The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt

by Sarah Armstrong

  ‘She knew. Did you see her face? I’ve got so many questions to ask her. She clearly can’t lie for toffee.’

  She laughed with Jessica. I carried on walking.

  Jessica and Emily had both acquired parasols by the time I got back with the wine. Alison didn’t return for some time, but Sandra was good, if challenging company. She promised to lend me Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain.

  ‘Is that a permitted book, dear?’ Emily had asked.

  ‘It’s an American book,’ said Sandra.

  Later, she’d been telling me about Scanate. ‘Scanning by coordinates. So you give someone a coordinate and they can project their mind, or soul, or something, and tell you what they see.’

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Emily jump up and walk over to some men standing by the silver pines near the shore.

  ‘I’m not sure I believe that,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you don’t have to. I just think it’s fascinating. Imagine being able to lie in bed and imagine yourself anywhere, see what people are up to.’

  Emily came back with a tall man. He held his hand out before he got close, so I scrambled to my feet. He seemed like a headmaster. He had a strong handshake.

  ‘Martha, how lovely to meet you. I’m Edward, I work with your husband.’

  ‘Nice to meet you.’

  He smiled and looked down at Sandra.

  ‘Sandra, dear, would you mind coming with me? There are some gentlemen to whom I promised to introduce you.’

  Sandra’s face paled. She slowly stood up, brushing the sand from her skirt.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ she said to me, but she didn’t sound certain.

  I stayed standing as I watched them walk away, Edward’s hand around Sandra’s shoulders. I knew that if I sat down, I would be at the mercy of the best British spies at this picnic. With relief, I saw Kit walking across. He kissed me on the cheek.

  ‘Darling, I see you’ve met Mrs Johnson and Mrs Highfield. Ladies, I’m going to steal her away, there are so many people to meet.’

  Jessica and Emily smiled and nodded. Kit guided me towards a group of men, including Charlie.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes, but I think Sandra’s getting told off.’

  ‘Where’s Alison?’

  ‘Inside. I think she got a bit too much sun.’

  ‘Well, darling, I hate to say it but your nose is looking a little rosy.’ Then he put his mouth next to my ear. ‘Don’t say anything about all that until I bring it up, OK?’

  I nodded.

  In the apartment, I felt the tender sunburn on my forehead and nose. What an idiot. But the breeze from the river had been so lovely, I hadn’t noticed the heat.

  Kit gestured with the wine glasses to go out onto the balcony. I let him through and closed the door behind us. The sun was still high above the horizon, but it felt as if it should be dark.

  ‘You can’t say anything about what Sandra said.’

  ‘Any of it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Definitely not whatever she said last.’ Kit slumped over the balcony rail and took a long drink. ‘They’re usually quite fun events.’

  ‘I was enjoying it. Is she in trouble?’

  Kit kept his gaze on the trees and nodded.

  ‘I’m guessing that—’

  ‘Don’t guess.’

  I was guessing that Sandra had been given information that was classified, that she shouldn’t have heard the word Scanate. And who would have given her that but a spy? I thought about the excitement on her face as she led me through her strange thoughts and interests. Every woman who was brought out here needed to find their own way through. Her way was the best I’d seen – just investigate everything that you find fun.

  ‘What were you and Charlie being so serious about?’

  Kit laughed. ‘Oh, it’s all a mess right now. A few things at work. I wouldn’t try to guess them either, darling.’ He crossed over to me and put an arm around my shoulder. ‘It is good to have you here, Martha. After a day like today, it’s good to have someone to talk to, who you can’t talk to about things. Does that sound stupid?’

  ‘No. I get it. It forces you to be grounded in the real world and talk about real things.’

  But I felt that, if he really was my husband, I would be furious at this secrecy. As it was, I couldn’t shift the image of Edward’s arm on Sandra. The men were all steering the women to ignorance. Some of it might be necessary, I supposed, but they didn’t have to enjoy it so much.

  Kit drained his glass and went back inside for the bottle. It seemed he didn’t have any real things to talk about, after all. He came back with three airmail letters.

  ‘I’m just off for a bath, but I forgot about these,’ he said. ‘Your father has been handing them over for inclusion in the diplomatic bag, but there’s been some kind of delay and they’ve all come at once.’

  ‘Oh.’ I felt guilty. I’d only sent one letter the whole time I’d been here. ‘I haven’t finished mine. I’ll do it now.’

  I held them in front of me and wondered what I was going to write. I fetched the thin blue airmail paper I’d brought, and started writing: ‘Moscow is great – can’t wait for the snow.’ When I wrote to them before, Kit reminded me that my parents would not be the only people reading it, and the thought of trying not to offend both the Russians and my parents almost scuppered my feeble efforts. In the end, I made it into a touristy list of places I’d seen, even just from a distance, as if they would ever be here to take up my recommendations.

  Now, my head was full of names I’d learned that I was sure I shouldn’t write down. I hesitated, chewing the end of my pen. I wanted to write about Sandra most of all. I hoped she would be all right. I’d get her address from Alison so we could have a proper conversation.

  I put my pen back to the paper. I could write about the weather, the food. What I mostly thought about was, what does Eva think about all those things Sandra talked about? She lived here. Did she know about the yetis and scanning distant lands with your soul, and strange photographs? I had been reading through Eva’s stories and there seemed to be something behind them. Something hidden that made me want to ask her questions. And she’d approached me, I realised. Unlike Kit, she must want to answer them.

  13

  Kropotkinskaya station was on my Metro line. I turned off Gogolevsky Boulevard onto Sivtsev Vrazhek Pereulok. The buildings were old, each three or four storeys, and I didn’t think it was just the word Boulevard which made me think of Paris. Doorways had intricate art nouveau canopies, sections of the first floor which jutted out with Juliet balconies. There were window boxes on window ledges, sometimes with crusts for the birds, and plants inside on window sills. The paint was peeling from the mouldings, the wrought iron rusted and masonry cracked, just as it had been in the area of Paris I’d stayed in the previous summer. It made me think of Harriet, but I put this out of my mind because I didn’t want to come out with any names in front of Eva. I wanted information from her.

  I checked Eva’s map, and crossed the first road. One building ran from it to the second turning, five storeys high, and thin windows along the bottom showed there was a basement too. It was the grandest so far, with wall lanterns in between each ground floor window and three large balconies on the corner. As I neared, I could see that they ran right around a narrow angle, less than a right angle.

  I gazed up, then crossed the road to the small park opposite for a better look. A man, who had been standing on the corner with his copy of Pravda, walked into the park and sat down on a bench. I waited a moment, to see if he’d look up at me as I pretended to check the map again. He didn’t.

  When I turned back, I saw how the building looked like the prow of a ship. I imagined Eva, disguised by the reflections of grey sky and neighbouring buildings, watching me.

  At the entrance, I looked for a buzzer. There wasn’t one. I turned the door handle, the door opened, and I walked up the sweeping stairs to t
he second floor, one hand on the dark, polished handrail.

  I knocked on her door and it opened to show Eva, one hand on her dog’s head. She must have known I was going to knock. The light shone from behind her so I couldn’t see the expression on her face clearly, just the impression of a small woman with her dark hair pulled back into a bun, like a ballerina. Her fitted blue dress was slightly longer than the general style here, well below the knee. I held my hand out and she shook it.

  ‘Mrs Mann, I hope this is a good time to call.’

  ‘Marta, please call me Eva. We don’t use such terms as Mrs here. No masters, no mistresses. Do come in.’

  She stood aside. The hallway was long but the chandelier was sparkling, and I could see large, expensive looking furniture: a console table, a low chair next to the grey telephone, a high occasional table with a large blue vase. Again, I got the sense of being in Paris.

  She closed the front door and opened another, into a large, high-ceilinged room. I realised it was one of the rooms I’d looked at from outside, the prow of the boat, narrowing to an expanse of glass and light.

  ‘Please sit. I’ll make some tea.’

  She left the room, but her dog stayed. Had she told it to? I looked around for somewhere suitable to sit, but it all looked so clean, and I was conscious that I hadn’t washed my skirt for days. It took so much effort to hand wash in the bath and took so long to drip dry into it. I had sometimes left clothes on the dining chairs, but with no direct sunlight it didn’t speed up the process. I had a new appreciation for mangles.

  I settled on the edge of a gold sofa and gazed around. The bookcase, the sofas and the writing table were all ornately old in a heavy, dark wood, but the art was new. Women in factories or in the fields, sleeves rolled up and determined expressions. Women in pilot uniforms striding out. One caught my eye and I stood up to examine it.

  There were four figures, against a bridge with red carriages running high across the background. One man in khaki with huge black boots had his back to the viewer. Two other men faced forward, one in beige and one in blue. But the woman – not only did she face forward in her brown jacket and skirt and red top, but she swaggered, hands on her hips, one foot raised on a piece of wood. Her cream headscarf framed her stern face. And at her feet was a dog.

  ‘Ah, you’ve found my favourite,’ said Eva as she came in. ‘A reproduction, of course. Nikolai Ivanovich Andronov. It’s called Plotogony, which means the rafters.’

  It was then that I noticed the watery background, the reflection of the bridge support, the mountains, the boats.

  ‘She’s so striking,’ I said. ‘And her dog is wonderful.’

  I smiled. She had already sat down, so I took a seat opposite her. The blue and gold teapot had a matching set of cups and saucers, even a milk jug. She leaned back and folded her hands in her lap.

  ‘I like to think it’s a wolf,’ said Eva.

  ‘It’s funny you should say that. Before I came to Moscow, I found a book of stories about wolves.’

  She shook her head, interrupting me.

  ‘Here, you need to try tea the Russian way.’ She fetched from the sideboard a glass with a silver filigree holder, and poured tea into it. ‘No milk, just sugar.’

  I pushed my milky tea aside, added a sugar cube to the black tea and stirred it. She waited for me to take a sip, then continued. ‘So, Marta, what do you think of our country so far?’

  ‘I think it’s astonishing. The buildings and the parks are all so impressive.’

  Eva nodded. ‘Have you seen our best Metro stations? Novoslobodskaya, Komsomolskaya, Arbatskaya?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’ll draw you another map so you can go back via Arbatskaya.’

  ‘I saw the swimming pool from Kropotkinskaya. It’s so close. Do you go there?’

  ‘Only in the winter. It is a steady 28 degrees, and I love the steam coming off it. Are you thinking of going? You know you have to wear a swimming cap? We’re very keen on hygiene here.’

  ‘I didn’t even bring a swimming costume.’

  Eva looked disappointed. ‘Oh, what a shame. Well, should you find one to borrow, I can lend you my cap.’

  ‘The shopping is a real problem, isn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  She spoke so sharply that I expected her to suddenly laugh or – I wasn’t sure. She held my gaze, waiting for me to speak first. I thought of all the things I wanted to ask about, fairy tales, yetis, and failed to find anything which I didn’t think would enrage her.

  ‘I, um, haven’t actually been in a shop yet. It’s just what people have said.’

  ‘People? Russian people?’

  ‘No, my Russian is appalling. British people.’

  ‘British people with their Beriozkas and special shops?’

  ‘Aren’t there special shops for Russians too? For the elite?’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ Eva sat back and sipped her tea.

  ‘You see what?’

  ‘You’re attempting a provocation.’

  A provocation? That was what spies did, tricking foreigners into currency violations or unlikely seductions. I suspected my expression had revealed that I knew the implications of the word, but if she was going to play dumb, so would I.

  ‘I have no idea how I’m provoking you. I was interested in talking to you about your writing and translations. Your stories really helped me to make sense of the scale of Moscow, that sense of gods and giants.’ I didn’t say that I saw the gods as silence and the giants as fear.

  Eva’s eyes glittered. ‘You are mistaken. I don’t write, I only translate.’

  My mouth opened and closed.

  ‘I would like to talk about my translations, as there is a lot of work that I’ve done which deserves much more attention in the West, but it seems you’ve come here with preconceptions that you want confirmed, and misconceptions about my work.’

  ‘I didn’t. I’m sorry if I offended you.’

  The dog, which I had forgotten about, walked over from the doorway and sat at Eva’s feet. Could it hear the anger in her voice?

  ‘I will tell you the truth about us. The Soviet Union is huge, on a scale not seen since the Roman Empire. And, like the Roman Empire, it has to have strict rules to govern such diverse peoples and to ensure that everyone has the home, food and care that they need. Not want, need. While we are currently a socialist state, we are aiming for Communism, when the people are ready to put their wants away. And, like the Romans, our advances and sophistication are resented because people want to return to their tribal loyalties. But we know, don’t we, that the Romans benefited Britain. Now we can see it, and we care for their ruins and wish for their organising principles.’

  I drank some more tea, feeling the tannin thick on my tongue. ‘The British Empire was pretty big.’

  ‘But it tried to make everywhere British. The Soviets have a Union in which we all have a voice.’

  There was no point trying to drag this back to a pleasant chat. ‘And the dissidents? What about their voice?’

  ‘Dear Marta, I know you are very clever, but you are so fixed in your ideas. In the natural world, the wolf hunts the deer. Is it bad that they do this? No. The wolves pick off the weak deer, and the herd improves overall. They are stronger and healthier. In the Soviet Union, we have some weak minds, woolly thinking, that we try to help. They are welcomed back, aren’t they?’

  ‘Like Solzhenitsyn?’

  Eva nodded. ‘You always have to remember the scale of our mission, from the Black Sea to the Arctic. Unlike the Romans, we aren’t stopped by the cold.’

  ‘Because you’re the wolves?’

  ‘I think university has made you too cynical, Marta.’

  My spine prickled. ‘How do you know I went to university?’

  Eva raised her eyebrows. ‘It would have been a catastrophe if you hadn’t, a clever woman like you.’

  I was starting to feel dizzy. Compliments followed insults, but I had the sense that
she was trying to impress me too.

  ‘I think I should go now.’ I stood up.

  She led me to the front door. ‘You really should tie your hair up, Marta. We see loose hair as nekulturny, uncultured.’

  She opened the door for me.

  ‘Maybe I should get a headscarf.’

  She smiled, a genuine smile this time. ‘Maybe.’

  I stepped into the hallway. ‘Maybe I could come back and we can talk about fairy tales.’

  ‘You know where I am,’ she said, ‘but in Russia we bring a gift when we visit each other,’ and closed the door.

  Now I felt really ill. I made it to the top of the stairs and slid to the floor. My head was spinning and I thought I was going to be sick. I closed my eyes and slid my feet onto the step below so I could concentrate on breathing and feeling the pressure through my shoes.

  I was OK. I was OK.

  She couldn’t have had such a physical effect on me, I thought. Maybe this was a panic attack. I breathed, hands on my knees, head bowed. I don’t know how long I was there for, but eventually I felt well enough to go back down. Fresh air would be the best thing.

  I staggered out of the door, closed it behind me, walked carefully to the corner and crossed over to the park. I desperately wanted to lie down on the bench, but I knew it would be the worst thing to do. I just had to sit out this weird attack.

  I sat, shaded in the tiny park, forcing my eyes to stay open, and I waited. But Eva had faded away and all I could think about was Harriet.

  We’d been to Paris in our long summer vacation, teaching English to some eager students in the day, and wandering around the city at night. I think we thought that’s what writers did, hang around the Moulin Rouge and wait for inspiration. It was Harriet who wanted to write. I was just there for her, and the moules-frites. This little bit of Moscow looked just the same, and every time someone passed behind speaking Russian, it was a jolt. I wondered where Harriet was now.

  The sickness was fading a little and I felt less dizzy. I remembered feeling like this the year before I went to Cambridge, a sudden unwellness that turned into flu. I couldn’t get sick, or worse, make Kit sick. We’d have to lay in the same bed being ill together, while someone nursed us. It would be a nightmare.