He sat down, still crumpled with sadness, warily glancing into Natasha’s eyes.
“How is Anya, Natasha? You, probably, already know something…”
Oh, how hard it was to resist temptation! The desire to torture this despicable person, to toy with him like a cat with a mouse, was so strong; she wanted to start a conversation full of innocent hints that would alarm him terribly. It would be so easy now to make him sense his own impending doom, to get revenge for his betrayal, his crime, for everything… No, she did not have the right, she had promised.
“I don’t know a thing,” she answered unexpectedly loudly.
That was a signal. Vikling saw the door directly in front of him open suddenly, and a man in an army camouflage shirt quickly stepped out of the room and stood by the wall. Vikling recognized the man and broke out into a cold sweat. Then he noticed the revolver in the man’s hand…
Vikling glanced around rapidly. There were three doors in the room. Next to each one stood a person with a weapon. Yet another person emerged out of Nikolai’s room and walked directly towards Vikling, calmly and confidently.
“Alfred Vikling, if I am not mistaken?” he asked politely.
“Yes, that’s me! What kind of ridiculous mystification is this?” Vikling cried, growing pale.
“I am from the Operations Division of the People’s Commissariat for State Security. I have orders to arrest you. Kindly raise your hands… Search him,” he ordered.
“Wait a minute!” Vikling objected. “There must be some kind of mistake. On what grounds do you arrest me?”
“I can tell you on what grounds. You are accused of the attempted murder of Anna Ridan.”
“What nonsense! Natasha, you know how things happened. Call the professor…”
“The Professor is busy,” said Nikolai as he entered the cafeteria, “and he asked me to convey to you that he cannot help you in any way. He himself agrees with the charges brought against you, based on information obtained directly from Anna Konstantinova.”
The last words Nikolai uttered struck Vikling like a bolt of lightening. His eyes grew wide, his knees buckled, and one could see how much effort it cost him to take the first step towards the door…
Three more days passed in anxious anticipation. Anna lay in the same condition – at least, so it seemed to Nikolai – and once again his hopes changed to despair.
Ridan, on the other hand, continued with his observations, analyses, and experiments, and each day he detected new signs of awakening life in the organism of his daughter. Her somatic system had already reestablished itself. Her digestive organs had started to work, supplying her blood with the products of miraculously transformed proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, all of which Ridan delivered to her stomach in complex solutions. Anna’s half-open eyelids, which frightened Nikolai more than anything else, finally closed. Her whole body was ready for movement. A few peripheral muscles started to twitch on their own, as if preparing their strength for much more significant contractions.
Yet still no “orders” came from her higher organs. The complicated departments of her brain, containing the secrets of thought and the enigma of consciousness, were silent. She was in a deep, unconscious sleep.
“Don’t worry, Nikolai Aresentievich, we will wait, hope, and keep at it,” Ridan said repeatedly, which did not do much to boost poor Nikolai’s fading hopes.
On the other hand, released from the sharpest pangs of bitter grief, Nikolai finally recalled his interaction with the German, with the last radiogram that he sent to Ufa. At the time, Nikolai did not know that this communist sympathizer and underground antifascist activist was named Hans Rickert.2 As Nikolai deciphered the text of the radiogram, he became convinced that the fascists had tried to set up an airwaves defense system to intercept the German underground’s communications. True, they had not been able to pinpoint Hans’ exact location; it’s not that simple; an experienced operative who knows he is being hunted can always throw off his pursuers. Still, they managed to once again block Hans’ messages. All he could do was repeat with alarmed insistence that the Germans fascists intended to attack the Soviet Union, and then add a few more words to the explanation of Gross’s method that he had begun previously. In short, there was still no clarity. He had not said a word about whether the fascists had gotten Gross’s machine to work again, and Nikolai was more and more convinced that they hadn’t: Gross’s colleague had blown up the blueprints and the model along with himself in that Munich explosion.
Vikling knew nothing about all of this beyond what had been reported in the papers. All he was supposed to do was get the encryption key so that they could decode the messages coming out of Munich. Instead, as it emerged in the conversation Nikolai had with the prosecutor, Vikling, apparently devastated by the thought that Anna might come back to life, lost hope in getting off scot-free. He fled. Of course, Vikling would hardly have believed in Anna’s miraculous resurrection if not for the prosecutor’s carefully planted mention of the information Ridan had obtained through the “generator of miracles.” Nobody had access to those facts except Vikling himself and Anna!
The prosecutor got the impression that Vikling was genuinely remorseful for his espionage and sabotage activities – he was so eager to expose himself and everyone who had been involved, from Moscow to the factory in the Urals.
Vikling turned out to be the son of a powerful Moscow financier who had emigrated during the first days of the Revolution. Masquerading as a German named “Alfred Vikling” enabled him to easily “escape” back to the Soviet Union from Germany in 1936. This was the Gestapo’s trick: the real Alfred Vikling, who was a fairly well-known member of the German anti-fascist intelligentsia, had been secretly captured and, in all likelihood, executed. It would have been nearly impossible to unmask the switch, since both the real and the false Vikling had the same profession, and they were remarkably similar in their physical appearance. In fact, when the Gestapo handed over the real Vikling’s documents to the spy Vikling, they didn’t even bother to change the identifying photographs. Furthermore, the “new” Vikling was assigned to go undercover as an embedded spy, so for many years he did not engage in any espionage functions at all. His only task was to find a foothold in Soviet society, acquire people’s trust and an appropriate position – a task at which he excelled.
Yes, he was determined to “win over” Anna Ridan as well. Not only for professional reasons…
His first explicit assignments were to participate in the sabotage operation in the Ural factory, and to intercept Nikolai’s radio communications. These missions did not fall on fertile soil. “Vikling” was no longer the person he had been, and he acted unwillingly; his earlier anti-Soviet convictions had dimmed considerably during the time spent living in his original homeland. Only the fear of death was stronger. Anna’s murder, which he committed in a fit of insane fear, along with his subsequent exposure and arrest, was simply too great a burden for him to bear. He “gave up” and revealed everything that could possibly be useful to those who protected the safety of the Soviet Union.
Nikolai did not tell any of this to the professor, so as not to divert him from his stressful work. He didn’t tell Natasha, either. Why cloud Natasha’s mood by revealing these terrible memories, when all her grief had immediately turned to boundless joy when she saw her one and only sister coming back to life? A lucky person! Natasha was capable of simply loving, simply suffering, and just as simply rejoicing, without allowing unnecessary doubts to color her pure feelings. Now she simply believed that Anna would live again, and she threw herself into helping Ridan.
Whereas Nikolai… poor Nikolai! It was not at all easy for such a reticent person, finally touched by love just as it was tragically snatched from him. Fate had pulled him into this terrible maelstrom, buffeted him from side to side, first by tempting him with imminent happiness, then by meting out a terrible blow…
He was completely derailed. Days went by – endless, dark, hopeless days. Never before had he
felt so empty, and so useless. He couldn’t work. He couldn’t help Ridan, other than taking turns with Natasha watching over Anna. He tried to read, conscientiously leafing through the pages, only to realize that he hadn’t retained a thing…
Sometimes he started to think about his own behavior, and then he couldn’t understand what was happening to him. Why was he not able to do anything that didn’t relate to Anna? How could Natasha, sitting in the same place by Anna’s bedside, carry on with reading her textbooks, solving problems, or sewing something? How did Aunt Pasha take on all the tasks of caring for the family, without missing a thing, and only allowing herself to occasionally interrupt her cleaning to stare intently at Anna’s completely immobile face?
“Apparently the professor is right, something is wrong with my nerves,” Nikolai concluded. “Or else I just have an unfortunate personality…”
On the morning of the tenth day a band of murky clouds stretched along the eastern horizon. The grey dawn broke slowly. The barometer fell.
Ridan sent Natasha off to sleep and stayed alone with Anna. Last night her body had been wracked by some kind of tumultuous process of awakening. Isolated tremors and the twitching of individual muscles suddenly become much more intense and convulsed her whole body. It was as if her muscles were quivering from the desire to move freely. The process continued for an hour and a half. Then, suddenly, all movement ceased. Anna once again lay in a deep, motionless sleep, seemingly even deeper than her previous slumber…
Ridan sat next to her and tried to figure out what had happened. Was it a step on the path to reanimating the functions of the brain, or, on the contrary, a burst of activity like death throes – after which everything goes backwards, towards death…
By ten in the morning, the clouds had spread over Moscow, the first streaks of lightening rent the sky; in the garden the dusty trees began to sway, welcoming the desired storm. The rain poured down in sheets, full of lightening, thunder, and wind.
Morose and unshaven, Ridan abruptly tore himself away from his thoughts, went to the window and flung it open. The sharp scent of storm tore into the operating room. A clap of thunder resounded with a dry crack, and the rain slanted down like a golden curtain.
Ridan approached Anna again.
He saw… Maybe it just seemed that he saw it? Of late, his exhausted eyes often betrayed him… No, he saw, and he heard, a deep exhale, the first to disturb the far too even rhythm of her calm breathing. Next her lips moved, and lightly parted…
Nikolai awoke to the ring of the telephone and grabbed the receiver before he was even fully awake.
“Come here! Natie too!” the voice was exultant. Nikolai understood. Pulling on his clothes as he went, he ran into the operating room.
Natasha caught up with him at the doorway, barefoot and in her robe. Ridan, without saying a word, moved to the side, as if ceding to them a place near the table. They bent over Anna, anxiously looking into her face, her lips, her wet eyelashes that had just closed….
“Anya,” Natasha said softly but surely.
Suddenly her eyelids opened, and her brows raised slightly. Anna looked up, transferred her gaze to Nikolai, and then wearily closed her eyes again.
“Kolya…” – a barely audible whisper.
Beside himself with happiness, forgetting everything in the world, Nikolai planted a hot kiss on her cheek.
Natasha was frightened by this movement – maybe it was too much? – and taking his head gently in her hands, she moved it away. When they both turned around, Ridan was no longer in the room. Nikolai ran to the adjoining laboratory and found Ridan at the far side of the room, elbows propped up against the window sill, holding a handkerchief to his face. His shoulders were shaking.
People always strive for happiness.
Everyone understands happiness in their own way, everyone strives for it, chases it, waits for it, in their own way. But then it arrives, and within a few days, even within a few hours, we get used to it, so that, like the beating of our heart, we cease to feel it happening, it’s just there. This is personal, local happiness. It is fleeting. You would think that nothing could be more dear than grasping back life, which gives us the ability to create joy, multiply it, instill happiness in others – how many times has it happened to nearly every one of us, that somehow we were able to swerve away from a crushing, fatal blow of fate, to remain alive? Did the happiness of life that we snatched and saved last long? No, just for a moment!
The Ridans’ happiness, on the other hand, was boundless and wide, like an ocean; it buoyed them up with a seemingly endless power. Each of them felt it as their own personal happiness: Anna lives, Anna will live, there will be no more of the terrible grief that had gripped them before. The Ridans were transformed, as if they themselves had returned to life, their faces beamed. They no longer avoided each other’s glances, as people stricken with grief will do; on the contrary, whenever they ran into each other they eagerly caught the other’s eyes, in order to again burst with joy, embrace each other and squeeze each other’s hands. They started to love each other more sincerely and more openly.
But they also recognized something else – that a miracle had occurred. After all, this was a miracle! What had previously been impossible had been made possible. Reason had achieved new power over nature. Ridan’s miracle would be a gift to all of humanity. That is why their happiness flowed out like an ocean….
Anna did not get up immediately.
The first illumination of consciousness still lacked the full complexity, the organized memory of a normal mind. At first, there was only simple apprehension. There was also an unfathomable weakness, of the muscles and of the nervous system. After her first word, which Nikolai did not so much hear as intuit, Anna fell back into a deep sleep. Six hours later, she opened her eyes again. This time her eyes reflected fear, and her breathing betrayed agitation.
“Where… is he…,” was all that her father managed to catch as he bent over her.
He understood. In just a few phrases, he relayed to Anna the most important information about Vikling. Anna calmed down.
Ridan did not let down his guard for a moment; he could not permit the tiniest mistake or allow for any complications. Anna was watched constantly – on his orders, somebody had to be by her side at all times, day and night. As before, he conducted daily analyses of her condition. Every morning, Ridan and his irreplaceable colleagues – Vikenty Sergeyevich and Ivan Lukich – checked over everything in Anna’s system, squeezing, bending, knocking, and poking her weak body until they had an exquisite understanding of its internal process, and were able to take measures to correct any detected deviations.
One week after her first awakening, Anna began to learn how to walk again. After two weeks she was able to go into the garden for the first time. The analyses and check-ups ceased. Rehabilitation was proceeding at full force, and quite rapidly.
As soon as Anna had gained back enough strength, Ridan called in the criminal investigator, who had long waited for the opportunity to get needed testimony from the victim. For the first time, the Ridans heard from Anna the whole story of the horrible events in Ufa.
Nikolai could hardly wait to be alone with Anna after her meeting with the investigator. He was in agony and could barely contain himself. After all, they had still not breathed a single word to each other about the most important thing! Up until now, he had even concealed his glances in her direction, which burned with uncontrolled ardor. He was not sure if this was necessary, but he didn’t want to risk upsetting her. After all, Ridan had strictly forbidden any mention of Vikling and the catastrophe in Ufa.
But now it was out!
The evening went by slowly. Nikolai sat alone in the dining room, holding up the newspaper, but all the while thinking about what Anna would say…
At about ten o’clock, Natasha emerged from Anna’s room in a robe, with a towel in her hand. She looked at Nikolai in surprise.
“What are you waiting for? We don’t h
ave to watch her around the clock anymore, haven’t you been told?”
“No, nobody said anything,” Nikolai answered, and Natasha caught the agony in his voice. She smiled at him encouragingly.
“Go on. You have half an hour. I’m going to take a shower.”
Nikolai walked over to her bedside silently, looking intently into Anna’s eyes. It seemed to him that she read his thoughts and that her eyes were calling to him. Anna was also silent. Then she reached her hand out to him, exactly the gesture he had longed for. He took the weak, thin little hand with the long, slender fingers and pressed it to his cheek, to his whole face, and kissed it. Anna’s eyes, huge and dark, followed him openly and seriously, as if barely able to take in all of what cannot be fully encompassed. She sat up and drew her knees to her chest.
“Today I told the investigator everything,” she said. “Except I didn’t mention the most important thing, because for him it’s not relevant… It’s not relevant for anyone except us… When I fell asleep there, behind the bushes, before Vikling showed up, I had a dream. I dreamt that I was standing in water, and the light was so blinding that I couldn’t open my eyes and did not know where to go. I was scared, and I called out to you…. and you came, and lifted me up in your arms and carried me to the shore. And you said, ‘This is how we will be together… forever together…’ As soon as I woke up, I remembered this dream.”
“Anyutka, my darling, that’s exactly what I wanted to say to you today!”
He jumped up and without thinking grabbed her up in his arms along with the blanket, pressing her to him and kissing her. He carried her around the room. She seemed weightless.
“Is this what it was like, Anya?”
“Yes, exactly, Kolya! Does this mean – it will be forever?”
“Forever, Anyutka!”
“Me, too… forever! And now put me back down on the shore. And leave. There’s nothing more we need to say today, isn’t that true? Kolya, I’m so happy…”
Red Star Tales Page 19