Maximov, who seldom speaks, claps her hands and the meeting is called to order. Deputy Director Dimitriov opens the proceedings.
‘Comrades. I am sorry to report that our esteemed Comrade Director is unable to be with us today. He sends his apologies.’
She tries to remember an occasion when their esteemed Comrade Director did not send his apologies. There is a silence as Dimitriov puts on his spectacles. He leans over his text and begins.
‘Report for the month ending 31 December …’
The unvarying rhythm of his delivery as he reads his prepared text and the boring content of what he has to say make these exercises in worker participation pointless and exhausting. She looks around without turning her head. In row after row, bodies are sitting in the accustomed manner, long-practised postures, head and shoulders hunched forward over open pads of paper, pen in hand as though in the act of note-taking. But no hand moves. No notes are taken. The pads, a blotchy grey, remain untouched. Behind the camouflage, eyes are closing. Those on the dais are too high up to notice.
Even the commissars seem bored. Dimitriov recites the month’s achievements and the month’s failures. He assumes the achievements are routine (‘this is the level of performance expected’), so he concentrates as the commissars have instructed him to do on the failures.
‘… the failure to remove cups from desks, the wastage of pencils, the removal of pads of paper from the stationery office and their reappearance in the toilets …’
Beside him Senior Technician Maximov nods furiously as each crime is read out (it was she who spotted the pads in the staff toilets and triumphantly returned them to the stationery cupboard) while the two commissars stare in front of them, their faces blank.
The pounding in her head continues.
In her mind she repeats the instructions that Andropov has given her. (‘Stand up slowly. Speak clearly. Use your notes if that helps.’) She holds her notes tightly; they are creased now and some of the words have been smudged by her damp hands. She does not want to refer to them if she can avoid it.
The known statistics about radioactive fallout
The likely pattern of irradiation
How radiation from a nuclear explosion is absorbed into the human body
The probable death rate per hectare
The predicted death rate per thousand over five and ten years.
Irrefutable facts and figures derived from statistical studies of the nuclear explosions in Japan.
‘These are your questions,’ Andropov said to her. ‘Raise them at the next monthly progress meeting of the Project task force. We hear the director may be there.’
Dimitriov ends his recital, which he has read without once looking up. He looks very white and for one hilarious moment she wonders if he is not boring himself to death. He closes the file and says quietly: ‘I submit my report for your approval.’
There are the usual unintelligible murmurs around the room which are taken for assent. Bodies resume the upright position. Eyes open once more. One or two openly stretch, in anticipation of the end of proceedings.
With obvious ceremony, Senior Technician Maximov takes the paper from Dimitriov, signs and dates it. She makes a show of waiting for the ink to dry. As there is no blotting paper (when did they last have blotting paper?) she must wave the page in the air ostentatiously. There is silence while she does this, broken only by the snapping of lighters as cigarettes are lit. Pale clouds of blue smoke unfurl above them, rise to the ceiling and dissolve. She senses the general relief that the meeting is almost over for another month.
‘Before I call the meeting to a formal halt, are there any questions from the floor?’
There never have been any questions, it is unheard of that anyone should ask anything, everyone wants to get out as quickly as they can. Already the comrades are gathering up their papers; some are standing up, the seats of their chairs snapping back into the upright position in a syncopated rhythm; others are making their way to the door.
‘Comrade Deputy Director.’ She is on her feet. ‘I have a question.’
The room turns towards the small woman at the back. Deputy Director Dimitriov, halfway out of the auditorium, stops in his tracks.
‘Comrade Dr Marchenko?’
‘I would like to ask a question about the risks to the scientific staff and the local civilian population of work currently being undertaken in the Laboratory of the Victory of October the Tenth, otherwise known as D4.’
Dimitriov is as taken aback as anyone by her words. He looks for guidance to Senior Technician Maximov, the mistress of procedure. She can do nothing because on the agenda in front of her is typed the final item: Questions.
She leans towards Dimitriov and whispers in his ear. She shows him the agenda. Dimitriov looks at Ruth. He is more authoritative this time, Maximov having prompted him with what he should say.
‘The floor is yours, Comrade. What is your question?’
There is silence in the room. No one moves. All are astonished. She knows them well enough to guess what they are thinking but she sees none of them because she is not looking at her audience nor at the dais: she is addressing the lights on the ceiling.
Plutonium, she reminds them, is a highly toxic material and D4 is now engaged in developing techniques for casting plutonium. The danger arises if the metal oxidizes in the atmosphere, forming a fine powder of radioactive particles. Breathing in these particles can cause injury or death. What arrangements, she asks, have been made to protect the technicians in D4 in the event of an accident? Or indeed any civilians living in the nearby apartment blocks?
At once a murmur runs around the room. The audience swivels round to look at Deputy Director Dimitriov. He has been writing as she speaks. Now one of the political commissars passes a note to him and then leans across to whisper something. Dimitriov nods.
‘Thank you for your question, Comrade Marchenko.’
She sees Maximov writing furiously. A foil minute of her question will be completed soon after the meeting ends and copies forwarded to the director and, of course, the political commissars, just as Andropov has said they would be. Then they will be sent to Moscow Central Intelligence, where they will end up on Andropov’s desk. At least, that is what he has told her. She hopes he is right.
‘Soviet technicians are not subject to any danger at all,’ he says. ‘Our advanced casting techniques allow our technicians to handle radioactive materials without danger to themselves or indeed anyone else. There is no possibility of such an accident. Therefore there is no risk to anyone. Your concerns are without foundation, Comrade Marchenko.’
Dimitriov prepares to leave the room. She is on her feet once again. (‘Make an impression,’ Andropov has instructed her. ‘Push yourself forward.’)
‘Is the Comrade Deputy Director aware that there have already been two instances of oxidization in D4? Due to the prompt reaction of the scientific personnel, any risks were avoided. Is Comrade Deputy Director not concerned by what has happened?’
Dimitriov looks desperate. ‘I am fully aware of the work undertaken in D4, Comrade Marchenko, and I am wholly satisfied with all safety arrangements.’
Inside her head she hears Andropov’s voice urging her on. But she has another motive. She is beginning to enjoy the sight of Deputy Director Dimitriov, whom she has never liked, squirming like a fish at the end of a line.
‘Would it not be prudent to move the civilian population away from the area while there is some risk during the casting process? Or should we consider transferring this process away from D4 to a more isolated laboratory?’
There is a whispered consultation on the platform.
‘I have no further comment to make, Comrade.’
‘So we are prepared to risk condemning the civilians in the apartments near D4 to the possibility of a slow and painful death from many forms of radiation-induced cancer because we cannot be bothered either to move them to other, temporary accommodation or to find another site
for our testing.’
That is not a question, it is a political statement, and a dangerous one at that. There is more murmuring around the room. Deputy Director Dimitriov looks furious as he gathers up his papers.
‘I am only empowered to take questions, Comrade. The meeting is now closed,’ he says and sweeps out of the room.
13
DANNY
‘I am in Cambridge,’ the voice said. ‘You must help me.’
I found Krasov sheltering inside a telephone box on the Barton Road. His black overcoat, briefcase and hat made him sharply visible through the glass of the kiosk.
‘My dear friend,’ he said. He took off his glove to shake my hand. ‘Forgive me for dragging you out on such a day.’
He tried to smile but his face was stiff with cold. I was shocked at his appearance. He had not shaved for a day or two, and his eyes had sunk even further into his skull. He seemed smaller and more fragile than ever.
‘For now I have escaped,’ he said. ‘It was not difficult. As matter of fact, those cretins they send to follow me would not see me if they were standing on other side of road right now.’
But there was a hollowness to the bravura. This was not the man I had met only a few days before. The stuffing had been knocked out of him. Krasov hunched against the cold and pulled his overcoat tighter around him.
‘I am rather cold,’ he said. ‘Foolishly, I did not come prepared for English winter. If we might go together quickly to your house.’
We set off through the snow, Krasov with his head down to avoid detection and his arm through mine. I carried his briefcase.
‘You’re safe enough here,’ I said. ‘No one will recognize you.’
‘Me? I am not even safe in my dreams.’
Celia was waiting for us in the hall and she greeted Krasov with all the authority of a nurse at a casualty station. ‘Take your shoes off at once, Mr Krasov, and your socks. They’re soaked through. Poor man, you’re frozen. Come into the kitchen and warm up.’
Krasov followed her obediently and she sat him at the kitchen table with his back to the stove and gave him a cup of tea. The children crept into the room, attracted by the sound of a strange voice, and stared-at him from the safety of the door. Krasov stared back and said nothing. Children, I suspected, had no place in his life.
Celia and I had a whispered conversation in the hall.
‘What does he want?’ she asked. ‘Has he said?’
‘Not a dicky bird.’
‘Is he expecting to stay?’
‘He won’t ask. He’ll wait for us to offer.’
‘And if we don’t?’
‘He’ll go away again.’
‘We can’t possibly let him go in this state.’
‘What about Geoffrey?’
‘Leave Geoffrey to me. We’ve got to help this poor man first.’
She went back into the kitchen, sending the children away as she did so. Krasov looked relieved.
‘Mr Krasov.’
‘Dear lady.’
‘What do you want us to do with you?’
‘What do I want to do with myself? That is question.’ He shrugged. ‘If I knew answer, I would be someone else.’
‘Are you in danger? Are you running away?’
He smiled forlornly. ‘I have been running away all my life, from myself and other enemies.’
‘Danny has told me everything.’ Celia was in no mood for equivocation. ‘What are we to do with you, Mr Krasov?’
‘I throw myself on your mercy, dear lady. Perhaps a day or two. If you could give me that. I will be no trouble.’
‘Somewhere to hide? Is that it?’
‘Staying in cupboard all day? Creeping out at night? No, I do not want to hide.’
‘Then what kind of arrangement are we talking about?’
‘An arrangement, dear lady, where I am transparent.’
He stared at her unblinking, black eyes shining out of the shrunken saucer of his face.
‘We’ll put you in the spare room,’ Celia said decisively. ‘I’ll make up the bed in a moment. Did you bring anything with you?’
‘I am what you see. No clothes, no papers. In my country, you can go anywhere without clothes, but without papers you are naked.’
‘First you must warm up. I’ll run you a bath. Danny, put a kettle on for a hot-water bottle. You will spend the afternoon in bed, Mr Krasov. Then I shall bring you some soup. Later on we will decide what to do with you.’
Krasov followed her upstairs, meek as a child.
*
‘He can’t possibly stay here,’ had been my father’s immediate reaction when, on his arrival home, Celia had told him that a Soviet journalist was asleep upstairs. I was surprised at his hostility.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want an escaping Russian in my house.’
‘Nonsense, Geoffrey. He’s a poor frightened man who needs somewhere to rest.’
‘We know nothing about him.’
‘He’s Danny’s friend.’
‘That may not be a recommendation.’
‘If you could have seen him, Geoffrey,’ Celia said. ‘His awful worn coat. Paper shoes. In this weather, too. The dear man was nearly dead with cold.’
My father gave ground, acknowledging Celia’s decision with a shrug and a muttered: ‘I’m not at all happy about it.’
‘You’ll meet him at supper, Geoffrey,’ Celia said. ‘Provided he’s well enough to get up. I shall be the judge of that.’
Krasov was well enough. In fact, he was much restored by his sleep, he assured us as he thanked Celia for her kindness to the ‘lonely Russian who had arrived so unexpected on your doorstep’, and he was very ready to accept my father’s offer of a glass of whisky in his study.
‘Will you join us, Daniel?’
I refused. Looking back, how I wished I hadn’t. Then the study door closed and I went back into the kitchen.
During the time Krasov and my father were alone together something happened to upset my father deeply. When I opened the door half an hour later to say that supper was ready, Krasov was sitting at my father’s lectern looking like a bird of prey poised to swoop and strike. Circling around him in the restricted space of the study, hands thrust deep in his pockets, chin resting on his chest, my father had the appearance of a caged animal. However hard he struggled he could not get free.
Again and again in the days that followed I replayed my impressions of those few seconds. I saw Krasov, sharp, attentive, his huge eyes facing me warily and with suspicion. My father had his back to me. He turned at the sound of my voice and his expression was dazed. Krasor moved quickly away from the lectern to distract my attention from my father, giving him time to recover.
‘Time to eat, Professor,’ he said, smiling at me. He took my father’s arm and led him firmly to the door. The unexpected gesture roused my father, and in the few yards between the study and the kitchen I watched the enormous effort of will he made to conceal his distress from Celia. He was not very successful.
At dinner, he appeared flushed and excitable, his words coming out in a rush as his thoughts tumbled over each other. He was clearly very tense. He hardly touched his food, while Krasov’s appetite remained undiminished. I saw concern on Celia’s face but she said nothing. But the image of my father coming out of his study, Krasov holding his arm, eyes wide as if he had been badly frightened, did not go away easily.
Krasov’s bitter humour entertained us while we ate. He was a fatalist, and that gave him the ability to live for the moment. For the immediate present he was safe, and that allowed him to relax.
Why didn’t we question him about his sudden appearance in Cambridge? Why did we let him invade our lives without asking what had driven him to seek refuge with us on the strength of one meeting? The truth is, we saw a man in need and we responded. We took him in because we trusted him and feared for his safety. I shall never understand how we could have been so naive.
14
RUTH
One moment she is caught up in her narrative, the next her mental energy drains away and she hears the sound of her own voice. She is no longer inside the story she is telling, she is drifting apart from it, the events becoming more and more distant as they turn into shapeless clouds and evaporate in her mind. A sense of desperation rises within her that she can hardly control. She stops in mid-sentence, unable to go on, at least for the moment. She looks at Stevens despairingly.
(How much longer do we have? Is it dawn yet? How can I cram everything into a single night?)
He has already got to his feet (she remembers that he is never still when he talks, he is lecturing to his pupils, up and down the narrow dais from which he addresses them) and she knows he is going to give her time to get her breath back. Once again she is aware of how he responds instinctively to her needs.
‘The day Krasov came to my house was particularly cold,’ he says. ‘I arrived home about three o’clock after a Governing Body meeting to be greeted with the news that a strange Russian was asleep in the spare room upstairs, and would I make as little noise as possible. He appeared before dinner and joined me in my study for a drink. An extraordinary, birdlike man: huge head, thin arms, enormous eyes that seemed to trap you in their gaze.’
Little Krasov, she thinks. Geoffrey has met Little Krasov. How strange that their lives should be connected in this way. She listens carefully while he tells her how Little Krasov brought her back into the life of her English professor.
*
‘My son Daniel tells me you’re running away,’ Stevens said. ‘Cambridge is an odd place to hide.’
‘That is story I give Daniel,’ Krasov said. ‘Like most Russian stories, it is part truth, part invention.’
Making Enemies Page 11