‘We will be going to the Foreign Department to register, and then to the Cosmos building. Follow me.’
Her male companion hadn’t introduced himself; he took up a position behind us, his hat pulled low almost to his sunglasses. Taisia waved us through the entrance gates and marched ahead of us while shouting out names. Right hand – ‘Central, Atomic, Coal, Friendship of Peoples, Press.’
The landscape was highly sculptured, like the architecture, with flower beds and huge ponds with high fountains. It was sunny and warm, and I half expected to see Bobby launch himself into the water. For a long time, I could see KOCMOC ahead of us, signalling the Cosmos building, domed like a cathedral with a giant rocket suspended in front of it. All the buildings were grand, belying the names Taisia was still shouting – ‘Consumer goods industry, Electrification of the USSR.’
She left us outside the Foreign Department and fetched our paperwork. ‘This way, please.’
After half an hour Bobby was the only child still interested. The mother of brown-haired brothers had a tight grip on their hands to keep them from running around. A black-haired girl was sitting on the floor, ignoring Taisia’s attempts to get her to stand. I couldn’t see where that mother had gone. Alison was standing in a corner with the other two mothers, whose names I had also forgotten, deep in conversation. I caught a sentence, ‘I can’t believe he had the nerve to come back,’ and then they saw me and were silent.
I joined Bobby by the rocket engine. ‘Do you think they built the dome and then found a rocket that would look good there, or had a rocket and built a dome for it?’
He thought for a moment. ‘They built the dome for it.’
‘It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?’ I looked around. ‘I like the Sputniks. And the Vostok 1. Would you go to space in one of them?’
Bobby shook his head. ‘I’ll wait until they get bigger.’
‘They look a bit flimsy, don’t they?’
Taisia appeared behind us, her jacket over her arm. ‘We have a very good safety record with travels in the cosmos, very good results. Many firsts.’
‘Have you been on the moon?’ asked Bobby.
Taisia’s mouth tightened. ‘We have done many, many things. We sent the first man to space, Yuri Alekseyevich Gargarin. He has a square, Gagarinskaya, named for him on Leninsky Prospekt. Two years later, we sent the first woman.’
‘What was her name?’ I asked.
Taisia didn’t hesitate. ‘Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova.’
‘Does she have a square?’
Taisia fidgeted. ‘She’s still alive.’
‘The man died on the moon?’ asked Bobby.
‘No. In a very terrible accident.’
Bobby pressed on. ‘So, you haven’t been on the moon?’
Taisia took a deep breath. ‘We did send the first life to the moon on Zond 5. It went around the moon and came back, completely safely.’
‘Was it a dog?’ I asked.
‘No, two tortoises, some worms and flies. There were also plants, as it was a proper scientific exploration of the effects of space travel. We are the scientists who proved it was possible.’
Bobby was still gaping. ‘You sent tortoises to the moon?’
‘All life plays a part in science.’
I cleared my throat. ‘First dead dog in space?’
‘You sent a dead dog to space?’ asked Bobby.
I felt ashamed, almost ruining his last memory of Moscow. ‘No, it was a stupid joke,’ I said.
Taisia half smiled, and then walked away towards the man who accompanied her, or us, or both.
I took Bobby’s hand. ‘I’m being an idiot. Let’s have a last look around. Are we doing something after this?’
He shrugged. ‘We go home tonight.’
‘I know. Are you sad?’
‘I don’t think so.’
I looked around for Alison and saw her across the exhibits, red-eyed. Bobby saw her too, but he turned away without saying anything. I couldn’t imagine how bad things were in their house. Alison should have been resting but her husband was a cheat at best, and a spy at worst. She’d never liked being here, but now she had to move her whole life and start again.
‘I’m going to space,’ said Bobby. ‘Do you want to come?’
‘I think I’ll stay with the wolves and bears,’ I said.
‘I don’t like stories any more,’ he said. ‘I’m not a baby now. I have to like big boy things.’
‘You can like stories and not tell anyone.’
He looked at me. ‘You won’t say?’
‘Cross my heart.’
‘Daddy is going to come later,’ he said. ‘He has some things to sort out.’
‘Right.’
‘But soon. Or later. He won’t forget, will he?’
‘No. He’ll never forget you.’
Alison took Bobby’s other hand and he let mine fall. ‘Time to go,’ she said.
I expected to see more of Kit now that Charlie had gone, but he came home later than ever. He looked terrible, wasn’t washing as often and had taken to drinking gin at night instead of wine. It embarrassed him when I asked about the papirosy-scented nights, and he didn’t offer any information, even when Mozart or Bach accompanied our silence, but stared into his glass and ran his hand through his hair.
‘You don’t fancy going to the cinema?’ I said.
He shook his head. It had been days since Natalya had walked out, and we were eating the last remnants of tinned food Kit had brought from the embassy shop. I needed to go to a hard currency shop with the vouchers Kit could get, but I hadn’t managed to catch Leila yet.
‘I’m going shopping with Leila. Could Pyotr take us? Then I could get more than what I can carry.’
‘No. Things have changed. The drivers are for embassy use only.’
‘Since when?’
Kit lifted his head and looked at me properly for the first time all night. ‘Since you.’
I sat back and twisted the stem of my wine glass. ‘I’m sorry, Kit. Do you want me to go home?’
He shook his head. ‘I know it isn’t your fault. I think it isn’t deliberate, anyway. It’s just that everyone has their eye on you. You’re supposed to be here to distract attention from me, but it’s not working right.’
He kind of laughed and I realised how drunk he was.
‘First there was Eva and then Sandra.’
‘I didn’t track down Eva. I’m only polite to her. And I didn’t know what I was walking into with Sandra. I liked her.’
‘Did you do anything for Sandra?’
It was too late to confess anything. ‘I think I was the only one who didn’t judge her. Is that what you mean?’
He filled his glass again and spoke into it. ‘Nope.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yep. You didn’t tell me that Charlie came here.’
‘You never mentioned that you gave your key to Charlie. We probably didn’t mention quite a lot that we should have.’
‘I don’t remember anything about a key, and there’s nothing to tell about Charlie.’
‘No. You wish there was.’
Kit banged his glass down. I waited to see which way the argument would go. He closed his eyes and smiled. ‘Yeah. I do.’ He covered his face and patted his cheeks hard. ‘I need to stop drinking so much. There’ll be other Charlies.’
‘You could even aim a bit higher than that.’
‘Maybe. And you know the most stupid thing? They all knew I was gay. All of them in Moscow, and probably in London too. And by bringing you, I’m the one who’s drawn attention to it. Not you. You’re not allowed the car because they want to keep you busy with shopping and cooking. That’s how it seems to me. I don’t think we’ve got any chance of another maid, and you wanted to discover a bit more of Moscow than the interior of this apartment.’
‘I wish there was a pub we could just walk over to. Can we go out somewhere after work one night?’
‘I ca
n’t plan anything at the moment. We have a lot of cleaning up to do, so to speak. Or even actual cleaning. Charlie’s bloody mess.’ Kit put his glass down. ‘I have to go to bed.’ He pushed his chair from the table, stood suddenly, and wavered. ‘Sorry, darling, to spill my guts out like that.’
‘It’s fine. I know it’s not how you expected.’
‘What did I expect?’
I didn’t know what to say.
He swayed, grabbing hold of the door on his way out. I watched him walk away and then I picked up The Idiot. It was OK, but not my favourite Dostoyevsky. Better than Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize or not, but not as fun as Bulgakov.
I tidied the table and closed the balcony door. It was beginning to cool quickly at night, the sun falling away behind the buildings. The glass on the balcony door already needed cleaning. I looked around the room to all the places that Natalya must have dusted. A couple of hours every other day couldn’t be that hard.
24
A week later, the temperature had halved. The frost made the treetops look more solid, somehow, the green leaves yellowing. I had been to the two storey food store on Arbat, as well as to the pirozhki stall near the Metropol for more savoury pies. The two-ring hot plate was a challenge too far when it came to anything other than soup or stews.
Leila brought back a sense of fun to my life in Moscow. She’d roast a chicken in her oven on Sundays and run upstairs with it while we boiled up some vegetables on our hot plates. The corridor grannies were not happy about that at all, and this always made her laugh. She’d enter with her best impersonation of their impotent rage. Kit would burn the cork and draw heavy Brezhnev eyebrows on us all, so the ash would sprinkle onto our food. He seemed to be relaxed around Leila, laughing and full of stories of Moscow, but I had the impression that it was all for me.
I was starting to get used to the rude pushiness of the Moscow shopping experience. I wasn’t above a quick elbow, it turned out.
I nearly forgot about Eva.
Leila’s map and its index had opened Moscow right up for me. Today, I intended to try the Beriozka shop for cottage cheese, and to see what else had come in. I was getting used to shopping most days; there was little else to distract me. I wrote letters full of half-truths to the parents and tried to read between the lines of my mother’s letters. I would buy Pravda and listen to people in the parks, thinking that immersion would somehow continue my language education, but it was hard to concentrate.
My map was spread out on the table. I’d worked out that a lot of the parks and forests were missing from it. I intended to fill them in and write descriptions of each of them. They were all so different, some with buildings taken from the aristocracy and some left wild. I was just waiting for some more paper to start making notes, but hadn’t reminded Kit enough times, it seemed, so I couldn’t make a start yet. My watch said half past ten. I could catch a film matinee, if I left now.
As I went downstairs, I looked around for Blue Jacket as I left the building, and just resisted saluting his dipped hat.
The cold thrilled me. This was what I’d expected from Moscow. This was what I wanted, and I yearned for snow.
Emerging from the Metro station, I crossed over to the cinema. It was closed, for a ‘sanitation day’ the sign said. That could mean anything, and any length of time. I hesitated at the doors. A figure was walking on the opposite side of the road, head lowered, a big dog at her side. Her stride was long for someone so short, quite different from how she walked before. I was certain.
Eva lifted her head to cross the road and her eyes fixed on something. I moved from the doorway to see what she was looking at. Mr Blue Jacket. She knew him. I watched her scan the pavement for me. She raised her hand and crossed the road, slightly slower than before.
‘Were you coming to see me?’ she asked. ‘I do hope you haven’t been waiting around.’
‘I was going to see what film was on, but it’s closed today.’
She looked at the doors. ‘It’s been closed for just over a week. It will open again when it’s ready. So, what are you doing now?’
‘I don’t know. I was just deciding.’ I looked around, as if for inspiration. Blue Jacket had gone. ‘Have you been OK?’
‘Of course.’ She didn’t move.
‘Are you going home now?’
‘Oh, no. Vorona needs a longer walk. You can come with us.’
I nodded. There was something different about her expression, as if she was trying to lead me somewhere. I wasn’t sure. Something was bugging me. Her voice seemed different. Again. Not the considerate and caring Eva of my last visit, but not the official voice she’d used on other visits either. And why couldn’t we go to her apartment now? Why was she only available on Tuesday afternoons?
‘So, which days are you at work, Eva?’
‘Every day. Have you thought about working with us at the Institute?’
‘I lost my teacher, I’m afraid. She went away. I’ve applied for another, but I think it is going to take time.’
‘I could teach you.’
Ah. Kit had said I was being pushed towards their solution.
‘You look worried,’ she said. ‘It’s quite all right. I’m registered with UPDK. You won’t be breaking any laws.’
‘Thank you. I’ll speak to Christopher about it.’
It was the first time that I’d mentioned his name, and she didn’t blink.
‘Do you really call him Christopher all the time? Never Chris?’
‘Why?’
‘In Russia, we use familiar forms for all names. So, Mikhail would be Mishka or Misha. Nikolai would be Kolya.’
‘I just stick to Christopher, really.’
I wasn’t going to give her any new information. Or confirm what she already knew. What I wanted to do was run and leave her here, and see who answered the door to her apartment when she wasn’t there.
She could tell I was thinking about other things.
‘Tell me about your university,’ she said.
‘Did you go to university?’
‘I didn’t, no. I went to a language college.’
‘What languages can you speak?’
‘English, French, German, Russian and Polish.’
‘And did you always live in Britain before you came here?’
‘There’s no point learning all those languages and then staying in one place. I know you studied Classics, but do you speak any other languages?’
‘French, badly.’
‘Have you been to Paris?’
‘Yes, I went with a friend.’
‘A boyfriend?’
‘No. Someone I knew at university.’ We were waiting to cross to the Alexander Gardens.
‘My daughter went to university.’
‘You have a daughter?’
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’
‘You never said, and I didn’t see any photos. How old is she? What does she do?’
‘Irina is twenty-two, training to be a cosmonaut.’
Surely this was a story? No patronymic meant there was no father’s name. Was that because I was British or a deliberate evasion? I thought back to the tiny capsules from the exhibition and shuddered. ‘Seriously?’
‘She’s very clever and very brave.’
‘She must be. Is she training here in Moscow?’
‘No. Far away.’
As we approached a bench, the same bench we’d met on, I was sure, two men stood together and walked off in different directions. Eva sat down, her dog at her side. I watched them go, then turned to Eva.
‘Isn’t this the bench we met on? Didn’t you think that was odd that they got up?’
‘No. A lucky coincidence. We like to sit here.’
Her voice had that slightly clipped quality again. I sat next to her.
‘So, you will talk to Christopher about having lessons with me?’
It was strange, like she was recapping our conversation for someone else. Could those men have bugged the benc
h for her? I looked around at the other people on benches, at the people passing, at the men standing with newspapers by trees.
‘Marta?’ she said.
‘Maybe.’
‘Are you feeling well?’
I ran my fingers under my side of the bench, looking for something that moved, something that could be a bug.
‘Is someone listening to us?’ I asked.
‘Oh, Marta,’ she laughed. ‘You are still falling for the propaganda. You think someone would be interested in your Russian lessons?’
‘I think they would.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s information. All information is interesting to someone.’
Eva nodded. ‘That’s true. Did Christopher tell you this?’
‘No.’
‘Did you know his college, St Anthony’s, is one of the main recruiting places for British spies? Didn’t your brother go there too?’
‘That’s not true.’ I felt I should say that. I had no idea what went on in Oxford, and I was fighting hard not to look surprised that she knew anything about Kit or my brother.
‘So, who told you?’
Our relationship had changed. She’d told me about her daughter, and that made her a real person. I needed to know what she wanted from me. Eva was the link to everything that had been going on, I was sure. I had nothing to tell her in payment for what I wanted to know, but clues about myself.
I looked back at her. ‘Who is Irina’s father? What’s his name? How did you end up here?’
Eva nodded. ‘We both have lots of questions, and that’s because we are interested in each other. It’s good, isn’t it? You don’t have many people left to talk to, but you can talk to me.’ She checked her watch and stood up. ‘Would you like to come back with me now?’
I folded my arms and focused on the tree opposite our bench. Eva laughed.
‘OK. You can sit here, but I’m getting cold.’ Her dog shook herself and they started to walk away. Eva paused and asked, ‘I’ve been wondering, who is Tomas?’
Tomas? I frowned, but kept my eyes on the tree. I heard her talking to the dog as they left.
The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt Page 18