The hero of Baize-Covered Table undergoes a searching bureaucratic investigation, that staple of the old Soviet and even older Russian police state. With the naked intensity of personal nightmare, the hero visits and returns to the stark scene of his inquisition: the bare room, the table, the ever-present decanter, and behind the table those recurring phantoms, 'The Party Man, ' 'The Young Wolf, ' 'The Almost Pretty Woman, ' 'The One Who Asks the Questions.'.