Moscow Rules

plentiful food and clothing, and trips abroad to other Warsaw Pact countries. Yet nothing in her charmed upbringing could have prepared her for the extravagance of life with Ivan. Homes such as this did not exist, she had been told as a child, not only by the Soviet system but by an orthodox father who kept faith with communism even when it was clear the emperor truly had no clothes. Elena realized now that she had been lied to her entire life, first by her father and now by her husband. Ivan liked to pretend this grand palace by the sea was a reward for his capitalist ingenuity and hard work. In truth, it had been acquired through corruption and connectionsto the old order. And it was awash in blood. Some nights, in her dreams, she saw the blood. It flowed in rivers along the endless marble corridors and spilled like waterfalls down the grand staircases. The blood shed by men wielding Ivan’s weapons. The blood of children forced to fight in Ivan’s wars.
     
     
    Anna reappeared, a breakfast tray balanced precariously in her hands. She placed it on the bed next to Elena and took great pleasure in pointing out its contents: a bowl of café au lait, two slices of toasted baguette, butter, fresh strawberry preserves, copies of the Financial Times and the Herald Tribune. Then she kissed Elena’s cheek and departed. Elena quickly drank half the coffee, hoping the caffeine would act as an antidote to her headache, and devoured the first slice of the toast. For some reason, she was unusually hungry. A glance at the clock on her bedside table told her why. It was nearly noon.
     
     
    She slowly finished the rest of the coffee while her headache gradually receded. With its departure, she was granted a sudden clarity of vision. She thought of the woman she knew as Sarah Crawford. And of Mikhail. And of the man who had painted such a beautiful forgery of Two Children on a Beach by Mary Cassatt. She did not know precisely who they were; she only knew that she had no choice but to join them. For the innocent who might die, she told herself now. For Russia. For herself.
     
     
    For the children . . .
     
     
    Another gust of wind stirred the long curtains. This time, it brought the sound of Ivan’s voice. Elena wrapped herself in a silk robe and walked onto the terrace overlooking the swimming pool and the sea. Ivan was supervising the cleanup of the storm damage, barking orders at the groundskeepers like the foreman of a chain gang. Elena slipped back inside before he could see her and quickly entered the large sunlit chamber he used as his informal upstairs office. Though the rules of their marriage were largely unspoken, this room, like all of Ivan’s offices, was a forbidden zone for both Elena and the children. He had been there already that morning; it was evident in the stench of cologne that hung on the air and the morning headlines from Moscow scrolling across the screen of the computer. Two identical mobile phones lay on the leather blotter, power lights winking. In violation of all marital decrees, spoken and unspoken, she picked up one of the phones and clicked to the directory of the ten most recently dialed numbers. One number appeared three times: 3064006. With another click of a button, she dialed it again now. Ten seconds later, a female voice in French answered: “Good morning. Carlton Hotel. How may I direct your call?”
     
     
    “Yekatarina Mazurov.”
     
     
    “One moment, please.”
     
     
    Then, two rings later, another female voice: younger than the first, Russian instead of French.
     
     
    “Ivan, darling, is that you? I thought you would never call. Can I come with you on the trip, or is Elena going to be with you? Ivan . . . What’s wrong . . . Answer me, Ivan . . .”
     
     
    Elena calmly terminated the call. Then, from behind her, came another voice: Russian, male, taut with quiet rage.
     
     
    “What are you doing in here?”
     
     
    She spun round, telephone still in her hand, and saw Ivan standing in the doorway.
     
     
    “I told my mother I would call her this morning.”
     
     
    He walked over and removed the phone from her grasp, then reached into the pocket of his trousers and handed her another. “Use this one,” he ordered without explanation.
     
     
    “What difference does it make which phone I use?”
     
     
    Ignoring her question, he inspected the surface of the desk to see if anything else had been disturbed. “You slept late,” he said, as if pointing out