Page 29

The forest he chose was just off the great Minsk Highway where the trucks rolled and growled west toward the capital of Belarus. He rode into the wood, parked his bicycle by a tree, took his rush basket, and set off through the wood.
It was half an hour, with his basket half full and the sun just rising, that his dog whined and headed into a clump of shrubs. He had trained the mutt to sniff out mushrooms, so clearly he had found something good.
As he neared the spot he caught the sweet sickly odor. He knew that smell. Had he not smelt it enough, years before as a teenage soldier all the way from the Vistula to Berlin?
The body had been dumped, or had crawled there and died. It was a scrawny old man, massively discolored, eyes and mouth open. The birds had had the eyes. Three steel teeth glinted with dew. The body was stripped to the waist but an old overcoat was in a heap nearby. Gennadi sniffed again. In that heat, it told him, several days.
He pondered for a while. He was of the generation that recalled civic duty, but mushrooms were still mushrooms, and there was nothing he could do for the fellow. A hundred yards away through the forest he could hear the rumble of the trucks on the road from Moscow to Minsk.
He finished filling his mushroom basket and pedaled back to his village. There he put his crop out to dry in the sun and reported to the small and ramshackle selsovet, the local council office. It was not much, but it had a phone.
He dialed 02 and the call was taken by the police central control office.
“I’ve found a body,” he said.
“Name?” said the voice.
“How the hell should I know? He’s dead.”
“Not his, idiot, yours.”
“Do you want me to hang up?” said Gennadi.
There was a sigh.
“No, don’t hang up. Just give me your name and your location.”
Gennadi did so. The control office quickly checked the place on the map. It was just inside the Moscow City Region—Oblast—in the extreme west but still in Moscow’s jurisdiction.
“Wait at the selsovet. An officer will come out to see you.”
Gennadi waited. It took half an hour. When he came he was a young inspector from the uniformed branch. There were two other militiamen and they came in the usual yellow-and-blue Uzhgorod jeep-type vehicle.
“You the one who found the body?” asked the lieutenant.
“Yes,” said Gennadi.
“All right let’s go. Where is it?”
“In the woods.”
Gennadi felt quite important riding along in a police jeep. They dismounted where Gennadi suggested and set off in single file through the trees. The mushroom picker recognized the birch where he had left his bicycle, and his trail from there on. Soon they smelled the odor.
“He’s in there,” said Gennadi, pointing to the clump. “He doesn’t half stink. Been there awhile.”
The three policemen approached the body and examined it visually.
“See if there’s anything in the trouser pockets,” said the officer to one of his men. To the other, “Check out the greatcoat.”
The one who had drawn the short straw held his nose and ran his spare hand through both trouser pockets. Nothing. With his toecap he turned the body over. There were maggots underneath. He checked the rear trouser pockets and stood back. He shook his head. The other threw down the overcoat and did the same.
“Nothing? No ID at all?” asked the lieutenant.
“Nothing. No coins, handkerchief, keys, papers.”
“Hit and run?” suggested one of the policemen.
They listened to the rumble from the highway.