The Russian Affair (16 page)

Anna’s heart sank. Kamarovsky’s last words hung over her like a neon sign. She understood that he’d told her his—or someone else’s—story just to keep her up to the mark. That meant that he wouldn’t simply let her go.

“There’s one thing I’ve never forgotten, even in my moments of doubt,” Kamarovsky said, removing his foot from the sofa. “My occupation is not a job, it’s a struggle whose purpose is to combat our society’s enemies and to protect its representatives. Therefore how I feel is unimportant; there can scarcely be anything less significant than how an individual feels while the battle is raging. The only thing that matters is the outcome, the result, which justifies all misgivings, all doubts, and every other human emotion. Those are subjective feelings; the Party, however, thinks objectively, and it acts exclusively in the interest of society. To subordinate yourself to the Party’s insights must necessarily be for the benefit of all and therefore for the welfare of each individual.”

As though he wanted to assure Anna of his accessibility, Kamarovsky sat down next to her. “Your case is different,” he said in a suddenly changed voice. “You’re not made for such a life, Anna. I know that.”

The shift in tone rendered her speechless. In some confusion, she stared at his white-tipped hairs, his fine nose, his slightly mocking mouth.

“You have some feelings for the Deputy Minister. At the same time, you believe you’re deceiving him. Moreover, you have to hide your actions from your husband and your son, and you even lie to your father.”

It seemed to Anna as though she were sitting with the Colonel in a movie theater where the film of her life was being shown. Kamarovsky spoke softly, as though he didn’t want to disturb the other people in the audience. “I don’t shy away from calling things by their names,” he said, “because I know that your mission will soon be concluded. We’re just about ready to close the Deputy Minister’s case.”

“Case? I thought I was doing all this for his protection.”

“Of course you are.” Kamarovsky made a soothing gesture. “The aims we’re pursuing will enable us to avert a specific danger that threatens Bulyagkov. Soon, very soon, Comrade. And that’s why your report is of such great significance.”

He pressed a hand against his brow and fell silent for a moment, during which Anna watched his head sink. His hand fell, too, and landed as though lifeless on Anna’s thigh. It looked to her as though Kamarovsky had dozed off in the middle of his explanation.

“Comrade Colonel?”

His breathing appeared to have stopped. Then, as though he’d suddenly regained consciousness, Kamarovsky jerked his head up and heaved a deep sigh. When he noticed his hand on the young woman’s leg, he stiffened his fingers and got immediately to his feet. “You were saying that your conversation with the leader of the theoretical physics section came about by accident.” He reached the desk in three steps, leaned on its edge, and opened a file. “How so?”

A rush of blood flooded Anna’s face. From one second to the next, the Colonel had yanked her into the place where he wanted her. She said, “Because I didn’t find Lyushin, he found me.”

Kamarovsky unscrewed the top of his fountain pen and gazed at the nib. “I had the information that Lyushin likes to ski at night passed on to you. Why didn’t you act on that tip?”

Finally, Anna had the solution to the mystery of the second agent: The skinny orphanage director, so intent on ingratiating himself with her, had been on the job. He, at least, had carried out his assignment brilliantly.

“I considered it unlikely … actually, I thought—”

“You didn’t act purposefully because you had a bad hangover,” he said, interrupting her. “You needed to be clearheaded, and you weren’t.” In the light of the desk lamp, Kamarovsky looked older. His eyes blinked behind the lenses of his spectacles. “Please describe your meeting with Lyushin in detail.”

As an outward sign that she was ready to give a sober report, Anna left the sofa and sat in her usual place. She outlined the situation on the afternoon in question and described Lyushin’s sudden appearance in Bulyagkov’s borrowed house.

“Did you have the impression that the relationship between the two is of such a kind that would permit unannounced visits?”

After a brief hesitation, Anna answered that the situation had not seemed unusual to her. The two men had quarreled the previous day, and she’d looked upon Lyushin’s appearance as an offer of reconciliation.

“In your opinion, what was the quarrel about?”

“Money. Lyushin referred to setbacks in a research project. He wants more money so that the research can continue.”

“Setbacks?” The nib of the fountain pen was pointing at her. “Are you completely sure about that?”

“That was the word he used.”

“How did you come to be talking about that?”

Anna recalled the crazy afternoon, remembered how she’d sat there in her underwear with the scratchy blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “I had done a little research and learned something about the basics of quantum mechanics,” she answered. “Lyushin was quizzing me. It was a kind of teacher-student situation.” Aided by her notes, she gave an account of the conversation, used Lyushin’s own technical language to describe his problem, and ended with a reference to the series of equations in which the scientists proposed to achieve greater accuracy by leaving out lower-order terms. “At this point, Lyushin conceded that he had been forced to take some steps backward.” Anna lowered her notepad. “His department must revise their work all the way back to an equation that was constructed a year and a half ago.”

The Colonel nodded. “Lyushin’s Stationary Law,” he said. “A fabulous breakthrough, or so it seemed at the time.” He turned to a fresh page and wrote a few lines. “How did Bulyagkov react to Lyushin’s revelation?”

“He knew about it. Apparently, the main issue was the continued financial support.”

“And the lost time.” Kamarovsky licked his lips like a thirsty man. “Dubna is dependent on Lyushin’s results. There’s a whole series of construction projects in the works, all based on his revolutionary methods.”

He stopped talking and opened a drawer. She expected him to take something out of it, but he laid an empty hand on his writing pad. “I’d like to thank you, Comrade. You’ve fulfilled your assignment more thoroughly than you seem to know. For several reasons, we’ve had doubts about whether or not the theoretical physics section was being cagey about its successful results. Your information, Anna, gives us concrete clues.”

She responded to his unexpected thanks with a nod and shoved her chair back, thinking that her report was at an end.

“I’ve had this on my desk for the last two weeks.”

Looking up, Anna saw that Kamarovsky was holding a document in his hand. “I wanted to give it to you personally.” He inverted it and pushed it over the desk to Anna. The document was entitled “GLAVLIT—Summary Decision.”

“I acknowledge that it’s taken a long time, but the result warrants the delay.”

Her eyes flew over the printed lines. She couldn’t immediately grasp the sense of what she was reading, obscured as it was by convoluted official language.

Kamarovsky ended her uncertainty: “It looks as though we shall soon be holding a new volume of Viktor Ipalyevich Tsazukhin’s poetry, fresh from the press,” he said. “The committee has arrived at the view that the submitted poems are morally and politically conducive to the formation of the Soviet character and to the elevation of the citizens’ social consciousness. The committee accordingly authorizes without reservation the publication of the collection and undertakes to have the volume printed by the government press with the help of public funds.”

Anna kept her eyes fastened on the paper. It was dazzlingly clear to her that she was, once again, on the point of letting herself be bought. Her first reaction was the wish that the price would be sufficiently high. Her words of gratitude were succinct, she rose to go, and the Colonel accompanied her to the hall stand. While she slipped into her coat, she asked, “How did you get over it when your wife left you because of your work?”

“Ah, that.” He turned toward the piano and smiled. “I still had music. It unites the things we’ve been talking about today. It’s analytical in construction, yet it makes an immediate connection with our emotions.”

“Do you play often?”

“Every free minute I have.” He walked her to the door.

As A. I. Kamarovsky listened to the sound of Anna’s footsteps fading away down the stairs, he imagined what she would say if she knew that there had never been a Mrs. Kamarovsky. The Colonel was sure: The subtle affliction that would bind Anna to him from that day forward, his tragic submission to his sense of duty, and his calculated display of an almost erotic relationship with the Party would serve to motivate this particular female agent. His lie, therefore, was in a good cause. He sat at the piano and clumsily played a few bars. Neither his abilities nor his strength sufficed for more. He felt the vague presentiment returning, and this time, concentrating on music making wouldn’t help him out of the crisis. Breathing heavily, he closed the score and waited. He was waiting to see whether the atonic seizure would set in a second time and overcome him before he could do anything about it. When it failed to materialize, he dared to stand up and move toward the desk with cautious steps. As he did so, he made sure not to come too close to furniture and other objects. He opened the drawer, took out the little envelope, suppressed his horror at verifying that a single tablet was all it contained, and swallowed the tablet. In the interval before the medicine began to take effect, he sank down onto the chair and concentrated on the thing lying closest to hand, which was Anna’s report.

TEN

I
n the morning, mother and son snuggled behind the curtain for a long time. Petya told her about a new teacher who was in the habit of sitting on her desk; when she did so, you could see under her skirt. Anna listened to the sounds he made when he breathed, checked his eyes for redness, and asked when the last time he’d taken his temperature was. Eventually, she made breakfast. The boy liked having a holiday from school; he got dressed cheerfully and was eager to go outside.

They reached the building across from the Lenin Library right on time. The policeman on duty told Anna how to get to Doctor Shchedrin’s Institute for Histamine Determination. The receptionist there explained that the doctor was with another patient and suggested that she and Petya have a seat. With every minute that passed in the pretty waiting room, Anna’s fears grew. She let Petya play with a toy tank.

“I’m sorry, my treatment room is still occupied,” Shchedrin said by way of greeting. His white coat was buttoned up, and he’d been to the barber since their last consultation.

“Does Petya have to go to the hospital?” Anna blurted out.

“Only for the adjustment,” the doctor said, nodding. “Please follow me.”

“What adjustment?” Taking Petya’s hand, Anna went with Shchedrin into the little kitchen that adjoined the waiting room.

“As you see, we’re overbooked.” He closed the door. The windowless room gave Anna the impression that she was about to receive some news of a particularly confidential nature.

“Your son has asthma,” the doctor said. “The original cause may have been the carbon monoxide pollution in the capital, but that alone wouldn’t account for his most recent symptoms. Petya’s suffering from a very strong reaction to a particular allergen.”

Since the muscular structure of the bronchi in children is not yet fully developed, Shchedrin explained, asthmatic symptoms can arise, and he would give Petya medicine to remedy those; it was more important, however, to identify what was triggering the boy’s attacks. “In your son’s case, it’s a question of dust allergens, so it may be difficult to restrict his contact with them.”

“How do you mean?” Anna asked. She was sitting on a stool and holding Petya on her lap.

“Dust is an integral part of daily life.” Having searched the cabinet in vain for a clean glass, Shchedrin rinsed out a used one and poured himself some tea. “Do you have rugs on the wall at home?” he asked. Anna nodded. “Take them down,” he said, wrapping his aristocratic-looking fingers around the hot glass. “Pictures, knickknacks, mementos are all dust collectors. Keep them away from Petya. How about books?”

“My father …” She interrupted herself, thinking it unnecessary to mention that she lived with a writer. “We have many books.”

“Put them in the cellar. Along with stacks of newspapers, decorative cushions, horsehair mattresses, embroidered tablecloths, and woolen blankets.”

She was surprised to hear him describe her apartment so precisely.

“Even if it means a big change for you, get yourself some smooth, synthetic materials. They aren’t very popular with dust mites.” Shchedrin
drank and grimaced. “When will they finally learn to make tea in this place?”

Anna considered how she ought to inform her father that his four walls, the very walls within which he’d so generously welcomed her and her family, were partly responsible for Petya’s illness.

“Still, there has to be something else,” Shchedrin said, pouring the rest of his tea into the sink. “You told me that Petya’s condition gets worse when he’s asleep. There must be an allergen source in the immediate vicinity of his bed. Do you have down pillows or duvets?”

What he meant was suddenly clear to her. “A year ago, we … my father, Petya, and I sleep in the same room. For the sake of privacy, we’ve hung a velvet curtain in front of the sleeping alcove.”

“Velvet!” Shchedrin exclaimed, laughing. “The dust mite’s paradise, the allergy sufferer’s hell!”

Petya understood that the conversation was about him but gradually lost interest in it; Anna looked around for something he could play with. Shchedrin showed the boy into the children’s waiting room and stepped out into the corridor with Anna. He announced that he would start treating Petya’s asthma with medication to dilate his respiratory passages. No medicine could cure the dust allergy itself, he explained, and therefore a gradual desensitization would be necessary, which Shchedrin would initiate with allergen injections.