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"Don't move house-we could lose touch. "
"I'm not going anywhere, big brother. "
They had not discussed whether Katerina, too, would eventually come to America. Grigori had left it to Lev to raise the subject, but he had not. Grigori did not know whether to hope or dread that Lev would want to bring her.
Lev took Katerina's arm and said: "We have to go now. "
Grigori was surprised. "Where are you off to at this time of night?"
"I'm meeting Trofim. "
Trofim was a minor member of the Vyalov family. "Why do you have to see him tonight?"
Lev winked. "Never mind. We'll be back before morning-in plenty of time to take you to Gutuyevsky Island. " This was where the transatlantic steamers docked.
"All right," said Grigori. "Don't do anything dangerous," he added, knowing it was pointless.
Lev waved gaily and disappeared.
It was almost midnight. Grigori said his good-byes. Several of his friends wept, but he did not know whether it was from sorrow or just booze. He walked back to the house with some of the girls, and they all kissed him in the hall. Then he went to his room.
His secondhand cardboard suitcase stood on the table. Though small, it was half-empty. He was taking shirts, underwear, and his chess set. He had only one pair of boots. He had not accumulated much in the nine years since his mother died.
Before going to bed, he looked in the cupboard where Lev kept his revolver, a Belgian-made Nagant M1895. He saw, with a sinking feeling, that the gun was not in its usual place.
He unlatched the window so that he would not have to get out of bed to open it when Lev came in.
Lying awake, listening to the familiar thunder of passing trains, he wondered what it would be like, four thousand miles from here. He had lived with Lev all his life, and he had been a substitute mother and father. From tomorrow, he would not know when Lev was out all night and carrying a gun. Would it be a relief, or would he worry more?
As always, Grigori woke at five. His ship sailed at eight, and the dock was an hour's walk. He had plenty of time.
Lev had not come home.
Grigori washed his hands and face. Looking in a broken shard of mirror, he trimmed his mustache and beard with a pair of kitchen scissors. Then he put his best suit on. He would leave his other suit behind for Lev.
He was heating a pan of porridge on the fire when he heard a loud knocking at the door of the house.
It was sure to be bad news. Friends stood outside and shouted; only the authorities knocked. Grigori put on his cap, then stepped into the hall and looked down the staircase. The landlady was admitting two men in the black-and-green uniforms of the police. Looking more carefully, Grigori recognized the podgy moon-shaped face of Mikhail Pinsky and the small ratlike head of his sidekick, Ilya Kozlov.
He thought fast. Obviously someone in the house was suspected of a crime. The likeliest culprit was Lev. Whether it was Lev or another boarder, everyone in the building would be interrogated. The two cops would remember the incident back in February when Grigori had rescued Katerina from them, and they would seize the opportunity of arresting Grigori.
And Grigori would miss his ship.
The dreadful thought paralyzed him. To miss the ship! After all the saving and waiting and longing for this day. No, he thought; no, I won't let it happen.
He ducked back into his room as the two policemen started up the stairs. It would be no use to plead with them-quite the reverse: if Pinsky discovered that Grigori was about to emigrate he would take even more pleasure in keeping him incarcerated. Grigori would not even have a chance to cash his ticket and get the money back. All those years of saving would be wasted.
He had to flee.
He scanned the tiny room frantically. It had one door and one window. He would have to go out the way Lev came in at night. He looked out: the backyard was empty. The St. Petersburg police were brutal, but no one had ever accused them of being smart, and it had not occurred to Pinsky and Kozlov to cover the rear of the house. Perhaps they knew there was no exit from the yard except across the railway-but a railway line was not much of a barrier to a desperate man.
Grigori heard shouts and cries from the girls' room next door: the police had gone there firs
t.
He patted the breast of his jacket. His ticket, papers, and money were in his pocket. All the rest of his worldly possessions were already packed in the cardboard suitcase.
Picking up his suitcase, he leaned as far as he could out of the window. He held the case out and threw it. It landed flat and seemed undamaged.
