The Betrayal

by Helen Dunmore

  Andrei is dressed now. The officer asks the soldier who was guarding him to help with the search of Kolya’s room.

  ‘Is it permitted to take a bundle of personal belongings?’ she asks the officer, quietly.

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he answers.

  She seizes on the words. It won’t be necessary, because Andrei is only being arrested temporarily, as part of the investigation? Or it won’t be necessary, because she will be able to visit him and bring him whatever he needs? The thoughts fly through her mind, full of hope, but her heart doesn’t listen. It knows that the officer is saying ‘That won’t be necessary’ merely because it is something he’s been trained to say. It has no meaning, except to keep her quiet.

  The red leather photo album is splayed out on the floor. Some photos have fallen out and the soldiers have walked over them. Anna sees a photograph of herself. It’s not very flattering – she’s smiling and squinting into the sun – but Andrei has always liked it.

  ‘With your permission,’ she says to the officer boldly, ‘I should like my husband to take with him that photograph of me,’ and she points to the floor.

  The officer looks surprised by her boldness, but his gaze follows hers. Something stirs in his face. Maybe he too has a red leather photo album. They are common. At this moment all the soldiers are in Kolya’s room. He gives a sharp jerk of the head, which she takes as permission. The next moment she is on the floor, picking up the photograph. She holds it out to Andrei and he tucks it into his jacket pocket. She hopes that he will hide it better than that, as soon as he gets a chance.

  The tallest soldier comes to the doorway, holding a box that contains the shopping list, two medical textbooks, a small notebook in which Anna keeps accounts, and her father’s English dictionary. He salutes and says, ‘Search completed!’

  ‘Are the articles fully itemized?’

  ‘Itemized in full!’

  The officer plants his finger on the list, runs it slowly down, checking.

  ‘All correct. You are required to sign the list for the items,’ he says to Anna.

  She takes the list and reads it quickly. ‘It says “Financial documents”, but this is only a small book that we use for domestic accounts.’

  ‘Precisely. Financial documents.’

  She doesn’t know what to do. What if they try to make out Andrei has been receiving money from somewhere? Why should they try to say that Andrei has financial documents, when all he’s ever had is his pay from the hospital?

  ‘Sign the list, Anna,’ says Andrei.

  The English dictionary. Why did you have an English dictionary, given that no one in the household is a student of English? What is the purpose of that?

  She mustn’t antagonize this man. Andrei will be in his hands. She takes the officer’s pen, and signs. She writes her name slowly, clearly. Every second now is a second that Andrei remains with her.

  ‘Time to get going.’

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ asks Anna, but this time the man simply gives her a look of contempt, as if her question is final proof of her stupidity. He doesn’t reply. He takes out another paper and shows it to Andrei. The warrant for his arrest, all filled out with words in the correct places. The witnesses have already signed it. It’s happening now, this minute. Andrei is being taken away.

  ‘Your overcoat!’ cries Anna, and for the first time Andrei hears panic in her voice. ‘I must get it for you.’

  No one stops her this time, so she goes to the entrance hall, takes Andrei’s coat off the hook, with his hat, his gloves and his muffler. Her heart is pounding. In less than a minute he will be gone. There must be something she can do. There they are, standing in the centre of the room. Four men in uniform, and Andrei. The rusty band around their caps is the same colour as dried blood. It is happening now, the thing for which her father stayed awake night after night.

  She comes towards Andrei, holding his coat.

  ‘Search everything,’ orders the officer, and the youngest soldier takes the coat from her, turns it inside out, empties the pockets, feels along the lining. There are a few kopecks and a white handkerchief. The soldier shakes out his hat.

  ‘You can put them on.’

  Andrei puts on his muffler, coat, gloves, hat.

  Her heart is stifling her. Her bladder hurts. They will be gone. Andrei will be gone.

  ‘Andrei,’ she says. Her mouth is numb, as if she’s stayed out too long in the cold. He is very pale but his face is calm. She devours his face with her eyes. His lips, his skin. Thank God he shaved. He looks at her and no one else. The soldier behind him gives him a push in the back. Not hard but not gentle either. It says, You are ours now.

  They are going. There is a soldier on either side of Andrei and one behind. The officer is peering into the box and frowning. Then he jerks his head and the tallest soldier picks it up. They all have guns. Their uniforms are full of detail and her eyes blur. All she sees is how strong they are, because of the uniform, all of them together. It makes them sure of what they are doing. It is their work.

  She can feel the baby. She looks at Andrei now, only him.

  ‘The baby is moving,’ she says. He nods. Now he is going past her. She reaches out her hand. His hand brushes it, grasps her fingers, then lets go. ‘I’ll look after everything,’ she says.

  ‘You’ll have some clearing up to do,’ he says, speaking only to her and as if no one else is present. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you, my darling.’

  ‘Everything will be all right,’ she says, but already he has been swept away.

  One of the men takes her by the shoulders and pushes her back, not hard but as if he means it. They’re all crammed into the little entrance hall and she is still in the living room, their room. The soldiers’ backs hide Andrei from her. She starts forward as they open the door to the landing. Now they are through it and already letting the door swing back. She stops the door, holds it while she jams the wedge under it to stop it closing on her, and moves out on to the landing, after them. Already they are on the stairs. The noise of their boots rings through the stairwell, bouncing around the walls. She sees the tops of their heads, almost at the turn of the stairs. Andrei, in his fur hat.

  ‘Andrei,’ she says. She can’t speak loudly but she knows he’s heard her. The boots are going down. They have passed the turn of the stairs. Suddenly they are all swallowed by the dimness of the stairwell with its weak lights screwed into the walls. She can still hear the boots, going down. She strains her ears to pick out the sound of Andrei’s feet, but there is nothing now but the sound of men tramping downstairs, not caring how much noise they make.

  She waits, holding her breath and listening. She knows exactly how long it takes to get down all the flights. They are at the bottom now. They will be opening the heavy outer door.

  Yes. She hears it. For a second there are still voices and footsteps and then there is a bang, and the door closes. The echo always goes on for half a second, like an overtone. There. It’s finished. She listens to the empty stairwell.

  Behind her there is the sound of a door being unbolted, unlocked, and very slowly and cautiously opened. She looks round. A line of light appears and fattens around the Maleviches’ door. Yes, she thinks, they would be listening. She moves quickly back across the landing to her own door, but not quickly enough. The Malevich door opens more widely and a face peers around it. Old Ma Malevich, her face greasy and her hair in rags. She stares at Anna without expression, drinking in the look on Anna’s face. Anna turns away, removes the wedge from her door and goes inside. In a moment, when that bitch is back inside her apartment, she will go to the bathroom. She leans her back against the door, and closes her eyes.

  She finds Andrei’s alarm clock under the bedding that has been pulled on to the floor. It is twenty-five to five. She looks at the chaos of the two rooms. She will sort it out. She will clean the place until not a trace of them remains. Her jar of face cream has smashed, and cream has spread on th
e green dress. It’s difficult to remove such stains.

  She stands still, in the middle of the room, her arms hanging by her sides, her face vacant. Several minutes pass. The clock is still ticking. They haven’t broken it.

  At last she moves slowly and stiffly to the edge of the room, stretches out her hand and places it flat on the wall. The wall feels solid, but she knows it is not. It’s just a membrane, the thinnest possible covering that shields them from the street outside, or from the eyes of their neighbours.

  It has happened. Andrei is with them now. They are driving him through the streets where there’s just a little early traffic. People are going to their shifts, wrapped to the eyes against the cold morning. Andrei will hear the trams.

  She wonders if they came for Andrei in a car or in a van. If it’s one of their vans, people will look away and hunch deeper into their clothes. You feel afraid of those vans, swerving and swooping across the city. She remembers the Black Crows before the war, how thick they were on the city streets. She would think of the people inside, men or women, ripped away from their lives, still warm with the warmth of their beds. But like everyone else, she looked at those vans sideways, and never for too long.

  She’ll find out where they are taking him. She must think. You have got to think of every single contact, everyone you know who might have a little bit of ‘pull’. Even someone you haven’t seen for years might be able to do something. You have to fight.

  They will find out that it’s all a mistake and they will release him.

  They might be there by now. The doors clanging, the locks turning one by one. Will they take him to the Kresty? No, not at first. They will have a procedure. She must find out everything. As soon as it’s light, she’ll begin.

  With intolerable sharpness, she sees Andrei being shoved down a flight of stairs into the cellars. She sees a cell which is so small that a man can’t sit or lie down but can only stand up. She hears the clang as the door shuts on him.

  No. Don’t allow yourself to think of anything but what you must do next. And while you are waiting, there is this mess to be cleaned up.

  18

  She’ll go to the hospital first. She’ll ask to see Professor Maslov. He’s a good man, Andrei has always said so. The hospital must know that Andrei has done nothing wrong. She will force them to support him.

  There’s Julia as well. She’s married to Vesnin. He’s a powerful man in the film world and he’s bound to have contacts. Anna will go there tonight.

  Who else?

  Anna stands stock-still, her thoughts flying. But she must go to work. She can’t risk losing her wages now that there’s no one else to support Kolya. Work first, and then she will telephone Maslov. Perhaps better not to see him at the hospital, anyway, in case her visit makes him feel compromised. People know her there. Better not telephone him either. She’ll go to his apartment this evening. It’s not too far. Maslov knows her; he’s met her any number of times at social events, and she and Andrei have been to the Maslovs’ apartment. He won’t refuse to talk to her. His wife, though; Anna’s not so sure about her. She dresses very elegantly and her manner is gracious, but the one visit she and Maslov made to Anna and Andrei wasn’t a success. She was cold and uninterested, and she ate none of the cake.

  Cake! Anna digs her nails into her palms. You fool, why are you thinking of cake?

  Maslov first, and then she will go over to Julia’s. Julia is always up until all hours.

  She must wash, and dress. There isn’t time to clear up all this mess, but she must eat. The baby needs it. Porridge. They have taken Andrei.

  With slow, trembling fingers she measures out milled oatmeal, heats milk in a pan, adds a tiny pinch of salt and then the grain. She turns down the heat and for a long time she stands by the stove, stirring the porridge with a wooden spoon. It thickens, while small bubbles pock the surface. If Andrei were here she’d add a pat of butter for him, but she prefers her own porridge plain. After a moment’s thought, she adds a small amount of butter, and stirs it in. It will be good for the baby. Besides, the baby may share his father’s taste for butter.

  Will they give Andrei anything to eat? She mustn’t think of that. It’s her job to stay calm and purposeful, as long as she’s free and can act for them both. She will go to the prison, as soon she’s found out where they’re holding him. He’ll be allowed a parcel, surely? She’ll put in cigarettes, and chocolate, and clean linen. You can hand parcels in at the inquiry window, she knows that. You have to queue for a long time and sometimes they slam the window shut just before you get to it, but often you can hand in a parcel. Galya told her that, one autumn when they were sitting in the dusk together, stringing onions. She never asked Galya whom she had waited for, or why, and Galya didn’t say. But her words struck deep, and now, when it’s needed, the information rises up in Anna’s mind. A parcel. You can’t put a letter in with it, you must send the letter separately. I was permitted to send one a month. Cigarettes, soap, chocolate. Always cigarettes, even if the person doesn’t smoke.

  Nobody will know anything at work. It’ll be a normal day. She’ll buy cigarettes on the way home, she’ll see Maslov and Julia, and then she’ll clear up the flat and clean everything. Andrei would hate to come back and see it looking like this.

  A stink of burning porridge startles her. She hadn’t realized that she’d stopped stirring. Never mind, the top layer should be all right.

  But the taste is tainted all through. She can’t swallow the porridge. She holds it in her mouth, gagging, and then spits it out in the sink.

  She bends over the sink for a long time, retching, gripping the cold enamel with both hands. Slowly, she raises her head. The tap has a crust of dirt around the bottom. You can’t see it from above, only from this angle. She must clean the taps more thoroughly. Anna takes a deep breath, and turns on the cold water. She holds her wrists under the stream of water, then cups her hands and fills her palms. She splashes her face and the back of her neck, then rinses out her mouth before she fills a glass and drinks it off in one draught, sucking up the water like an animal.

  As she straightens herself, she catches sight of the clock. She’s going to be late for work if she doesn’t hurry. She’ll have to leave everything as it is.

  The corridor is long and Andrei is still dizzy. The stout guard walks on his right, the young, bored one on his left. They pass door after door, all closed. Apart from them, the corridor is empty. The light is reddish and dim. Already Andrei isn’t sure if it’s day or night.

  Suddenly, the stout guard stops dead, opens a door to his right and barks, ‘In here!’ The other guard gives Andrei a shove in the small of his back, and he stumbles through the doorway. As soon as he is inside, the door slams and the locks turn.

  At first he thinks the guards have mistaken a cupboard for a cell. But there is a dim lighbulb in a metal cage, screwed to the ceiling. The floor is bare, and there is no window. He turns back to the door and sees that there is a slit cut into it, with a peephole above.

  There is a stench of excrement. It comes from an uncovered bucket on the floor. Someone else has been in this cell, perhaps recently. There is no bench or sleeping platform, because the cell isn’t big enough. There is room to stand, and to sit on the floor. If Andrei puts out his elbows, like chicken wings, he can touch both walls.

  He decides that the best thing is to sit with his back resting against the cell door, until they come for him again. They will come soon. This can only be a holding cell. He could sit against the opposite wall, and then he could watch the door, but that would mean sitting right next to the bucket. He could move the bucket, of course. Suddenly these thoughts make his head pound once more, and another wave of nausea rises in his throat. He’s not going to be sick again, though, not into a bucket filled with someone else’s shit.

  Andrei sits down. The cold of the stone strikes up through his trousers. He no longer has his overcoat, his scarf, tie or belt. He has been processed.

  T
here was a long time of form-filling and then they took photographs, full-face, left profile, right profile. He tried asking questions but almost immediately realized that not only was it a waste of time, but it was also weakening his position. No one was going to answer, and it made him into a man whose words no one bothered to acknowledge. They removed his watch, his belt, his shoelaces, tie and the contents of his pockets, and entered details of all these personal possessions on a long sheet of paper which he was required to sign. The photograph of Anna was taken too. At last he was led away, to spend the rest of the night in a cell, as he thought then. But it wasn’t over yet.

  He was taken to another room, smaller and more brilliantly lit. A man in a white coat looked up from a double desk as he was brought in, and said, without meeting Andrei’s eyes, ‘Strip.’

  There were four men in the room. Two were the uniformed guards who had brought him here, one wore a white coat, and the fourth was sitting beside the white-coat in another chair at the long desk, with a pile of forms in front of him. He was very young, and wore wire-rimmed glasses. His skinny neck looked vulnerable inside his stiff collar. His expression was petulant, as if Andrei’s arrival had interrupted important work. Beyond the desk was another table, half hidden. Instruments glinted on its surface. Andrei let his shoulders drop, and took a deep, slow breath. There was a small sink, too, set into the far corner of the room, with a frayed towel hanging down.

  Andrei took in the details as if they were the symptoms of a patient, while he undressed quickly and methodically, as he did at home. He knew they wanted him to show his shock, or even to protest at what was happening to him. But there was nothing strange to him in the abandonment of human dignity. He’d seen corpses sticking out of snowdrifts, clothes stripped from their limbs. He’d come home and death had been living there too, in their apartment, with his feet under their table like a cousin. Nevertheless, they had survived.