Angel Eyes (45 page)

"I don't think I'm easily shocked."

Natasha laughed. "Oh, but of course you are! You're such a naif, Katya. After all, education in this country is so appallingly primitive. In some ways, I'm afraid we're still not much better than all those third-world countries we're always professing to help. It often seems to me that we're the ones who need assistance."

Natasha sipped her tea. "Let me tell you something, darting. When I was in New York I met Edward Albee. He had come to watch me perform. Can you imagine? My God, what an opportunity! And do you know what? I made the most of it. I'd be damned if I was going to talk with one of the most brilliant theater minds of this century while my flock of KGB babysitters was hovering all around, eavesdropping.

"I took Albee, and we ducked away, lost them all. What I learned from him I could never have gotten from thirty years with my Russian acting teacher. He spoke in truths. His language was a kind of music that I seemed to absorb through the pores of my skin. I felt as if I had never before been alive, had never known what it was to don a persona and walk out on the stage. He showed me how to speak not only his words, but all words."

Natasha poured herself more tea and, as she stirred in the sugar, her eyes shone with an inner light. "We talked all night. What a risk, darling, but what else could I do? It was hell to pay, I'll tell you, when I got back to the hotel. But who cares? I have a guardian angel who watches over me." Irina wondered whether that guardian angel was Valeri.

"My whole point,'' Natasha continued, ''is your rage. It was my acting teacher's point of view that rage is frustration stifled. The older I get, the more I am inclined to agree with him.'' She took Irina's hand. "Your rage is such that, sooner or later, you will be unable to control it. Then it will boil over and, well, who knows what the consequences might be?

"That night in New York City, Edward Albee showed me what I was meant to be. And that knowledge has made me a different person. He opened up the world to me-not only his world, but mine.

"Oh, darling, don't you see what I'm saying?" She searched Irina's eyes. "One day you will meet your Albee, and he will change your life utterly. The answer for you is to seize your moment as I did mine. You must say to yourself, 'Damn the risks!' and plow straight ahead. Believe me, there is a time to consider the consequences, and a time to ignore them. Do you understand me, Katya?"

"You have no idea how frustrating it is," Mars said to Irina two nights later, ''knowing that somewhere out there the leaders of White Star are going about their daily lives-and I can't get to them." He turned to her. "Have you gotten any leads?"

"Not yet," Irina said.

They were in Mars's apartment on Vosstaniya Square. It was very late at night. The streets were deserted. Every so often a military truck or troop carrier would rumble by.

Irina thought, I even miss the traffic in Cambridge, the blasting rock 'n' roll, the kids swinging their hips, laughing, drinking their Cokes, eating their pizzas. These days, hardly an hour passed without some memory of Cambridge surfacing like a fish through the ice, appearing like a specter, pulling her further and further from her own world. There was a tautness inside her, like a steel cable singing with vibration. It was always with her, disconnecting her further from everyone and everything around her. Once she had even found herself unable to breathe, as if she were stuck in a black, airless place.

Irina felt guilty, having indulged her appetite for friendship rather than exploiting the closeness that had developed between her and Natasha Mayakova. But what was she to make of her relationships with Mars and Valeri? She had no idea now what she felt for either of them. She felt as if she could not now exist without them, as if they-and Natasha-were her only lifelines. She loved and hated them at the same time, not yet understanding that her sense of them was distorted by the turmoil writhing inside her like a live thing. She felt trapped on the other side of the mirror, in a place where there were no signposts to tell her which way to go or how to feel.

The situation seemed far too complex for her to untangle. She was in over her head, and now she appeared to be drowning in an alien sea beyond her understanding.

Mars grunted. "Perhaps my trust in you is misplaced."

"Don't say that."

"Isn't it true? I have given you everything you wanted, false papers, a private car, leave from your work when you need it to careen around God only knows what sections of Moscow. And for what? Have you anything to show for it? "

Irina thought, I have all these things from Valeri, too, but I can never let Mars know that, I won't ever give up an ounce of my power over these men. But I want to give Mars something, I know he's counting on me, and I don't want to disappoint him. I have to stop procrastinating; I can give him Valeri because, after all, it's Valeri Mars is interested in, Valeri and his hunt for the nationalist dissidents of White Star. Yet still she hesitated, as she had during the weeks she had followed Valeri and Natasha. She did not want to be sent back to her unutterably boring job, her previous drab existence; she knew she could never bear that now. Yet she lacked the courage to plunge all the way into her new exciting life.

Mars was studying her carefully. "As I thought," he said, as if he were passing sentence on her. "I think you should return to your job at the Ministry of Education." He shrugged, clearly disappointed. "Too bad. Under the circumstances, it would have been extremely helpful if you had made some progress. I have made an excellent beginning at finding the leaders of White Star, but now I need to move faster because there seems to be some sort of deadline now where White Star is concerned."

"What do you mean?"

Mars's face, in the warm lamplight, was a patchwork of shadow. "I have learned there is a major counterstrike being mounted against the nationalist group by the KGB."

''What kind of counterstrike?''

"I don't know," Mars said. "That sort of information is classified, even for me. And if I began to ask questions or pull in favors, I'm afraid I would attract the wrong kind of attention. If Valeri Bondasenko should hear-"

"What does Bondasenko have to do with this KGB initiative?" Irina asked.

Mars said, "Valeri Denysovich is KGB."

"You must be mad," Irina said. She thought she was going to throw up. KGB! No! It couldn't be! "Everyone knows who Valeri Denysovich is. His career is an open book, deliberately so."

"Yes, most deliberately so," Mars agreed. "But have you ever wondered why? Let me explain something to you. Two years ago the head of the KGB came out in the Congress of Peoples' Deputies as saying that his organization should follow the American ?I? model and be regulated by the Congress. Consequently, the KGB's modus operandi has had to change. Now the KGB does, indeed, operate like its American counterpart. On the surface it pays lip service to the constraints put upon it by political committees, while clandestinely going about its business as usual.

"It's the same KGB that it always was, Irina. It will take more than perestroika to change the KGB. The only difference is that now its chief operatives work behind efficient smokescreens. Like Valeri Denysovich Bondasenko.''

Irina shuddered. My God, it was her worst nightmare come true. The icy winds of Siberia, the bars over the moon, her country as one huge prison, everything.

Mars reached over, leafed through the report he had been reading. He came to the page he wanted, showed it to her. ''You needn't take my word for it."

And there it was, typed across the page. Irina was holding an original document, stamped with the red Cyrillics of the Politburo master files she had occasionally seen on some of the other documents Mars had left lying around.

-Valeri Denysovich Bondasenko, Colonel, Second Chief Directorate, Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, is hereby granted the authority to create and/or redesign a Department to be under his control.

This Department, here in after referred to as Department N (funds for which see Appendix B: Special Appropriations) will consist of approximately 1600 people, including administrative personnel.

The Chief of Department N shall report directly to the Chief of the KGB. The Chief of Department N shall have powers including, but not limited to, the selection of personnel from other Departments within the Second Chief Directorate; access to all sections of the KGB master files, including those "Limited Distribution" dossiers under the control of other Directorates; the ability to call upon the advice and services of personnel within all other Directorates; at his discretion, he may commandeer any and all hardware he deems necessary from the Border Guards Directorate . . .

Irina could read no more. The letters were blurring before her eyes. Shaking as if with the ague, she heard again down the long corridors of her memory those horrific words: KGB. Keep calm.

"This is the charter," Mars said, taking the paper from her hand, "for Valeri's counterintelligence initiative against White Star." He put it carefully back in the report. "Fortunately, Valeri's new department needs appropriations just like any other. It's covered in the Congress of Peoples' Deputies' budget hearing under 'Baltic Reapproachment,' but through a stroke of luck I was able to get my hands on the real charter.''

KGB. Keep calm.

Irina rose suddenly, walked unsteadily to the window. She could not breathe. She threw open the sash, and the damp night air blew in. She shivered in the cold. Then she felt Mars behind her, strong, solid, warm. "You see, koshka, the KGB has set a time bomb for White Star. I can't find a way to warn their leaders because I can't find them. But the existence of this strike against them proves that Valeri already knows where they are."

Then he was turning her around, cradling her. He pushed her hair off her face. "You're trembling so," he said. "What's the matter?"

"You couldn't possibly know," Irina said. She took a deep breath. She could hear again the tromp of the military jackboots, the pounding on the front door, awakening her in the middle of the night.

"I remember," she began. "The moon was obscured by clouds-what an absurd thing to remember! I can hear my mother's voice, raised, shrill with fright. And, peeking out of the doorway to my room, I see a man in a black leather trench coat, his face obscured by the wide brim of his hat.

" 'KGB. Keep calm.'

''My mother is screaming as the uniformed men under Trench Coat's command drag my father from his bedroom.

'' 'What do you want with him?' my mother cries. 'He's done nothing!'

" 'KGB. Keep calm.'

"The uniformed men are beating my father as he begins to resist them.

" "This must be some kind of mistake!' My mother is shaking as she moans. 'You're making a mistake!'

" 'KGB. Keep calm.'

"The rubber truncheons are lifting and falling, lifting and falling, and I can't ever forget the awful thick sound they make as they strike my father on his shoulders, his back, his upper arms, his head. He does not say a word, but I can hear his involuntary grunts with each blow of the truncheons.

"The uniformed men start to drag my father toward the door, and my mother steps in front of them. I see her eyes opened wide with panic. They are filled with a kind of primitive terror I once saw in a rabbit's glazed eyes as it was caught in the beam of my flashlight.

" 'You can't take him!' my mother sobs. 'I won't let you!' "The man from the KGB reaches out and, in an almost lazy arc, slams the back of his hand into the side of my mother's face. She staggers back, one leg collapses under her, and she crashes into a side table. A lamp shatters, and she screams. I can still hear the rage and tenor in her voice. Tears stream down her face.

" 'KGB. Keep calm.'

"The man in the black leather trench coat drags her out of the path of his men, and they take my father away. My mother offers no further resistance. She does not even take a last look at my father as he is manhandled down the stairs of the apartment building. Her eyes are blank.

"The man from the KGB is about to leave, but at that moment his head turns. He had heard something. Me. He moves slowly through the small apartment until he finds my room. I hear him coming in, coming closer.

"I am curled up in bed, hugging my pillow. He is across the room in one long stride. He pulls the covers back, exposing me.

" 'Irina,' he says. 'Little Irina.'

"I can't understand how he knows my name. I am so terrified I don't know what to do or think. His black leather trench coat is billowing around him like the wings of a gigantic bat. I can feel my heart beating painfully, like a trip-hammer.

"His white hand closes over my ankle so that I am stretched out across the bed. 'How old are you, little Irina?' he whispers. The wide brim of his hat hides his face completely, so that he seems to be a part of the shadows of the room. A shadow that holds me fast.

" 'Eight.' I hardly know how I squeezed that one word out

"His hand moves up to my thigh. He touches me there, between my legs. 'Take care of your mother, little Irina. She needs you.'

" 'What-What did you do with my Daddy?' I asked him.

" 'Forget your father,' the man from the KGB says, straightening up. 'He's dead.' "

Irina had recited this horrific tale in a dispassionate, detached voice. But as soon as she uttered the words "He's dead," she broke down, sobbing hysterically into Mars's chest.

He held her, gently swinging her back and forth, as a mother will comfort a child with night terrors, until at last her sobbing subsided.

''Irina,'' he said gently, ''tell me, did the man from the KGB force himself on you?''

"You mean sexually?" Despite her best efforts, her voice cracked.

"Yes."

She shook her head no. After a moment's pause she said, "But, in a way, what he did was just as bad. It made my flesh crawl, and when, years later, my first lover touched me there for the first time, I screamed just as if he had thrust a knife into me."

"My God," Mars said, "what a nightmare."

Mars was right, she thought, though the nightmare was continuing in the present in a way he could not imagine. Her first instinct was to break off with Valeri. Then, almost immediately, she saw why she absolutely must not break with him. In the first place, she saw quite clearly that she must not give Valeri any reason to suspect that she had been spying on him, or that she knew what he really was. If she broke off with him now, with no good reason, he would undoubtedly become suspicious. She knew well that paranoia was the KGB's middle name.