At Zaistino, border officials got on the train, two in police uniforms and one in civilian clothes. Anna sat up properly, rubbed her bleary eyes, and got her identity papers ready. She observed the plainclothes official; the man was obviously drunk. He was doing a good job of holding himself steady, but his skin and eyes betrayed him.
The large Latvian family was subjected to exhaustive scrutiny. The patriarch of the clan gave good-natured replies, while the women, intimidated, remained silent. It struck Anna that the Russian border cops were treating the Latvians as though they’d been granted the privilege of traveling in Russia, but now that period of grace was over, and they must scurry home to their “sister state” as quickly as possible. The officials’ condescension and rudeness irritated Anna. They gave the members of the family their documents back, approached Anna’s seat, looked at her—and continued on without a word. She expected the men to check her on their way back through the car, but soon they opened a door while the train was still moving and stepped off. They were in the no-man’s-land between the two border stations; a little farther on, Latvian officials saluted and took over the train on their native soil. While Anna was watching the exchange and trying to find an explanation for such lax bureaucracy, an automobile stopped on a gravel road near the railroad line. Everyone except the driver got out and boarded the train.
There was no reason for her to feel proud or elated, and yet, at that moment, Anna thought her adventure remarkable. Increasingly confident of actually arriving in Riga before too long, she even grew convinced that Anton had been nimble enough to shake off his pursuers. In her inexplicable cheerfulness, Anna saw herself as a genuine traveler, riding the night train on a flying visit to Latvia. While she was imagining her meeting with Alexey, the door opened behind her. She assumed that the Latvian officials were now doing their duty, and so she collected her identity papers, turned around, and looked into A. I. Kamarovsky’s eyes. In spite of the mild temperature, he was wearing a winter coat. He looked hollow-cheeked, even deathly; his innocuous smile didn’t suit his wasted face.
“Your blushing cheek shows me that you find it exhilarating, just as I do, to run into old friends while traveling.” He threw off his coat, spread it on the seat, and sat down next to Anna.
A great heat rose in her, as if she’d taken some fast-acting poison. Words fled from her mind; there was nothing to say.
“You probably find it impossible to sleep in trains, too,” he said with a benign smile. “So we may as well talk. We still have a while to go before we reach Riga. What would you like to talk about?”
She refused to put up with his taunting. If talk was what he wanted, it had to be the real thing. “I didn’t know anything about all this,” Anna said.
“Of course you didn’t. If you had, your behavior would be completely incomprehensible.” He raised his hands, indicating their unreal situation: Anna and the Colonel, their faces illuminated by the cold nighttime lighting, and behind them the big Latvian family, sound asleep. Kamarovsky pulled the skirts of his coat over his lap. “At the next stop, we should get ourselves something to drink. Have you ever been to Latvia before?”
She shook her head.
“I know practically nothing about it myself. That’s about to change.” The Colonel raised his eyeglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “However the two of us work out what’s going to happen,” he said softly, “it won’t be easy, and I won’t hide from you the possibility of an unpleasant outcome.”
“Have you got Anton?”
“Anton’s insignificant. A loyal liegeman of his false lord.” Kamarovsky stiffened. “In a nutshell: Bulyagkov must not leave Riga. He must be stopped, one way or another.”
“One way or another.” She repeated the Colonel’s words and understood that he was speaking of life and death.
“The last thing we want is an arrest outside Russia. It mustn’t look as though we’re recapturing an escaped bird. But at the same time, the bird must be prevented from singing. Do you understand, Anna?”
Even though the possible consequences for Alexey terrified her, she was relieved that the Colonel was eschewing all bombast and rhetoric in discussing the matter. It wasn’t a question of hunting anybody down, but of correcting an erroneous development and preventing it from doing damage.
“I’ve never needed you so much as I do now,” Kamarovsky said soberly.
“What can I do to change anything?”
“Unfortunately, we won’t be able to know the answer to that question until after the fact. The important thing is for you to see the background issues in their proper proportions.”
From the day when Alexey had told her his story—the biography of a student who’d been brought to Russia clandestinely and forced into an uncongenial career there—from that moment on, Anna should have faced up to those background issues. She’d neglected to do so and instead acted as a mother, as a wife whose marriage was slipping from her grasp, as a daughter who wanted her father’s happiness. Whenever a change had occurred, she’d adapted to it and hoped that time was on her side. Alexey, on the other hand, had looked far into the future and known their time was limited. He’d treated Anna like a lover, but also as an instrument of his purpose, and he’d never taken his eyes off his goal. And now, Kamarovsky was demanding that Anna confront this man, and that she do so in full awareness of the “proper proportions.” In the woods and on the train, her spirits had risen at the prospect of seeing Alexey again, of being, in a way, his savior; but the idea of contacting him as Kamarovsky’s advance guard literally revolted her. At the same time, she had to smile at the Colonel, because his faith in her capabilities seemed unbroken.
“Please inform me, Comrade,” said Anna.
He nodded. Before he began, his eyes wandered to the window. “I can’t believe it’s already getting light outside. We’re farther north than Moscow, but it’s unusual to see a dawn like this back home.” And with that, he turned to her again.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Bulyagkov was sitting in the bar at the Hotel Riga, surrounded by professors. The establishment had closed long since; only the visitors from Moscow were still being served. The Deputy Minister understood the unconstrained exuberance displayed by the scientists, eight men and three women; they were about to put on the biggest public performance of their scientific careers. Again and again, he toasted with them, but he himself drank moderately, even though his desire for stupefaction was great. The day had included much unpredictability; for example, to Bulyagkov’s surprise, his baggage had been inspected. He’d opened his suitcase and the briefcase inside it and then looked on wordlessly as the uniformed official took out Nikolai Lyushin’s dossier. This folder contained many scientific documents, however, and the official had failed to notice the only one that was explosive. He’d leafed through the pages covered with Lyushin’s microscopic handwriting and then thrust the folder back into the briefcase. Bulyagkov had stood and watched the operation calmly, but when the Kyrgyz mathematician, waiting her turn, cast a curious glance at the document, Bulyagkov, as if inadvertently, had blocked her view with one shoulder.
After a short flight and a warm welcome by the Presidium of the Latvian SSR, the schedule had called for a bus tour of the city, which meant that Bulyagkov and the delegation were driven past the Old Town on the way to the Palace of Science. There was insufficient time for extensive sightseeing; therefore, the Deputy Minister had merely unveiled a memorial tablet to the founder of the astrophysics observatory. The Russian delegation had shaken hands with a delegation of Latvian scientists; in the brief speech of greeting, the hosts’ sorrow that not a single one of their number would represent the Soviet Union in Stockholm had been impossible to ignore. After that, the leader of the Riga City Soviet had taken charge of the group and led them on a brief walking tour, beginning at the square dedicated to the Latvian Red Riflemen. Finally, the delegation had been brought to the Riga, a bulky hotel on the Muscovite model, and Bulyagkov had taken a room on th
e fourth floor. After a short rest break, the delegation had been driven to an unusual building on Komjaunatnes Street that looked like a Florentine palazzo but proved instead to be the headquarters of the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR, where the banquet in honor of the Russian guests had taken place.
In his speech, after first expressing regret for the Minister’s illness and apologizing for his absence, Bulyagkov had delivered a spirited paean to Latvia’s industrial achievements that had been received by the hosts with applause and brotherly kisses. Relieved at having discharged his duty, the Deputy Minister had sat still for the Party secretary’s answering address as well as four additional speeches before the meal was served.
After dinner, Bulyagkov had received his second surprise in the person of the Latvian professor Otomar Sudmalis, who’d expressed his joy at meeting the Deputy Minister, a man he knew to be in close working contact with Nikolai Lyushin, with whom the professor maintained a regular correspondence. Sudmalis, it had turned out, was well informed, dangerously well informed, about Lyushin’s work; the professor was acquainted with certain results of Lyushin’s researches about which the Ministry, thanks to Bulyagkov, had remained ignorant. He’d answered the Latvian’s questions in general terms, built a hedge of verbiage around prickly details, and pretended to be drunker than he was. In the end, although he couldn’t feel he’d satisfied the other’s curiosity, Bulyagkov believed he’d at least given him the possibility of presenting himself as an authority.
Under normal circumstances, the Deputy Minister would have stayed late on such an evening, as the secretary of the Latvian Central Committee was a man without affectations and, for a leader of the apparat, amazingly communicative. But shortly after midnight, Bulyagkov, thinking about what was to come on the morrow, had caused the delegation to leave the banquet and return to the hotel.
The next unforeseen event had occurred around one in the morning. Back in his room, Bulyagkov had already removed his tie and loosened his belt when there was a knock on his door and a visitor announced herself: Professor Tanova, the mathematician from Kyrgyzstan. When he’d opened the door, the entire delegation was there. Someone had pointed out, to general amusement, how easy it was for a woman to get into the Deputy Minister’s room. Bulyagkov had joined in the laughter and accepted the invitation to go downstairs for a nightcap.
The wallpaper in the bar was the color of ox’s blood. The Russians were still sitting there, drinking Latvian vodka and eating smoked fish, when dawn began to light the sky outside. In a few hours, they were scheduled to have breakfast with some deputation—Bulyagkov had forgotten its mission—before boarding the plane for their 12:05 flight to Stockholm. Having been born on the twelfth day of the fifth month, Alexey Maximovich took the departure time as a good omen. He knew himself well enough to be certain that he’d get no sleep this night; the liquor was good, and the Kyrgyz woman had a smile that would be able to sustain him through a few more drunken hours.
As his glass was being refilled, he forbade himself speculation about what lay ahead. He was afraid of coming to the conclusion that the weights on the scales were unbalanced, and not in his favor. Medea’s face came into his mind. At first, she’d overtly threatened to denounce him, and she would have done so, too, had she not been the one who’d lured him into his current life and watched him go to ruin in it. As lovers, they hadn’t been suited to each other, but as a soul mate, no one would ever be closer to him. It must have been an enormous sacrifice for her to have agreed to his plan, he thought, and she’d probably already begun to regret it. She might even—as soon as he reached safety—admit what she knew. Medea had never been able to live a lie. Lost in thought, Bulyagkov struggled to follow the Kyrgyz mathematician as she told a long-winded story; he didn’t fail to notice that she’d moved her hand on the couch closer to his thigh, and he hoped day would come soon.
He considered how it was possible to love a woman for nearly two years and, at the same time, callously make use of her. It wasn’t his character that he was calling into question, it was the phenomenon of deception itself. Right at the beginning, he’d told Anna that she would never have anything to fear from him, and yet he’d lied to her every time he’d seen her. His behavior seemed to him so duplicitous that he couldn’t help seeing in Anna, too, in Anna who had defied him, a woman with two faces. One was gentle, candid, the face of a woman nearing the end of her twenties who wanted more from life than climbing on scaffolding day after day. The other was the artful Anna, who, aware of her own immorality, had spied on him. In a woman like Rosa Khleb, those opposites wouldn’t have been at all incompatible: She deceived some people and played them off against other people, because the center of her interest was always and only Rosa Khleb. Bulyagkov had never known a woman so immoral. She hadn’t betrayed him and his purposes to the KGB for one reason and one reason alone: He paid her better. The cunning idea of poisoning the Research Minister two days before his scheduled departure had been Rosa Khleb’s.
Alexey shifted himself away from the Kyrgyz woman. He didn’t want to compare Anna with the Khleb, and he couldn’t equate what he was doing with Anna’s weakness. He’d probably never see her again. He peered gloomily into his glass.
You’re a monster, he thought. How often have you had slogans promoting the worldwide equality of all mankind on your lips? You used them in speeches and conversations while you were building your private, individual dream. He loosened his tie. No, that wasn’t right; he had believed, he still believed, that the world needed to be remade, and even that the Soviet empire was the right power to precipitate the revolution. But he couldn’t make out the people capable of such a feat. The petrifaction had progressed too far; the system now defined itself only by its immutability. Was it worth it to be loyal to such a power, to make sacrifices to it with an eye to future generations? He’d often discussed that with Medea, who would challenge him to think in larger historical dimensions. It would take more than a few years to transform the world, she’d say; it would take time for the good and noble forces to gather together and overcome the alliance of the exploiters. On such evenings, inspired by his wife, Bulyagkov had felt his faith restored. But the next morning, in the Ministry, the truth appeared once again before his eyes.
The big things are simple, he thought. Never in history has the development of a plan for life brought any sort of advancement to mankind. But what was Alexey Maximovich’s idea of “simple”? If I were fifteen years younger, he said to himself, it could have been a life with Anna. She was the simple solution to all the intricacies that entangled his existence. She was the warmth he longed for, the light he would have gladly followed, the love his heart so badly needed. Although fully aware of his own sentimentality, Bulyagkov called Anna’s image to his mind—her thick hair, her kind eyes, her seductive mouth. He saw her like that, standing before him, and standing at the entrance to the hotel bar.
Bulyagkov thought he’d been carried away by his fantasies, thought he was mistaken, thought his drunken eyes would soon see that the woman entering the bar was actually the waitress. It wasn’t possible that Anna was in Riga, and out of the question that she’d come into this ox-blood-red room and, stepping deliberately, approach the still-boisterous group of eleven scientists, who only now noticed her. When the head mathematician from Novosibirsk shouted a loud greeting and indulged himself in the commonplace about the latest hours that bring the prettiest guests, Bulyagkov realized that Anna Nechayevna, in the flesh, was there in front of him. Wherever she might have come from, and for whatever reasons, she’d made her way to where he was. He loved her for that, right then. But in the next moment, anxiety seized him. He raised his head to see if others had come in behind her, but she was alone. Her demeanor indicated that she was glad to have finally reached her goal.
“Where did you come from?”
The group fell silent, emanating curiosity.
“This is Comrade Tsazukhina,” he said awkwardly. “She’s brought me some papers I forgot,
documents I need for the presentation in Stockholm.” He straightened his tie. “Thanks for taking the trouble to come so far.”
Anna stood there and waited for him to invent an excuse for the two of them to leave the bar.
“Well, then, we should go over them right away,” Bulyagkov said, rising to his feet. “So you can finally go to bed, Comrade.”
Accompanied by the scientists’ farewells, in which there was no lack of double entendres, and followed by the Kyrgyz woman’s disillusioned gaze, he took his leave and, with a gesture, showed Anna the way to the elevators. After a few steps, they were alone.
“You’re crazy,” he whispered, grabbing her hand.
“No, the crazy one’s you.”
He saw the seriousness in her eyes. “You know?” Then, after a breathless pause, he asked, “Who else knows?”
She pushed the button. “Come on.” The elevator doors slid open.
They kissed on the way up, not out of passion, but in order to exclude the possibility of speech from the little space they were riding in. He pressed her against him; she clung to his shoulder. They stood there like that, in the deepest despair.
While they walked through the fourth-floor corridors, he kept his eyes fastened on her. Anna didn’t return his gaze. Bulyagkov opened the door of his room, and together they walked over to the window to watch Riga wake up. The hotel stood opposite the National Opera House, and behind that was the park with the Lenin monument.
“If you’d told me yesterday I’d be seeing all this today, I would have laughed at you.”
“It’s a lovely city,” he said. “I’ve always liked it.”
He fell suddenly silent, whereupon she said, “Anton begged me to do this. He wants to warn you.”
The Russian Affair Page 36