The House of Razum Chapter II.

“Did you learn anything from her records, Mr. Klimov?”

The two sat again in the disk-lined study, the detective in the stuffed sagiric chair, the man employing him behind the mahogany desk.

“I wasn’t looking for specifics,” vaguely answered the visitor. “Often one can get a general impression about an individual from the room he or she lives in. I take it, from what I saw upstairs, that Sara had little that interested her beyond her studies and university work.”

“Unfortunately, that is correct,” the father moaned. “I always felt she was concentrated too much in a very narrow area, if you understand what I mean.”

“Indeed, I do,” agreed Klimov. “Your daughter was much too serious for her age. She has probably missed many aspects of youth, I am sorry to say. No close friends. No hobby or outside interest. I have rarely come across anyone like that, either in my work or personal relations.”

Milov looked away, toward the shelves of silicon disks about the door to the study.

“I did come across one puzzling address,” continued the detective. “At last, I think it may be an address.”

“Yes?” The businessman turned his head and stared at Klimov.

“Razum House,” slowly said the latter. “Does that mean anything to you, sir? Have you ever heard Sara mention it?”

“Never,” responded Milov brusquely.

“You are certain of that?”

“Indeed. I have a good memory for names and places,” frowned the father. “Had I heard her say anything like that, I would clearly recall it. But she did not bring up such a place or address in my presence. Never.”

“I see.”

“What is your next step, may I ask?” grumbled Boris Milov.

“Moscow University. Specifically, the Parapsychology Institute.”

“You will have to talk to Professor Grekov. He is Director there. My Sara worked for him as research assistant. You will, of course, report to me any progress that you make.”

“Of course,” smiled the investigator. “Of course,” he repeated.

–

The building was a marble structure from the Age of Stalin, as characterless and pretentious as the dictator who had died long ago in 1953. The Parapsychology Institute was located on the top floor, the fifteenth. It was meant to be a little hard to get to.

Klimov had risen earlier than usual this morning. Something about the case was drawing him into eager, dogged pursuit. Could it be curiosity about a woman entranced by the mysterious forces of the inner mind? He jumped into a lifter-capsule and rode it up to the highest floor of the tall structure.

What do these people in fact do here? wondered the private syshchik as he stepped off the lifter, into a large lobby. No receptionist was around, as he advanced down an empty corridor, reading the signs on each door he passed.

Laboratory A. Laboratory B. Library. Videon Studio. Filawire Room.

At last, a door with “Director Grekov” in bold, black letters.

He knocked softly. A voice sounded at once. “Come in,” called out a husky baritone voice.

Klimov opened it and walked into a small, cluttered office. The man who looked up at him from an electronic monitor was a towering, heavy-set giant. He wore rimless glasses and resembled an old-fashioned Russian peasant, a muzhik, from out of the distant past.

“What can I do for you, sir?” he roughly asked. This was an unexpected, unwanted interruption, it was plain to the perceptive visitor.

“I am David Klimov, private investigator,” he slowly began. “Mr. Boris Milov has hired me to find his missing daughter, Sara.”

The professor remained sitting, his large black eyes glowing with sharp intelligence. “I have not seen her for a number of days. What could have become of her? No one here seems to have any idea of where she has disappeared to.”

“I see,” whispered Klimov almost silently.

“Sara has always been most diligent in her work,” said Grekov thoughtfully. “I cannot understand how she could have left on her own without a word.”

“Have you talked to the police, sir?”

“Yes, I have. They came here looking for some sign or clue to her whereabouts the third day after she vanished. I must tell you the same as I told them: I know nothing. No one at the Institute has any idea of where she is or what happened to her. It is a mystery to all who work in the Parapsychology Institute. All of us are stupefied.”

Klimov scanned the broad, rough face. There was something masklike about this man’s countenance, he told himself. Was he hiding things he knew about his research assistant? What could that be?

“I can never foresee or predict what might help me trace a person, Professor. Is it possible for me to go through any records or notes of Sara Milova?”

“She must have kept them at home,” gruffly replied Grekov. “No one has been able to locate any of her research records here at the Institute.”

“What kind of research was she involved in, sir?”

The Director’s face became a wall of marble. “She, of course, assisted me in many projects that I am currently involved in. These tasks took up most of her time and energy. She was also studying Russian kolduni for her degree. I believe she was only at the beginning of that, though.”

“Kolduni?” asked a puzzled Klimov. “What are kolduni?”

“I take it you are not familiar with Russian folklore and superstition,” grunted Grekov with disappointment. “A koldun is a person capable of inflicting the evil eye, the sglaz. You have heard of that, haven’t you?”

Klimov made no reply. This was all unfamiliar to him.

“There still exist people in rural areas who claim to have the power to set a sglaz upon enemies. Once the evil eye is placed on a person, the koldun claims to have psychic power over him or her, even at great distances.”

“Power?” asked the detective all of a sudden. “What kind of power?”

“That is one of the questions that Sara began to look into,” grumbled the professor. “Power to control and influence a subject’s mind from afar. That is what these people claim for themselves. It is an ancient superstition.”

“But she would have to leave Moscow in order to carry out such research, wouldn’t she?”

“I believe she intended to use this summer to survey what is known about this phenomenon out in the provinces. Sara would have probably been involved with field research during her vacation time. But that is only a guess, Mr. Klimov, nothing more.”

The latter’s mind took a speculative leap. “Could she have left Moscow without informing anyone?”

“On her own, you mean?” asked Grekov.

“Yes.”

“Possibly. But I don’t have any notion of where she might have gone. None at all.” The Director of Parapsychology made a sour grimace.

“That makes it difficult, if she happened to decide she was going to find some koldun to study. Or koldunia. Women claim such powers too, I imagine.”

“Indeed, they do,” affirmed the professor. “Such a woman is apt to be called a charodeika or a vedma, an evil witch. In past time, peasants would drive them out of their villages by force. They were persecuted and hounded. Danger always stalked such persons.”

The detective stared at Maksim Grekov in silence. “Thank you for this information, sir,” he said after a few seconds.

“What are you going to do in order to locate the unfortunate young woman?” inquired the Director with sudden, unexpected emotion.

“I am not sure,” answered Klimov. “Not yet.”

With those words, he took his leave and left the office, certain that he had not been told all that was known there.

–

A private investigator cannot operate alone, David Klimov had learned quite early in his career. One professional needs the assistance of others. The more detectives whom he was dependent on for favors, the more information available to him. Mutual aid was the byword of the Russian syshchiki. That had long been the general rule for them.

He had done many good turns for colleagues. Now was the time to call in past favors from himself. He had need of someone who could get into the records of the Russian Fibrawire Corporation, the R.F.C. That pointed to Georgi Shutsky, the expert in fibrafon tapping in Moscow. He had done many private jobs for R.F.C. in the war against eavesdropping. The executives of the communications giant were in his debt and would be happy to do Georgi a favor. The latter should be willing to aid his fellow detective in finding out whether any calls had come in recent days for Sara Milova. And from where.

It was fortunate that Shutsky was in his downtown office near the Kremlin when his visitor arrived in the early afternoon.

The fat little man did not rise, but greeted his friend from a sitting position. “How are you, David?” he wheezed. “I have not seen you in a long time. Sit down, old pal. What brings you around today?”

Klimov took an old wooden chair across the desk from the roly-poly detective.

“I have need of a favor from you,” he sheepishly confessed. “If it was not important, I would not have come to beg you for this, Georgi. But I need to find out something very urgent.”

The fat man lowered his owlish hazel eyes. “What is it?” he patiently asked. “I hope that I am able to accommodate you on what you want.”

“I am on a case of a missing young woman. No one can provide me any clue to where she has gone or what happened to her. It is probable that she left Moscow on her own. If so, it is possible that she was contacted by someone in the provinces who was to provide her with a place to stay. I need to learn whether she received any fibrafon calls from outside the district in the last several months.”

“You want to know who contacted her, and from where?” said Shutsky.

“Yes,” replied the younger detective. “That’s it.”

“Give me the name and fibrafon number of this missing subject, then.”

Klimov did exactly that.

“Fine. I shall be able to get this information for you by late today.”

“I will be waiting in my office, Georgi.”

“As soon as I have something, you will hear from me, David.”

The visitor rose, shook hands with the still sitting rotund syshchik, then found his way out.

–

A detective must know how to be patient and wait, Klimov reminded himself. He had mastered the art of doing nothing and watching events develop. He read the Moscow News and the Financial Journal. His wait grew torturous.

Out of the blue, his fibrafon receiver rang. He picked it up instantly, certain who the caller was going to be. “Is that you, Georgi?” he asked.

“Yes. I have the information you requested.”

“Good,” sighed Klimov with relief.

“There was only one communication from beyond the Moscow district in the past four months, David. It was from Suzdal.”

“Did you get a name and address?”

“Unfortunately, no,” confessed Shutsky. “The call was made from a public fibrafon in a tourist hotel. There is no way of tracing it any further. What do you plan to do?”

“Go to Suzdal and hunt for a koldun or koldunia.”

“A what?”

It took Klimov a little while to explain the term.

“I see,” sighed his friend with fatigue in his voice. “If I were you, I would look for a vorozheia or gadalka in Suzdal.”

“A fortune-teller?”

“Yes. You might be able to pick up a lead from one of them.”

“Thank you a thousandfold, Georgi.”

The two said good-bye and pressed their receiver buttons off.

The House of Razum Chapter I.

“You must help me find her, Mr. Klimov,” pleaded the short, plump man with streaks of white in his jet black hair. “I am desperate to locate my daughter and bring her home. The police say they have little chance of themselves finding her. They told me at the Missing Persons Department that women her age often disappear on their own. I was advised to hire a private investigator like you.”

David Klimov thought over what the man in front of him had said about the missing female. Should he agree to work for the distraught father? Was it right to accept his money if the young, unmarried lady had run off voluntarily and did not want to return, as was apt to be the situation here?

The father seemed not to understand what the probable outcome would turn out to be. The private detective could see and comprehend that.

“There are people here in Moscow who do not wish to be found,” explained the investigator in a low, controlled voice. “Did your Sara have any reason to run away from home on her own? Was there any personal problem she was facing?”

Boris Milov appeared shaken by the question for a moment.

“No,” he firmly asserted. “Nothing such as that. Not with my Sara.”

“She is what is termed a good girl, then?”

“Certainly,” insisted the father. “Sara is the image of her late mother.”

“How old was your daughter when your wife died, Mr. Milov?”

“She was only a child of six.” His blue eyes all of a sudden turned milky. “She remembers little of her mother. It was all quite sad to have lost her. The tragedy was traumatic for my daughter.”

Detective Klimov stared intently at the wealthy storeowner. Something drew him into an instant decision.

“Alright. I will take the case, sir.”

Milov’s eyes lit up with joy. “When can you start?”

“At once. I have no other business at this time.”

“I will pay you the standard rate, whatever it happens to be.”

Klimov took a blank contract out of his desk and handed it to his new client. The merchant took out a small inker and signed it on the desk top. It lay there as the two men studied each other.

“Sara may not be in Moscow,” sighed the detective. “I might have to go elsewhere. It is impossible to foresee where her trail could take me. The expenses may mount as my task expands.”

“I understand,” nodded the older man. “Money is of no concern to me in this.”

“I will need your full cooperation, Mr. Milov.”

“Of course,” exclaimed the latter. “Whatever I know, I will provide to you.”

“Sara was studying at Moscow University, you said earlier?”

“Yes. This was to be her last year.”

“What was her field?”

“Parapsychology,” declared the father with a hint of bitterness. “She has for a long time had an interest in those sort of things. That was so even when she was a child. This interest became a consuming obsession for her. It became the major subject that she studied.”

“I see,” muttered the detective. “Can I see the room she lived in?”

“Yes, of course. It would be helpful to you?”

“Yes,” replied Klimov.

“Very well. When can I expect you at my home?”

“This evening, Mr. Milov,” smiled Klimov. “I want to start this job as soon as I can. That is essential. Seeing where she lives is the best first step that I know.”

“How is that, may I ask?”

“Often, one item can be the key. I have learned this from long experience in tracing those who have disappeared.”

The client rose from his chenic chair, as did the man he had just hired.

The two shook hands and Boris Milov departed for home.

David Klimov sat at the desk awhile, staring into empty space.

Where is the young student of parapsychology? he wondered. What will happen when and if I hunt her down?

–

The police report was severely concise.

Sara Milova, born 2041, to Boris and Maria Milov in Moscow, the Russian Republic.

Attended public grammar and high schools.

Admitted to Moscow University in 2060.

Scholarship award from the Department of Psychology.

Graduate assistant at the Parapsychology Institute. Working for her Magisterium Degree.

Disappeared in early May, 2065.

No one was able to provide any information about where she moved to.

Klimov looked over the holographic portrait of the missing person he had ordered.

Sara was a dark-haired, dark-skinned young woman with a plain face. There was something extremely Russian about the shape of her head. She would not be hard to recognize if he came across her, David was certain.

The detective read on in the police report.

No communications from her to anyone she knew. No messages, no calls for help.

No ransom demands from abductors.

No signs of violence or foul play.

Nothing at all to go on, in fact. That was all the police could put together.

He handed the sheet of cellulose back to the police clerk who had provided it. This was going to be a difficult case, no question about that.

As he walked out of the Missing Persons Department, his mind was fixed on the face he remembered from the holograph in his coat pocket.

What was she in her mind and character? Why had she vanished so abruptly?

The imagination of David Klimov groped to create an image of what Sara might be like in person.

–

The Perovo district was one of comfortable living by comfortable people.

It had belonged to the rising Moscow middle class before the 1917 Revolution. Then, for seventy years, the Communist Party apparatchiki had occupied it. The fall of the Soviet Union and one-party rule had brought new business families into the osobniaki, the individual houses of this urban region.

The father of Boris Milov opened his women’s fashion shop in the early 2000’s. It had prospered in the growing economy of the start of the new century and an era of prosperity. Money had poured in and the Milovs had moved into Perovo.

Boris grew up in this large house and so did his only child, Sara.

The detective, walking along a short path to the front door, was impressed by the ornate yellow brick structure. It was a roomy building for only two persons, now reduced to one. Why had the daughter left such a residence? Had coercion been applied to her? he wondered.

The bright yellow brick of the house was solid and geometrical. It was the result of excellent builders of the early twentieth century, the era of a growing but doomed capitalism in Russia. The building had survived into the sixties of this new century, still strong and magnificent with its old, yellow-baked Russian kirpich of a bygone age.

Boris Milov himself answered the front door when the investigator pressed the buzzer.

“Come in,” he motioned with his right hand. “Come in, Mr. Klimov.”

The latter entered a long, narrow hallway that traversed the length of the house. Milov closed the large, heavy door and led the visitor into a small study lined with rows of silicon disk files. He pointed to a stuffed sofa chair and the detective sat down there, more in than on it.

Milov was behind a dark mahogany desk in a matching chair.

“You like to read?” smiled Klimov. “This room contains more silicon tapes than many a public library I have seen in my time.”

“My father was a book-collector and read voraciously. I myself have never had much time for books,” he said with a sorrowful sigh.

“Your daughter,” inquired the visitor. “Did she read a lot here?”

“Indeed, yes. She practically grew up in this study, alone with the disks and tapes. Sara was a very precocious, intelligent child.”

“She had few friends, I take it.”

“Hardly any at all, Mr. Klimov.”

“I see. She had no personal complications or connections, then.”

The father raised his right hand. His face reddened like a flame.

“There was no young man in her life, if that is what you mean.”

“I was not probing about her love life, Mr. Milov.”

The latter unexpectedly rose to his feet as if in anger.

“I will show you where Sara’s room is,” he grunted to the detective he had hired to find his missing daughter.

–

A gigantic house, but a very tiny bedroom for the young woman who had lived here all her life. Almost as if she was still considered a child. Klimov realized that to her father she was still not an adult and perhaps never would be.

As he went through her desk and personal possessions, he felt a profound pity for Sara Milova. So sheltered and over-protected. Isolated from others her age from the earliest years. He sensed that her father had been a jealously possessive parent.

Had something gone wrong in her bringing-up and had that impelled her to take flight on her own? He was a detective, a Russian syshchik, not a psychologist or psychiatrist. But the better he understood Sara, the higher his chance of discovering what had become of her. Unfortunately, the materials on her desk contained nothing of intimacy, no clue to her inner mind. There were no personal letters, no diary or journal, no photographs of friends. No hint of inner emotional life at all.

What a lonely person she had been! he mused to himself. A life nearly empty of anything but…what was it? Parapsychology, he had to conclude. That was the main content of her disks and tapes on the desk.

If that was the center of her existence, perhaps the answer was there.

A small calendar with an Orthodox saint on its cover lay on her night stand beside the small bed. A pink fibrafon receiver was next to it.

On an impulse, David picked up the calendar and leafed through the months.

A few words were written here and there, to mark particular dates. For May, the end of university classes was indicated. Examinations that Sara had failed to show up for. An interrupted daily routine of studies and tasks to complete.

Flipping over to June, the detective found one future date marked.

In the box for June 17 there was noted two curious words. “Razum House.” That, and only that.

What did it mean? he asked himself.

Klimov told himself to ask about it as soon as he had an opportunity.