Paris After Dark

0:00 Five Floors Up, an Old Man on the Mat

0:04 Narrator: Moscow, the winter of two thousand and eleven. The bell went at our door on Chistye Prudy one evening after nine, and Volkov and I found an old man on the mat who would come no further. Volkov: Good evening. You've climbed five floors in the dark, so you'd better come in.

0:24 Sedov: Sedov. And you'll be Volkov. No, I won't come in. If I sit down in a warm room, I won't get up again.

0:32 Narrator: Then at least let me bring a chair out. Melnik. I'm a doctor, and that wheeze wants one.

0:39 Sedov: The wheeze is eighty, Doctor. It's had plenty of chairs. Volkov: A photograph in yesterday's paper, creased to the shape of your arm. You've held it against your chest since you left home.

0:51 Sedov: Tolmachev. Paris at night, the boulevard, the lamps, rain on the cabs. Forty years on my wall, and since my birthday something else is in its frame. Was.

1:03 Narrator: Was? Volkov: Was. So the police have the copy now. Otherwise you'd have brought me that, not a photograph.

1:10 Sedov: They took it, and they laughed. Major Zhuk, at Khamovniki, with her glass of tea. Called me grandad.

1:19 Volkov: Charming. Narrator: And what told you it was a copy? Sedov: It's in my statement. Ask her. Let her laugh at that, too.

1:27 Volkov: You'd sooner I worked blind than hear yourself laughed at twice. Sedov: I'd sooner you were cleverer than they are. They say it's worth— they say two hundred thousand dollars. I never once asked.

1:40 Volkov: Then which do you want back, the money or the painting? Sedov: My father stood me in front of it the night he hung it. I was fourteen. He said— he said, that's Paris, son, you'll never see it.

1:54 Narrator: And you never did? Sedov: I never needed to. I had it, every day, and now...

2:00 Volkov: We'll come in the morning. Where? Sedov: Frunzenskaya, on the embankment. My granddaughter will let you in.

2:08 Narrator: Sedov, please, come inside and sit down a minute— Sedov: No. Here, take it. Keep it. I can't bear it.

2:17 Books to the Ceiling, a Granddaughter in the Doorway

2:21 Narrator: Next morning Sedov led us into his study on Frunzenskaya, a room of books to the ceiling, with his granddaughter watching from the doorway like a sentry. Tatyana: Tatyana. The granddaughter. Honestly, if you've come to laugh at him too, the door's right behind you.

2:39 Volkov: I've come to look at a wall. Sedov: There. Forty years it hung there, until Saturday night. My eightieth birthday.

2:48 Narrator: An empty frame. Somehow worse than a bare nail. Sedov: The police took the canvas and left me the frame. Very generous.

2:58 Volkov: Four brass turn-buttons at the back, and the paint round it's never been broken. That frame hasn't come down. Sedov: Never. Not once.

3:07 Volkov: Then nobody needed to lift it. Shut the door, turn four buttons, one canvas out, another in. Two minutes, no tools.

3:17 Tatyana: Finally. Somebody who actually looks. The police told him he dreamt it. To his face. "Grandad, at your age the memory goes."

3:27 Sedov: Tatyana, that's— Tatyana: No, Grandfather, I'm saying it. I've nursed him all year, every night. His head is sharper than mine. Okay? Sharper.

3:37 Narrator: You look as if you haven't slept a whole night in weeks. Tatyana: I sleep when he sleeps, Doctor. He doesn't sleep.

3:45 Volkov: Who knew the canvas came out from behind? Sedov: Anyone who ever looked properly. And on Saturday half the building was in this flat, looking at my cake.

3:56 Tatyana: Two short rings. That's Rudin, with his cognac, come to console you again, Grandfather.

4:03 A Cork Drawn at Sedov's Kitchen Table

4:07 Narrator: Within minutes five of us were wedged round Sedov's kitchen table, and his friend was drawing a cork and talking for everyone at once. Rudin: Armenian, five stars, none of that kiosk muck. Drink, my dear Sedov, and let the professionals fret.

4:24 Sedov: Rudin, this is Volkov, and Doctor Melnik. Rudin writes books. Rudin: Book. One. Tolmachev's Paris years. Three years in, and my publisher pays me in promises.

4:39 Narrator: Not for him, I'm afraid. Cognac and that chest don't get on. Rudin: Doctor, at eighty a man's earned the right to choose his poison. Half a glass. Medicinal.

4:50 Sedov: Pour it, Rudin. The doctor can take my pulse afterwards. Volkov: You'd know the painting as well as anyone, then.

4:57 Rudin: Nearly as well as he does. It was to open my book, facing the title page. Now I suppose it opens somebody's dacha.

5:06 Volkov: Were you in the study that evening? Rudin: Of course I was. Everybody was, at one— at some point. That's where Sedov keeps the only good chairs.

5:14 Tatyana: Somebody's dacha. Come on. We all know whose. That market woman—

5:19 Sedov: Enough. Not at my table. Her name isn't said at my table.

5:24 Volkov: You've grown fond of her. Sedov: Fond? No. She's decent, Volkov, that's all. At my age you don't meet many.

5:32 Rudin: He's right, Tatyana. Pointing fingers over the birthday cake just isn't done. Drink, all of you.

5:39 Tatyana: Fine. Not at the table. Volkov. Come out to the landing. I'll tell you who.

5:46 A Cigarette Under One Bare Bulb

5:50 Narrator: Out on the stairs, under one bare bulb, Tatyana pulled the flat shut behind us and lit a cigarette with fingers that would not keep still. Tatyana: Her name's Lidiya. She's been working him for months, like a client she's got to close before the quarter ends.

6:07 Narrator: Working him how, exactly? Tatyana: Pies for him every Sunday. Calls him "zolotse." Laughs at his stories. Nobody laughs at his stories, Doctor. Not even me.

6:20 Narrator: Ah. Volkov: Where does a man of eighty find a Lidiya? Tatyana: He walks to some painters' market every Sunday to look at pictures he can't afford. And he came home talking about her...

6:32 Narrator: There are worse things to come home with at eighty. Tatyana: Then listen. At the party she planted herself in front of the Tolmachev and asked what it would fetch. Out loud, apparently. With his hand on the frame.

6:45 Volkov: Apparently. Then you weren't in the— Tatyana: Okay, okay! Rudin told me. He told it as a— as a funny story. He was standing right beside them. I was in and out all night with coats, glasses, neighbours.

6:58 Narrator: People ask that at parties. A guest once asked it of my grandmother's samovar, with the tea still in it. Tatyana: At a man's eightieth? Seriously? Come on, Doctor. She's after the painting.

7:10 Volkov: And what did he answer her, Tatyana? Tatyana: Rudin says he laughed, told her it wasn't for sale, and gave her his own chair. That's how far gone he is.

7:21 Narrator: Good for him. Volkov: And where do we find this Lidiya? Tatyana: She keeps a stall at Krymsky Val. Ask her what she sells.

7:30 Forty Minutes on the Corridor Bench

7:34 Narrator: The Khamovniki precinct kept us forty minutes on a corridor bench before the major would have us, in an office of radiator dust and stewed tea. Zhuk: Volkov. Zhuk. Sit, if you can find a chair. You're here about the old man and his Tolmachev.

7:53 Volkov: He says you laughed at him. Zhuk: I smiled. An old man swears his father's picture changed overnight, during a party, with a flat full of neighbours, and I'm supposed to—

8:04 Narrator: Major, I've treated confused old men for thirty years. They don't climb five floors to a stranger knowing exactly what they want. Zhuk: Then he's a clear old man who may have owned a fake all along. Nothing I can prove was stolen, Doctor.

8:21 Volkov: Yet your safe stands open, and on its top shelf sits a parcel with a fresh paper seal, stamped Sunday. You sealed his copy the very morning after. Nobody seals a joke, Major.

8:33 Zhuk: I seal what I'm given. His statement's in there with it. Eleven pages, in a better hand than mine.

8:41 Volkov: And what exposed it? Zhuk: That's his business. He made me promise. Only Sedov and I know, and he can tell you himself, if he likes.

8:50 Narrator: He won't. You laughed once, Major. He's not giving anyone a second go. Zhuk: Then we're stuck, the three of us. And you've got nothing.

9:01 Narrator: Marvellous. Zhuk: Want copies? Try Krymsky Val, across the bridge.

9:09 Across the River, Wrapped in a Tablecloth

9:13 Narrator: Across the river at Krymsky Val, pictures hung three deep along the railings, and the woman at the end stall had wrapped herself in two coats and a tablecloth. Lidiya: Looking or buying, zolotse? Lidiya charges nothing for looking. Yet.

9:30 Narrator: Your hands are blue, Lidiya. How long have you been out in this? Lidiya: Since six. The market wants eight thousand roubles for my pitch by Friday, and the wind buys nothing.

9:43 Narrator: That's steep. Volkov: We've come from Sedov's. Lidiya: Sedov! How's he? Sundays he stands an hour at my Tolmachevs and tells me everything they got wrong.

9:54 Narrator: You were at his birthday, I think. Lidiya: I was. I baked a pie. He blew out one candle, not eighty, thank God. And that's all I say about his party. It was his evening, and I don't carry tales out of a man's house.

10:10 Volkov: Paris at night. Three thousand roubles, says the chalk. Yet the lamps are laid in three glazes. Cheap hands don't trouble to do that.

10:20 Lidiya: Look closer. There, on the café awning, by the stovepipe. See him?

10:25 Narrator: A bird. Smaller than a grain of rice. Lidiya: A sparrow. There's a sparrow hidden in every one, and never twice in the same place. A chimney, a cab horse, a gutter. Buyers hunt for him.

10:40 Volkov: A copyist who signs his copies so small that nobody will ever catch him at it. He's proud, and he's hiding. Lidiya: Or he's playing. Painters are children with brushes.

10:52 Volkov: Who paints these for— Lidiya: I— I have never seen him.

10:56 A Wet Coat in Sedov's Narrow Hall

11:00 Narrator: Rudin found us in Sedov's narrow hall that afternoon, his coat wet from the street and a fat printer's envelope under his arm. Rudin: Proofs, my dear Sedov, hot off the press. Your Tolmachev, in my book, at last.

11:16 Sedov: Hold them to the light, Rudin. My hands shake. Rudin: Full page, the boulevard. Then the lamps, one by one. Then the rain on the cab roofs.

11:26 Narrator: You've photographed it inch by inch. I could count the drops. Rudin: Three hundred pictures, Doctor, and the publisher let me keep forty. Philistines.

11:37 Volkov: Light from the left in every one, low and pale. The study window, early. You came a good many mornings.

11:45 Rudin: Two months of them. Sedov's coffee is a crime, but the light is honest at that hour.

11:57 Tatyana: Hello? Yes. Not now. I said— I said not now. Please, a few more days, okay?

12:07 Rudin: Again! Every visit I find our Tatyana whispering to a wrong number. Tatyana: It was a— it was a wrong number, Rudin. Some guy asking for the old tenants, that's all, he—

12:17 Volkov: A courteous wrong number. You begged it for a few more days. Sedov: Enough. Rudin, take your proofs into the kitchen. Tatyana, tea.

12:27 Rudin: Tea, after all my labours. Come, Tatyana, I'll read you the dedication. Sedov: Leaving already, Volkov?

12:36 Volkov: Khamovniki tomorrow, at ten. Tell no one.

12:40 Hat on His Knees in the Major's Office

12:44 Narrator: At ten sharp the old man sat bolt upright in the major's office, hat on his knees, her glass of tea untouched beside him. Zhuk: There goes Sunday's seal, broken for a private detective. My chief will be thrilled.

13:00 Volkov: You laughed at his statement, Major. Now look at what it— Sedov: She'll only laugh again.

13:05 Zhuk: I laugh at most things before lunch, Sedov. Show me. Sedov: My father's glass. Doctor, hold the lamp. Lower. Follow the fence along the boulevard.

13:17 Narrator: Railings, wet stone, the third lamp... I see nothing. Sedov: The top rail. Just right of the post.

13:25 Narrator: Good Lord. A bird. Head, tail, even an eye. Smaller than a sesame seed.

13:34 Sedov: That's a sparrow Tolmachev never painted. Forty years I've looked at that rail, and it was bare. Zhuk: Well, I'll be...

13:43 Volkov: And it's under the varnish. It was painted in from the start. Nobody added it later to mock you.

13:50 Zhuk: Nobody sees that without a glass. Not me, not anybody. Sedov: Now you know why I kept quiet. A bird the size of a flea, and an old man with a magnifier...

14:02 Zhuk: I'd have laughed. I did laugh. I take it back.

14:08 Volkov: Then it stays in this room. Sedov, not a word to anyone. Sedov: Not one. Not even to Tatyana. She'd tell the whole stairwell, to defend me.

14:20 Zhuk: Four of us know a bird. Not one word leaks.

14:25 Sleet Along the Embankment

14:29 Narrator: We walked the Frunzenskaya embankment toward the metro, sleet blowing sideways under the lamps and not another soul in sight. Put it all in a row, then. A granddaughter whispering into the hall telephone.

14:44 Volkov: And asking it for days. Narrator: A stallholder who priced the host's painting at his own party. Her market puts a sparrow in every copy, and now there's one in Sedov's, so—

14:54 Volkov: She asked that price out loud. With a witness at her elbow. Thieves don't.

15:00 Narrator: Or she's too poor to care who hears. Volkov: Maybe. A sparrow tells us who painted it. Not who bought it.

15:08 Narrator: Too many birds, Volkov. Too many whispers...

15:14 An Armchair Turned to the Empty Frame

15:18 Narrator: When Tatyana let us in, Sedov had turned his armchair to the empty frame, his father's magnifier lying in his lap. Sedov: Habit, Volkov. Seven every morning, the glass and the painting. Today, a frame.

15:36 Volkov: Every morning, for forty years? Sedov: Since my father died. I check each detail, always in the same order. The lamps, the cabs, the rain, the fence, the lady's umbrella.

15:50 Narrator: Like a prayer. Volkov: So that's how you caught it on Sunday, before the party plates were washed. Sedov: Before the coffee. Since they did my cataracts I see sharper than at sixty. Free, Doctor, on a city quota. Tatyana arranged it all.

16:07 Narrator: Lucky man. Tatyana: Grandfather, the surgeon said— the surgeon said rest. Not staring at a frame.

16:14 Volkov: Tatyana. A word, on the landing. Two cataracts on a city quota, and no waiting list. I've never met such a quota.

16:23 Tatyana: So I pulled strings. Everyone in Moscow pulls— Volkov: Strings cost money. And someone keeps ringing for it. Even Rudin's noticed you forever whispering to a wrong number.

16:34 Tatyana: Okay! Okay. It was— one hundred fifty thousand roubles. From a man who lends when banks won't.

16:42 Narrator: And the interest? Tatyana: Every week. Every single week, and it never— it never gets any smaller.

16:51 Narrator: And he doesn't know. Tatyana: He thinks it was free. If he knew, he'd go back in the queue and go blind waiting, out of pride...

17:00 Volkov: And two hundred thousand dollars of Tolmachev hung ten steps from your bed. Tatyana: You think I'd—? All his party I was out here begging. Look at that market woman.

17:12 The Evening Sedov Slept at Last

17:16 Narrator: Sedov slept at last that evening, and Rudin had the cognac open again on the kitchen table before Tatyana could reach the kettle. Tatyana: Doctor, you've met her. Say it. You think it too.

17:29 Narrator: As it happens, I do. Her pitch rent is due by Friday, and she hasn't got it. Rudin: Half that market lives on air and pies, Doctor.

17:39 Narrator: And at a man's eightieth, in his own home, she asked what it would fetch. People don't keep a price in their heads unless— Rudin: Unless they're curious! I told that as a joke! She said it the way you'd ask about a fur hat.

17:53 Narrator: A poor woman, a rich wall, two minutes behind a shut door. It isn't complicated, Rudin. Volkov: And he gave her his own chair. The good chairs are in the study. So she sat in that room as long as she pleased, and nobody wondered why.

18:09 Rudin: Fair. But tell me, what actually gave the copy away? It fooled a whole party.

18:16 Narrator: The police won't say. Rudin: Then I'll say it for them. Copyists sign, Doctor. Vanity. The Krymsky Val boys hide sparrows in everything they sell.

18:28 Tatyana: Sparrows. Seriously? Rudin: Bet you my book there's a tiny sparrow on the fence rail, laughing at us all.

18:35 Tatyana: Sparrows, cats, who cares how some loser signs? Her market. Her painter. Her chair.

18:43 Volkov: Excuse me. Major Zhuk? Volkov. The stallholder, Major. The arrest is your decision.

18:51 Still in Both Her Coats

18:55 Narrator: Lidiya had spent the night in a Khamovniki cell, and when Zhuk led us down to her she was still in both her coats. Lidiya: Doctor! Zolotse, tell her. The market rang the desk at eight: my pitch is gone. Twenty years, and a boy— a boy selling fridge magnets has it now.

19:14 Narrator: Lidiya, I argued for this. I'm— Zhuk: Don't be. My signature, my cell, my mistake if it's one.

19:22 Volkov: You searched her room and found no painting, Major. Or you'd be smiling. Zhuk: Pies, rent demands, and a cat that hates the police.

19:32 Narrator: Ah. Sedov: Zhuk! Her neighbour at the market rang me at nine. Open that door.

19:38 Lidiya: Zolotse, go home, with your chest— Sedov: Be quiet, Lidiya. Major, over here. Away from the bars.

19:45 Sedov: She'd never set foot in my flat before Saturday. I watched her face at that wall. She was seeing it for the first time.

19:53 Zhuk: And priced it on the spot. Sedov: Then had it copied between the cake and the tea? You saw what's under my glass.

20:00 Zhuk: I saw a sparrow Tolmachev never painted. A clever forger, I grant you that. Sedov: A copy that exact, with a bird that fine, is weeks of work, Major. Weeks. Weeks of looking at the real thing up close. She had one evening and a slice of her own pie.

20:20 Narrator: He's right. Nobody paints that from one look across a crowded room. Volkov: Then the copy was finished before the party began. The party was only the door.

20:31 Zhuk: Then who had weeks with it, Volkov?

20:35 Up to the Study That Afternoon

20:39 Narrator: Zhuk brought the parcel up to Sedov's study herself that afternoon, Lidiya behind her hugging a canvas, and Tatyana could look at neither of them. Zhuk: Out of my safe and up your stairs. If my chief rings, I'm at the dentist.

20:55 Sedov: Lidiya, sit. That chair, by the window. Lidiya: I won't sit in your study, zolotse. Not after a night in a cell.

21:03 Tatyana: Lidiya, wait. I— I set them on you with Rudin's funny story. Grandfather says you were seeing it for the first time that night. I never even asked. I'm sorry, okay?

21:13 Lidiya: Say it in Russian next time, girl. It counts for more. Volkov: That's the canvas I lifted off your nail.

21:21 Lidiya: Three thousand roubles, and nobody wanted him. Volkov: Your painter left a sparrow hidden in every one you sold. Let's see if he left one in the copy.

21:31 Sedov: Hers first. By the stovepipe... there. Three strokes for the tail, and the eye a dot of white, set left.

21:40 Tatyana: A bird? That's what all this is— Sedov: Hush. Now mine. Three strokes. The dot, set left.

21:48 Lidiya: Oh, no... Narrator: Thirty years I've read colleagues' prescriptions, Sedov. Nobody's handwriting changes its slant.

21:57 Volkov: He moves the bird from roof to gutter to awning and thinks that hides him. He can't move his own wrist. Sedov: One hand. Whoever paints her market Paris painted the thing in my frame.

22:10 Zhuk: So her phantom's no hobbyist. He's my thief. Lidiya: Then my painter— my own painter robbed you, and I never saw his face.

22:23 Past Midnight, the Old Man Would Not Sleep

22:27 Narrator: Past midnight Volkov and I still sat at Sedov's kitchen table among the cognac glasses, because the old man would not sleep unless someone stayed in the flat. Tatyana's made up the sofa. You've no intention of using it.

22:42 Volkov: Not till this table's laid. First, the major's office. Four people sworn to silence over one bird.

22:50 Narrator: And not one of the four had breathed a word. Sedov would sooner die. Volkov: Second, this kitchen. Asked what gave the copy away, you said—

23:01 Narrator: That the police won't say. True, and not a syllable more. Volkov: Third, Lidiya's stall. Her painter's sparrows never perch twice in the same spot.

23:13 Narrator: Awning, chimney, cab horse. I hunted for him myself, like a buyer. Volkov: Fourth. That chair, and a bet laid on the very rail where it sits.

23:26 Narrator: The bet. I was sitting right here, and I took it for the cognac talking... Volkov: Four sworn to silence. A bird that never sits twice in one place. And from that chair, the exact rail.

23:42 By Noon, the Frame Has Its Audience Again

23:46 Narrator: By noon the empty frame had its audience again: Sedov, the major, Tatyana, the two of us, and Rudin, summoned, with a bottle in his fist. Rudin: A tribunal, my dear Sedov? I brought cognac, not a lawyer.

24:03 Sedov: Keep the cork in, Rudin. Volkov has something of yours. Volkov: Over your cognac, in the kitchen, you bet your book on a sparrow on the fence rail. You win. It's there.

24:14 Rudin: Then I'm cleverer than the police. Not hard. I guessed.

24:19 Volkov: Anyone who knows that market could guess a bird. But that painter never perches one twice. Of every roof and lamp in Paris, you chose the rail.

24:30 Rudin: Then I— I saw it, at the party. Half the evening I sat right under that— Sedov: Under the varnish? Smaller than a sesame seed? I need my father's glass to find it, and before your bet I'd told no one. Not even her.

24:42 Rudin: Then the good doctor let it slip. Doctors talk over a bottle. Narrator: I knew exactly where it sat, Rudin. All I said was that the police are keeping it to themselves. For me, that was heroic.

24:57 Tatyana: It's true. I was at the kettle. Nobody said a bird, nobody said where. You said the rail. You, first.

25:05 Zhuk: And not from me. In my office I told Volkov: Sedov and I know. The night of your bet, four knew, and you weren't one.

25:16 Rudin: Four people and a bird. Is that a case, Major? Volkov: It's when only one more man alive can know where that bird perches: the man who perched it. Every sparrow at Krymsky Val is yours, Rudin. So is this one.

25:31 Sedov: Three years at my table, Rudin. Three years. Zhuk: Wrists, Rudin. Gently.

25:38 Rudin: Admit one thing, Sedov. Forty years you stared at that rail, and the sparrow was the best thing on it.

25:47 The Windows Steamed Blind, and Sedov Sits

25:51 Narrator: Moscow, the windows of our flat steamed blind, and this time Sedov came past the mat and sat, a parcel in a blanket on his knees. Sedov: Lidiya's Paris, for my empty frame. Zhuk turned out Rudin's portfolio: a dozen market Tolmachevs, every one with its sparrow. Not my father's.

26:13 Narrator: Then it's still out there. Volkov: He's charged with the theft. A failed painter, Doctor: he wanted Sedov's money, and secret proof that he paints as well as Tolmachev. The major enjoyed writing every word.

26:28 Narrator: One link still beats me. He sat in your study every morning for two months. Why wait for the party?

26:36 Volkov: Zhuk asked at the cells who had weeks with it. His proofs had told us that already, back in your hall. No, what nagged me was why he never had two minutes.

26:47 Sedov: Because I never left him alone with it. Not one minute. I'm not a fool, Volkov. I'm worse. I stood at his elbow and taught him. This, I said, is how I check each detail. Lamps first. Then cabs, then rain, then the fence—

27:02 Volkov: And last, the lady's umbrella. Sedov: He got every one of them right, because I told him where to look. Then he waited for the one night I left that study... to cut my own cake.

27:14 Narrator: Sedov. Whatever you taught him, he's the thief. Sedov: Forty years I guarded it. And I gave it away, word by word...

27:25 Volkov: And you caught him with the same eyes. Nobody else in Moscow could have. Sedov: Sunday I take eight thousand roubles to Krymsky Val. Lidiya gets her pitch back, if I have to buy every fridge magnet in the market.

27:39 Narrator: Bravo. Rudin drew seven years, and the real Paris never came home. Look. Down on Chistye Prudy, the first skaters are out.