Murder in Moscow (3 page)

“Yes.”

“Well, we’ll do everything we can to make your stay a pleasant one.”

“Is everyone from the group staying here?” I asked Rodier.

“Just about. A few of the Russian publishers preferred to be put up by their embassy.” He turned to Moga. “Two of them, right?”

“Right.”

“Cars will be here in an hour, Mrs. Fletcher, to take you and the others to the reception.”

“Then I’d better get to my room and put myself together.”

I was taken to a large, lovely room on a high floor at the front of the hotel, overlooking the street. The young bellhop showed me how the TV, thermostat, and other things worked. He refused a tip, saying all gratuities were being paid by our hosts. The moment he was gone, I opened my luggage and took out the clothing I planned to wear that evening. It wasn’t easy packing for this trip. We’d be away from home for two weeks, and the schedule sent to me before departure indicated there would be dozens of dressy affairs.

When I arrived in the lobby an hour later, the others had already gathered, including my American publisher of many years, Vaughan Buckley, whose Buckley House is among the industry’s most prestigious. It was always good to see him. Not only did he publish me, we’d become best of friends.

“Good to see you,” he said, crossing the lobby and kissing my cheek.

“Good to see you, too. Where’s Olga?”

“Be down in a minute.” His wife had been a top fashion model in New York before meeting and falling in love with the dashing, handsome publisher.

“This is so exciting,” I said.

“And worthwhile, Jess. Working with the Russians to build a viable publishing industry can help the country become a democracy, open it up to new ideas after all those years of censorship.”

“That is worthwhile,” I said. “Have you met the Russian publishers?”

“A few. Did Matt Miller tell you we sold rights to your new book to a Russian house?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Your Russian publisher is on the trip. Spend some time with him. I think he wants you to come to Russia next year to promote the Russian edition.”

“What’s his name?”

“Vladislav Staritova. Calls himself Vlady. A funny guy. Drinks vodka like it was water. No surprise for a Russian. He has his wife with him.”

“Great. I’ll—”

“Jessica.” Olga Buckley emerged from the elevator and gave me a hug and kiss.

“Hi,” I said. “I was just talking to Vaughan about this wonderful experience.”

“I know,” she said. “The minute he told me we’d been invited, I started preparing. I even took a crash course in Russian.”

I laughed and said, “I hope you did better than I did with mine.”

“Everyone, please, the cars are waiting,” a young man from Commerce announced.

Our limousines fell in behind two police vehicles, their lights flashing.

“I’ve never had a police escort before,” I said. “I feel like a dignitary.”

“You are,” Vaughan said. “We all are, at least for two weeks.”

“It’s a little off-putting,” Olga said. “Are we in jeopardy?”

“Of course not,” said Vaughan. “It’s just a Washington thing. A government thing.”

Fifteen minutes later we were waved through the gates of the Russian Embassy on upper Wisconsin Avenue, an imposing complex surrounded by a high steel fence. Remote TV cameras were everywhere. “It’s like an armed camp,” I whispered to Olga.

“It’s the government,” Vaughan repeated.

We stepped out of the limousines at the main entrance to the embassy, a huge monochromatic buff building. Young Russian military personnel lined the steps as the Russian ambassador to the United States and his wife descended them, welcomed us in English and Russian, and escorted us inside, where the strains of a string quartet wafted from a distant room.

While we paused in the large, circular marble foyer, I used the time to take in my colleagues. There were about thirty people, including wives of some of the publishers, and the husband of the only female publishing executive. Everyone seemed in good spirits, although the Russians looked fatigued, the result, I assumed, of their long flight to Washington. I’d probably look the same after our flight to Moscow later in the week. The chatter was a mix of English and Russian. As I looked at their faces, I had a reaction I often experience, that despite the unfortunate tendency to stereotype those who aren’t just like us, we’re all basically the same—human beings speaking different languages and of different skin colors and religious beliefs, but the same—aspiring to the same goals, feeling the same pain, laughing and crying at the same things.

I didn’t have much time to dwell on the thought because we were led from the foyer into a ballroom, where the ambassador and his wife headed a long reception line. To the musical group’s rendition of a familiar Russian melody, Mussorgsky’s
Night on Bald Mountain,
I preceded Vaughan and Olga Buckley as we progressed down the line. A young man in a tuxedo was handling the introductions. I wondered how politicians do it, shaking hundreds, even thousands of hands each day. Obviously, I was not cut out to run for elective office.

As I would quickly learn, socializing with Russians meant that vodka and caviar were never far away. I declined a drink, opting instead for sparkling bottled water, and plucked a smoked salmon on brown bread from a passing tray. Vaughan Buckley raised his glass of vodka: “To the first night of a memorable experience.” Olga and I touched rims with him.

“Mr. Buckley,” a corpulent gentleman in a tuxedo said. An equally large woman dressed in a sequined purple dress was on his arm.

“Hello, Vlady,” Vaughan said. “This is my wife, Olga. And this is your new author, Jessica Fletcher.”

Vladislav Staritova bowed and extended his hand, which I took. Mrs. Staritova smiled pleasantly.
“Dobry viecher,”
her husband said. “A sincere pleasure.”

“Oh, yes.
Dobry viecher,”
I said, remembering from my lessons with Professor Donskoy that it meant good evening. “The pleasure is mine. I’m delighted you’ll be making my book available to Russian readers.”

“And it warms my heart that it will be my publishing company that makes it possible.”

 

The party at the Russian Embassy lasted a little over an hour, not enough time to meet everyone, but a good start. I spent most of the party with Mr. and Mrs. Staritova. They were pleasant conversationalists, although as “Vlady” continued to down shots of chilled vodka served by a waiter who seemed to have become his personal valet, his speech became a little sloppy, his eyes watery. That was all right. The problem was he also increasingly felt the need to touch me to make his point, a hand on the arm or shoulder, a few attempts to hug me when he was expressing pleasure at having bought the rights to my book. I eventually found a reason to break away, and joined a knot of American publishers in another part of the room.

The limousines next took us to the National Gallery of Art for a dinner in its West Wing, where Old Masters are displayed. The East Wing, designed by famed architect I. M. Pei, houses more modem collections.

Tables had been elaborately set in a large space devoted to an exhibition of art by Russian artists whose names I didn’t know—Vrubel, Nakst, Somov, and Kustodiev—but who, I was assured, represented an important era in art created around the turn of the century in what was then the Soviet Union. Two contemporary representatives of Russia’s creative community, who’d come to Washington as special guests of the National Gallery and the Library of Congress, joined us at dinner. One, a graphic artist, was a handsome young man with jet black hair and sensuous dark brown eyes that were in constant motion. The other, a writer, was older; I judged him to be in his early sixties. He was a short man with noticeably bowed legs and unruly steel gray hair. His glasses had extremely thick lenses. I was seated next to him at dinner. His English vocabulary was good, his accent heavy. His name was Dimitri Rublev.

Seated on the other side of me was Vladislav Staritova, who insisted I call him Vlady. He continued to down vodka as though it were water, although he didn’t seem to have become more inebriated than he’d been at the Russian Embassy.

“I am flattered to be seated next to you,” the Russian writer, Rublev, said. “You are a very famous author.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I am not so famous,” he said.

“What sort of books do you write?” I asked.

“Poetry, mostly. But I have just finished a novel, my first.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“It is a murder mystery.”

“Then I’m in trouble.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’ll have to compete with you for readers.” He seemed to take me seriously. “I was only joking,” I said.

We both laughed.

“Mine is a political mystery, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“Oh? Politics as they are today in Russia, or when it was the Soviet Union?”

“It takes place in today’s Russia. The new Russia.” There was sarcasm in his tone.

I looked to Staritova, who was engaged in a conversation with his wife. I asked Rublev, “Is Mr. Staritova your publisher?”

His expression was that of having tasted sour milk. He shook his head and finished a half glass of vodka that had been sitting in front of him.

The dinner was excellent, although I made a silent pledge to go easy on meals for the duration of the trip. These next two weeks could easily undo an entire winter of exercise and healthy eating.

After dinner the curator of the Russian exhibition gave us a tour of the artwork on display. As we moved from painting to painting, I couldn’t help but be aware that there were a number of people in the large gallery space who kept an eagle-eye on us. Not unusual, of course. All major museums have large security staffs to ensure no one attempts to steal or deface a work of art. But there were plenty of uniformed guards throughout the National Gallery to see to that.

The men I noticed did not wear uniforms. And they formed two distinct groups.

One group was distinctly American, judging from their clothing, haircuts, and general demeanor. Secret Service? I wondered. No. That elite group of men and women wouldn’t be assigned to watch over a trade mission, unless the president and his inner circle were involved.

Plainclothes officers working for the National Gallery? Unlikely.

The second group was comprised of angry-looking younger men whose suits and Slavic faces indicated they were probably Russian. My assumption was that they fulfilled some sort of security role for the Russians taking part in the trade mission. In the days ahead that assumption would be verified.

My attention was diverted from them by a particular painting being discussed by the curator. “Mikhail Vrubel was a tortured artist,” he said. “Immensely talented but mad, a man obsessed with the sort of demons you see in this work. He died in nineteen-ten in an asylum after having left a copious amount of work.”

“Was he really crazy,” an American publisher asked, “or was he put in the asylum for political purposes?”

“I suppose we’ll never know,” the curator replied.

“Why do you Americans always assume the worst about us?” a Russian publisher asked the American. “What do you think, that every person committed to an asylum is a political prisoner?”

“No,” the American replied. “But you must admit you did use confinement as a way to rid the state of political dissidents.”

“Vastly exaggerated,” said the Russian, his tone hard.

“Let’s continue,” the curator said, astutely recognizing that the tension level between the two men was on the rise.

I drifted away from the group led by the curator and went to where my table companion, the writer, Dimitri Rublev, was talking with the Russian graphic artist.

“Hope I’m not interrupting something important,” I said.

“Not at all, Mrs. Fletcher,” Rublev said.

The graphic artist, whose name I never did catch, excused himself and walked away, leaving me alone with Rublev.

“What a beautiful place this is,” I said, indicating the vast gallery.

“Da.
Yes. We have many wonderful museums in Russia, too.”

“So I’ve heard. I’m anxious to visit some of them when I’m in Moscow—if they give us enough free time to do it.”

“The Pushkin is my favorite in Moscow. I hope you are also able to visit St. Petersburg. It is where I was born. The Ermitazh is a fine museum, as fine as any in the world.”

“The ... ?”

He smiled and said, “The Hermitage. Excuse me for using Russian.”

“No,” I said, “excuse me for
not
speaking Russian.”

“It is good we have this chance to converse alone, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“I’d like to hear more about your novel, Mr. Rublev.”

“That is gracious of you, Mrs. Fletcher. Perhaps at another time. I was hoping—” He looked about, as though to ensure that no one was close enough to hear. One of the unidentified men in a suit—American cut—watched us with overt interest from a corner. From another corner one of the Russians, whom I assumed was part of a security detail, also showed interest in what was transpiring.

“You were hoping—?” I said to Rublev.

“I was hoping you would do me a great favor.”

“I will if I can,” I said.

Another furtive glance about. “I have a close friend in Moscow,” he said. “A writer—very talented.”

“Oh? What’s his name?”

“That is not important for now. Please, I do not wish to be rude but—”

“You don’t need to tell me his name if you don’t wish to. I just thought—”

“No, no, please do not misunderstand. My friend ... she will one day be as famous as you.”

“Your friend is a woman.”

“Da.
She is a woman. A very beautiful one.”

“Beautiful
and
talented. That’s a potent combination.”