by Robert Moss
Trying not to seem hurried, she made the usual tourist rounds. She walked down to the GUM emporium, and emerged into Red Square. She lingered at Lenin’s mausoleum, and then at St Basil’s Cathedral. She strolled down toward the river and the Rossiya hotel, where she dawdled around the cinema before making a quick exit out the other side to find Guy Harrison waiting for her. They retrieved Harrison’s Lada from a nearby parking lot and started their laundry run, along the Embankment, circling around behind the Foreign Ministry and the American Embassy, and finally into the quiet neighborhood around Lenin stadium.
By this stage, Elaine had completely lost her bearings.
‘Where are we?’
‘Not far from where we came yesterday. It’s a good place to check whether anybody’s taking an interest in us,’ Harrison explained as he doubled back, watching the movement of other cars.
Apparently satisfied, he finally headed down to the river and pulled up near a railway bridge, a crude construction of rusty iron girders.
‘Andreyevskiy Most,’ Harrison said. ‘This is the end of the ride.’
She looked doubtful, and he added, ‘It’s all right. There’s a footpath. You walk across and you’ll find a metro station, Lenin Prospekt, on the other side. You only have to change once. Here, you’ll need this.’ He handed her a five-kopeck piece.
‘I’ll cover your back,’ Harrison told her. ‘If I see anything, I’ll meet you at Park Kultury and we’ll call it off. They’ll know we were up to something, but they’ll never work out what it was. Not much of a day for this sort of thing, I’m afraid.’
She looked at the sky, which had darkened. There were black scudding clouds out of the west.
‘The Lord be with you,’ he said pontifically. Then he patted her shoulder. ‘Good luck, love.’
She kissed his cheek and pulled her scarf up over her hair.
She crossed the gray embankment and climbed the granite steps that spiraled up to the bridge. On either side of the rails was a narrow pedestrian footpath, a yard or so wide, with a metal railing. She was completely alone on the bridge. There was not even a bird in sight.
The birds have all left Moscow, she thought.
The river was flat and gunmetal gray, and looked as deserted as the bridge. There were no boats, just an old man squatting on the bank with a fishing line.
Far away to her left, she saw the scalloped outline of the Krimskiy bridge, the place of her rendezvous, and understood why Harrison had sent her over the old railroad crossing. If anything had been tailing them in an automobile, it would take a long time for him to weave his way round to a motor bridge — long enough for Elaine to lose herself on the far side of the river.
The wind cracked like a whiplash, and she steadied herself against the railing. She wondered if Guy was still waiting in his car. His presence, even if slightly absurd, gave her confidence. But when she looked back again, she saw she was no longer alone on the bridge: a stocky man in a parka was plodding along behind her. He did not look to be in a hurry, but his strides were nearly twice as long as Elaine’s, and he was gaining on her steadily.
It’s nothing, she told herself. If there’s a problem, Guy will handle it. Guy will be waiting.
But when she looked over her shoulder again, the stranger on the bridge was close enough for her to make out his features. He seemed to be smiling at her, and she didn’t like the way he smiled. She moved as fast as she could without breaking into a run, the heels of her boots click-clacking along the path.
She was at the far side now, clattering down the corkscrew steps, and nearly fell where the edge of one of them was badly chipped.
Then she was in lighted streets, among a press of people on their way home from work, passing the inevitable columns of a museum, zigzagging toward the Lenin Prospekt metro station.
She did not see the man from the bridge among the crowd on the platform.
She changed trains once, for the metro Ring. Park Kultury was the first stop on the line.
She was careful to leave by the old entrance, instead of the larger, newer building across the Garden Ring Road.
Elaine was dismayed to find that it was already quite dark outside. Night had descended without dusk. If Sasha came, would he see her? Would she be able to make out his car? The lamps outside the metro station threw a sickly yellow light along the pavement, but everything seemed shapeless, indistinct. A young couple were embracing furtively, in the shadows. A man came out of the doors behind her — not the man she had seen on the bridge, but a handsome, strapping fellow in an expensive leather coat — and looked at her boldly. She looked at her watch ostentatiously. He came up and said something to her in Russian. She shrugged and he pursued in English, ‘American? French?’
She said, ‘Nyet,’ and turned away from him.
He wouldn’t leave her alone, and in desperation she hurried back inside the metro station, scrabbling in her purse for a five-kopeck coin to put in the turnstile. She went all the way back down to the platform, making sure that she had got rid of the man, before returning to the same exit.
It was already 6:05. There was a fluttering in her chest like a trapped bird.
What if she had missed him, chasing around inside the metro station?
What if she had been tailed, and Guy had been unable to warn her?
She moved just outside the circle of light, trying not to appear as nervous as she felt.
Across the road was a blank wall, and cavernous hollows between the columns supporting the overpass. A black Volga came nosing along the street, and Elaine moved back into the light. The car had special plates, but the letters were wrong. MOC appeared, black on white, on the right-hand side. The car must belong to some Party or government official.
An olive sedan passed by, then a lumbering truck, almost too wide for the space.
There was a gap in the traffic. Then another black car came nosing round the bend, and she knew it was him even before she checked the license number, even though the figure behind the wheel was no more distinct than a silhouette scissored from crepe paper. She saw the outline of his high cap, the long neck, the expanse of chest and shoulders.
She moved without reflecting, without deciding it would have to be done this way, out into the road in front of the car.
Sasha slammed on the brakes and rolled down his window. He leaned out and started cursing at her, then sucked in his breath, drawing back the harsh words.
She blinked up at him, as if startled, playing her role.
He muttered something that might have been, ‘You!’
After that, Sasha did not hesitate. He jumped out of the car, grabbed her arm and pushed her — almost flung her — into the passenger seat. A tiny Zaparozhets squeaked to a halt behind them, but the driver did not honk at the big man in the army uniform who was blocking the road. Sasha waved at him apologetically, climbed back behind the wheel, and eased the car forward and up the approach to Krimskiy bridge.
He glanced at Elaine intently, only once, and drove on in silence, checking the rearview mirror, until they had crossed the river.
‘Sasha,’ she began.
‘What are you doing here?’ He sounded furious.
‘I had to come,’ she said softly. ‘I had to see —’ She was about to say ‘you,’ but amended it to ‘your city.’ She could feel the heat of his body. He seemed to be smoldering. ‘I wanted to contact you,’ she stumbled on. ‘But I didn’t know how.’
This drew no response. He just sat there, clutching the wheel, massive and volcanic.
Then he said, ‘What were you doing there? At the metro station?’
‘I was just wandering around.’ She knew that she sounded inane and implausible. ‘I went to the museum — the Tretyakov,’ she added hastily, as if the name could help to shore up her story. The art museum, renowned for its collection of traditional Russian painters, including Levitan, was just across the bridge from the rendezvous.
Sasha pulled off the main road and started to
meander as if he had lost his way. Then she realized that he was driving like Harrison, checking to see whether they were under surveillance.
‘We have to talk,’ he announced. ‘Do you have time? Are you meeting somebody?’
‘No. I mean, whatever you say.’
‘All right. I know a place.’
He doubled back along the Garden Ring Road, and soon they were heading south.
Sasha parked near a faceless apartment block and told her to wait in the car. He left his cap on the front seat beside her.
When he came back, he said curtly, ‘It’s okay.’
They shared the elevator with a pug-nosed woman who stared at Elaine, appraising her clothes.
When Sasha had locked the door to the flat behind them, he said, ‘Welcome to Bangladesh.’
Chapter Seven – Bangladesh
‘The ultimate in disposing one’s troops is to be without ascertainable shape. Then the most penetrating spies cannot pry in nor can the wise lay plans against you.’
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
‘This isn’t where you live,’ Elaine said. The living room smelled like an ashtray. There was a lingering trace of a cheap perfume.
‘It’s a friend’s place. We’ll be safe enough here.’
She stripped off her coat and started picking up plates and glasses.
‘Leave all that,’ Sasha told her. She turned to him and he took her in his arms. The touch of her body made him postpone all the questions he had to ask. At least we weren’t followed, he had told himself before even opening the door.
He lifted her as if she weighed no more than a down pillow, and carried her into the bedroom.
‘I’ve needed you,’ he breathed, close to her ear, as he fumbled with the clasps on her dress.
She kissed him and slid away from under him. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I never could stand a bed that wasn’t tucked in.’
He took off his uniform while she made the bed. Then she started undressing on the far side of the room, and they watched each other in the big gilt-framed mirror.
‘Do you have such a thing as a bath?’ she asked.
‘Of course.’ He laughed. ‘Where do you think we are?’
‘Then let’s take a bath together.’ In the hurried months they had shared in New York, there were so many things they hadn’t done. They’d never walked in the park, or gone to a movie, or even taken a bath together.
When the tub was filled the water was too hot, but they jumped in anyway, making a tremendous splash that left a puddle on the floor.
She saw the scar tissue on his chest and traced the lines with her fingertips, as if she were frightened of hurting him.
‘Afghanistan?’ she asked, and he stopped himself from asking how she knew.
All he said was, ‘It’s not worth talking about.’
He wasn’t doing much of a job of soaping her. ‘Well, I guess some parts of me will be pretty clean.’ She smiled at him.
He carried her back to the bedroom before either of them was properly dry, with the only halfway decent towel in the apartment draped loosely over their shoulders. And for an hour or so, their bodies locked together, they were able to forget they were in Moscow, and were breaking its rules. He said her name over and over, tuning her body with his mouth and hands until it sang.
Afterwards, he recited something to her in Russian, and she asked for a translation. He picked the words one by one, like pebbles.
‘I have refused to obey.
I have passed beyond the flags.
The thirst for life has been stronger than anything.
Joyous, I have heard the astonished cries of the men behind me.’
He broke off and said, ‘It’s about the wolf that escaped the hunters. It’s the way I felt, just now.’
He spoke with such sadness, using the past tense, that she knew he was slipping away from her. Soon there would be questions. She lay perfectly still, holding her breath, as if the slightest movement would shatter the moment completely. He kissed her, and tasted salt tears. He pressed against her with the whole of his body, and she clutched at him fiercely. He seemed to radiate heat.
‘I never expected you to wait for me,’ he said.
‘I’m no good at waiting. I’m afraid I couldn’t seem to do anything else.’
‘You couldn’t know that you’d find me in Moscow,’ he observed, and she knew it was beginning. She fumbled around beside the bed for her pocketbook, and extracted one of her menthol cigarettes. They watched the smoke coil around an African mask.
‘I think you should tell me about it,’ he went on, still not hurrying her.
‘They gave me a tourist visa,’ she reported. ‘It was all quite routine. I’ve been thinking — dreaming — about Russia since you left. I’ve started work on a novel about a family of Russian immigrants who end up in America. I’m using some of the stories my father told me.’
Sasha considered this in silence. Then he said, ‘Coincidence may work well enough in a novel. I’m not sure that it works here.’
‘Did you forget Bloomingdale’s? We met by chance, didn’t we?’
‘At the beginning,’ he agreed. ‘In New York, yes, it was a miracle. But in Moscow, we’re short on miracles. Someone helped you to find me.’
His voice was still soft, but his look was so intense that it scared her.
‘There was nobody.’
‘It’s better that you tell me,’ he persisted. ‘That way, I may be able to limit the damage.’ His eyes never left her face. They reminded her of a gray wolf at the edge of a camp, hungry but wary of the fire, waiting his moment.
She hugged her knees, feeling chill even in the overheated room now that his warmth had been removed from her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she faltered. ‘Sasha, I had to see you. I would have done anything —’
‘Anything?’ For the first time, he raised his voice.
‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ she corrected herself.
‘I promise I won’t blame you,’ he said, gentler again. ‘Not if you tell me all of it. Who led you to me?’
‘I love you, Sasha.’
‘And I’ve never stopped loving you.’
‘I never meant to put you in danger.’ She was sobbing openly now. ‘It’s just that it’s been so long, and not one word.’
‘I know. Don’t think I haven’t suffered too.’
He put his arm around her, drawing her face to his chest, and the smell and the posture were oddly familiar, reassuring. For an instant, she was a little girl again, riding proud in her father’s lap on the saddle of a big bay mare at a dude ranch in California.
‘Who was it?’ he asked again, dragging her back to the present.
She wanted to blurt all of it out, starting from the moment the FBI scooped her up in the rain outside the New School. But then she would have to admit that she had failed to warn him that they were under FBI surveillance in New York because she was frightened of losing him. She was even more afraid of losing him now that she had found him again. So she told him a part of the story, hoping it would be enough to satisfy him.
‘There’s a journalist in Moscow, a friend of mine.’
‘Who?’
‘His name is Guy Harrison. He’s from New Zealand. That’s next to Australia,’ she added, as if this lent weight to the information. ‘How did you meet him?’
‘I’ve been writing for a few American publications. One of my editors gave me an introduction.’
Sasha allowed this to pass. He let her embroider on these social acquaintances for a while, regaining her confidence, before he suddenly asked, ‘How did this Guy Harrison know about me?’
‘Your name was in the newspapers,’ she gambled. ‘When they announced you were a war hero.’
‘Yes. But how did he know where to look for me?’
‘He knew you were working for Marshal Zotov. It’s generally known —’
‘Not to foreign journalists,’ Sasha cut her off. ‘Harrison is much too
well informed. Who does he really work for? The CIA? The British?’
She had run out of answers.
‘You don’t have to say anything more,’ he told her. ‘They didn’t teach you to lie very well. Did they ask you to try to recruit me?’
‘No!’ she protested.
‘Let me see if I can guess what they said. They said there’d be no strings, didn’t they?’
She turned away, ashamed and confused.
‘They’re playing with us,’ he said, in a tone that was patient rather than angry. ‘They’re using you for bait. You never feel the hook to begin with.’
‘Believe me, Sasha. I would never have come if I thought —’
‘I know why you came. Whatever happens, I’m glad you did.’ He kissed her again. ‘But you must understand that if we’re discovered — if your friends are clumsy, let’s say, or if they decide to betray us —’ She stared at him in bewildered disbelief and he specified, ‘Oh yes, it can happen. No secret service is a stranger to blackmail, and blackmailers sometimes have to prove they mean business. Let’s just say it could be extremely unpleasant. They’ — there was no need to spell out who they were — ‘might even shoot me as an American spy.
‘What have I done?’ Her voice was barely a whisper.
‘Nothing, I hope,’ he tried to comfort her. ‘Except to give me back my heart for an hour. But you must go and explain to your friends that we can’t see each other again, not in Moscow. It would be suicide.’
With the slow disjointed motions of a sleepwalker, she rose from the bed and started to dress. Her body was fuller than before, but her waist was still tiny, and she moved on the small, neatly turned feet of a ballerina. He watched her struggling with her pantyhose, and wanted to hold her again.
‘Come to me,’ he called to her, his arms outstretched. There was no telling how long they would have to wait until the next time.
‘If I could think only of myself,’ he told her, ‘I would find a way to go back to New York, to be with you. But I told you before, I have a mission that matters more than any individual’s happiness. If I betrayed that, you couldn’t love me.’