The Russian Affair (8 page)

It had been in August of that first year. On her way to meet Rosa in Arkhangelskoye Park, Anna had descended from the street into a low-lying garden, where thickly blooming flower beds and dwarf palms enlivened the grassy space. A man in a summer shirt was tearing roses off a climbing bush; on the pond, a woman was sitting in a boat and reading a closely printed manuscript. The summer was almost over, and anyone with sufficient time had hastened to the park in order to take in as much as possible of what might have been the last of the long, hot days.

Rosa and Anna had arranged to meet near the children’s playground, where children were climbing through brightly colored pipes and whirling around on a wooden disc. The woman whom Anna sometimes thought of as “the Khleb,” wearing a short red dress, came walking down the promenade.

“Which of them is Petya?”

“I didn’t bring him,” Anna replied in surprise. “I thought you said—”

“Oh, right. You shouldn’t have taken that so seriously.” Rosa took her arm. “My girlfriend has two of these little monsters. When they’re around, there’s no way to have a rational conversation with her.”

While Rosa chatted, Anna wondered why someone like Rosa Khleb would want to be friends with her. What could she tell a journalist about? There was nothing special about her life; every day, she stood on her scaffolding, painted walls, hurried home, cooked meals for her father, son, and husband, if he was there, and got a little fatter, because she couldn’t pay attention to her figure. What was so interesting about Anna that Rosa devoted so much time to her?

When the two reached the triple-spiral staircase, like a colossal braid linking the upper and lower levels of the park, Rosa stood still. “That can’t be …” she said. She took a lateral step, and Anna followed her
eyes to the profile of a gentleman in his fifties who was sitting at a table and drinking lemonade. Long after this meeting, it would occur to Anna that all the tables around him had been empty.

“Do you know him?”

“My teacher.” Rosa had lowered her voice, as if she didn’t want to disturb the lemonade drinker. “He hardly ever comes to Moscow.”

“Don’t you want to say hello to him?”

“Not now. We have an appointment later.”

Rosa wanted to go on, but Anna held her back. “Go ahead, we’ve got lots of time.”

“Kamarovsky doesn’t like surprises.”

It was the first time that Anna had heard this name. In her memory, it seemed to her that she herself, not Rosa Khleb, had instigated the meeting. “Go tell him hello.” She’d led her friend into the park café and over to the man, who’d looked up only when the two women were standing in front of him.

“Rosa.” He hadn’t seemed surprised in the least. Sparks flashed from his eyes; the lenses of the glasses he was wearing had been ground and polished repeatedly.

To Anna’s amazement, Rosa didn’t explain that they had been walking there merely by chance. Instead, she took a seat next to him. “This is Anna,” she said.

He gestured toward the chair across from him. Anna sat down and introduced herself with her full name. She’d expected that student and teacher would have things to talk to each other about, but he appeared to be interested only in Anna. “I take it you’re married,” he said.

She wore no ring; was it so easy to spot her as a wife?

“Anna has a five-year-old son,” Rosa interjected.

“So he’ll start going to school this autumn.”

Anna acknowledged the truth of this observation and answered further questions, all of them courteously posed; and yet she found that
Kamarovsky’s behavior went beyond a stranger’s common curiosity. “You were Rosa’s teacher?” she asked.

“Is that what she says?” His glinting glasses hid his eyes.

Anna wondered whether the man had been Rosa’s mentor in journalism school or at the newspaper. She said, “I don’t know anything about the newspaper business.”

“And what do you know something about, Comrade?”

“Lime,” she replied. “Emulsion paint. Oil paint. I’m pretty familiar with undercoat plaster and finishing plaster, and I even know how to do marbling.”

“Have you seen the big hall in the Ostankino, which has just been reopened?”

“Only in photographs. I’ve never been there.”

“During the restoration, it was discovered that the painters who decorated the hall a long time ago had used an unknown binder, and their pigments were considerably brighter than the ones used today. The chemical composition of the old pigments was studied in the laboratory, and they were found to include linseed oil, aluminum oxide … and animal urine.” Kamarovsky nodded, as though he’d delivered some significant news.

“Are you an art historian?”

“In a former life. What else occupies your time, Anna?” His tone of voice had grown warmer. “What does your husband do?”

“He’s a first lieutenant in the army.”

“Stationed in Moscow?”

Anna named Leonid’s unit and said where it was based.

“And you live with him and your little boy?”

“We live with my father.”

“Right.” Kamarovsky emptied his glass. “Your father is Viktor Ipalyevich Tsazukhin.”

Anna’s blood had shot into her cheeks. All at once, it was clear to her: This was an arranged meeting. She and Rosa had not just happened to
pick Arkhangelskoye Park, had not randomly chosen the path to the steps; the man in the dark green suit wasn’t sitting here in the sun for no reason; and above all, he was more than a teacher.

In the same soft voice as before, he’d asked, “Does your father know you’re committing adultery?” And when Anna made no reply, he added: “You allow yourself to be seduced by the Deputy Minister for Research Planning.”

“No,
I
seduce
him
, comrade,” she’d said. She didn’t know where such cheekiness came from; she knew only that she didn’t want to be interrogated anymore. The interrogator made a sign, and the waiter hurried over to their table.

“Lemonade?” Kamarovsky inquired, as though Anna had passed the first test. A couple who’d been strolling around the terrace tried to sit at the next table, only to be told that it was reserved. Anna gradually realized that Rosa had maneuvered her onto an island. She tried to look into Rosa’s eyes, but they remained impenetrable.

“Why have you gotten involved with Bulyagkov?” Kamarovsky had asked. “Is it his position? Do you hope to obtain privileges through him?”

“No.”

“It can hardly be his charm.”

“I got involved with him because he asked nothing of me.”

“Alexey Maximovich is in the public eye. Special security precautions are taken for him, measures intended to preserve his personal safety as well as his reputation.” The waiter brought Anna’s drink, and Kamarovsky paused.

“May I ask who you are?”

“We’ll get to that later.” He invited her to taste her drink. “Does your husband have any inkling of your relationship?”

“No.”

“Then can you explain why he chooses to spend his nights with his unit, even though maneuvers came to an end some time ago?”

Anna had certainly noticed that Leonid wasn’t coming home three or
four nights a week. She’d consoled herself with the thought that comradeship had always been important to him.

“Leonid is either too proud or too cowardly to talk to you about all this,” Kamarovsky said pointedly.

She hadn’t mentioned Leonid’s name, so she assumed the man in the green suit must know him. “Have you spoken with Leonid?”

“We won’t intrude upon your married life unless it becomes necessary to do so. What we’re interested in is the Deputy Minister’s reputation.”

“Alexey’s careful.”

“That’s not the point.” Kamarovsky gripped the side of his eyeglasses. “Alexey Maximovich Bulyagkov is a bearer of the Soviet Union’s state secrets. Therefore, it matters with whom he speaks, whom he meets, with whom he sleeps. In order to ensure his safety, Alexey Maximovich must be kept under surveillance.” He lifted his glasses. “Do you understand, Comrade?”

Warm and at the same time penetrating eyes were directed at Anna. Age had dimmed their brightness, and the glasses had left marks on the bridge of his nose.

“Do you understand me?”

“Not entirely.”

“Once a week, you’re alone with the Deputy Minister. You share intimate moments with him, and you learn what he thinks, what burdens weigh on him, what dangers he sees for himself.”

“We’ve never spoken about anything like that.”

“We can protect Alexey Maximovich only when we know his fears, only when we know where he expects danger to come from. It’s the same in a doctor’s office,” Kamarovsky added. “If the physician knows where the trouble is located, the cure is easier.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Inform us.” For the first time, he’d included Rosa in his meaning. “Tell us about your meetings with him.”

“He doesn’t tell me any secrets!” Anna cried, deeply agitated.

“Oh, you can’t know that.” He put the glasses back on. “A remark, perhaps, a swipe at his colleagues, a political observation—all of that can be helpful in keeping trouble away from Alexey Maximovich.”

Anna had said nothing—because she understood. Because fear of the unseen overcame her. She’d stepped into the trap that made an undisturbed life impossible. She’d caught the attention of those whose interest one must never under any circumstances arouse. “I don’t think I can be of any use to you,” she’d said. How weak her attempt to resist had sounded.

“You underestimate yourself,” Kamarovsky had replied. “And you haven’t yet recognized the advantages that such cooperation will bring you.”

“Advantages?”

“Your father’s poems are being examined by the Glavlit. If you were to help us, I feel certain that the examination could be expedited. Viktor Ipalyevich would have really deserved no less, and it’s time for a new volume of his work to appear.” Kamarovsky leaned forward. “Naturally, your husband’s ignorance of your relationship will continue to be tolerated.”

Anna’s eyes had shifted from the table in the park to the water, where the woman, still sitting in the boat, was conversing with a younger man on the bank. She handed him the manuscript, and what she said about it seemed to please him.

Pensively, Anna stepped into the building on the quay. The elevator wasn’t working; she took the climb to the eighth floor as an opportunity to warm up. At the top, she paused to let her breathing slow down. There was no nameplate to reveal who or what might be behind that door. She rang—one quick, sharp note—and Kamarovsky used the control in the living room to buzz her in. Anna hung up her coat and hat, cast a glance at the mirror, and walked to the end of the hall. The
raffia lamp over the piano was hanging too low, and Anna ducked as she entered the room. Instead of lounging on the carpet-covered sofa as usual, Kamarovsky was standing at the window. The television set was on—pictures, but no sound.

“How are things in Perovo?” A. I. Kamarovsky asked without turning around.

“The combine is currently working in Karacharovo,” Anna said, correcting him even though she knew he knew exactly where her worksite was located. “Interior finishing work in complex two hundred and fifteen.”

“And how far along is complex two-one-five?”

“We’re ahead of schedule.”

“New living space for eight thousand comrades.” He made a sign, and Anna stepped closer. “Until the triumph of socialism, our architecture was either backward or derivative.” The warm air from the radiator next to Kamarovsky stirred the curtains. Anna loved this view. The apartment building stood at the foot of the Kalininsky Bridge; she could see the frozen river and behind it the Comecon building and the Hotel Ukraina, mysteriously grandiose in the winter fog. Anna could smell the moth powder on Kamarovsky’s suit. He must have been outside; now the snow on his shoulders was melting and causing the musty odor. Had he been watching her while she sat under the statue?

“These days, our master builders no longer imitate the architecture of the West. Moscow has become an international city with its own unique character.” He still hadn’t looked at her. “Comrade Stalin had the court chapel in the Kremlin demolished. Do you know why?”

“Because it was a building associated with the clergy …”

“No.” Kamarovsky gripped the side arm of his glasses. “Because it was ugly. It looked like a bunker gone wrong. By the time it was completed, the English had already built Westminster Abbey, and the influence of the Renaissance was spreading across Europe. Only in Moscow were the princes still putting up wooden buildings.” Without having altered the
position of his eyeglasses, he lowered his hand to the seam of his trousers. “Stalin just wanted to get rid of the ghastly thing.”

As though signaling that the architecture lecture was now over, Kamarovsky closed the door to the balcony and walked past Anna as though she weren’t in the room. He gestured to the visitors’ chair and turned on the lamp. Cold light fell on her shoulders.

“Your report, Comrade.” Kamarovsky remained on his feet.

Brezhnev’s image appeared on the television screen, speaking urgently to the members of the Central Committee, who nodded like schoolboys. For a moment, Anna was distracted.

“Do you think that Alexey Maximovich will stab his boss, the Minister, in the back?”

The question took Anna by surprise. “No,” she said. She turned her eyes away from the television. “He’s simply having trouble making the situation clear to the comrades from the northeastern oblasts.”

“And why do you think the Deputy Minister is having so much trouble communicating a decision made by the CC? Does he think it’s wrong? Does he criticize it?”

“I don’t know,” Anna replied, her back stiff.

“Or might Alexey Maximovich see himself as the Minister for Research Planning?”

She recognized the fine line this question made her walk. “I can’t draw that conclusion from anything he says. He’s never suggested that he’s unsatisfied with his position.”

“But wouldn’t it be only natural? In the research field, Comrade Bulyagkov, who was educated as a physicist, is more competent than the Minister himself.”

Anna remained silent. Alexey had told her that he’d broken off his scientific studies decades ago, but he’d never mentioned the reason why.