ANYA LOOKED AROUND his apartment as though it were something alien and unhygienic. If he’d had advance warning that she was coming, he would have made an effort to clean it. He couldn’t remember the last time he had washed the bedclothes. His apartment was dimly lit, so he hoped that might at least partly disguise the grubby state of the place.
He offered her the single chair he possessed, but she ignored it and stayed standing near the door. Gearing up to make a quick exit, he suspected. He poured her a drink, without asking, and pretended not to notice her unease. He held out the glass, and watched her hand as she took it from him. A pianist’s long, slender fingers, well-manicured, without nail varnish or rings.
‘So, what’s all this about?’ he asked, as he took a sip from his own glass.
Up close, she was even more beautiful than he’d thought. He felt his eyes widening, taking her in. Her tears had not been fake, he was sure, but there was no trace of them now. She brought her glass to her lips and Yuri recognised a fellow drinker. It was what he spent most of his free time doing, though the volume he consumed was a lot less now than before. Age had made it harder to recover the next day. Today he had gone way beyond his usual limit, and he was already half a bottle ahead of her.
He liked to go out with drinkers. A sober partner was just irritating for both sides, and rarely worked out. Alcohol was a journey. Your companion either travelled with you or pretty soon you were both in different places. The problem rarely arose up here anyway. In the Arctic almost everyone drank. Either to keep warm or to help them deal with daily life.
Anya began to look uncomfortable, as though it had been a mistake for her to come here. Whatever was bothering her, she looked worn out, and stressed.
‘I am supposed to meet someone here, in Pyramiden,’ she said.
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied.
He wondered for a moment if she might possibly be unstable, but apart from the brief display of emotion outside, she appeared to be as sane as anyone else in town. She caught his concerned expression as he studied her, and she did not like it. Her vulnerability seemed to disappear in seconds, and her usual icy demeanour returned.
‘What do you mean you don’t know?’ he asked. ‘Sounds very mysterious. What are you supposed to be meeting this person about?’
She fixed him with a hard stare, searching his face for something. He didn’t know what she was looking for, but he wished that she might find it. Now that he had her here, he did not want her to go. She shook her head, not wanting to talk about it further, and obviously losing any interest in him.
‘I’m leaving,’ she said. And as an afterthought, she added, ‘Thank you for the drink. I needed it.’
She put the glass on the nearest shelf and turned for the door. There were old photos of him from his army days on that shelf, which usually attracted attention. But not hers. Another few seconds and the opportunity would be lost, and she would probably never set foot in his room again. He did not quite understand how he had managed to get her in here in the first place. And he expected that repeating the same feat any time soon would be beyond him.
‘Wouldn’t you like to stay for a while longer?’ he suggested.
She looked back at him over her shoulder, surprised. He saw her realising for the first time that he wanted her. Despite his best efforts she had apparently never considered him in that way before. Now she was surveying him as if he were a second-hand Lada.
He had resigned himself to her imminent departure by the time she eventually said, ‘All right.’
He smiled as she took off her coat and hung it on the door.
‘What’s funny?’ she said.
‘You are.’
He moved closer and kissed her. They both tasted of vodka. But having only just pressed his lips against hers, she pulled away without looking at him. She walked over to the narrow bed, and began to undress. He enjoyed watching her even though she had taken this job from him. She was totally naked in seconds and she climbed under the covers. He took his clothes off, and she spent this time pushing and prodding the coarse pillow underneath her head, trying to get comfortable. It didn’t meet with her approval no matter what she did to it, but he had nothing else to offer. Then to his embarrassment, she sniffed the sheets.
Foreplay did not seem to be on Anya’s agenda, and Yuri wished that he had not drunk so much. If alcohol had one flaw, it was this; its effects could not be undone in a hurry. She moved over to make room for him, but only because she had to. He lay down beside her, trying not to lean on her long black hair, which was spread out over the pillow.
With one hand she checked that he was ready and then she pulled him on top of her. If he had moved things along so quickly with any other woman, she would probably have been insulted. She made love like someone with a dangerous need. He was already looking forward to her next visit.
‘How am I doing?’ he asked.
‘Shut up!’ she said.
‘We are not in a church,’ he added.
‘You’d be doing better if you’d just stop talking.’
It was all abrupt and to the point, but for the few moments they were entwined it felt magical. Usually, it took Yuri months of getting to know someone before achieving this kind of physical harmony. He did wish that it might last longer but considering what he had consumed over the course of the day, he was relieved he could do it at all.
When it was over, he resisted the temptation to say, ‘That was amazing.’ Instead, he offered her a cigarette. He was pleased with himself for having chosen wisely. Or had she picked him? However, he already sensed her retreating into her own world, to which he was not invited. Even though the bed was tiny, she had managed to completely separate her body from his, so that they were not connected at any point. He obliged by not touching her again.
‘So, what was all that about downstairs. Who is this mystery person you are supposed to be having a rendezvous with?’
‘It’s a private matter,’ she said, without looking at him. ‘Forget I mentioned it.’
She put out her half-smoked cigarette in the remains of his vodka glass, and climbed over him to get out of bed.
‘Aren’t you staying?’ he asked, as she dressed quickly. ‘It’s late. You’re more than welcome to.’
She kept on dressing, without pause. Her white skin and delicate curves disappeared underneath her clothes. He worried that he might never get to see her body again.
‘No. I can’t sleep here,’ she replied. ‘The bed’s too small.’
He knew the size of his bed was not the real reason for her departure, but he couldn’t think of a way to make her stay.
‘What’s your bed like, in your apartment?’ he asked, fishing for an invitation across the square. He would have happily followed her anywhere.
‘The same,’ she said. ‘Too small for two.’
It was true. All of the single beds in Pyramiden were too small for two. Yuri had been meaning to steal a double bed from the Crazy House for years. But it was not something one could achieve alone, or without attracting curious attention. This time he resolved to find a way.
‘See you,’ he said, as she buttoned her coat and opened the door.
‘Yeah,’ she replied, with little enthusiasm in her voice. And then she was gone.
She had behaved just like he had a dozen times or more, with women he did not really care about. It did not feel good to be on the receiving end. He got out of bed and watched her running across the road to Paris in the moonlight.
For days afterwards, Anya ignored him completely like nothing had happened. He found new excuses to turn up at her school but he barely got a hello. When they met in the canteen she would keep on walking, and she never stood still long enough for him to engage her in conversation.
She was using his own tactics on him. He tried to remember how many of his former lovers had gotten around this barrier. But he couldn’t think of one. Once he had decided he didn’t want to pursue an affair further, that was that. There was no point in going back. Revisiting a dead-end encounter only created more bad feeling and made it doubly hard to extricate oneself from the relationship.
None of this was comforting. He tried to put Anya out of his head. But instead, he spent most of his waking day thinking about her. She appeared in his dreams too.
For a few days he decided he hated her. It was not that his pride was hurt. He did not care about that. He just wanted her again. When they saw each other, he tried ignoring her as much as she ignored him. However, he was not sure she even noticed, and he ditched this as an ineffective strategy.
On a particularly wet, depressing day, Grigory tracked him down in the power plant control room, with English Catherine in tow. Both of them appeared to have something important on their minds. Over the last few weeks, he had regularly seen the two of them engaging in private chats.
‘Yuri, as you know,’ said Grigory, ‘Catherine is here writing her thesis.’
‘Yes,’ said Yuri, ‘she’s told me all about it. I think she’s told everyone by now.’
Catherine smiled broadly.
‘But she has also expressed a desire to contribute to the community while she’s here.’
Yuri’s visitors looked at each other and nodded in unison as though they were expecting him to know exactly what they were talking about. He definitely had nothing that he needed translated.
‘I see,’ said Yuri. ‘That’s nice.’
‘So, we thought she could be your temporary assistant,’ said Grigory, ‘just for the winter.’
Yuri stood up. ‘Oh no. I don’t need any assistance,’ he replied. ‘Does she even know anything about machines?’
‘I should hope so,’ Catherine answered, ‘I’ve an engineering degree. I was in the top six in my class.’
‘Have you a degree?’ Grigory asked. ‘In anything?’
Yuri shook his head. ‘I was too busy learning my trade to go to college.’
Grigory smiled. ‘A qualification of any kind? No? Well, that’s settled then.’
Yuri pulled Grigory by the elbow to one side, while Catherine stayed where she was, pretending she was not trying to eavesdrop.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Yuri. ‘I have enough things on my plate without having to babysit your pet foreigner.’
‘I’m helping you,’ Grigory replied. ‘Couldn’t you do with an assistant?’
‘No, actually. They just get in my way. And look what happened to the last one.’
‘You’ve been looking a bit down lately. What’s that about? Snow fever? Missing the sun?’
‘I’m not down,’ said Yuri. ‘You’re seeing things. I’m fine.’
‘Give it one week with her, that’s all I ask, and we’ll see how it goes. It will be good for her, and for you too, I think.’
‘Do I have a say in this?’ asked Yuri.
‘Sure,’ said Grigory. ‘Up to a point.’
‘Then no. Absolutely not.’
Grigory turned to Catherine. ‘All right. Good. Catherine, you can start today. Yuri is going to show you the ropes.’
Catherine beamed. ‘Oh terrific. Thank you. I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience.’
Yuri resisted the temptation to strangle Grigory for this favour.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No trouble. Glad to have you aboard.’
Reluctantly, Yuri spent the day showing Catherine around his domain. To his surprise, she did seem to understand most of what he was talking about. Unlike Anya, she was not difficult to figure out. And on the job, she was easy company. The only disconcerting thing about her was that she peppered their conversations with questions like, ‘Comrade, you must consider it a great privilege to be able to work for the glorious revolution?’
In his entire life, no one had ever asked him questions like that. He had the option of crushing her childlike naivety but instead, he buried his cynicism and just answered, ‘It is a unique privilege, yes.’
This woman deserved the Soviet Union, but it did not deserve her.
‘You’re so lucky to live here,’ Catherine said. ‘I’d do anything to stay here. I’m not looking forward to going back to the evils of capitalism in three months’ time.’
When she was not talking to him, he would occasionally hear her voice mumbling behind him. He caught her from the corner of his eye a couple of times, and realised she was speaking to herself, in English. He did not understand but she seemed to be giving herself words of encouragement.
For a second, a thought entered his mind: that she was the one who had killed Semyon just so she could get his job. A ridiculous idea. No one loved communism that much. Although, apparently she loved it quite a lot more than he did.
‘I bet the boys in my engineering class would be jealous of me now,’ said Catherine. ‘Look at me, a worker in a proper Soviet mine.’
‘You don’t like it over there in England?’ he asked.
‘It’s fine really. My family are there, of course. But for some reason, I always thought I would feel more at home here. You know what I mean?’
He did not, but said nothing.
‘Just, I love the sense of community here. Like the way all those people turned out for that poor man’s funeral. Simon, wasn’t that his name?’
‘Semyon,’ said Yuri.
‘Yes, Semyon. I spoke to people at the graveyard, and some of them didn’t even know him that well. But there’s such a bond between all of you, that they felt they had to come out in the freezing cold to pay their respects.’
He did not have the heart to tell her that half of them had been told they had to be there.
‘Will that be going in your thesis?’
‘Yes,’ said Catherine. ‘Probably. Can you keep a secret?’
Yuri considered saying no, before reluctantly saying, ‘Sure.’
‘Between you and me, I don’t really care too much about my thesis. I’ve no interest in space at all, in fact. I wrote first saying everything I’d done. Miners’ strike organiser ’74, then gay rights, then civil rights, and so on. But I did not get an answer. Not one. I figured I needed something special to get noticed, so they would let me come here, and that was what I came up with. You won’t tell on me, will you?’
‘You asked to come here, to Pyramiden?’ said Yuri.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I was so happy when they said yes.’
‘But why Pyramiden? Why not Moscow, or one of the other beautiful cities?’
‘Because, I read somewhere that this place showed the best of what the Soviet Union had to offer. And you know what, it’s true.’
‘I thought young people dreamed of getting away from isolated places, not the other way around.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind being alone,’ she said, with a serious expression. ‘Not at all.’
Later, Yuri found Grigory and asked him whose idea it had been for Catherine to work with him.
‘It was hers actually,’ said Grigory. ‘She called by my office this morning. Something wrong?’
‘No,’ said Yuri. Nothing he could put his finger on.
Yuri returned home to find his apartment door ajar. He pushed it open quickly, hoping he might find Anya inside. Instead, sitting on the chair, the bed and the table, were the three Lithuanians. And they were helping themselves to his vodka, swigging straight from the bottle.
‘Let ourselves in, Yuri,’ said the tall one. ‘Hope you don’t mind. Drink?’
‘No thanks,’ said Yuri. ‘Can I help you boys with something?’
Since all the available seats were taken, Yuri stayed standing, leaning against the door. He watched the level of his bottle dwindling as the men passed it around among themselves.
The tall one cleared his throat. ‘The thing is Yuri, Semyon, before his untimely passing, mentioned to us that he had something on someone, and he was going to take advantage of it.’
Yuri had no idea what he was talking about, but he had a sinking feeling that this was not going to be good for him.
‘Is that so,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ the tall one continued. ‘He never did get to tell us who or what it was. But we were thinking maybe that someone was you.’
‘I’ve nothing to hide, guys,’ said Yuri. ‘It must have been someone else that he was talking about.’
The tall one shook his head.
‘I don’t think so. He did tell us that you were a saboteur. We’ve done a bit of that ourselves back home. We don’t like you Russians in our country.’
People could get into a heap of trouble spouting nationalist rhetoric like that. The fact that the man was doing it in front of him, without a hint of fear, made Yuri doubly nervous. He didn’t fancy getting any new bruises just for being a Russian, so he kept his mouth shut.
‘So,’ said the tall one. ‘What had he got on you? And how much were you paying him? Whatever it was, we want the same.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Yuri. ‘You’ve lost me.’
‘How much were you paying Semyon to stop him shopping you as a saboteur?’
‘Nothing,’ said Yuri, trying not to laugh. ‘He never had any problem accusing me of that. He even said it to Timur. Why would I be paying him when he was already shooting his mouth off about me?’
The three of them looked at each other, apparently confused by this new piece of information.
‘And what happened with Timur?’ asked the short one.
He could see that, at least, they were afraid of the KGB man.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Yuri. ‘Semyon had no proof. I’m a good saboteur, I don’t get caught.’
The three of them smiled.
‘Maybe we’ll take him to Lithuania,’ said the short one. ‘He can blow up his own Russian tanks.’
Yuri joined the others with the best fake laugh he could manage. The tall one took the bottle, brought it to his lips and found it empty. He looked at it in disappointment, then put it on the table beside him.
‘Come on boys, we have disturbed poor Yuri in error. Thanks for the drink. We’ll replace that some time.’
‘No problem,’ said Yuri. ‘Come again, any time.’
Just as they were almost out the door, Yuri had a thought.
‘Hey fellas, any chance you’d give me a hand with something?’