Despite the Falling Snow (13 page)

“Not in this situation.”

She turns away. “I know who I am, and what I believe in, Misha, and no-one can ever change that.” She is sincere, and he nods, to calm the passion that has risen up in her.

“He is nice to be with,” she offers, as an attempt to reassure Misha that she is not hiding things from him. “Easy. I don’t have to fight so hard all the time when I am with him. Do you understand?”

“He is exactly what you are supposed to be fighting.”

“I know.” He catches the irritation in her voice. She is often dismissive to avoid being emotional. Misha speaks again, and keeps his voice neutral – he is probing, but moving around her words carefully; he is a man handling a live grenade that cannot be shaken or dropped without consequences.

“You really do care about him, don’t you?” he says.

“A little. But that makes it easier. Imagine being involved with someone who repulses you. Don’t worry, Misha; I know what I’m getting into.”

Her eyes are scanning people around them, looking for anyone who may be looking for them.

“Are you sure he won’t suspect me?” she says suddenly. It is a deep pool she is about to plunge into with Alexander, and she cannot help but look for reassurance, even if it can only be superficial.

“No, he won’t. Not if you’re always aware. Always. And not if he cares for you the way he seems to. Not if you wait for the right time. When you have his love, and his trust, completely.”

In Misha’s eyes she sees the recognition of her dilemma, even though it is one she will not voice. It is simply not what she expected, nor how she would prefer to work.

“Fighting an enemy without a face, using strangers, those things are easy. It’s not so easy compromising someone you love,” he says. It is a gentle probe, his voice is warm, safe, relaxed, so that she might not even notice what he has just implied with his last three words.

“He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met,” she says, “but I don’t love him.”

She senses that he is reassured in the relaxing of his shoulders. He smiles. She is intelligent and quick. Perhaps she will pull it off after all. There is one sure way to find out, but before he can lead into it, she turns slightly, so that she can watch out more easily, and then Misha catches the scent of her, the cool, clean smell that is always hers. She lacks the sweet, flowery, feline perfume, the heavy dabs of standard Soviet scent worn by many of the women that he knows, but her fragrance is honest and real. He looks at her sideways, at her distant eyes and long lashes, at her exotic black hair and finely drawn lips. Standing there in the sunlight, against the cool stone, she looks like an idealized portrait of a person, with no feature ungainly or imperfect. Sasha, he thinks, you may get what you want, but she will be a handful, my friend. Even without the added complications.

“So he thinks you’re a card carrying communist?”

“I am,” she smiles.

He just laughs.

“Idiot,” she says, and touches his nose, then his curly dark hair.

“I’m not the idiot.”

“Yes, you are. Look at you. Your nose is all red, and it’s not even winter. What kind of Russian are you?”

“I’m not,” he says, facetiously. “I came here from Italy last year. I felt like freezing to death and being grey, and never having anything good to eat. I got tired of all the sun, the sea, the delicious food and the dark-haired women.”

“Yes,” she says. “The women I can believe. Have you ever had one that wasn’t blonde?”

“Only kissed.” He smiles.

“Who?” she asks, and he frowns.

“You, of course!”

“Oh, Misha.
That
. A teenager’s peck – this is what you count?!”

“There he is.” Misha says, with no change of tone or expression. He lounges back against the bridge and smiles at Katya. She takes his hand to glance at his watch. He is intensely aware of the feel of her fingers on his arm– they feel light yet strong against the inside of his wrist.

“Good. Four o’clock again. What do you think?”

“I think he’s stayed away for an hour every day this week.”

“Shall we wait until tomorrow?” She watches their man, short, grey-haired, plump, walking away from them, down the sun-streaked street, where shadows are just beginning to fall with the lowering sky.

“Up to you.”

“Okay,” she says.

He looks at her. “Okay what?”

“Okay, I’ll go in now.”

They linger by the bridge for five more minutes, talking with suppressed excitement. They are both nervous, but now Katya takes two deep breaths and smiles. Misha straightens the collar of her blouse.

“Where does Alexander think you are now? He must know that school is over by now.”

“Yes, but the school administrator sometimes works late, to catch up,” she says, and her smile has changed a little; he imagines he sees the bright determination slipping out of her slightly, and so he turns, and focuses her mind once more on the job in hand.

“You’d better start,” he says.

“Okay.”

They walk together towards the building, and as they near the front steps, he calls goodbye, and leans and kisses her on the cheek, an affectionate parting from her friend or brother or lover – who would be able to tell which? Then he strolls away, down the street, relaxed, unconcerned. She watches him go; Misha, who has always been considered something of a subversive, with his daring views and his
bitniki
clothes, the American-influenced jeans and sweaters that give the suggestion of a disaffected rebel, but in a way that offers no real threat. He often plays the role of the doubting intellectual in public, and amongst friends he is usually free with his criticism of the Soviet system; but his anger is carefully controlled for effect, and is never pushed too far. It gives him an edgy persona; he is the maverick employed in one of the State’s most trusted positions. In many ways, it is the best cover he could ever have concocted, the kind of double bluff that is the direct opposite of her own strategy of modelling herself as the perfect, non-questioning communist. There is also a large part of him that enjoys the subterfuge and thrives on the danger of the work that they do. Part of him, she feels, is like a small boy who has been given the toys and tools to play spy games, and consequently is always filled with excitement and self-importance.

She turns and runs up into the building. Immediately, she has good luck. An old man is coming out, and holds open the heavy front door for her. She wishes him “Good afternoon,” and starts up the stairs. Above the ringing of the cold cement under her feet, she hears the old man turn and call after her. She stops. A nosy one, probably. One of those who know everyone in the building.

“Who are you here for?” he asks, his voice shaky.

“Sasha,” she replies, and is shocked that she has used his name as the first name that comes to her, that she has already dragged him into this part of her life. Usually she replies any male first name – something different each time, of course. Using the diminutive makes them think she is on intimate terms with whomever she’s visiting, and with luck, makes them hesitate as to whom she means. She smiles at the old man, and continues up the stairs, showing no hesitation. She is relieved when she hears the acknowledgement and the slam of the door.

It does not take her long to open the inner door. She has knocked first, of course, just in case, but she can sense that the apartment is empty. Immediately, she walks down the short hallway and into the bedroom. There is a chest of drawers and on the mattress, the sheet is caught up in one corner, as though the bed has been lifted. Sure enough, in an improvised pocket beneath the springs, she finds the code sheets. Some cable transcripts too, which look old and pointless. They may be hidden as a decoy. She takes them to the small table, and lays the pad down, avoiding moist rings of tea spills. From her inside pocket she extracts a camera, and leans down to fit the whole page into the viewfinder. She snaps, winds, and lifts the top sheet, then snaps the one below. She gets into a rhythm at once: click, wind, lift, click, wind, lift. Kneeling down, she stuffs them back into the mattress pocket.

She stands quietly in the middle of the room and frowns. It has been almost too easy, and she still has plenty of time. She runs a finger over the shelf of books above the bed. Nothing stands out. Then she goes through the drawers, and the desk, and his books. Then the bathroom. The floor and basin are dirty and marked, and tiny chest hairs are curled into every corner, but the mirror is surprisingly clean. Vanity? she wonders, and she stops there herself and looks at her face. It appears gaunt and closed off, and distrustful. She is startled, as though she has caught an unknown woman standing right behind her, and then unsettled, for this is not how she sees herself in her own mind. She wonders if this is the face that Alexander sees. As she thinks of him, her face softens, and this change in her features is so clear on the unrelenting surface of the mirror that she quickly turns away.

She has what she came for, and so she removes the film and tucks it inside her shirt, places the camera into her handbag. Quietly she moves across the floor, and closes the front door behind her. By the time she emerges onto the street, the sunlight has begun to recede, and it feels cooler than before.

She walks slowly down the street, and around the corner. She cannot see Misha anywhere. She slows down slightly, but does not look behind, not at first; but then she can sense him walking up behind her, and without thinking she turns to look. He is not there. As she looks ahead again she bumps into him.

“Katya!” he says, for there are many people around now, leaving work. “How are you? What a surprise.”

“Yes, isn’t it?”

He laughs. “What the hell do you think you were doing?”

She swallows, then sighs. “Sorry. I thought I felt you behind me.”

“Even worse. Don’t ever look for me, and don’t ever wait for me. If they get one of us, they mustn’t get the other.”

“I know.”

“Don’t ever wait for me, Katya.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Her step becomes a little faster, as though she is trying to pull away from the conversation. Misha keeps up.

“Did you get everything?” he asks.

“Immediately. All under the bed.”

“Again?”

She nods. “Will these people never learn?” she asks dryly.

“They would,” he says, walking her in the direction of her apartment, “but they never think it’ll happen to them. More paranoia – that’s what they need.”

“You don’t think they have enough? They rule with it.”

“Maybe they need to bring some into their own homes. They’re making your job too easy.”

She pushes her hands deeper into the pockets of her long cardigan.

“Don’t worry, it will never be too easy.”

They walk quietly for a few minutes before he broaches the thing he has been considering all afternoon.

“It’s time you took something from Alexander.”

She seems startled. “Already?”

He nods. “Just once. Just a test run. See how it works.”

He wants to see how
she
works, to test her, she is sure of it. He is concerned that she has lost control of her emotions, that she will begin to like Sasha so much that she will no longer want to betray him.

“It’s not the right time. He’ll suspect. I don’t want to ruin it before we’ve even started.”

“I think it’s time,” Misha repeats. His tone now is authoritative. He has slipped into his role as the senior one in this partnership. She is his recruit, his responsibility, his agent. In the end, she must follow orders.

“Fine,” she replies. “What do you want me to do?”

“You see him in the evenings, don’t you? Does he bring work home?”

“Sometimes.”

“Anything interesting?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t looked yet. I was trying to be careful.”

“Take whatever he brings next time,” Misha says, and his tone is the same, firm, leaving no room for argument. “Photograph it, copy it, remember it if you have to – you decide.”

She nods. “Give me a week or two.”

“Sure.”

They have reached the corner of the street that she lives on. The light summer green of the trees casts little pools of shade onto the uneven paving stones, and in the fading sunlight, the yellowing concrete of the apartment blocks looks warm and burnished. Misha stops here, and kisses her goodbye, and as he grasps her hand fondly she slips the camera film into his palm. From here he will turn back onto the main street and walk down to the metro. No other words are exchanged between them, and she is glad of it, for he has ended the day in a way that she had not anticipated and she is feeling more than a little perturbed. He is already walking away, and she watches him disappear around the corner. She stands, lonely on the quiet street, and waits until she can no longer hear his footsteps.

“S
O TELL ME ABOUT THIS PERSON
we’re having tea with.” “Her name is Estelle.” Alexander watches Lauren butter her fourth piece of toast. “How do you have the appetite for breakfast after last night?” he asks.