WE CAUSED QUITE A STIR ON THE STREETS OF VASILY THAT DAY. THE YELLOW TRUCK AND JEEP DREW ATTENTION ON THEIR OWN, BECAUSE SO little gasoline was available that most villagers had gone back to using horses and carts.
But when three men tied together half stumbled, half fell out of the back of the truck, with four guns aimed at them, people seemed to appear from nowhere to stare in wonder.
Three policemen rushed out of the front door of the station to greet and assist us. “What happened?” asked the gray-haired police captain I remembered from our last visit.
Dimitri smiled proudly. “This good mother and her fine sons captured these dog thieves through their quick wits and bravery.”
“And me, too!” cried Rina.
“Forgive me, princess. How could I have forgotten you?”
“Dog thieves,” the captain said with some skepticism. “I didn’t know there were any dogs left to steal.”
“Have a look for yourself,” Dimitri answered, opening the back of the van. The policemen looked shocked as they gaped at the dozen or more cages and their cargo of scared, silent dogs.
“My goodness,” the captain whispered, taking off his hat and scratching his head. “Who do they all belong to? Where could they have gotten them from?”
“That’s for you to figure out, my friend,” Dimitri said, slapping him on the back good-naturedly. “Now where do you want these three?”
The captain refocused on us, which was a relief because my arms had held up a gun for just about as long as they were able.
“Oh, oh,” he said, slightly flustered, “bring them this way. Ivan, you and I will go first. Lev, you follow behind. Make sure no one gets away.” I almost laughed, wondering how far he thought they’d get tied together like three monkeys.
Once we were inside, the policemen briefly questioned each man, then took them to one of the two cells in the back, out of sight. Dimitri wrote a statement of events for the police captain.
I noticed the captain reading, frowning, looking up at me, and then continuing with his reading. The time for telling the whole truth was upon me. If the captain didn’t know the whole story, I was sure much of what he read in Dimitri’s statement wouldn’t make sense. I had turned to look for Nikolai when I saw Irina coming through the door with a woman I didn’t recognize. She was an older countrywoman with a worn face and a scarf covering her head. Even though it was July, she wore a warm coat that fell past her knees.
“Oh, no,” I said aloud, and looked at the clock high on the wall in the back of the room. It was noon. I’d completely forgotten that I was to meet with Irina and Petr’s wife.
“Mikhail, hello!” Irina greeted me. “I see you brought your whole family. How nice.”
“Well, I, you see …”
“This is Mrs. Gribovich, Petr’s wife.”
“I am very pleased to meet you,” I said, slightly bowing my head. She didn’t answer, but smiled just enough that I could see she was missing some of her teeth. My heart was so heavy, I walked like the dead when I followed Irina and Petr’s wife over to a table.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” I heard the captain tell Irina, “just as soon as I’ve finished here.” Irina, Petr’s wife, and I sat down to wait.
“This is the young man who found your husband,” Irina said kindly, touching the woman’s arm. Mrs. Gribovich reached in her pocket, pulled out a rumpled handkerchief, and pressed it firmly against her right eye and then her left.
“Thank you,” she said so softly I almost couldn’t hear her.
This was the moment when I had to tell her about Zasha, too. It was now the time to let go of a creature I had come to love as I loved my family; the bond was undeniable, unbreakable. I opened my mouth to speak, but Irina beat me to it.
“I don’t know if you want to look at this now,” she said, pulling something from a large satchel. “But the police let me take a picture of Petr. We didn’t know who he was then, and we were going to make hand-bills with his picture on them to see if anyone could identify him.”
Mrs. Gribovich nodded and pressed again at the tears in her eyes. Very gently, slowly, Irina pulled a black-and-white picture of Petr from a large envelope. She handed it to Mrs. Gribovich. “This is for you to keep.”
Petr’s wife stared at it for a long time. “Who is this?”
“What?” Irina asked.
“Who is this man?”
“That’s Petr. Your husband,” Irina answered, sounding confused.
Petr’s wife held the photo in her left hand and slapped it with her right. “This is not Petr. You said you found my Petr.”
“But the name Petr Gribovich was sewn in his coat with your address. That’s how I found you.”
“This is not my husband!” she said loudly. “Don’t you think I’d recognize him? Someone must have stolen his coat. Or maybe he sold it.”
“Sold it?” I said.
Mrs. Gribovich looked up at me, and then at Irina. “Petr liked his vodka. He was always selling our things to get some.”
Irina looked dumbfounded. “I am so sorry. I should never have jumped to the conclusion that just because the name was in his coat he was —”
“But he told us his name was Petr,” I said, feeling bad for her. Irina shook her head and closed her eyes. “That could have been his name, too, or — maybe he bought the coat, as Mrs. Gribovich said, and pretended to be its owner for reasons we’ll never know.”
Irina smiled at me appreciatively. “Thank you, Mikhail.” She sighed. “I should have been more careful; I got carried away by my own cleverness. I apologize again, Mrs. Gribovich. I am so very sorry.”
“When did you last see your husband?” I asked her.
“About three and a half years ago.”
“Why did he leave?”
“He was going to try to cross the ice road to Leningrad. His sister was there. He wanted to get her out.”
Even I knew what this meant. She would probably never see her husband again. The Germans had surrounded Leningrad for two and a half years. Although some supplies and people did make it in and out on the frozen waters of Lake Ladoga, many more had been starved or killed.
“Have you reported him missing?” Irina asked.
“No. Everyone in our village knows he’s gone.”
“Let’s give that information to our police captain, just in case.”
“I’ll get him,” I said, and walked quickly over to his desk. But I had something very different in mind.