Free The Perfect Landscape by Ragna Sigurðardóttir Page A

afternoon. The gallery is enormous; it is in a new building in the city center right next to thePushkin Museum. It currently houses an exhibit of contemporary Russian artists alongside Icelandic artists. Many delegates from the conference attended the opening, but Hrafn talked almost exclusively to Vasya. Not about business, but about the family. Hrafn told him he was expecting his third child. Vasya talked about his wife’s illness. Hrafn asked if there was anything he could do, offered to cover the medical costs at a private clinic in America, but Vasya refused.
    The evening is wearing on, and the banker’s wife sitting next to Hrafn is tired and tipsy. She has tried various topics of conversation with Hrafn with little success before discovering that he is a horseman. They have something in common. Hrafn listens politely as she talks about her horses and her riding.
    “So you obviously don’t eat horse meat, do you?” she asks, leaning in toward him, somewhat red-eyed with tousled hair and circles under her eyes. Her husband watches her out of the corner of his eye. But Hrafn is not interested in this woman or in talking to her about horses; he is contemplating moving so he can talk to Mariya and Larisa.
    “Only fillet,” he says, pushing his chair from the table in order to extricate himself from this gathering and move away. He hears the banker’s wife repeating his words to her husband.
    “He’s hardly likely to eat his own horses,” replies the husband, and then their words are drowned out in the general babble.
    “Mr. Arnason? Mr. Arnason!” Mariya calls to him, and Hrafn walks over to her and takes her outstretched hand. She shakes his hand warmly, too warmly in Hrafn’s view, and too long. He is curious but says nothing.
    “This is Larisa,” says Mariya without further explanation. “We’re off to a private party. Come and join us.” At this Larisa obediently gets up from the table, up from the dessert, profiteroles—choux pastry filled with whipped cream—which are just being served. The cream puffs are shaped like swans, and Mariya reaches out for one, biting off its head and smiling up at Hrafn.
    “I hear you’re an art collector,” she says in her stiff English with a marked accent, stuffing the remains of the swan into her mouth. “The minister told me. I must show you my private collection.”
    Hrafn allows himself to be led away from the table without saying good-bye to his fellow diners, who are still drinking; he makes do with patting Stanislav lightly on the shoulder. He is relieved to get away; he finds eating and drinking with people he has no interest in getting to know a waste of time. He has already got all he needs in life. But he can’t resist a business opportunity and is sure that getting to know Mariya, or Masha as she has asked him to call her, will provide new breaks into the Russian market, although he doesn’t yet know what sort. She is well connected at any rate.
    On their way out Masha signals to two men who are about to follow them. Speaking in undertones, she says something in Russian, and they shake their heads but let the matter drop. They look like bodyguards. Larisa takes Hrafn’s arm and smiles without saying anything. She is blonde with brown eyes and has a dimple in her heart-shaped face. They go out of the back entrance and into a black car waiting there; the windows are tinted.
    Hrafn loses his sense of direction almost immediately and doesn’t know where they are. For a second he sees lit-upbuildings reflected in the Moscow River,
Reka Moskva
, then for some time the car winds its way along poorly lit back streets. Hrafn feels Larisa’s hand resting gently on his knee. He doesn’t react; he is waiting to see how this will turn out. The car comes to a standstill outside a block of flats on a side street. Mariya and Larisa quickly jump out, and Hrafn follows them. The car glides away, virtually silent. Masha gets out her key, which she slips into the