Despite the Falling Snow (34 page)

“Well done, my son. This is everything I wished for you.” He grasps the back of Alexander’s neck. “It’s everything I wished for myself too, but I am happier that it has worked out for you. Well done, Sasha, well done.”

Alexander hugs him back, feeling that he is betraying his father with every breath. If only you knew, papa, if only you knew what I am planning to do. To walk away from all these opportunities that we are celebrating here tonight, to walk away from my work here in this government, the work that is making you so proud. He breathes in deeply, in an effort to take control of himself, and he takes in the smell of his father’s shirt and skin. They are scents that were once familiar, but that now remind him only distantly of his boyhood. He wants to stare at his parents, to take in every last detail of their faces, their speech, their eyes – to commit them to a memory that will never fade, for after tomorrow, that is all that will remain to him of these two people whom he has known longer than anyone else. His eyes begin to fill, and he busies himself slicing more cheese and handing it around. When he reaches Katya’s plate, he looks up at her, and she pauses in her chatter and smiles at him, encouragingly. The sight of her makes him feel worse, though, for he realises that spending this final night with his mother and father, attempting to hoard away the details of their faces and characters for his future remembrance, is a luxury that she never had with her own parents. He sighs inwardly and sits down.

“Cheer up, Sasha. America will be more fun than you can imagine.” Misha pats him on the back and Alexander smiles.

“Wish you were going, Misha?”

“Absolutely. I hear the women are….”

Katya hits his shoulder playfully, and they all laugh. Alexander is pleased that Misha has been able to join them. He has removed the burden of conversation from Alexander’s shoulders and has made this a lively two hours, full of jokes and laughter. Katya is also in good spirits, has been so since the night of their talk, and Misha’s laconic humour has been a good foil for her. Between them, they have entertained the Ivanovs, and kept at bay the spectres hovering before Alexander’s troubled eyes.

Now it is late, and Alexander and Katya walk home alone, spurning the two stops on the metro in order to have some peace and privacy amongst the few people who are out on the cold streets.

“You were quiet tonight,” she says, her eyes upon him, concerned. “How is your headache?”

“Fine. Not very bad.” They walk a little further. “Katya?”

“Yes, Sasha?”

“I’m afraid.”

“So am I. But everything will be fine, my love.”

His steps slow down and he waits for her to meet his eyes, and then, when he can see his own misgiving reflected in her anxious gaze, he speaks again.

“You don’t understand. There was news at work yesterday. I haven’t had time to tell you.” He pauses. “They’ve caught someone.”

She takes a moment to digest this.

“Who?”

Alexander shrugs. “No-one’s even supposed to know. The rumour is it’s someone high up, working for the Americans.” A slight laugh. “It all seems so strange. Our lives. This catching of spies. It’s like one of those stories – ‘Red Leaves’. It doesn’t seem real.” He is referring to the series of articles about the outwitting and capture of American spies in the popular magazine
Ogoniek
.

“Everyone seems relieved now, but I’m worried,” he continues, with panic in his voice. “That person will talk. Do you know anything about it, Katya?”

Misha was just at dinner with them. That is all she knows, and she breathes in the ice-laden air gratefully. There might be others who might know her identity and her role – she cannot be sure – but at least it isn’t Misha that they’ve caught.

Katya shakes her head. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

“It means they’re getting closer.” He doesn’t add “to us.”

They hold hands, and both of them are quiet, thinking now of the practicalities of leaving. How do you plan to do the impossible? His part is undoubtedly the easiest. He will leave the next day for Washington. It will be a long journey, one plane solely for the whole delegation. Once they arrive, he will behave well and carefully, for they will be assiduously chaperoned, and on the following evening there will be a banquet for all the diplomats and attendees. It is then that he must target someone, and quietly make known his wish to defect. He must do it then, must cross over, that night, before any more time passes, for every day may bring his superiors closer to finding out who has been leaking information. In the meantime, Katya will wait until the night of the banquet, and then make arrangements with her contacts here to leave at once. And he will wait, with the Americans, for Katya to join him. And this is where his imagination goes blank. He knows she will bargain her way out by offering his information to her contacts here. But she has been able to tell him very little else, and the timing is so important. He needs detail to feel secure, and now, in this most nerve-wracking of times and hardest of decisions, he has none. Whom will she speak to, how will she escape, and when and where will they ever meet again?

“I don’t think we can plan to move any more quickly than we have already,” she says, and there is a tone of query in her voice.

“No, I’ve just been thinking about it. I can’t see how.”

“Good; then we’ll just think about the plan and wait and it’ll be over with soon. So soon, Sasha. Within a few days. Less than that.” She is whispering to him now, and he nods and tries to feel something of her optimism, or strength of purpose, but his fear is so intense at the thought of all that can go wrong, that he feels himself shivering as they walk. Her hand snakes into his pocket and grasps his, through their gloves, and he squeezes it, but does not look at her. How can he leave her when he does not know what will happen to her?

Outside their building she steps onto a snow bank piled by the road. The surface is icy and brittle and her boots do not sink into it. Standing above him, her face is pink with cold, and her black eyes contain a glitter that seems to reflect the sparkling surface of the ice, refracted by yellow streetlamps. She looks different just now, like a stranger, and he feels a crisp chill clasp his heart, remembers again how deeply she has lied to him. But in America they can begin again. A life together, without threats or lies or pain.

“Will it be this cold in Washington?” she asks him.

“I don’t know. Maybe not.”

“Take your galoshes and your gloves, just in case.”

“Yes.”

Inside the apartment, they shed coats and hats and gloves and she holds him immediately, for a long few minutes, in the warm darkness of the kitchen. Then she goes to the bathroom. He hears the water running, her muttered words, perhaps complaining at the temperature, and the familiar sounds of her footsteps, and her undressing. He follows her in, having taken off his tie and belt and opened the top buttons of his shirt.

“You’re bathing now?”

She nods, and steps out of her underwear. She dips a foot into the water.

“It’s late,” he says.

“I know. But I don’t think I can sleep. Not right now. I feel so strange.”

She slides her body into the water and shuts her eyes. The bath is a little too small, and so her knees are bent, emerging pale and bony from the warmth. He sits on the side of the bath, leans over and kisses an exposed knee.

“Why do you feel strange?” he asks.

Her eyes stay closed, but a single tear escapes out onto her cheek. He leans forward to her.

“This is our last night together, for a while,” she whispers.

He is grateful for the last three words, clings onto them as though they are a life belt around his neck. He holds a hand over his eyes. He feels as though he is sinking.

“I can’t bear it,” he whispers. “I can’t bear to leave without you.”

Her hand emerges, dripping, and takes his. His shirt cuffs get wet, and she pulls back, but he does not care about that now, and he grabs the hand back and will not let it go. Her fingers entwine with his and she sits up slightly, so that she can grasp him properly. His head leans forward to hers and he breathes the words into her ear.

“I don’t want to go. How will you manage? Can’t I go with you?”

She shakes her head, a definitive movement, but her eyes hold understanding and a sympathy for his anxiety. She whispers into his ear.

“You must go. It is our only hope. I’ll arrange everything as soon as you’ve gone. Immediately.” She kisses his ear, with her cool, moist lips, and sits back in the bath.

He stands up and goes to the basin to wash. She is right, of course; they have been through it all already. She cannot arrange anything for herself until he is safely out, or he will be jeopardised. And then, the details of her trip are uncertain, even for Katya – she does not know as yet what route she will take, where she will be hidden, how she will travel, until she has advice from those who will help her. But will they advise her well? He watches her in the small mirror, her eyes closed as she lies there in the water. Please keep safe, my Katyushka, he thinks. Please keep safe, and come to me soon.

S
HEREMETYEVO
A
IRPORT IN
M
OSCOW
has a dinginess to it that always seems to Lauren to be somehow fitting. At the passport control, she turns to Melissa to say something, and the woman in the booth snaps at her to face forwards. Above them, a fluorescent tube casts an unforgiving light. Even this gives Lauren a slight thrill. She knows it is one of the last vestiges of bureaucratic authority or state control that she will feel here in this city.

The National Hotel is one of the finest. The marble reception area and plush carpets lead up to bedrooms which lean towards opulence. Maroon velvet curtains and a view towards Red Square. Lauren looks out – electronic billboards dominate the paved square before them. Tourists mill out of the metro station below, or sit outside, drinking coffee. And beyond are the proud statues and towering onion domes and spires of St Basil’s cathedral, the shapes and views that speak of the older city, the one she has always imagined and conjured from books.

When she turns back to the room, Melissa is sitting on the edge of the bed. A double bed.

“Do you want me to see if they can switch us to a twin?” Lauren asks.

“Not on my account.” Melissa shakes her head, holding Lauren’s intent look for only a moment before she abruptly begins to unpack.

They eat their first dinner at the Pushkin restaurant, and the following lunch at the Central House of Writers, because Lauren has read about it in a novel and they visit the Kremlin museums, where Lauren talks Melissa through some of the art works. She speaks shyly at first, giving only small, brief bits of information, until Melissa keeps asking more questions, subtly drawing her into longer explanations. Melissa finds that the golden, gilded churches, and the heavily exotic art are becoming much more fascinating to her than she would have imagined, because of Lauren’s ability to illuminate them, to mix snippets of political history and social background with art history. She is also able to point out the different paints or textures or techniques used, and to tell Melissa why they were popular at the time, or what effect they were used to achieve. It is a new world that she is slowly unlocking, a world of patient craft and devotion and inspiration, and Melissa takes it all up, her eyes intent on Lauren’s face as she listens. She is experiencing a specific excitement, the kind of exhilaration she has always felt when learning something entirely new; from sensing a new aspect of life opening to her. It is a pleasurable sensation, and one that she has not known for some time.

The following day, they meet the investigator who has taken on Lauren’s brief. He feels like a throwback to another time – he has the rumpled, sleepy but sharp-eyed look of a fictional American private eye as he talks them through the hours he has worked and at last, gives them the address he had found for Misha.

“Good luck,” says the detective. “What do you want to learn from him?”

“We have questions about the old days. A long time ago.”

The man shrugs. “I hope his memory is okay.” He makes a drinking motion with his hand. “The guy looks shaky, you know?”

There is no telephone number, so they simply arrange for a guide who can also act as interpreter to come with them the following morning, and a stocky young man presents himself in the hotel lobby a little after ten o’clock, introducing himself as Boris.

Misha’s apartment block is about half an hour from the hotel. They take the metro, Melissa marvelling at the stunning stations, carved from marble and stone, glowing with ornate chandeliers, inlaid with stained glass the colours of wine and jewels. Boris outlines the history of the stations for them.

“I thought people were starving in the thirties,” she says. “How did the government have money to burn on this kind of thing?”

“They didn’t,” Lauren replies. “But they wanted to make a statement to the world. What amazing things socialism could achieve – the most spectacular underground system ever. Oh, and the tunnels could always come in handy as bomb shelters.”

“Dual purpose. I guess that justifies it,” says Melissa, with heavy irony.