by Child 44
Raisa counted only one friend among her colleagues—Ivan Kuzmitch Zhukov, a language and literature teacher. She didn’t know his exact age—he wouldn’t say—but he was around forty. Their friendship had occurred by chance. He’d casually lamented the size of the school library—a cupboardlike room in the basement next to the boiler and stocked with pamphlets, back issues of Pravda, approved texts, and not a single foreign author. Hearing him, Raisa had whispered that he should be more careful. That whisper had been the beginning of an unlikely friendship which, from her point of view, might have been strategically unwise considering Ivan’s tendency to speak his mind. He was in many people’s eyes already a marked man. Other teachers were convinced that he hoarded forbidden texts under his floorboards or, far worse, he was writing a book of his own and smuggling the no doubt subversive pages out to the West. It was true that he’d loaned to her an illegal translation of For Whom the Bell Tolls which she’d been forced to read in parks over the summer and which she’d never dared take back to her apartment. Raisa could afford the association only because her own loyalty had never been too closely scrutinized. She was, after all, the wife of a State Security officer, a fact known by almost everyone, including some of the students. Logically Ivan should have kept his distance. No doubt he reassured himself with the deduction that if Raisa had wanted to denounce him she would have done so already, considering how many imprudent things she’d heard him say and how easy it would for her to whisper his name across the pillow into the ear of her husband. So it came to be that the only person she trusted among the staff was the man most mistrusted, and the only person he trusted was the woman he should trust least of all. He was married, with three children. All the same, she suspected he was in love with her. It was not something she dwelled on, and she hoped for both their sakes that it was not something he dwelled on either.
OUTSIDE THE MAIN ENTRANCE to the school, across the road, in the foyer of a low-rise apartment block, stood Leo. He’d changed out of his uniform and was wearing civilian clothing, clothing he’d borrowed from work. In the Lubyanka there were cupboards full of odds and ends: coats, jackets, trousers—all of various sizes and differing in quality, kept for exactly this purpose. Leo hadn’t thought about where these clothes had come from until he’d found a spot of blood on the cuff of a cotton shirt. They were the clothes of those executed in the building on Varsonofyevsky Lane. They’d been washed, of course, but some stains were stubborn. Dressed in an ankle-length gray woollen coat and a thick fur hat pulled down over his forehead, Leo was convinced his wife wouldn’t recognize him if by chance she glanced in his direction. He stamped his feet to keep warm, checking his watch, a stainless steel Poljot Aviator—a birthday present from his wife. There wasn’t long until her classes were finished for the day. He glanced at the light above him. Using an abandoned mop he reached up and smashed the bulb, plunging the foyer into shadow.
This wasn’t the first time his wife had been followed. Three years ago Leo had arranged surveillance for reasons that had nothing to do with whether or not she was a security risk. They’d been married less than a year. She’d become increasingly distant. They were living together yet living apart, working long hours, glimpsing each other briefly in the morning and evening with as little interaction as two fishing boats which set sail each day from the same port. He didn’t believe that he’d changed as a husband and so couldn’t understand why she’d changed as a wife. Whenever he broached the subject she’d claimed she felt unwell, yet she refused to see a doctor, and anyway, who was unwell, month after month after month? The only explanation he could come up with was that she was in love with another man.
Duly suspicious, he’d dispatched a newly recruited, promising young agent to follow his wife. This agent had done so every day for a week. Leo had justified this course of action because although unpleasant it was motivated by love. However, it had been a risk, not merely in the sense that Raisa might find out. If his colleagues had found out they might have interpreted this matter differently. If Leo couldn’t trust his wife sexually how could they trust her politically? Unfaithful or not, subversive or not, it would be better for everyone if she was sent to the Gulags. Just to be sure. But Raisa hadn’t been having an affair and no one ever found out about the surveillance. Relieved, he had accepted that he simply needed to be patient, attentive, and help her with whatever difficulty she was going through. Over the months their relationship had gradually improved. Leo had transferred the young agent to a post in Leningrad, a move which he’d packaged as a promotion.
This mission, however, was something entirely different. The order to investigate had come from above. This was official State business; a matter of national security. At stake was not their marriage but their lives. There was no doubt in Leo’s mind that Raisa’s name had been inserted into Anatoly Brodsky’s confession by Vasili. The fact that another agent corroborated the details of the confession meant nothing: either it was a conspiracy, a barefaced lie, or Vasili had planted the name in Brodsky’s head at some point during his interrogation, an easy enough thing to do. Leo blamed himself. Taking time off work had given Vasili an opportunity which he’d exploited with perfect ruthlessness. Leo was trapped. He couldn’t claim the confession itself was a lie—it was an official document as valid and true as every other confession. The only course of action had been to register his profound disbelief, suggesting that the traitor Brodsky was trying to incriminate Raisa as an act of revenge. Upon hearing this explanation Kuzmin had asked how the traitor knew that he was married. Desperate, Leo had been forced to lie, claiming that he’d mentioned his wife’s name in the course of their conversations. Leo was not a skilfull liar. By defending his wife he was incriminating himself. To stand up for someone was to stitch your fate into the lining of theirs. Kuzmin had concluded that such a potential breach of security would have to be thoroughly investigated. Either Leo could do it himself or allow another operative to take over. Hearing this ultimatum, he’d accepted the case on the basis that he was simply trying to clear his wife’s name. In much the same way that three years ago he’d put to bed his doubts about her faithfulness, now he had to put to bed doubts about her faithfulness to the State.
Across the road children poured out of the school entrance onto the street where they broke off in all directions. One young girl ran across the road, heading straight toward Leo and entering the apartment block where he was hiding. As she passed by in the gloom, her feet crunching on the shards of bulb glass, she paused, weighing up whether or not to speak. Leo turned to look at her. The girl had long black hair tied with a red band. She was perhaps seven years old. Her cheeks were pink with the cold. Quite suddenly she broke into a run, her little shoes tapping up the flight of stairs, away from this stranger and back home where she was still young enough to believe she was safe.
Leo moved to the glass door, watching as the last of the students filed out of the building. He knew Raisa wasn’t timetabled for any extracurricular activities—she’d be leaving soon. There she was, at the entrance, standing with a male colleague. He had a trim gray beard, round glasses. Leo noted that he was not an unattractive man. He looked educated, cultivated, refined, with busy eyes and a satchel brimming with books. This must be Ivan: Raisa had mentioned him, the language teacher. At a guess Leo reckoned this man was older than him by at least ten years.
Leo willed them to separate at the gates but instead they set off together, walking side by side in casual conversation. He waited, allowing them to get ahead. They were familiar with each other: Raisa laughed at a joke and Ivan seemed pleased. Did Leo make her laugh? Not really, not often. He certainly didn’t object to being laughed at when he was foolish or clumsy. He had a sense of humor in that regard, but no, he didn’t tell jokes. Raisa did. She was playful verbally, intellectually. Ever since they’d first met, ever since she’d tricked him into believing she was called Lena, he’d never been in any doubt that she was smarter than him. Considering the risks associated with
intellectual agility, he’d never been jealous—until now, watching her with this man.
Leo’s feet were numb. He was glad to be on the move, trailing his wife at a distance of about fifty meters. In the weak orange glow of the streetlights it wasn’t difficult to follow her—there were hardly any other people on the street. That changed when they turned on Avtozavodskaya, the main road, which was also the name of the metro station to which they were almost certainly heading. There were queues of people lined up outside grocery stores, clogging the pavements. Leo found it hard to keep track of his wife, made harder by her nondescript clothes. He had no choice but to shorten the distance between them, quickening his pace. He was less than twenty meters behind her. At this distance there was a danger she’d see him. Raisa and Ivan turned into Avtozavodskaya station, disappearing from view. Leo hurried forward, weaving in and out of the pedestrians. In the commuter crowds she might easily disappear. This was, as Pravda frequently boasted, the busiest and best metro system in the world, used by hundreds of thousands of people each day.
Reaching the entrance to the station he descended the stone steps to the lower hall—an opulent chamber, an ambassador’s reception, with cream marble pillars, polished mahogany banisters, and illuminated by domes of frosted glass. Rush hour and not a centimeter of floor could be seen. Thousands of people wrapped up in long coats and scarves hustled in line at the ticket barriers. Going against the flow, Leo backtracked up the steps, using this slight elevation to survey the heads of the crowd. Raisa and Ivan had passed through the steel ticket barrier and were waiting for a place on the escalator. Leo rejoined the throng, sliding into gaps, edging forward. But stuck behind a mass of bodies he had no option but to resort to less polite methods, using his hands to steer people aside. No one dared do anything more than look annoyed, no one knew who Leo might be.
Reaching the ticket barrier, he was in time to see his wife move out of sight. He passed through, queuing and taking the first available position on the escalator. Stretching down the flight of mechanical wooden steps in a diagonal line to the bottom were the tops of a hundred winter hats. Unable to distinguish one from the other he leaned to the right. Raisa was maybe fifteen steps below him. In order to talk to Ivan, who was standing on the step behind and above her, she’d turned round and was facing upwards. Leo was in her line of view. He pulled back behind the man in front of him and, not wanting to risk another glance, waited until he was almost at the lower level before looking again. The passageway divided into two tunnels: for trains traveling north and south, each filled with passengers, shuffling forward, trying to make their way onto the platforms, vying for a position on the next train. Leo couldn’t see his wife anywhere.
If Raisa was en route home she’d be heading three stops north on the Zamoskvoretskaya line to Teatral’naya where she’d change. With no choice other than to suppose this was what she was doing, he moved down the platform, looking right and left, studying the faces lined up, crammed together, staring out in the same direction, waiting for the train. He was halfway down the platform. Raisa wasn’t here. Could she have taken a train in the other direction? Why would she go south? Suddenly a man moved and Leo caught a glimpse of a satchel. There was Ivan. Raisa was by his side, both of them standing by the platform’s edge. Leo was so close he could almost reach out and touch her cheek. If she turned her head even a fraction they’d be eye to eye. He was almost certainly in her peripheral vision; if she hadn’t seen him it was only because she wasn’t expecting to see him. There was nothing he could do, nowhere to hide. He continued down the platform, waiting for her to call his name. He wouldn’t be able to explain this as a coincidence. She’d see through his lie, she’d know he was following her. He counted twenty steps, then came to a stop by the edge of the platform, staring at the mosaic in front of him. Three separate lines of sweat ran down the side of his face. He didn’t dare wipe them away or turn to check in case she was looking in his direction. He tried to concentrate on the mosaic, a celebration of Soviet military strength—a tank with its barrel pointing straight out, flanked by heavy artillery and mounted by Russian soldiers in long sweeping coats brandishing guns. Very slowly he turned his head. Raisa was talking to Ivan. She hadn’t seen him. A gust of warm air blew down the crowded platform. The train was approaching.
As everyone turned to watch, Leo caught sight of a man looking in the opposite direction, away from the oncoming train, directly at him. It was the briefest of glances, eye contact for a fraction of a second. The man was maybe thirty years old. Leo had never seen him before. Yet he knew immediately this man was a fellow Chekist, a State Security operative. There was a second agent on the platform.
The crowd surged forward toward the train doors. The agent was gone, out of sight. The doors opened. Leo hadn’t moved; his body was turned away from the train, still staring at the exact point where he’d seen those cool, professional eyes. Brushed aside by passengers disembarking, he recovered from his surprise and boarded the train, one carriage down from Raisa. Who was that agent? Why did they need a second agent following his wife? Didn’t they trust him? Of course they didn’t. But he hadn’t expected them to take such extreme supplementary measures. He pushed his way down toward the window through which he’d be able to see into the adjoining carriage. He could see Raisa’s hand, holding the side bar. But there was no sign of this second agent. The doors were about to shut.
The second agent boarded the same carriage as Leo, slipping past him with apparent indifference and taking up position several meters away. He was well trained, calm, and had it not been for that brief glance Leo might not have spotted him. This agent wasn’t following Raisa. He was following Leo.
He should’ve guessed that this operation wouldn’t have been left entirely in his hands. There was the possibility he was compromised. They might even suspect he was working with Raisa if she was a spy. His superiors had an obligation to make sure Leo did his job properly. Anything he reported back would be cross-checked with the other agent. For this reason it was essential that Raisa go straight home. If she went anywhere else—the wrong restaurant or bookshop, the wrong home where the wrong people lived—she’d be putting herself at risk. Her only chance of escape, and it was a slim chance, was by saying nothing, doing nothing, meeting nobody. She could work, shop, and sleep. Any other activities were liable to be misconstrued.
If Raisa was traveling home she’d remain on this train for the next three stops, reaching Teatral’naya station, where she’d change to the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line and travel eastward. Leo checked on the officer following him. Someone had stood to disembark and the agent slipped into a vacant seat. He was now casually staring out of the window, no doubt studiously watching Leo out of the corner of his eye. The agent knew he’d been sighted. Perhaps that had even been his intention. None of it mattered as long as Raisa went straight home.
The train pulled into the second station—Novokuznetskaya. One more stop till they changed. The doors opened. Leo watched as Ivan disembarked. He thought:
Please stay on the train.
Raisa got off the train, stepping down onto the platform and making her way toward the exit. She wasn’t going home. Leo didn’t know where she was going. To follow her would expose her to the scrutiny of the second agent. Not to follow her would put his life in jeopardy. He had to choose. He turned his head. The agent hadn’t moved. From that position he couldn’t have seen Raisa get off the train. He was taking his cue from Leo not Raisa, presuming that the movements of the two were synchronized. The doors were about to shut. Leo stayed where he was.
Leo glanced to the side, through the window, as though Raisa were still in the adjoining carriage, as though he were still checking on her. What was he doing? It had been an impulsive, reckless decision. His plan depended on the agent believing that his wife was on the train; a rickety plan at best. Leo hadn’t counted on the crowds. Raisa and Ivan were still on the platform, moving toward the exit with excruciating slowness. Since the agent
was staring out the window he’d see them as soon as the train began to move. Raisa edged closer to the exit, queuing patiently. She was in no hurry, she had no reason to be, unaware that both her life and Leo’s were in danger unless she moved out of sight. The train began to roll forward. Their carriage was almost in line with the exit. The agent would see Raisa for sure—he’d know that Leo had deliberately failed.
The train picked up speed—it was parallel to the exit. Raisa was standing in plain view. Leo felt the blood rush from his stomach. He slowly turned his head to see the agent’s reaction. A sturdy middle-aged man and his sturdy middle-aged wife were standing in the aisle, blocking any view the agent might have of the platform. The train rattled into the tunnel. He hadn’t seen Raisa at the exit. He didn’t know Raisa was no longer on the train. Barely able to conceal his relief, Leo resumed his pantomime of staring into the adjoining carriage.
At Teatral’naya station Leo waited for as long as possible before getting off the train, acting as though he were still following his wife, as though she were heading home. He moved toward the exit. Glancing back, he saw that the agent had also disembarked and was trying to catch up some of the ground between them. Leo pressed forward.
The passage funneled out into a thoroughfare with access either to the different lines or to the street-level exit. He had to lose this tail without appearing to do so. The tunnel to the right would take him to trains traveling east on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line, the route home. Leo turned right. Much depended upon the arrival of the next train. If he could get far enough ahead, he might be able to board the train before the agent caught up and realized Raisa wasn’t on the platform.