Free The Sisters by Robert Littell Page B

American paperback edition of Whitman poems, with the lines they both loved, the ones about the sisters Death and Night, underlined in pencil.
    The Potter too had given in to the temptation of travelling with a security blanket. Locking up his attic workroom, he had treated himself to a last look around. It had meant a great deal to him, his workroom, especially since he didn't have an office to go to anymore. If he took something with him, he decided, it would come from here. He was sorry to leave his wheel behind-he had constructed it himself from a kit imported from Finland-but there was nothing to do about that. He would buy a new wheel in the West, an electric one maybe, whose speed was controlled with a pedal. His eye had fallen on the length of wire he used to cut his pots off the wheel. Piotr Borisovieh had made it for him with a middle A string from an old piano, and a thick piece of bamboo at each end to grip it with. On the spur of the moment, the Potter had pocketed the wire, switched off the bulb and left.
    "You are absolutely positive there is no danger?" Svetochka asked him for the hundredth time as they prepared to leave the apartment. She was wearing her highest spikes and her shortest skirt, which was her idea of how women looked in Europe.
    "There is no danger as long as you do precisely what I told you," the Potter promised her. He wondered, even as he spoke, if it were true.
    "Paris," Svetochka repeated under her breath, as if the mere mention of the word could still her doubts, calm her nerves, give her the nervous energy she needed to cross thresholds. And the Potter understood that what she carried with her from her past in order to get a hook into the future was her longing for something that, until now, she could never have.
    The little man with the shirred skin was waiting behind the wheel of the taxi parked in front of their door. Seeing the Potter and his wife, he crooked his emaciated finger in their direction. When they had settled into the back seat, he tipped his hat to them in the rearview mirror.
    The last time the Potter had seen this gesture, the little man had accompanied it with a mischievous wink. Now he exhibited all the formality of an undertaker. "I am told," he said over his shoulder, throwing the taxi into gear, drifting out into traffic, "that you are going to the Holy Land."
    Svetochka glanced quickly at the Potter, but he cut off her protest with a warning look.
    "We are not paid for what we do," the little man continued intently, "we are volunteers. Getting Jews out of Russia is God's work. I take it as an honor to be part of Oskar's organization."
    "How many have you gotten out?" the Potter asked politely.
    The little man preened behind the wheel of the taxi. "I myself have been involved in fourteen confutations before you two." He laughed self-consciously. "For reasons I have never fathomed, that is what Oskar calls it when we smuggle someone out of the country. A confutation."
    The little man's use of the word "confutation" had a calming effect on the Potter. It was a professional term, and reinforced the impression that Oskar was the professional he claimed to be. And getting out of Russia would very much depend on Oskar being a professional.
    The little man maneuvered the taxi through afternoon traffic. He drove slowly, cautiously, observing every sign, signaling every turn until he came to a light turning red. Accelerating sharply, he shot across the intersection.
    "Nicely done," the Potter observed, and he turned to look at their wake.
    Nobody was following them.
    The Potter noticed that they were heading in the opposite direction from Moscow Airport, but he said nothing. "Listen carefully," the driver called back over his shoulder. "There is a pedestrian island ahead, where the peripheric becomes Valovaya." He glanced at the dashboard clock. "We are right on schedule," exclaimed the little man. "I will pull over. You will get out and jump across the island into the taxi