by Robin Byron
She studied his face. ‘Never tempted to grow a moustache?’
‘Can you see me with a big biker’s moustache?’
‘No, I can’t. I like your face as it is. And I brought you a present,’ she said, passing a copy of Pravda across the table. Larry wouldn’t look at it now but inside was a samizdat containing a strongly worded essay on human rights. As Marianne passed the paper across the table her knuckles brushed against his and he took her hand briefly and gave it a squeeze. It was a trifling gesture, but it was the first time he had made any such deliberate physical contact and all of a sudden it seemed to change the whole context of their meeting.
‘You look a bit different today,’ she said.
‘You think so?’ he said, holding her with a steady gaze for several seconds. ‘Perhaps it’s you who are different. On the other hand, of course, it may be the microwaves.’
‘Microwaves?’
Larry nodded.
‘You’ve got a microwave oven?’
‘And every night I heat up my meagre supper…’ He looked at her with those serious grey-green eyes which were only betrayed by the smallest hint of creasing at the corners. She waited for him to explain.
Larry leant forward and lowered his voice. ‘It’s a curious story and I really shouldn’t be telling you, but earlier this year we – that is, the embassy staff – discovered what Kissinger and his associates had been keeping from us – that for years the Soviets have been bombarding the embassy with microwaves.’
‘Seriously? Are people getting sick…?’
‘You may well ask. Officially not, we have been assured they are not harmful – but as you can imagine people are not entirely reassured.’
‘I don’t wonder. How do you feel about it?’
‘Occupational hazard, I guess. Apparently, it started in the early sixties and no one’s died yet. They’ve been secretly monitoring our blood – can you believe it? Without telling us anything. Listen, keep all this to yourself – not even Edward, promise?’
‘Of course.’
‘Otherwise I will lose my job and you might end up in the Gulags.’
It was becoming addictive, she confessed to herself as she left the café and headed towards the university; this amateur sleuthing, finding titbits for Larry and hearing secrets about goings-on at the embassy. Or was it something to do with Larry himself? There had been a difference in him today. She felt she had glimpsed a more serious person within. Already she was looking forward to their next meeting and she was planning in her mind how to engineer the introductions which he had suggested.
As the weeks passed, Marianne became aware that Larry was occupying more and more of her time, to the detriment of her academic work – but she didn’t care. She was transported into a different world; no longer researching what Lermontov was getting up to a hundred and fifty years earlier, her life was now focused on the present. She hung around the bars and cafeterias, listening to gossip and allowing men to chat her up – while keeping clear of any entanglements. She went in search of new samizdats which might interest Larry and spent hours tracking down rumours about a young lecturer in the foreign languages school who was believed to be the author of some of the dissident material which was circulating around the university. It was an existence utterly different from anything she had experienced in the past – an existence with which she was becoming increasingly intoxicated.
Then there was Larry himself; she had barely looked at another man since her marriage to Edward – but that look he had of Daniel, and the aura of danger which hovered around him… Of course, it was all fanciful, she told herself sternly; how could she think of deceiving Edward, the father of her beloved Izzy and the rock around which she had built her life?
Larry told her that meeting him too often in public could become awkward for her. Embassy staff had to assume they might be followed or watched. It was getting too cold now to meet outside and he had given her a name, the Minsk hotel, which was not on the Intourist A or B list but convenient for the centre of the city. ‘I use it sometimes for meetings,’ he had said. ‘It’s a safe place.’
It was a neutral request – nothing more had been said. No nods, no winks; a place to talk in confidence and she knew she could play it safe, be cool and detached. She also sensed it was an invitation she could accept if she wanted – that she was hovering on the brink of an adulterous relationship with unknowable consequences. She comforted herself that there was still plenty of time to decide. Yet when she looked into his eyes she could see desire in the liquid pools behind those thick-rimmed glasses and she suspected she knew which way she would jump.
The December snow was everywhere now and in two weeks she and Edward would be flying back to Vermont with Izzy to stay with her parents for Christmas. What she was contemplating did not affect Edward. Her love for him was steady and sure, she knew that – and she didn’t doubt his love for her. Sometimes she teased him about the nurses at the hospital but she doubted that Edward would transgress. No, this was altogether separate from Edward. She had entered a parallel universe; she hadn’t intended it, at least she didn’t think that she had – although at that first moment she had seen him at the embassy party it was as if a seed had been planted somewhere inside her, small at first but growing steadily over the subsequent months; it seemed to her a matter of unfinished business.
Most days she would pick Izzy up at one o’clock from kindergarten but today she had told them that Izzy would stay for the after-lunch nap and then play in the snow with the other children. The teachers had built a small slide out of ice in the yard behind the school and Izzy had been gratifyingly excited about staying for the afternoon.
As she tramped along the pavement towards the Minsk hotel, wrapped in her warmest clothes, Marianne didn’t think about Izzy or about Edward, she thought only about herself. She observed herself with curiosity, with an objective critique, as if she could determine the precise cause of this strange conduct, as if she had to explain to the impartial observer why this woman was heading to a hotel with every expectation of having a sexual encounter with a man who was not her husband. What was the reason for this atavistic behaviour? Was it rebellion against motherhood and domesticity or an attempt to recover a lost moment from the past?
Clearly, this could not be her, but this stranger – this previously unknown woman – had feelings she could no longer suppress. She had to know him completely, how he would look, how he would feel. She had sensed a lean and muscular body; she needed to bite his lips, taste the nicotine on his tongue. She wanted to feel his hands slipping under her blouse, peeling off her clothes and caressing her skin. She wanted to feel his skin against hers, the press of his body on her and in her; it was something she had to do – a consummation delayed for half a lifetime. She would not be denied.
As she made her way up to room 212, Marianne began to think she might have slipped into a private sexual fantasy and completely imagined their mutual intent. Larry seemed calm and matter of fact as he opened the door for her and inside the room they stood staring at each other for several seconds. He said nothing, but she felt his eyes asking her a question and with the slightest of smiles and a tiny movement of her head she answered his question in the affirmative. As she did so, he came towards her, took her head in his hands and kissed her.
Later, with her body still throbbing and burning hot in the overheated hotel bedroom she watched Larry slumber. Feeling the urge to talk, she said, ‘So this is where you bring your girls?’
‘Girls? No… come on, Marianne… no. I use the hotel just as a place to talk confidentially to people I need to keep in touch with.’
‘Really?’
‘Really, Marianne. I’ve never been here with a woman before.’
Did she believe him? It didn’t matter. He was single. She was the adulterer. She could hardly cast stones.
‘You know,’ said Larry, ‘
I would never guess you were American if I didn’t know.’
‘It comes with being a linguist. After a year or so in England I’d picked up the accent and regular English vocabulary.’
‘So now you grill your tomarrtoes and walk on the pavements…?’
‘I do. And what’s more, I know my arse from my fanny,’ she said, giving him a sharp bite on the shoulder.
‘Ouch! That hurt. So, am I really like this guy you fancied when you were a kid?’ he said.
‘A bit. But I was little more than a child and we didn’t make love – at least not full sex – so I can’t compare you in every detail,’ she said, laughing and reaching down to caress him between his legs.
‘Hey, easy… but, I mean, it was real love, was it, with this guy?’
Marianne was silent for a moment; how to explain? Then she said:
‘“But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we –
Of many far wiser than we –”’
‘Where does that come from?’
‘It’s a poem by Edgar Allan Poe – Annabel Lee. Daniel sent it to me in one of his last letters. Ironic, really. The poem tells of the death of the beautiful Annabel Lee, but it was his death that followed soon after.’
‘So you kept writing to each other for all those years?’
‘Not exactly; for five years I neither saw him nor heard from him. Then, when I was twenty and at college I got a letter from him. He had been drafted and was about to be sent to Vietnam. I think he was suddenly lonely and wanted someone to write to. Also, he said he had to make peace with himself and with me.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘For allowing himself to be bullied. You know, my parents made a huge fuss when they found out what was going on. They wanted to have me examined to see if I was still a virgin, which I categorically refused to consent to – can you imagine the humiliation?’
‘So what happened?’
‘Well, the police interviewed Daniel and cautioned him and threatened to arrest him if he tried to continue our relationship. Really, though, there was no need for the moral panic of my parents or the threatening behaviour of the authorities. I was in no danger of losing my virginity. He was too scared to fuck me, and I was too innocent to give him any encouragement.’
‘Did you try to stay in touch?’
‘I wrote to him at college but I never heard back. I later found out that my parents had intercepted his letters. He also tried to send letters via his sister Betsy but she was still furious with me over the whole business and never passed the letters on.’
‘That’s so sad…’
‘Yes, we disappeared from each other’s lives. I became a diligent student and then, when I was at college, we started this correspondence which lasted for over a year. It was like another love affair. I mean, I was about twenty by then and I had had other boyfriends, but during all that time we corresponded he was the only man in my life and for a time it really seemed that perhaps we had been meant for each other.’
‘That was pretty harsh of your parents not to let you see him at all.’
‘Perhaps, but don’t forget this was the 1950s – pre-pill days, when a pregnancy for a young teenager would be a disaster for the whole family. Most importantly though there was the age difference. I was not yet fifteen and he was twenty-one. Also, my mom had a certain amount of Catholic baggage from her early life in France.’
‘I forgot that your mother was French.’
‘Yes, I was born in France at the end of the war, you know, Marianne – symbol of France. That’s why my mother chose the name. When I started college, my parents went to live in France with my little sister Claire. They stayed nearly ten years before heading back to Vermont.’
‘You don’t look that French. Fair skin, blue eyes.’
‘I get that from my father.’
‘How did you end up in America?’
‘My mother went with my father to America when I was a baby – he was a doctor in the US army. He wasn’t my biological father, but that’s unimportant…’
‘Who was your real father – the one who gave you your blue eyes?’
‘A product of the war, was all my mother would say. German, I’ve always assumed – a case of collaboration horizontale.’
‘So you grew up speaking French.’
‘Yes.’
‘And the Russian?’
‘The Russian was learned. I had to choose a second foreign language and so I chose Russian.’
‘Why?’
‘So I could become a spy.’
‘Well, obviously…’
‘My early training…’
‘Such forethought.’
‘It was the literature: Anna Karenina first – I read it in the back of a car all the way to Florida with my parents one winter. Then it was Crime and Punishment, I was right inside Raskolnikov – there seemed to be something so dark but at the same time so profound in the Russian hero, or antihero, which appealed to me as a seventeen-year-old, so I decided that I had to learn the language. I was a pretty studious girl in those days.’
‘Aren’t you still?’
‘Sometimes. When I’m not distracted by other things.’
6
The legendary Russian winter, destroyer of invading armies and prop for a thousand movie-makers, was finally coming to an end and in its place came the season of mud. For some days now the ice had been cracking in the Moscow River and everywhere the melting snow made small rivers of mud and slush. In the meantime, Marianne’s parallel universe had not yet imploded. She continued to meet Larry regularly at the Minsk hotel; hurrying along the slippery pavements, splashing in the slushy puddles, hot with excitement.
That evening, though, it was different: she was going to his apartment for the first time. She had pestered him to know why they always had to go to the hotel, the small stuffy room which never seemed all that clean. ‘Or is it that you’ve got a girlfriend you are hiding from me?’ she said.
‘Sure, a gorgeous, long-legged Russian girl, but I’ll make sure she’s out when you come… The thing is, Marianne, it’s likely that I am being spied on – and as you are married that could be bad for both of us.’
He had finally consented to her coming that evening when the cleaners had gone home and it was too dark for the security guard to get a good look at her face. Edward was working late and she had arranged for Lyudmila to baby-sit, but as she climbed the stairs to his apartment she began to wonder if it had been a good idea after all; she felt nervous. Back in their hotel room there was no hesitation; they would be stripping the clothes off each other almost before the door was closed behind them. Now, she slid past him as he opened the door and started to walk around the apartment in her overcoat.
‘You can check the drawers if you like, you won’t find any women’s knickers.’
‘Hey, come here. I know – it’s just, well, it feels different being here. But thank you for letting me come.’
‘It’s a pretty standard Moscow apartment.’
‘I know – but at least there is something of you here…’ she said, looking at the soft brown leather sofa, the extensive bookcases and the huge number of LPs stacked against the wall. ‘You must get a generous shipping allowance to have all this stuff brought over?’
‘There are some advantages in being looked after by Uncle Sam.’
‘Tell me about these photographs,’ she said, looking at a large framed montage of family snaps.
Despite having wanted to see where Larry lived, Marianne didn’t find it easy to relax. He told her about the photos, his brother, sisters, parents, friends – and, of course, his ex-wife. They sat on the sofa while she drank a glass of wine and he had a whisky and they chatted about some of the curiosities of Moscow life, and the people at the university she h
ad been trying to contact for him, but when she finally slipped into his bed, she turned her back to him, unable to look him in the face.
They lay there in silence; his body close against hers, his breath warm against her neck. Slowly, he started to caress her, whispering things in her ear. But she couldn’t respond. She could feel his arousal against her thighs and not wanting to disappoint him she turned to kiss him. He responded energetically and moved to go down on her but she took his head and brought it back up.
‘Slowly tonight, it’s just… it feels different here.’
‘Sure, let’s take our time.’
Larry was a skilful and considerate lover, but despite trying his best he couldn’t make it work for her that evening – and she couldn’t make it work for herself. Part of her was watching from a distance: how do I fit into his life – or he mine? Is he using me – and am I risking too much? She resolved not to come to his apartment again until she had figured out these issues – though she knew there was only one answer.
Back in her own bed later that night, with Edward lying beside her, she tried to sleep, but when she shut her eyes it wasn’t Edward she saw, nor was it Larry – it was that face looking at her with pleading eyes. That round face with its smudged freckles: sometimes a face without the head, sometimes a whole head – but never a body; the disembodied face hovered, faded, then reappeared with its look of infinite regret. Familiar, yet impossible to fathom, the image and its accompanying nausea had become part of her life; triggered by guilt or anxiety, it was a ghost she longed to be rid of if only she could discover how.
Marianne never returned to Larry’s flat, but in the anonymity of the Minsk Hotel her old appetites soon returned and in the following weeks their lovemaking became more energetic, more varied, frantic even. Meanwhile she hadn’t stopped her ferreting for Larry and she still felt the adrenalin kick in whenever she made contact with one of the targets he had given her. He was particularly interested in a scientist by the name of Aleshkovsky. She was forbidden from seeking direct contact with him – almost certainly unachievable anyway since he worked in the highly secret scientific research wing of the university; but Larry seldom missed an opportunity to ask her whether his name had cropped up in connection with possible emigration to Israel.