Moscow Rules (11 page)

but now, sixty years after the war, the flag of German industrial might flew proudly from one of the city’s

most prestigious landmarks.

Gabriel gave his map another pointless glance as he set out across the Moskvoretsky Bridge.

Crimson-and-black banners of the ruling Russian Unity Party hung from the lampposts, swaying drunkenly

in the warm breeze. At the opposite end of the bridge, the Russian president smiled disagreeably at

Gabriel from a billboard three stories in height. He was scheduled to face the Russian “electorate,” such

that it was, for the fourth time at the end of the summer. There was little suspense about the outcome; the

president had long ago purged Russia of dangerous democratic tendencies, and the officially sanctioned

opposition parties were now little more than useful idiots. The smiling man on the billboard was the new

tsar in everything but name-and one with imperial ambitions at that.

On the other side of the river lay the pleasant quarter known as Zamoskvoreche. Spared the

architectural terror of Stalin’s replanning, the district had retained some of the atmosphere of nineteenth-

century Moscow. Gabriel walked past flaking imperial houses and onion-domed churches until he came to

the walled compound at Bolshaya Ordynka 56. The plaque at the gate read EMBASSY OF ISRAEL in

English, Russian, and Hebrew. Gabriel held his credentials up to the fish-eye lens of the camera and

heard the electronic dead-bolt locks immediately snap open. As he stepped into the compound, he glanced

over his shoulder and saw a man in a car across the street raise a camera and blatantly snap a photograph.

Apparently, the FSB knew about the ambassador’s dinner party and intended to intimidate the guests as

they arrived and departed.

The compound was cramped and drab, with a cluster of featureless buildings standing around a

central courtyard. A youthful security guard-who was not a security guard at all but an Office field agent

attached to Moscow Station-greeted Gabriel cordially by his cover name and escorted him into the foyer

of the small apartment building that housed most of the embassy’s personnel. The ambassador was

waiting on the top-floor landing as Gabriel stepped off the lift. A polished career diplomat whom Gabriel

had seen only in photographs, he threw his arms around Gabriel and gave him two thunderous claps

between the shoulder blades that no FSB transmitter could fail to detect. “Natan!” he shouted, as though to

a deaf uncle. “My God! Is it really you? You look as though you’ve been traveling an age. St. Petersburg

surely wasn’t as bad as all that.” He thrust a glass of tepid champagne into Gabriel’s hand and cast him

adrift. “As usual, Natan, you’re the last to arrive. Mingle with the masses. We’ll chat later after you’ve

had a chance to say hello to everyone. I want to hear all about your dreadful conference.”

Gabriel hoisted his most affable diplomatic smile and, glass in hand, waded into the noisy smoke-

filled sitting room.

He met a famous violinist who was now the leader of a ragtag opposition party called the Coalition

for a Free Russia.

He met a playwright who had revived the time-tested art of Russian allegory to carefully criticize the

new regime.

He met a filmmaker who had recently won a major human rights award in the West for a

documentary about the gulag.

He met a woman who had been confined to an insane asylum because she had dared to carry a

placard across Red Square calling for democracy in Russia.

He met an unrepentant Bolshevik who thought the only way to save Russia was to restore the

dictatorship of the proletariat and burn the oligarchs at the stake.

He met a fossilized dissident from the Brezhnev era who had been raised from the near dead to wage

one last futile campaign for Russian freedom.

He met a brave essayist who had been nearly beaten to death by a band of Unity Party Youth.

And finally, ten minutes after his arrival, he introduced himself to a reporter from
Moskovsky

Gazeta,
who, owing to the murders of two colleagues, had recently been promoted to the post of acting

editor in chief. She wore a black sleeveless dress and a silver locket around her neck. The bangles on her

wrist clattered like wind chimes as she extended her hand toward Gabriel and gave him a melancholy

smile. “How do you do, Mr. Golani,” she said primly in English. “My name is Olga Sukhova.”

The photograph Uzi Navot had shown him a week earlier in Jerusalem had not done justice to Olga’s

beauty. With translucent eyes and long, narrow features, she looked to Gabriel like a Russian icon come

to life. He was seated at her right during dinner but managed only a few brief exchanges of conversation,

largely because the documentary filmmaker monopolized her attention with a shot-by-shot description of

his latest work. With no place to take shelter, Gabriel found himself in the clutches of the ancient

dissident, who treated him to a lecture on the history of Russian political opposition dating back to the

days of the tsars. As the waiters cleared the dessert plates, Olga gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’m

afraid I feel a cigarette coming on,” she said. “Would you care to join me?”

They rose from the table together under the crestfallen gaze of the filmmaker and stepped onto the

ambassador’s small terrace. It was empty and in semidarkness; in the distance loomed one of the “the

Seven Sisters,” the monstrous Stalinist towers that still dominated the Moscow skyline. “ Europe ’s tallest

apartment building,” she said without enthusiasm. “Everything in Russia has to be the biggest, the tallest,

the fastest, or the most valuable. We cannot live as normal people.” Her lighter flared. “Is this your first

time in Russia, Mr. Golani?”

“Yes,” he answered truthfully.

“And what brings you to our country?”

You
, he answered truthfully again, but only to himself. Aloud, he said that he had been drafted on

short notice to attend the UNESCO conference in St. Petersburg. And for the next several minutes he

spoke glowingly of his achievements, until he could see that she was bored. He glanced over his shoulder,

into the ambassador’s dining room, and saw no movement to indicate that their moment of privacy was

about to be interrupted anytime soon.

“We have a common acquaintance,” he said. “Actually, we
had
a common acquaintance. I’m afraid

he’s no longer alive.”

She lifted the cigarette to her lips and held it there as though it were a shield protecting her from

harm. “And who might that be?” she asked in her schoolgirl English.

“Boris Ostrovsky,” Gabriel said calmly.

Her gaze was blank. The ember of her cigarette was trembling slightly in the half-light. “And how

were you acquainted with Boris Ostrovsky?” she asked guardedly.

“I was in St. Peter’s Basilica when he was murdered.”

He gazed directly into the iconic face, assessing whether the fear he saw there was authentic or a

forgery. Deciding it was indeed genuine, he pressed on.

“I was the reason he came to Rome in the first place. I held him while he died.”

She folded her arms defensively. “I’m sorry, Mr. Golani, but you are making me extremely

uncomfortable.”

“Boris wanted to tell me something, Miss Sukhova. He was killed before he could do that. I need to

know what it was. And I think you may know the answer.”

“I’m afraid you were misled. No one on the staff knew what Boris was doing in Rome.”

“We know he had information, Miss Sukhova. Information that was too dangerous to publish here.

Information about a threat of some sort. A threat to the West and Israel.”

She glanced through the open doorway into the dining room. “I suppose this evening was all staged

for my benefit. You wanted to meet me somewhere you thought the FSB wouldn’t be listening and so you

threw a party on my behalf and lured me here with promises of an exclusive story.” She placed her hand

suggestively on his forearm and leaned close. Her voice, when she spoke again, was little more than a

whisper. “You should know that the FSB is
always
listening, Mr. Golani. In fact, two of the guests your

embassy invited here tonight are on the FSB payroll.”

She released his arm and moved away. Then her face brightened suddenly, like a lost child

glimpsing her mother. Gabriel turned and saw the filmmaker advancing toward them, with two other

guests in his wake. Cigarettes were ignited, drinks were fetched, and within a few moments they were all

four conversing in rapid Russian as though Mr. Golani was not there. Gabriel was convinced he had

overplayed his hand and that Olga was now forever lost to him, but as he turned to leave he felt her hand

once more upon his arm.

“The answer is yes,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You asked whether I would be willing to give you a tour of Moscow tomorrow. And the answer is

yes. Where are you staying?”

“At the Savoy.”

“It’s the most thoroughly bugged hotel in Moscow.” She smiled. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

14 NOVODEVICHY CEMETERY

She wanted to take him to a cemetery. To understand Russia today, she said, you must first know her

past. And to know her past, you had to walk among her bones.

She telephoned the Savoy the first time at ten and suggested they meet at noon. A short time later she

called again to say that, due to an unforeseen complication at the office, she would not be able to meet him

until three. Gabriel, playing the role of Natan Golani, spent much of the day touring the Kremlin and the

Tretyakov Gallery. Then, at 2:45, he stepped onto the escalator of the Lubyanka Metro station and rode it

down into the warm Moscow earth. A train waited in the murky light of the platform; he stepped on board

as the doors rattled closed and took hold of the overhead handrail as the carriage lurched forward. His

FSB minder had managed to secure the only empty seat. He was fiddling with his iPod, symbol of the

New Russian man, while an old babushka in a black headscarf looked on in bewilderment.

They rode six stops to Sportivnaya. The watcher emerged into the hazy sunlight first and went to the

left. Gabriel turned to the right and entered a chaotic outdoor market of wobbly kiosks and trestle tables

piled high with cheap goods from the former republics of central Asia. At the opposite end of the market a

band of Unity Party Youth was chanting slogans and handing out election leaflets. One of them, a not-so-

youthful man in his early thirties, was trailing a few steps behind Gabriel as he arrived at the entrance of

the Novodevichy Cemetery.

On the other side of the gate stood a small redbrick flower shop. Olga Sukhova was waiting outside

the doorway, a bouquet of carnations in her arms. “Your timing is impeccable, Mr. Golani.” She kissed

Gabriel formally on both cheeks and smiled warmly. “Come with me. I think you’re going to find this

fascinating.”

She led him up a shaded footpath lined with tall elm and spruce. The graves were on either side:

small plots surrounded by iron fences; tall sculpted monuments; redbrick niche walls covered in pale

moss. The atmosphere was parklike and tranquil, a reprieve from the chaos of the city. For a moment,

Gabriel was almost able to forget they were being followed.

“The cemetery used to be inside the Novodevichy Convent, but at the turn of the last century the

Church decided that there were too many burials taking place inside the monastery’s walls so they created

this place.” She spoke to him in English, at tour guide level, loudly enough so that those around them

could hear. “It’s the closest thing we have to a national cemetery-other than the Kremlin wall, of course.

Playwrights and poets, monsters and murderers: they all lie together here in Novodevichy. One can only

imagine what they talk about at night when the gates are closed and the visitors all leave.” She stopped

before a tall gray monument with a pile of wilted red roses at its base. "Do you like Chekhov, Mr.

Golani?”

"Who doesn’t?”

“He was one of the first to be buried here.” She took him by the elbow. “Come, I’ll show you some

more.”

They drifted slowly together along a footpath strewn with fallen leaves. On a parallel pathway, the

watcher who had been handing out leaflets in the market was now feigning excessive interest in the grave

of a renowned Russian mathematician. A few feet away stood a woman with a beige anorak tied around

her waist. In her right hand was a digital camera, pointed directly at Gabriel and Olga.

“You were followed here.” She gave him a sideways glance. “But, then, I suppose you already know

that, don’t you, Mr. Golani? Or should I call you Mr. Allon?”

“My name is Natan Golani. I work for the Israeli Ministry of Culture.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Golani.”

She managed a smile. She was dressed casually in a snug-fitting black pullover and a pair of blue

jeans. Her pale hair was pulled straight back from her forehead and secured by a clasp at the nape of her