Potboiler

“You’ve only got a couple of days left.”

“I’m aware of that,” he said. He shuffled the pages anxiously. “Do you, eh, have any suggestions for where to go from here?”

“I’m not a writer,” she said. “I just know what I like.”

He tried to hide his disappointment. “Well. I appreciate the constructive criticism.”

She nodded.

He hesitated before asking what she thought her husband would think.

She shrugged. “He’ll love it.”

Pfefferkorn relaxed. “Really?”

“Dragomir’s not a very tough critic. Certainly not as tough as I am. And he’s primed to think anything you do is genius.”

“Well,” Pfefferkorn said, “that’s good.”

“It won’t matter,” she said. “He’s still going to kill you before the festival.”

“. . . really.”

She nodded.

“I . . . wasn’t aware of that.”

“He thinks it’s more dramatic that way. Living writers lack a certain romance.”

“. . . mm.”

“You’ll be making him very happy,” she said. “He’s dreamed of this his entire life.”

Pfefferkorn said nothing.

“What’s that?” she asked.

He followed her gaze to the desk. The letters he had written were stacked up where he had left them.

“May I?” she asked.

His first instinct was to say no.

“Knock yourself out,” he said.

While Zhulk’s wife read the letters, Pfefferkorn for the hundredth time contemplated assaulting her. If it was true that Zhulk was going to kill him soon, this might be one of his last chances to escape. He did the visualization. Grab the chain, wrap it around her neck, pull it tight, put a knee into her back. His heart began to pound. His palms were sweaty. He readied himself. He didn’t move. He couldn’t. All that training, he thought. What a waste.

She finished reading and looked up. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes red-rimmed. She folded the letters neatly and put them back on the desk.

“You’re a good writer when you want to be,” she said.

There was a silence.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

There was a silence.

“Of course I’m unhappy,” she said.

He said nothing.

“I can’t have children,” she said.

There was a silence.

“I’m so sorry,” Pfefferkorn said.

She wiped her eyes on her apron. She began to laugh. It was a dirty, strident sound, full of disappointment and expecting more to come. She clutched the apron in her fist. “Can you believe he makes me wear this.”

Pfefferkorn smiled.

“I’m the wife of the goddamned prime minister.” She shook her head and laughed again and looked at him. She stepped forward. He could smell the same rancid soap she brought him to bathe with. He could smell cheap cosmetics. Her lips were chapped and parted. She leaned in as if to kiss him. His body tensed.

“Come with me,” she said, “if you want to live.”

99.

The chain had prevented him from seeing too far beyond the cell bars. He didn’t know what to expect when he stepped through the door. What he saw underwhelmed him. It was an ordinary concrete hallway, about eight feet long. At the far end was a plain wooden door.

“What about the guards?” he whispered.

“There are no guards,” she said.

She opened the wooden door. It wasn’t locked. On the other side was a square concrete antechamber. In front of him was a spiral staircase—nothing glamorous, just a narrow twist of steel ascending through a shaft bored in the ceiling. To his right were two more wooden doors. To his left was a third. It was a far cry from the dystopian holding pen he had envisioned.

“What about the alarm?” he whispered.

“There’s no alarm. And you don’t have to whisper.”

She opened the first of the doors on her right. It was a storage room, about ten feet on a side. Utilitarian wire shelving lined three walls. Pfefferkorn saw packs of one-ply toilet tissue, stacks of Hôtel Metropole linens, a carton of soap, more reams of writing paper, more boxes of pens. A crepey white jumpsuit hung from a hook. The wheelbarrow was propped in the corner. Zhulk’s wife got down on her knees, reached under one of the bottom shelves, and dragged out his wheelie bag. She stood it upright and invited him to take possession of it.

Pfefferkorn opened the bag. Incredibly, its contents were untouched. He looked at Zhulk’s wife. She shrugged.

“Dragomir doesn’t like to throw anything away,” she said.

She covered her eyes while he changed into the Zlabian goatherd’s outfit. It was comfortable, with the exception of the six-inch heels, which felt too unstable for a prison break. He kicked them off and put the straw slippers back on. He presented himself for inspection.

“Close enough,” she said.

He put the deodorant stun gun in one pocket and the toothbrush switchblade in the other. In his back pockets he put the dubnium polymer soap and the designer eau de cologne solvent. He tucked the roll of cash and the untraceable cell phone into his socks. He put his false passport in his underwear. “Don’t forget these,” she said, handing him his unsendable letters and his unfinished ending to Vassily Nabochka. He slid them in along with the soap. He was trying to decide what to do with the tin of breath mints when she put out her hand.