Potboiler

“Akha,” Fyothor said. He grunted as he sat down in a plastic chair. “I apologize. It was not my intention to disturb you. I assumed that you, as a foreigner, would be more accustomed to such things. But perhaps I am wrong.” He sighed and rubbed his face, then smiled tiredly. “Well, friend. My secret is now yours.”

Pfefferkorn, coming around, pointed to his ear and then to the wall.

Fyothor shook his head. “Not here. Besides, it is not them I worry about. It is my neighbors, friends, family. Jaromir’s mother is old. It would kill her to find out.”

Jaromir brought three steaming mugs of tea. He handed them out and sat on the floor near Fyothor. Fyothor laid his hand comfortably on Jaromir’s brawny shoulder. Jaromir’s hand went up to meet it. Their fingers laced and stayed that way as Pfefferkorn told them what he needed to do. He finished talking and fell silent and then he waited for a response. Fyothor’s eyes were focused on an imaginary point in the distance. Jaromir was likewise expressionless. Pfefferkorn feared that he had asked too much. He was betting the chance to save his life and Carlotta’s life against all of their lives, and he was getting poor odds. Action heroism was not a rational undertaking. He was far too preoccupied to wonder if that might make an interesting premise for a novel.

Suddenly Fyothor pushed himself out of the chair and went into the next room. A moment later he could be heard talking on the phone. Pfefferkorn offered Jaromir an apologetic smile.

“Sorry to disturb you like this,” Pfefferkorn said.

Jaromir growled and waved him off.

“Have you been together a long time?” Pfefferkorn asked.

Jaromir held up all ten fingers, then one more.

“Wow,” Pfefferkorn said. “That’s just great. Mazel tov.”

Jaromir smiled.

“And, eh. What is it you do?”

Jaromir growled as he searched for the word. He smiled and snapped his fingers. “Semen,” he said.

Fyothor came back with a slip of paper. “She is here.”

Pfefferkorn looked at the address.

“This is the Metropole,” he said.

Fyothor nodded.

Pfefferkorn looked at the room number. It was four higher than his old room number.

“Be at the harbor no later than three,” Fyothor said. “Jaromir sails at dawn.”

Pfefferkorn looked at Jaromir. “Ah,” he said. “Right. Seaman.”

“He told you this?” Fyothor chided Jaromir in Zlabian. “He is the captain.”

Jaromir shrugged modestly.

Pfefferkorn shook Jaromir’s hand and thanked them both. Fyothor embraced him and walked him to the door. Before he let him out, he said, “Tell me, friend. Is it true that in America men can walk down the street together, free of shame?”

Pfefferkorn looked him in the eye. “I’m not American,” he said. “But that’s what I’ve heard.”

103.

The night was gauzy and moist. At that hour there were few pedestrians other than soldiers. Preparations for the festival were coming along. The sidewalks had been swept. Bright banners rippled and snapped. Aluminum barricades lined the parade route. Pfefferkorn guessed that there would be a good deal more pomp than usual, owing to the momentous nature of the anniversary. To avoid attracting attention, he stuck to side streets and kept a medium pace. He put his head down, his hands in his pockets, and his faith in his moustache.

Typically during the day there was a line of troikas waiting outside the Metropole, but now he found the block deserted except for a lone soldier lighting a cigarette. The solider glanced at Pfefferkorn incuriously before taking his first drag and looking off in another direction. As Pfefferkorn approached the hotel’s glass doors he spied the night clerk engrossed in a magazine. He decided to go for it. He crossed the lobby, making a beeline for the elevator. He was almost there when the clerk called out in Zlabian. “Excuse me.”

Pfefferkorn froze.

The clerk ordered him to turn around.

Pfefferkorn put on an indignant face and marched to the desk. “Uiy muyiegho lyubvimogo uimzhtvyienno otzhtalyiy zhtarzhyegoh bvrudhu ghlizhtiy,” he snapped.

The clerk was understandably startled by this outburst. Pfefferkorn would have been startled, too, by a comprehensively moustachioed man in a goatherd’s outfit yelling at him that his beloved and mentally retarded older brother had tapeworms.