DOMODEDOVO AIRPORT, MOSCOW. RECENTLY MODERNIZED, BUT not so you’d notice.
It’s seven o’clock in the morning, still dark, and most of those around me have stumbled off flights from distant parts of the Federation and the territories of the former Soviet Socialist Republic: Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Tashkent, Petropavlovsk.
When I finally get to the head of the line, I’m confronted by a blue-shirted officer of the Federal Migration Service. She’s at least seventy, with gray hair molded like a bagel. She beckons me to the booth. I hand over my passport. She flicks through it till she finds the page she’s looking for.
She spends almost a minute subjecting it to microscopic scrutiny, then looks up. ‘Diplomatyeskii.’
I nod.
She places Sergeyev’s visa under a scanner. My passport had been couriered to my office the day of the V-22 crash. Molly had overseen its delivery to my apartment when she knew I wasn’t coming back. Eyes down, the passport official says something to me in Russian, and gets irritated when I don’t give an immediate answer.
‘How many … days?’
‘A week,’ I lie. I don’t want to give any impression of urgency.
She gives me the stamp. I’m in.
By the time I clear customs, I know that, as unsophisticated as everything appears, my details are already being scrutinized by the FSB.
I take the Aeroexpress and watch the sun rise over an endless succession of gray apartment blocks in Moscow’s southeast suburbs. Steam vents from roofs. Factories belch smoke into a fine muslin layer of smog. Several centimeters of snow cover the ground.
I take a short taxi ride from Paveletsky station to my hotel, the Kempinski, across the river from Red Square.
I set off across the Moskvoretsky Bridge twenty minutes later, having showered, changed and wrapped up warm. Never having been to Russia before, I spend a minute or two appreciating my surroundings. I get out my phone, take 360-degree shots of St Basil’s and the Kremlin walls, take several more of the Lenin Mausoleum and views over the Moskva River, then head to the eastern side of the square.
GUM is more a mall than a store. Its three levels are linked by escalators. Glitzy shops occupy each floor. I sit in a cafe, examine the tourist map I picked up at the hotel, then head for the restroom, enter a cubicle, lock it and sit down.
I run through every picture on my phone, expanding them as I go. Most of the people are obviously tourists. One guy isn’t. Shaved head, black jacket and gray scarf. In my first shot I caught him unawares. He’s looking straight at me. In all the others, he’s turned away. I flush the john and wash my hands.
I spot a kiosk selling what look like hotdogs by one of the main exits. The vendor tells me they’re called sasiki. I put down my map, count out fifty roubles, then sit on a stool and eat.
I exit by the nearest door, turn left, walk thirty meters, shove my hand in my pocket, make out I’ve forgotten the map and turn back.
As I step through the revolving door, the guy with the shaved head sees me, averts his eyes and keeps going, exactly as the manual has trained him to do.
I head back to the kiosk, pick up the map – josh about my forgetfulness to the sasiki-seller – and make for a different exit on the store’s north side. I dive into a large group of tourists, moving with them down Nikolskaya Street, until I spot where I need to go.
Tretyakovsky Proezd is almost deserted. Like the undead, oligarchs come out at night.
Bulgari, Armani, Graff, Tiffany, Maserati, Ferrari are all here, but they’re not what I’m looking for. I take another left into a street of perfectly restored pre-Revolution-era buildings painted in pastel shades of green and red.
The first store I come to sells icons; the second, classical paintings; the third, Russian porcelain. The sign above the doorway to the fourth reads ‘Sasha Bibliofil Moskva’. Its interior is compact and redolent with the scent of leather, mold and preservatives.
The shelves, labeled in Russian and English, are packed with hundreds of rare, second-hand and antique books. Air conditioning ensures the sub-zero conditions remain outside.
A thin, pale girl with short black hair in a figure-hugging sweater and skintight jeans is tapping on an iPad behind a desk at the far end of the room. She looks up. There’s no one else in sight.
‘Speak English?’
‘Little,’ she replies. She puts away the iPad, taking her time.
‘I’m looking for something to give to a friend. A memento.’
Her eyes narrow. A slight shake of the head.
‘A gift.’
‘This is rare bookshop.’
‘I know.’ I smile, and get nothing back.
‘So, how much you like to spend?’
‘Anything up to ten thousand.’
‘Roubles?’
‘Dollars.’
This prompts her to raise her sculpted eyebrows. She picks up the phone. A minute later, the door behind her opens.
The woman who comes through it has high cheekbones and naturally blonde hair, cut just above the shoulder. She’s wearing a floaty smock and tight white pedal-pushers and her eyeglasses hang from a chain around her neck. Attractive, in her late forties, she’s wearing no more than a hint of make-up.
‘May I help?’ Her English has little trace of an accent. ‘I am the owner. Anya tells me you’re looking for something rare.’
‘Yes. A gift for a friend.’
‘You’re American?’
I nod.
‘And you want a Russian book?’
‘My friend doesn’t speak it, sadly.’
‘A translation, then? Of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Grossman, Solzhenitsyn? We have many. What kind of stories interest your … friend?’
‘Universal themes. Complex characters. I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Joshua Cain.’
I extend my hand. She shakes it. Her palm is cold.
‘Sasha,’ she replies. A hesitant smile. ‘But this does not help me narrow the list. Russian literature, Mister Cain, is founded on universal themes and complex characters. But maybe I do have something. And it will not cost you the fortune that you mentioned.’
‘No?’
‘No. The state does not permit the export of books over a hundred years old without a special permit. Since you don’t know that, I’m assuming you are not a collector. Are you here on business?’
‘In a sense, yes.’
‘What, if I may ask, does your friend do?’
‘He’s a psychiatrist. An eminent professor.’
‘Then this is good.’
‘It is?’
‘Da. I have just received a copy of Lermontov’s A Hero Of Our Time. The first edition of a 1958 translation by Nabokov. If your friend likes Russia, classical literature, and is American, then this maybe has everything that you – or he – might be looking for. Particularly if psychiatry is his specialism.’
‘Have you read it?’
‘Of course.’
‘And?’
‘The central character is indeed complex. He is highly calculating and manipulative, yet also cynical and sensitive.’
‘Are we supposed to like him?’
‘That is a matter of perspective.’ She pauses. ‘You think these are the kinds of themes that might appeal?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps. If I could just see the book …’
She turns to Anya. They exchange a few short words. The girl opens the top drawer of the desk, removes a pair of white gloves, opens the door and disappears.
The sound of her footsteps recedes.
‘You have a reference section, I see.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d be interested in taking a look.’
‘For your friend? Or for you?’
‘For my friend, of course.’
‘Then you will need to tell me a little more about him.’
‘His passion is the study of consciousness.’
‘I see.’ She pauses. ‘What is it that you do, Mister Cain?’
‘I’m a physician and a psychiatrist.’
‘I’m sorry. Doctor Cain. Then you must have views on this too.’
‘I’m familiar with the territory, yes.’
‘I come from a scientific family myself,’ she says. ‘My father was an academic. And this subject was very close to his heart. So, please, I am interested. Tell me.’
I cast myself back to TVB and our fireside chats.
‘Where does the mind originate? Is it a by-product merely of brain chemistry? If so, what is memory? How do we store it? Does memory reside within us? Does consciousness? Or does it come from somewhere else? And, I guess, the truly big question: does consciousness persist after we die?’
‘Tell me, Doctor Cain, have you lost someone close to you?’
Before I can answer, a door opens and closes somewhere downstairs.
Footsteps. Anya on her way back up.
Sasha turns to me. ‘Doctor Cain, what is it that really brings you to my shop?’
Anya reappears, clasping the Lermontov in her gloved hands. She picks up on the electricity, glances at us both.
She and her boss hold a short, whispered discussion. Then, without a word to me, Sasha turns and walks from the room.
‘Miss Mikhailovna says to tell you that she regrets she has no books that are of interest to you or to your friend. So as not to waste any more time, she says for you please not to come back.’