Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith

kind.”
    “She bought them regularly?”
    “She was an active girl.”
    “Who with?”
    “Who not? She wasn’t a slut necessarily; she didn’t take money; she didn’t like to be obligated.
She
did the choosing. A modern woman. Aha!” He tossed a condom on the good pile. “Quality is on the upswing.”
    “Is this really where the country is headed?” Arkady asked. “A nation of entrepreneurs happily sorting out condoms, cars, designer furniture?”
    “What’s wrong with that?”
    “Gogol’s great vision of Russia was of a troika madly dashing through the snow, sparks flying, the other nations of the earth watching in awe. Yours is of a car trunk stuffed with stereo equipment.”
    Gury sniffed. “I’m thinking in new ways. Clearly you’re not.”
    “Who were Zina’s friends?” Arkady asked.
    “Men. She slept with you; then she wouldn’t sleep with you again, but she didn’t hurt your feelings.”
    “Women?”
    “She got along with Susan. You’ve talked to her?”
    “Yes.”
    “Fantastic, isn’t she?”
    “Okay.”
    “She’s beautiful. You know how sometimes after a ship passes the wake will glow with a bioluminescence? Sometimes when I’ve just missed seeing her on the ship there will be that glow.”
    “ ‘Bioluminescence’? Maybe you could bottle it and sell it.”
    “You know,” Gury said, “there’s a hardness in you I worry about. Finding out you were an investigator has made me see you with new eyes. Like there’s someone else inside you. Look, I just want to make money. The Soviet Union is about to leave the nineteenth century, and there are going to be—” He found he was waving a condom as he spoke, laid it down and sighed. “Everything’sgoing to be different. You were such a help to me with those books. If we could combine them with the inspirational words of the Party …”
    In spite of himself, Arkady knew the clichés. They had poured from the Party like a rain of stones, rising to the ankles, to the knees. “Like, working class, vanguard of restructuring, both broadening and deepening ideological and moral victory?”
    “Exactly. But not the
way
you say it. I believe in restructuring.” Gury found he was waving a condom again. “Anyway, don’t you think we should leave stagnation and corruption behind?” He caught Arkady’s glance at the tub. “Well, I wouldn’t call this corruption—not real corruption. Brezhnev’s daughter was smuggling diamonds, having orgies, fucking a gypsy.
That’s
corruption.”
    “Zina had no special man?”
    “You’re starting to sound like an investigator, that’s the scary part.” Gury tested another condom. “I told you, she was very democratic. She was different from other women. Let me give you some advice. Find out what they want to hear and then give it to them. If you get serious, Arkady, they’ll nail you like Obidin’s Christ on a cross. Lighten up.”
    Gury seemed sincerely concerned. They were cabin mates and comrades, both with troubled pasts. Now that Arkady thought about it, who was he to sneer at another man’s aspirations, given the lack of any of his own except to lie low and survive? Where did this righteousness come from? He thought he’d killed it long ago. “Okay, you’re right,” he said. “I’ll think in new ways.”
    “Good.” Relieved, Gury dunked another condom. “New and profitable ways, if possible.”
    As an experiment, Arkady gave it a try. “Say you don’t just mask the smell from the Border Guard. Take another approach. When we get back to Vladivostok, misdirectthe dogs by getting them to sniff something else. Collect some dog or cat urine and smear it on some crates.”
    “I like that,” Gury said. “The new Arkady. There’s still hope for you.”

8 It was evening when Arkady returned to the captain’s cabin. The sea-green walls gave the room a proper underwater aspect. Around the desk’s glittering collection of glasses and bottles of mineral water sat Marchuk,