Free Red Chameleon by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page A

happened to him?”
    â€œThey left, said they were going to America. Who knows? We were supposed to be friends, but they ran like cowards.”
    â€œThey should have stayed,” Rostnikov agreed.
    â€œTo make vests?” said the old man.
    â€œTo fight the Nazis,” Rostnikov answered.
    â€œWho knew in 1920 the Nazis were coming?” the old man said, looking at his feebleminded police guest.
    â€œWho knew?” Rostnikov agreed. “And the fourth man?”
    Pashkov shrugged and shivered. “I don’t know.”
    Rostnikov was sure, however, that the man did know. His face had paled, and he had folded his hands on his lap. His arthritic fingers had held each other to keep from trembling.
    â€œYou are Jewish,” Rostnikov said.
    â€œAh,” Yuri said, laughing. “I knew it was coming. It always comes. I fought. This village fought. And you people come and—”
    â€œThe four of you were Jewish?” Rostnikov said, stepping in front of the old man and cutting off his view of the factory.
    â€œSome of us still are,” Pashkov said defiantly. “Those of us who are alive, at least one, me.” He pointed a gnarled finger at his own chest.
    â€œThe fourth man,” Rostnikov repeated. “Who is he?”
    â€œI forget,” Pashkov said, showing yellow teeth barely rooted to his gums.
    â€œYou forget nothing,” Rostnikov said, looking down.
    â€œI forget what I must forget. I’m a very old man.”
    â€œA name,” Rostnikov said, and then softly added, “My wife is Jewish.”
    â€œYou lie, comrade policeman,” the old man said.
    Rostnikov reached into his back pocket with a grunt, removed his wallet, and fished through it till he found the picture of Sarah and his identification papers. He handed them to the old man.
    â€œYou could have prepared these just to fool me?” he said, handing the photograph and papers back to the man who blocked his view of the loved and hated factory.
    â€œI could have,” Rostnikov agreed. “But I didn’t, and you know I didn’t.”
    â€œI know,” Pashkov said, painfully rising, using the side of the house to help him to a level of near dignity. “He was not a pleasant boy.”
    â€œAnd you are afraid?”
    â€œVests,” Yuri Pashkov spat, coming to a decision. “His name was Shmuel Prensky. Beyond that I know nothing. He cooperated with the Stalinist pishers who came here in, I don’t know, 1930, ’31. He helped them. … I have nothing more to say.”
    â€œYou were afraid of him?” Rostnikov said, stepping out of the man’s line of sight.
    â€œI’m still afraid of him,” Yuri whispered. “May you carry my damnation for bringing his name and memory back to me, for reminding me of those dark eyes that betrayed his own people. I damn you for bringing that photograph.”
    Rostnikov stepped back and let the trembling man return to his chair and to his thoughts of useless vests and distant Italians wearing them.
    There was nothing more to say. Rostnikov had two names now, and if Sofiya Savitskaya was right in her identification, the name of the killer of her father was Mikhail Posniky.
    â€œThe other man in the photograph,” Rostnikov tried, hoping to catch the old man before he was completely lost. “The little man with the smile in the photograph.”
    â€œLev, Lev Ostrovsky,” Yuri answered, sighing. “The clown, the actor.”
    â€œActor?”
    â€œHe stayed through the troubles and moved to Moscow.” The word Moscow came out like the spit of a dry, dirty word. “He left to become an actor. His father had been the rabbi here. But we had no need for rabbis or the sons of rabbis when Shmuel Prensky and his friends …”
    He never finished the sentence. His eyes closed and then his mouth, hiding what little remained of lips. The sun was hot and high, and Rostnikov