The Russian Affair (15 page)

“All right, now we know,” Bulyagkov said with a smile. “And now you understand why your bus keeps driving past the theoretical physics building without stopping.”

“It’s too bad, all the same,” said Lyushin. His face lit up. “We have a beautiful new coffee machine. That alone would be worth a visit.”

“I’d like to learn more about the subject,” Anna said, her back turned to Alexey.

“Do you have some understanding of quantum mechanics?” Again, the men exchanged surprised looks.

“I’ve read about electron diffraction.”

“Tell us.” It wasn’t so much an invitation to take a pop quiz as the expression of a specialist’s amused curiosity at the prospect of having a conversation about his chosen field with a half-naked woman. Anna searched her memory for whatever fragments remained from her perusal of the physics textbook.

“Under certain circumstances, electrons behave as though they’re not particles of matter, but waves.”

“So far, so good,” Lyushin said, nodding.

“But one can’t predict whether they’ll appear as matter or as waves.”

“Sometimes the damned things behave like both at once,” Lyushin agreed.

“And therefore quantum mechanics can only determine the probability of a particular event, it can’t offer a precise result.”

Lyushin smiled at Bulyagkov. “First semester theoretical physics, passing grade,” he said. They clinked glasses together.

Strangely enough, being consigned to a marginal role in the conversation didn’t seem to bother Alexey. He didn’t play the master of the house, nor did he encourage the uninvited guest to leave, but rather stood up and fetched another kind of vodka. Meanwhile, Lyushin talked about the angular momentum of composite particles and the quasi-stationary state of neutron spin and ended with a reference to his current work, which concerned the uncertainty principle and perturbation theory. “An exact solution to the Schrödinger equation can be found only for a few very simple cases,” he said, tousling his hair. “Most problems lead to series of equations so complicated that they can’t be solved exactly. We think approximate calculations are the only way to reach a result, and therefore lower-order terms must simply be left out.” His straw-colored hair was now standing up in all directions.

“And does that work?” Anna posed the decisive question as though it were one of many.

He exhaled forcefully through his nose. “Do you know what the scientist’s
three capital Fs are? Failure, failure, and failure.” He sighed and leaned back.

“Have you failed, Professor Lyushin?”

The blond-haired man gazed at her. “It looks that way at the moment.”

Anna felt Alexey freeze beside her.

“My department must retreat several steps,” Lyushin continued. “All the way back to an equation that we developed a year and a half ago.”

“That’s no failure. It’s just a backward step.” She pulled the slipping blanket higher.

“But it costs money,” he said, smiling at her. “Money that the Ministry for Research Planning doesn’t want to make available.” The scientist looked over at Bulyagkov. “Is she really a house painter?”

“You’re surprised?” Alexey asked, grinning. “She represents the general cultural level of our working men and women!”

Anna stood up and went to get dressed.

“Do you have to leave very soon?” Lyushin called to her. “I wanted to show you our coffee machine!”

“We’re going back to Moscow today. I really can’t stay any longer.” She closed the bedroom door and slipped quickly into her clothes. Lyushin offered her a ride back to the hotel.

“I’d better not accept,” she said. She gave Alexey a regretful look, expressing sorrow that their last date had taken such an unusual form, and put on her coat. “It would be better for me to show up unaccompanied.”

The two men followed her to the door. “Thanks,” she said as she took her leave. “Today’s lecture was certainly the most interesting of all.” She gave her hand to Lyushin and a fleeting kiss to Alexey, whose relaxed cheerfulness persisted undiminished.

Anna stood in the snow. Then she walked slowly to the gate, but as soon as she was through it, she hurried along the riverfront promenade and the main street, broke into a run at the sight of the flags over the hotel entrance, ignored the front desk manager’s look, and rushed up to
her room. Her hand flew over the page as she jotted down as much as she could remember, making a special effort to record technical terms. When she laid down her pen, she heard the members of the delegation hurrying down the hall outside her room. Suitcases were being shifted, doors were slamming closed; their departure was imminent. Anna considered what excuse she might use to soothe Popov, who would want to know why she’d been absent from the official farewells. Before tossing the physics textbook into her bag, she gave the volume an affectionate pat.

NINE

P
ersonally, I don’t like the Moskva swimming pool,” Kamarovsky said, turning to Anna as though he expected her to agree.

“Why not, Comrade Colonel?”

“Because it’s on the very spot where the Palace of Soviets was supposed to be built.”

Kamarovsky’s window offered no view of the pool, yet he spoke of it as though he had the ground plan of the city in his head. “Le Corbusier had been hired for the planning. Think about that: an international ambassador of communism. His towers would have been overwhelming—I’ll show you his drawings for them sometime. What a victory we could have celebrated for revolutionary architecture.”

Anna was standing behind the Colonel. As was the case with all her visits, this one had begun with a lecture on recent Soviet building design. There was a bowl of various citrus and tropical fruits on the table; she couldn’t decipher the composer’s name at the top of the musical score that lay on the open piano.

The drive home from Dubna had passed in silence. The bus riders turned their thoughts to the demands and requirements of their ordinary lives, from which they had been removed for three whole days. The driver stopped for gas only once; nevertheless, Anna thought the return
trip longer than the outward journey. She’d never left Petya alone for so long. Viktor Ipalyevich did what he could, but he was old and unpredictable. Had he bothered to call about Petya’s test results? How serious was his condition? Did he need prolonged treatment? Who was going to pay for his medicine? As Anna’s concern grew, she began to find every mile too far, and the distance to Moscow interminable. As on the original trip to Dubna, the orphanage director had sought to engage her in conversation, and she’d pretended to be asleep. When they reached the city limits on the Dmitrovsky Chaussée, the members of the group had assured one another that they would meet again; numbers were exchanged and suitable meeting places suggested. Nobody alluded to the fact that half of the delegation was scattered over the whole country. Anna had let the orphanage director get her bag down, nodded when Nadezhda referred to the monthly gathering of the building combine, and climbed out of the bus. She’d crossed Kutuzovsky Prospekt; the weather was colder than in Dubna. It had been after midnight when she’d finally reached the apartment. The first thing she’d done was to listen hard, trying to hear whether Petya was sleeping. She’d been relieved at the sound of soft breathing behind the curtain. Viktor Ipalyevich was not on his sofa but clattering around the kitchen. She’d put down her bag, greeted him, and put on some tea for her father and herself.

“Child’s play” had been his answer to her series of worried questions. “I don’t know what’s supposed to be so hard about bringing up kids. You make sure they have enough to eat, you help them with their homework, you tell them when they’re supposed to go to bed and when to get up, and you take them to school.” From all appearances, Viktor Ipalyevich had been in a fine mood, and although he rarely displayed any of his official decorations, he was wearing one pinned to his lapel.

Anna had not been taken in by her father’s glib attempt to gloss over the past three days. “How late did you two stay up playing chess?” she asked. “Did you let him drink beer? Did he take a puff on your cigar? Did he change his underwear?”

“Why are you on about his underwear?” Viktor Ipalyevich had pushed his cap back, revealing his forehead’s white skin. “We washed his hair. He let his cloth fish go for a swim—the poor little thing didn’t survive.”

“What did Doctor Shchedrin say?”

“I didn’t reach him right away.”

“You forgot!”

“No,” he said, defending himself. “I called three or four times. I had to speak to three women before I could finally get your doctor on the line.”

“When?” Anna had impatiently snatched the tea caddy from the shelf.

“This afternoon.”

“And?” She’d stood perfectly still, with the raised teakettle in her hand.

“It’s complicated. You have to take Petya to see him again.”

“In his office?”

“In Shchedrin’s clinic.”

“In the hospital?” Anna had forgotten to pour the tea.

“He sounded friendly,” Viktor Ipalyevich had said soothingly. “You know yourself what a blessing it is just to be allowed to speak to such a physician.” He’d raised his arm. “And I don’t want to know how you were able to contact him—I don’t want to know!”

“When’s the appointment?”

“Tomorrow. I made sure it wouldn’t interfere with the shift you’re working. Tomorrow at eleven.” Anna had looked up into the rising steam.

As though he wished to shut out the architectural transgression, Kamarovsky pulled the curtain halfway across the balcony window. “There were seven years of negotiations over Le Corbusier’s sketches, but then, in the end, water-based recreation got the nod. Now, right in front of our building, we have a paddling pool!”

“Comrade Colonel, I wish to inform you that I have failed,” said Anna, a little too loudly. “As an informant, I’m a bust. My services can’t be of any further use to you.”

Kamarovsky smiled at her, as indulgently as a doting uncle. “Impatience is mounting everywhere,” he said mysteriously. “That’s because of the spring. Everyone’s longing for it, even though we all know we’re going to have to wait two more months before it deigns to come.” He did not follow his usual custom of directing her to sit at the desk to give her report but instead escorted her to the sofa. For himself, he chose the chair facing her; behind him, the soundless television screen showed a roundtable discussion, six men and a woman.

“You completed the entire three-day visit?”

Anna nodded. She was wearing black; in front of the mirror, she’d thought it looked like the proper outfit—black conferred strength on her.

“Dubna’s impressive, isn’t it?” Anna answered this question, too, in the affirmative. “Which excursion did you like the best?”

The amusing afternoon on the Volga came into her mind, but instead, she said, “The synchrocyclotron. It was impressive to see the scientists at their work.” She pulled her turtleneck collar up under her chin. “Comrade, I’m asking to be discharged,” she continued. All too aware of her tendency to vacillate, she wanted, this time, to be the one who initiated the change of direction.

“Did you meet Lyushin?”

“On the last day,” she answered, convinced that he knew about her meeting in any case.

“Were you able to speak with him?” She nodded. “Therefore, you fulfilled the first part of your mission.” He turned and faced the television screen.

“Our meeting took place because of a coincidence.”

“A coincidence?” He snapped his head around, eyeglasses flashing.

“We did have a discussion, but I don’t deserve the slightest credit for having brought it about.” Anna stood up. If he keeps deflecting the conversation like this, she thought, I’ve lost. Speaking as though the man in the chair were not her case officer but rather a sympathetic advisor, Anna
explained that she was beginning to confuse intrigue and reality. She sometimes caught herself acting a lie as though it were the most natural thing in the world, she said, and even though this was all in the service of a good cause, she recognized that she was the wrong person for the job. She’d served the KGB for a year and a half, she’d never refused an order, she’d tried as hard as she could, but now, she was begging him—here Anna stood in front of Kamarovsky, who was still seated—to release her and to let her go back to living a normal life.

Kamarovsky, too, rose to his feet, and their clothes were momentarily in contact. “This day comes for everyone,” he said. He went over to the television set and changed the channel. Pensively, he watched some little birds bathing in a soup bowl. “For everyone who works on the
outside
. It’s the hardest thing of all, Anna. Please take your seat again.”

He rarely called her by her first name. She couldn’t let herself be lulled, but she obeyed him, grateful that he was taking up her subject. He approached the sofa from the side and placed one foot on the armrest; he was wearing lined slippers.

“You think we people on the inside have it easy. If we need information, we give someone an assignment, and then we evaluate the results.” He made a gentle pause. “I used to be on the street, too, Anna, working on the outside. It sharpens your discernment, but it simultaneously makes you lose focus. Who’s an agent, who’s just a fellow human being, who’s an informer, who’s simply telling us something? Back then, I lost my capacity for chitchat, would you believe it? In the evenings, when we’d have a few drinks and the others would make small talk, I couldn’t stop looking for what lay behind their words and analyzing their characters. I eavesdropped on my friends, and I wouldn’t have hesitated to make use of the information I had on them. It was during that time that my wife left me.” He gave Anna a warmhearted look.

“So didn’t you think of quitting then?”

“Once or twice. Yes, I wanted to put an end to it, because I felt that my work had turned me into some kind of freak. Life had lost all normality
as far as I was concerned.” He lowered his head, and the glint of his spectacles struck her eyes. “At the same time, I realized that the decision wasn’t up to me. I trusted my case officer; I trusted the Party.”