The Reluctant Contact

by Stephen Burke

  ‘So, it’s my fault?’ asked Yuri.

  ‘Did I say that? Your move.’

  ‘Yes, you did, I think, in your own roundabout way.’

  Yuri moved one of his pieces without looking at the board.

  ‘I thought you were going to take care of her,’ said Grigory.

  ‘I was. I did. She stopped for a while. We both did. But she likes to drink. She’s happier when she’s drinking. She gets depressed otherwise.’

  ‘What has she got to be depressed about?’

  Yuri studied his friend’s expression and realised that, like Timur, he did not seem to know about Anya’s background. It was quite a feat by whoever had organised it, to get the wife of a defector all the way here without the local bigwigs being informed about who she was.

  ‘She has some family issues,’ said Yuri, which was not quite a lie.

  Grigory nodded. ‘Divorced, like you?’

  ‘Separated,’ said Yuri. By the iron curtain and a few thousand miles.

  ‘Has she any kids?’

  ‘No, she has enough of them here.’

  ‘That’s true. All right. People are talking, this is the point. And they’re talking to me. If we were back home in a big city her drinking would not be so obvious. But here, you can’t hide a thing from anyone.’

  ‘People should learn to mind their own business,’ said Yuri.

  ‘Let’s hold our breath for that, shall we?’ said Grigory.

  He took another of Yuri’s chessmen.

  ‘Human nature is what it is,’ Grigory continued. ‘Look, she’s here for the winter. We can’t even think about replacing her until the spring.’

  Yuri looked up from the board. ‘She’s going to be replaced? When was that decided? How can you do that? She’s on a two-year contract.’

  Grigory shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter about contracts. If things go on like they are, she won’t leave us much choice.’

  Yuri shook his head. It seemed there was a conspiracy to take her away from him, one way or another.

  ‘Check,’ said Grigory. ‘It doesn’t have to play out that way, of course. If sufficient change is demonstrated.’

  Yuri had lost interest in the game. He sat back in his chair.

  ‘Aren’t we going to finish?’ asked Grigory.

  ‘I’m not in the mood. You always win anyway.’

  Grigory did not look happy. He sighed and knocked over the remaining pieces. Yuri got up to leave as Grigory began to put the set back in its case.

  ‘Usually you put up more of a fight,’ said Grigory. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you haven’t been yourself either since you started seeing her.’

  ‘If you remember, you were the one who told me to stop sleeping around. Make up your mind.’

  Grigory closed the chess case and held it close to his chest.

  ‘This time it’s serious, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, it’s serious,’ said Yuri. ‘So, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go transferring her out of here. I just met her, and I’d like to see a bit more of her if that’s OK with you, and Timur, and the school principal, and the rest of this bloody town.’

  Grigory nodded. ‘I’ll see what I can do. She can help herself, if she wants to stay. Is that what she wants, to stay here?’

  Yuri sighed and looked away.

  ‘Maybe it would be better for everyone if we did transfer her?’ said Grigory.

  Yuri shook his head.

  ‘All right then,’ said Grigory, as he stood up. ‘We’ll just have to find a way to keep her. If you’re sure that’s what you want.’

  ‘That’s what I want. Thanks, Grigory.’

  ‘Don’t thank me. I haven’t done anything yet. If I do you can thank me then. We’ll pick up this game another time, when your mind is not so occupied.’

  Anya may have hated the winter darkness and being trapped by the ice, but it seemed this was the only thing keeping her here for now. If it was not for that, Yuri suspected he would not even be having this courtesy conversation with Grigory. The school would have resolved the problem themselves without seeking his advice. The alcoholic would already have received her marching orders. Perhaps they were bad for each other, as Grigory implied. They certainly weren’t making each other happy, not like they had in the beginning. But he felt attached now, and he was set on seeing where their relationship would take them.

  He thought about what he would do if she was still here in the spring and ended up being transferred back to Russia. Her dream of being reunited with her husband would be over. In that event, she would need him more than ever.

  Chapter 11

  ONCE AGAIN, YURI received a summons to Timur’s office. The message did not say why he wanted to see him. The previous two times he had been there, he had gotten in with a stolen key. It was a strange sensation to return to these rooms and find someone inside. While Timur finished some paperwork, Yuri spotted the cabinet keys, still in their usual spot in the fruit bowl. Timur continued to make some notes on a page. Yuri guessed it was just a show for him. The man had little to do here. He glanced towards the inner door to the file room, which was ajar. Perhaps Eagle’s file was in there somewhere, or in the pile in front of him now, on Timur’s desk. The KGB man could have been reading it, which would explain why it had not been in Semyon’s file when he had taken it.

  He had managed to return everything to its rightful place in the file room, two nights previously. He was sure he had not been seen. So he expected this meeting would be about something else. Then he became suddenly nervous. The Lithuanian knew he had taken Semyon’s file. What if he had seen some advantage to himself if he turned informer?

  Timur looked up from his papers and waved for Yuri to sit. The secret service man put down his pen and sat back in his chair. Thankfully, there was no finger-tapping this time. Instead, he picked an apple from the fruit bowl and took a bite out of it.

  ‘Yuri, I want you to keep an eye on someone for me,’ he said, while chewing with his mouth open.

  ‘Anya is fine,’ he replied. ‘I’ve already talked this through with Grigory. I don’t know what everyone is making such a fuss about.’

  Timur smiled.

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ he said. ‘But no. I didn’t mean her. I am talking about your assistant, the English woman. Catherine.’

  ‘Her!’ said Yuri. ‘Why?’

  ‘Her behaviour lately has been making me nervous,’ said Timur.

  Yuri stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘She does have a habit of speaking her mind, but she’s more red than any of us. We should be sending her into space instead of Gagarin.’

  ‘She’s an agitator,’ said Timur. ‘You heard her the other day, causing trouble over the exec building. She could have been sent here as a saboteur.’

  The same thoughts had entered Yuri’s head, after the generator fire incident. But he did not believe it.

  ‘You don’t really think that, do you?’ Yuri asked. ‘You seriously suspect her?’

  ‘It’s my job to consider all the possibilities,’ said Timur. ‘Enemy agents come in all forms.’

  ‘It’s not just an act with her,’ said Yuri, ‘Or if it is, it’s a very good one.’

  ‘You consider yourself a good judge of character?’ asked Timur.

  ‘Is that a trick question?’ said Yuri. ‘Yes, I do. For what it’s worth.’

  He always had the urge to shower after speaking to this slime bucket. There was no way he was going to agree to be his informer. He liked Catherine, and felt responsible for her.

  Yuri stood up. ‘Sorry, but I am not doing this,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to get someone else.’

  He got the impression that Timur had been expecting this answer. The man did not seem at all ruffled by it.

  ‘You’ve been in Pyramiden for a very long time, Yuri. Perhaps now is the moment for us to advertise for a proper replacement. Someone who values their position here. Or alternatively, you could just w
rite down everything that Catherine says to you, and show it to me. Your choice.’

  Yuri didn’t like either option. Timur took another bite of his apple. He had a smug grin on his face as he watched Yuri running through the ins and outs of this dilemma.

  ‘Let’s be friends, Yuri,’ said Timur. ‘I don’t see why we can’t be.’

  ‘I have enough friends,’ said Yuri. ‘My social calendar is full. Plus, you already have me watching out for Anya. Isn’t some of this supposed to be your job?’

  Timur shook his head. ‘My job is to get other people to gather information, and then I will decide if it’s useful or not. That is what I am doing in this case. As her boss, you have special access that no one else has.’

  He had Yuri over a barrel and he knew it.

  ‘No objections?’ said Timur. ‘Good. You are now officially a KGB informer.’

  ‘I’m flattered,’ said Yuri. ‘Do I get paid?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why should I do it then?’

  ‘For one good reason. Because it will annoy me if you don’t. Is that what you want?’

  Yuri shrugged.

  ‘You know, I was half-thinking of reopening the Semyon case. There was something fishy about all of that. Even you thought so, as far as I remember.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ said Yuri. ‘I’ll do your dirty work for you.’

  ‘Good man. That’s more like it. Look at the bright side. We’ll get to have more of these chats.’

  Encounters with Timur would be much easier if he just cut to the chase, held a gun to Yuri’s head and ordered him to do what he wanted. The more subtle power games were much more tortuous. They both knew there would be only one outcome if Timur threw his weight around. But making people squirm seemed to be an end in itself for him.

  It was remarkable that Yuri had managed to get to his age without ever being asked to inform on a friend. He had heard endless stories from people he knew, but he’d never actually done it himself. Perhaps he had been considered someone to be watched rather than someone to do the watching.

  When he met Catherine the next day at work, he felt bad about the whole business. He hoped it was all a sick joke that Timur was playing on him. A status game to show he was the one with the power. He had met officials before who pulled these kinds of stunts for pure malicious enjoyment. Himself and Timur were not competitors, so he did not know what might have possessed the man to torment him in this way.

  Since talking to Catherine was like listening to a Lenin speech on a loop, Yuri didn’t see any actual harm in relaying what she said to Timur. He had no intention of getting her into trouble, but it was not necessary to censor what she said in order to protect her.

  Still, the fact that he was listening to her as an informant without her knowledge made him feel worse than bad about himself. Semyon had done the same thing to him, and the others on his list. He wondered if this had created self-esteem issues for him, or if he had taken pride in his work for the secret service. Nothing about this made Yuri proud.

  He found himself staying quiet when he was with Catherine. Asking her any question, no matter how trivial, had all of a sudden taken on a more loaded and invasive significance.

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’ asked Catherine, when he had not spoken for hours. ‘You don’t seem yourself today.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Just things on my mind.’

  He had a feeling she might understand if he explained. She would probably agree with the Soviet obsession with protecting itself from the west. Although, he knew she would not be pleased to learn that she was the one coming under suspicion.

  ‘Anya?’ she asked, with a look of sympathy that made him feel even worse.

  To betray a friend must be the lowest of the low, he thought.

  ‘Not Anya, no,’ he replied. ‘Just other things.’

  ‘How is it all going there with her?’ she asked.

  ‘Up and down,’ he said. He was not sure at which point of the rollercoaster they were right now.

  Catherine nodded. ‘I know what that’s like. She’s nice. I haven’t spoken to her all that much, but she strikes me as a very smart lady. Not very teacher-ish is she? Whatever that is. Dowdy, I suppose. And definitely not glamorous like she is. Quite a catch you’ve got yourself there, Yuri.’

  You don’t know the half of it, he thought.

  ‘What about you, you have a boyfriend back in England?’

  Catherine frowned, for once, and he saw this was not a subject she liked.

  ‘No. I’m single at the moment,’ she said. ‘Been that way for quite a while. Friends say I set the bar too high. But I do seem to send men running in the opposite direction.’

  ‘I doubt very much that’s true,’ said Yuri.

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised. The last man I dated more than once was in 1973.’

  ‘Four years ago!’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A lot, isn’t it. I was too busy, campaigning for this and that. No time for romance. That’s what I tell myself anyway.’

  ‘We’ll have to find you someone here,’ offered Yuri. ‘If you’re interested.’

  Catherine’s cheeks went bright red. ‘Oh no, no thanks. I’m a firm believer in just letting these things happen.’

  ‘This from the woman who has been alone for four years,’ said Yuri.

  ‘That is true,’ she agreed. ‘But really, no. I don’t need a matchmaker. Thanks for the offer.’

  ‘You don’t find us Russian men attractive, is that it?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. Some of you aren’t bad. Not all of you.’

  ‘Well, what sort of man do you go for? Tall? Short? Dark-haired? Blond?’

  The longer the conversation went on, the more uncomfortable she became.

  ‘Just good-looking is fine,’ she said. ‘But I go more for the personality. And the right worldview, if you know what I mean. I found before if a boyfriend didn’t share my politics, then it was just total disaster. My fault, of course. That bar again, I suppose. But I am open to the idea.’

  She blushed again and started looking around the control room for things to do. When she couldn’t find anything, she grabbed her coat.

  ‘There’s something I forgot to check,’ she said. ‘So, I’ll just go and do that, and I’ll come back later.’

  She tripped over the mat going out the door, but managed not to fall flat on her face. As she looked back at him, he saw that she seemed to be confused about something.

  For Yuri’s first debriefing as a dirty lowlife informant, Timur chose the sauna at midnight, when it would be empty. Yuri felt bizarre sitting there, naked except for a towel, discussing possible foreign espionage with a similarly undressed KGB agent. Timur was annoyingly fit-looking, but for some reason he was sweating at twice the rate that Yuri was.

  Top of Yuri’s agenda was to get this over with as quickly as possible.

  ‘After this, I’d like to stop, if it’s all right with you,’ said Yuri. ‘She’s no more an agent than my granny is.’

  Timur shook his head. ‘Come on, what have you got?’

  Yuri sighed and unfurled two rolled-up pages on which he had scribbled some notes five minutes before this meeting.

  ‘Monday she talked about how she felt guilty that she had a privileged upbringing, and when she saw that there were other families around who were not as fortunate as her.’

  ‘What sort of privilege?’ asked Timur.

  ‘She didn’t say,’ said Yuri.

  Timur frowned. ‘You didn’t ask?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘These are the sort of important details you are supposed to follow up on.’

  Yuri felt like saying why don’t you do it yourself, but he held his tongue.

  ‘Ask her next time,’ said Timur. ‘Go on.’

  Yuri continued. ‘Wednesday, she talked about how all workers in Pyramiden should get a pay rise, and bigger, equal-sized apartments. She did actually say that.’

  ‘See. She’s at i
t again, stirring dissent,’ said Timur.

  ‘That’s how the glorious revolution started, didn’t it? To erase inequality. We call them heroes now, not dissenters,’ said Yuri. ‘Don’t you feel the slightest bit guilty sitting over there in your oversized apartment while the rest of us live in shoeboxes?’

  ‘No,’ said Timur. ‘I earned it. What else?’

  ‘She doesn’t want to go home. She wants to stay here.’

  Yuri was glad to see that Timur had the same reaction as he had.

  ‘In Pyramiden?’ said Timur. ‘Why in the world would she want to do that?’

  ‘Because she thinks it’s commie nirvana, and that she’s died and gone to red heaven.’

  Timur looked at him as if he was pulling his leg.

  ‘I’m serious, that’s the way she is. They should make a movie reel about her, and show it in schools. Forget Lenin, kids, be more like this girl. There are worse examples to follow.’

  ‘Anything else?’ asked Timur.

  ‘Her favourite author is Tolstoy.’

  ‘Good choice,’ said Timur. ‘Mine too.’

  ‘Her favourite poet is Pushkin.’

  ‘I haven’t read him,’ said Timur. ‘I don’t get poetry. Have you read him?’

  ‘Not in several decades. My dad was a fan.’

  Timur nodded, though it was plain he had no interest in hearing about Yuri’s father.

  ‘More?’ he said.

  ‘No, I think that’s it,’ said Yuri, looking through his disorganised pages again.

  ‘You must have more,’ said Timur. ‘You spend all day with her, every day of the week.’

  Yuri racked his brain and remembered. ‘Well, there was one thing. She hasn’t had a boyfriend since 1973.’

  Timur turned and stared at him. ‘Why not? What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘You can’t ask a girl that,’ protested Yuri.

  ‘You’re not supposed to be shy about this,’ insisted Timur. ‘It’s not so hard. Be forward or you don’t get anywhere.’

  ‘See! You’re trained in all this,’ said Yuri. ‘You’d be much better at it than me.’