar.

“There are ten thousand dollars here, and all the numbers have been recorded. Pass this money to Seibert when you’re in Berlin.”

“So, Seibert has decided to work for the OGPU?” Oscar asked in surprise, putting the notes away in his briefcase.

“Seibert is desperate—he’s completely high and dry. He’ll be working in secret, picking out journalists for us who will write encouraging articles about the USSR. We need to have positive press coverage. The Canadians are doing everything they can to disrupt our consignments to Germany. They want to sell timber to the Germans themselves, but their transport costs are higher than ours. So, they’re pushing the idea that it’s risky and unethical to do business with us. But with a bit of help from Seibert, we’ll get the better of them in no time.”

“Whatever you say.” Oscar found it amusing that Drachenblut claimed to be waging war on capitalism, but that when it came down to business, he behaved like a hard-nosed trader trying to cut himself a fat profit.

When he got home, Oscar saw a pale-faced woman with auburn hair waiting at his gate.

“Ask that woman what she wants,” he instructed his chauffeur.

The driver lowered the window, but without waiting, the woman ran up to the car and began to speak in perfect English.

“Mr. Reich, I have something to tell you about your wife.”

Oscar flinched. Nina had run away while he had been out of the country, and all his efforts to trace her had come to nothing. He had found it hard to accept that the fortune of Baron Bremer, which had been almost within his reach, had eluded him. But what could he do?

He asked the strange woman into his car while he made his chauffeur wait outside.

“Do you know where my wife is?” he asked.

The woman nodded and took a pile of papers from a carrier bag.

“Look at this,” she said. “This is the certificate from the civil registration office where you and Nina Bremer were married. And this here is a note from the police archives which states that Nina Bremer is receiving compulsory treatment at the Kashchenko psychiatric clinic.”

Oscar stared at the piece of paper. On it was a stamp that read “Certified to be a true and correct copy.” According to the document, Nina Bremer had been admitted to the hospital in January 1928.

“But that’s impossible,” he said, bewildered. “Nina was with me all that time.”

“The woman who was with you was a commoner from Nizhny Novgorod by the name of Nina Vasilievna Kupina. Here’s a photograph of her.”

The woman showed Oscar a picture. On the back of it was a scored-out inscription “Nina Kupina,” and below that, somebody had written “Mrs. Reich.”

“This young lady has been using somebody else’s name,” the woman said.

“Do you know where she is now?” asked Oscar.

“She’s taking driving lessons at the Red Army Club.”

Long after the woman had left, Oscar sat, motionless, staring at the leather back of the seat in front of him.

“Mr. Reich, are we going somewhere else?” asked the chauffeur,

Oscar looked at him vaguely. “Do you know the way to the Red Army Club?”

3

Kapitolina had had a fight with her machine operator, and for two days now, she had been sitting sobbing in the kitchen.

“I told him we need pillows with feathers. How are we supposed to sleep with no pillows? And he says to me, ‘If that’s the kind of thing you’re wanting, you can go marry Rockefella.’” Kapitolina looked up at Klim, her eyes brimming with tears. “What do you think, sir? How can I get to know this Rockefella? I don’t suppose he’d make a fuss over a couple of pillows, would he?”

Klim poured Kapitolina glass after glass of milk and tried to reassure her that the pillow crisis would soon be over.

He was late for his lesson that day. There was a raid on black market traders, and there were roadblocks on all the surrounding roads manned by army trainees.

When Klim got to the Red Army Club, he saw a crowd of curious onlookers gathered around an ambulance. As he watched, two medical orderlies took a body covered with a sheet on board and pulled the doors shut.

“You just missed a domestic scene that turned nasty,” one of the driving students told Klim. “We were all in the garage, and all of a sudden, Nina’s husband came in, demanding to talk to her.”

“She just went for him with a crank handle,” piped up Andrei, who shared a desk with Nina in class. “Then we heard yelling.”

Klim looked toward the ambulance. “Did he kill her?”

“No. It was her who knocked him over the head. We come running, and there he was lying there all covered in blood with the crank handle next to him. Reckon he’s lucky to be alive.”

“And where’s Nina?”

“She ran off. She wasn’t going to hang around to get arrested.”

A policeman appeared on the porch, leading an enormous Alsatian.

“Go find it, Dinah. Go find it!” he urged, thrusting Nina’s white shawl under the dog’s nose.

The Alsatian made a sudden rush at Klim, who jumped back.

“What are you doing, Dinah?” the policeman cried, dragging the dog away. “It’s a woman we’re after!”

Klim walked away. So, Reich had tracked down Nina, and now the entire Moscow criminal investigation department was on her trail.

4

“Can I come in for a minute?” Zharkov put his head around the door of Alov’s office.

Alov sighed. He knew what was coming next. Zharkov would start tempting him with all sorts of foreign rubbish, and he would not be able to resist. He always bought something for Dunya.

Zharkov closed the door behind him.

“I’ve just come from the personnel department,” he said. “You know what I saw on the desk? Your work chart. And next to your name was a note: ‘From nobility.’”

Alov felt a familiar spasm in his lungs. “But many of our top brass are from the nobility… and that means—”

“Don’t argue with me and listen!” Zharkov cut him short. “Haven’t you read the latest directive? All the departmental bosses have been told to cut staff and get rid of idlers. We’re all on an economy drive right now, so you’d do well to weed out some of your coworkers. If not, they’ll give you hell for setting up a ‘nest of gentlefolk.’”

Alov was racked by an uncontrollable fit of coughing. Zharkov rummaged in the pockets of his voluminous trousers and brought out a small candy tin. “Here. Have a mint drop.”

Alov shook his head. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine….”

He folded his arms on the desk and put his head down on them. He felt a little better in that position.

Zharkov clapped him on the back sympathetically. “This purge has got me running scared too, you know. I asked Drachenblut to send me off to Europe while it’s going on, but he won’t hear of it. ‘The OGPU is founded on the principle of equality,’ he told me. ‘The purge has the potential to affect every one of us.’”

Alov, his head still hidden, smiled bitterly. There was no equality to speak of in the OGPU. Some stayed in their jobs, even though they were from the nobility while others lost their livelihoods for the same reason. Some worked like dogs while others were sent off to live abroad with full board and lodging and a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a month. No endless meetings for them or “voluntary donations” to the aviation society, and no purges either.

“How about we have a drink in the canteen?” suggested Zharkov. “My treat.”

Alov nodded. He was not fool enough to refuse such a generous offer. The price of vodka had just gone up by 60 kopecks.

5

On his return from the canteen, Alov sat for some time at his desk, trying to gather his thoughts.

The purge was to take place on November 12th, and he had very little time left. Everyone would ask him about his achievements. What could he tell them?

Zharkov was right. Alov’s aristocratic roots might turn out very badly for him. He was bound to be accused of class-based cronyism and of trying to protect “socially similar elements.”

But which employees could he get rid of? All the staff members in his department were vital.
Alov called Diana Mikhailovna into his office and asked her what members of staff she thought he should dismiss. She became agitated, talking about Anya the translator who had a young child and about Nikolai Petrovich who had bad knees.

“If he loses his job, it will be the end of him,” she fretted.

At that point, the telephone rang. “Off you go now,” said Alov, waving Diana Mikhailovna out of the room, but she refused to budge.

“Comrade Alov,” she said in a pitiful voice, “you’re not going to dismiss me, are you? I have children too.”

“If it was up to me, I wouldn’t get rid of anyone,” he told her. “You’re all too valuable to the organization for that.”

Diana Mikhailovna beamed. “Thank you!” she said and ran from the room.