Our Woman in Moscow

by Beatriz Williams

  “Well, I won’t let you do it. I just won’t.” I march over to Iris. She looks up at me, glassy-eyed. “They want you to have a cesarean, but I swear to you, they’ll do it over my dead—”

  “Goddamn it, Ruth! Give me the goddamn cesarean!” she shouts.

  They wheel her into the operating theater and shut the doors in front of my face. I trudge back toward the waiting room, head inside the tiny, appalling restroom, and throw up yellow bile into the Soviet toilet. When I emerge, Fox is waiting for me with another cup of coffee.

  “She’ll be all right,” he tells me.

  “You keep saying that.”

  “Because she will.”

  I look down at the coffee. “I don’t think I can drink this.”

  “You need something to eat.”

  “What if they need me?”

  “They won’t.” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “It’s safer this way, you know.”

  I lift my gaze to meet his. We haven’t really looked at each other, not eye to eye like this, not since last night when he spooned caviar into my mouth, and I cradled his face in my hands and smoothed down the spikes of his eyebrows with my thumbs. For some reason I imagine I’ll see his old eyes, pale and inscrutable, but I’m wrong. His face is compassionate and his eyes are soft. It’s too much. I start to turn away, but he catches me. We stand there in the white, bright corridor for a minute or two, just resting against each other. His heart beats in sound, slow, mighty thuds against my ear.

  “What are we going to do?” I whisper. “This wasn’t the plan.”

  “It is now,” he says.

  Two and a half hours later, the nurse appears through the swinging white doors with the round portholes. I’m half asleep on a pair of chairs. My head rests on Fox’s lap. I sit up as she marches toward us.

  “Is boy. Four and half kilos.”

  “Holy moly,” says Fox.

  “What’s a kilo?” I ask.

  “Two point two pounds,” Fox tells me. “He’s a bruiser, all right.”

  “I want to see my sister. How’s my sister?”

  The nurse shrugs. She’s memorized the English words for boy and four and half, and that’s all. I look around helplessly. Where’s Kedrov when we need him?

  “Don’t worry,” says Fox. “If something had gone wrong, they’d have sent the doctor who speaks English.” He stands up. “Wait here. I’ll go telephone Digby and tell him the news.”

  The nurse has already turned to march back to the doors. I consider calling after her, but what’s the point? Instead I slump back in the chair and stare at the clock. Somewhere in this building there’s probably a window, where you can look out into the brilliant sunshine that is Moscow at nine o’clock on an evening in early July, and see all the people walking outside, all the lives going on and on—women who have given birth and recovered, baby boys who’ve grown up into old men.

  Fox returns. “No answer. I’ll try again in a few minutes. Congratulations on the nephew, by the way. I don’t think I said that before. It’s the best kind of news.”

  A nephew. What do I want another nephew for? I want my sister.

  “Thank you.”

  He picks up my hand.

  “Tell me about the war,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “I want to hear how you survived.”

  There’s a beat or two of silence. I sense him glancing around, assessing our surroundings. But Kedrov is gone. There are no watchers nearby, just four or five people scattered around the nearby chairs, wearing their pale, anxious hospital faces—the kind of expression you can’t possibly fake. For the first time, nobody’s listening.

  “I was in the South Pacific,” he says quietly. “Naval intelligence.”

  “I thought you were a pilot.”

  “No, that was the cover story. I was running some local agents out of Manila. Plane went down on our way to a drop, but I wasn’t flying it. Floated on a rubber raft for a couple of weeks before a Japanese patrol boat picked us up. First they sent me to an interrogation camp.”

  “Is that where you got all those scars?”

  “Some of them, I guess. But I was used to getting beat up in football. I didn’t care much about getting hurt. The hunger was harder. Thirst. You would eat the bugs in your cell. You would lick the dew from the rocks. You had to work all day and eat maybe a bowl of rice.”

  “How could you stand it?”

  “You just did. At first, I used to lie there at night and think about everything I would eat when I got back. I had it all planned out. I’d take my wife out to dinner at some hotel, seven or eight courses, soup to nuts, and when we were done eating . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “After a while, though, it got to hurting too much even to think about food, or anything else—any kind of pleasure. You woke up in the morning, if you slept at all, and you just made it through the day without thinking about anything. Until one day, the war ended and we were free.”

  “Just one day after another, right? That’s how you did it.”

  “Yep. No past and no future.”

  “Then how did you find the will to live?”

  “It’s just there, Ruth. Life wants to live. Why does a rabbit run from a fox? Why does an amoeba—I don’t know, whatever an amoeba does to live, as long as it can? Because the point of life is to live.”

  “Isn’t that a circular argument?”

  “Isn’t everything circular? The earth spins on its axis, right? Revolves around the sun. Sun revolves around the Milky Way, that’s what the astronomers say. Doesn’t mean we’re not getting somewhere, without even realizing. Then one day you wake up and realize everything’s changed.”

  “What did you do after the war?”

  “Well, first I came home and found my wife was about to have a baby with a friend of mine.”

  “Some friend.”

  “Then I went back to work.”

  “Why? After what you went through.”

  “A lot of reasons. First, because I was a bachelor again, nobody to depend on me. But mostly—I don’t know, maybe it’s me—the case takes hold of you, sometimes. It’s all you can think about. You live and breathe and eat and drink it. You’re in love with it. That’s what gets you through the long hours, combing through transcripts and telegrams and passenger lists. You never know where you’re going to find that missing piece of the puzzle.”

  “Or find yourself sitting in a Soviet hospital, waiting for a baby to be born.”

  He laughs and stretches. “I’ll go try to telephone Digby again. Don’t go anywhere, will you?”

  I spread my hands. “Where would I go?”

  It’s funny, though, how Kedrov disappeared. He was so attentive before. I stand and walk around the waiting room, just to stretch my legs, and look over the other people waiting. They glance back and avert their eyes. An elderly man, well dressed; a mother and child; a single, attractive woman, sort of sumptuous looking, whom I imagine to be somebody’s mistress, because that’s so much more interesting than the probable reality. Fox still hasn’t returned. He must be talking to Digby. I glance at the clock—nearly half past nine—and return to my seat.

  Next thing I know, Fox nudges me awake. Somehow I’ve fallen asleep on his lap, all curled up, though I have no memory of his returning or my dropping off. I sit up too quickly and he catches me just in time. A nurse stands in front of us—a different one than before, younger and smaller, dark-haired, almond-eyed, so that I imagine some warlike Mongol ancestor pillaging his way across the steppes. She points to me, not unfriendly. “Come, please.”

  “Go ahead,” says Fox. “I’m meeting someone for breakfast.”

  Breakfast. Christ, the dead drop. I’ve forgotten all about it. Some contact was supposed to make a document drop in some predetermined location—inside a hollow stump or a trash can, maybe, marked by chalk or other means, though Fox won’t tell me exactly where—as soon as Iris went to the hospital. Of course, there’s no way to abort
this operation at short notice, and he can’t just leave such an extraordinary package lying around for someone to discover.

  But where the devil is he going to keep it? Not the hotel room, examined daily by chambermaids and who knows what else.

  I shake my head to clear it. The nurse stares at me.

  “What time is it?” I ask Fox.

  “Just past six o’clock in the morning.”

  “Good Lord! Where’s Digby?”

  “That’s an excellent question.” Fox rises to his feet, pulls me up by the hand, and kisses me on the lips, because the nurse is watching us. “Give her my love, darling, will you?”

  They take me to see the baby first. He’s lying in a bassinet in the nursery, and even I—with no experience of babies—can see he’s a bruiser. The three infants nearby look so tiny and delicate, and here’s this frowning, squash-faced, broad-shouldered behemoth, crowned by a tuft of pale hair. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Fox had sired him.

  The nurse whips a swaddle around him, lifts him up, and dumps him in my arms before I can object. His eyes fly open, but he doesn’t cry. He just stares up at me and works his mouth. I thought newborns’ eyes are supposed to be blue, but his are no color at all, just opaque.

  Already the nurse is motioning me to follow her out of the nursery. I trail along behind her. I’m afraid I’ll drop the baby, so I hold on tight as we turn down a couple of corridors and somehow end up in Iris’s old room, from which they wheeled her last night. She lies in her bed, wan and bloodless, but her eyes fly open when I walk in after the nurse.

  “Brought you something,” I tell her.

  Iris says his name is Gregory, and who am I to object? That was our father’s name. She looks at his shifting mouth and says he’s hungry. She and the nurse exchange some words that turn terse. The nurse happens to be taking her blood pressure, and frankly I think it’s unwise to provoke an argument at such a moment, but whatever the issue in dispute, Iris seems to prevail. The nurse flounces away with her collar and bulb, and Iris pulls aside the hospital gown and starts to feed the baby.

  “They think it’s barbaric to nurse your young. She wanted to get a nice bottle of scientific milk for me.”

  “I happen to agree with the nurse, but it’s your baby.”

  Iris looks up and smiles. “Don’t sass, or I’ll name you godmother.”

  “Oh, that’s rich. Put the child’s spiritual welfare in my hands, why don’t you.”

  “I just might, if only to keep you from bolting again.”

  “Me? You were the one who bolted.”

  I nod at Gregory, who seems hard at work. His tiny hands grip her breast and his mouth works frantically.

  “Seems to be an expert,” I observe. “His mother, too.”

  “Well, I should hope I know what I’m doing by now.”

  She’s so weak. She hardly moves, except to keep the baby secure against her breast. I think of the freshly stitched wound beneath the hospital gown and the firm, fluent way she spoke to the nurse, not like the old Iris at all. She feels my stare and looks up.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Just thinking of something your husband said. How much you wanted another baby, all of a sudden.”

  “What, me? I’m just a housewife, remember?”

  Something about her tone of voice sends my memory racing back to the night before last, and what I said to Fox—the question I asked—before he . . . well. Call a spade a spade. Before he distracted me.

  “Just a housewife,” I repeat.

  “Speaking of which, what’s happened to my husband? I would have thought he’d have arrived by now.”

  “There’s been a delay, I think.”

  “Oh? What kind of delay?”

  “Fox is on the case, don’t worry. Probably the little nippers are misbehaving. I’ll report back with all the news.” I rise from my chair. “You just rest, do you hear? Let me do all the worrying, for once.”

  “Just like you used to,” she says softly.

  I lean down, smooth back her sticky hair, and kiss her forehead.

  “Just like I used to.”

  I don’t speak a word of Russian, but I do have my sister’s street address written down in both English and Cyrillic on a sheet of paper I keep in my pocketbook. I find my way outside—nobody stops me—and light a cigarette while I wait for a taxi. It takes some time, but one pulls up to discharge a passenger, and I hail it the same way I would hail a taxi in New York City. I give him the address and he doesn’t ask any questions, just nods and takes off.

  At this point, it doesn’t require a seasoned intelligence agent to sense that something’s off. I know it in my bones. It isn’t just my nagging suspicions about Iris and Digby; it’s Kedrov’s disappearance—it’s Digby’s silence—it’s the fact that nobody seems to be following this taxi as it speeds through the streets of Moscow to the Digbys’ apartment building. Surely Fox and I weren’t that convincing in bed the other night? What’s happened to the fabled Soviet paranoia?

  Or am I just too blind to see who’s watching?

  And maybe it isn’t the wisest idea in the world to bolt across town in a Soviet taxi, either, but some peculiar inner urgency propels me to disregard such risks. I roll open the window and suck on my cigarette. The summer morning rushes past, the clear new sunshine speckled with pigeons. I wish to God I knew what I was doing.

  I have some rubles in my pocketbook, thanks to Fox’s foresight. I pay the driver and walk into the lobby of the apartment building as if I own the place, which is the only way to walk when you’re scared to death.

  The elevator jolts and creaks and lumbers slowly upward, just as it did two days ago. When the doors clang open, I turn left and abandon all pretense of nonchalance. I find the right apartment—at least, I hope so—and knock hard. Wait, and knock again.

  At last, I hear footsteps. Then silence, as the occupant stares through the peephole at me. The knob turns, the door opens, and there stands young Kip like the man of the house, unable to disguise his relief at the sight of me.

  “Well, hello! I just wanted to stop by and bring the good news. Is your father here?”

  “Y-yes. Come in, please.”

  I step through the door and look around the foyer. “Have you just woken up? Guess what happened in the middle of the night. Your mother gave you a new baby brother! His name is Gregory and he’s absolutely enormous, and he can’t wait to meet you.”

  I am babbling, which I sometimes do when my mind races around like this. I detect a sour smell in the air, and I almost don’t want to hear what Kip might say to me.

  “Dad’s resting,” he says.

  “Oh? Would he mind if we woke him up?”

  “Probably.”

  “Where are your brother and sister?”

  “I . . . they’re playing.”

  “Can I go inside and find them?”

  I don’t wait for Kip to give me permission. I proceed to the hallway and turn left into the living room, which is empty and disordered, sofa cushions piled on the floor, lamp turned over, large bottle of probably vodka lying empty on the scruffy rug.

  I say something like oh, dear and duck back into the hallway. A giggle drifts past. I follow the noise and wrinkle my nose—the smell’s getting stronger, also sharper—until I reach the source, behind a door.

  I open it.

  It’s Digby’s office, or so I assume—a tiny, reeking room that looks as if it’s recently exploded. Books and papers everywhere, desk askew, chair upside down. On the floor lies Digby himself, facedown. I figure he isn’t dead, because Claire’s jumping up and down on a fallen cushion near his head—that’s the giggling—and Jack rolls with suppressed laughter on the floor next to his feet, and neither of them seems upset in the least. I look at Digby and at Claire and at Jack and back to Digby. Claire jumps off her cushion and squeals with some unfathomable childish delight.

  “Daddy’s wet himself!”

  Much as I want to, I
can’t just leave my brother-in-law lying on the floor in a pool of his own urine. I manage to wake him with some gentle slaps and a bit of water. I run him a bath and shut the bathroom door to let Darwin have his way with the man.

  I can’t read the labels on the cleaning supplies. I fill a bowl with water and a bit of what seems to be soap powder and wash up the floor as best I can. Kip helps me. Of the three children, he’s the only one who grasps the seriousness of the situation. I suppose that’s as it should be. He’s eleven and a half and his blond hair is darkening to a shade somewhere between those of his two parents. He has a sober, scholarly handsomeness to him. I make sure that Jack and Claire are playing quietly in the children’s bedroom and bring Kip into the office with me.

  “First of all, young man, I think you’ve done an excellent job looking after your brother and sister with your father unwell.”

  “He wasn’t unwell. He was drunk.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “He used to get drunk all the time, back in England. Then he stopped when we came here.”

  “So what set him off, do you think?”

  Kip looks at the floor.

  “Is it a secret?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You know a lot about secrets, don’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. But I’m your mother’s sister, all right? I’m here to do whatever she would do, if she were here. I’m a pretty good listener, if you don’t mind my bragging, and I can keep a secret, too.”

  Kip looks up. “When Dad brought us home from school yesterday, someone had been inside the apartment.”

  “Like a burglar?”

  “I guess. But he didn’t steal anything. I couldn’t tell, but Dad knew. Dad went into his office to make sure his things were all there. I thought he looked scared. And then he came out again and that’s when he went down to the shops and came back with the vodka.”

  As I listen to this spare account, and stare into my nephew’s serious dark blue eyes, I feel as if I’m looking at one of those trick drawings. You know the ones I mean. You think it’s a profile of an old man, say, but then someone says, Don’t you see the beautiful young woman in the old-fashioned dress? And the man’s big nose becomes a bustle or something, and the curls of his beard become her tumbling hair, and even though the drawing hasn’t changed—the strokes of pen remain exactly the same—you realize it’s a different picture altogether than the one you saw first.