Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva had reached the shallow end and was now wading through the last several feet, trying without success to repair the broken strap with one hand as she held the suit top with the other.
Max, who had been lying on the tiles recuperating from his ordeal, stood up and eyed her curiously.
As Svetlana marched past him, he shook to free himself of the water in his fur. The fur of a Bouvier des Flandres holds an astonishing amount of water.
As Svetlana jumped out of the way, the right side of her bathing suit bottom slipped off her right buttock and bunched up in the valley between the opposing buttocks, exposing to view a pink, fleshy orb that put into the shadows all other orbs Castillo had seen here and there in his lifetime.
She pushed and pulled the cloth back into place while marching with what dignity she could muster toward the house.
Castillo felt a stirring in his groin.
Down, boy, down!
If there was ever a really off-limits female, there it is, walking on those lovely long legs into the house!
VII
[ONE]
Nuestra Pequena Casa
Mayerling Country Club
Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
1905 29 December 2005
Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky was the first of the Russians to appear. He was wearing baggy swimming trunks, a knit shirt embroidered with a Ralph Lauren polo player insignia, and rubber sandals, and he had a towel draped around his neck.
Castillo, who was standing at the parrilla turning bifes de chorizo, saw Sof'ya holding the puppy and running happily toward her father, obviously intending to tell him that the dog was now hers.
Berezovsky, without breaking stride, held out his hand to her in a stop signal. Shedding the shirt and the towel en route, he took the steps into the shallow end of the pool, waded toward the deep end until he judged it deep enough for swimming, then flopped onto his belly and swam using a breaststroke with his head out of the water to the far end of the pool. There, he stopped, hung on to the side of the pool for several seconds, then flopped back into the water and breaststroked--with his head held high again--back to the shallow end. And, there, he stood, waded until he reached the end of the pool, and got out.
Castillo saw that Berezovsky had managed his swim
without getting his hair wet.
The Russian walked to where he had dropped the towel and Sof'ya was now standing. He picked up the towel and dried himself methodically as Sof'ya explained what had happened and tried to hand him the dog.
When he had finally dried himself to his satisfaction, he rolled up the towel, held it between his knees, put the polo shirt back on, draped the towel around his neck, and took the dog.
Berezovsky looked thoughtfully across the pool at Castillo.
He's wondering what we're up to, Castillo thought.
In his circumstances, I'd do the same damn thing.
And by now, of course, in addition to wondering what's going to happen to him and his family, he's almost certainly wondering if defecting was really such a good idea in the first place.
Castillo turned to the parrilla, stuck an enormous fork into a two-pound bife de chorizo--New York strip steak--then held it over his head, signaling Berezovsky to come over.
Still carrying the pup, Berezovsky did so, with Sof'ya at his side.
"My Sof'ya tells me she has been given this animal," he said, making it a question.
"And now she wants me to cook it for her on here?" Castillo asked.
"No!" Sof'ya said, but laughed.