The Rocket Man (22 page)

‘No, no, for God's sake,' said Dmitry, ‘I'll just have something to eat and go to bed.'

He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Perhaps it was because he was so acutely aware of the listening devices picking up his every move. He thought of all the things he and Katie had said to one another in this room. They liked to talk to one another when they made love, tell one another what to do. He felt somehow violated. And what was he going to say to Katie? He couldn't ask her to come back here now. They had nowhere to meet. He couldn't explain to her. He supposed even seeing her was putting her at risk. The whole situation was absurd and horrible.

In the morning he got up early. Boris Alexeyevich was shaving at the kitchen sink. Dmitry was hardly able to eat. He cut himself some bread and buttered it, but it seemed unbearably dry; it seemed that no saliva came into his mouth. He poured himself a glass of milk. He hated milk, but it was nourishment; he gulped it down and poured himself another glass, wondering how much milk an adult had to drink a day to sustain himself.

At work, Dmitry couldn't concentrate on anything. He would read several paragraphs and realise that he had absorbed nothing from them. He shuffled papers uselessly on his desk. Hilde asked him several times for a letter he was supposed to have written. Finally he sat her down and dictated it to her. In the middle he lost the thread. She asked him with a mixture of irritation and concern, ‘Are you feeling all right?' She was not the only person to ask him this question. One of his colleagues, at the end of a discussion, asked him if it was trouble about a woman. Dmitry shrugged and then said, ‘Yes.'

‘Can you tell me about it?'

‘She's married. It's all going badly.'

‘I see. Well, for goodness' sake, try to sort it out. People are noticing. Your work is suffering.'

‘What work?' said Dmitry, bitterly, ‘Pushing these papers around?'

At the end of the week Dmitry rang Katie from one of the call boxes in the main foyer. Katie's voice, at the end of the phone, sounded numb with misery.

She said, ‘I thought it was all over.'

‘No, I want to see you.' But where? It was impossible. He could think of nowhere they could be alone together. On impulse, he said, ‘Let's meet on Saturday afternoon. We could go somewhere — I'll think about it. Let's do something nice together.'

‘I'll have to arrange to leave Anna with someone. And then there's Bob… I'm not sure I can manage it.'

‘Try. Try, and I'll ring you back later.'

They had agreed to go to Schönbrunn Palace, just outside Vienna. Katie left Anna with Bob saying she wanted an afternoon to herself and met Dmitry at the corner of the Obkirchergasse where he was waiting in his car. He drove her there and they chattered desultorily, not mentioning anything of importance; Katie knew that something was wrong and didn't dare ask him what it was, anxious to avoid any argument or confrontation.

They walked through the vast, glittering palace, holding hands. The contrast between the beauty of the surroundings and the fear she felt was like something in a dream. Dmitry was silent, preoccupied. Katie said at last, ‘If you would only explain to me what the matter is. If you're in some kind of trouble, I would understand.'

Dmitry said, ‘It's nothing. You mustn't worry about it. Let's not talk about it now.'

‘Why not? What else is there to talk about? You're not thinking about anything else, are you?' They had wandered ahead of the guide, neither of them interested in hearing the details of each room, both too impatient and immersed in their own thoughts. Dmitry held her hand almost fiercely, as if he was afraid she would let go. Katie was beginning to feel frightened of him. He didn't answer her; he seemed so distant, tense. She was by now so miserable that she began to think it didn't matter what happened to them as long as something could be decided one way or the other.

They passed through the last gilded room and went outside. The air was cold, the sun was beginning to descend, and the sky was clear, a pale greeny colour blending into gold. They walked down the paths between the formal gardens; their feet crunched on the snow. Suddenly Dmitry grimaced, as if in pain, and sat down on a low wall, fists clenched, looking at the ground.

‘I'm sorry, I should not have gone on seeing you, I had no right to get you involved in this.' He spat the words out as if someone else was forcing them from him.

Katie looked at him in horror.

‘But I wanted to get involved as much as you did, more so,' said Katie.

‘I wasn't meaning that.'

‘But what do you mean? I don't understand anything. If there's something you have to say to me, why don't you just say it? Why must you go on tormenting me like this?'

But it was Dmitry who seemed tormented. He seemed to be struggling with himself, trying to decide what he should say. Then he said, finally, ‘Because it's no good, it can never work out, that's why.'

Katie sat on the wall next to him. ‘But why not?' she asked.

Dmitry seemed suddenly to have changed his mind. She had felt he was about to reveal something to her, but now he simply said, in a much calmer voice: ‘Well, to begin with, I have to go back to Russia eventually.'

‘Without me,' she said.

He looked round at her and suddenly his face softened. ‘Would you want to come with me, then?' he asked her, almost in wonderment. ‘With Anna? It looks as if terrible times are coming there. Everyone will want to get out.'

‘But not you.'

‘No, not me. For better or worse, it is my country, and if everyone like me left there really would be no hope for us.'

‘And that's more important to you than… than I am?'

‘I don't know.'

‘But it isn't like it was before,' said Katie. ‘You don't have to defect, or anything. You don't have to burn your boats, do you?'

Dmitry shrugged.

‘But that isn't all that's the matter,' said Katie. ‘There's something else, isn't there?'

‘Yes.'

‘Please tell me about it.'

‘No, it's not possible.'

‘But is it because you are in some kind of trouble? Are you… is there…' she couldn't find the right expression, not wanting to put her thoughts into words because this would make them real, and the reality was too frightening. ‘Are you involved in something…'

Dmitry seemed determined not to help her. ‘What sort of thing?'

‘Oh, for God's sake, Mitya, you know what I mean.'

‘No, I don't know what you mean. You mean you think I am implicated in something sinister, do you? You think I am involved in intrigue or spying? You think perhaps I am abusing my position at the UN?' He made all this sound ridiculous, absurd; something unpleasant had crept into his voice. ‘You don't have any thoughts like that about anyone else around you, do you? I don't suppose, for example, you have any such suspicions about your husband?'

Katie looked at him completely blankly. She said, ‘About Bob? I don't know what you mean, Mitya, I can't think what you're talking about.'

Now Dmitry seemed really angry. He got to his feet; he looked back at the palace; the sky was growing dark and lights had been switched on inside. Absolutely nobody was around; it was freezing; their breath condensed heavily in the air. Katie looked at the ground; she was shivering. She wanted to get away, but at the same time, she wanted to understand what was happening; she couldn't bear to leave things as they were.

They were silent for a few moments. The wind blew through the square-cut hedges, which stirred and shed some snow; some birds flew up into the air with a sudden beating of wings. Dmitry said, much more gently now, ‘Your hands are shaking.'

‘So are yours.'

He took her hands in his and they looked at one another. The more they looked, the more they desired, and then against all reason they lay down behind the hedge on Dmitry's coat in the snow and made love to one another. It was cold, damp, uncomfortable, and messy because she still had her period, and neither of them felt any better for it afterwards; in fact Katie, pulling up her pants and tights, for a moment felt she knew what it must feel like to have murdered someone; she felt as if she had killed something inside her, all the good, warm things she had felt for Dmitry, leaving only the bare physical desire which nothing seemed to satisfy.

Dmitry too seemed disgusted with himself. He brushed the snow off his coat and put it back on in silence. Then he said, almost to himself, ‘This is terrible. We can't carry on like this.'

‘No,' agreed Katie. ‘If you just wanted an affair, to see out your time here, let's please end it now.'

‘Perhaps that is what I wanted in the beginning,' he said. ‘I didn't think about it, much. But you're like a drug, Katie. I can't get enough of you. I never felt like this before.'

This cliché suddenly repelled her; she turned and started walking back to the palace. ‘Anyway, it doesn't matter now. We've agreed it's over.'

He caught her elbow, walking beside her, and made her look round at him. His face was pale, full of emotion, and he asked her, ‘But is it?'

She broke away, starting to run. He followed her to the car park, his pace quickening so that he reached the car at the same time. He opened the door for her; she was breathing hard and wouldn't look at him. Once inside, she wrapped her shawl tightly around her neck trying to stop herself shivering. He started up the car and turned on the heating. He tried to talk to her but she stared steadfastly out of the window.

By the time they reached Vienna it was dark. As always, after an outburst of emotion, Katie felt better, and they had a cake and some coffee in a little restaurant near the station. It was warm and bright inside and Dmitry seemed a little more relaxed. Katie said, ‘I don't understand you. You say one thing and do another. I get the feeling you have done something, something of which you are ashamed. And you don't talk to me about anything personal. You've never told me about what happened, for instance, with your marriage. Is it something to do with that, that you can't trust yourself with me?'

Dmitry ordered another coffee and took out a cigarette. Katie removed it from him without saying anything and he sighed, as if he had no alternative now but to talk to her. He said, ‘It was a disaster from the beginning, with Masha. She was ambitious and deeply conventional. She wanted me to be something other than I was. I married her out of a kind of desperation, because it seemed to be a last chance – if you are not married at a certain age it begins to look odd. Did I love her? I don't know. If you had asked me when I married her I would have said that I loved her, but in the end I couldn't have done her any more harm if l had hated her and plotted for her destruction. God, how we made one another suffer.'

He drank his coffee and looked up at her. Katie said, cynically, ‘Maybe you enjoyed suffering.'

‘Yes, maybe; probably my whole people enjoy suffering. I am one of those people who think on the whole we get the kind of society we deserve. But maybe it's something in myself. I have not been very successful in my relationships with women. It seems I do not have the gift of causing happiness.'