The Russian Affair (25 page)

As she hurried over the richly patterned carpet, Anna tried to make sense of her departure. Had Alexey, insulted and offended at having found her with Lyushin, thrown her out? Had he turned up at the Ukraina only to speak to Lyushin, or had someone tipped him off about her? Anna went through the revolving door and into the cold night air, which hit her like a blow.

When Alexey returned to the table in the alcove, Lyushin was studying the dessert list. “Let’s go.”

“I’ve got a craving for something sweet—”

With unaccustomed violence, the Deputy Minister struck the menu out of Lyushin’s hand. “You’ve had enough sweets for one evening.” Like a dog only now perceiving the possibility of a beating, the physicist rose to his feet. Bulyagkov made for the steps to the mezzanine, where the elevators were. By the time the double doors split open, Lyushin had caught up with him, and they stepped into the elevator together. “Have you completely taken leave of your senses?” the older man barked as soon as the doors shut. “I don’t care whom you choose to meet. But inviting Anna to this place was stupid and dangerous!”

“You can’t believe that I asked your girlfriend here—”

“Shut your mouth.” With a gesture, Bulyagkov directed Lyushin to push the button for his floor. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing! In any case, nothing that she could have understood.”

“So you told her something!”

“No, I didn’t, I swear!”

“She’s Kamarovsky’s informant.” Bulyagkov stepped closer.

“Then why didn’t you get rid of her long ago?” Lyushin hissed.

For a moment, the Deputy Minister seemed about to punch the suntanned
face beside him, but instead, he thrust his fists into his pockets. “I thought you understood the game. If you hadn’t played Don Juan tonight, Anna would still be our best camouflage.”

“I gave away nothing. What do you think I am?”

“I think you’re someone who acts like an idiot whenever his dick takes over. Anna will report to Kamarovsky … she has to! And the old devil will draw his own conclusions.” Bulyagkov smoothed his hair back and put on his hat. “Where are the papers?”

“In my room.” Lyushin was holding tightly to the rail that ran around the elevator car.

“In the safe?”

“No, in the …” He paused, realizing that he’d made yet another mistake. “In my suitcase.”

“I’ll take them away with me tonight and put them in a more secure place.”

The elevator doors slid open, and Lyushin staggered out first. “Please, believe me, I had no designs on Anna. I … I don’t know anybody in Moscow, and she’s such a charming person.”

“The crucial question is whether Anna will continue to believe your story.” Bulyagkov watched pensively as the other unlocked his door.

They entered the dark hotel room. Lyushin hurried to his bag and pulled out a briefcase. “There,” he said, handing it to Bulyagkov. “You see, there wasn’t anything to worry about.”

The Deputy Minister turned on the lights and examined the combination lock. “Most of the time, the Minister limits his questions to the bare essentials. Speak only when you’re called upon to do so.” He held out the briefcase to the physicist and said, “Open it.”

Lyushin dialed in the combination and took out two apparently identical folders.

“Which is which?”

“That’s the folder for the Minister. And this one’s for you.”

Bulyagkov opened the folders and paged through the documents,
comparing them. “Good.” He thrust the folders under his arm. Lyushin lay collapsed on the sofa. “You’ll come to the Ministry tomorrow at eleven o’clock sharp,” Bulyagkov said. “We won’t see each other again until the appointed time. When you arrive, I’ll be with the Minister, and we’ll be expecting you.” He turned to the door. “And no more bars tonight, you understand?” He left without waiting for an answer.

SEVENTEEN

A
nna didn’t call Rosa Khleb that night, or the following morning, either. As she did every day, she took the building combine’s special bus to Karacharovo, put on her work overalls, and together with her colleagues—all women—began her shift in the shell of the twelve-story building. She felt safe on the scaffolding. Here, there was no telephone; here nobody asked her to explain herself. Anna applied a coat of finegrained plaster to the ceiling.
You have to call Rosa
, her sense of duty reminded her; hesitating any longer would arouse Kamarovsky’s suspicions. Anna had no illusions about why she was stalling instead of following the usual procedure: She couldn’t decide how to report Lyushin’s drunken performance. Had he really given something away, or had it all been mere boasting? It seemed obvious that he was putting off the Ministry in order to gain more time and increased funding for his work. Fame and success were of great importance to him, and if he was withholding the results of his research, he must have reasons for doing so. Suppose Anna were to express her suppositions; who would benefit from that? Certainly not Nikolai Lyushin. Wouldn’t his conduct be classified as irresponsible and harmful to the State? It’s not your job to analyze information, she told herself. So why was she toying with the idea of portraying her date with Lyushin as an innocuous encounter? Basically,
there was only one person toward whom she felt responsible: Alexey. As Lyushin’s superior, it was he, first and foremost, who was being traduced.

She spread the plaster over the ceiling with circular movements. Although droplets of the stuff were sticking her eyelids together, she worked on, lost in thought. At the end of her shift, she locked up her tools, changed into her street clothes, and was bused back to the center of Moscow.

After getting off at Durova Street, she took the subway for two stops and went into a small notions shop near Gorky Street. Anna wasn’t shopping for cotton or woolen fabrics, which was what most of the establishment’s customers required; she was on the lookout for synthetic material. Before long, she found what she wanted: a slick blue fabric, which though unpleasant to the touch was made entirely from a fiber described by its manufacturer in Omsk as indestructible. As Anna lifted out the bolt of material, she flinched from the discharge of static electricity. She asked for a length of twenty feet, chose a tape, paid, and left the shop.

When she got home, instead of climbing to her fourth-floor apartment she knocked at a door on the first. The door opened, slowly and hesitantly. “I’m glad you’re home, Avdotya,” Anna said, greeting the shape in the semidarkness.

“Ah, Anna, well, well. I thought you were the mailman!” Avdotya said, shouting because she was hard of hearing. Anna, who had no desire to listen to the Metsentsev story, strode briskly and purposefully into the apartment. “I have something for you.” She turned her head toward Avdotya so that the older woman could read her lips.

Next to the window stood the symbol of Avdotya’s craft, the pride of her life: her own sewing machine. At the end of her long and meritorious service in the garment industry, the company had rewarded its retiring forewoman with the gift of an obsolescent model. As a consequence, Avdotya had been the recipient of a virtually unbroken series of commissions
ever since her retirement. Since Metsentsev, the Party secretary for that district of Moscow, was also one of her customers, things went smoothly for her.

Anna laid her packet of material on Avdotya’s table and said, “I need a curtain!”

“What?” Avdotya closed the door.

“A curtain, little mother!”

“I couldn’t possibly start making it before next week!”

“But this is only Tuesday!” Anna unrolled the fabric.

“I have to turn the cuffs on thirty shirts. Then Ryukhin on the fifth floor wants me to alter his suit, and the Perth family has ordered a wall hanging!”

“My Petya needs the curtain!” Anna acted distressed. “He’s sick, he’s really sick. He’s got some kind of nasty allergy. If I don’t keep everything that sets it off away from him, then my boy can’t get any air! This curtain will let him breathe freely!”

The old woman picked up the material and examined it with an expert eye. “Loosely woven,” she muttered. “I’ll need to make a double stitch.”

“But look how smooth.” Anna spread out the piece of fabric. “Three panels every six feet. How much work can that be?”

“What about the tape?”

Anna took it out of her bag. “It won’t take you even an hour, Mother! And you’ll be helping Petya breathe at night! Besides, the curtain will muffle Papa’s snoring.”

She negotiated the price in the same tone of voice, and Avdotya determined that Anna should check back with her in two days to see when the work would be finished. Relieved, Anna left the ground-floor apartment and mounted the stairs to her own. Halfway up, she stumbled and spent a few moments wondering about her lack of strength; then she realized she hadn’t had a thing to eat all day long. She closed her eyes
and leaned against the banister. When she felt better, she walked up the rest of the way, took off her scarf as she entered the apartment, and hung her coat on the hook.

“You’re late.” Viktor Ipalyevich looked up from the table. “I couldn’t give your lady friend any information about when you might come home.” With a movement of his head, he indicated the sofa. In front of the wall hanging sat Rosa Khleb. A stack of Anna’s father’s poetry collections lay on Rosa’s lap, and the top volume was open.

“Good evening,” she said. “With Comrade Tsazukhin’s poems to read, the time flew by.”

Speechless at this “house call,” Anna looked from one of them to the other.

“She didn’t want anything to drink,” said Viktor Ipalyevich, by way of excusing himself for the fact that he had a cup of tea in front of him while Rosa had nothing.

Anna turned her head toward the sleeping alcove. “Petya’s playing in the courtyard with the others,” his grandfather explained.

“I never tire of reading the poems in
The Red Light
,” Rosa said, holding up the battered volume.

“May I offer it to you as a gift?”

“What have I done to deserve such an honor?”

“I rarely meet any of Anna’s friends.” He looked at his daughter. “You usually get home at five.”

“I bought the material for Petya’s curtain. Avdotya’s going to sew it for us.”

During this innocuous conversation, Anna tried to grasp the urgency that lay behind Rosa’s unusual visit. Was Anna’s delay in reporting really that serious? Should she have called Rosa last night, after all?

“Will you have dinner with us?” Anna asked, in an attempt to clarify her visitor’s plans.

“I’m afraid I don’t have enough time. I just wanted a chance to chat with you, Anna.” Rosa briefly arched her eyebrows. “I waited so I could
at least tell you hello, but now I must be off.” She put aside Viktor Ipalyevich’s books, except for
The Red Light
. “I accept this with humble gratitude,” she said.

“Wait a moment, I’ll write something in it.” He unscrewed his fountain pen and formulated a dedication. Rosa watched him, smiling as she did so, but Anna could detect her impatience.

“I’ll walk you to the bus,” Anna said as her friend was putting on her cap.

“That would be nice of you.”

“Will you go and call Petya in?” Anna asked her father as she slipped into her overcoat. “I’ll fix dinner as soon as I get back.”

Rosa exchanged farewells with Viktor Ipalyevich; then she and Anna left the apartment together and went wordlessly down the stairs. At last, Rosa broke the silence. “Your father’s a very pleasant man,” she said.

“He can turn his charm on and off, whenever he wants. Did you meet Petya, too?”

“Viktor Ipalyevich pointed him out to me from the kitchen window. A sweet boy.”

The preliminary banter was over. “I couldn’t call you last night,” Anna said. “Petya was still awake, and Papa was working on his poems.”

When they reached the second floor, Rosa stopped. “Where can we go?”

“I don’t know. There isn’t anyplace around here.”

Rosa pointed downstairs. At the turning between the ground floor and the cellar, there was a sort of niche, an element of fanciful building design left over from tsarist times. “Let’s sit down there. The place would appeal to Star-Eyes.” Rosa began to descend again. “You know his fondness for architecture.”

The mention of Kamarovsky made it painfully clear to Anna that the time for her to reach a decision had arrived. Rosa’s coming all the way to Filyovsky Park meant that the department must be particularly interested in Anna’s report.

They came to the narrow recess, in which residents of the apartment building used to sit and chat during the summer months. The built-in wooden benches were worn smooth, and innumerable steps had scratched the stone floor.

Rosa sat down. “Lyushin left the Ministry only a little while ago. The meeting lasted longer than expected.”

Anna dropped down onto the bench beside her.

“How was your evening?” Rosa asked. “What was his reason for calling you up?”

“What you suspected. He wanted female company.” Anna was speaking softly, and yet she thought she could hear her whispered syllables wandering around in the stairwell like ghosts. She reported what the physicist had eaten and how much he’d drunk, and she even related the stupid incident of the fiddler who’d gotten something in his eye.

“Did Lyushin mention his work?” Rosa cocked her head so that she could better see Anna’s face. “Did he talk about why he’d be paying the Minister a visit?”

“He wants increased funding for his research. I’ve already given Kamarovsky a report on that.”

“Considering Lyushin’s vanity, I’m surprised he didn’t try to impress you with his accomplishments. He made no reference—none at all—to his research project?”

I
have
brought the moment to a halt
, Anna thought, remembering Lyushin’s words.
And I needed no Mephistopheles to help me
. “He probably didn’t have time to bring it up before Alexey’s unexpected arrival,” she answered.

Rosa Khleb nodded. “The meeting was arranged between the two of them.”

“And you sent me to the Ukraina even though you knew that?”

“I didn’t know it yesterday. We got a tip today from someone in the Ministry. How did Bulyagkov behave? Like a jealous bear?”