"How the fuck would you know?"

"I saw you practice. You prefer ice?"

"So?"

"I bet you're wasted on the league down here."

"So?"

"Just an observation."

Dymtrus pushed his hair back. "So what? What do you know about ice hockey?"

"Not much. I know people."

"Like who?"

"Wayne Gretzky." Arkady had heard of Wayne Gretzky.

"You know him? Fuck! Do you think he'd ever come down here?"

"To Chernobyl? No. You'd have to go to Moscow."

"He could see me there?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"But he might? I'm big and I'm fast and I'm willing to kill."

"That's an unbeatable combination."

"So he might?"

"We'll see."

A Dymtrus with a more positive frame of mind got to his feet. "Okay, we'll see. Could I have my gun back?"

"No. That's my guarantee that I will meet Katamay. You get your gun back after."

"What if I need it?"

"Stay out of trouble."

Feeling in a better frame of mind himself, Arkady rode to the café, where he found Bobby Hoffman and Yakov working on black coffee in the absence of a kosher kitchen.

"I figured it out," Bobby told Arkady. "If Yakov's father was here when they sank the ferry full of Jews, and that was 1919, 1920, that makes Yakov over eighty. I didn't know he was that old."

"He seems to know his business."

"He wrote the book. But you look at him and think, All this guy wants is to sit in a beach chair in Tel Aviv, take a nap and quietly expire. How are you feeling, Renko?"

Yakov raised a basilisks gaze. "He's fine."

"I'm fine," Arkady said. Despite the accumulation of bruises, he was.

Yakov was tidy, like a pensioner dressed to feed the birds, but Bobbys face and clothes were corrugated from lack of sleep, and his hand was swollen.

"What happened?"

"Bees." Bobby shrugged it off. "I don't mind bees. So what about Obodovsky, what's he doing in Kiev?"

"Anton is doing what you'd expect someone of his stature to do when he's visiting his hometown. He's showing off money and a girl."

"The dental hygienist?"

"That's right. We're not in Russia. Neither Victor nor I have any authority to pick him up or question him."

Bobby whispered, "I don't want him questioned, I want him dead. You can do that anywhere. I'm out on a very long limb here. And nothing is happening. My two Russian cops are taking tea, visiting the malls. I give you Kuzmitch, you don't want him. You see Obodovsky, you can't touch him. This is why you don't get paid, because you don't produce."

"Coffee." Yakov brought Arkady a cup. There was no waiter.

"And Yakov, here, he prays all night. Oils his gun and prays. You two are a pair."

Arkady said, "Yesterday you were patient."

"Today I'm shitting a brick."

"Then tell me what you were doing here last year."

"It's none of your business." Bobby leaned to look out the window. "Rain, radiation, leaky roofs. It's getting to me."

A militia car swung into the space beside Yakov's battered Nissan, and Captain Marchenko emerged slowly, perhaps posing for a painting called The Cossack at Dawn, Arkady thought. A lot of things had escaped Marchenko's notice-a slit throat, tire treads and footprints at a murder scene-but the Zone's two newest residents had caught the captain's eye. The captain entered the café and affected friendly surprise at the sight of Bobby and company, like a man who sees a lamb and the possibility of lamb chops. He came immediately to the table.

"Do I see visitors? Renko, please introduce me to your friends."

Arkady looked at Bobby, asking in a silent way what name he would care to offer.

Yakov stepped in. "I am Yitschak Brodsky, and my colleague is Chaim Weitzman. Please, Mr. Weitzman speaks only Hebrew and English."

"No Ukrainian? Not even Russian?"

"I interpret."

"And you, Renko, do you speak Hebrew or English?"

"A little English."

"You would," the captain said, as if it were a black mark. "Friends of yours?"

Arkady improvised. "Weitzman is a friend of a friend. He knew I was here, but he came to see the Jewish grave."

"And stayed overnight not one night but two, without informing the militia. I talked to Vanko." Marchenko turned to Yakov. "May I see your passports, please?" The captain studied them closely, to underline his authority. He cleared his throat. "Excellent. You know, I often say we should make our Jewish visitors especially welcome."

"Are there other visitors?" Arkady asked.

There was an answer-specialists in toxic sites-but Marchenko maintained a smile, and when he handed back the passports he added a business card.

"Mr. Brodsky, please take my card, which has my office phone and fax. If you call me first, I can organize much better accommodations, and perhaps a day visit for a much larger group, strictly supervised because of radiation, naturally. Late summer is good. Strawberry season." If the captain expected an effusive response from Yakov, he didn't get it. "Anyway, let's hope the rain is over. Let's hope we don't need Noah and his ark, right? Well, gentlemen, a pleasure. Renko, you weren't going anywhere, were you?"

"No."

"I didn't think so."

As the captain climbed into his car, Bobby waved and muttered, "Asshole."

Arkady asked, "Bobby, how many passports do you have?"

"Enough."

"Good, because the captain's brain is like a closet light that sometimes lights and sometimes doesn't. This time it didn't; the next time it might, and he'll connect Timofeyev and me and you. He'll check on your papers or call Ozhogin. He has the colonel's number. It might be wise to go now."

"We'll wait. By the way, Noah was an asshole, too."

"Why Noah?" Arkady asked. This was a new indictment.

"He didn't argue."

"Noah should have argued?"

Yakov explained, "Abraham argues with God not to kill everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses pleads with God not to kill worshippers of the golden calf. But God tells Noah to build a boat because He's going to flood the entire world, and what does Noah say? Not a word."

"Not a word," said Bobby, "and saves the minimum. What a bastard."

Perhaps Eva had gone to the Panasenkos' to give Roman a physical examination, but the cow had gotten out during the storm and trampled the vegetable garden, and Maria and Eva were in the middle of trying to resurrect what they could when Arkady arrived and joined in. The air was hot and humid, the ground damp and baked and oozing humors, and each step produced a sharp scent of crushed mint or chamomile.

The old couple had laid out their garden in straight-as-a-string rows of beets, potatoes, cabbage, onion, garlic and dill, the necessities of life; celery, parsley, mustard and horseradish, the savor of life; buffalo grass for vodka and poppies for bread, everything chopped by the cow into muck. The root vegetables had to be rebedded and the greens salvaged. Where water pooled, Roman shaped drainage with a hoe.

Maria wore a shawl around her head and around her waist a second shawl to hold what she picked. Eva had laid aside her lab coat and shoes to work barefoot in a T-shirt and shorts, no scarf.

They worked separate rows, digging their hands into the mud and freeing the greens or replanting root vegetables tops up. The women were faster and more efficient. Arkady hadn't worked in a garden since he was a boy, and that was just at the dacha to keep him out of the way. The neighbors-Nina on her crutch, Olga squinting through her glasses, Klara with Viking braids-came to witness. From the general interest and the size of the lot, it became clear that Roman and Maria fed the entire population of the village. Maria could have pulled a small train behind her, the way she leaned in to the work and smiled with satisfaction in it, except when she looked up from strangling red-veined greens of beets to gaze on Roman.