But Timur was unmoved. ‘She talks to you. She trusts you.’
She did trust him, Yuri knew. He hadn’t done much that could be called a betrayal. But still, that’s what it was. There were no degrees to it.
‘You really want more of this stuff?’ Yuri asked.
‘Yes,’ Timur said.
‘In my humble opinion she is not trying to undermine the state,’ announced Yuri, in a mock-military voice.
‘I already told you. It is not your job to draw the conclusions,’ said Timur. ‘I will do that. Your job is just to provide the requested information.’
‘You can’t want me to keep doing this? For how much longer?’
‘Until I tell you to stop. And judging by how unproductive you have been so far, that will not be for a good while yet.’
‘I’m telling you, it’s a complete waste of time. She thinks the moon should be communist for heaven’s sake. I don’t know what you’re expecting from her.’
‘I have my reasons, which you don’t need to know about,’ said Timur.
‘What?’ asked Yuri, his interest aroused. ‘What are your reasons? You have some information about her?’
Timur shook his head and stood up. ‘You ask too many questions, Yuri, when you should be listening, just listening.’
He walked over to the door of the sauna. Then he stopped and turned.
‘Get more private stuff if you can,’ he said. ‘Family. Background. Friends. Boyfriends, before 1973. What she means by privileged. Anything. No matter how trivial it seems to you. And if she says something of interest, follow it up with another question. And another if necessary. No lead may be too small. You don’t know until you follow it. You got that?’
Yuri nodded. ‘Are we done?’
‘Yes, we’re done,’ said Timur.
To Yuri’s relief, he left finally, leaving him on his own. He looked down at the pages of his report, which were squashed tightly in his hand. They were complete nonsense and barely legible. Yet, he did not fail to notice that Timur had not asked to keep them for his files.
The smell of perfumed incense hit him before he opened his apartment door. All the lights were off inside, and Anya had placed some candles around the room. She was sitting on the chair near the window, with her legs folded underneath her. She had wrapped a white sheet around herself, and apart from that she was naked. Any thoughts he had about having a serious conversation with her vanished in an instant.
‘Is it someone’s birthday?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I just decided to make your place pretty, for once. How was your day?’
He scanned the room. There was no sign of a bottle anywhere, nor an empty glass.
‘It was not great, if I’m honest,’ he said. ‘I’ve had better.’
‘It isn’t over,’ she said. ‘There’s still time to fix it.’
He dropped his coat on the floor and walked over to her. He grabbed her under her arms and lifted her off the chair, leaving the sheet behind.
‘What’s on your mind?’ he asked, as he kissed her neck.
‘How about we do whatever you want,’ she whispered.
Yuri smiled. ‘Be careful. I might want a lot of things.’
She started to unbutton his shirt. ‘Well then, we’d better get started.’
When he was in his twenties and thirties, ‘a lot of things’ would have been achievable. But with fifty approaching like a freight train, and far too much binge-drinking along the way, he was content with quality over quantity.
‘Sorry,’ he said, when it became clear that his body was not up for round two.
‘You’re not interested in my offer?’ she asked, looking insulted.
‘I am,’ he protested. ‘My mind is willing. But my body is saying I’m older than I think.’
‘Pretend it’s your last day on earth,’ she said. ‘And you are never going to get the opportunity to do this again.’
Yuri laughed. ‘Extra pressure is not the key to this situation.’
‘What is then?’ she asked, sitting up in the bed.
‘Youth,’ he answered.
Anya threw her eyes up to the ceiling. ‘You are not exactly in need of a wheelchair just yet. Let me see what I can do.’
With much gentle and not-so-gentle encouragement from her, a sequel was successfully enacted.
Yuri collapsed on to the pillow, out of breath. His heart was thumping twice as fast as usual.
‘Now that’s definitely my last,’ he said. ‘If you want more you’ll have to go and find another man.’
Lying down beside him, she appeared to be only half satisfied. But she could see that he would be of no further use to her. She sighed and left his body to recover. The candles flickered around the room as a gale buffeted the windows.
‘Why don’t you move all your stuff in here,’ he said. ‘Or even better, what if I asked if we could get a room at the Crazy House? We’d have more space.’
She watched him talking without giving away what she was thinking.
‘I know there’s one free,’ he continued, ‘because I liberated this bed from it. I would just have to move it back.’
Had she not been in such a tender mood, he suspected she might have crushed his suggestion out of hand. But today she seemed intent on not hurting his feelings.
‘Half my stuff is already here,’ she said. ‘And I spend almost every night here too.’
‘That’s not what I’m talking about,’ he said. ‘I’m talking about really living together.’
‘Like a family?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Like a proper couple. Which I believe we are now. Wouldn’t you agree?’
Again, she gave nothing away. But a subtle downward movement of her eyes said more than words. They could be a proper couple in another lifetime, but not this one. It was not a hard blow. The shock would have been greater had she agreed.
‘Let me think about it,’ she said, lying.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Don’t take too long. I have other offers, you know. Lots of them.’
‘You don’t strike me as a home bird, Yuri. When was the last time you lived with someone?’ she asked.
‘Twenty years ago,’ he admitted. ‘When I split up with my wife.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘You haven’t lived with anyone else in all that time?’
He shook his head.
‘And what did I do to be so honoured?’ she asked.
Yuri shrugged. ‘I’ve never been with anyone like you before. It’s not been easy all of the time, I have to admit. But the best things often aren’t.’
She was enjoying his compliments, he could tell, but she appeared unsure what to do with them.
‘You are good to me,’ she said. ‘I don’t deserve it.’
She started to touch him again with her hands, and to his surprise they were able to make love again. The third time turned out to be the most tender of them all.
She went to sleep before him. Her breath rhythmic and peaceful, her brow unfurrowed. Yuri had gone beyond sleepiness and he lay awake beside her.
It was hard to believe this beautiful woman had chosen designing bombs as her career choice. He wondered if she had worked on the Tsar Bomba. The largest explosion the world had ever seen. So big they had decided never to repeat the feat. Thanks to her husband, the other side would already know how they had done it. It was a stupid game, wanting to have the power to destroy the most, in order to gain respect and instil the greater fear. When the world was run by morons, like Timur, what did you expect?
Apart from the guys with military secrets, such as Anya’s husband, there were others who wanted to go west. Artists, for instance. Yuri had more respect for them. Stifled in the Soviet Union, they needed to go in order to thrive. Solzhenitsyn had hardly published a line in ten years when he was bundled on to an aeroplane to Switzerland. Rostropovich had gone in ’74 and became the conductor of the National Symphony in Washington. Baryshnikov, lead dancer with
the Kirov, also defected in ’74 in Canada. Now he was a star in the west.
Those who didn’t go found their anti-communist behaviour treated like an illness. Grigory had told him that Andropov, the KGB chief, had set up a chain of special psychiatric hospitals that were full of writers, Christians and Baltic nationalists like the Lithuanians. In these hospitals, you were supposedly cared for until you saw the light. They were run by the interior ministry, not the health department, which said it all.
Perhaps Anya was like an artist. Stifled. And what she needed was to get away. Or Pyramiden could be the answer for her, as it was for him. He guessed that she had never had nights with her husband to match the one they had just had. Physicality was not everything in a relationship, but when it worked like it did with them, it had to mean something. A positive to add to the others. When the physical side did not click, it was hard to fix. In those situations, Yuri had ended the relationship quickly, even if the attraction was there.
Anya opened her eyes and saw that he was awake.
‘How was your last day?’ she said.
‘Pretty good,’ he said. ‘As end-of-the-world moments go, I’ve no complaints. How was your last day?’
‘I liked it too,’ she said. ‘No complaints.’
She closed her eyes again and was soon asleep.
In the morning they showered together. Then they lay for a while in the bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, until it was time to go.
‘Will I see you later?’ he asked, as he put on his boots.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I might have to do something. I am not sure yet.’
‘Oh,’ he said, deciding not to pry. ‘Come after then, if you like.’
‘I’ll see,’ she said. ‘No promises.’
From the ultimate in closeness to ‘no promises’ within the space of minutes. He stopped himself from sighing. And he resigned himself to the fact that he would probably never know what made this woman tick.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘For what?’
‘For not being angry with me. I know I don’t behave the way you would like me to all of the time. But it’s the way I am. It isn’t you.’
Yuri had a horrible feeling he had said these same words himself, to other women. He hoped she had more respect for him than he had had for them. Although, he feared she didn’t.
Chapter 12
YURI STAMPED HIS feet as he smoked outside the front door of London. Light snow was falling, lit up by the street lamps. His face was getting damp as the flakes stuck to his skin. The end of his cigarette was soggy. It was ruining the enjoyment of it, so he stubbed it out on a wall.
The way Anya had behaved the previous night had been unusual. Gentle, philosophical, apologetic, concerned. None of her usual traits. He liked this Anya and wished he saw her more often. He had spent the day wondering what had brought on this sudden change in her.
She had said that she had something else to do that evening, but when she failed to appear at all he decided to go and visit her in Paris. As chief engineer, he had the key to the main entrance. He knocked on her apartment door and called her name. She didn’t answer, and when he tried the door handle, it was locked.
He was going to leave and look for her elsewhere, but a feeling made him walk back and knock again. After calling her name once more, he was sure that he heard her voice inside. He decided to force the door. The flimsy lock broke on the second push. The room was in darkness but he saw her lying awkwardly on her bed. He knelt beside her. She was semi-conscious, and mumbling incoherently. She didn’t smell of booze, but Yuri noticed a bottle of pills on the table. He put his hands under her back and pulled her up, trying to get a sense of how she was. Her head lolled to one side, and her eyes rolled back. After letting her down gently, he read the label on the pills. It was a name he did not recognise, and there was no description of what they were for.
He ran out into the hall and thumped on the nearest door. One of the women from the administration office answered.
‘Get the doctor. Hurry,’ he said.
The woman did as he asked, running down the hall in her slippers, with a coat thrown over her nightgown. Yuri went back into the room and tried to get Anya awake. He pulled her up towards him again until her head was resting on his chest.
‘Let me sleep,’ she murmured. ‘I just want to sleep.’
Ten minutes later, although it seemed twice that, the doctor and a nurse arrived, dressed in their civilian clothes. They decided she would have to go to the hospital. Yuri helped to carry her down the stairs on a stretcher. She wasn’t dressed for the cold outside so they wrapped her in blankets.
At the hospital, the nurse insisted that he wait outside in the corridor. Moments later, he heard Anya retching violently as they pumped out her stomach. It was hard to listen to. And then all was quiet. He eavesdropped at the door and heard the nurse trying to calm her. The doctor came out into the corridor, almost hitting him on the head with the door.
‘She was lucky to survive,’ he said. ‘We managed to get a lot of it out of her system. Any later and who knows.’
‘What was it she took?’ Yuri asked.
‘They are for depression. Did you know she was taking them?’
‘No,’ said Yuri. ‘She never mentioned she was on medication, and I never saw her taking anything.’
‘Well, she must have brought them with her from Moscow, because I didn’t prescribe them. I think she is over the worst.’
‘Thank you,’ said Yuri. ‘Can I see her?’
‘Yes, you can. But you won’t get much sense out of her for a while. She did it on purpose, you know. No one takes that many pills by accident.’
Yuri nodded. He did not need to be told. This had been coming for months, although he had never thought that she would actually do something as extreme as this. He thought it was just her thing to be down and then come out of it in an endless repeated cycle.
In hindsight, last night seemed to have been her way of saying goodbye. Their last night on earth.
He went inside the white-tiled room and sat beside her on a chair. She was a light shade of green but looked comfortable. The nurse had cleaned her up, and all evidence of what she had just been through was gone.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, when she opened her bloodshot eyes.
‘Awful,’ she said, with a half-smile. ‘How did I get here?’
‘My fault,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’d rather I had left you.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m glad you didn’t. Maybe you should have.’
‘What were you thinking?’ he asked. ‘What if I hadn’t come to find you?’
The nurse waved her finger at him to indicate that it was too soon for him to be interrogating her.
‘Got tired of waiting,’ she replied faintly. ‘I’m glad you came.’
She reached out and squeezed his hand gently. Yuri heard the door behind him, and he turned and saw Grigory standing in the corridor, looking in through the glass panel. Anya had closed her eyes again, so he got up and walked outside.
‘The news has already spread,’ said Grigory. ‘The parents are up in arms. They won’t let her teach their kids again.’
‘How nice,’ said Yuri. ‘Did any of them ask if she was alive?’
‘What do you expect?’ asked Grigory. ‘She’s unstable. This is the end of it. She’s finished at the school.’
‘She’ll be sent home in the spring?’ Yuri asked. ‘It’s decided?’
Grigory paused, and looked up and down the corridor. ‘No, I’ll get her away sooner than that. On one condition only. If you’ll help.’
Yuri was confused. It took him a moment to understand. When he did, he grabbed Grigory by the shirt and yanked him into an empty room.
‘It’s you! You’re the one she’s been waiting for? All this time, it was you.’
‘Keep your voice down!’ said Grigory.
If it had been anyone else, Yuri would have punched him
.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell her before?’ he demanded. ‘You’ve left her dangling on a hook for months.’
‘Because she’s a drunk, that’s why!’ said Grigory. ‘I didn’t trust her to keep her bloody mouth shut. And I was right. I bet she’s already told you her whole life story, about how her partner defected and never told her. But now wants her back. I didn’t get into this game to reunite Romeo and Juliet. If I’m going to stick my neck out for her, it’s going to be my way. Rule number one is that she doesn’t get to know that it’s me. Otherwise, you can forget it.’
‘Oh no. You’re going straight in there and you’re going to tell her.’
‘Let go of my shirt,’ said Grigory.
Yuri allowed him to push his hand away.
‘If you want me to help her,’ said Grigory, ‘we do things my way, or not at all. You’ll have to do most of it.’
‘Me?’ said Yuri, ‘I’m not getting involved in a defection. Are you kidding? They shoot people for less. Besides, I don’t even want her to leave.’
‘Selfless to a fault, as always,’ said Grigory. ‘I thought you liked her.’
‘I don’t like her. I love her,’ protested Yuri. ‘You get it?’
‘But not enough to give her what she wants,’ said Grigory. ‘Fine, if you don’t want to help her, then we’ll forget the whole thing. Believe me, I’d much prefer it that way.’
The nurse opened the door and looked at them.
‘Everything all right in here?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Grigory. ‘We were just leaving.’
The nurse left them alone again, and Grigory tried to follow her. Yuri grabbed hold of his arm.
‘We’re not finished.’
‘Tonight we are,’ said Grigory. ‘Let’s talk again when you are less emotional.’
Grigory walked out the door and back down the corridor, adjusting his crumpled shirt on the way. Yuri returned to Anya’s bedside and sat watching her sleeping as monitors beeped around her. He was afraid to leave her alone in case she decided to finish what she had started, although in her present exhausted state she didn’t look capable of very much.
And when she woke, would he tell her he had met her contact? Not yet. Not until he had figured things out with Grigory. Of all people he would never have guessed that it would be him. He supposed that was part of the job of an agent, to seem like the last person in the world who could possibly be one. For Yuri to get involved in this in any way would put at risk the life he had established for himself here. He would do it for her. But was it the best thing for her? He didn’t know the answer to that question.
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