The Russian Affair

by Michael Wallner

  Alexey had confessed his deep feelings for her and, in the same breath, revealed himself as a coldly calculating man. He’d taken a lover in the knowledge that such a step would drive her into the hands of the KGB. He’d been prepared to accept the breakup of her marriage and the ruin of her family in order to achieve a single goal: deceiving Kamarovsky. While Alexey voluntarily and apparently casually divulged to Anna information concerning the inner workings of his Ministry, he was providing the Colonel with facts whose analysis had resulted—at this realization, Anna caught her breath—in Kamarovsky’s overlooking the real facts! Was it possible that the phlegmatic wolf had outsmarted the hard-bitten security officer?

  Her weeping subsided, giving way to feverish cogitation. What sense could she make of all this? Didn’t the high-ranking comrades all work in concert? Wasn’t the KGB the Central Committee’s instrument, its listening ear, its hidden eye, its torture tool? Hadn’t Alexey himself asserted that the Party had abandoned its unjust practices and instituted stricter internal monitoring in order to eliminate the possibility of rule by individual diktat? Or was it naive to believe that the struggle for power within the walls of the Party’s headquarters wasn’t being carried on as fiercely as ever?

  Anna’s reflections went even further. If Bulyagkov had actually staged their entire time together, didn’t that mean he’d brought her to Dubna deliberately? And could Kamarovsky really have failed to discern that the Deputy Minister for Research Planning had smuggled the house painter into the atomic city for other than romantic reasons? Had Bulyagkov, rather than Kamarovsky, intended for Anna to meet Lyushin?

  “But why?”

  She flinched at the sound of her own voice. She’d been staring at the enamel clock, whose ticking had never before seemed so intrusive. After trying for three days in Dubna, Anna remembered, she’d given up all hope of running into Lyushin again. And then, on the last afternoon, no less, mere hours before Anna was to leave Dubna and return to Moscow, the nuclear physicist had shown up in the very place where she was. Why hadn’t Alexey made any effort to get rid of his uninvited guest? Because he wasn’t uninvited! Nor had Alexey objected when she and Lyushin had a conversation about a field of research that was subject to the highest level of secrecy. Back on that afternoon, Anna had been proud of herself for understanding enough about quantum physics to follow what Lyushin was saying. But hadn’t it been the other way around? Hadn’t Lyushin kept his remarks as simple as possible so that he could be sure she understood? And if that was the case, it meant that both Bulyagkov and Lyushin had wanted Anna to receive some specific information, take it back to Moscow, and report it to Kamarovsky. In fact, she’d returned with only one piece of news, namely, that Lyushin’s research project had failed.

  She put her hand on the dripping faucet and turned it all the way off. The dripping continued; there was a washer problem here, too. Bewildered, she recalled that one purpose of her visit had been to confide to Alexey what she knew about Lyushin. She’d come within a hair of making a dangerous mistake. The less she knew, the less she said, the more dispensable she’d seem to the contending parties, and the sooner she’d get her wish: to be released from all this into the normality of her former life.

  A glance at the hands of the clock showed Anna that only three minutes had gone by. She dried her eyes again, ran her fingers through her hair, and went back into the living room. Then she stepped into the hall and listened. Someone outside spoke, just for a moment, and then a key was thrust into the lock. Just as she closed the glass door, Anna thought she heard a woman’s voice in the stairwell. Medea? Would Alexey’s wife arrive here without notice? Anna dropped onto the corner seat, picked up her glass of wine, and drank half of it.

  He returned with a little package. “My apologies,” he said, and carried the package into the back room. “Are you hungry at all?” he asked from there.

  “No omelet without eggs,” Anna muttered. She wouldn’t be taking his innocuous act at face value anymore.

  “What?” He came back into the living room and closed the curtain.

  “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” She stood up. “I have to go.”

  “Already?”

  “Hasn’t everything been said?” She was itching to dash to the window and see who was stepping out of the building at that very moment.

  Alexey appeared to read her impulse and placed himself in the way. “You haven’t given me your answer yet.”

  As he spoke, she sensed how dangerous he was, the man she’d seen so often in his homely cardigan, slightly tipsy or exhausted from work. One false word now and she’d be in danger. Apart from Anton, nobody knew where she’d gone, and nobody had seen her arrive. Who would ever think about looking for her here?

  “Good,” she said, apparently casual. “Let’s leave everything where it is.”

  “Do you mean that?” It wasn’t a question; it was, unmistakably, pressure.

  “Yes.” She turned toward the door, and he let her pass. “Will I see you before you leave on your trip?”

  He followed her and helped her into her coat. “That would be lovely.”

  “May one know where you’re going?”

  He smiled thoughtfully. “A city where it’s never hot, not even in summer.”

  Don’t know, don’t guess, Anna thought. As though she wanted to prevent him from talking anymore, she flung her arms around his neck, pressed herself against him for a long time, longer than usual, and ran out of the apartment and down the stairs without turning around.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The city looked strange to Anna as she made her way home, but she knew it was her and not the city; her perceptions were peculiarly heightened. She walked down the stairs into the Kurskaya Metro station. There were four ticket windows, each with a long line in front of it. Anna decided to try number three. After standing in place for ten minutes without moving, she stepped out and walked up to the front of the queue.

  “So impatient, young lady?” someone said. “We’re waiting, too.”

  The first person in line was a man whose hat was pulled down low over his forehead; a dog was sitting next to him. The man’s face beamed with patience and serenity, and he seemed uninterested in accelerating the process. The ticket window was opaque, either misted up from the dampness or covered with dust—in any case, the person on the other side couldn’t be seen. Anna spotted a small piece of paper stuck to the glass, with writing so tiny she had to stand inches away from it before she could read it. It gave notice that the window was temporarily closed. The behavior of the person who was first in line seemed inscrutable to Anna until she took a good look at his dog. It wore a white collar, and the leash the man was holding was attached to a long staff. Why hadn’t the people behind him noticed that they were lined up behind a blind man at a closed ticket window? The second and third positions were occupied by a young couple, holding hands and whispering as they gazed into each other’s eyes. Next came a stout woman, staring into space and talking to herself. Then there was a newspaper reader, followed by a listless Asiatic man who kept his eyes fixed on the tips of his shoes. Not a single one of them was interested in why the line wasn’t moving; there they stood, acquiescing to their circumstances, while time rolled on by.

  That’s the way we are, Anna thought. Herd animals. We get crammed into situations where any people would protest, any people but Russians! We’re content with a little reassurance, and we’ll put up with anything. Nobody thinks to ask why window number three is closed! Window number three is closed everywhere in the country, but we don’t want to know what’s behind the glass or what takes place over our heads. We live like the bottom range of a pyramid, pressed down from above and bearing the entire burden. We’ve been told we’re the most modern, most forward-looking society in the world. But what do we do? Stand in front of a blank window and wait. Surrender, accept, wait! “Window three is closed!” Anna cried, venting her rage.

  Heads turned; people exchanged expr
essionless looks. Finally, they began to move, one by one, abandoning that queue to try their luck in the next. Anna informed the blind man that he had nothing to hope for from the window in front of him. He thanked her and, without losing any of his serenity, betook himself to the end of line number four.

  Even if you shake people out of their apathetic acceptance, Anna thought, do they use the opportunity to give some thought to their situation? No, on the contrary; as quickly as possible, they look for the security of the familiar and start cooling their heels again somewhere nearby. And meanwhile—Anna’s eyes turned upward—life presents itself in all its variety directly over their heads! Sometime in the past, before everything became so gray and resigned, revolutionaries built these vaults. Though a hundred feet underground, those men had been informed by the desire to make something beautiful, which Anna read as an outcry against everything deadening. High overhead, luminaires cast their gilded light into niches where amber statues stood, alert figures that seemed on the point of coming to life. A hunter urged his dog to the chase; a muscular woman offered the observer a plate; a student bent over his book. The early heroes and heroines of the Revolution represented the future for us, Anna thought; they made it into images that show us the way. But we stumble past them, vacant and blind. We’re underhanded, corrupt, concerned only for our own advantage, and this miserable state of affairs is visible at every level. Kamarovsky distrusts Bulyagkov, Bulyagkov deceives Kamarovsky, Lyushin betrays the Ministry, the Minister neglects to question falsified reports.

  Anna felt so beset by troubles that she could have screamed. She needed air; she rushed past the lines of gaping people, reached the steps, and ran up into the damp, cold night. Heading west, she hurried through the streets, stepping briskly past spires and domes, and burst into Red Square, the enormous center of the city, the illuminated monument of its past and, at the same time, of a glorious future. How could people who came to this place forget the purpose it served? How could they ignore the mausoleum of their greatest hero and disregard his principles? Did anybody gaze at the red star on the top of the tower or the flag flying over the Kremlin and not feel called upon to do everything he could to ensure that what those symbols stood for would become reality? At that moment, in the shadow of the brightly illuminated walls bordering Red Square, Anna would have given anything to have been one of the early revolutionaries, one of those who had made their way there in the old days to hear the speeches and see the personages, the builders of the new state founded on the principles of a brilliant theory.

  After some minutes, during which she’d strolled along the brick walls to the mausoleum and then back to the cathedral, Anna grew calmer. She could distinguish individual faces again, not just the faceless mass. A skeptical-looking woman in a red, quilted coat, two Kyrgyz tourists in absurdly huge fur hats, a portly married couple making their way home after some last-minute shopping. In our hearts, we all want the same thing, she thought, soothing herself. It’s just that many of us lack perseverance and patience, and we become fainthearted; we stop envisioning the goal. Anna felt satisfied to discover that a visit to this spot, where all the lines of the Soviet Union ran together, sufficed to restore her positive attitude.

  She determined which Metro station offered the quickest way home and once again descended underground. When she got out at Filyovsky Park, she was filled with a sense of relief. The hardest step was behind her; she and Alexey had put an end to lying and reached a clear agreement. Now that she was confident of having removed the biggest obstacle standing between her and Leonid, she could imagine nothing better than spending the evening with her family.

  The little apartment had rarely seemed so homelike to her: the old lamp, the books, Viktor Ipalyevich in front of the television set, Leonid snuggling with Petya in the alcove. Anna removed her shoes on the landing, and her thick socks made no sound as she slipped inside; none of the three noticed her yet.

  “Can you imagine living in Siberia?” she heard her husband say.

  “Why?” Petya asked.

  “Just wondering. How would it be to take a trip away from all the bustle and noise of the city and go to a place where there’s still a lot of land and wide-open spaces, where nature’s vast and everybody can spread out?”

  Anna noticed that her husband was keeping his voice down so that his father-in-law over in the TV chair couldn’t hear him. She tiptoed nearer.

  “How long am I supposed to be there?”

  “Don’t have a clue. I just want to know if it sounds like a good idea to you.”

  “Well, where is it, Papa?”

  “It’s in the East, far away. Everything there is different from here—it’s much more extreme.”

  “What does ‘extreme’ mean?”

  “It means only strong guys can survive out there. Guys like you.”

  Petya laughed and said, “And you!”

  “We both have what it takes to make it there, right?”

  “Right!”

  Anna understood Leonid’s effort to make his transfer something his son could grasp. She wanted to lie down beside her men and project the future with them.

  “Maybe we could even live there for a longer time,” Leonid went on.

  Anna stood still.

  “Then we’ll be together always?” Petya asked.

  “Well, you’ll spend part of the time with Mama, naturally.”

  “She’s not coming with us?”

  “Sure she is.” Leonid cleared his throat. “But she can’t always be in Yakutia. She’s got a good job in Moscow, and she won’t want to give it up.” Leonid rolled over, making the bed creak. “We’ll just ask her when the time comes.”

  “Why hasn’t the time come yet?”

  “Because there’s a lot of things I have to get straight. But I’m sure it won’t be long now.”

  Petya seemed to ponder this. Finally, he said, “I wish we’d all stay together.”

  Anna felt that this was her cue. “Good evening, you two,” she said, placing herself in front of them.

  Leonid flinched. “Have you been listening to us?”

  “I’m not supposed to know what you talk about in bed?”

  “Mama!” Petya cried, laughing at her sudden appearance. “We’re going to visit Papa in …” He couldn’t think of the name.

  “We were just kidding around,” Leonid said airily.

  “Not kidding around! Not kidding around!” Petya yelled jubilantly. “What’s the name of the place we’re going to?”

  “Yakutia,” Anna answered for Leonid.

  “Yakutia!” She received a damp kiss, after which the boy threw himself on his father and hugged his neck. “Yakutia!” he cried again and again, until finally his grandfather sat up straight in his chair. “Can I watch this program in peace, or is the counterrevolution breaking out?”

  Uttering the battle cry “Yakutia!” the child sprang out of the sleeping nook and charged his surprised grandfather.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Viktor Ipalyevich said, protecting his cap.

  “Yakutia!” Petya was not yet tired of shouting that name.

  “Be quiet. That’s the name of the most terrible place on earth, the coldest wasteland, the horror of every civilized person.”

  Confused, Petya fell silent, as though his voice had suddenly been taken from him.

  “Are you a convict?” the grandfather asked, heightening the effect of his words.

  “No, Dyedushka.”

  “Then what’s all this uproar about? Only criminals get sent to hell on earth. Is that what you want?”

  “No, Dyedushka.”

  “Well, then.” With that, the old man lifted the boy off his lap and turned his eyes back to the television screen. It was as if he’d already forgotten the interruption.

  Petya crept back to his parents. “Grandfather says—”

  “Grandfather has his own ideas about that part of our country,” Leonid declared. “But he’s never been there.”

>   “Have you?” Anna asked in surprise.

  Glowing patches appeared on Leonid’s skin. “Well, you see, the possibility came up. Flights between Sakhalin and Yakutsk—”

  “So you didn’t come home to talk everything over with me,” she said, interrupting him. “You’ve already made your decision.”

  “How was I supposed to get an idea of the place without seeing it even once?”

  Petya stared mutely from one to the other. Music played in the background; a speaker announced the next program.

  “Is Yakutia really hell?” the boy asked his father.

  “Of course it is,” the old man said, intervening again. “What else would it be?” The three heard him get up and shuffle into the kitchen.

  “That’s not true,” Leonid whispered. “And you know why not? Because there isn’t any hell.” He turned to Anna. “You’re home already? Didn’t you have a good meeting?”

  She chose to ignore his sarcastic undertone. “Have you all eaten?”

  “Just because you’re not home one evening, that doesn’t mean things fall apart here.” He went to the bathroom.

  “If we move to Yakutia, we won’t be convicts, will we?” Petya leaned his head on his hands.

  “No one’s moving anywhere. You misunderstood. And now it’s bedtime.” She picked him up and put him down on the floor so that she could shake out the bed. “Time for tooth brushing,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Are you going to bed now, too?” The boy turned toward the bathroom.

  “No, I’m going to sit in the kitchen with your papa for a while.”

  Upon discovering that the bathroom door was locked from the inside, Petya called out, “Tooth brushing!”

  The latch was raised, the door opened a little, and the child slipped into the bathroom. When Leonid came out, his path and those of Anna and Viktor Ipalyevich all intersected simultaneously. The three of them stopped short. “Leo and I are going to talk for a little while longer,” Anna said to her father.