The Russian Affair (3 page)

Still chewing, her father took his fountain pen out of his breast pocket. “For whom shall I sign it?”

“Just your name’s good enough. It’s going to be a gift.” Anna held the book open to the first page to avoid the possibility that he’d flip through it to the telltale note.

“Even on worksites, people are reading my poems,” he said. Smiling, he wrote, “With Best Wishes, Viktor Ipalyevich Tsazukhin.” Anna blew on the ink, closed the volume, and laid it on the bookshelf.

Leonid helped her do the dishes. “Maneuvers start tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll probably sleep in the barracks tonight.”

“I’ve got another combine meeting,” Anna replied, running water into the sink.

While Leonid lit up his evening cigarette, while her father got the chessboard out and shoved a pair of cushions under Petya, Anna changed into her summer dress with the brown dots, put on a jacket over the dress, and took leave of her family. As she went down the stairs, she felt incomprehensible relief at the thought that she wouldn’t have to see her husband again later that night.

The return address on the parcel indicated a street on the opposite side of the city center. Anna took the wrong bus and missed the appointed time. She hurried along the avenue and turned into a side street. The dimly lit sign read
DREZHNEVSKAYA ST
. The secluded place, the unprepossessing buildings threw her into confusion: It wasn’t conceivable that the Deputy Minister lived here. There was no café, there weren’t even any shops; where had he invited her to go? Anna reached the address she was looking for and stepped back. On this bright July evening, not a single
window showed a light. She hoped that there had been some misunderstanding, considered once again the possibility that she was the victim of a practical joke—the big shot from the Ministry, she thought, had allowed himself a laugh at her expense.

“You’re too late, Anna Tsazukhina.” Bulyagkov, wearing a light summer suit, was coming toward her from the other end of the narrow street. “Of all bad habits, tardiness is the worst,” he said, looking at her so merrily that her confusion only grew.

Without further explanation, he unlocked the door and went in ahead of her. Anna followed him to a nondescript staircase, which he went up three steps at a time. At the door of an apartment with no nameplate, he used his key again. The opening door revealed an elegantly furnished flat; stray beams of sunlight greeted Anna as she entered. Bulyagkov tried to help her out of her jacket, but she kept it on.

As her host made no effort to begin the conversation, Anna said, “Here’s the book.”

“How is our poet?” Bulyagkov said, glancing at the dedication before laying the volume aside.

“Since his reading, my father has been interrogated several times in the headquarters of the Writers’ Association.”

“Were there accusations?” The Deputy Minister stepped over to the sideboard in the living room.

“He was asked to review the political usefulness of his poems.”

“What did you expect?” Bulyagkov uncorked a bottle of wine. “Your father behaved like a bull in a china shop. Now he’s got to bare his bottom and sit on the shards.”

The crude image startled her. “Do you think his poems are ‘unidealistic’ and ‘morally inadequate,’ too?”

“I don’t understand a thing about poetry,” he said, pouring himself some wine. “Nobody gets upset about a little sideswipe.” His light eyes measured her. “But what Viktor Tsazukhin did was deliberate provocation. And so now he has to take a couple of raps on the knuckles.” He
took a sip and held the glass high. “I should have opened the bottle earlier. And you, Anna, how are you?” He gestured, offering her a corner seat on the sofa.

“Why does that interest you?”

“I like your dress. Did you make it yourself?”

“I can’t sew.”

Bulyagkov skirted the coffee table, sat on the sofa, and leaned back. “This light makes your hair look red.”

She didn’t like the way he was looking at her as she slipped into her seat. He placed a full glass in front of her and, without waiting for her to pick it up, clinked it with his own. “Tell me about yourself.”

“You know most of what there is to tell.”

“Far from it. For example, I wonder why your father didn’t see to it that you received some other kind of education.”

“I’m satisfied.”

“That’s not an answer.”

After a pause, she said, “Viktor Ipalyevich is a poet.”

“A man of intellect,” said the Deputy Minister, nodding in agreement. “So why would his daughter become a house painter?”

“He’s a poet—and nothing else.” Anna gripped the stem of her wineglass with two fingers. “Until my mother got sick, she worked for us all. Then she died. Man cannot live on poetry alone.”

He looked toward the window. “It’s hard when you can’t do what you have the talent to do.”

“I’m not talented,” she replied, “and I like my work. It’s well paid.” She drank, tasting the heavy wine all the way down. “Why not tell me about yourself, Comrade?”

“Oh, how boring,” he sighed. “I’m originally Ukrainian. I came to Moscow when I was fifteen, and I’ve gotten about as far as a non-Russian can.”

“Your Ministry is responsible for research planning. That can’t be boring.”

He shook his head and said, “Administrative work. Our office makes money available. In the laboratories, in the big science cities—that’s where the meaningful work takes place. We’re just puffed-up bureaucrats.” He looked at her. “What about your husband? What’s he doing this evening?”

“He’s taking care of Petya.” She straightened her upper body. “No, I’m wrong. He has to go on maneuvers.”

“Does he like his unit?” Bulyagkov drained his glass.

“He’s stationed in Moscow, and that counts for a lot.”

“It’s hard to obtain a right of abode for Moscow.”

Throughout the following hours, Anna found the Deputy Minister attentive and calm, and possessed of a charm the likes of which she’d never known. Usually, when men became confiding, they made jokes and accompanied a bit of flattery with some harmless touching. Anna had never before encountered such seriousness in a man, an almost intimidating interest that seemed to require her to show her best side. It was an effort for her to be this
interesting
Anna, the exertion weakened her, and she was afraid that she didn’t deserve such an elevated level of attention. She would have liked their get-together to be more relaxed, but at the same time, Bulyagkov’s steady pressure made the encounter unique. She envied his travels—not only did he know Kiev, Vladivostok, and Prague, but he’d also seen Havana and Helsinki; he liked reminiscing, and he answered her questions at length. During the conversation, he went into the kitchen and returned with an already-prepared platter—little liver pâté sandwiches, bread, and ham. Between them, they emptied the bottle of wine. Only once, in the midst of an animated description, did he lay his hand on hers; otherwise, he didn’t make the slightest attempt to touch her.

Physically, he wasn’t Anna’s type; the men she found attractive were wiry, with long limbs and thick hair. The Deputy Minister was a brawny man with a pronounced paunch; his face might have been angular once, but now it looked puffy. She liked his eyes, which had something of the
Arctic wolf about them. Was it shyness that prevented her from asking him what he expected from her? As for Bulyagkov, he acted as though he thought it a natural thing for a high state official and a house painter to spend an evening together. They conversed some more, followed the zakuski with a few glasses of vodka, and darkness fell, which at that time of year meant that the midnight hour was approaching. Without explanation, Bulyagkov stood up and disappeared into an adjoining room, which Anna presumed was the bedroom. She figured that the next item on the program was at hand, but before she could work out what her own behavior was going to be, he came back. His damp temples indicated that he’d merely gone to comb his hair. He hated to say it, he said, but the time had come for her to go. He answered her surprised look with an invitation to name a wish—the first wish that came into her mind.

“Faucet washers,” she said, and then she had to laugh at herself. “The faucets in our apartment drip. They take standard washers, but I can’t find them anywhere.”

“Washers.” Bulyagkov escorted her to the door. “I’ll see if my influence extends that far.” He took her by the shoulders and gave her a brotherly kiss. Anna started down the stairs. On the way home, she realized that the granting of her wish would mean that this wouldn’t be their last meeting. The thought of the Deputy Minister’s clever move made her smile.

Two weeks had passed, and Anna assumed the matter had been forgotten. But one afternoon, a black ZIL parked in front of her building. An inconspicuous man got out, presented himself as a messenger, and, when Anna came down, handed her a small package no larger than a bar of soap. The man was Anton, whom she saw from the front for the first time.

“That’s from Alexey Maximovich,” he said, stony-faced. “If you
have time this evening, he would be delighted to receive a visit from you.”

Anna wondered whether Bulyagkov had chosen the date at random or knew that she was working the early shift that week. “How long do I have to think it over?”

“Come to Gospitya Street at eight,” Anton replied. “I’ll wait for you there.”

“If I can’t make it, how can I reach you?”

“Don’t worry, Comrade. Gospitya Street, right off the little square.” He got back in the car and drove away. Anna opened the package while she was still on the street. Upstairs in the apartment, she announced that she’d finally been able to scare up some of those confounded washers. Viktor Ipalyevich congratulated her and got out the pliers.

That had been the evening when Anna was Anton’s passenger for the first time. He took a surprisingly short route to Drezhnevskaya Street. She admired how smoothly he weaved in and out of traffic without making use of the privileged status accorded to government vehicles. In front of the now-familiar building, she got out of the car and told him good-bye, but Anton indicated that they’d see each other when she was ready to go home.

Bulyagkov opened the door with two potholders in his hands, and soon he was serving her Tartar-style chicken ragout. When Anna asked who had done the preparation, he confessed that the delicatessen on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt had delivered the food right on time. She thanked him for the washers, the most sensible gift she’d received in a long time. He opened a bottle of wine and showed her the label. She couldn’t decipher it.

“It’s a pinot blanc. I picked it up at my house.”

“What does your wife say when you leave with a bottle of wine under your arm?” Anna didn’t wish to be impertinent, but his casual attitude, which was again on display in this, their second meeting, made her nervous.

“Medea is home even more seldom than I am,” he said. He raised Anna’s hand, the one holding the glass, to her mouth. “Taste it.”

Although she found the wine so acidic that she grimaced, she praised it dutifully. Then she asked, “What does your wife do?”

“She’s on the Soviet Council for Inter-Republic Cultural Cooperation. Since so many touring theater companies are constantly arriving in Moscow, she goes to the theater very often—so often, in fact, that she ought to have a bad conscience.” He took a drink.

“Do you have a bad conscience, Comrade?”

“Why?”

“Because so far you haven’t given me a single reason why we’re together.” She felt her forehead beginning to burn. “Or are you going to tell me that we have these meetings because you like my father’s poems?”

“What sort of future do you dream about, Anna?”

For a moment, the right answer went through her head:
I dream about the realization of world communism, equality for all people, and the end of imperialism for the benefit of every individual
. She said, “When Leonid and I applied for an apartment, we were told that something would be available in Nostikhyeva soon. That was three years ago.” Anna pushed her plate away. “I’d like Petya to go to the Polytechnic. He’s got a talent for logic—he’s already beaten Viktor Ipalyevich twice at chess. But they take only so many students.”

“How about you, Anna? What would you wish for yourself?”

“I’d like to see Stockholm.”

His face took on a look of affectionate surprise. “Why Sweden?”

“Viktor Ipalyevich has a book at home, a thick volume with pictures. Stockholm’s a city on the sea, and it doesn’t get hot in summer.” She smiled. “I don’t like hot weather.” Her host refilled their glasses. “When are you going to try to kiss me, Comrade?” Anna asked. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the intimate setting, but in any case, Anna thought the question was justified.

“Does that mean you want me to?”

“You’re doing everything possible to soften me up.” She pointed at the remains of the exquisite snack.

“Do you suppose that I’m trying to seduce you with chicken ragout and white wine?”

“Aren’t you? What do you want from me, Alexey?”

He turned serious. “I watched you that day we first met. You were standing on the ladder, and I was under you. It’s something I’ll never forget.”

She moved away. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t think it’s a pleasure to look at you?”

“But we can’t just … sit here and eat, and I tell you about Leonid, and you talk about Medea …” Anna forcefully laid her hand on his. “And then I go back home?”

“There are things I can imagine doing with you.” He stroked her thumb.

She raised his hand and pressed it against the base of her throat, expecting his fingers to set out on their own.

“I’d like to see you naked,” he said. “We could keep sitting here and talking—I won’t touch you.”

“No,” she said curtly.

He drew back his hand. “I understand.”

“Not because I’m too modest,” she went on more softly. “Not because of that.”

“But because … ?”

“I can’t undress in front of you.”

“A scar? Perhaps a third nipple?”

“I can’t let you see my underwear.”

He leaned back, smiling. “You think I can’t imagine what kind of underclothing a female house painter from combine four-one-six wears?”