Babayaga

back. “I’ve got to run, meeting up with Aga Kahn and a Hollywood friend of his for a game of bridge this evening. Do you play?”
    “No, I’m more of a euchre guy.”
    “Yes, you mentioned that. Shame, really, we’re in desperate need of a fourth. Look, I’ll ring you at the office tomorrow and set up a time for us to visit the Arc. Sound good?”
    Oliver didn’t wait for a response but instead bounded off the curb into a waiting cab. Watching the car whisk Oliver away, it occurred to Will that he had wasted an entire day on this wandering journey, and instead of finding answers about the missing file, the missing knife, or even the missing small lesbian, all he had discovered of any note was a very large and very dead Russian. It did not feel like progress.
    Will had no umbrella, and as he looked down the street for a cab, he realized that Oliver had taken what appeared to be the last unoccupied taxi in Paris. So instead, Will endured a long, humid, and stuffy journey in the metro, pressed in shoulder-tight among stoic businessmen, sleepy clerks, and pale, long-faced tradesmen all heading home. An impressive, and pungent, range of body odors filled the metro car and the stout woman Will found himself shoved up against wore an overbearing perfume that somehow only accentuated the various smells instead of masking them. It was a reminder that there were a few aspects of the city he did not entirely adore. He distracted himself by recalling the night he met Zoya on the metro. He remembered her little smudge of a black eye, how surprising it had been when she had spoken to him, and how he’d thought about asking her out for a drink but hadn’t, because he’d been too tired. He suspected that would be the single scene he took home with him as his mental postcard of Paris, the memory of talking with a pretty girl alone at night on an empty train.
    When he climbed back up to the street he found the weather had gotten worse. He trudged the rest of the way to his apartment building, with the percussive drizzle of the cold rain hitting hard against his hat as the cold, chilling water soaked into his clothes.
    Inside his lobby, he found a small card tucked into the corner of his letterbox. The message was simple and concise: Je voudrais vous voir . Rencontrez-moi au Novy à 20:00. —Zoya . As he looked down at it, the raindrops dripping down off his brim blurred the ink. He stood wondering in disbelief. How did she find his address? And why? What did she want with him? A warm vigor pulsed in his blood and he smiled to himself, at that moment especially delighted not to be playing bridge with Oliver, Aga Kahn, and his Hollywood friend.
    XV

    The owner of the Novy loved to work the crowd. He would come out from the kitchen belting out old folk songs from Little Russia, energetically coaxing the diners to sing along with his happy choruses about love and spring. Zoya liked it here; it felt sentimental. She drank a glass of water and waited. He would come, she was certain of that. The plan was working like clockwork, for after so many years she knew all the mechanics of this sort of clock. There were plenty of times when she did not use what Elga called “the decoy duck,” when she simply went home with a Leon, or stayed with the soldier who grabbed at her ass, or let the bookseller have her in the shadowed back stalls; she judged each man as he came. But this Will was one who needed a rival like Oliver to make the gears mesh. She had already jarred him out of his ordinary rhythm of going drink to drink and girl to girl, and now she would be more to him than simply another catch.
    She knew too she would have to be careful that he did not fall too hard. Overly devoted men could be trouble, often the worst. She always sought to be kept, but never owned. It was a fine line, and at times tricky to navigate. But if their hearts became too enflamed or driven to obsession, well, a carriage accident or cholera could take care of that.
    She came out of her thoughts when she saw Will come into the restaurant. She found herself happily waving to him, surprised at how pleased she was to see his face. She knew a kernel of absurdity lay at the center of this cycle—fascination, flirtation, enticement, passion, satisfaction, and then, well, the wheel always turned. But there was no reason to be restrained in her joy: knowing winter is returning only makes the spring that much more wonderful. But she knew too that it was not